Well, it wasn't really daily but today so far, and most likely tomorrow also. I was in at the EMU today grinding and polishing down some samples of the clay in resin blocks in preparation for EDS viewing later on. Apparently the 'client' will be in at the department on Wednesday-Friday and they would like to be able to show them some results or something like that.... So, today I ground and polished down eight samples from the S1 and S2 schedules (being samples C1 to C4). The process is simple enough but it is time consuming and also tiring. Initially I had a slight problem because my resin blocks were quite thin, making it difficult to hold and control, with the risk of grinding my fingers LOL. Another person in the lab solved that solution for me by finding me the superglue and giving me one half of a petrie dish (plastic) to glue onto the back, and use that to hold on to. Thanks mate, much appreciated.
There are grinding wheels, kind of like pottery wheels, but they have a water spout for cooling/lubrication and washing away the ground material from your sample. The spin speed starts off at 100rpm and clocks upto 1500 rpm if you really want it that high. You stick on t he wheel with water sandpaper ranging from 100 grit to 1200 grit, and then switch over to diamond plastics from 30um to 1um, and if you want to go finer there is 0.5 to 0.05um pastes. I didn't think that I needed such a polish since my primary objective, to me, was to expose sufficient clay sample for a cross-section to be viewed. So I did 100, 400 then 1200 grit paper, then switched to 30, 9, 3 and 1um plastics, leaving it at that. It took me five hours to do the eight blocks. It is tiring because you are consistently holding onto a very small object (even with the petrie dish glued onto the back) and applying as even force as possible onto the block so it grinds down evenly, while maintaining grip so it doesn't go flying off the wheel. I was only working upto 400rpm but that was quite tiring to hold onto, anything faster may have ended up with a resin block bouncing off the wall and smacking me in the head or something LOL.
When I got home, there was a letter from the US waiting, and it was the wedding invite from some friends of mine. Being of Australian raised and relative education, they shuffled off to the US for further studies and employment opportunities, and were engaged a little while back. Their wedding will be in December this year, and held back here in Sydney. The invite was really simple and nice, and had a little backnote in regards to gifts, which they would like donations to subsidise their return trip for the wedding instead of gifts since if they got gifts, they'd have to lug them all the way back to the US.... I haven't been very close to them really at all, ever, compared to many of the other people in this circle of friends, but I really appreciated the invite. I am hoping to make it if I can but I guess that really depends on the employment situation if I get hired around here or overseas etc. It really is the season and age to be getting married it seems. Last year with my school friend, this year (next weekend) is an engagement party with their wedding in April next year, this particular wedding in December.... my friend is hoping to ask his girlfriend to be his finacee in July, and well there was a wedding in August that got cancelled from another friend because their relationship fell apart (a very mess situation that I won't get into here)...... I think I'm being left behind LOL.....
Onto something completely different.
Attitudes and priorities are very inter-linked things in my opinion. You tend to hold particular attitudes towards certain things if you have particular priorities in life. So, if we take the previous topic of marriage/relationships, if you have a particular priority, e.g., you don't want to get married, then your attitudes towards that kind of thing will be very closely related to it, don't you think?
To which, it goes with everything in life. What do we prioritise? Why do we do so? And then how does that reflect in our attitudes? Talking to someone about something, I was very dissapointed in them, I don't know if I have lost respect over the issue, but, their priorities in their interests/activites were perculiar to me. I have similar interests to them in these two things, but my priorities to them are reversed to theirs. Of course, I am being judgemental here, and well, tough if you don't think I should be, but at least I know I am judging them on the matter. The point that is dissapointing to me is one of the activities is quite..... fleeting in a way. It is not a particularly valuable nor forfilling type of activity/interest while the other, in my opinion, has far greater value in many many ways. Obviously, I put the one with the greater value in higher priority for me than the not valuable one..... I guess I am of the wrong generation in some ways, being older than many of those who I hang around with, and have considerably different values and sight of vision to. My not so subtle wisdom sometimes can be an issue I think.... perhaps I need to find more friends somewhere else too, somehow.... If that entire paragraph didn't make sense, that is ok, I don't make sense 100% of the time, even to me...
There are grinding wheels, kind of like pottery wheels, but they have a water spout for cooling/lubrication and washing away the ground material from your sample. The spin speed starts off at 100rpm and clocks upto 1500 rpm if you really want it that high. You stick on t he wheel with water sandpaper ranging from 100 grit to 1200 grit, and then switch over to diamond plastics from 30um to 1um, and if you want to go finer there is 0.5 to 0.05um pastes. I didn't think that I needed such a polish since my primary objective, to me, was to expose sufficient clay sample for a cross-section to be viewed. So I did 100, 400 then 1200 grit paper, then switched to 30, 9, 3 and 1um plastics, leaving it at that. It took me five hours to do the eight blocks. It is tiring because you are consistently holding onto a very small object (even with the petrie dish glued onto the back) and applying as even force as possible onto the block so it grinds down evenly, while maintaining grip so it doesn't go flying off the wheel. I was only working upto 400rpm but that was quite tiring to hold onto, anything faster may have ended up with a resin block bouncing off the wall and smacking me in the head or something LOL.
When I got home, there was a letter from the US waiting, and it was the wedding invite from some friends of mine. Being of Australian raised and relative education, they shuffled off to the US for further studies and employment opportunities, and were engaged a little while back. Their wedding will be in December this year, and held back here in Sydney. The invite was really simple and nice, and had a little backnote in regards to gifts, which they would like donations to subsidise their return trip for the wedding instead of gifts since if they got gifts, they'd have to lug them all the way back to the US.... I haven't been very close to them really at all, ever, compared to many of the other people in this circle of friends, but I really appreciated the invite. I am hoping to make it if I can but I guess that really depends on the employment situation if I get hired around here or overseas etc. It really is the season and age to be getting married it seems. Last year with my school friend, this year (next weekend) is an engagement party with their wedding in April next year, this particular wedding in December.... my friend is hoping to ask his girlfriend to be his finacee in July, and well there was a wedding in August that got cancelled from another friend because their relationship fell apart (a very mess situation that I won't get into here)...... I think I'm being left behind LOL.....
Onto something completely different.
Attitudes and priorities are very inter-linked things in my opinion. You tend to hold particular attitudes towards certain things if you have particular priorities in life. So, if we take the previous topic of marriage/relationships, if you have a particular priority, e.g., you don't want to get married, then your attitudes towards that kind of thing will be very closely related to it, don't you think?
To which, it goes with everything in life. What do we prioritise? Why do we do so? And then how does that reflect in our attitudes? Talking to someone about something, I was very dissapointed in them, I don't know if I have lost respect over the issue, but, their priorities in their interests/activites were perculiar to me. I have similar interests to them in these two things, but my priorities to them are reversed to theirs. Of course, I am being judgemental here, and well, tough if you don't think I should be, but at least I know I am judging them on the matter. The point that is dissapointing to me is one of the activities is quite..... fleeting in a way. It is not a particularly valuable nor forfilling type of activity/interest while the other, in my opinion, has far greater value in many many ways. Obviously, I put the one with the greater value in higher priority for me than the not valuable one..... I guess I am of the wrong generation in some ways, being older than many of those who I hang around with, and have considerably different values and sight of vision to. My not so subtle wisdom sometimes can be an issue I think.... perhaps I need to find more friends somewhere else too, somehow.... If that entire paragraph didn't make sense, that is ok, I don't make sense 100% of the time, even to me...
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