A 2013 Roundup

I’m having a hard time believing that 2013 is coming to an end. I still write 2012 on things about half the time. Clearly last year I was in denial that another year had come and gone. This year I’m determined to meet the New Year with a little more acceptance. My tactic? A classic 2012 2013 wrap up.

Things that happened in 2013:

Four of my best friends got married to each other. (in pairs, don’t worry...)

I was very blessed to be able to witness the marriages of first Robert and Melinda in May and Alison and Will in October. Robert and Melinda had a small, beautiful wedding in the mountains that was probably the most fun weekend I’ve had all year. Alison and Will gave me a beautiful picture of what marriage means in God’s Kingdom. Even as I’ve been struggling to keep God in my day to day life amid this crazy life, Alison and Will always manage to remind me what life looks like following Jesus and why it’s worth such a wild ride.

Alison, Melinda and I all met freshman year of college and bonded over various adventures that have no place being written down. I’ve loved having these two ladies in my life even as I’ve moved very far away to Mexico. I’m also so proud to say that I can call each of their husbands true friends. I can’t wait to see how marriage treats them all and the lessons I can learn from them going first!

I travelled. A lot.

One of the reasons I chose to work in Mexico is because it would give me the opportunity to travel more. Luckily I’ve been able to take advantage of that more this year (and hopefully a lot more next year!) I started my year off taking a cruise with Katelyn who works for SLB as a wireline engineer in North Dakota. We started in Miami and sailed for a couple of days before getting off in St Thomas, then US Virgin Islands and Jamaica.  It was great! We relaxed by the pool, had some very tasty food, spent some time at the spa and did some shopping.

On Job Frustrations

A Note: This is a continuation from my post last week. I began to write this, depressed myself, wrote the other one to cheer up, and the returned to this one to finish it. This is about the hard moments that come between the triumphs. 

My job gets harder when my voice gets silenced by (well meaning) coworkers who speak for me. My voice gets silenced usually because I don’t speak Spanish enough to completely keep up with everything.  On every rig is someone(s) who gets upset with having to repeat things even once. Many find it easier to just go around me; to ask my secondhand (who often has far less experience than me) for things, or ask my coworker to ask me for things (often relayed from Spanish to Spanish) or to just refuse to talk to me completely. When this happens it frustrates me to no end. 

Frustrates might not be the correct word. It kills me. It absolutely destroys me each and every time I receive indication that I am not competent to do my job. I love my job. And I’m good at it. I know this because I work hard at it. I am competent to do my job, in English and in Spanish. And every time I receive signals that I’m not… it hurts and I feel more silenced.

I have more than the language working for and against me.  This may be a surprise, but women are not treated equally in the oilfield. It’s a fact, a truth that no one who has been on a rig or platform anywhere in the world will debate with you.  The debate centers around whether that makes it easier or harder to be a woman in the field.  Do I always have help picking up heavy things? Yes. Do I always have a rig hand helping me do the most mundane task like measuring the drillpipe joint? Yes. Does this make my life easier? Sure. 

However, I’m still not convinced the advantages outweigh the benefits.

Fishing Trip

I've been on a very frustrating rig the last two weeks. And I have a post about it. But I feel the need to balance it out with the good. So first I want to talk about the moments that are so good and sweet that I can’t help but love what I’m doing.  During these moments I feel so strongly that God has led me to be exactly where I am so I can do exactly what I’m doing. It’s these moments I hold on to when I’m having a bad day in the field. Or when I've been working for 3 months straight with not enough rest time and am burnt out. Or when the frustrations feel like too much and I can’t see past the situation to what might be waiting on the other side.

One of these moments was at the end of a fishing trip.  Sounds job unrelated right? Wrong! One of our tools I run quite a bit and I've developed a reputation here for knowing it well.  This is mostly because I've seen it fail in the most spectacular ways and can now diagnose problems quickly. It’s what’s called a ‘retrievable tool’.  This means that even if you are unable to get part of the BHA or the drillstring to be removed, you can still pull this tool up the inside of the pipe.  (The picture below might help clarify... it's a little hard to explain) Since the beginning I've said I want to retrieve or ‘fish’ a SlimPulse tool. And everyone has laughed at me because it’s only happened once in this location before. Until about two months ago that is.  When I fished the second one.

A Note on the Cold..

Undoubtedly, whenever I mention that I'm from Alaska, the first comment I get is something about how cold it must be there and why people go there and subject themselves to such a thing. This is my answer about what it feels like, what life is like in the cold, and most importantly, why.

When I arrived in Anchorage it was not terribly cold. It was around freezing (so 32 or 0, pick your unit system).  This is a temperature experienced by many at some point in their lives. It's not bad. You step outside and see your breath; your nose gets cold after a while.  If you're skiing or doing something physical, it's surprisingly easy to overheat, shed layers, and then freeze because all that sweat you've been working up freezes when you take off your jacket to cool down. An unfortunately side effect of hovering near freezing is rain.

Yes, it rained while I was in Alaska. In December. I went skiing that day and so I was going up and down the mountain. I'd start at the bottom with the rain, get soaked and then riding up the chair lift, it would change slowly into ice and then finally snow at the top.  Then of course the whole process goes in reverse while snowboarding down. By the end of the day I was soaking wet through three layers and my down-jacket was practically useless. In Alaska, wet and cold spells hypothermia and disaster much faster than simple cold does.