November 7

Well, again, it's Sunday officially, but it's the beginning of the workweek here in Abu Dhabi.  At least today had a good start.  20/24 and 11/12 on my quizzes.  :)  Significantly better than the class average.  Oh well, the real test is coming on Friday, so I've got to get ready.  I have a well site log tomorrow, a presentation the day after that, and 2 well sites visits in the evenings.  It's going to be a busy week.  We had a rig-up practical this afternoon where we actually cleaned our tools, tested them, and rigged them up to the wireline cable.  Tomorrow my practical is from 6-10:30 PM, and I'm pretty excited.  First time actually using the wireline equipment.  We got out of class marginally early today, so I worked out with Tiffany and Jessica, after we walked around the whole MLC compound.  The boat part, WesterGeco, is so cool!  I would hate to be on a boat for months, but the set-up they have here seems really swanky.  There is a squash court too, and apparently Alex and Aziz both like it.  Perhaps I'll improve my squash and table tennis skills.

I miss my family today.  I hope you're all having a nice Sunday.  :)

November 6

Well, I certainly had high aspirations for today, but somehow common sense took hold of me.  I did not get on the Dubai bus as I had originally planned, and instead slept an extra 2 hours.  Frankly, I think it was the better choice.  I had a charming breakfast with Jessica and Nick, the two people going with me to Perth, and then we headed out on the MLC bus to downtown Abu Dhabi city.  It drops us off at Marina Mall, and then we walked over to the Emirates Palace.  Talk about a swanky hotel/jewel of the city.  Obviously, if you have the money in the UAE, you spend it.  Saddest thing about the whole place was that there were no people on the beach.  I repeat, no one.  We saw 8 people on the beach during the entire day.  Certainty there are places we couldn't see, big billboards block the view of the beach for privacy we think, but it was just incredibly depressing.  We just need to figure out where we can have co-ed swimming.  We hear Al Maya Island is nice, and we may try to get there next weekend.  We visited a local market area, which had a lot more 'normal' people from Abu Dhabi in it.  We finally found shwarma for Nick, it's a sandwich/gyro like thing, but unfortunately they don't start serving it until 5 PM.  Oh well, at least he knows where it is now.  We had some 'American' fast food, that was pretty nice actually.  Jessica and I got stared at and winked at constantly by these strange Algerian? guys.  So creepy.  I guess we were pretty much the only girls not wearing hijab, but really?  Oh well, at least we had Nick.  :)  Caught a taxi back to the mall for our bus pick-up, then home for a nap.  I had a pretty productive evening working on my homework for class.  Looking forward to next week when I finally leave for Australia though.  :)  Love you all!

November 5

Kind of a more relaxed day.  I got really lucky on my quizzes, I messed up a number, 7504 instead of 7540.  Luckily it turned out that I had the same estimate as the answer, but seriously, I could have messed up a well quite badly if that had been a real situation!  I'm going to have to work on not transposing any more numbers.  It could kill.  We had a rather inexperienced presenter again today.  She seems like a nice girl, but frankly she need a lot of work in the presenting department.   It was Alyaa from Malaysia's birthday today, so we had a birthday song and cake for her in class!  They have some delicious stuff here.  (I will not eat dessert, I will not eat dessert.)  :)  I'm also digging the cardamom tea they have here.  Kind of like chai, but better.  We got out of class early, around 5:30 PM, so I played some ping pong doubles.  Needless to say, I'm probably the worst, but it's really hard to compete against the Southeast Asians!  They're so small, I swear, they just bounce around to get the ball.  Sigh.  I guess I'm never going to rock at that sport.  Had a nice dinner with Alyaa, and worked out for the first time in a few days.  It felt so awesome to stretch out afterwards.  Now, it's back to homework for now, and then I'm off to Dubai in the morning.  Can't wait!

November 4

Well last night was so busy, I didn't even get around to writing this thing till the night after.  Really long day at class.  We went through the proprietary software that SLB uses for their wireline jobs.  There is certainly a lot to know about that.  We have 5 example problems to go through, plus all the other homework  At least my instructor Yogi is nice.  He was named after Yogi Bear.  :)  Such a nice guy.  I stayed after class and did homework, mixed in with a quick dinner, until I went out on the well pad for a well site visit!  We went and watched the Xperts cased hole class complete a cement bonding log.  We went in a group of 5 and basically just talked with the students as they were doing their log.  One student is the engineer of the job, another is the winchman, and the third is the operator.  The operators during our visit were Henning and Blair, Canadians, and they were super helpful.  Granted this isn't exactly what I'm going to be doing, but next week I'll be seeing some actual open hole logging.  :)  I can't wait.  Got some news from Mom and Trygve, always nice to hear how everybody is doing.  I'm going to work on getting my homework done and then putting some pictures up.  :)

November 3

Well, it's an exciting Wednesday in Abu Dhabi land.  The lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me, but I'm pressing on.  Today we had 2 quizzes, a guest lecturer from somewhere in South America, and a very perky day for me.  I felt horrible this morning, so I didn't eat hardly any breakfast.  I think it really kept me spry for the day.  I wasn't hardly sleepy at all.  It was fairly hard material today, and we took considerably longer than we should have on it.  Okay quiz grades, 12/12 and 13/15.  Not bad, but I'm not always focusing on understanding.  It's going to be a lot harder when memorization is required.  I thought I was going to have a well pad visit from 9:30-11:30 tonight, but apparently the other class canceled that visit, and forgot to tell our instructor.  Oh well, I'm getting some training done tonight instead.  I sure wish the internet was quicker here, but oh well.  I'm getting some shut eye.  Tomorrow I definitely have 2 quizzes and a well pad visit for sure.  It should be fun.  :)

November 2

Happy Election Day to all my American friends!  What a day.  Another day of practicals, I was in coveralls all day.  :)  Thank heavens I brought my own boots.  Everybody has been complaining about how much their feet hurt, while mine feel just great.  I've been learning to assemble tools, and how they work from their power supply.  I wish I had paid more attention to my electrical classes.  :(  No one in my class is an electrical engineer, so we're all in the same boat.  I'm still having some trouble staying completely awake in class.  That whole Circadian rhythm thing is a killer.  I have started eating less breakfast and lunch, but honestly, who can turn down warm dessert?  Well, me apparently.  Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live vicariously through my friends.  We were on the well pad till 7:30 PM, so it's been a long day.  I've spent 3 hours studying for my 2 quizzes, but I'll be getting up early to do some more.  Gotta love this working for a living.  :) 
Did I mention that my whole room comes from IKEA?  I really thought one of the other kids was joking, but I've looked around, and by golly they were right!  A whole hotel from the IKEA catalog.  I hope they got a discount.

November 1

Well today sure was long.  I had my first quiz over intro to petroleum engineering.  Got a 12/15, which is 80%.  I’m still above the 70% required.  Technically the 70% rule doesn’t apply during this class, but it’s best to keep it in mind.  We then went downstairs to the electrical practical lab, and we built a rope socket.  I’m not terribly great at crimping my wires, but I did manage to do everything else correctly.  Considering I can’t actually do anything with the thing, I might try to make a flower arrangement out of them.  They kind of look like electrified flowers, quite pretty.  J  Had a quick lunch with the girls, and party points were awarded to people that were late today!  Finally, we’re going to get a prize yet!  We had a commentary safety training exercise today.  I was paired with Alex from France, and we lifted wireline equipment from knee length up to a trolley.  Sounds pretty simple, and it is, but the tools are really heavy.  That’s going to take some getting used to.  The heaviest tools weight 450 pounds, and usually they are strung together so you can take multiple readings.  Those require cranes to move around!  After class, I rushed to the nurse’s office to go to the hospital to get my prescription filled.  Who knew that it would take 3 ½ hours!  Good Lord!  Traffic was just awful going to Abu Dhabi city, that’s really what took the most time.  The doctor’s office was only a 30 minutes wait, and the pharmacy was about 10 minutes.  I am telling you, they are way more efficient than most other times I have gone to the doctor.  You ever seen 8 pharmacy technicians working together with a 30 person cue?  It’s pretty darn fantastic.  My driver was Rashid, and he waited for me to get out of the hospital.  I thought I would remember him by his bright and snazzy looking white car.  Needless to say, half the cars in Abu Dhabi are white and snazzy looking.  At least now I know to look at the license plate before I let the driver go.  Dinner at MLC had a strange saffron and pistachio rice pudding thing.  I thought it was delicious, but most people disagreed with me.  I’m just staying up and studying another Power Point on oil and gas recovery.  J  Studying is going okay.  Love you all, MK