I happen to be the oldest of three siblings, so when I was growing up, I was often tasked with helping out my younger siblings. Not that they were incompetent or incapable by any means, but that's just how it goes when you're the oldest child. Among other things, I've helped my siblings write papers, prepare speeches, prep resumes, and write code (my sister's major was very similar to mine). Let's just say that it's not a rare occurrence.
Still, my sister managed to surprise me. She's into arts & crafts type stuff, so she's constantly working on different projects. That's not my thing, but I can appreciate the work she puts in. She also knows that I'm generally far less capable about these things than she is, so it's not like we talk about the details of the construction or anything. Nevertheless, she randomly asked me for help on one of these projects.
It turns out that the project in question was this origami box thing that she was trying to make. Based on the way she described it, it seemed a little tedious, but I didn't understand why she needed help. Then, she sent me the link to the directions.
It wasn't the sort of thing I could figure out just by glancing at it, that's for sure. This was possibly the most complicated origami construction I've ever had to create. After figuring out a few conventions (dotted lines mean make a fold, solid lines are existing creases, etc.), though, it started to make a little bit of sense. The last few steps took a little bit more thought since it involved a 3rd dimension, but those also fell into place after a while.
I related my findings to my sister, but she figured the easiest way to make sure it all worked was for me to actually build the thing. Now, this thing involves making 5 identical pieces and then arranging them into a box-like structure. What's more, each of the pieces isn't exactly simple to construct; you have to make folds just to give yourself measurements and reference points for subsequent folds.
Anyhow, I spent about 20 minutes folding these things. It wasn't exactly how I imagined spending part of my evening, but life's always throwing curve balls, you know? Regardless, by about the third one, I'd more or less gotten it down, so that I knew why the directions said to do certain things. All in all, I figured it out for my sister so that I could then teach her how to do the same.
As I was doing all of this, though, one thought went through my head, "you never stop being an older brother."
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