Crossroads

For Day 8 of the AoM 31 Day Journaling Challenge: Reflect on Your Career. – Work for me has focused on materials, particularly ferrous ones, and how they perform in a variety of oil and gas environments, on two continents; Africa of my birth and Europe where I have spent the last few years. My journey began in December of 2003 with being hired straight out of University in 2003 as a trainee engineer through progressing via a number of roles in various aspects of the corrosion and materials discipline and eventually leaving in October of 2008, thanks to a mixture of burn out and the opportunity to return to the university for graduate studies. Since graduating in July of 2009, I’ve gotten back into the Corrosion & Materials field first with a service provider and latterly with an oil & gas production company where I am Corrosion & Materials Technical Authority. ...

[Image Source] You try to hide your fear behind a veneer of strength, try to put up a facade of calm but beyond the outer strength is the odd tear that slips, unguarded. You stand bewildered at the fork of the road. Left? Right? Blending into an instructable sameness, certainly uncertain of where your Redemption Days lie. To the confused, every coincidence is an omen, the whisper of God rustling the leaves one way, or another, but what if like lemmings one must jump? ...

Canada: The country after my heart, thanks to stumbling on a description of the low population, arctic in Kurt Koch’s demons and Demonology. Problem is the relatively high entry cost for me - uprooting myself from my life of the last three years, loss of income and the costs of chasing further studies required to break into that part of the world. A girl: The girl I think I like enough to, in the words of Clay Christensen, devote my life to making happy; and who has only just moved to Aberdeen and is adamant she’s got a two year plan before she buggers off to Nigeria. ...