All right, the internet hates me so I can't post pics right now, I will try to get them on Facebook though, so check there.

Okay so I have finished my first full shift or “swing” at work in Newman. It’s hot there. Quite pretty, but very hot. And just to make things even hotter, we have interesting PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) requirements, not the least of which is long pants, long sleeve shirts and steel toed boots. It’s not really all that bad, without the long sleeves and pants I'd probably burn to a crisp sunblock or not, but it takes some getting used to.

I did get heat stress or sickness in the “normal” course of my job, but it was fairly mild - a little stomach cramping and headaches. I have normal in quotes in the last sentence because I am still being trained and I think the training geologist (Bryce) was looking out for me a bit – we had some extended yute-time with the air conditioner on. Yay for air conditioning! Bryce was also our driver, as I am not allowed to drive on site just yet - there was a 45min drive from site to camp and I often napped, Bryce was a little bitter ;-)

Oh, and a yute (I think that’s how it is spelled) is what we use for work vehicles here. Smaller than a truck, with a wider open bed that has sides that can be lowered on 3 sides instead of one. Interesting but nearly as much fun as an F-350. Mmmmmmmmm, F-350. So pretty……..

So in my 9 days on the job I had training on 4 of them, spent ~5 running around drill pads and learning how to log chips and sit the drill, RC style. I got very dirty. Very very dirty. The dirt here is very red and fine, it blows around easily. Now mix that with the constant sweat brought on by 40C temperatures (30C now feels reasonable or cool to me) and a job that requires digging around in freshly pulverized rock and dirt most of the day……. I end up very, very dirty. It’s kind of awesome.

So in my working group I have Margaret, my boss, Nathalie a more senior geologist, Camilla, our lone boy, Stewart, and myself. Stewart is very out numbered and envied in some corners - he's turning 23 soon, hehe, we will warp his view of women, I am sure. The other working groups have more guys than ours does; we seem to be the anomaly.

On my break I managed to get out and be social, going out to the bars on Friday - people dress up here, alot. A lot of dresses and VERY high heels. Seriously, the shoes you get here are what I've been calling "tranny hooker shoes" - platform spike heels, often in rainbow metallics of with an S&M flavour to them. Honestly, I'v met a couple transvestite "hostesses" who would go nuts for this stuff. Gotta love living in Vancouver.

So I went shopping - bought terribly tall shoes, looked at dresses and managed to get .... used to the idea of dressing up. I don't like it, but I'll consider it. Seriously though? What the hell happened to going to a pub, and getting a beer? All that requires is ........ jeans, and maybe a nicer shirt, possibly cute shoes. I like Australia, but this is going to irritate the f*ck out of me. There was a whole conversation with the girls I went out with about how often you wash hair - and it was not about it being clean, it was about how to style it and how you know you need to wash it when the curls get matted. WTF?!?!?!?!?! I'm sure they are quite nice, really.

I also managed to get out to Fremantle to hang out with a friend (of the normal variety) on Sunday. There were beers in the micro-brewery and shopping for ridiculous t-shirts and silly dresses. Much more my speed. I was with a friend I met in my gravel road driving class last break, she's quite nice and very snarky about other peoples clothing issues. I felt quite at home :-)

I also got some settling in things done on my break - got my first Aussie credit card, got my Aussie drivers licence, had my cultural introduction training for Australia and booked my tickets home for Heather's wedding in July. I feel quite accomplished right now, haha.

Well, I think that's it for now, I am off to camp tomorrow and I will try and figure out how to blog posts from my iPhone - I think it's possible, heh - so I can keep these things a little shorter.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee.