Let me introduce myself - Clinton - a mining PhD Student

Heya all on Steemit

So my name is Clinton - and I am a mining student. Well - if you look at my age (48) - you will wonder how I can be called a student? Soooo here goes - I am reading towards a PhD in Mining Engineering specialising in Mineral Resource Management. My profession is a geologist and my job is a lecturer. Neither of which are going anywhere without the next degree - so that is why I describe myself as a student. We should all strive never to stop being students - whether its in the formal sense (registered for studies with an institute of learning) or the informal sense (like blogging just to improve writing skills).

So that is why I have joined Steemit. I used to write articles on a local news website (News24.com) but due to the proliferation of racist hate speech in the comments - they disabled the comment section. Racist comments? - jip I am from South Africa where racism is a crime and if a website does not prevent racist comments - they become liable. So the easiest way to deal with it is just to disable comments. As if keeping people quiet about an issue will make the issue go away. So what is the point of writing articles about relevant issues if nobody comments even if its just about the grammar? Exactly - so that was the end of using News24 to improve my writing skills - and I had to jump into the serious world of writing academic journal articles. Have had three published so far (two related to my PhD studies) and can see how the News24 writing had improved my writing skills considering its over 20 years since I last wrote serious academic material. So I wish to continue improving my writing skills by blogging on Steemit and getting feedback on my work.

Soooo - my interests beyond mining and mineral resource management are religion (or the lack thereof), flying (gliding instructor with 17 years flying experience), diving (commercial ticket but do it just for fun now) and my countries' future (how screwed democracy is when the majority of the voters are unemployed and do not contribute to the fiscus).

I hope you enjoy my future blogs and will give meaningful feedback on the writing as well as topical issues in a fun as well as a serious manner considering I am but a simple student.

Cheers for now.

Clinton