November 14

A wonderful day of travel.  I woke up early, or so I thought, had breakfast, called the cabs, and checked on where everybody else was.  Apparently I was the only one that really slept.  I should have stayed out with the gang last night though.  They found a very nice bar with lots of Americans and Brits Jess, Tiffany, and Nick all had so much luggage that they spent hours packing it all up, and trying to decide how much it was going to cost them at the airport.  Took a cab with Tiffany, pleasant drive.  We realized that this has probably been the first time we’d been in a car during daylight hours since our first week.  Wowzers.  We arrived, and I got through with my luggage/ticket no problem.  The other 3 paid varying amounts to check their bags.  Needless to say, I’m glad I stuck with one checked bag.  Customs were a breeze, and the prices were nice at duty free, but I really had no reason to buy anything.  I realized about 5 minutes before we were to board our flight to Singapore that I didn’t have a hard copy of my immigration document to Australia.  I couldn’t quite remember how much I needed it, but it freaked me out a bit.  I’d take care of it at the airport though, no worries.  A nice 8 hour flight, I watch Oman pass by, along with seeing both coasts of India.  Can’t wait to visit there.  Probably got 5 hours of sleep, but it was bad sleep.  I watched Despicable Me.  Got in to Singapore at 10 PM local time.  What an awesome airport.  There are information desks every 100 feet or so, the nicest stores, restaurants.  Wow.  It was like a rather snazzy mall/hotel in one.  There was an indoor koi pond, but we missed seeing the indoor rollercoaster.  Next time.  I got my documents prints for about $7 US, and picked up a bagel sandwich w/ mango tea for $7.50 from Dunkin Donuts.  Unfortunately Jess and Nick had to again pay to have their luggage shipped.  Apparently Etihad, our first airline, made a mistake when they arranged to have their luggage sent the first time.  They had to pay again what they had already paid in Abu Dhabi.  A very expensive day for the two of them, I really hope that SLB reimburses them.  Waited till 1 AM and got on our flight to Perth.

November 13

Well, the last day of school was actually pretty nice.   Oh well, next time.  Headed to class, talked about our year old plan with SLB.  I’ll have a lot to do, but it’s attainable.  I had my meeting with Yogi about where I need work, and what he thinks that I do well.  Considering I know that some of my fellow SLB’s read this, I’ll keep the details to myself.  Needless to say, positives and negatives.  Had some lunch, then out to the well pad for some more practical action.  I think Yogi could tell that we were exhausted, so he let us out early.  I went back to the accomodations, and took a nap.  Sweet, sweet nap.  We then went into the city for a little fun and dinner.  Went to a hooka/sports bar in the Marina Mall.  Strange place, we were definitely conspicuous, but it was a fun time.  Since they don't serve any alcohol, they had an awesome non-alcoholic drinks section.  I had a real ginger drink with lemon, it was kind of thick, and Jess had cinnamon tea.  Had a mixed meat platter, pitas, cheese, and grilled veggies.  Very tasty.  I finally got to talk more with Badar and Khalil, the two most conservative members of our class.  Really nice guys, I think Badar just isn't as comfortable with his English.  Khalil went to school in New Zeland, and he seems pretty chill.  Went back a bit earlier, others stayed to go out to the bars, and got all packed up.  Early to bed, if 1 AM is considered early.  Tomorrow should be in an interesting traveling day...              

November 12

Well, today was mostly positive.  :)  I passed my test this morning on the first try!!!  75/100 and a 70 is passing.  I know what you're thinking, Mary Kate, you didn't actually pass by that many, but I was in the 70% percentile of my class, so most people passed with 71, 72, etc.  Thank goodness I'm done with that for a month and a half.   Spent an hour figuring out the problems that I did wrong.  :)  Then we had a nice relaxing afternoon out on the well pad where we looked at all the tools, and tried to figure out how what we learned in the theory classes corresponded to what we could see in the field.  I went home, did more of my training, watched The Hulk, because it was like the only English show on.  We went out as a class to dinner with our instructors, helpers, administrators and their families to an Indonesian/Malaysian restaurant, since Yogi, our main instructor is Indonesian.   Delicious!!  I didn't actually eat a lot, but I did have 2 beers and a wine.  A wonderful time, we met our new instructors for our next class, and talked to one of Yogi's best students from the past.  He's from Kazakstan (spelling?), and he's about to go to Grade 11, which is like our goal after 3-4 years.  He was just a nice take on the whole 1st year experience.  We, well 10/13 of our class, went out afterwards to a chill bar.  Had some strange sangria thing that was okay.  We were going to go a club, but the only girls in there were prostitutes.  For a country that is so conservative, there still seem to be a lot of things that Muslims don't approve of.  Once again, thank you God for letting me be an American.  :)  Bed at 2 AM, lordy I'm getting used to have no sleep.
Everybody keeps warning us how hard Peptec 1 is going to be.  I wish it was just here already, but I'm going to enjoy my next 2 months, preschool, before I have to start.  Christmas in Australia.  Be jealous.  :)  Jess, Nick, and I are gonna have a great time I hope.  Good luck to Trygve with his football game, Ben with his bike ride, and Torsten with his his birthday tomorrow!

November 11

So, sleep deprivation, isn't it great.  I actually did pretty well with it though.  We had more tool presentations, focusing on sonic wave technology.  Salman, from Pakistan, gave a really good presentation I thought.  Probably the best this week.  He just really seemed to understand his topic.  We had 'Italian' day cafeteria.  I have no idea why, but these guys cannot make a pasta dish to save their souls.  Nick, who's of Italian descent, was just shaking his head along with me.  I gotta love the fact that they try.  The waiters were wearing Mexican outfits though, I'm surprised, usually they have very ethnically appropriate outfits for the theme lunches.  Learned about high pressure situations today.  Really, it was nothing compared to the types of prep that Marathon gave me, but this was just Level 1.  Apparently Level 2 is incredibly difficult.  I will have practicals, where I actually set up
tools according to SLB regulations.  Should be fun.  I stayed up till 1 AM studying for my exam tomorrow.  I was actually pretty darn alert until 12 AM, then I just started falling.  Hopefully I'm ready for it...

November 10

Well it was a couple stressful days, so I'll summarize.  Had a horrible nightmare last night.  Can't even really remember what it was all about.  Got chased in the snow by a person, and had to sleep outside.  :(  Very busy day.  We talked about nuclear and gamma ray technology, and I gave my presentation on a gamma ray tool.  Not terribly well received.  I feel there were things I could have presented better.  Yogi had to help me.  :(  It seems to have worked out okay, because everyone did well on the quiz.  I started studying for my final test on Friday: 100 questions, 2.5 hours, 25% on the tools I've learned in the past 3 days.  Righto.  I spent my early evening in the classroom studying, yet again, then it was out to the well pad for 4 hours of well site visit time!  We watched a DSI log, which I can't remember what that stands for right now...  Met a really nice guy named Ali who kept quizzing us on what we're going to need for our Peptec 1 class (that'll be the class I come back for in January, basically it's my first true test if I can do the job).  Abhi, the Indian guy that I sit next to in class (super cool fellow), and I met our Peptec 1 instructor Hanafy.  He's an Egyptian, 9 years with the company, stints in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, and Pakistan.  He spent 3 years in Centerville, OH when he was in middle school.  He asked me about Mary Kate and Ashley; first person to do that here!  He's going to be a hard-ass, no doubt, but that's exactly what I was expecting.  It's not supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be your job.  Bed at 2 AM....

November 9

Busy night, so I'll try to keep it brief.  First day of tool introduction classes.  They're going okay, just a lot of electronic things to learn.  Ate lunch with Yogi today.  His wife is expecting twins; they know that one of them is going to be a boy.  He's super excited about it.  Apparently most of the Wireline instructors here are twins or have twins.  Must be something in the air...  I'm presenting tomorrow, so I'm trying to get my talk down.  One quiz tomorrow on everything I learned today.  This is really like 2 or 3 classes all in one, but boy am I learning.  I can't wait for preschool (my first time at my location).  Learned about radiation safety today.  If I lose a radiation source I will be fired.  Pretty much no questions asked.  Apparently SLB has only lost 2 sources ever, one in Nigeria, where they were stolen, and another one in Australia, where they fell off a truck.  Both were recovered, and in the second instance, people were fired.  I guess you can't fire people in Nigeria when they are attached and robbed.  Note: I'm never going to Nigeria.  Way too many people getting killed or kidnapped there.  I went to hip-hop dance class with Jessica tonight.  A small skinny highly-athletic French woman taught it, but honestly I think I impressed her.  That's right, I can boogie!  Jessica is really good; she was on the dance team in high school.  I'm going to a Malaysian/Indonesian restaurant with my class later this week, and my instructor in Indonesian.  He says it is one of the best places he's been outside of Indonesia.  I really can't wait for that fun experience.  Well back to studying.  Thanks Ben and Mom for the nice emails, and thanks for keeping Grandma informed.  :) 

November 8

Both an exciting and a boring day.  I slept in today, till 8!  Actually, that extra hour helped.  Perhaps I'll try getting up a little later tomorrow.  I talked to Frank this morning on SLB communicator.  Apparently China is not turning out as he had hoped.  The area is extremely dirty, he says he can taste the air.  He gets propositioned by prostitutes every day, and everybody talks Chinese around him.  He's the only ex-pat, and the one Chinese guy that he did know isn't very nice to him.  :(  I hope he can come visit for Christmas to get away for awhile.  He obviously needs it.  I went in and worked on my presentation on for the TLD - three-detector lithology density tool.  That's quite a mouthful, and I'm going to be saying it quite a bit.  Also worked on understanding the SLB proprietary software for well logging some more.  Boy do I have a lot to learn.  Khalil from Oman, Kazuma from Japan and I did our group log together in the evening.  Edith from Peru was our instructor, and we logged an open hole here at the MLC center.  Logging is basically putting a 'tool' at the end of a cable and lowering the tool into the well to determine physical characteristics about the formation.  Hopefully discovering oil or gas rich zones that can produce.  I will be doing open hole, which is logging before the well is cased, or cemented.  Casing a well seals off the formations from each other, and allows for the cased hole people to perforate, aka use explosives, to selectively puncture holes in the concrete and allow only certain oil or gas rich zones to produce.  It's pretty fascinating stuff.  :)  Tomorrow starts the first round of tool discussion presentations, which is 25% of my final grade.  I'm going to be paying really good attention, let me tell you.  It was nice to get notes from Nikki and Mom today, thanks girls!  Sorry I haven't been putting any pictures up, it just always seems to come down to a choice: sleep more than 6 hours at night, or put up pictures and sleep only 5.  I'm choosing the 6 hours of sleep.  Hopefully I'll get on Facebook after my course finishes.  Today we basically had a mini sand storm.  If that was just a mini one, then I hate to think how bad the real ones are.  My eyes are still very dry and gritty, and apparently, the dry season, which I'll be coming back for in January, is know for their sandstorms.  Great.  Interesting fact of the day: my instructor Edith is taking a leave of absence from SLB and is going to graduate school in petroleum engineering.  In Perth, Australia.  Haha!  Good night everybody!