Day 1

Well my first day (half day) is over. I have been photographed for a badge and my paperwork has been filled out. It was largely uneventful. Sorry about leading anyone to believe that my life would get more exciting or be more newsy today. My bad.

On the plus side I met some fun fellow interns and we may very well be going bowling this evening! Hopefully that is enough to satisfy anyone's need for news.

Conway, Conway, where for art thou, Conway

So here we are at the end of the Kellyville training experience (kind of a decent band name there...) and we are all preparing (and by this I mean drinking by the pool) to head out to our locations. I am basically done packing and I have taken the Canadians to Braum's (they don't have it up there) so all that's left is for me to join the merriment down at the pool. I plan to play it pretty low key because I agreed to drive one of my fellow Conway-bound interns to the airport in the morning at the early hour of 6:30 (I'm so nice), but I can't skip out entirely because somehow, in three weeks, I have become friends with these some odd 70 of us. Who'd'a thought (who'd a? who'd of? who'd-a?...whatever)?

Brief recap of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday:

All you need to know about Sunday is that Toy Story 3 changed my life. I'm normally stone faced in any movie but I was a little misty at the end of this one. I'm crazy--I've accepted it. It was just that good.

Monday was a long and boring day of learning about D&M (drilling and measurements)...we basically sat around and waited for the bus between 3 and 5... so fun. Monday night we went to The Melting Pot for birthday fondue (Anna's birthday to be exact). It was AMAZING. I've never had a dinner of multiple courses or one that was mostly fondue style. Delicious!

Tuesday was even more boring that Monday (I didn't even think that was possible)--at least in the morning. The afternoon proved more enjoyable as we got our summer projects assigned to us. My project (drum roll please) is to come up with a volume chart for a new tank in Conway. I'll basically be dusting off what calculus I retained and integrating for volume and correlating it with the depth of the substance being stored. Feel free to be impressed (or vomit...either way). I can't quite decide if I'm excited about this or not. It's totally doable and practical which I like but it does have that element of calculus (the devil's work) to it. We'll see how I feel about it in the morning and in the coming week.

Now tomorrow I head to Conway to really get down to business. As excited as I am to get to work and really apply the things I've learned (how to lift heavy things properly), I'm going to miss hanging out with all these crazy interns here in Tulsa. The good news is that I'll see a lot of them in Houston in August for wrap-up. *Sigh*

Oh wireline...

Today was day one of wireline. We're doin' this all week. Wireline is the method of gathering data about a well (and more specifically the geology below the well site and many facts about it's properties). This data is gathered by lowering any number of tools down a borehole on a length of wire--hence the name wireline. We spent the day with a guy from Trinidad who had the best accent. He was lots of fun (as are most of the teachers and employees) and I'm sad we don't get him all week. He told us all kinds of things about wireline and then trotted us down hill to see some stuff. Thankfully it was rainy today so we didn't sweat our butts off in our PPE. We also got to talk to a couple of wireline operators of sorts--not engineers but the guys who rig up and run the equipment--and they seemed fun. They told us that we were entering the field at a good time because things were just starting to pick up after a slump. I couldn't help but think that it feels like the worst time what with the situation in the gulf but whatever...

After class today I learned a new word from my friend Kayla. She's Canadian (from Alberta--the only rat-free province...only rat free place really) so we teach each other slang words. The word of today is keener. I guessed on the spelling but keener means someone who is overeager. Think the extra credit whore in class who sits up front and tries to butter up the teacher. Can also be the kid with 20 colors of pens and lots of tabbed folders and all kinds of sticky labels for things. I like this word. I got it in exchange for janky (or jankity as I sometimes use). Even trade I'd say. PS here's a picture of Kayla(she's between Jennifer and I). I like her lots. She's fun. In this particular picture we are displaying our excitement about the circus we are about to see.

TGIF and Weekend!

Friday we got lucky and got to leave the training center early! We spent the day learning to lift things safely and use stairs properly. We also wore drunk goggles to play catch and rode "The Convincer"--an apparatus that simulates a 4-5 mph crash into a brick wall. I did not actually ride it because it looked VERY unpleasant and since I already wear my seat belt and was convinced by watching alone, I opted out. One girl is sore today for it so I'm glad I passed.

When we got home I promptly took a much needed nap. After napping we made a WalMart run (I needed a geek string for my safety glasses--don't judge) and and then joined the intern bar-b-que. Much booze was consumed by most of the interns and shenanigans ensued. There were water balloons and super soakers and people being shoved into the pool. I avoided that bit but it was fun to watch. After a while a group of us decided to go on a little exploratory mission to a little dive "piano bar" down the road called The Dusty Dog. Let me tell you people, it was a winner. The clientele may have been largely middle aged but the group of us girls loved it anyway. Sometimes you need to have girl talk and the Dusty Dog proved to be a good place for "all the single ladies" to pow wow. Good times! We made it back in time to see the remaining shenanigans and have a few heart to hearts with the remaining drunks. Again good times.

This morning, several of us ladies went to get pedicures. We're thinking that when we are in the middle of our month long camping trip style internship, we will look down and what remains of our pedi's and think to ourselves, "oh I remember when I used to be girly and take regular showers and have access to a bathroom...*sigh*" Afterward we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch soccer with a BUNCH of fellow interns. It's nice because in spite of the little clusters that form we still hang out together in large hordes now and then. In case you don't know the game was USA vs. England and it was a tie at 1-1. I don't really follow soccer but it was fun to hang out and pretend I knew what was going on. I sat next to Donald (Rap Master D) and he was less a fan. Very irritated by the tie. He's accustomed to hockey which affords more violence and harsher penalties. He's hilarious when he's griping about stuff.

After the game we fulfilled a dream of Jennifer's; we went to the circus! It was magical. Aislinn, Kevin, and Jennifer had never been to the circus and Kayla and I were happy to take them. There were elephants and tigers and zebras as well as the standard horses and dogs. Acrobats and tightrope walkers (who made Kevin very nervous) and all the usual circus fodder were in attendance. We also got to see two women simultaneously fired from a double barrel cannon. Spectacular. We acted like five-year-olds and got Dippin' Dots at intermission (Mom, I know they're ridiculously over priced but I wanted them and I'm a big girl now so I got them. They were delicious) and screamed and clapped with the best of them. A dream come true.

Post circus, we went to dinner and then I did laundry. A bunch of people are going "clubbing" but it's the intense people and I know I can't hang with them. Several others are boozing in the pool now and let's be honest, I can't ride with them either. Forrest-Gump-Peter is drinking enough to kill a moose and I anticipate him doing serious damage either to himself or the Stratford Palace Kingdom. The boys are gross and keep peeing in the pool so again... there's no real draw for me to stay. Instead I'm lounging at Jennifer's watching The Holiday and blogging for you my loyal readers (Mom, Scarlett, and well... possibly Jennifer).

Tomorrow should be pretty low key also, including Mass and general lounging. If anything else exciting happens I'll try to let you know.

Too cool for school...

Day one of our training was kind of intense. It was also a bit of a cluster. We started the day by attempting to get on the bus (the only one we were initially told) but because we are engineers, we know that 80something people will not fit on one bus and so we don't try very hard. Another bus is soon to arrive we are told. Ok but there are still like way more of us than will fit. Ok so bus driver numero dos tells us he knows this is a problem and he called for the first to come back...in 30-45 minutes. So we wait. I napped next to my new Canadian friend Donald (Donny, RapMaster D... ok that last one is my own creation and he may not be on board with it...) both in the lobby and on the bus. I think it made him vaguely uncomfortable but we've since become closer (I asked him lots of random questions in order to get to know him). ANYWAY... We arrived approximately 30 minutes late and missed some of the safety info--no worries, we caught the most important bits about Tornadoes and the tail end of the brown recluse spider lecture. Awkward start to our day.

We were split into four groups (red, blue, yellow, and green) and the red group (my group, obviously...) spent our day learning about fracking--hydraulic fracturing. It's quite the deal. Here's what I learned in a nutshell (aka Scarlett and anyone else not really interested in the oil industry should skip past the tilde's):

~Wells sometimes don't produce as readily as they should (due to plugging of various origins and natures that you don't really care about or because the rock is not as permeable as you would like) and so you must frack them.

~This means you pump first a substance that is essentially water in at such high pressure, that it cracks the rock around the well.

~You then follow up with a slurry of sand to prop it open. It's called propate. Yup... prop for short. Not sure about spelling but yea you get the idea.

~Under some circumstances you would frack with acid that erodes the cracks open.

~These new cracks can reduce the "skin" of the well (the random hindrance to the wells production) to less than zero, meaning you can force the well to produce more than it would naturally.

~Fracking is an intense endeavor (that may just be my opinion).

So there. Now you know. And so do I.

Once we completed our day (including about an hour of walking around outside in full PPE and turning ourselves into sweaty beasts) we sat and waited to get on a bus again. This time for 1.5 hours. Yep. Add the half hour drive and we wasted two perfectly good afternoon hours. Oh well. When we made it back we ate and went to WalMart and saw a woman with teal boots, a jean dress complete with jean jacket, and a teal hat complete with giant teal feather. It was epic. I also found the little kid hair ties that have vanished from all Manhattan retailers. I bought two packs.

Tomorrow we get to sleep in a little and just catch the second edition of the bus run (interns get the shaft...jk we literally clapped when they announced this) and we are hoping and praying some kind of similar arrangement will be made in the evening so we aren't sitting on the sidewalk like second graders waiting for the bus. Fingers crossed on that one. Also on tomorrow's agenda: Dinner and Glee at Jennifer's apt. She's making tuna helper and we're a bit excited about it. There may even be wine. Because we're classy.