A QUICK CHEMISTRY LESSON...

I have now finished my first week of work at Ecka Granules in GeorgeTown near Launceston. I lost count of the number of times that the word "explosion" was mentioned in the orientation. There have been several aluminium powder plants, and this is the only one to have not blown up. Unreacted powdered aluminium is phenomenally lethal. Combined with water it reacts violently in an initial explosion as Al2O3 is formed, leaving Hydrogen gas from the water, which ignites in a secondary explosion. So there's a massive potential violent explosion - but the risk with the safety systems in place is now negligible. It's one of those things where people have put a phenomenal amount of work into creating a safe working environment.

So I've been flat out working on projects, cataloguing blast vents, being inducted and getting up at ridiculous times of day - 6:30 every morning. So, it's also been pretty exhausting.

And my blogging has suffered. I think I'm going to resort to only weekend blogging cos I don't have internet access afterhours.

Last night was a really good night - the Balderdash game was great fun - but I've never finished a game. Anyway, gotta get cracking.

I told you it was boring when I talk about umpiring...

I'm finally back in training for the footy season. I assume I'm not going to get a trial for VFL, so that sucks, but it would be nice to have people wondering why the hell I didn't. I can't say I've got a lot of respect at the moment for the VFL bureaucracy. It seems like they just have a look at you, if they like you, you're in, if not, you don't hear a word from them. And I didn't hear anything from them about this coming preseason, so it looks like I'm going to have to take a lot of initiative.

Apparently they've changed the rules again (they change almost every year - it seems like they always change to go against me) so you need to do the top local grand final to get a trial. Of course I got shafted from the top grannie because I lost a fair bit of fitness because of my studies. That hurt a fair bit because of the ridiculous amount of work I put in during the preseason. It was one of those things where you put heaps in, do everything that you're told to do and then get told... nothing. And you get absolutely nothing out of it. Was it all a waste of time? I don't know.

But it was a combination of that, looking at my studies, my music, my writing, my sport, my life that resulted in me feeling really depressed. It's like I'm ok at anything I try, but never good enough to be good. That unintentional mediocrity. I'm at the point where I have almost managed to prove my career's advice councillor person wrong - getting through three quarters of my engineering degree with no passion whatsoever. That has proved to be a huge motivation to keep going. (The story goes that Mrs Viney, whom some of you might know, asked me what I was planning to do after college. I responded "engineering". She responded "you need a lot of passion to do engineering". That has been a major motivation for sticking with engineering.)

But I suppose I have to try to do God's will, and let him guide me. But he seems excessively subtle at this point in time.

Anyway, I've got to go and pack because I'm buggering off to Lonnie tomorrow, to start my 2-3 month work experience stint.

All 2-hour students stop work now

It's all over. I can sit back and start stressing cos I've gotta head up to Lonnie - I'm working in George Town for the summer at a company called Ecka Granules. They do aluminium stuff - powder paints, aluminium alloys and I think they mentioned explosives, too. Should be quite interesting. I'm missing out on heaps this summer, so I've gotta make this job really exciting so that I don't feel it's been a waste of time, or get depressed cos I'm missing out on my diving, running and ab-fests and fry-ups.

There still should be time for ab and trumpeter.

Sobs, sighs and gunshots...

One more to go. Heat transfer lecturer should be shot. Twice. Or more.

How is it possible to have four or five days to study for a subject and come into the exam to find that one hasn't actually studied for any of the questions on it?

Is the fact that nobody that I have spoken to was happy with the exam a good thing? Maybe for me it is... Maybe.

And to give an even better reflection of my frustration, due to lack of trying, I failed to crack the 170 mark in minesweeper, so even my procrastination was limited.

I don't want to do that subject again next year...

Minesweeper

Times are tough. I've had to revert to minesweeper for procrastination - my poison of choice in matric. If only I could get the same marks as back then . Anyway, what are the best times going around at the mo???

Back in the day I managed to pump out an expert in 135s intermediate in 43s and beginner in 4s, now, I've become old fat and slow - 175s for the expert, 45s for intermediate and 6s for beginner.

I'd better keep y'all updated as the times come rattling down. I hope to be in the 160s before my exam on Wednesday...