Update

Ok so just letting everyone know where i am at the moment. It is my second last day of vac work for Vale, then i am flying back to QLD. Uni starts again on Monday morning and i am looking forward to getting stuck into my last year. I have been in the process of researching opportunities for graduate work, and as soon as i get back i will be putting in my applications. Overall its going to be a big year for me. As well, on a different note, i have just booked in a 5 week holiday, where i will be going to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Cuba and LA at the end of my last semester. This is a finishing uni present to myself, and once again is only possible due to vacation work. So get out there and apply for vac work!

Vale Vac Work

Here are some photos of my time at Integra Coal Mine in the Hunter Valley, NSW

Integra Coal-Vac Work

Well as my first post for 2009, I would like to say that I hope everyone had a great Chrissy and New Year. I did! Christmas was great lots of food and family and presents. New years was spent taking my mum out to dinner at a restaurant then my boyfriend and I bought in the new year whilst watching the beautiful girls perform! It was great. It is common for vac students to have this period off. I am working at a mine called Integra Coal formerly Camberwell Coal, in the Open Cut. I have been working on getting a Total Waste Management system happening on site, which means the company can make of the most of recycling scrap metals ect. I have also been working on writing a Rehabilitation Monitoring Plan. To date I haven’t really had a chance to work outside, I’ve really just been doing the above in the office. Hopefully I will get a chance to be outside (amongst the environment!) more in my last month, I am also hoping to go underground in that time as well. Although, I have been in a truck, for a couple of hours and I have also been able to watch some blasts go off. Both of these were firsts for me so it was great! I especially liked the chance to get out in the truck, because it gave me a chance to talk to some of the operators about what they do. Also despite the fact that I don’t have a car down here and we haven’t been provided with any transport, which is actually really difficult, in a country town, for lack of public transport, but anyway despite that, my boyfriend came down for a weekend and hired a car and we did a tour of the vineyards around here and did some wine tasting and also some cheese and chocolate tasting! This was great, it was a beautiful scenic drive and only about 20 mins out of singleton, this is something we don’t have around the mines in CQ, so I loved being able to do that on my weekend. So that’s really it for now. I will post again when I finish up out here.

Vac Work

I have finished my penultimate year of study and yay! i am pleased to report i have vac work. In less than 2 weeks, i will be in the hunter valley to do vac work with VALE. Im really looking forward to this. As far as i know i am going to working on a project for integrated waste management over the site. Its a coal mine which is good for me as last year i did vac work at a copper mine, so something different is good. Its hard to say to much more now, but im happy to have vac work once again(and in a different state is a good oportunity) and i will post more once ive started down there.

Japan Holiday

In June this year, during mid term break i went to Japan for a holiday. It was my second time this facinating country and i loved it just as much as my first trip. I travelled around a bit some of my stops included tokyo, kyoto and osaka. I visited heaps of temples, a japanese hot spring (where i bathed naked with many japanese women--an interesting experience), went to a monkey park, tokyo disneyland, an aquarium which was home to a whale shark, and ate some yummy and strange food(including raw beef liver and beef tounge).The photo is me dressed up like a maiko (apprentice geisha). Overall it was an awesome holiday. Great way to take the stress off in between terms. The only reason i got to do this was because of saved up money from my vac work. So kiddies go do some vac work! Great industry experience and awesome overseas holidays await you!

Im hoping to go to either europe or latin america next year, this years vac work should help with financing that! Its great to be a uni student!

Scholarship Student Ambassador Day

Every year the the Queensland Resources Council helps young students interested in entering the exciting resources industry by giving out scholarships, this year my fellow scholarhip students were joined by new students on QRC joint scholarships. We all met and bonded in May when we had our annual scholarship student day. On this day us old hands told the freshies about some of the vac work we had done and also we all heard talks from people within the industry. I guess this is very belated welcome to the new kiddies! Glad to have you join us!