I thought I was going nuts the other day, well I probably am but this is absurd! Walking towards downtown from my apartment, a motorbike went by with something colourful on the rider's arm. It warrented a second look and indeed the guy was travelling 30-40mph along the road with a parrot on his left arm! So that was weird!
What's more, the weird stories don't stop there! Many of my devoted readers (who-ever you are) may recall me talking about Professor George Davis at some point in the past. Well he had another cracker of a story today. At graduation ceremonies at the UofA, they serve the usual beverages and food since some of them take most of the day. By the time the afternoon arrives, half the audience is drunk and the other half probably bored with the formal speeches etc. Hence, it degrades into chaos. Tortilla's start to enjoy the wonders of flight across the room aimed not only at fellow students but the professors and speakers! And worse of all, no one really seems to care! I'd love for my graduation ceremony to end up in a mass drunken food fight.
This is the last week of classes here in Tucson, infact tomorrow (wednesday) is my last class before dead day (thursday) when i'll probably be working on Utah stuff and exams start friday of which I only have one (next tuesday) before flying back a week Saturday!
In other news, I've finally got some dates and information about my internship this summer with BG group - one of the leading international natural gas production companies. More information soon.
Laters!
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Saturday, 3 May 2008
T - 2 weeks
Two weeks to go in Arizona and rather than creeping up, the last few weeks are flying by. My knee is now much better after meeting the cacti bush last weekend and even the pool looks tempting for another visit sometime soon. It's now also under 2 weeks until Metallica come to Tucson the day before I fly out. Also lower on the bill for that night is a band called Apocalyptica who, bizarrely, cover most Metallica songs on the Chello! I kid you not and it sounds amazingly good, definately recommend checking them out.
This weeks been busy but pretty decent. My presentation in Structural Geology went well (I got 100%) and amongst the few comments from the instructor was "nice shirt" (a reference to my new "Do something with your life, get me a beer" t-shirt.
On Thursday, speaking to Jon, it struck me that the choice of modules for my 4th year back at Leicester University is, frankly, shocking. The 4th year should be about choosing modules similar to what you want to do as a career or PhD but theres no structural geology/tectonics modules but rather too many palaeontology, palaeobiology and climatic study (so called soft geology) modules for my liking. Infact, the choice is abysmal... so I sent an email to my tutor to see what he recommends.
And finally, some interesting news from Texas. A 21 year old walked into a bank and tried to pay in a fake cheque from his girlfriends mother. Ok, nothing suspicious provoked yet except he decided to write the check for $360,000,000, 000 ($360 billion!!!). He told the police he needed to pay off student debts - that's a lot of student debts! Also from Texas, a thief manage to talk himself out of a jail sentance for forgery by agreeing to pay a $4500 fine. The not-so-intelligent guy paid the fine with a fake cheque and subsequently got sent down for 8 years!
Laters!
This weeks been busy but pretty decent. My presentation in Structural Geology went well (I got 100%) and amongst the few comments from the instructor was "nice shirt" (a reference to my new "Do something with your life, get me a beer" t-shirt.
On Thursday, speaking to Jon, it struck me that the choice of modules for my 4th year back at Leicester University is, frankly, shocking. The 4th year should be about choosing modules similar to what you want to do as a career or PhD but theres no structural geology/tectonics modules but rather too many palaeontology, palaeobiology and climatic study (so called soft geology) modules for my liking. Infact, the choice is abysmal... so I sent an email to my tutor to see what he recommends.
And finally, some interesting news from Texas. A 21 year old walked into a bank and tried to pay in a fake cheque from his girlfriends mother. Ok, nothing suspicious provoked yet except he decided to write the check for $360,000,000, 000 ($360 billion!!!). He told the police he needed to pay off student debts - that's a lot of student debts! Also from Texas, a thief manage to talk himself out of a jail sentance for forgery by agreeing to pay a $4500 fine. The not-so-intelligent guy paid the fine with a fake cheque and subsequently got sent down for 8 years!
Laters!
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Grand Canyon Weekend
Friday afternoon we travelled up to the GC for a weekend of hiking and relaxing combined with camping and drinking around an awesome camp fire. It was dark when we arrived but never mind, a short walk into the woods and I came back with a 12ft dead tree trunk and started a fire (primitive I know!). Alcohol came in the way of American beer, Nick's home brew, cheap wine and the optional rum and coke. Saturday we went on a leisurely hike into the canyon down the Kaibab Trail, about 4 miles and 2000ft ascent to a nice lunch spot half-way to the river. Nice except for the singular cacti bush which, of course, I had to have a disagreement with. Unfortunately the bush won and I end up with several 2 inch cacti needles about 3/4in into my knee. One hit the bone and the other went under the knee cap and pricked a tendant, the latter being the most painful. Still, in my usual enduring way, I got up and hiked back out of the canyon, and everything the following day with little fuss but did have some problems performing simple tasks like bending it to get in the car! As Andy said, "It's going to take more than a couple of little pricks to stop him (me)". Well, he's probably right but man, what an annoying little prick!
Saturday night we out-did ourselves with the fire, this time a 14ft tree trunk (broken into bits of course!) that really pumped out some heat. The beer was finished and a good laugh had by all. Sunday we went hiking around the rim to different vantage points and got some awesome photos, some from slightly dangerous but not completely reckless locations (like one with a 1000ft drop on 3 sides around me and Andy). Travelling back wasn't particularly boring either (except for that drab music just south of Flagstaff when I fell asleep!). I discovered Andy likes Sum 41 which suits me nicely and combined with the awesome stereo in our university Chevrolet Suburban (all of 12.9mpg!) made for an interesting journey. Amongst some random things we saw was a helicopter on a lorry on I10, 3 kids in the open back of a pickup travelling 75mph on I17 and 'that sign' at a service station in Flagstaff. All in all, great weekend, great scenery, great company!
Now its under 3 weeks til home time and things are getting interesting and keeping reasonably busy. In that time I need to fathom some cross-sections through our Utah map - made harder by the lack of knowledge of bed thickness, fault displacement and strike/dips - 3 somewhat crucial components.
S'all for now folks!
Laters
Saturday night we out-did ourselves with the fire, this time a 14ft tree trunk (broken into bits of course!) that really pumped out some heat. The beer was finished and a good laugh had by all. Sunday we went hiking around the rim to different vantage points and got some awesome photos, some from slightly dangerous but not completely reckless locations (like one with a 1000ft drop on 3 sides around me and Andy). Travelling back wasn't particularly boring either (except for that drab music just south of Flagstaff when I fell asleep!). I discovered Andy likes Sum 41 which suits me nicely and combined with the awesome stereo in our university Chevrolet Suburban (all of 12.9mpg!) made for an interesting journey. Amongst some random things we saw was a helicopter on a lorry on I10, 3 kids in the open back of a pickup travelling 75mph on I17 and 'that sign' at a service station in Flagstaff. All in all, great weekend, great scenery, great company!
Now its under 3 weeks til home time and things are getting interesting and keeping reasonably busy. In that time I need to fathom some cross-sections through our Utah map - made harder by the lack of knowledge of bed thickness, fault displacement and strike/dips - 3 somewhat crucial components.
S'all for now folks!
Laters
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Living for the Weekend
Boy it's been a busy week. It all started Sunday night when I was up til 5am working and trying to sort things out for the F1 in Primary Schools competition. Everyday since has been busy with work but it's paying off and starting to ease up. I got an A in the second of my Active Tectonics papers, this one entitled "A structural and seismological study into the 2003 Bam boxing day earthquake and implications for Tehran". It was more interesting that the title lets on! I also got back my structural geology paper with a 100% best-in-class grade - which with no disrespects, it should be since I know most of the material and like tectonics/structural geology. Tomorrow is my big plateaus presentation - "Collision to Collapse in the Caledonides - Can we see orogenic plateaus in the geological record?". A 1 hour presentation/lecture to a group of talented and very knowledgeable individuals in what is essentially a graduate level class. Hence a lot of prep work has gone into that and I'm confident it will go well.
After a busy week which followed a busy semester and a busy life in general, I'm off to the Grand Canyon this weekend for one last hurrah before flying home in 3 weeks. It promises abit of hiking, relaxing, eating by the campfire and of course, one of the biggest hole-in-the-ground in the world. They'll be plenty of photos which i'll upload when I'm back. Hopefully someone will bring some beer for me!
I also realised this week that I have sub-conciously learned to touch-type, and damn'd quickly too! Reality is I've probably been doing it for ages but noticed it today when I was typing one thing and reading another at the same time.
S'all for now folks, Laters!
After a busy week which followed a busy semester and a busy life in general, I'm off to the Grand Canyon this weekend for one last hurrah before flying home in 3 weeks. It promises abit of hiking, relaxing, eating by the campfire and of course, one of the biggest hole-in-the-ground in the world. They'll be plenty of photos which i'll upload when I'm back. Hopefully someone will bring some beer for me!
I also realised this week that I have sub-conciously learned to touch-type, and damn'd quickly too! Reality is I've probably been doing it for ages but noticed it today when I was typing one thing and reading another at the same time.
S'all for now folks, Laters!
Monday, 21 April 2008
"Just fiddling around with rocks"
An article in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago caught the eye of my family back home and subsequently got posted out. It's only a small piece and goes as follows:
"Is it a bird, is it a crane... no, but it's possibly a geologist. The students who used to be teased at my school for 'just fidding around with rocks' are the new superheroes of the American job market. It's no longer just oil - soaring prices for copper, silver and gold have made geologists as valuable as, well, gold dust. Geology graduates in the United States are now receiving higher average starting salaries than people with Harvard MBA's. And immigration experts report that is there is any other occupation more guaranteed to speed your entry into America, they have yet to hear of it!"
We are clearly a worthwhile and highly regarded breed. The article didn't elaborate on which occupation's are least likely to guarantee entry in the the US but rumours suggest it may be dietrition or environmental studies.
"Is it a bird, is it a crane... no, but it's possibly a geologist. The students who used to be teased at my school for 'just fidding around with rocks' are the new superheroes of the American job market. It's no longer just oil - soaring prices for copper, silver and gold have made geologists as valuable as, well, gold dust. Geology graduates in the United States are now receiving higher average starting salaries than people with Harvard MBA's. And immigration experts report that is there is any other occupation more guaranteed to speed your entry into America, they have yet to hear of it!"
We are clearly a worthwhile and highly regarded breed. The article didn't elaborate on which occupation's are least likely to guarantee entry in the the US but rumours suggest it may be dietrition or environmental studies.
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