Monday, June 28, 2010

All good things must come to an end...

Today was the last day of lab. It was a crazy lab day. We had a million tests to run and most of them on some kind of rush. We had to run "mud push" tests all day long-- the spacer I mentioned before is kind of a guessing game and it's important to get it right. It's what gets pumped in front of the cement to clean out the drilling mud (mud and cement get along about as well as the Capulets and the Montagues). It has to have all the right rheology numbers AND be compatible with the mud. The compatibility test is where you see if you need to redesign your spacer. This particular job's spacer was redesigned 8 times before we left (all night they worked on it) and it still wasn't quite right. Lost of good smart people working to try and tweak the recipe to come up with something that was up to standard.

In the mean time we interns helped run rheologies on the cement samples from the bulk plant (special shoutout to Dr. Wang who taught me about viscosity...the focus of my time in the lab), did "dishes" and helped clean up the lab. Mark (who sounds like my cousin Bobby) is super nice and told us we were really helpful. I informed him that my number one priority was not to get in the way and my number two priority was to try and contribute something useful. Apparently it worked. We also met Marcus and Obaid today. They also work in the lab but they were off this weekend. Marcus is ornery but lots of fun. I'm a little sad we didn't get to work with them more. I plan to try to make it back to the lab if possible.

As I said, all good things must end, and tomorrow we go to the bulk plant. Nick has been staying there until 10 or 11 each night so I'm not super excited about it. The good news is that we're girls and apparently they've been waiting for us since they heard they were getting interns at Conway (which explains why I feel like I'm wearing a funny hat or have something hanging out of my nose every time I walk the hall or out in the yard) and so they MAY go a tad bit easier on us. Also I plan to do what I'm told and do it with a smile so they don't feel the need to be rough on me. It's these thoughts (lies?) that keep me optimistic about the next three days. That and the fact that I requested my weekend off to be this weekend for the 4th of July. I don't know what I'll do with it yet but I want to travel up north either to visit people in Fayetteville or maybe as far as KC (depending on what people are doing and if I think I can really pull off the trip). Over the next three days, I may be AWOL (I could be working late and pass out the second I crawl out of the shower) but don't fear for me. I'm probably still alive.

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