So I’ve been ENFORMed…
Well everyone, back to the grind! It’s been a bit of an adjustment getting back into a routine of sorts, but I think that I’ve been managing quite nicely. I was sort of hoping that my first few days back from holidays would begin in earnest…I guess we don’t always get what we wish for!
I was greeted at the airport by a few friends, and -30 temperatures. That was quite the change from the -5 to +5 weather that I was enjoying in the BC interior. I arrived home at about 5pm…I decided to go to dinner with a friend in Sherwood Park. On my way there, I managed to (slightly) put my car in the ditch, just on the east side of the Beverly Bridge. I wasn’t quite able to drive out, but a few good Samaritans stopped and gave me a bit of a push to get out. I had better pick up one of those tow truck in-a-boxes. Anyhow, I can be thankful that no one was hurt, and no damage was sustained to my car. There was a bit of a shimmy in my steering at first, but it turned out to be snow packed in the wheels.
For the entire week, I will be at the Enform training facility in Nisku doing 2 labs per day. Luckily for us, we have four people in our lab group, which translates to me doing two write ups. That’s not all that bad, but just driving an hour each way, working, and all the while keeping my butt in the gym is actually running me down. It’s always hard for me to get back into the swing of things after a little break. For the past two weeks, I ate and drank pretty well anything and everything that I wanted. To make matters worse, I only made it to the gym twice…tsk tsk!
It’s pretty well going to be non-stop for the next three weeks, as I will be headed to Fort McMurray on a work experience. I’ll be working with Baker Hughes as a technical sales engineer/account representative in the oilsands sector. I’m looking forward to the experience, I’m sure that I will learn a bunch. I’ll be saying with my cousin during my time in McMurray, I’m sure that it will be busy around there. He has two daughters, 9 and 6….needless to say, not too much quiet time for the next few weeks!
I’m still waiting for my grades to get posted online. I guess that’s going to happen sometime around the 16th of this month. I’m holding off on applying for jobs until my 3rd semester marks are posted, I figure my potential employers might want to have an idea of how well that I’m doing this year. I’m fairly confident that I should be able to land a job before I graduate. With the recent drops in the price of crude oil, that may not be an easy reality.
Anyhow, it’s late and I need my beauty rest….I’ll write some more when I get to Fort McMurray!
January 19th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Yeah oil is down and sometimes it’s scray if you work in the oil industry. Many people are saying next year everything will be fixed and the economy will be back on track, oil will be back up to 60 to 70 dollars a barrel. But will it really be fixed? I think jobs in alberta are still pritty strong tho compaired to to other provences. But even if we hover around 50 – 60 dollars a barrel for the next few years alberta should have a good steady work flow and not such a extreme boom as it was, which is not good if it’s to good. Trying to afford a houes these days when they are all over a half a million is way to high!
January 25th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I’m inclined to agree with you there. The boom was really out of control for a while, hopefully the economic downturn will cool things out a little. Really, there will be some advantages to come out of it; first, the rental markets should become a little more affordable…I looked into renting an appartment in McMurray in the event I take a job out there, and prices start in the neighborhood of $2000 a month! Also, it will give employers the opportunity to weed out less than productive employees…half a million for a house? That’s what mobile homes are going for right now!!!