Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Post 100...Accomplishment?

I believe, unless my math is mistaken, that this is my 100th post. I feel like this is kind of impressive for someone has thrown away countless diaries given to her by well meaning relatives because writing down events and things were just too tedious to spend time on.

However more interesting is that 100 is close to the number 103, which is the name of the camp that Schlumberger employees (and some contractors) are currently holed up in someplace in the desert in Libya, trying to wait patiently for evacuation by whatever method(s) the Crisis team for their country is currently cooking up.  If you haven't been able to keep up with the news, the Eastern half of Libya is now taken over by anti-Ghadafi rebels and they are gunning for Tripoli (where, yes, more of our employees are staying in houses).  One recent report from an engineer recalls how he booked a flight out of Libya on Sunday because his friends in East Libya told him to evacuate. Overnight while they were waiting before going to the airport they could hear machine gun fire less that 500 m from their house. Then when they were headed to the airport they were stopped by men with automatic weapons who pointed the guns at him and his wife until they realized they had small children in the car, and allowed them to leave.

It's kind of incredible that we get to be witness to this much history being made! Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Libya...who's next?

In other news, I was told my my manager earlier this week that I might be going to Brunei

 http://maps.google.com.my/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=Brunei

later this week, but I haven't heard anything from him since Monday, so I will just be patient and see. We've heard nothing more from America about when/where I might be going, so I am still wonderfully stuck in limbo for the time being.

I am really bad about remembering to give my address to people who ask for it, so, if you would like it and do not have it :
Rebecca Burns
Schlumberger Asian Supply Base Ranca-Ranca Industrial Estate
Labuan, Malaysia 87008

I had another culinary success this week, which is helping me become incredibly more confident in my abilities to use my oven here. I've always wanted to make lasagna from scratch, but have always been too chicken. So when I found ground (minced!) beef in a market, a small bag of shredded cheese, and pre-cooked lasagna noodles, I thought, "why not?!" Since finding ricotta or cottage cheese is not a possibility here, I looked up recipes that didn't include them. Also, to replace them, I put carrots and green peppers in my filling. Awesome choice because it was delicious!! I made biscuits along with them, and have been taking it to work for lunch which definitely makes my lunches a little wonderful. I also found a chocolate drop cookie recipe that is a success with the technicians and I can't wait to make for you guys sometime.

I had an unexpected guest this week. Ma Jing (my housemate who I rarely see) had some days post-Chinese New Year and pre-rig, so she brought her mom back from China with her to visit. Her mom is a physics teacher in China and a really nice lady all around. She also cooks much more than her daughter. However, Ma Jing had to leave for the rig a day and a half early while her mom stayed in our house. Which, is totally fine, except....her mom speaks almost no english. I definitely speak no Chinese (though I do know how to say "I love you").  The first evening was pretty awkward, but we muddled through with hand gestures, pictures from the internet (THANK YOU INTERNET!) and friendly silence. She taught me how to make won-tons and I taught her how to make chocolate cookies. The second day I came home from work with a headache and she went out to swim, and so there was less interaction, but it was still enjoyable to have her around. She was an incredibly nice person.

Anyway, I should probably start working.  I am so tired though! I just want to sleep :)

Hope you all have a warm relaxing sleep this evening.

Becca

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Chapter in Which the Heroine has an Adventure

Well, a couple actually. I have debated chronological order vs. importance, as both are legitimate listing methods. However, my opinion of something's importance undoubtedly differs from yours (I tend to be dramatic, however, you probably already knew this), so I have decided that chronological order is best.

1) America Status
2) The Five Hour Calibration that was actually Eleven Hours
3) Shredded Cheese!!!!
4) Town Adventures (aka...why I don't like Malaysian Clowns)
5) Rain Runs!

1) No update, actually just thought I'd get this one out of the way. I am crossing my fingers for information this week. We will see!

2) How to even start? Well, in the morning, I guess. If you ever want me to explain what a radioactive calibration is, I can do this in detail that would hopefully not make you fall asleep, but that is definitely not for here. To be succint, every time a significant portion of our tools that use radioactive sources is serviced (or every 3 months...whichever is first), we have to recalibrate the tool with the radioactive material to make sure that the readings we get downhole on a job are not wonky. The set-up for a calibration takes 3 to 4 hours depending on tool size so we do it the day  before. Then the cal. itself is supposed to take max about 5 or 6 hours. A significant number of things went not-quite-right, resulting in my longest workday here thus far. It started at 8 am and ended when I got home at 11:30 that night. I was definitely exhausted but it was actually a pretty fulfilling day. It is the first time I've gotten to do what I was hired to do and that feels pretty nice. Also, we got to do part of it in a rainstorm, and you all know how much I adore precipitation :)  High points of the day included eating popcorn on the floor of the radiation shack with the 3 other engineers and laughing about language barrier issues. Also, when the calibration finally passed! Low point was probably the 3rd or 4th hour we spent trying to troubleshoot the issues the tool was having that were resulting in its not passing.

3) During that day we did head to town briefly to get lunch while the electrician was fixing one of the issues we couldn't. In that time I went to a market called "Utama Jaya" and found popcorn in bags, lasagna noodles, and shredded cheese! In a bag! It was an awesome moment in my day. Also, I realized that "minced" beef that I have never tried because no one here could explain to me what minced beef was, is actually ground beef! New meat source is now in existence for me and I am pretty darn excited.

4) As I wondered through town today I found a pineapple in an open air market and a bottle of wine in a duty free shop. Carefree and happy I passed a group of tents selling drinks for one ringgit so I got some Milo (kinda like chocolate milk). Then as I was only 200 feet from the "mall" I saw him; The Malaysian Clown. I will be honest, I liked clowns until I was about 9, and afterwards thought they were a little creepy. Then I saw Supernatural episode with a clown killer. Now, I am just not a fan. I tried to signal politely to the clown that I didn't want to play and instead of nicely taking the hint, he decided to block my way instead. Either side of the sidewalk I moved to he wouldn't let me pass. And it didn't help that this non-clowny buddies (about 5 or 6 of them) were egging him on. So when I was about 2 feet away I leaned forward and said, "You really don't want to do this today." He looked surprised, then sad, then he moved on. I felt momentary guilt for making a clown sad, but then, I expressively and silently indicated I did not want to be interacted with, so I blame it on him :) Also, I am glad there was a peaceful resolution. I really didn't want to lose either my pineapple or bottle of wine from throwing it at him.

5) Finally, I got to run for the first time today in a Malaysian precipitation event! Usually I catch the sprinkles beforehand or the dark clouds and breeze, but never the rain itself. Now I can officially say I have done it!!! I am a Malaysian Rain Runner! And it is so much fun. The rain is not cold, but not hot, and it falls in just the right amounts.  So, all in all, it was a wonderful run.

AND, all in all, my weekend was a success! It contained sleep, work, adventure, and a fun date with Adam, so I can go to work this week and be excited about doing things again (or so I hope!). 

Have a wonderful Sunday and I wish an adventure for everyone!

Love you

Becca

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Thursday in life, brought to you by random Malaysian Medicines!

First, I would like to brag very quickly. I just set a new record for "Most Hours Slept in One Day Since New Years Day Two Years ago." I believe the new number is 18. And believe me, it was wonderful. And I slept relatively early last night. :)

Now lets go back in time.

Monday was, of course, Valentines day and it was actually pretty nice. I had bought myself some American chocolate in advance and it's not super celebrated on this side of the world. Adam and I did make Valentines Day cards for each other and we showed/read them over skype which turned out to be pretty fun. He is definitely more artistically talented than me, but that is all I will say. I had a good 36 hours of Valentines day because I had all of mine, plus, I got to sneak order pizza for dinner for Adam in Manhattan to end out my Valentines Day experience when it was already Tuesday morning (my time). The rest of it was just normal work. My manager has been gone for a week, so some days it is kind of difficult to motivate myself to work at all, really, but I am trying. It helps that he came back this morning, so...TO THE GRINDSTONE!

Tuesday night I made spaghetti with unfrozen chicken from the market and promptly 3 hours later I started feeling sick to my stomach. Thus began the next 24 hour of not-feeling-good. This was compounded by a weird allergic reaction/rash on my legs that has been bothering me for about a week (promise I won't start complaining about my kidneys and failing eyesight too!). I kept thinking these things would go away so, of course, I didn't go to the doctor. I know there is a new Klinik here that is much better than Klinik Wilayah, but...I really just don't enjoy doctors visits here.

So, I went to sleep, woke up and decided against being miserable at work, then went back to sleep for multiple hours. Woke up again, ate something and promptly felt sick, then had to promise Adam I would call the doctor immediately (under the threat that he harass me about it instead of going to sleep until I did), which I did. A van dropped me off about 20 minutes later and after a short-ish (for Malaysia) wait, the doctor gave me several opinions:

a) I had bad bacteria again
b) I looked skinnier
c) I probably had an allergic reaction
d) Coconut oil ROCKS

Part (d) only occurred because he decided to spend 20 minutes of the interview espousing it's awesomeness and incredible healing properties. And he gave me a prescription to get a bottle from the counter.

And shockingly enough, the combination of anti-itch meds, a random cream whose purpose I do not know, and the coconut oil do amazing things in 16 hours and I am feeling much better today, if still really tired. Hopefully by the weekend I will be as good as new.

I revisited an aerobics class on Monday that I'd participated in once last fall. It was very fun, tiring, and I really do want to go back again. It takes place Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about an hour. We do marching, jumping, kicking, and shaking and I dislike messing up the steps because the teacher then calls you out by name in order to correct you. She also has a very decided Chinese accent so I have to control my urge to laugh out loud every time she counts down, "Fow, Tree, Two, Von." She is awesome, though, so I promise I am not making fun of her, just enjoying myself while I exercise!

Today is the last day of Chinese New Year (HOORAY!). It is definitely the loudest holiday I've ever seen that never seems to end. The groups of people beating drums in the back of trucks has definitely increased, and I'm told that tonight will be especially noisy.  I am going to go outside my house tonight to watch a Buddha statue be carried past my house from one temple to the next. That is, if I don't fall asleep first. :) I definitely am planning on a nap after work regardless of anything!  Also on the plan for this evening : Chicken soup! I am going to be making homemade noodles and everything. Hopefully (a) it will taste good and (b) it will last for at least a couple days of leftovers.

Oh yes, finally, job update. We are still waiting (of course), but Shwetha (the training manager here) has sent a letter to America saying that they want me to work there so we will see what happens now. Hopefully something will happen and it will happen soon!! In the meantime I will continue to work on my breakout presentation and making sure I am 100 percent confident with the material I am supposed to know.

I wish for you all a thunderstorm like the one we had last evening!

Love you.

Becca

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Success!

Soooo...spa = awesome! Cathy and I went to work for the morning and then once the clock it twelve...KA-BLAM! Outta there. After picking up some contact solution (did you know distilled water kind of does the same job for 4 or 5 days?) I decided to walk the 5 blocks down to the ferry terminal instead of taking a cab (yes, I am that lazy sometimes. Plus, it is hot outside and cabs are cheap).  The next two hours were awesome! A full body massage (after which I didn't think I could move) and then a full facial/massage-thing. I honestly didn't know it was possible to massage a face for an hour. At the end I am pretty sure I was totally up for a nap, but instead we were kicked out (very politely, of course) by the nice masseuse ladies.

Of course, after such a great afternoon I had no urge to do anything for the rest of the day, so...I didn't. Instead of being productive, I bought flour, sugar, butter and made a double batch of cookies!!

And watched the entire first season of "How I Met Your Mother."

Game, set, match, Saturday. I rocked you!

Hope your Saturdays were also wonderful.

Love,

Becca

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Whoever said you couldn't buy your own Valentines Day Spa gift....

So. Here's the deal. I may think that some things are over-the-top when it comes to our wonderful holiday celebrating romantic love, however, I definitely appreciate parts of it. These parts mainly come in the form of SPA DISCOUNTS! Example: here on my little island in the ferry terminal (of all places...) is a spa called the Lembah Imbian. In honor of Valentines day, if you buy a 100 Ringgit-30 USD voucher (gift certificate) you can get a free back massage. Ok, I know that you are supposed to buy them for your significant other or something, but as mine is 30 hours worth of plane flights away, I think it is entirely acceptable for me to get one for myself. Then I get to take advantage of the voucher and the free massage at the same time. I fail to see how this is anything other than a win-win situation. Also, I am influencing the minds of my single or in-a-relationship-but-practically-single-by-way-of-distance female friends at work in order to get them to voin me in this venture. Currently there are one or two people who are eyeing it positively. I will update you on my success!

I have been pretty tired for the past couple of days but am not quite sure why. I would attribute this to my excellent work ethic and the 150 percent effort I have been making at the office, but I don't want to be struck by lightning or to have my nose grow multiple inches. I think I will blame the rice and rice noodles instead. People in America would take 1.5 hr lunches every day too if they had to eat rice for their main course.

I am still questing for yarn on the island. In general I am getting dumbfounded looks and requests for the spelling and use in a sentence, but there have been a couple of people who have an idea. I am going to follow a lead at the "mall" tonight and see if it turns out to be successful.  If not, there is another place whose name no one seems to remember that they SWEAR it should be at. I am skeptical of their confidence. They also told me that they had ketchup and oven thermometers here and these things are not generally true (at least to my knowledge).

We have our 2nd new, Western store on the island! It is a super super small GNC, but whenever I see it I think of James and smile a little bit to myself. I might take a picture of it and post it in a couple of days. Oh! It is also right next to the Body Shop, the two most Western retail stores on the island are keeping each other company. So adorable :)

I have found books from America in a store here which was also an exciting moment. I did end up paying about 15/20 dollars for each paperback, but I think it is a purchase worth making. I miss having something to do in the evenings besides run, play tetris, and watch one of the 4 different versions of Top Model that they play circularly on one of the few English speaking channels. I just finished Michael Crichton's final book, "Pirate Latitudes" which was not his best, but definitely a distracting read. Now I am re-reading a book I initially finished about 2 years ago, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." Enjoying it much more the second time around!

I contacted a lady named Josie this afternoon. She is the wife of an ex-pat who is working for SLB in Labuan. She meets with a group of 12 to 15 women/wives of oil field workers every Thursday morning and I've been invited to join them. I figure I will just be late on that day and then work a little later. It will be SO worth it to get to meet and spend time with women from countries that aren't in Asia. I will casually drop the word "yarn" into conversation at some point, just so I can see the looks of recognition on their faces :)

Well, it is almost time to head home from work. I think today is an inside-workout sort of day as the sky looks like it is about and hour to two hours from releasing some more torrential rain.  Woohoo !!!! I really love the rain here.

Hope you are having a non-precipatory day.

Love,

Becca

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Tortuosity : Best Word of the Day. Ever.

Tortuosity is defined as a twisted or crooked part, passage, or thing.

I happened upon it this morning while reading a document over Shocks and Vibrations that I had forgotten about the majority of information in. Never again! Mainly because it is full of cool, fun words. In addition to tortuosity, we also have some others I especially like, such as torsion, magnetometer, chassis, chaotic, mitigation, restitution, lubricity (!), trajectory, and contractual. I know several of these are normal sorts of words, but they are still fun anyway.

I spent my morning reviewing things and taking care of some work house keeping while listening to the lovely bangs and stomping going on overhead. Currently there is a massive renovation project going on at our base, and as of last week sometime they have been working directly overhead in the office. I am quite thankful for the banging, actually, becuase at least it is not power saws (which were being used last week).

I have finished all of my control cards at this point, and have begun working solely on shop training in order to get it finished before i go out to any rigs. This part isn't so bad. I learn something and then go down and talk to or work with the technicians in order for them to verify that I understand the information. Kind of like college still, but more low key. I am still waiting on the word from the US tellin me whether or not I will be allowed to go on loan there, but in the mean time I requested admission for my second school in the US  in September. Well, actually, I requested it several weeks ago but it had not been approved by my manager, so I went to him today to ask why. Apparently he had just not seen the email for approval when it was sent. So, after he searched for about 10 minutes through his email in order to find it, I am officially enrolled in Scope School in Houston, Tx for September of this year! We will see if there will be any last minute changes, but it is a ways off, so I am not worried about that yet. :)

There has been some incredible amounts of precipitation in Labuan lately. The most recent example I have is that it rained for almost 48 hours straight, with the intensity generally at the level where I cannot watch any TV shows because the satellite is out. This is ok with me because I have a lot of movies and tv shows on my external hard drive (Thanks Helen and Ross!!!) and intense rain is good for intense napping. Currently outside the sky looks kind of a sickly yellow blue, as if it can't really decide if it wants to downpour again, or if it is done throwing a fit. Only time will tell!

Finally, I am so excited that the Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl! Even more exciting : Jordy Nelson plays for them!!!!!!!! So I am really looking forward to going home this evening and looking at pictures and highlights while I am relaxing.

I hope you are all well and enjoying a good sleep right now.

Love you guys!

Becca

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Happy Chinese New Year

Or, as my Chinese friend spelled it to me so I could actually pronounce it, "Gong Si Fa Chai" And no, that is definitely not the correct spelling, just pronunciation.

I hope you are all warm and safe in your respective locations right now. I have been stalking the storm as it destroys the States and showing pictures to my friends here who have never seen snow. One of them is going to Houston for school and she has never been out of Malaysia before so I predict she will be extraordinarily cold. I suggested that she invest in a Northface jacket when her plane lands. I hope she enjoys it. All of my foreign engineer friends here are always extremely excited to go to school in the US because for most of them it is probably the only time they will ever get to go because getting a visitor's visa is really difficult for them. 

I have been craving Hari Raya cookies ever since, well, Hari Raya last fall, so I have started searching them on the internet and I think that I have soom good potential recipes. My only current issue is that I need an oven thermometer so I can tell what temperature my oven is actually cooking at since the knob for temperature is a little loose. Finding one in Labuan has been a bust so far, but I haven't given up hope. This leads me to my new favorite hobby :

Walking around the shops in town and randomly asking them for things I am sure they don't have, but the dumbfounded looks on their faces is AWESOME.

Oven thermometer is one of these things. I have to explain the words, and then how it works. My favorite so far has got to be the one time I asked if they knew of a store where I could buy yarn. They looked at me like I was crazy and they couldn't even pronounce yarn after I did. Of course then I spelled it, tried to explain the concept of "yarn" and what it was used for. I almost gave them the part of speech and used it in a sentence, but then I would've had to explaint he concept of "crochet" and it seemed like too much effort so I gave up. I guess this means I will have to load up on yarn the next time I get to go home. I really want to work on projects so I am getting psyched in advance.

I am really glad Chinese New Year has finally arrived actually because it has been a long build up to it. Starting in early January the local people of Chinese heritage/ethnicity start driving around the neighborhoods beating on what sounds like large garbage can lids and yelling. Every night. Also they practice something that involves loud beating gong things at the local Chinese get-together place

I have started my slow slide into working out regularly again, which is nice. I pretty much stopped right before the end of Eng-1 and then refused to be physically active while I was home. I am enjoying it for the most part, except when I think about how slow and what a short distance I am running. I will improve! I even just bought workout music off of iTunes because (a) I am not good at downloading music illegally and (b) it kind of kills 3 or 4 minutes of a run when you are pumped up from a song and the second you hit a hill your music slows down again.

Job-wise, I am still pretty frustrated right now. We have not heard from America and as you all know I am not a patient person. Also, I joined this company because it is dynamic and you can move ahead and blah blah blah. However, I feel like this isn't happening. I am just waiting and doing nothing truly productive and this is hugely frustrating for me. I don't want to waste my or the company's time and I feel like both of these things are happening right now. However, as this problem isn't immediately fixable, I will just try to not think about it and keep on running this hill. I have to crest it eventually.

Besides this my life is kind of normal. It has been raining a lot recently which is ok with me, and I have been discovering new and fun ways to incorporate potatoes and carrots (popular veggies here) into my diet. I eat waayyy more vegetables now than I ever did in the U.S.

Well, I love you all and hope you are not stuck in ditches someplace. And yes, please save a snowball for me :)

Becca