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.