Planet Olin

Yesterday I discovered that if I'm belowdeck staring at monitors for very long, I will get seasick.

Hazards of the job, I guess. I'll be investing in accupressure wristbands and lemon candy for tomorrow's sea trial part deux.

Today was the kickoff meeting for our new project. I really like the project manager as well as the systems engineering lead (who I work for directly for the first several months before I get to do my own module), so I am pleased. However, I must at this point do the unthinkable:

Thank you, Dave Barrett.

Thank you for telling us about how much government projects suck. Thank you for beating us over the head with deadlines, Gantt charts, and budgetary limitations. Thank you for telling us what PDRs and CDRs are and how to do them. Thank you for instilling in me a hatred but grudging tolerance for daily timesheets. And whether you intended to or not, thanks for making me suffer through a project with too few people, too little time, and too much project. Because I'm pretty sure that's exactly how this one's going to go.

Rock on.

I finished my Cyberspace paper in a mere two hours of actual work time.
A record, I say.

In other news, the stench in the bathroom on my side of the suite has disappeared as mysteriously as it had arrived.
Now the bathroom smells of surprisingly refreshing air freshener.
Apparently, air freshener smells better when it's not actively fighting stench.
We might still clean though.

Alas!!! RGU has a climbing wall at its gym so I can finally start climbing again! It’s been far too long. Time to say hello to sore forearms...

 

I have a feeling I’m going to be spending most of my time with the Robert Gordon outing club as they have some trip headed to the highlands pretty much every weekend for quite some time. They also over some winter survival and wilderness first aid classes that I’m really tempted to take. It’s popular in Scotland to try and tackle the Monros, a Monro being any peak in Scotland over 3000 feet. There are a total 284 mountains under this distinction, many that are close in distance to one another so it’s possible to tackle them all in a few months if someone really tries. I definitely not in any sort of physical shape, have the time or enough mountaineering skill to try to do them all, but I’d like to try and bag a few at least while I’m here.

 

I came across this great little organization in Aberdeen called the creative waste exchange (http://www.creativewasteexchange.org). They take surplus goods that would normally be thrown out by local businesses and recycle it into basic office supplies like stationary, notebooks, pencils or whatever other items they can create from the materials they have. They then sell these supplies really cheaply primarily to students in the area, who pay a small fee to get access to the cheap deals. It’s run almost entirely by volunteers and I think this sort of group would be great to have in the Boston area. Boston is nearly 10 times as large as the Aberdeen area and they’re many more college students that could act as either potential customers or volunteers. There’s already the Massachusetts Materials Exchange (http://www.materialsexchange.org/), which gives businesses a chance to trade or give away excess materials that they have and I’m sure that they are many organizations already dealing with the disposing of excess goods as well as others that work on recycling old goods into new products. It would just be a matter of linking these groups together. I’ll probably start volunteering with the group next week to learn more about the organization and see if maybe a similar program could be started in Boston.

 

I think I got as close as I’m going to get to failing the Olin Challenge yesterday. I randomly ran into a girl who worked with Dylan for the semester while he was here two years ago. I think I’d call it failing the Olin Challenge to the 2^nd degree.

Today was the first day of classes for this quarter, so my vacation is officially over. Sigh...

I moved to my apartment last Wednesday - it's relatively new, reasonably roomy, and my roommate is nice. She's from China by way of UVA and studying financial mathematics, and therefore will make more money than I can ever aspire to ;-) Thursday and Friday were ostensibly orientation and advising, but I only got to meet with one of my three advisors, since the other two weren't available. Orientation consisted mainly of lunch with faculty and current students, and happy hour on Friday night. It was actually nice to not be subjected to the usual barrage of ice-breaking events that generally accompany undergrad orientation, and I find it's easier to meet people over food than contrived games. Still, there are 174 of us new students in the department, so there are a lot of people to meet. So far, most everyone seems normal and well adjusted, with the exception of yours truly ;-)

The weekend I spent at IKEA, Target, and various other places buying things for the kitchen. As much as I dislike shopping, this was a lot of fun, largely because I got to buy all the things that I keep walking around at IKEA wanting to get. And cooking is WAY more fun with a proper kitchen and the right equipment. I just hope that I keep having enough time to actually cook, as opposed to relying on ye olde microwave and frozen food. Stanford has a great (free) shuttle system that goes to most of my favorite grocery stores round here, so hopefully I won't have problems keeping myself reasonably fed (no scurvy for me!)

After food, next in importance, I suppose, is what I'm actually here to do, which is take classes and theoretically learn stuff. Since my fellowship only pays for 10 credits a quarter, I am forced to maintain a sane schedule (no more 20-credit semesters!), which translates to 3 courses and a PE class or seminar. I'm currently signed up for Linear Algebra, Biomechanics of Movement, and Medical Device Design, with Classical Dynamics as a substitute if I don't get into Medical Devices. I've had all but Biomechanics today; Linear Algebra is a class taken by mostly for the ME's and quite a few of the CME's (computational engineers), so the whole class is something like 200 students and is held in an auditorium with mikes and such. It's definitely a novelty, and not necessarily one I like - the desks are terrible to write on and there is no space for anything. However, the large lecture classes are videotaped and put online, which is a definite plus. The prof seems good and promised to include lots of MATLAB, so I'm optimistic that it'll go well. Medical devices sounds great, but I'm not sure I'll get in - the prof is taking about half of the currently registered students. The replacement class, Classical Dynamics is one of those good-for-you-but-painful classes, but given that this is my weakest ME area, I'll have to take it at some point anyway, I think.

Aside from classes, I've been busy doing all the annoying things that Olin used to take care of for us - buying software, getting shop-trained, scheduling advising appointments, and making sure by bills are paid. On the upside, Stanford has vast libraries, with a large collection of Czech books, so I'm indulging in reading while I still can.

I have yet to figure out how in the world people get any work done at Stanford with the weather being as gorgeous as it is - I guess I'll have to learn eventually since class started today. Hmm, maybe I should figure out what I'm taking first. Yeah, imagine that - there's no rush to register because all the grad classes have lots of room.

I'm living in graduate housing/apartments with three other women. One's in my department (ME), the second one is in communications and the third one is studying psychology. I definitely like the mix of interests, and we're all getting along amazingly well.

Well, I'm tired of writing so here are some pics - Enjoy!
















There are lots of bikes on campus, but so far I'm refusing to get one - I guess I like walking too much, plus bikes clash with my wardrobe.

   















Pretty campus - pretty sky - yay!

















I met up with Clara and Dan in San Francisco.

















Of course, QA was there too.
















The guy hiding behind the bush was hilarious - he would jump out at the unsuspecting passer-by's to scare the crap out of them.

 















Hear no evil, see no evil, smell no evil? speak no evil

There's not too much going in my life right now. Classes end in a couple weeks (holy cow, how did that happen?!), and everyone is complaining about the workload multiplying. My response has been "How can you multiply zero by anything?" My barely existant workload hasn't exactly skyrocketed.

I might hop on a bus this weekend and go somewhere. I realized that I've been here for three months and have left Dunedin and its suburbs only a few times. It's mostly because public transportation around here consists of buses, and buses and I only get along with the intervention of dramamine. Biking would be fun, but I have a tendency of falling off them at inopportune times. Driving? Well, let's say that I can't remember which pedal is gas and which is brake, so that would be an even worse idea than biking... So, carrying a ton of Dramamine and catching a bus it is. Now to figure out which direction to head in.

A while back I made a crack about how my flatmates should take bets on how long it'll take Crystal (the non-existent flatmate) to clean her dirty dishes. A conversation Cindy, Amalina and I had yesterday after noticing that Crystal had left a dirty pot on the counter for a couple days:

Me: Anyone want to bet how long this pot'll be here for?
Amalina: Tomorrow morning.
Me: Wow, a hopeless optimist you are. I say tomorrow evening at the very earliest.
Cindy: Tuesday evening.

Well, Amalina and I lost. It is Monday evening, and the pot full of beef something-or-other is still there. Today we were discussing what we should have bet, and I brought up the idea of the winner gets immunity from writing a nasty note on the whiteboard telling Crystal to clean her stuff. (They started off as tactful messages at the beginning of the semester, but those haven't been getting through so we've been getting blunter and blunter with her.) Cindy didn't like this idea. Apparently she kind of likes getting to write the messages...

On the bright side, the four of us minus Crystal get along pretty well. And what flat is complete without the one antisocial flatmate who refuses to leave her room? I think that there's a flatting rule that states you must have one outlier in every flat.

Alright, time for bed so I can wake up in time for Irish Lit.

Since I've arrived in New Zealand, I've had fun seeing the differences in clothing styles compared to the US. For the most part, they're six months ahead of the US, so before I leave I'm stocking up on clothes. There are a few trends though that I really hope stay isolated to this corner of the world. A few of the more amusing examples:

• It still is too chilly in the mornings and evenings to wear skirts. But why should temperature be an issue when you can just wear pants--preferably jeans-- under a skirt?
  
• If you don't have at least one horizontally striped shirt on, you can't possibly be considered fashionable. If you have under three shirts on in total, you're not wearing enough layers.
• Who needs a thermometer when you can simply count the people not wearing shoes outside? For reasons I can' t fathom, there are people who do this on my section of George Street, which is very full of broken glass.
  
• Last but not least, long shorts on women. The shorts themselves are fine, but apparently there is some unwritten rule that says that long shorts look best when paired with fish net stockings. At first I thought someone was doing it as a joke, but I've seen enough examples of this to realize that this is somehow considered to be in style. Not falling over laughing sometimes takes a lot of willpower...
  

Alright, time for my Irish Lit tutorial, provided I can find my notebook. Oh, and if I suddenly stop reply to emails (not like I do a good job of that anyways), it's because my laptop is in the repair shop. Both of the hinges on my laptop's lid have become Failure projects, and I need to find a place that'll honor my Dell warranty. I'm thinking that this will be pretty soon, because I'm getting tired of having to support my screen with two pillows and my knees.

Well I've finally arrived in Aberdeen Scotland, my new home for the next 3 1/2 months. I’ve been here for only 2 days and I can already hear the Scottish accent trying to work its way into my speech. I’m pretty much all settled with orientation now, so I’ve got a good week before classes start to just loiter around. Haven't quite gotten the nerve to try haggis or any of the other traditional Scottish dishes yet, but I'm sure I will at some point. Venison is quite popular hear though and I’m definitely going to have to get some of that. Aberdeen seems like a pretty nice place, generally friendly people and I’ve met a few of the other international students, mostly people from Africa or France who want to practice their English.

 This semester is going to rock. I’ve got 2 student led design project classes and a design for manufacture class and a product operations management class that I’ll be taking as well. In the UK, everyone signed up for a particular program takes the exact same classes together typically in a single room, so it'll be am interesting semester.

I’ve got all my pictures up for now from Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and Paris. Pictures of Scotland will be up in a few days and trickling in throughout the semester.

 http://photos.yahoo.com/enviro0025

 I nearly had my laptop bag stolen while I was in Brussels (complete with my laptop camera and other electronics goodies). I was waiting at the post office at the train station and decided to put down my bag briefly because I had been lugging it around for a good 3 hrs. When I looked down again it was gone and I saw a man briskly walking away with it a few meters behind me. I was able to chase after him and snatch my bag back, but I was so pissed at the end of it.

Brussels was quite nice and I highly recommend the waffles or chocolate shops to anyone who goes there. The restaurants do tend to be a little expensive, though. Paris was also quite incredible as well though I felt a bit rushed only having a day to explore the city.

 I did get to practice my French in Brussels and Paris and quickly realized how much I had forgotten in the 3 years since high school. I was able to carry out some basic conversations, but at some points I just resorted to English to make things a bit easier for everyone. It is a language that I’d like to get better at (again) and I’ve already found a few French students here that offered to help me out.

 I ventured to try Ryan Air, a rather sketchy low fare airline that provides flights throughout Europe, and ended up having to take a bus to a small airport an hour outside of Paris and wait for another 5 hrs while my flight to Glasgow, Scotland was delayed. From there I had to take another hour long train to get into Glasgow city and that was pretty much my day. I’m starting to think that the convenience of a major airport wins out over Ryan Airs $20 flights, but I still might take them in the future.

By the way, Oscar Wilde is amazing. I love his dry wit, incredible writing style and philosophical comments on the nature of art. I highly recommend any of his writings.

So I'm finally home from my travels and travails this summer. My laptop is currently sad and unfunctional, which is why my posts have been rather non-existent as of late. But my new hard drive (with 10GB more space!) is all ready for its new home (yay warranty!) so the laptop will rise again.

(Somewhat) short recap of everything I've been up to for the past several weeks:

My internship at P&G got extended by a week and a half, since my supervisor, section head, and associate director all couldn't make my final presentation as it was originally scheduled. Plus it didn't hurt that I got some more time to work. Overall I really liked my project - I can't say a lot about what I actually worked on, save that I was responsible for developing the formulation and processing method of a new product that P&G is intending to launch. That meant I was free to direct the project and do whatever I thought was necessary to move the project forward; it, however, also meant that I knew the most about my project and didn't have a lot of people to ask for help. But my bosses were all happy with my work, and recommended me for permanent hire once (if) I finish school. Trouble is, I really like the company, the people I worked with, and even Brussels, but I don't think I could be happy working on detergent and cleaning products permanently. Still, I have at least 5-6 years to finish, so I have time to make up my mind.

Besides working, I spent the weekends touring the sights of Belgium - Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp, and even made it to Koeln (Cologne). I liked Ghent and Bruges for their very old medieval city centers, but Bruges feels like a movie set - the city was totally dead except for the tourists when I went, and a little too picture-perfect for my taste. Ghent at least had some life and felt like a city where people live. I ended up going to Antwerp twice - once for the city, which isn’t that spectacular, aside from the cathedral, and the second time with a bunch of friends to go see the Tall-ship races (sailing ships, ranging from 1-masted yachts to 5-masted schooners of yore that Columbus would envy). Koeln has a beautiful cathedral, next to which some wise (or foolish, I'm not sure which) city planner put the main train station. Koeln was bombed pretty thoroughly during the war, so there isn't much left of the old city beyond the cathedral, but still, it was so nice to go to a place where I understood people, even if just for a day.

After finishing at P&G on the 6th, I visited Czechia for the past week and bought books, ate way too much, and generally enjoyed myself, albeit for only a brief time. Then I heroically dragged my suitcase (50+ lbs) up and down at least 20 flights of stairs to make it from Pardubice to Prague, and hence make my way back to Brussels and a day later, to San Francisco. Now I'm finally home and get to do nothing for three days before moving to Stanford (and by doing nothing I mean reading, reinstalling everything on my laptop, packing and unpacking, and watching lots of TV.) Monday I have to show up to my Stanford apartment and pick up the keys - orientation for the ME department only starts on Thursday, though, and classes get going on the 25th, so hopefully I'll get a couple more days to veg. It'll certainly be a change not having to fly and ship all my junk, bu instead pack it into a car and drive for 20 minutes. I'm getting a little sick of schlepping my stuff all over the place. I'm a little nervous about what it will be like, but it can't be worse than 1st semester senior year, right?

Well, today marks the 6th day on the road and I've found Europe to be simply amazing. I arrived in Amsterdam on the 7th and spent the first two days there. The city is full of picturesque canals, parks, gardens and museums scattered throughout the city and I spent most of my time just wandering around from place to place. It's such a quant city and it's one city that I could possibly see myslef living in one day. I've got pictures of my travels for the first few days below. I'll be adding captions soon and I promise that future pictures will include me as well.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/enviro0025/album?.dir=3a5fre2

I was amazed in Amsterdam by how many people regularly bike there. I saw everyone from mothers and fathers with their kids on a single bike to age 70+ people riding around. It's the primary mode of transportation for about 30% of the population and there are at least 600,000 bikes in Amsterdam alone. This is a culture that has truly embraced the bike as a means of travel and you can easily see the results on the road where often more space is devoted to bike lanes and parking spots than for cars.

The whole experience also got me thinking that for the past year with the Human Powered Vehicle team, we worked on developing a bike that we idealistically hoped could "change the world": one that was so desireable, functional and safe that people would immediately sweep it up and bikes would become much more common as more people chose the bike as their primary means of getting around. We were hoping that new technology would bring about a greater desire for using bikes and that this would start a new "biking revolution". I realize now that in many ways were were greatly mistaken. Even if we designed the "perfect bicycle" we still live in a culture where the bicycle cannot effectively compete with the car. Just look at our overcrowded roads, the massive parking lots of our shopping centers and spread out suburban homes. Our cities largely grew with the introduction of the car and now in most areas we've become fully dependent on it. I'd love to use a bike for almost al my travels, but at times it's just to frustrating, terrifying or downright dangerous to travel in many areas by bike. When you look at Dutch cities, though, it's a whole different story. Bicyclists are so numerous that I'd be afraid of riding a car around in Amsterdam for fear that i'd be overrun by cyclists (seriously). We can't become a biking culture until we lessen our dependence on the automobile and make our road much friendlier to cyclists, something that we're still far from doing. I think we have a few things we can learn from the Dutch.

On the 9th, I arrived in Berlin and stayed through the 12th. Berlin seems to have the variety of NYC in many ways, but also has it's own unique charm. I only got lost in the city once and now I at least know a bit of German, though I still can't correctly pronounce certain words even if my life depended on it. I found the people to be very friendly, the food was amazing and the beer was phenomenal. I can now see why some of the most well know beer festivals in the world take place in Germany. Some good brews that I'd recommend:

Alsterwasser: A mix of a good light beer know as pils and lemonade that's quite refreshing (yes I just recommended a light beer and no I'm not joking, it's in fact quite good).

Beck's Green Lime: A light beer flavored with lime that takes very much like a corona. Not bad.

Sweihenstephaner Weizenbiere Dankel: The one dark beer I tried considering Germany focuses more on light beers, but definitely one of the best I've ever tasted. Rich and smooth without being overwhelming.

Believe it or not, there was also a Becks beer that doubles as an energy drink. Very odd. Never got to try it, though. Berlin has some very nice museums as well and I'd strongly recommend also visiting one of the turkish restaurants in "Little Istanbul".

Brussels has been an entirely different matter. I arrived by high speed train this afternoon but was unable to find a working ATM for nearly 2 hrs. After finally finding one, I discovered that most of the local cafes were closed save a few very expensive restaurants and spent another hour looking and asking around for a more affordable restaurant. I'm just so exhausted now that I don't think I can do anything else tonight, but hopefully tomorrow will be better. I'll have pictures from Berlin and later Brussels up within the next few days. Will be in Scotland on the 17th to start classes. Phew, I think I've written more than enough... Hope all is well back at Olin.