Field Camp Weeks 1-4

Week 1

Picking back up where we left off, we find James on his way to a grand field trip! They drove for several hours to arrive at the first destination, the Beaver Dam Mountains, which are located in southwestern Utah. Here are some pictures James took the first week. He also wrote a description under some of the pictures of any interesting geological features.

Here's an interesting geological feature. (Note: James did not write this one.)

A channel cut by a stream. You can see different horizontal deposits (layers) of varying sizes. The size of material in the deposits can give a clue to the velocity of the water. The larger the size, the faster the water was moving.

Folding has occurred in this rock (notice the white quartzite that has a nice bend in it).

More folding (this is a metamorphic rock--it was heated and put under a lot of pressure and ductily deformed).

Week 2

This week they stayed in the Beaver Dam Mountains until the end of the week and then moved to a Boy Scout campground near Zion National Park. It was pretty hot for them, 

Sandstone--you can see where the ripples (essentially small sand dunes) were overlain with more ripples. This is called Cross Trough Stratification, or CTS for short.

Tumble weed invaded a small test hole that miners dug 80 or so years ago.

OW OW!!! Just lookat that hair. And that scruff. And the general handsomeness in that picture.

More metamorphic deformation. Pencil for scale.

Overlook outside of Zion National Park

At the end of the second week on Saturday, I drove down with my friend Angelique. Her husband, Matt, was also on the field camp with James. Thanks to Dad for letting me drive his incredibly pleasing Infiniti (James didn't want me to drive the Oldsmobile all the way down there, he was worried it would overheat or break down). It was a fun road trip! But even more fun was seeing James after 2 weeks!! 

He knew that we were coming, so he got a hotel room for that night. It was really nice to not sleep in a tent. James was most especially happy, because that's what he had to do for the two weeks before and after that night.

We went to church and then hung around for the rest of Sunday. That day was my introduction to Nerts, and also to Indiana Jones. I got to adventure around with James, looking at some cool rocks, plants, and a stream. We also tried roasting some homemade marshmallows that my mom made! (They didn't quite expand like regular ones, they melted pretty quick.)

Finally, we headed back home to Provo so Angelique could get to work on Monday morning. It was a most excellent weekend!

Week 3

The third week, they stayed at the same Boy Scouts camp near Hurricane, Utah, but researching in a different area than in week 2. In this area they found some pretty cool stuff!

Abandoned hydroelectric generator outside of Hurricane , Utah

Flaser Ripples

A text book example of a compressional stress fracture.

Week 4

The last week of being out in the field, James and his class went to Delta, which is a pretty interesting place geologically because there were once volcanoes there.

James found some little creatures too!

And his TA found a creeper...!

No, the snake is not the TA. Smart Alec.

It rained several nights and a couple of the days, and even hailed once. James took a video as the class waited under a pavilion. 

And of course, it's simply not possible to have such a large group of geologists and such a large group of rocks, all in such a large wilderness, without this happening...

Although I said it was a 6-week field camp, it was actually a 6-week class, where the second to last week was spent at home and on campus, compiling and analyzing all the data they gathered out in the field. The last week was actually 4 days spent down in Delta, Utah doing a seismic survey and some more geologic mapping. This was essentially the capstone class for the geology major, and now that it's over James has only 2 classes left in order to graduate! More about that later. Good job, James!!!!!

Winning Some Bread

The reason our blog dropped off the face of the Earth at the end of June was, of course, not at all my fault. It was right about that time that I received a job offer which I accepted, and ever since then I have been "far too busy" to blog.

It happened like this. I didn't love student teaching or substituting, which might be why I didn't write about it very much. Overall it was a daily wild rollercoaster of emotion that I didn't want to handle for an entire year. Toward the end of the school year as I was finishing up a month-long substituting position, the school offered me a job.

Ironically this was the school I had applied for in December of 2014 and didn't get the job. By this time I was really not thrilled about the idea of staying another year. I had mixed feelings. My parents helped me a lot to decide. One thing they asked was, "If the school called you right now and said never mind, the job has been filled by someone else, would you feel disappointed or relieved?" The answer was 100% relieved.

I kind of felt trapped in the teaching profession. What I really felt like was a prison warden. It was way too draining. I have finally decided that my biggest reason for not teaching is that I can't tell my students: "If you don't want to be here, then leave." It would make all the difference for me.

So I declined the job and then began applying for other jobs. I had a nice month of relaxation interspersed with interviews. At long last I received two job offers. One was a data-entry/set-up-account-y type of job, which is really right up my alley, and the other was a bookkeeper at a publishing company. The pay was almost the same, and actually very comparable to a first-year teacher's salary in Utah. But the data entry job would be in a cubicle, while the publishing company job was in an office. The data entry job sounded nice, but the bookkeeping job sounded challenging. Done deal! And so I was hired by Cedar Fort, the publishing company, on June 29.

It was exhausting at first because of the learning curve and the training. It took me a few weeks to figure out what in the world was going on. Then a few more weeks to feel competent at doing it. Now I am feeling quite good about everything. Officially I do accounts receivable. I'm in charge of keeping track of money received by the company, and of contacting customers about their accounts with the company. I also do payroll and benefits. Here's what I like about my job:

• My coworker/manager Hersshy, who is in charge of accounts payable. We work in the same office, so she's basically the only person who understands what happens all day long. I'm glad I can commiserate with her as well as have fun and talk about non-worky things. She is resigned to the fact that she must always answer the phone like this: "Hi, this is Hersshy. How can I -- ...Hersshy. Yes. Like the chocolate."
• My other coworkers. Cedar Fort is a really friendly place. I like feeling like I "fit in" at work and enjoy getting to know the other people.
• My schedule. It is an 8-5 job but I have a lot of leeway with what I do and when, because nobody is just sitting there watching me. I'm also super glad I can come home to James and do something fun instead of having to make lesson plans or grade papers. 
• The LDS atmosphere. They publish a lot of books and gifts geared towards an LDS audience and sell a lot of product to places like Deseret Book and Seagull Book. There are pictures of Jesus all over the building and they begin meetings with prayers. I know I really take this for granted because I've only ever worked at BYU, but I'm lucky to work at such a great company.

I might go back to teaching some day, and am planning to keep renewing my teaching license. So far I still don't regret the decision to not teach. Sometimes I feel like a teaching-apostate when people ask "So where are you teaching these days?" and I have to explain. But every time I think "I could be a teacher right now" I feel really happy that I'm doing something else. Besides, I know I can use my teaching skills when I have my own kids some day.

And with that we shall proceed to blog like the wind and finish up the year of 2015.

Field Camp Week Zero

Looks like Indiana Jones is packing to leave on a big adventure...

(Except not really, because he would've just brought a brief case and a whip.)

Really though, this is a picture of some stuff James packed for his field camp. In case I forgot to mention it to everybody in the world, James had a four-week-long field trip back in May for his geology capstone class. They drive all over Utah looking at geological sites and things like that. 

Buuuuut they leave their spouses at home. At the time he was leaving, I was halfway done with my long-term substitute job. I was not excited about James leaving in the middle of that. Or at all. :(

He had to pack a bunch of stuff though. A tent, a sleeping bag, dishes and utensils, cooking stove, fuel, geology textbooks, a compass and a pewter cauldron. And also a boatload of food. (JK about the cauldron. We're muggles.)

It turns out they didn't have to bring all the food they would live off for a month, because they could drive to Walmart occasionally, but he did have to be supplied for the first week. We packed a bunch of granola bars, some cookies, freeze dried dinners, PB&J, and loads of oatmeal. By the time he got back James had a deep aversion to oatmeal. Would rather drive to Smiths at 1:00 a.m. to get cereal than suffer another oatmeal breakfast.

Anyway, James knew it was not going to be fun for me without him, having to substitute and everything, so that sneaky Jams got me this!

This is my favorite type of plant, called a Bromeliad. On the morning James was going to leave, I woke up to drive him to campus and POOF! There it was! A happy plant just waiting for me.

The note says, "Hi Miranda! I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Bro the Bromeliad. I'm here to keep you company while James is away. We're going to be best of friends as long as you don't let me die!"

ISN'T JAMES THE BEST??!?!

But also, James got to call me almost every night, and we even got to FaceTime a couple times. Pretty awesome!!

Ducks

I have Tia to thank for letting me know about this event. I didn't know until this year but apparently BYU hosts a Ducky Derby every summer! It was a blast!

James and I really like ducks. We always go to the duck pond and feed them. One time James got a duck to eat out of his hand! We also like to take pictures of them and even chase them. Also, "duck" is just so fun to say. No wonder people invented Duck Duck Goose. Anyway, it took me about zero seconds to decide to go to this thing when I heard about it.

Tia and I went, and later James and Dave could simply not help joining in the quacking fun.

Dave is peeved in this picture because James decorated his duck for him before he got there.... He gave it eyelashes and lipstick and wrote "Dainty Duck." It's kind of a running joke between them.

James had Fire Duck. I just love the flames he drew on the sides.

So all the ducks raced in heats, mainly because the little stream they used was too narrow for all the ducks at once. I thought it was funny how they set up the starting line: just dumped in a bucket of ducks. A lot of the ducks started off upside down that way.

Luckily James' duck didn't. Fire Duck did amazingly well in our heat! He got 2nd place but was about a centimeter away from getting 1st.










Here's a video I took. I only started recording halfway into the race when I realized James was winning. Also, I am extraordinarily sorry but I have Vertical Video Syndrome.



So because of that James won a coupon for a free Jamba Juice! Not bad. It's only a medium though. Maybe if he'd won first place he could have gotten a large.

Victory pictures!

He also got to race his duck in the final round, but sadly he was almost dead last that time. It was definitely very fun!! My favorite part was when the little kids were shouting "Fire Duck is winning! Fire Duck is winning!" Haha. Well James is super great and so are ducks.

He's Back!

...And so is the blog. James got back and the end of May from a four-week-long field camp and that is the reason I haven't blogged until now, the end of June. Makes perfect sense.

Here is the handsome bloke!

On the day he came back I made pasties for dinner, his favorite food in all the world. Straight from the deserts of Utah, still a little sunburned. I'm talking about James here, not the pasty. 

He had a lot of fun and went all over the place. It was really hard work, both physically and academically. At the two-week mark I drove down to visit him and it was lots of fun! I expect we will be writing a lot more about those adventures. And also, in the meantime, I will get back to the other stuff that has happened in the past 2 months.