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??

blog title!

I just wanna say thanks to Alvina for the awesome blog title!! She gets a cookie! (well actually a bunch of cookies =P)

Here's the story...

So I promised y'all the story of how I ended up with this job...

When I started grad school, I had it in my mind that I was going to get my PhD. However, I decided after being there awhile that the whole PhD thing maybe wasn't quite for me or at least not at that point and last winter I switched to getting a masters. About a month after making this decision, a professor in my dept came up to me and said he wanted to talk with me. All I could think was that I was in trouble =P. So we went to his office and he started telling me about this job that a guy he taught in grad school a long time ago was trying to find somebody for. It was a position as a seismologist, installing and managing a new seismic network for a couple years and the job was in Australia. The guy specifically wanted someone from my school and someone with a masters degree. It pretty much sounded like my dream job and I was the only one that really fit what he was looking for so we started talking. At that point I was suppose to be done by May and August at the latest and the people in Australia thought they would be ready for me to start mid to late summer. Then they started having some funding problems so it became sometime in the fall. I didn't get done by August and my timeline for being done was pushed back to Dec. and Australia was going to be ready for me in Jan. Well neither of those things happened. So I finally finished at the beginning of March and a week later I get a phone call from the guy in Australia saying that I should have an offer letter within a week. Two weeks later I get an email with the offer letter attached! and in just over two months I'll be moving out there.

It's been totally amazing just how faithful God has been through this whole process. So many times I thought I would never finish or they would be ready for me before I was ready to go and then say that since I wasn't ready they would find someone else. But I did finish and they finally are ready for me and now it is time for a new adventure!

G'day mate!

Well it's finally official!!! I have a job as a seismologist in Australia! :D I should be moving there the beginning of June.

I figured I'd start this blog for a couple reasons:
1. Cuz someone (Alvina) said I should.
2. Cuz it's a good way to keep all y'all informed about what's going on and keep in touch with all y'all.

Sometime soon I'll post the whole story of how I ended up with a job in Australia and a little bit about what I'll be doing while I'm there.

God has been so faithful throughout this process! and I can't wait to see what He has in store for me. :)