When you had done with Final Year Project (FYP),
you knew that road to graduation has almost come to an end.
When you said you had done with VIVA.
people will congratulate you as in you were already graduated.
No one would ask about the SHITs before VIVA...
If you get a geology topic for FYP, be prepared to go fieldworks and do sampling while dancing with mosquitoes, free hiking and jungle trekking, etc. Then your friend would be like "Wah...syok lo, can go out fieldtrip bla bla bla..." Everyone thought we were enjoying ourselves but the truth is we always come back with tired face and bruises.
Make sure you come back alive and in one piece.
After fieldtrip, then only we would be able to start our lab works.
You have to do something with those rock samples collected.
No one know we spend hours polishing the rocks into thin section slides of 0.03mm thickness, just to get a nice pictures under microscope. Anyway, most of the time it won't look nice!
Even when your hand had been so smooth polished, your rock slides were still too thick!
In order to send powder samples for XRD & XRF, no one knows we spend hours to crash real solid rock samples into powder of 212micronmetres size using just hammer.
In the report, you need to show your maps of the study area.
Using photoshop, everyone thought you are drawing for fun. I am not a pro in photoshop, it took me hours per map working from blank white sheet to a map. Line by line, point by point.
Lecturer will always point out your scale then legends and even colours.
You may think it looks simple with lines only, that's why some people still lost even given a map.
Now you know why geoscience people never get lost in any place even on the first time visit, simply because we draw map, we have strong directional feel. That's why sometimes you see we are not walking on the built path but lawn and anywhere, as long as we get to destination.
By the way, even your map looks fantastic, it doesn't really significant in your FYP.
The worst is grabbing the lab slot for some high radiation and high technology lab- the XRD & XRF lab. No one know why those kids sitting outside Block17 Level2 every first day of the month since morning and midnight. Only UTP research students know how hard it is to get a slot for samples to be tested, then the machine always down for maintenance.
And the FYP got its own short dateline.
See how 'dead meat' situation we were in.
Then finally you got the lab results just few days before your VIVA.
p/s: I get it 5pm on MON and VIVA 2pm on WED.
So, I did the interpretation of this and that.
While writing your inferences in report to be hand in during VIVA, you have to do VIVA slides.
We burned the midnight oil to make sure everything is fantastic proportional to our hard works.
Even you go to VIVA with panda eyes, is okay, no worries, as long as you are not drunk.
VIVA is where you present your FYP to an experienced + professional external examiner that got no idea what you are doing. Together with the internal examiner, they like to ask questions.
And you thought as long as you able to answer then you are safe?
The hardest part is how to show the examiners that you really did understand well what you are doing. He doubt that I was uncertain with my answer but my point of view is keeping the possibilities of other answers.
There were no 1+1=2 in geology.
I knew that my limited results and samples are not enough to give an exact confidence answer.
But the examiner don't understand.
Calcitic Mudstone--> I explained should be deeper marine+quiet environment.
Then this guy asking as in he wants the exact GPS coordinate back in Permian,
where exactly the rocks formed? Lagoon? etc? #HighBloodPressure
I dun see any fossils...it can be anywhere dude!
#Now you know why I prefer geophysic rather than geology. #Numbers & Data tell the truth.
All I want to say: there is huge change in sea level from 26th m to 30th m, something happen that time and I suspect Permian-Triassic Boundary is there!
#He don't understand or purely unsatisfied.
When the VIVA is over, it feels so good to write this blog.
Road to Graduation.
