March 25

Well, it's been a long two weeks since I've written.  Wowsers.  Last week was spent in more theory classes and explosives!  Tomorrow I take the explosives test for  Schlumberger.  Here's to hoping I pass on the first time (not too darn likely, usually only one person/class does).  16 hour days in lecture really kill any desire to do anything fun.  I did actually have a day off on Tuesday, but I spent it preparing for my last wellsite (a simulated wireline job).  I have now taken on a new role in my class; I was the transportation officer, which meant I was responsible for ordering buses and the like.  Now I am cell leader!  What's this mean?  It's means lots more work for me.  I am now responsible for the roles in my cell (10 students to a cell), when we are preparing for jobs.  It might not sound that bad, but believe me, it is.  Thankfully my cell is pretty good, so hopefully we can get everything done in a timely manner.  :)  I just finished Wellsite 4 last night.  8.75 hours of logging plus 5.2 hours of playback.  I slept 11 hours today.  Tomorrow is the 3 explosives exams that I need to take.  :(  I'm done on April 20th, assuming I can pass everything.  I sure hope I make it.

March 12

It's been an easier week, can you tell?  More blog posts than the last couple weeks combined!  I went out on Friday night, which is the equivalent of Saturday night here.  :)  Quite an adventure, as everything in this city seems to be.  We went to an outdoorsy area with beanbags for shisha, and then on to an Irish pub for dancing and more drinks.  For some odd reason I'm really not up to drinking these days, but considering quite a few of the guys are Muslim, and therefore don't drink, it's not really a problem.  I danced the night away, if away ends at 1 AM, because I still have class the next morning.  :(  Thank heavens it's just log interpretation, one of the most vital things that we do in Schlumberger.  I promise, I'm paying attention!  Haha, it's been a good week, can't wait till next week when I'm back to being sleep deprived.  I've listened to more house, or in the USA we would say techno, music in the past 2 months than I have ever before.  It's growing on me, but I don't think it will ever rank as my favorite. 

March 11

Thoughts on Dubai:
Having now been to Dubai a 2nd time, I'm still quite perplexed by the place.  It's beautiful to say the least.  If you ever want to design a really strange building, you'll find a buyer for it in Dubai.  There were at least, and I do mean at least, 40 new buildings being constructed, and we didn't even go through the whole city!  Only the 'downtown' and west side.  There can't be that many companies that want to be in Dubai and people that want to move there.  I wonder how they've done in the economic slump; I suspect not well. 
It's still so weird to look around when you're in a crowd, and realize that no one you are seeing is a citizen.  I know it's a nice place to live, but it would be even nicer if they gave these people citizenship.  At least they'd have some reason to stick around.
I love, love, loved the beach.  I'll be back again for that.  :)  The Palm Jumeira (the man-made palm island) was beautiful, but I don't know that I'd want to live there.  Way too many houses.  It's like the California of Abu Dhabi, houses packed in like sardines.
Traffic is horrible.  Seriously.
Overall, Dubai is a city I'll visit again, but no way do I want to live there.

March 9

Early morning, up at 11 AM.  Too bad that doesn't equal 11 hours of sleep, but oh well.  Checked out of the hotel, and went for brunch.  Mexican food!!!  Not nearly as good as back home, but it did hit the spot.  I then proceeded to spend quite a bit of money in the next 3 hours.  Nothing too extreme, but I did buy: some shoes, some prints, some souvenirs (I'll need to buy some more, but it's a good start), a new shirt, and some magnets.  If anybody has any ideas of something they want, they should send me an email!  Afterwards I met back up with the peoples, and we went out for some shisha and juice. (That seems to be a real Arab thing to do, juice and shisha.)  Sat next to the beach, and watched the sunset.  Then we headed back to catch the bus, which was in the middle of a traffic jam.  Oh well, another great sleep was had, and now I'm back in my prison once more.  :(  I wish this place was closer to something, so I didn't feel so isolated.  Goodnight!

March 8

Well thank heavens for 2 days off. You'd think I would have slept that whole time, to make up for lost sleep, right?  Well, not exactly.  :)  We headed out to Dubai yesterday, early in the morning, and got in at around 10:30.  I slept like the dead.  We put our stuff in the hotel, then headed out to Atlantis water park.  (This is very similar to the Atlantis water park in the Bahamas!)  Had a great time sliding around in our inter-tubes, and relaxing by the Persian Gulf.  Of course I forgot my sunscreen, and it cost $30 for a new one!  Wowsers.  We left just as the sun was setting, and the girls all went to the mall for an hour or so.  :)  Gotta love the little girl time that I get.  We had dinner at  place along the fountains at the Dubai Mall.  Every half an hour there is a fountain show to music, and we got to see 4 of them.  Really fun stuff.  I had REAL pasta.  Boy have I missed that.  Headed back to the hotel, got ready to go out, and went out!  Had a really nice time at a 3 level club; 3 different kinds of music, 3 different kinds of people.  There were about 14 of us there, and we had a really great time.  :)  Made it home safe, and passed out, finally.

March 7

Well it has certainly been an interesting week since I last wrote.  We finished Wellsite 3, and immediately jumped into preparations for Job 1.  Job 1 is a big deal; about 5% of my total grade for the class.  It went......okay.  I was the 8th out of 10 engineers, so I had a lot of time to think about the job, prepare for the job, and generally get no sleep.  I was winchwoman, and operator, and they take a lot out of you, and then I prepared for my job.  Everything went great in my job for the first 3 hours, perfect.  Then I started to have problems, which I was expecting to have a few, but still.  I took 9 1/2 hours instead of the 8 I was budgeted for.  Luckily, just about everybody else had the same experience.  :)  After I finished finalizing my prints, I talked to my parents on Skype for an hour!  Thanks Mom and Dad, I really needed that.  I spent all day yesterday cleaning up our unit, our tools, and generally getting the rig back into shape.  Today I passed my mid-school exam, woohoo!, I got an okay score on my Job 1 package, and I had an okay review!  Now I'm getting ready to go to Dubai for the next two days.  :)  I can't wait.  We're going to the Atlantis resort, and I'm going to sit on the beach and do nothing for a day and a half, and maybe buy some shoes.  Only 50 days more to go.  I sure hope I can make it through.