34 shifts in and finally had my first patient!.. a nice 2nd degree burn to the wrist from a steam hose. Thing that sucks is that the dude waited almost an hour before even wandering over to see me.. AFTER he and the rig manager GOOGLED IT and thought you were supposed to lance blisters and put ice on it.. good god. and then they tried to get me  to throw out my report because they didn’t want to do an incident report.. this place is a shit show!

Well, the oilfield medicine has been the boring, long, but very lucrative job I was expecting. However, the only action in my life lately has been driving to and from work. Drivers around here are unbelievable. I thought I left “Canada’s worst drivers” behind on PEI, but Alberta definitely takes the cake on that one! I have never had so many road scares as I’ve had in the past 2 weeks. I’m not a nervous driver, I love driving but these roads scare the shit out of me. Giant logging trucks will pass you, taking no regards to the fact that the road has a foot of snow on it and no shoulders! Every muscle in my body tenses up, my hands are latched to the wheel and I just white knuckle it. Other drivers just don’t give a shit whether or not the road conditions will allow you to go 140km/hr. I’ve had cars pass me on turns, hills, solid lines, with oncoming traffic.. You name something stupid I’ve seen it. I love an adrenalin rush as much as the next person but after an oncoming semi is doing a curve 3 feet over the centre line I feel like pulling over and throwing up! People will never learn, 13 people have died on highways 63 and 881 in the last 2 months - I just can’t seem to wrap my head around that. There was an accident wednesday where a 350 truck was ripped INTO 3 PIECES, and an accident last year killed 7 people including 2 kids and a pregnant woman! But for some reason people think they’re invincible and still drive like a bat out of hell, but you won’t make it to your destination any faster in a body bag! I’m not planning on becoming this highways next victim!

One weird observation that I’ve had as an East Coaster living in Alberta is that taking a cab is oddly different.. When you take a cab on the east coast, you feel completely awkward if you don’t have a conversation.. The cabbies will talk your ear off about every topic under the sun! They’ll also insist that you ride up front with them.. As if its insulting to sit in the back. Here, they look at you strange as if they feel threatened that you’re sitting beside them and the cab ride is completely silent other than the “where ya going?” bit.. It’s just something that I’ve been noticing after spending about 250 bucks in cabs.. Fun times.

Excited to finally get somewhere tomorrow and start getting paid! I’ve been shipping myself all over the place, covering half of Alberta! I’m so tired of travelling!

• beardedhippy said: Is it the Curl Site?

I don’t know much about it yet, but it’s a Statoil Rig and it’s in Conklin!