Conferenceing!!

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a conference. This conference happened to be THE conference for people in my field to go to and it also happened to be in Perth. (For those of you that are geographically challenged in Australia, Perth is on the west coast toward the south.) Just getting to this conference was a challenge in itself. I found out about it at the end of Oct, about a month before it was suppose to happen. Immediately after finding out I mentioned it to my boss and he said it should be fine but needed to check with the higher ups. Then he was out of the office for a couple weeks and when I finally managed to catch up with him I found out I needed to fill out this form and send it to Person A. So I did this and by this point it's a little more than a week before I would need to leave for the conference... I didn't hear anything and by the end of week I was getting a bit anxious. After several phone calls and emails on Fri and Mon, I finally got approval at 5pm on Mon to go to this conference at the end of that week. On Tues I booked plane tickets to leave on Wed and a place to stay. Cutting it just a bit close... They really should work on the policy and procedures to get approval to go to a conference.

I had almost 2 days in Perth to wander around and explore. It was a lot of fun and a very pretty city, but rather hot. I would have liked a bit more time there though and especially to have someone to hang out with.

The conference itself was really good. I went there only knowing 2 people and even them I had only met once. There were about 50 people total there and only a couple of those were women and I wouldn't be surprised if I was the youngest there (the average age was probably about 55). I made a lot of contacts though and learned a lot! The tiny conference was a very difference experience to the massive conferences I had been to before. The biggest difference was that all my food was included!! Breakfast, morning and afternoon tea, lunch and dinner. All very very yummy :) I can't wait for the conference next year!! It's going to be near Adelaide.

special delivery from australia

I got a package in the mail today from Australia! Well actually it came yesterday but since we weren't at home when it came, USPS left a note saying I had to come get it at the post office. When I went yesterday to retrieve it, the postlady still hadn't gotten back in from her route so I had to wait til this morning to get it. So I had been promised a "care package" from the boss over there that would give me more info about the project, the area, and cost of living. That's pretty much what I got. It cost $50AUD to send express mail and was in an envelope that required it to weigh less than 1kg (2.2 lbs). That's just a little pricey!!

I got a few maps, detailed and not so detailed. The more detailed ones had places of interest located, such as my office, shopping areas, and important places related to the job. There was also a tourist (road) map of the state of Queensland. I knew the area was big... but it didn't really sink in until I saw the paper map! There was also info about Brisbane and living there and some touristy info.

There was a grocery store sale flyer so I could get an idea of food costs. Several things seem about the same price and some are more expensive.

Info about the project was included, along with a station map and list. There was also an eq epicenter location map, which was really cool. Actually there wasn't really that much info about the project, just a lot of station lists (apparently there are several different kinds of stations).

what will I be doing anyhow??

The title for my new job is the state seismologist. But what exactly does this mean? A seismologist at an oil company, USGS, and university can do very different things. So here are a few of what my main responsibilities are going to be (along with translations in the () for some of y'all).

1. Management and Operation of the Earthquake Monitoring Network - 65 stations (all the stations are connect to a network so I can see if they're working on a computer screen, I'm suppose to make sure they're working.)
2. Undertake routine seismic data analyses (figure out what all the squiggles mean when there is an earthquake and for some past earthquakes)
3. Maintain Earthquake Data Base on a monthly basis (catalog/list of earthquakes and basic info about them needs to be updated)
4. Assist in field operations (field work!!! not all those stations have been installed yet)
5. Assist in extended analyses of all seismic data relevant to earthquake hazard assessment (what's the chance of an earthquake happening in X years)

There was a whole long list of stuff in more detail than this but these are going to be my main tasks.

So what should I talk about next??