Oh, yeah. This thing.
So, I received an e-mail from
Trouble inquiring about where I am, whether I'm still alive etc. since I apparently fell of the face of the earth. I figured I'd let anyone who actually checks this know what I've been up to.
I went into the bush around the middle of January, and spent a month in camp. It was "interesting times", with lots of problems with camp infrastructure: we had two camp generators break on us, which is not good when we have combination diesel-electric furnaces heating our trailers. We also had a great deal of difficulty with the plumbing and furnace in our washcar...to the best of my knowledge that
should be all fixed now. We'll see. I'm happy to report that our new cook, Kent (whom some of you may know), has been working out pretty well, and even under some difficult conditions at times he's done a good job and seems to be enjoying himself.
Currently I'm in Ottawa (well, Gatineau, QC to be more precise) for a modular course that is part of my Masters of MinEx program. I left camp on Feb. 14th, then spent a day in Toon Town before flying out here. I was scheduled to fly out at 8 a.m. on Friday, the 16th, and got to the airport around 7. I was lucky that I did; the attendent at the check-in desk said that my flight was really running late, so I got bumped onto flight leaving in about 15 minutes, and got upgraded to executive class, a first for me! Executive class was kind of nice: I was seated right at the front of the plane, they took my jacket from me to be hung up and then brought it to me near the end of the flight, there was more room, and I got a decent meal. Not bad at all.
My original flight was scheduled to go through Winnipeg, and would get me into Ottawa around 1:30, and the revised flight plan went through Toronto, and would get me in about 20 minutes early. Of course, the plane was late leaving Toronto, so I ended up getting in right around the same time I would've got in anyway. Eh. Whatever works.
I'm staying with my friends Greg and Jenn, who have been kind enough to put me up in their apartment. I was best man for Greg at their wedding last summer, and this is the first time I've seen them since then. It's been nice visiting with them a little in the evenings.
The course I'm taking is out of the University of Ottawa, an 8 day course consisting of four two-day modules on Hydrothermal Ore Deposits. It's been pretty good, and well attended with ~45-50 participants. The majority of the participants are masters students, but there are some undergrads from the U of Ottawa, four people from my program, a few PhD students and some industry participants. Twelve universities are represented, from as far away as Munich, and I believe one participant is here from Australia. I also know of at least one student here from the U.S., and students from as far away as Vancouver within Canada, so there's quite a diverse group here.
There've been a few familiar faces at the course, and I've been having a good time meeting some other students as well. The course involves 6 1/2 hrs of lectures today between 8:30-5, with two half-hour breaks and an hour break for lunch. Each day we have a short assignment, in addition to a take-home exam which covers the entire course, although they decided to give us the exam questions early so we could get a start on them. Most nights I've stayed until 8 or 8:30 in the evening working on the assignments and take-home exam questions with a couple of other students (from UBC and U of S), but I took off a little bit earlier tonight. Seven days in a row of 12 hours+ at the university are starting to take their toll, and none of us who had stayed to work were getting much done, so we figured it was best to take a break.
Tomorrow is the last day of the class, and then I fly back to Saskatoon on Sunday morning. After that I spend a day at home before I return to the field. In a way, being in the bush will be a nice break, it should be fairly restful. There are definitely perks to being out there: you get up, you work, and if there's time, relax a little in the evening. However, you don't have to worry about traffic, shopping, money...you just do your job. I have something to look forward to, because I'll only have about two and a half weeks in the field before I get to come out for a week, and then I'll get a chance to go down to Regina and see Christine for a couple of days!
After that, I'll be back up in the bush for the end of the program, but it'll be finished before too much longer, somewhere around early April.
There, all updated!
