February 26

I've slept about 12 hours in the last 3 days.  Yes, it's been one of those kinds of weeks.  I was first engineer on Wellsite 3 this week, and I started my shift in a very chipper mood.  That died about 10 minutes into my shift when I was told I was being too perky in my safety meeting.  Things went south from there.  My 3 hour shift took 12.5 hours.  Needless to say, I had a long day.  Plus the 4 hours of playback time after that to finish my well package.  I hope that I impressed the instructors with my troubleshooting, but honestly, it was just a bit of mess up.  Tools improperly services, unit to tool power and communication system not working correctly - I tried 2 of these before I found one that worked.  Being first engineer sucks here at MLC, but in real life you're always the first engineer.  Something to look forward to!  I'm going back to work on my post-job, but thanks for tuning in!

February 23

A week or so between posts, that seems to be about the norm here.  :)  I've been here 5 weeks, only 9 more to go!  We're ramping up for Wellsite 3 and Job 1.  I'm pretty worried about Job 1, it's bound to be an interesting and challenging thing.  I'm actually hoping that I go first in Wellsite 3, so that I can be really prepared, and not first, on the jobs.  Jobs count for most of my practical score in school, so it's really vital that I do well.  :)  We lost our first student from the class.  Alex, my operator for both previous Wellsites, has a pretty serious eye infection.  He has been banned from working till it gets better.  It sucks that he is no longer with us, but they're going to allow him to join a Peptec as soon as he gets better, so it's not like he's been released or anything.  We're already down to 20.  Every school has somebody that gets lets go; I've never heard of one that doesn't.  Here's to hope that I'm not the one let go this goaround!  I talked with Ann W. and Kevin B. from back home; so nice to hear what everybody is doing!  I finally got to Skype with my parents, and I got some mail!  It's been a pretty good week; thank heavens, because the next 2 weeks are going to suck.  :)

February 16

Well Wellsite 2 has been a whirl wind.  We starting preparing for another 'job' on Sunday by getting our tools calibrated.  I got 3rd engineer shift, out of 11 total, so I haven't slept much the past 2 nights.  Spent about 12 hours getting my software set up to do my log, giving myself a schedule to follow, and finding all the small details necessary to do the job.  Not exactly easier, but it went a lot smoother than the first time.  My shift was supposed to start at 2 PM on the 15th, but my group has been delayed do to a tool/set-up failure.  I started at 4:30 PM and finished logging at 10.  Only 1/2 hour behind schedule.  I had some serious problems with the tool as well, not able to get all the information out of it that I should have.  It might have been my lack of knowledge of the software, or it might be the tool.  I think we'll be finding out when I finally get to the post-job check of it.  Then I had 5 hours of planned playback that took 5.25 hours.  Okay, not perfect, and I'm sure that I have a lot of mistakes in my log; in fact I know that I do.  It's just so much to think about.  Even with all the stuff you try to do ahead of time, there is still so much more to do!  A nice 8 hours of sleep followed.  :)  Now I have my winchman and operator shifts to do in the next two days, and the post-job clean up and follow up.  I would really like to get one day off after all this to go to the beach.  Some of the others went on last weekend, but I really wanted some sleep so I skipped out.  Hopefully I'll get out again soon!

February 12

I went out with some of the kids from my school last night.  I had a fabulous time.  We went to a Irish pub sort of place which had live music that turned into a rather good DJ.  About 90% men in the place, but sometimes it's nice to get some attention.  :)  There was a nice hookah bar outside that some of the guys stayed around for.  Drinks, hookah, and good music; pretty much the trifecta one looks for on a Friday night.  Then the Tunisian, 2 Frenchman, Turk, and I went upstairs to the club.  I am about 100% sure that of the 15 women in there, 2 of us weren't hookers....  Needless to say, an interesting place, but I won't be going back without a girl from school.  Just too weird.  I had a lot of fun dancing though.  :)  Those guys are just great.  Home by 4 AM, and then the best 12 hours of sleep I've had in a while.  Thank heavens.

February 9

Well today went pretty well.  :)  I took my Radiation Level 2 exam, which is one of the hardest exams in Schlumberger.  4 manuals full of information, countless post-its later, I passed!!  Granted, I got a 79% the first time, where an 81% is passing, but the 2nd try got me an 83%!  I'm so stoked about how it turned out, it's such a headache if you don't pass it on your first opportunity.  Well considering the fact that my brain was fried after that, what did I get to do this afternoon?  That's right, sit in the sun watching radiation procedures.  Sigh.  Okay, not the most interesting of days, but certainly not the worst.  I'm going to take a nap now, and then get and study some more.  It's pretty much my life these days, but I might try to sneak a movie in there somewhere.  Love you all!  MK

February 2-4 Wellsite 1

Well, it's been an interesting couple of days.  The last 3 days have been job preparation, execution, and assistance for my fellow classmates.  This was our first time getting to do a job solo, direct our crew, and present a final project to the 'client' or instructors.  The first day was job prep, where we sat down and discussed everything we needed to do, and started setting up the well software that we used.  The rest of the day, and by day, I mean till after midnight, was spent getting the tools ready.  Fortunately I didn't have a shift till noon the next day, but 4 AM was the first shift.  Feel sorry for those people.  :(  I was operator for my friend Gozie at noon, and I did okay.  Not my finest showing, but it was the first job I attended, in my defense.  I think got everything that I could think of ready for my job.  I missed a few things, but that's beside the point....   I got a bit of shut eye, and since my well was delayed, someone had a tool failure, I didn't have to start at 4 AM as originally planned, but I got to sleep in a bit and start at 6 AM!  It went okay.  In hindsight, there is a lot that I would have done differently, but I got my well logged, and I spent the next 5 hours in the finalization room - where I edit the log, get the prints ready, make a CD, and do some evaluations.  I could have done better, but I'm viewing this as a starting point.  :)  I got a 3 hour nap in there, so I felt up to my 10 PM winchwoman's shift for my friend Alex.  Am I the worlds great winchwoman?  Probably not.  Am I bad?  Kind of...  Sigh.  This is going to take some practice.  I got back home around 3:30 AM.  A bit late, but around that time everybody else was coming back from the bar!  :(  Geez is sucks to be the last group to do a log. 
All around, a pretty okay couple of days, and now I know what I need to do ahead of time to prepare.  Total amount of sleep for the past 52 hours?  I'd estimate it at about 12 hours.  I'm taking a nap today though!   

February 1

I forgot to write this about Dubai, so I'll include it here.

Having now spent 12 hours in Dubai, I'm a bit confused.  Everyone seems to love to talk about this city, how great it is, how built up, how pretty.  I'd have to disagree.  In the UAE more than 80% of the population is not native; most are from somewhere in South Asia.  That being said, I don't think I saw a single native Dubai person in my travels.  It's pretty sad in a way; it's a whole country of people that never know when their visas might get revoked, or their employer decides they're no longer needed and they get deported.  Even here at the accommodations where I"m staying, there's a nice girl from Ethiopia that has been here for 2 years without a vacation.  She gets one day off a week, I'm not denying that, but it's not exactly a pleasant existence.  All in all, I'm not saying Dubai isn't fun, but it's totally strange that every single person you see working, and pretty much anybody on the streets is not a native UAEian.