Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Louisiana, Food, and Readjustment

Ok! I am finally writing. Everytime I start writing I get distracted or I fall asleep. This is due to (a) the amount of stuff I have to get done/prepare to do and (b) trying to get over some severe jet lag. However, I am sleeping all the way through the night and I can handle all the random things that I have to do, so life is pretty good.

My plane flights back were a little hectic due to baggage issues, and a little crazy until I hit the longest flight which was from Singapore to Houston with an hour layover in Moscow (to refuel and such). I've never had a 22 hour flight before, but I've gotta say that beside the butt-numbing-ness of it, the flight was actually pretty peaceful. I got a little bit of sleep, and had a seat between the other person that was sitting near me, so I counted myself as pretty lucky. And I was so excited to cross into the United States again! I didn't even mind waiting in the Houston airport in the security lines. They actually went quite fast. I didn't remember how fast American airport lines tend to move. However my opinion may have been affected by my happiness.

I have very much enjoyed being back in the US thus far. I love being able to watch tv, go running in my gym at my apartment complex, and have so many choices when I go to the store! My favorite purchase so far has definitely been Honey Bunches of Oats! I could just eat that and be completely happy with my life, however, I know variety is probably needed, so I try to branch out. I also had my first legitimate barbeque in quite a long time, as of...yesterday! It was absolutely delicious and I am glad I live in such a bbq-y place.

The people here are just like I remember them. Friendly, and full of nicknames. Gotta say, my favorite nickname thus far is "Boo", affectionately labeled by the main receptionist in my building. 

I can't wait to come back up and say hi to all of you! I really do miss you guys and knowing you are so close is so exciting!! Hopefully it will be soon, but if not, just remember that I am thinking of you :)

I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Love,

Becca

Thursday, April 21, 2011

My last post from Asia (at least for the forseeable future)

I am currently sitting at a panini shop in the Singapore airport and this is a wonderful thing for a couple of reasons.

1) I am not in a moving vehicle of some kind
2) I am not expected anywhere for at least an hour and a half
3) I just had a panini and it was delicious.
4) It came with Snapple. Also delicious.
5) I have free internet, I am warm, and though I have a massive tired-headache I know I will be able to sleep once I get on my flight.

Sorry about the silence on my end, again. This week has been massively stressful and very busy. I had an inventory to help with at work, a couple projects to finish, packing to deal with, figuring out how to get my stuff to America in a way that Schlumberger would reimburse me for, and saying goodbye to all my friends in the base. Normally, there are no engineers there so this wouldn't be a problem, however 6 or 7 just happen to be there this week, so there were a lot more goodbyes. My maid cried when I gave her a hug goodbye. I am not sure if it was because she was sad I was leaving, or relieved I wouldn't be baking anymore in the kitchen. Either way, I am glad that she felt something towards me. She introduced me to her husband who was there to pick her up, and told me "Happy Marriage" because Adam (who she met over skype once) is "very very handsome."

I will miss several friends I have made at work, and several more that I never actually got to say goodbye to. Cathy and Zhuzhu have worked with/around me for the past 8 months and both are were on rigs when I left. They are good friends. Even when we are all yelling at each other because we are trying to explain technical concepts to each other through massive language barriers and we are frustrated. They are good peoples though. I hope the diversity of the people in the Louisiana base is similar to the diversity here.

I am finally excited to be coming home!!!! At first it felt kind of surreal and I didn't believe it would actually happen. Then after it started become a reality, I was going 100 miles a minute and was too tired to be super excited. Now it is full force (through my on-going exhaustion, of course)! I cannot believe that I am only a plane flight away from being in the United States and bbq! And all of you, of course :)

If nothing else I will be excited to be in the same time zone as most of you, so I can call you and you can call me! Hehe. Even as I am speaking, Helen and I are playing facebook tag, because she keeps typing something and leaving the room, and then I respond and then get off of facebook....

I have American money again. It was so much fun to see the old grouchy looking presidents on the backs of our boring green bills. They are quite pretty, actually. I want to spend it on something!!!!

OH! And here are my flights :

LBU to KUL - Apr 21 - MH2609 (1720 to 1940).............2 hours and 20 minutes long
KUL to SIN - Apr 21 - MI 0339 (2145 to 2240)..............55 minutes long
SIN to DME (Mother RUSSIA!!) - Apr 22 - SQ 0062 ( 0230 to 0910)........10 hours and 40 minutes long
DM to IAH - Apr 22 - SQ 0062 (1040 to 1420)..........12 hours and 25 minutes long
IAH to LFT - Apr 22 - CO 2902 (1740 to 1832)...........52 minutes long

Total time flying : 27 hours and 12 minutes
Total time traveling : aprox 38 hours.

Am I ready to be done with it? Oh yes :) Wish me luck! Hopefully I will be finishing a blanket I am crocheting, getting some sleep, and watching some inflight movies I haven't seen yet. I promise I will stay safe, hydrated, and relatively sane. If I lose a bag though...hehe. No, going crazy. I'll just consider it Malaysia's kiss goodbye. At least Malaysia didn't give me the dengue or some strain of hepatitis!

There have been some not so positive parts of my moving process, but I may tell though stories later. Right now I just wanted to let you know where I was and what is up (sidenote: I will be up soon!) :)

One more positive thing : I have been with Adam for a year as of today, exactly!! It has been one of the most incredible, fun, exciting (and sometimes painful) years of my life and I am so thankful for it.  I remember in the beginning I told him (and everyone else) emphatically that I was breaking up with him at the end of the summer, and that was that. I am not sure I will ever be able to say how happy I am that he got me to change my mind.  I could go on and gush for awhile about his wonderfulness, but, instead if you want to you know you can call me on my new phone number (when I get it) and ask me!

I hope you are all having a good almost-Easter and I cannot wait to hopefully see you all at some point in the near-ish future.

Love you all.

Becca

Monday, April 11, 2011

A Myriad of Things

Ok, time to blog again! It is harder for me to find time because I am not sure what you will actually be interested in reading about my life when I am actually on an oil rig. To be honest, it is interesting and I am learning an incredible amount, but at the same time every day is relatively repetitive. I wake up at 10:30 pm, eat breakfast and watch tv for an hour. Then I wander over to my office on the rig, which is called the MWD Unit. Once there I set up my computer and find out what happened in the 12 hours since I was last there. From there on, my night is an open book. I may go to the rig floor, geoservices unit, or work on something in my own office. I do have several reports that need to be sent every morning so that always keeps me busy for a little while. And when I run out of productive things to do I start learning again. There are an endless (it seems) number of things to learn on an oil rig. Whether it’s about well control, rig systems, safety procedures, my job, other 3rd parties and the important things they contribute; the list could go on for awhile. Then of course, when the anomalies or interesting (as in things go wrong) things happen, it is hard to describe them because they are kind of technical and their explanation could take awhile.


However, with that said, this particular well is interesting because we are experiencing difficulties with it and the length of time it’s going to be until the well has finished has just been increased by at least one week. However, even though we won’t be drilling during that time, I will still be on the rig. It’s almost like a free one week vacation on a rig. To be honest, I could think of better places to vacation, but it will be ok. The food is good, and I still have a gym and cable, so I think I will not go crazy.

Fun fact about when I am on rigs: when I’m out here it feels like I am not in the business of oil, but rather the business of collecting bruises. I work around mostly metal and there are always corners to walk around or a low lying beam to dodge or something heavy to move around. Due to this I have been adding small bruises to my body every day. I’m not particularly upset about it, but I do think it is funny. If I was in the US and around Adam, people would think he was abusive. And I may bump into things normally, but the more tired I am, the more I bump into things or forget where all the edges of my equipment are.

My coworkers on this rig are super nice. My cell manager is very laid back and extremely knowledgeable. Every time I think I know something, he just shows me how much I really don’t know about how to work in the field. However, he is very nice and patient so as long as I soak it up and truly seem like I care, he doesn’t mind explaining processes and procedures. The night engineer I work with is also laid back. He and I joke around a bit more, but he is also very helpful. He allows me to do a lot of hands on stuff and rarely gets involved unless I have a question for him. Also, the management on the rig is quite patient with me as well. One of them gave me some books about the systems on oil rigs which has been incredibly helpful, and another gave me positive feedback for my participation in the safety program on the rig. OH!! And every week they give out an award for the best STOP card, best Obsvervation, best Intervention (all with regards to safety) for the week. I got the best Intervention this week!! And they announced it in the Sunday meeting (while I was sleeping :D ). I was very proud. I get a certificate, but I need to go pick it up from the safety officer’s office.

I don’t feel ready for work today as I had a really long shift last night and my head is pounding right now (yes, mom, I took Tylenol AND ibuprofen). It’s ok though, because it should be a slow night and I might get a chance to grab a nap somewhere in there. If not, I’ll just chug more drugs and make it through somehow.

As far as I know, I’m still on for coming back to the US around the 23rd of April. Probably tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll call my manager and ask her what day she wants me to fly off the rig. Then I’ll let you all know!

I almost forgot to tell you : I saw the moon tonight. It’s a bit funny because I when I glanced up, the song “Talking to the Moon” by Bruno Mars popped into my head. I was walking from the accommodation to my unit and usually the sky and water are pitch black (it is cloudy a lot here). However, tonight the clouds parted and there is a gorgeous crescent moon outside. Just the type of moon that you could sit on the edge of while you throw a fishing line off of, or maybe even curl up in for a quick nap. It was sitting in the sky right above another oil rig in the distance which looked really cool. The little lights on the rig twinkled, but the moons brightness totally blew them away. Below the moon there was a pathway of light on the water leading from the skyline directly to me. I couldn’t help but stop and watch it for a little bit. I feel so privileged that I get an opportunity to see beauty like that in such a unique location. It seems so soft and…friendly, almost, in comparison with my usual surroundings which are a bit stark and rigid.

Maybe I’ll talk to the moon a little bit tonight. If you guys get the chance to see her tomorrow in Kansas or wherever you are, stop and look at her, because I’m passing along a message through her: I love and miss you so much. I hope your nights are as nice and beautiful as mine has turned out to be.

Becca

Thursday, April 7, 2011

My Internet Redefines the Concept of "Slow"... :)

Seriously. This page, just to load, took about 5 minutes, but I am grateful that I have internet to use occasionally. I just hope it doesn't take as long to upload!

I am sorry there has been a bit of a dry spell in my communications (skype, facebook, phone calls, blogging) with you all. My week has been hectic, random, and both incredibly long and short at the same time. This week has also been a week of many firsts!


Number 1: Helicopter ride

It was so cool! Just getting to the helicopter was neat. We (a barge engineer, roughneck, and I) were led by an airport worker into a glass-encased area where we quickly ran our bags through a machine, weighed our bags and ourselves (so they could make sure the helicopter could hold us all and they could distribute weight properly if they needed to), and then followed them up to a general waiting area. Then we went from that area with a couple more workers to another waiting area in a relatively empty hallway full of different gates. Finally went through another gate and some more security then we walked down to a van. The van took us through a windy road to another part of the airport where we sat in a room and were given earphones and a life vest then we had to watch a 15 minute video about helicopter safety and what to do if it crashed. There are a lot of steps. Then we finally got to go over to the helicopter. Of course at this point in time a rainstorm came through so we had to wait 15 minutes until it passed. While we were waiting a little tractor pulled us out on the tarmac, then they did some random checks and testing, Finally we were ready to go! Lifting of fin a helicopter is kinda weird, because it feels like the back half is going to come up, and then when the bottom half does lift up and we initially start moving up, the nose goes down. And also, at first when it gets turned on the whole helicopter pulsingly vibrates and so do the passengers which feels really weird until it starts rotating fast enough, and then it is ok.
Probably my favorite part of the ride was being so close to the ground. I loved getting to see how Brunei is laid out, and all the cool jungle, neighborhoods, and even the palace laying below. The water was pretty cool too, though slightly freaky because I kept on thinking about what crashing would be like.
The ride took about 20 minutes and then we arrived and landed on the helipad of the rig. Then workers from the rig then made a human path outside the helicopter for us to follow so we didn’t actually wander into the path of the blade’s radius.
All in all, a cool experience.
Number 2: Off-shore rig= So neat!! I am

I am on a jack-up rig, which is a rig that sits on stilts that connect to the ocean floor. This means that the rig doesn’t move up and down with the waves (thank goodness, because I get sea sick!). However, the cool thing about this rig is that most of the walkways are made of corrugated metal so wherever I am I can look down and see the ocean moving below me. Also, every single direction I look the ground is moving. I keep on looking for wildlife, but haven’t seen any fishes yet.
There are not a lot of places to go since it is a confined area, but I am not going stir-crazy yet. At the moment I am just trying to get used to my schedule, which was supposed to start as a midnight to noon, but for the first couple of days was definitely not that because my cell manager wanted me to make sure I would be conscious for action on the rig when it happened. However, I have finally started, and I am enjoying myself. Also, as far as working locations go, this is a really nice one. We have friendly coworkers, ok food, a gym (which I am often too tired to use), and tvs in our rooms.
Also, in other news….I have found out that I am being transferred back to America to work! The opportunity came up a week ago and I told my manager that I would be interested in the opportunity, and so now I am supposed to be in Lousiana around the 23rd of April! Am I excited?! Yes. I will definitely let you guys know more when I know more. Pretty much we will finish this section of the well and then I have to pack, and will be on my way back! Woot!!!!
With that, I feel like I should go because my shift is about to start. I love you and miss you all and I can’t wait to hopefully see you guys soon!!!
Have a wonderful, awesome, relaxing Thursday!
Becca

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Brunei

If you ever go to an offshore rig, there is always some kind of intermediary point. This point may be a base, a helicopter pad, or, in  my case, a town. This town for me is in Brunei, only a 50 minute ferry ride from Labuan.

What is the town's name, you ask? I don't know. I have been in so many towns and they all have weird names, so at this point I am forgetting them. Plus, I didn't really bother to learn this town's name as I thought I would only be here for 2 days. However, plans change.

Due to a previous job on the rig not being finish, the drilling has been pushed back to Tuesday, and my presence on the rig (because they have to be able to have space for the lone woman..woot!) has been pushed back to Monday, which is fast approaching! Tomorrow at 1 pm I will check in to the helicopter desk at the airport, and then leave an hour later with my offshore and book bags to go to the rig. An offshore bag is just a big duffel bag that is made out of water resistant material. Which, to be honest, I really appreciate because salt-water soaked clothing is uncomfortable.

My manager will be taking me to the rig, and I will be leaving this lovely hotel with its cable, internet, and gym that I've been lounging in for the past couple of days. I did a little bit of walking around, ate at some really good restaruants, watched my first movie in theaters in 4 months, and just had a relaxing good time.

Oh, for the record, Brunei is basically just like Malaysia. However, here you can see Probiscis Monkeys in the wild. I wanted to go on a tour to see them, but you had to have at least 2 people to take the river raft tour thing. Oh well! They weren't particularly cute anyway.

In the past couple days I've seen quite a few movies just because I could. I saw Sucker Punch in theaters and it was extremely depressing, though it had cool action scenes. I also watch Steven Seagal in "A Dangerous Man." I can't say I loved it, but I love how monotone and emotionless he is! I want to watch more of his movies, if only so I can laugh. There was also the new Star Trek movie (always good!), and then my favorite of the 4 days : Invictus. I am not really a huge fan of movies about politics or sports and this is rife with both. However, I think (and you can completely disagree with me) this movie is incredibly, moving, and so exciting!!!! Also the All Blacks (from NZ) doing the Haka at the beginning of the championship match...I'VE SEEN IT IN NEW ZEALAND!!!!! and it was totally cool to know what it was when I saw it in this movie.

Well, that is about it. I am here. I am heading to the rig tomorrow and (sorry) I will have limited internet and communication abilities. However, I will probably be heading off the rig around the 20th of the month, hopefully having learned many many things and having had a really positive experience.

Some things I hope : That Raegan says "Becca" soon. That it gets awesomely warm in Kansas soon and you can gad about in t-shirts and shorts. Also that to all the people I know who are approaching finals (Adam, Tracy, James, Tori, Ginger, Erik), that you rock'em out!

I love you all. I miss you all. And I hope you are having a wonderful week.

Becca