Enginerdiness

New Career Counselling

2011-04-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

A group of us were discussing the somewhat hilarious list of first date questions from OKCupid. For example, a positive response to "Do you like the taste of beer?" has a 60% correlation with "Will you sleep with someone you just met?" We discovered our own list of questions tied to "Are you an engineer or scientist?" that had almost 100% correlation (albeit over a group of 8 or so). Highlights include:
-Have you ever watched a hard drive defragment? For fun? Are you sad that they defragment too quickly now to see the bits move?
-Have you ever sorted your pocket change by value or year? Did you line the coins up into a histogram? Did you then save your results in a spreadsheet for comparison?

As soon as I gather enough questions, I can totally offer better career counselling!

Grr

2010-07-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

Laptop stolen.

Hate hate hate.
Pain pain pain.
Doom doom doom.

Pockets Rock

2010-05-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

Especially for school demos. Today's pocket check:
-wallet, cellphone, keys, USB stick
-3 screwdrivers (see DS, Ipod...)
-2 transformers
-1 Nintendo DS (broken, demo unit)
- Ipod (broken, demo unit)
-breadboard
-multimeter

After a certain point I might have confused the children as to whether I was talking about electricity or doing magic tricks.

Can't wait to get on the plane to foreign overseas country for the summer. If I get good enough cargo pants the security check alone could take days.

Burrdd!

2010-05-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

Woo, I am officially armed with two bird guides and three types of bird food. My mission is to learn how to tell sparrows apart. They all look the same to me, brown and tiny. Thanks to my biologist roomie, I can tell them apart by sound. But now it's time to squint closely at their tiny little heads and learn how to tell the little feather balls apart. Also - greater variety of birdseed = greater variety of birds? We shall see.

I think I just aged myself several decades buying a bird guide, bird seed, and gardening gloves at the supermarket. With coupons.

D'aww, my little electronic baby :D

2010-05-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

I've been having a great time lately working on some electronics projects. It's too bad I can't double-major here or anything or else I'd get an electrical engineering degree too. Fun stuff. Then again, maybe I just like it because I haven't had to take too many courses about circuits and programming and all that, just the basics. In any case, I'm glad that I have the resources and people around to help me turn my crazy ideas into real projects.

This week, I made my very own circuitboard for my clock project so that I can finally move it off the breadboard. I've never made a board before so I was really excited. I used EAGLE, which is a pretty neat program. It has libraries full of parts in their actual size so you can play around with their position on the board and be relatively certain that they'll fit. Plus it mirrors everything so that when you transfer the image to the board everything is in the right place. It also makes sure that lines aren't too close or touching where they shouldn't be. After printing the design with a laser printer, it was out of printer and into the laminator! Then I spent the better part of an hour swishing it around with glee in ammonium etching fluid before it was ready. And ta-dah! My very own special board.

One Step Forward, Eighteen Thousand Steps Backwards

2010-05-10T00:46:00.000-07:00

It was wonderful and somewhat surprising to see so many examples of girls and boys doing science together in this book. There are an equal amount of pictures and examples for both genders. I would have expected more genderized photographs and projects. I'm glad to have been wrong on that!

Right off the bat, we have this lovely picture of a Grade 9 class and their science projects, built from the instructions contained in the book. This includes a lens camera, an electric motor, a barometer, a sonometer, a convection current somethingorother, home-lighting, circuits, and an optical disk. How nice that (presumably) all of the students in that class got to learn from building something.

See? Everyone will go blind as they get older!

The progressive and inclusive attitude towards women that I found in this book made it all the more shocking when I found this doozy of a problem. It was stunning and horrifying to see this in a textbook, and a science textbook at that, of all things.

The caption reads, "A Fijian mother with her two children in front of their thatched cottage. What evidence can you find in this picture to suggest that life in a hot climate is very simple and that the people are unprogressive?"

OMGWTFBBWSRSLY?

The supporting block of text in the book that students can use to "help" solve this example is:

"In regions lying near the equator, the life of the native is equally simple. There, clothing is scanty and of light material; homes are simple and poorly constructed. Natives in these regions incline to be indolent and unprogressive. Why? In the very cold regions, the conditions are too hard and the resources too meagre to permit of progress, while in the tropics, living is too easy to stimulate activity."

Way to miss the real problem completely, authors. I hope that we've come a long, long way since then.

SCIENCE (3) - Imma fail this unit

2010-05-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Err. Uhhh. Umm... No clue. That there is a pig.

Ooh! Combine, swatter, tractor, thingie, other thingie, and that thingamajig on the farm that they let me drive. Yeah.

Marquis! It's the Canadian miracle wheat that opened up the prairies! I wonder what we grow now.

Yikes this is hard.

SCIENCE (2) - Everyday Examples

2010-05-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

Like any good science book, this one has lots of everyday applications that the students can relate to. Can you guess the mechanical principle from the examples given?

Examples:

1. "[...] common examples are the oar of a rowboat and the potato-ricer."

2. " When we use a wringer, turn a door-knob, or draw water from a well with a windlass, we are doing work with the help of a _________________ ."

3. "The propellers that pull flying boats and aeroplanes through the air are ____________. Even the snowmobile, which travels swiftly over the deep snow that blocks other motor traffic, is propelled by an ___________."

4. " [...] the binder, the fanning-mill, the sheaf-loader, and the grain-separator."

Give up yet?

Answers:
1. The lever
2. Wheel and axle
3. Air screws
4. Inclined plane

Aside from noticing how common, everyday examples have changed so much, it's also interesting to notice the change in language over the past 70 or so years, most noticeably the de-hyphenization of words such as door-knob.

SCIENCE

2010-05-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

I have a particular fondness for old looking books. The biggest secondhand store here has an entire shelf devoted to (sort of) old books, which is always fun to browse. Interestingly enough I've found several science books from the early and mid-1900s, which counts as old in Canada. It's really neat to look at how our views of the world have grown and changed over the years. The most recent book I picked up was an educational book for Grade 9 students published in 1938 simply titled SCIENCE, by T.W. Hunt, L.H.G. Clark, and J.R. Davidson. I love the visual style of the cover, I'm thinking this would make an awesome poster.

Another fun thing about old schoolbooks is the assortment of graffiti and ephemera that comes with them. This one includes a newspaper clipping about Queen Elizabeth, a page of handwriting practice (ugggh) and someone's daily schedule:
Mondays - AM: Geometry PM: Art
Tuesdays - AM: History PM: Languages
Wednesdays - AM: Health PM: Literature
Thursdays - AM: Algebra PM: French
Fridays- AM: Science PM: Arithmetic

Woo Fridays! I can't imagine having that schedule during high school. Even with my best efforts I still have trouble staying focused (ie, awake) for three hour lectures.

Ahhh

2010-05-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm done exams, that leaves time for the finer things in life, like potlucks! We had a great one last week. For some reason, though, we spent an entire day cleaning the house before the party. Duhhh. Parties should be held at messy houses, not at clean ones, so that the cleaning afterwards is less redundant.

I had this brilliant plan to make a turkey, salad, casserole, and scalloped potatoes. It turns out that I own fewer pans than I thought. Thank goodness for my addiction to cake pans! I think my mom would call this a disaster. I call it awesome! New recipe - dinosaur potatoes. RrraaWWWWrrrrr!

Dirty Pool

2010-05-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

I'm used to finding religious pamphlets at work, at school, and flailed in my face as I walk down the street. But in my own bathroom? What the heck? I guess our newish roomie is really religious. Seriously though, the bathroom? Is nothing sacred?

This lackadaisical commercial attitude towards conversion really irks me. Buying little books to argue for you and leaving them around is just so lazy. Want to tell me what to believe? Want to tell me how to live my life? Either wait for me to ask your opinion, or at least have the decency to engage with me face-to-face. If you can't make a compelling argument for something on your own, maybe you should reconsider what you believe.

Time for new friends

2010-05-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I had this conversation with one of my friends :(

Friend: "You're lucky, you don't have to worry about getting a job. You're a woman in a field with like no girls, so all the employers will be like yay!"
Me: "Seriously? Did you just say that?"
Friend: "Uhh, I think you're misinterpreting what I said! What I mean is that you're a smart woman and most women in engineering are dumb, like L."
Me: "...what? WHAT? We're probably just as dumb as guys in engineering. Speaking of which, your buddy R. is pretty thick and he has a nice engineering job."
Friend: "Yeah, but people expect guys to be dumb. When they see a smart girl they're all like WOAH and they hire you right away."
Me: "No... just.... no. We will have this conversation again when you are sober, and then I will hit you."

Gaaaaaah.

Turnabout is fair play

2010-04-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

When I started my degree, I thought that grad school would be the most terrifying thing ever. I just wanted to be done with tests and assignments and all that junk and get out in the real world where (supposedly) my hard work and merit would be recognized. Grad school was for smart people, real smart people, who could do the hardest things in the whole world and THEN write a book about it while beating off angry professors with meter sticks. Or something.

Now I'm feeling reassured (and excited!) that I'm in grad school, I can totally handle this, and I'm not going to have to "get a real job" and go work yet. Haaa.

Studying

2010-04-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Ugh, I need to buy more junk food, after running out of ice cream and Coke I'm cramming my face with rice crackers while I study. Stale artificial cheese flavoured rice crackers. Gross.

Finally!

2010-04-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

I write my last final (of this degree, at least...) tomorrow. I'm almost a little disappointed, since after that I'll have no more excuse to gorge myself on junk food :( It still hasn't quite sunk in that I'm actually graduating. Like, for realz. And probably with honours, too!

Holy unexpected, Batman!

I've come a long way. I wonder if I'll be radically different in another few years, or sameish.

Putting the work in work visa

2010-04-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

I need a work visa for my exciting summer plans. Let's just say I'm going overseas to build cyborgs. Ok, so that's stretching a little, but I'm pretty sure it's Borg-related technology.

Anyhoo, it seems like the visa granting agency has decided to ensure that only the most qualified candidates make it overseas, by making it impossible for mere mortals to get over there.

First, they post the wrong address for the office on-line. Harrr. Got you, I left 3 hours early. Had to get extra passport-style photos taken by a guy who kept insisting that I "smile with my eyes" and put on makeup. Agh. Maybe I *like* looking like a disgruntled serial killer in my passport photos. Let me through to your country or else I smite you!

Then, they make sure not to actually provide, at any point, a checklist of application documents or any list to anything that remotely resembles a checklist. To make things more fun, they insist that only that country's government can tell you exactly what you need to apply. The government says that it delegates all duties and responsibilities for visas to the visa agency. Oy.

When I actually applied, the lady checking my documents (including passport! eek.) was just about to seal them all in an envelope (that can't be opened again until it gets to the government) and cash my $200 application fee. Just to check, I asked her if I had all the documents I needed in the application.
"No."
Then why the hell are you cashing my fee and mailing my definitely-to-be-rejected forms?
"Could you tell me which one I'm missing."
"No, I'm not authorized to do that."
OMGWTFBBQ? Ok, let's do this the hard way.
"Uhh... is it... a return ticket?"
"No."
"Is it my birth certificate?"
"No."
"Is it this form?"
"Yes."
".... didn't you basically just tell me which form I was missing?"
*glare*

Here's hoping I actually had all the required documents, and that this goes through, or else my summer employment is going to be really sketchy.

Oh yeah, and my passport gets mailed back to me by courier, not by registered mail. By the same courier that recently decided not to deliver a parcel to me, but a note saying that all delivery attempts had failed and I was going to have to go to their depot to pick the package up. Except they never actually tried to deliver it, their first attempt consisted of giving me that note. So, a company that delivers failed delivery attempt notices is going to have my passport. Fantastic.

Current mood: Nervous.

Boo-yeah

2010-04-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

My brother either stole or ordered a bag of McD's pickles for me (I'm not sure which, and I'm not going to ask). Heck yeah. When we were kids we used to race to open our hamburgers to see who got the most pickles.

I am unofficially McDonald's pickle champion for life now. Or until I have a big grad BBQ, but I'm not sure I want to share.

Mmmmmmm.

I still maintain that I'm not impossibly hard to shop for, I just... covet different things than most people.

Great Moments of Science

2010-04-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Me: "Could you suggest some keywords that would help me find more relevant information on this subject?"
Instructor: "Yes, just do a quick Google search for penetration."
Me: !
Instructor: "OH. DO NOT GOOGLE PENETRATION."

Happy lame grad to you, too!

2010-04-08T16:17:00.001-07:00

I've been mulling about my iron ring ceremony lately. It's a ceremony where you make a professional obligation to adhere to good professional practice and be responsible. In Canada, nearly all practicing engineers wear an iron ring as a symbol of their commitment. I'm not much for fanfare but my family is absolutely fawning over my iron ring. Yet, I still have a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole thing.

The first thing that bothers me is that it's supposed to be "secret". We were only allowed so many guests to the ceremony, and everyone was supposed to pledge to refrain from divulging any details about the whole thing, lest we ruin the "spirit of the occasion" or something. Doesn't that strike you as odd? We're here pledging our commitment to public safety, honour, and good practice, but you can't watch. Everyone go away and let us be noble and dignified in secret.

Yet, at the same time, the handouts I received from my school before the presentation stressed the fact that the ceremony is not in fact secretive or private. They just, you know, insist that you vow not to ever tell anyone anything about it. Totally different.
Global News Vancouver on "secret" engineering ceremony.

Ok, so big deal, engineers want to have their (our?) own little treehouse club member initiation. Animal sacrifice optional. Big deal. So what bothers me? I'll let APEGGA describe it, from http://www.apegga.org/About/ironr.html:

"Like many established symbols, in recent years, the iron ring ceremony has come under criticism. It is viewed by some as sexist and by others as archaic. Some argue that the ceremony should be public. Others suggest it relies excessively on Judeo - Christian principles. Some feel that language should be changed to reflect current times by eliminating any reference to gender or to God. Others simply state that the overall tone is inappropriate for these enlightened times."

Yes. Excellent. Not only is it all of those things, but they are clearly aware of it, acknowledge it, and make no move to change any of this despite repeated pleas for inclusion by various new members of the profession. I felt incredibly uncomfortable during the ceremony when anything non-inclusive came up and was immediately prefaced with, more or less "Some of you may feel left out or offended, but you shouldn't be offended because that will ruin our vibe" It was like waving a giant "Yeah, so what? Suck it!" in the face of anyone who felt left out.

What are the arguments for preserving the tradition as is? One is that it's not a requirement to be a practicing engineer. Fair enough, they aren't preventing anyone from graduating or working because of any silly willy personal objections they might have to swearing an oath that they don't believe in, or anything. However, simply not barring anyone from participating in the ceremony is not the same thing as actively supporting and including everyone! Shouldn't it be their (our?) goal to welcome everyone into the profession, regardless of culture or gender? I've been accused of being oversensitive, but I really did feel during the ceremony as though the ceremony was really for Christian men, and the rest of us were just being allowed to participate so that we didn't throw a fuss.

Another argument I've heard is the, "It's tradition" bit. A lot of things are tradition. That doesn't hide what they really are. I realize that a 85 years or so is basically forever in Canadian history, but it's kind of a flash in the pan on a bigger scale. Societies, cultures, words and meanings change over time. I certainly understand the desire to preserve the meanings of the tradition, but I don't agree that it means that we have to keep the wording exactly the same. If it has a noble and honourable meaning, surely it can be conveyed equally well with a slightly different set of language. For example, I don't see how changing the words "son" or "man/men" to "children" or "people" in any way alters the deeper meaning of anything, unless the deeper meaning is "women can't be engineers". Likewise, I don't feel that promising something on your personal honour/integrity or to a higher power, if you believe in one, is any less of a commitment than promising something unto God the Creator, unless the meaning of that part of the ceremony is "I promise to believe in Jesus." In which case you should not be labelling your ceremony or group of people as representative of a certain more diverse population (engineers) or as inclusive.

Overall, the messages I got were:
"We aren't binding you to secrecy, just asking you not to tell anyone"
"We're inclusive, we just refuse to use language that includes people who aren't like us."
"Don't make a fuss."
So I really don't know what to say to people when they ask me how my graduation or iron ring ceremony was. There certainly is a lot of value in committing yourself to the betterment of society, yourself, and your profession. And I'm sure it can be very meaningful to be welcomed into a group of people that will support you in those goals. I'm just not feeling it.

Evil

2010-04-04T13:08:00.001-07:00

With everyone gone this weekend, the cat has continuously been pestering me.
So I bought a bird feeder.

I'm going to hell for this. (but the cat is so happy!)

Hoppy Easter!

2010-04-02T20:06:00.001-07:00

To celebrate the season, my mom sent me... wait, a weight loss video?
I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she copied the wrong link.
Then I'ma go eat more chocolate.
Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Whoops...

2010-04-02T19:17:00.000-07:00

I forgot to tell my parents about the iron ring ceremony, haha. It's supposed to be super duper top secret but everyone can invite up to two friends or family members. Huh.

Anyway, I was milling about with some friends afterwards, who mentioned that they were really disappointed that I hadn't brought my parents. Confused, I asked them why. The response?

"I wanted to see what spawned you."

Classic.

I have sinned...

2010-03-30T11:54:00.001-07:00

Must not buy clothes off internet. Must not buy clothes off internet.

Aw hell.
(today's shirt.woot.com)

Dear non-sciencey professor

2010-03-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

I wanted to love you, I really did. But then, you did something unforgivable.

You said....

you said...

that the analytical engine was "just a really simple calculator".

I cry now.

Go big or go home

2010-03-26T21:23:00.001-07:00

When I get an idea for something ridiculous, it's gotta happen.

I'm writing an essay about tampons for my science/environment/society class.

The instructor is an older, semi-retired male engineer that likes to spend our classes talking about himself, mostly. The only criteria he would divulge for the final essay were:

1. Must be about a non-technical subject

2. Must be about something the instructor finds interesting

3. Should not be about something the instructor knows about already

4. Should also not have been covered in a final essay by any of the students that have taken the course in the last 20 years he's been teaching it (or something like that).

As if 2 and 3 together weren't enough, sheesh. First I have to read minds, then I have to satisfy some sort of paradox.

Anyway, I figure:

-he likes the environment

-he doesn't know anything about "feminine hygiene products", or knows very little

-none of my predominately male classmates will have chosen the topic in the past

Thus, if I write an essay/paper/assignment/thing about how the taboo surrounding menstruation hinders awareness of more environmentally friendly "feminine hygiene" products, I subsequently fulfill all of the above criteria. Right? Also, for bonus points, as a comparison I'm going to talk about the greenification of sex toys as the adult industry becomes more acceptable/less controversial.

Judging from the looks of horror on my classmates' faces when they heard my essay topic, this is going to be awesome.

Dear classroom presenters: suck it.

2010-03-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

Someone's been doing dirty business behind my back! They've been going to schools and telling the kids that engineering is REALLY HARD, and saying things like:

"You have to take more math than a math major." (not true)

"You have to write 600 tests every year." (the hell!?!)

"Everyone says that it's the hardest degree you can take." (I'm quite sure some of my classmates would find an English degree nearly impossible)

"If you don't have straight A+'s in math and science, you may as well not apply because you'll fail. And even people with 100% averages fail sometimes because it's too much work."

I don't know how the male students react, but some of my female mentorees have been sending me increasingly worried e-mails as of late, like "DO YOU SERIOUSLY HAVE TO TAKE 600 TESTS!!!!!" Some of them have been reconsidering their career choices (which is fine, I want to see them end up somewhere where they're happy, which I fully realize may not be engineering) because of these presentations. Isn't that the opposite of what you want to accomplish when you're presenting at a school?

I don't see the point of all this chest-thumping. The only explanation I can think of is that the engineering students want to stroke their egos and convince the high school students to worship them. I've noticed that some people even have that attitude on campus, and constantly need to complain to every other department about how their workload is impossible, the courses are the hardest ever, etc, etc.

Maybe the presenters just want to discourage mediocre students from getting their hopes up, and they figure that's the best way to do it. However, I don't see why they couldn't just talk about the admissions averages and then encourage C and D students to spend a year at college or something if they really want to go to university, then transfer in.

Maybe they're just joking and think that the high school students will catch on. Which is fair enough, but... from what I'm hearing, some of these kids don't have any idea what university is like, and trust its representatives to give a fair and honest description. I know I didn't have the foggiest idea about university/postsecondary until I got here. Some of my high school students honestly believed that there were 600 tests a year in engineering. I know that's ridiculous, I'm sure the presenters know that's ridiculous, but if the students don't know anyone in engineering or any university students, then what are they supposed to think?

I spent way too many years in a subpar school system that told the students that we weren't the "good schools, like the ones in (big city) ", we didn't have the good teachers, good enough resources, whatever. And you know what? It kind of stuck. Some of my teachers told me that I wouldn't be as prepared for university as kids from other schools (which was kind of true, but not to as severe of a degree as I thought), and even that I shouldn't go because I wouldn't be able to handle it.

That turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy for me. Whenever I ran into something I didn't immediately understand, I would start to panic and extrapolate everything into a catastrophe (which I can't blame on my high school teachers, only myself). Once, a professor told the class (in the third lecture, no less) that if we didn't understand a concept introduced that day, we should drop out of engineering because we would never be able to be engineers if we were that stupid. Guess who didn't understand the concept? Funnily enough, the administration told me that there was a rule that you can't drop out of engineering until after the first two weeks of class are over, because they have too many people that want to drop in that time to process the requests. Or something. I'm not sure if they were lying or not, but thanks, registrar's office, now I have a degree!

Anyway, I know the school presenters might seem like a trivial issue, but they're really frustrating me. I spend a lot of effort encouraging people to be excited about learning things and curious, and to consider career paths that they might not have considered otherwise. It's really disappointing to see other people coming in and discouraging high school students from something that could be really fulfilling for them, especially by calling it hard or even impossible. Should high school students freak out because something is going to be hard? No, but that's another post...

Wherein I get the edits back...

2010-03-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

It looks like more word salad from my group members...

"The human misery described by Hardin includes pollution, over population and the inability to acquire energy is argument suggests that each individual must collectively view the world as finite in order for sustainable development to succeed"

Filter the kelp through your brain a few more times, *then* send it to me, please.

A bit disappointed

2010-03-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

I went to a panel discussion the other day hosted by a women's group on campus that's branched out to support people in non-traditional careers. So, there were lots of women in industry, and a male nurse. The panelists came from several different industries, which was really interesting to hear about. But, overall, I still have to say that I was a little bit disappointed.

Most of the panelists were strikingly normal. Not like that's bad or anything, in fact, it's really reassuring, but I was hoping for at least one participant who really stuck out, or walked their own way. (I think) All of the panelists were married, and most of them admitted moving out here because their husbands got jobs here. Most (all?) of them had children, and talked about how they arranged to get home in time to serve supper, and how family time was really important to them (which is also a great discussion topic). But I guess what I really wanted to see was someone who didn't have children and didn't feel the need to defend that, or someone whose husband stayed home with the kids, someone who made her husband move here for a job, had a husband that was responsible for the majority of housework and childcare, or something. Not like I expected that from all the panelists, but even one panelist who did something really, really different would have been neat.

Even the nurse was pretty gender conformist. He has an MBA and now manages a bunch of hospital staff. Which is great, but I would be more curious to talk to men in nursing that interact daily with the patients and aren't at a management level. How did their family react to their decision? Do people mistreat them because they don't feel that nursing is a "manly" enough profession? I have talked to some guy friends that were considering going into nursing but voiced those concerns, and it would be neat to hear from someone who took a somewhat less "acceptable" position.

Also, some of his comments rubbed me the wrong way. One of the participants asked him how he managed his work-life balance, and he (the MBA nurse) mentioned that it used to be really easy until his wife wanted to re-enter the workplace, and he wasn't sure he liked that because it would make things harder. Gee, really, balancing children and a career can be difficult? It was just irritating because it made it sound like he had never had to consider changing his work schedule or making accommodations for his kids before, like that was strictly his wife's problem.

And while it was really great that all of the panelists were happy with their careers and felt supported, what about a panelist that could discuss what they did when crap happened to them? I've had really interesting conversations with some of the participants (and one of the panelists, at a previous event, I think) about dealing with discrimination in the workplace appropriately, which is advice that I really value. However, the only advice that they really had was, "Work hard to show that you belong there and are competent, and don't talk about shoes a lot because guys don't want to hear that."

It seemed like everyone wanted to be super sunshiney and roses on the panel. I can't tell if there really are 8 or so of them in non-traditional careers, from many different backgrounds, that have never had a bad experience at work, or if they have and just wanted to sound optimistic, or if they think that they should just deal with whatever happens to them, or what.

To sum up my feelings about the discussion, I'm just a bit disappointed because I felt like the most radical person there. And, I suppose I was expecting more stories about people overcoming challenges and fighting against norms and expectations. I'll just have to stick to calling my grandma for inspiration :) Or I can call the other grandma and have her tell me to stop wasting my money on an education and start having babies already. Wooo.

Labmate Rats

2010-03-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

My labmates were curious to see what was in the big plastic kit that I brought for the strawberry DNA demo, so naturally, I had to show them. Part of the demo involves eating a strip of PTC paper to see if you have the gene that can taste PTC bitterness, and oh, woe on you if you do. Out of pity for the children who can taste it, the kit also contains a big pile of candy.

Oddly, every single person in the lab could taste the paper (compared to 25% of the kids I gave it to). Apparently there's supposed to be about a 50/50 prevalence of the gene. This made us very curious and we had to experiment on everyone that came in the lab. And, oddly, they could taste it all too! We had to try a few professors as well to round out the bunch.

Our conclusion is that the ability to taste PTC makes you bitter, and engineers are bitter, therefore engineers can taste PTC. It might need a few revisions, but so far our supporting data is really strong!

And then your parents found a strawberry seed and poured your DNA on it!

2010-03-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

Today was great, I pulled off the best science demo that I've done to date at a local Catholic school. The kids got to learn about DNA, chromosomes, and genes, and even got to test themselves for certain genes! Then we extracted DNA from a strawberry, which is fun and gooey, and it's also a good opportunity to learn about solubility.

The best part, though, was definitely the Q&A session afterwards. They were so curious, and the whole class was really attentive to the questions being asked so it grew into a great (and really long) discussion that blossomed out in many different directions. Some of the topics included:

-enzymes

-digestion

-solubility

-DNA testing

-gel electrophoresis

-goats that make spider silk

-polyploidy

-genetic mutation

According to the teacher, the kids were so interested in the discussion that they insisted on spending all of their computer time this afternoon researching DNA and genetics! Wait, kids voluntarily and excitedly learning things? Win! They also asked me to send them the instructions for the demo so that they could try extracting DNA from their food at home. I predict an increase in fruit mortality.

The funny part of all this was, the kids hadn't even studied reproduction yet! It was obvious that some of them knew that things have sex and the babies get their traits, and other kids were totally out there. Did I mention I was at a Catholic school? This resulted in some interesting discussions.

Kid: "So... if I want to make a strawberry at home... do I just plant DNA?"

Me: "Well, seeds have DNA inside of them. Remember how we talked about how DNA is like a recipe? The seed reads the DNA, which gives it the instructions it needs to build the plant."

Kid: "So if I pour DNA on the seed, it will grow?"

Me: "The seed already contains all of the DNA the strawberry will need!"

Kid: "Do humans come from seeds?"

Me: "Yes, a different kid of seed."

Kid: "So, my parents poured my DNA on a seed and planted me?"

Teacher: "I think it's time for the next question..."

Other kid: "No, your parents both injected their DNA into you before you were born!"

Another kid, incredulously: "So... wait... this is why... if you have two different kinds of dog, and they have a baby, it doesn't look exactly like either parent, but it has traits from each? It gets some genes from each parent?"

Me: "Spot on!"

Incredulous kid: "THAT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE!"

I'm curious as to -

A: How that one particular eleven/twelve year old has absolutely no concept of sex, or that humans don't grow in dirt.

B: What heredity makes so much more sense than.

Losing the little pieces

2010-03-18T00:26:00.001-07:00

I haven't even made it to a quarter of a century and I'm already losing it. And by it, I mean, basically anything. I guess I'm more stressed out than I think because I seem to be losing track of small details. In the past few weeks, I have:

- lost my gloves (twice)

- lost, and subsequently found my wallet in a snowbank (that snowbank has great deposit security!)

-lost my mouse

And, the kicker:

-found a hairbrush I lost about 3 weeks ago in one of the lesser-used women's washrooms in my building. Next to my concealer. And my watch. The worst part is that I think I've only been missing the watch for a week! So I must have left it next to my other missing possessions WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING.

... it's time for me to retire, I think :D

In which I burn bras and corrupt children

2010-03-12T00:49:00.000-08:00

Recently, I received a scholarship from the government for "furthering the advancement of women in non-traditional careers". I had a really great time working with the programs I was/am involved with, and it almost feels wrong to accept any money for volunteering. But, I figure if I can relax about money a bit and do what I enjoy doing, then I'll have a lot more energy to put into other things, like volunteering and science outreach.

Apparently, other people think that it's wrong for me to receive the scholarship, too, but for different reasons. I was sharing my excitement with some friends, while sitting in a larger group, and had someone tell me that it's crap that I get a scholarship just for being a woman (!), and that it's unfair to men to have scholarships that encourage women. After all, there's no rule saying that women can't be (insert profession), so they should just stop whining and start working harder. And if they aren't as good as the menfolk at (insert profession), then tough luck, they should just find something else to do.

(/insert profession)

You know, I get a little bit jealous when someone else gets a scholarship or other award, but I'm pretty good at keeping that to myself, and I don't feel the need to publicly shit on them afterwards. It baffles me that he can go on and on about how unfair it is for to discriminate against him by supporting programs that encourage women and minorities to pursue engineering, while he's about to graduate in a class that's about 15% female. And seriously, he could have just said, "Congratulations!", or even " (complete silence) ". So basically, I went from providing hands-on skill building, encouragement, and leadership development activities to young women, to being a radical feminist that hates and wants to destroy men, all in the span of one conversation. I guess perspective really is everything.

Boogers.

Fuzzy Morning Midterms

2010-03-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

I had the nicest thought the other morning, around 8:13 AM or so. The thought was, "Awesome, this stoichiometry problem has all of the co-efficients equal to one! I guess they must have wanted to take it easy on us."

Haaa. Seriously, brain... Ethane != C8H2.

It's funny how even the simplest things (relatively speaking, I've known how to solve these types of problems for, oh, 7 years?) turn into rocket surgery early enough in the day.

I did it!

2010-03-08T19:35:00.001-08:00

I got my grad pics taken wearing a pirate hat! Ahahaha. Now all I have to do is sneak them past whoever approves the final framed thing with all the pictures of my graduating class in it and I'll be a legend.

We have a winner.

2010-03-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

I've received a lot of strange/creepy/awkward/unwanted pick-up lines, and thought I was at the point where they don't faze me. I was wrong.

"Sex is like war. Nobody loses, but nobody really wins either. But, it can still be fun!"

Dear Sir:

KEEP YOUR JUNK VERY FAR AWAY FROM ME.

Riddle of the Day

2010-02-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

"Using these modifications a 13.5% reduction in energy is lost through the ceiling."

I wonder if some day I'll be the TA grading group reports like this and silently sobbing. Screw the silently part, I like to bitch out loud.

So close.

2010-02-20T20:32:00.001-08:00

I woke up this morning convinced that I was going to go make myself a peanut butter and ground beef sandwich. Almost.

I need to graduate so I can sleep again.

Dinosaur troubles

2010-02-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

Following my usual tradition, I drew a dinosaur on the midterm I wrote today. This time it was even almost relevant, because the test had a very open-ended "bonus question" and I figured dinosaur content would be appropriate. Apparently, I neglected to pay attention to the clock and the professor neglected to mention that the exam was over. I must have been writing into the start of the next class, because their professor came over to ask me if I was done (aka shoo me the hell out of there) and saw me drawing dinosaurs playing frisbee. Look, it was important, ok?

This is an interdisciplinary class and I'm not telling anyone that I'm a graduating engineer.

Engineer Writing

2010-02-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

I understand that the point of review is to catch mistakes, and that written work is not perfect or even excellent in the first draft. I still think I'm entitled to a good laugh at some of the stuff I've been editing lately. All of these people are native English speakers who have presumably passed a few writing classes to get here.

"When the world is viewed as a finite world, the actions of places such as Canada and China will affect the rest of the world"

So if I just change my perspective, our actions will no longer influence the rest of the world...

"The solution to this, and a possible way to create sustainable development, as Hardin says, “a finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero,” is to consider that population growth must be stopped."

The solution is that population growth must equal zero by population growth being stopped.

"The rational evaluation of one’s financial options to purifying or just disposing of the waste into the commons suggests that, as long as one had unrestricted access to the common, it is inevitable that one will always reach the conclusion that decontamination is not ‘worth’ it."

Using "one" instead of the pronoun that you really wanted to use is halfway to writing a formal report, but it sounds so terribly awkward.

"In an attempt to place a monetary value on environmental decisions, society has created legislation to impose temperance on acts like the disposal of waste products environmental regulations have been created."

Huh?

"Which, as a result, limits one’s access to a previously unregulated common; this time on a basis of financial means using pecuniary methods to coerce the polluters to decided that it is ‘worth’ it."

Semicolons and a thesaurus do not a well-written report make. As a friend put it, "Your right to shift-F7 has been revoked."

"[...] due to result of each individual not understanding that sum of everyone’s wasteful contributions will have on entire finite world as a whole."

That word... it starts with t... 3 letters long... what is it again?

At least it's entertainingly bad.

This town has too much winter.

2010-01-30T14:12:00.001-08:00

Evidence:

"Great day to have a skating party, it's only -10! Weather's great, you sure lucked out."

The concept of 4 seasons is misleading, really we just get 8 months of winter with a brief transition to sanity.

Field Trip

2009-09-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

I went on a field trip today, complete with a bus and everything! These buses even had seatbelts! I'm moving up in the world.

We were supposed to see a foundry pour metal into molds and make stuff, but we only got to see them make molds. Still pretty neat. There was a cast of a giant eagle perched on top of the globe. And I mean giant. I had to restrain myself from asking how much I could buy the eagle for during the questions section of the tour.

Next time I need to do some research before I go on tours. It was like walking into Orthanc! Dark, firey, dark, dusty, dark, dirty, dark, warm, and... dark. I can't imagine working there for extended periods of time without coming down with some sort of illness, I've been spitting up sand and dust all afternoon just from a two-hour tour.

I need to get me out of a school and into the real world more.

Back to School Countdown

2009-09-12T20:35:00.001-07:00

First full week of classes. Reflection!
Number of-

Popsicles it took to get me through the first 3 days of class: 10
Final Exams until graduation: 9 (shit!)
Free hot dogs+hamburgers+pancakes+shampoo = 8 (shampoo?)
Dollars spent on Diet Coke this week: 7 (shit!)
Courses this semester: 6
Ridiculously hard to find 0.9mm pencils obtained: 5 (thanks, internet!)
Textbooks purchased off Ebay: 4 (thanks again, internet!)
"Oh shit I'm graduating this year" identity crises: 3 (...shit!)
Weeks it took for new roomie to walk in on me in the bathroom: 2 (shit again! literally...)
People in my smallest course: 1 (shit! no skipping)
Times fallen asleep in class: 0! (boooooo-yeah!)
Bicycles: -1 :( (shit! bastards...)

I must draw time.

2009-09-06T21:33:00.001-07:00

At some point during my first two years of university, I lost the ability to cram. Part of it may be related to this story.

For some odd reason, despite my inability (at the time) to visualize anything or work with spatial stuff in my head, and struggling with three-dimensional physics, I decided it would be a great idea to go into mechanical engineering. Subsequently, I was faced with the course that would cleave my brain in two and change the very nature of thought as I knew it. Everyone with any kind of ability to visualize things, or any mechanical aptitude loves that course. I thought it was kind of fun to draw all the 3D pictures that looked nice and to use the computer to make objects. At the same time, I was kind of upset because everyone else seemed to be waltzing through the material and I would spend days on the assignments, only to end up with 20, or 30% at best. The midterm didn't go any better.

Despite my best efforts, the fail continued. I guess you can't just make yourself think a different way all of a sudden, you just have to practice and practice until it happens. It wasn't working for me. I didn't want to fail the whole course after such a huge effort. At my weakest moment of desperation, I asked a senior student what she thought I should do. She mentioned that she, also, had struggled with the course and in fact failed it the first time. The only reason she passed the course the second time, she said, was because she had solved every single problem in the textbook. I swear there were thousands of them.

I abandoned everything and everyone and hunched over that book, sketching and sketching until I had to switch hands it hurt so badly. Many days and several dead trees later, it was the night before the exam, and there were (finally!) only a few problems left to solve. My sleep-deprived brain insisted on grabbing a few hours of sleep without notifying me.

This is when I began to be convinced that I was in the final exam. The exam question required that we draw time, and time, as everyone knows, is a rolling stone. I was very proud of myself for figuring out that it was a trick question, and that we weren't supposed to draw any moss because a rolling stone gathers no moss. It was a really tricky imaginary exam, because you couldn't stop drawing time or time would stop, and as you can imagine, that was very stressful.

At some point in real life, I noticed that I had dozed through my alarm and promptly grabbed everything in my immediate vicinity that could possibly be useful in an exam situation and bolted to the test. After being chained with the responsibility of drawing time for an evening, the final was comparatively easy.

When I got back to my dorm room, I noticed that the room was absolutely COVERED in drawings of a circle rolling down a hill, written on every available piece of material I owned, then taped or stapled to the walls, floors, and furniture.

I. made. time.

When the marks were posted for the course, I knew truly that I had commanded time and space, for I ended up with a fairly respectable mark. And most likely lasting mental damage.

Denial

2009-09-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Walked through some first-year orientation tours the other day by accident.
Remember so clearly first year. Meeting new friends, going new places, learning new things.

Can't believe I'm going to graduate this year!
Now entering state of denial.

I am legend!

2009-09-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Several tour groups walked by my lab this morning. Each one had a different variation on a theme of the same story. "Somewhere in this lab, there's a really awesome student/programming genius/grad student that builds robots/heavy machinery and who can make all her lab equipment play songs.

How the hell did I end up in the campus tours manual? Awesome sauce. I can't wait to hear what kind of mythical creature I grow into by the time I leave this place. Must increase proportion of mad science going on in lab.

Update: 2 days later, classes started, balloon of awesomeness deflated

Squirrels are evil

2009-08-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a squirrel catch and eat a butterfly.
That is all.

Awesome clock is awesome

2009-08-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

I did it! I built a clock! Well, I asked a bunch of questions and people explained a lot of stuff and offered help when things went wrong. I suppose I can say that I learned how to make a clock. This clock, in particular, which is the answer to, "What do you do with an extra half a pinball machine?" You make a clock out of the score reels!

(it's 14:46, FYI)
Now that it's actually working, I suppose it's time to find a nicer container than the cardboard box, as much as it adds to the do-it-yourselfiness of the whole project. Eventually I'm hoping to make the whole thing fairly steampunk in a nice wooden box. Of course, I'll have to leave some sections open or behind glass so everyone can see the cool parts.

A PCB would be a nice start, I think. I'll have to learn Eagle some time so I can make one. Maybe when I'm procrastinating midterms. I'd also like to replace the relays, if I can, with older ones that spark dramatically, for effect. I've kept some of the cloth wiring from the pinball machine for atmosphere.

All in all I'm really happy with this! Everything started out being so confusing, but now it actually makes sense, and that really is way cooler than just having a pinball clock.

Last week - where the heck do these wires go? And what does this picture mean?
This week - According to the chip pinout, pin 3 goes to the battery, 1 goes to ground, 4 goes to power...

Hooray!

Loose Ends

2009-08-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

Last week of work. There are two things I want to accomplish:

-Draft a paper before my boss gets back
-Finish my super awesome not really at all work related side project (a clock made out of pinball machine parts!)

Supervisor returns tomorrow. Clock is almost finished, hurray!
Priorities might not quite be in right order. It's such a nice clock, though! Hopefully it can act as a distraction for a few days while I churn out something remotely resembling a paper.

Fledge, damn you!

2009-08-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

Sooner than I would like to admit, I'll be back in classes. Thus, I felt it neccessary to fledge the captain. Perhaps I should have anticipated the resulting destruction of lab equipment.

I'm somewhat irked. That load cell was my baby! It was a fusion of course material and theory with actuality, and it worked just as it should have. I was rather proud of myself.

At the meeting, I wanted to say, "$#%! was not diligent in his work and made a big, obvious mistake that broke the part and very nearly destroyed all the equipment." Instead, I said "Here is what I'm doing to replace the part and ensure that this won't happen again." Better! Then the captain chimed in with his ideas.

Unfortunately, it isn't practical to make the part stronger. It would lose the lower end of its range, which is where most of our measurements fall. Cpt. Useless said that if I can't make it stronger, I have to make multiple copies of the load cell for when (!) he breaks it again. At this point I lost my cool and sarcastically started suggesting that I order several copies of every single thing in the lab just in case he breaks anything else. He agreed with the idea.

Augh. I may have replied with, "Or maybe you should think about what you're doing and pay attention while you run experiments, you turd." Not a shining moment of professionalism, but not the worst thing I've said during a meeting either. Improvement!

Well, your sim is smelly.

2009-08-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

My roomate got the Sims 3 and proceeded to make little sims of everyone we know. In the game, you get to pick 5 attributes to sort of describe the sim's personality. Apparently, my sim is clumsy, absent-minded, a genius, and some other stuff.

I watched my roomate play, and as soon as the game started, my sim walked into the house and promptly lit the toaster on fire. I protested, saying that I'm not THAT bad, and most of my clumsy incidents tend to be fairly minor.

This morning I lit the toaster on fire. I'm really not helping my case here.

Buried Treasure

2009-08-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

In the big shared lab space, there's a bucket of oil sand. Large enough to hide a body inside.

One of the summer camp groups stopped by to ask me to help with their treasure hunt today. The kids are supposed to track down pirates who have stolen some treasure and hidden clues around the engineering buildings. I bet you can see where this is going.

I made them wash their hands afterwards, so it's all ok, right? My coworkers are looking at me like I'm some kind of monster.

Gahhh

2009-08-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Captain Useless did something useless again this week. Normally, I wouldn't mind, but I feel like I should keep him on track while his supervisor is away.

This would be merely disappointing, but he also decided to cover his butt by blaming me for his holdups in an angry e-mail to our entire group.Since he explicitly told me he had no intentions of running the experiment this week, I figured the time was right to update the software for some equipment. This has somehow turned into "unauthorized use, damage, and theft of expensive equipment". Still unsure of how the "damage" part got in there. I'm not sure whether or not to send a reply to the group e-mail or to let it sort itself out. Grrr.

Also, he's complaining about the "theft" of some wire (clothes hanger, if you want to get technical) that he stuck to the machinery. Right next to the rapidly rotating tooling with no brake. It wasn't theft, unless you count it as me stealing his Darwin award prematurely. Multiple times. I'm tempted to send a reply thanking him for explaining the source of our safety hazards.
Good old wait-a-day-before-you-reply-to-an-email-that-makes-you-upset rule. Please save me from myself and the trouble I would like to get into.

Maybe I'll just compromise and yell at him until I feel better.

And now, for something completely different...

2009-07-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

Since the engineering girls' club activities went so well last semester, I've been invited to come to some engineering summer camps, along with my labmates, and talk about robots, our research projects, show kids around the lab, stuff like that. First off on the camps to visit was the robotics camp. It was quite the contrast from one day to the next to go from the free camp in an old high school to the fancy camp at the university. Forget about having to share scissors and stuff, each camper at the robotics camp gets a set of Lego Mindstorms to themselves for the week!

I am seriously resenting those Legos right now, ha ha. We showed the kids our autonomous robotic vehicle platform and talked about all the work we (well, my lab... not me) have done on it, and what it can be used for once it is complete. Usually when we show off the robot, there are oohs and ahhs and lots of questions. This time we mostly got sass. "Well that's nice that it can drive around, but today I made a robot out of my Mindstorms that can chase a tennis ball and climb up walls." Apparently we just got served.

Since the kids seemed a little underwhelmed, we thought we'd ramp things up and bring in the autonomous airplane in after lunch. The kids were excited to feel just how light it is, carry it around, and see the workshop where students work on the plane(s). That still didn't save us from the sassing. This one kid in particular decided that it was absolutely unacceptable that the plane ever, EVER crash, then proceded to berate them about all their design decisions.

Although he made us want to rip our hair out, he was a pretty funny kid. It was neat that he knew so much about stuff, but he hasn't quite got the wisdom yet to use any of his knowledge. From what I hear, he gave the shop staff a talking to about how they shouldn't be allowed to build anything out of steel because titanium is stronger and lighter and better. He commented on a 4th year design project (treads for a vehicle) that he couldn't believe that it took them three months to design treads because everyone knows that all you need to make treads is the treads themselves, three gears, and a spring.

Pretty impressive stuff for someone so young, though. Also, one of the campers, instead of using the visual programming language that comes with the Mindstorms, informed us that he was programming all his robots in C#. The general consensus from the volunteers regarding this was, "What the hell did I do with my childhood?"

It's hard to compare the two groups of kids and the two camps I visited this week. Even though I think the immigrant camp is so helpful and wonderful, I can't help feeling like those kids might still be screwed anyway as soon they end up, whether in a year or a decade, competing with the kids from a more privileged background. They have just as much potential as the other kids, but more challenges and almost none of the opportunities.

Agh, this makes me want to become a communist.

Rocket Balloons!

2009-07-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to visit a summer camp for refugee and immigrant children. Their goals are to:
"
Improve the academic success and social behaviour of African children and youth;
Inspire children to stay in school and instill a desire to learn;
Increase awareness of career and post-secondary paths;
Inspire participants to believe in their potential through mentoring by culturally and age relevant role models and opportunities for progressive mastery of skills;
Increase participants' family and cultural connection and sense of cultural identity;
Encourage participants to make healthy life choices;
Provide participants with opportunities for leadership, decision making, collaborative experiences, teamwork, and networking with peers.
"
I am incredibly impressed with the dedication of the team of volunteers making this happen. I'm glad that our city sponsors programs like this, you really can't put a price on this type of experience.

One of the groups I volunteer with on campus was asked to come and do some science demos for the camps, and we were only too happy to oblige. We brought our rocket balloon kits to talk about air pressure, flight, Bernoulli's principle, and other wonderful things! Previously, the biggest group I did this demo for had sixteen students. This camp had one hundred! Even though we had tried to prepare for it, it was a bit of a logistics nightmare on our end and it took a while to get going.

When we finally got the rocket balloons shooting along, it was so cool to see what kind of designs the campers came up with. Their objective was to create two rocket balloons per group, one that would fly straight, the other that would twist as it travelled along the string. They came up with hypotheses and theories as to what would cause one behaviour or the other, then got to test them.

Compared to other groups I've done this demo with, these kids were really independent thinkers and came up with lots of variables and ideas to test. Kick butt! After they tested their rockets, they couldn't wait to go back and see how they could improve their results. It was really the best thing we could hope for from this type of activity, and there was a great post-activity discussion with lots of questions. Also, one group hoarded a bunch of tiny balloons and molded them into a rocket named (and shaped like) Megatron. I had to leave a bit early, but luckily my super demo partner was able to stay very late and conclude the discussions and other activities in the demonstration.

So in summary, I'd have to say:
-polite, enthusiastic, inquisitive campers!
-energetic, creative camp volunteers
-fun activity
-science WIN!

We will continue to visit the camp this summer, hopefully more prepared, and with more challenging cool science activities! This activity went well, but it's hard to provide something that's fun for the youngest kids while still challenging and interesting for the older ones. Next time we'll be presenting to smaller groups so that we can better target the information.

(Tank by artist Hans Hemmert)

Everyone's a little dumb sometimes

2009-07-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

I felt pretty bad the other day for wasting most of someone's day calibrating my equipment, when it would have only taken half an hour or so if I had been more prepared. There was a "magic" step in my process, between "put equipment in test apparatus" and "calibration curves!". Turns out it needed a lot more elaboration than that.

Today, some other students asked me to help them calibrate their equipment, which is similar to mine. They asked a lot of hard questions, but I was prepared, since I had botched that stuff up before, and I was glad that I wasn't the only person having the same problems. I also got to share my fantastic spreadsheets that check to see if the calibration data agrees with theory or the manufacturer's specs. It's pretty cool when they ask for my opinion on things, I feel....special?

What I really like about my research stuff is that people listen to and appreciate what I say and treat me like an equal. That means scathing criticisms along with the nice things. At first I was afraid that people would be dismissive or dumb things down for me because I'm still an undergrad, but that hasn't been the case at all. Seems like a huge change from my 'real world' jobs.

And here I thought I was being discreet...

2009-06-26T01:12:00.001-07:00

According to one of my co-workers, my face turns red and the temperature in the room drops by 10 degrees as soon as I start talking to Captain Useless when he visits my lab.

In my defense, he really should know the material I explained to him five separate times today. In fact, he was the TA for the course where I learned that material. I've tried getting him to repeat back to me what I just said, asked him questions about what I've told him to make sure he understands... but somehow 15 minutes later he always comes back with the exact same questions. It feels like he just doesn't care enough to bother remembering. This also pissed me off because he later brought them up at a group meeting with our supervisors, which wasted the short meeting time we had, especially when they said exactly what I said, along with a, "You should know this." It also kind of made us look really stupid. Like, "We should take less data readings to get rid of the noise." stupid. Aaaaagh. I spent my entire morning explaining these things so that maybe we wouldn't look like fools at the group meeting!

Oh, you didn't.

2009-06-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

I left the grad student I call Captain Useless "alone" today to prepare a sample. Normally I would stick around to make sure things went smoothly, just in case, but my deadlines are looming and I can't simultaneously get my work done while supervising his.

Result: My solid steel equipment got deformed today because soooooomeone loaded it to 60,000 lbs instead of 1,000. Incredulous, I asked him why he would do that, and he said, "Well, I was just going to load it all the way (500,000 lbs) but it started bending so I had to stop when the pieces wouldn't fit together anymore."

I guess getting him to help draft the procedure wasn't any insurance that he'd actually understand it or follow it.

This week's lesson: Orders of magnitude?

The pursuit of hopelessness

2009-06-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

So glad my supervisor is getting back soon! He's been gone for the past 3 weeks and I've been forced to babysit one of his grad students. I've been so frustrated with this student lately though that I can't even begin to write about it without launching into an angry rant.

Although I know he has good intentions and he tries hard, he is absolutely incapable of working on his own. If you asked him to pick a random number, he wouldn't be able to. He doesn't seem able to follow basic instructions (in English, which is his first language), never mind get into the design of the experiment or future test plans.

This leaves us in quite a strange spot. I'm here for half the year as a research assistant before I head back to class and get my undergraduate degree. So far, I've designed, built, and ordered all the parts for his experiment, looked through literature to predict things so I could get instrumentation that will measure things in the proper range, decided which variables need to be controlled/measured/varied, wrote a program to display and record the data... It's at the point where everyone refers to this as my experiment, and I delegate work to him only if it's trivial, simple, and not an immediate priority.

Basically, it's Freaky Friday, but all year long. What will happen when I go to grad school?

The saga continues...

2009-05-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

I ran out of clean socks today. This is a disaster.

When I was little, my mom told me that if I didn't change my socks and my underwear every single day, Santa wouldn't bring me any presents. Fast forward several months later, in the middle of July, I realize that I didn't change my socks that day and start bawling. I was inconsolable for days and didn't want to tell my mom that I had forgotten to change my socks, lest she call him and rattle on me. I thought maybe if I behaved well enough Santa would forget about the whole thing and bring me presents anyway.

I am still scarred. Cannot wear dirty socks. So, I wore fishnets under my steel-toed boots and hoped like hell that nobody would notice.

A film crew showed up at my lab today to film stuff for our department's 50th anniversary. Hopefully I might find this funny by the time the time capsule gets unearthed.

In which we make a professor giggle

2009-04-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

We had important professors visiting a while ago from some big-name university in the U.S., touring our building. Usually I don't get those kind of visitors in my lab because we're somewhat empty right now, waiting for an influx of summer students and a bunch of large equipment. Luckily I was busy typing up a storm, trying to sort out piles of spaghetti code (mine, oops) on my seemingly complicated screen.

If we do have important visitors I usually try to look as busy as possible while they tour the lab. I was almost surprised that they stopped on the tour to ask me if I could give a "quick, 60 second explanation" of what I was doing. Feeling somewhat impish, I asked if they'd like to see a demonstration of the super precise pricey positioning system that was part of our collaboration with medical researchers that I had been programming. I did this with my best serious face and my best making-things-seem-more-important-than-they-are tone of voice. Then I made the camera mount play a song while it moved to position.

I didn't expect the group of old men in suits to start giggling, but they did. Now the guy who ran that tour asks if he can see the musical lab equipment every time he stops by with a tour group. Maybe undergraduates/grad students that aren't bitter and miserable are a good selling point for the department?

Hole-y Leaking

2009-03-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

What is the appropriate course of action when faced with the following scenario?:

You get up in the morning to make some eggs, and realize that your kitchen window is dripping on to the stove. Pouring, even. The spring melt must be getting in through the walls somehow. You:

A. Call your landlord and have him send out a contractor to fix the problem immediately.
B. Take action yourself, rip out the panelling, dry it out, and patch up the holes.
C. Draw a picture of the Virgin Mary above the leak so that it looks like she's crying on to the stove, then interpret that to mean that the Virgin Mary doesn't want anyone in the house to cook today. Order pizza.
The answer, of course, when you live in one of my landlord's houses, C. Last time we had a similar problem (except it was the basement, and it was flooded), he chastised us for calling and told us to throw some towels on the floor then point a fan or a hair dryer at the (sopping) walls. So glad to be renting from a house owner, not a property manager next year!

Corrupting young minds

2009-02-23T22:52:00.000-08:00

We thought it would be a good idea to bring the kids through my lab, take a bit of mystery out of the whole research process and everything. Naturally I had to spend last week stealing, err, borrowing cool toys from everywhere I could find so that there would be no shortage of things with blinking lights, buttons, dials, and shiny chrome. I knew that the disappearing glassware would be a hit (and wow did it ever confuse the hell out of the volunteers, never mind the kids!), and the robot, but I wasn't sure about the musical lab equipment (my new pride and joy, haha).

Turns out that the musical lab equipment stole the show! It is a very large, somewhat contraptiony looking... contraption that looks like it should be doing something veryimportant, not playing "Baa baa black sheep". One girl saw it and said she wanted to be a mechanical engineer! Hah! Yes!

The sad side of my nerdy life is that lots of things I think are really exciting (analog pinball machines, shiny things, function generators) aren't necessarily interesting to anyone else. It made my day that the girls thought musical lab equipment was awesome. Sometimes I just need a bit of reassurance that I have some sort of contact with reality.

Mec E FTW

2009-02-21T22:53:00.000-08:00

Dear machine shop, I love you. I know we gave you short notice that we were bringing 60 or so kids through for a tour on a Saturday when you're not normally open, and we didn't have a time estimate until the week before. Apparently you weren't even sure what time the first group was going to show up (uh, oops). But I came in to give you advance warning while you guys were eating your lunch, and you promptly dropped your sandwiches and ran for your lives to turn things on. That's devotion. Even though you usually give tours to much older students, you put up with my incessant questioning and helped me explain everything in terms the kids would understand. You were friendly and approachable and the girls felt comfortable asking you questions. Oh, and you were so cool that the girls made a card as soon as they got back to the room about how cool machines are.

Stand-out moments:

Our older girls (grades 7-8) - They're usually harder to impress, but as we were walking above the shop they were practically begging for us to take them in there and show them around! I'm so happy to see them so excited about things! They were originally skeptical that the water jet cutter could cut steel (would I lie about that?) and when the pieces came out, they were so amazed that they had to pass them around and hold them for the rest of the day!

Grades 5-6: One of them said that her mom told her it isn't safe for girls to use power tools! They didn't get the chance to use any equipment themselves (helloooo safety!) but I hope that they gained something from seeing us use a bit of equipment and the projects we've made in the shop. Next year I'd like to do some more planning ahead of time and see if we can get the older girls using some of the simpler equipment.

Grades 3-4: I took the student vehicles apart that I was showing you before we got to that part of the tour so that you wouldn't be tempted to turn them on and hurt yourselves. I am impressed that you re-assembled a motor behind my back, put the shafts back in the gearbox, and turned it on. You are so brilliant. Why did you have to stick your finger in the gear box?

I also enjoyed when the shop staff asked this group if they had any questions. They spent the next several minutes listening to:

-a story about someone's cat

-questions about what kind of cars they drive

-another cat story

-a story about the moon

Pants-shitting moment:

I was looking down for a moment, and I noticed that one girl had these awesome toe-socks on. WAITAMINUTE! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SHOES? I think the shop staff would have had a heart attack if they had noticed her standing in that pile of metal shavings without shoes on.

Overall I think that the older girls gained the most from this experience. The younger ones were less impressed by some things because they didn't know how unusual or difficult they are to achieve. For them, it seems like everything is about equally unfamiliar, confusing, and interesting at the same time. The older ones were in awe of the water jet cutter and the 3D printer. The younger ones are pretty sure you can cut the moon (what IS it with the moon this week?) with a garden hose if you squirt it far enough and that their dad could make their home printer print out cheeseburgers if he tried hard enough.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing

2009-02-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

While I get up to speed on the projects currently in development in my group, I get to brush up my (non-existant) C skills and learn a new programming language to build graphical interfaces for lab equipment and stuff. I think the plan is to build up to the point where I can design some big fancy interface that's going to record all of our data and not explode itself. For now, I'm supposed to write a program that uses a serial port to send a string of data to a camera mount and moves it around.

Well, that's what I was doing. Then, in a moment of brilliance, I realized I could change the speed of the mount as it moves around, and now it plays songs. It uses a bunch of stepper motors to move around, and it hums quite a bit, which is possible to tune by changing how quickly it makes the steps. I am so proud of myself. My dad is coming down to visit in a few weeks and he is totally getting dragged into the lab to see. All the students I know that were in the building when I made my exciting discovery actually flocked in to the lab to see. I love engineers.

Some people would probably be mildly upset for wasting time while I was at work, but my supervisors were laughing so hard they didn't say anything, so I think I'm in the clear. I'm counting this as an "educational experience", I'm sure I learned something that will come in handy eventually.

I love you ladies

2009-02-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

I'm so impressed by the volunteers with the girls' engineering club. I've never been involved in any project or group that functions so cohesively and effectively. Although I'd like to attribute this to the fact that there are no males volunteering, and hence less of a power struggle, it could just be that we all have similar interests and are really passionate about the group. It really feels like everything is falling into place, and we're using everyone's unique strengths to build a really neat program. When something needs to be done, someone steps up and does it before you even know there's a problem. After the kids leave, we sit around, eat cookies, and point out the positive things that we saw that day.

That being said, I still have some things to work on! I'm having trouble remembering more than 5 names at a time (and there are 30? girls in the room!) and I don't always watch my vocabulary as closely as I should. But I think I did a pretty good job with names this time, and I tried to bring up specific awesome things that the kids did in front of their parents ("your daughter has an impressive technical vocabulary! I never knew what that stuff meant until university" "so-and-so came up with a great solution to today's engineering challenge, it was the only one to pass XXX criteria" ).

Last time the girls were still kind of quiet and awkward around each other but this time there's a lot more socialization going on and everyone is getting included in the group activities (except the girl who doesn't listen to anything anyone says ever but she seemed happy grabbing random things she wasn't supposed to and ignoring instructions and gluing stuff to other stuff).

I am guilty of staying out of the nitty gritty details of the planning thus far, but soon is MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DAY. Uhh, is it wrong to be competitive about volunteering? Because mechanical engineering is great and I think the kids need to know that.

You go girl!

2009-02-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

I was really excited to find out that there's a new group starting on campus that's going to bring 60 or so girls to campus each week and teach them about engineering. I love working with kids and explaining why science is SO AWESOME. The group is going to run every Saturday this semester as a club for girls who want to learn more about engineering. Since it's a club, there's less pressure to always be doing an activity, we can kick back sometimes, have a lot of one-on-one interaction with the kids, and get to know them better than if it was set up as a camp or a seminar or something. There's also a lot more room for trial and error, ask the girls what they enjoy, what they want to see more of, and what isn't really catching their interest.

The volunteers are SO GREAT! I can't believe how smoothly our preparations have gone so far and how friendly everyone is. Everyone is super passionate, giving up every Saturday of your semester is no tiny feat. Not just that but you have to be "on" the whole time the kids are there, you can't really just abandon everyone and go off somewhere to chill for a bit, and it's not very encouraging to the girls if you start complaining about your courses/homework/whatever.

It's really neat to work with a group of people from all the different disciplines of engineering that we have here. Each week we're going to focus on a different field of engineering, and we're already starting to flesh out possible activities, tours, and guest speakers. There are so many neat things to learn here that you might never find out about if nobody told you! I hope we can pass on our passions to the girls and to the other volunteers.

And we're off!

2009-01-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

I am delighted to start my new job as a research assistant at the university (again!). I thought I was working for a new prof that I don't know very well who has robots and cool toys in his lab. This morning I found an e-mail in my inbox from the professor I worked for a couple of years ago, saying something along the lines of, "Would you meet me in my office, I have work for you." What the? Turns out they're working on a project together that I'll be a part of. I thought it was pretty funny, they didn't tell me beforehand and I thought that original prof was trying to steal me.

Well, I wasn't entirely wrong, both of them want me to work in different lab rooms (my lab! no, my lab!). I just assembled a computer and workstation for myself out of spare parts I found lying around to avoid going back to the old lab. It's not like I was miserable in there or anything, but it's out of the way and I already know most of the people in there. Gotta meet new people and do new things in new places! Oh also did I mention THERE'S A ROBOT IN MY NEW LAB! Good times are ahead.

I am the queen of multiple choice!

2008-12-07T16:24:00.001-08:00

Around exam seasons, tutors and tutoring companies like to put up posters around all the academic buildings, from elementary schools to universities, featuing headlines like, "SECRETS OF TEST WRITING", or "HOW TO SCORE WELL ON A MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAM". I always figured that they were scams, or they were review sessions that would teach you the course material so you could score well on the exam. Having nothing better to do one afternoon, I stopped by a free session hosted by my high school. I was astounded to find that the instructors were handing out papers with gems like, "If you don't know the right answer to a multiple choice question, cross out the ones you know are wrong and use the process of elimination to find the most likely answer." In my mind, letting anyone pay you to tell them that amounts to highway robbery.

Then again, I guess I was never the typical student. I remember my mom coaching me with similar tips to the "secret strategies" before I wrote my provincial exams in the third grade. I've had many many years to improve on those strategies since then.

Against what I would consider to be better judgement on the part of the instructor/course administrator, the marks for one of my classes this term are entirely based off of several multiple choice tests. Hell yes, I am going to get my first A+ in university.

Update: Hell yes, I got my A+.

Oh, delightful

2008-11-02T01:37:00.000-07:00

Apparently we have Wagner's operas to thank for the fact that one of our midterms was shorter (ie could actually be completed in 2 hours) than expected. The professor mentioned that he had been out at the opera the night before giving the exam, and had come home complaining about how Wagner just liked to torture people with extraordinarily long, painful operas. His friend told him that according to ratemyprof.com, the tests he gives are ridiculously long and designed to torture people, and he shouldn't complain about Wagner if he was going to torture his students that way. So, he took a question off the test in order to continue complaining about Wagner to his friend without being a hypocrite. He also mentioned that he doesn't typically read reviews of his teaching on-line because he figures that the only students that will post there are the ones that are really pissed off at him (mostly true).

Sadly, there are no more performances of any of Wagner's material for the rest of the season. I hope the final exam for this course doesn't end up being like the Ring trilogy to make up for it.

An addition to the family

2008-10-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, the first pinball machine is a year old, which means biologically, it's time for me to have another one. It's been scientifically proven (*cough*). I've upped the ante and moved to something digital, ooh, ahh, shiny! It's so incredibly awesome that it even says WOW right on it, see:

Ok, maybe you can't read the WOW (or MOM, if you're my confused roomie), but you CAN see the awesome giant fireball bumper, right?

I am so. freeking. pumped.

Happy One-Year Birthday!

2008-10-27T17:24:00.001-07:00

Mr. Pinball machine! After a year of staring at your innards, they almost sometimes make sense. Hooray! This is only a rough calculation of course, based on the fact that I brought you home during midterms, and afterwards I bought everyone pumpkin blizzards for hauling you around town...s... I hope you appreciate not being in a cold wet garage, although you sure have a funny way of showing it.

You are extra shiny in the darkness, tempting people with your bright lights.

And your guts are a glorious tribute to analog.

Thanks for being the best stupid evil pile of loveable junk in the house.

P.S: Shock me and I will burn you with the firewood.

Morning Routine

2008-10-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

My classmates are jealous because I can still wake up 15 minutes before class and make it to a lecture roughly on time (if I jog just a little). Not like I make a habit of it, but you know... stuff happens. I recommend letting yourself go.
I attribute these factors to my overwhelming success:

1. Low-maintenance haircut
There's a reason why girls spend so much on haircuts, cause when you do it properly, all it take is a quick finger comb. Also: hats.

2. Forgo matching clothes
Some day I will have to grow out of jeans and T-shirts. But not yet.

3. Quick Breakfast
I recommend acquiring a taste for instant oatmeal. When I was little, I used to pretend I was on safari in the backyard, and had packed only dried food, to save space. I would then tear open a tiny corner of the instant oatmeal packet, fill it with water, shake, and eat it while I was on my safari. When your standards are that low it's hard not to find food in the house that can be consumed in seconds.

4. Leave everything in the same place
Routine! I like to put everything in my backpack (or at least near it) the night before, and I usually leave my lunch in the same place in the fridge. Then I just have to push autopilot when I wake up, zombie drag myself through a pattern in the house, and by the time I wake up, I'm already in class taking notes.

My personal record was waking up at 7:57 AM and making it to an 8 AM class before the instructor started lecturing (he started a few minutes late).

You know it's exam time when...

2008-10-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

You play beyblades on a plastic caf plate and exclaim that this is the most fun you've had in ages.

then you realize you're playing beyblades on a plastic caf plate.

Get back to work!

Engineering and Shafts

2008-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Kids, there comes a time in your engineering degree where you have to talk about shafts. If you're not a mechanical or a civil engineer, this might only be a very short time, but otherwise, you could end up talking about shafts a lot. The kind that rotate and have stuff stuck to them that generally complicates your previously simple stress analysis questions.

When you should happen to arrive at that special time and place where you have to talk about shafts, the mature engineering student should refrain from giggling like a schoolgirl. Being the wise, mature student that I am, I have gained control over my inner urge to giggle every time someone says "shaft". However, I have discovered today that I am not beyond giggling when a professor pronounces shaft as "shit", then says, "We're going to talk about all kinds of shit today."

One of my more memorable days at work involved a lecture on shaft seals from an aged co-worker, who kept on using his hands to illustrate how the shaft slides through the hole. In, and out, and in, and out. I would have been able to contain myself if it hadn't have been for the repeated use of hand motions.

Fail

2008-10-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

Is when you can't print off your assignments because you wasted all your printer ink printing off a life-sized poster of David Duchovny (why won't he love me?).

If you give a mouse a cookie...

2008-10-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's going to want a glass of milk. Then, it's going to need a straw to drink that glass of milk with, so you'll have to go to the store to get a straw. Once you come back, you'll find out that the mouse isn't tall enough to drink the milk from the straw, so you'll have to get it a chair...

This pretty much describes the group project I'm working on right now. The more I think about something, the more I realize that I could go more in-depth on the subject. As I dig my head farther in, I realize that I should go refine my original assumptions about the problem. Then, I figure out that I need to change something. As soon as I change something, it changes all the other properties of whatever structure I'm working on, then I have to start thinking about everything again.... Every so often, I get e-mails from the rest of the team, who have been thinking about their respective parts of the problem, sending off a huge list of numbers and something like "Oh, the mouse no longer wants a cookie, it wants a carrot." "No, the mouse obviously doesn't want a carrot. Didn't we decide that the mouse wants cheese?" "Well, if you guys think back to the last meeting we had with the project co-ordinator, you'll remember that he clearly pointed to a picture of a mouse that wanted oregano."

Hooray for iterative processes! These projects are good for reinforcing that there is no perfect solution, or no best solution. You can't analyze everything, at some point you kind of just have to arbitrarily pick something, go with it, and see if things work out. I want to let go of my desire to analyze everything, but I can see the eight pages on my floor multiplying to twenty, thirty... must stop!

Ebil

2008-09-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Lying to children is acceptable when it produces good results.
Case in point:

Right after getting my teeth pulled, I had blood running down my face and my head swelled up like a balloon. Also, I was still a little groggy so I was walking with a lurch. Zombie-like, I shuffled up to the prescription counter to get the prescription for the painkillers filled as I waited for the medicine they had already given me to kick in. There was a little boy waiting with his mother to get something filled, who knows what. He just couldn't stop staring at me, in terror. Finally, I said, "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH!" and scared the living crap out of him. I might be a monster, but I'll bet that he's going to brush his teeth three times a day for the rest of his childhood.

oh gawd, mah mouf

2008-08-28T19:58:00.001-07:00

wisdom teef removed. mouf so swollen. bruises everywhere. no can chew. want cheezburger. halp.

Whoops...

2008-08-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I got so carried away that I forgot to post pictures. I finally finished painting, to a reasonable extent. Everything looks a lot better with paint on it :D It matched really nicely until I put on the clear coats, which sort of darkened things. Still, it beats no paint at all, and now the ball doesn't get stuck in divots while I'm playing! Woo!

TMI #1

2008-07-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Today I licked my armpit and it didn't taste bad at all.
See, it pays not to wear deodorant some days!

Oooh, ahhh dramatic transformation

2008-07-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

This is a chunk of the playfield after my laborious spiffing up efforts. Oooh, ahh! Pretty!

In this next photo you can see the entirely white blob from the previous picture has now become a fairly decent copy of the "Advance bonus when lit" on the other side.

Arts and Crafts!

2008-07-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

I had a brilliant idea that it would be really fun to paint my pinball machine. After all, I don't really have anything to lose, and I love to arts and crafts now and again. If it turns out really terrible, I figure I'll just strip the paint and get an Arts student to paint something really cool on it. It's been a couple of weeks since I began(30 bottles of acrylic later...) and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

For some reason I've been through 3 bottles of yellow already. Maybe the secret of aged dirty acrylic is yellowing. It's mildly disturbing though, I have a small container of yellowish looking paint that dries into pink, one that dries into orange, one that dries into white, one that dries into green, and one that dries into yellow (surprise!).

Before:

I think the ball wore a path into the game o_O

I'm just kind of ignoring this patch for now... I don't want to take stuff apart to paint, hehe. The last guy who owned this made rubber bumpers out of surgical tubing. How cool is that! I bought replacement rubber parts and replaced all of the rubber except for the surgical tubing. I think it adds to the ghetto feel. Ok, ok, it's not ghetto. Abandoned amusement park?

This is AFTER I cleaned it... wish I had pics from before, hehehe.

Oh Shit (literally)

2008-07-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

One of my roomates had a birthday this week, so I made a Rubik's Cube cake. The cake on instructables.com looked really neat and I couldn't help but give it a go. It's a pretty good set of instructions, but what they fail to mention is that you need to be SOME KIND OF CHEF EXTRAORDINAIRE to make the fondant.

I've only ever made 4 cakes in my life (on mah own), and each one of them was more or less a success. Two of them were made from scratch. Naturally, it was about time for an epic fail.

On the plus side, I only lit the oven on fire once, and the cake tasted great even though it looked like a mouldy poison mushroom from Super Mario Bros. (the lost levels, of course). It was really neat, the smoke actually rose out of the oven and started coming through the burners, just like a cartoon or something! I had always thought that it was just a bit of dramatic exaggeration, but no, apparently oven fires really do that.

Lighting an oven on fire is only really a fail in my books. What made it an EPIC fail is this:
Food colouring.
What's so bad about food colouring, you ask? Well, nothing, in the right quantities... but I decided that I wanted a REALLY BRIGHT Rubik's cube. No problems, so far. Everyone takes a different coloured mini-cube and eats it.

Fast forward to the next day.

Scene: Birthday boy and couch man are sitting on the couch. I walk in the door, home from a long day of work.

Me: Have you pooped today?
Birthday Boy (BB): *pained expression* Yes.
Me: I'm ... so ... sorry ... What colour did you eat?
BB: Green.
Me: Oh dear, that's disturbing.
BB: Very. I thought I was dying.
Me: At least you didn't eat neon blue.
BB: Ick.

So apparently... if you eat enough food colouring... It DYES YOUR POOP TOO. And I don't just mean tinge of blue, I mean I HAD SOLIDLY NEON BLUE POOPS THAT DYED THE TOILET BOWL BLUE. Now that I've shared that, I'm going to go.

Pinball, pt. 2

2008-06-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say that my pinball machine was shiny, pretty, and functional when I got it, but that would be lying. The paint had worn off the playfield, it was incredibly dirty, and as you can sort of see in the picture below, it was somewhat broken. I guess I melted the coil for that score reel and it wouldn't move anymore.

You know, I think I like broken things more than things that work. I'm not so sure I would have been motivated to poke around and figure out what was going on inside this thing if it had been entirely functional. I'm naturally curious about things, but not curious enough to willingly take a go at THIS...

Luckily I've been able to find some really cool people who are willing to explain the "what the hell is this?" and the "why is this broken?". It still takes an epiphany for me to figure out anything though, heh heh. Every time I fix something (even if it's incredibly minor), or it just starts working and I pretend like I fixed it, I do a giant victory dance. Mmm, sweet satisfaction.

Pinball, pt. 1

2008-06-29T15:53:00.001-07:00

When I was little, we used to drive into the city to visit an arcade/jungle gym/center of everything fun center for a day. It was almost, if not equally as exciting as Christmas. To this day, I still love crazy climbing contraptions, laser tag, arcade games, and pinball.

Every winter, when I get bogged down by coursework and cabin fever, I tend to fantasize about these things. Stress just keeps building up until suddenly I find myself hanging upside down off of playground equipment outside of who-knows-where at 3 in the morning. Last winter, instead of the usual, more mundane stress relief, I ended up buying a pinball machine. Thank you, Craigslist, for fulfilling my childhood fantasies.

As soon as I saw the ad I knew it was destined to be mine. Apparently I called the poster 20 minutes after he put up the ad. He asked if I was sure I wanted it, or if I wanted to go visit and try playing it first, but I knew. This was destiny. So, one mooched truck later (thanks, pals!) and a drive across the city, I had a pinball machine. I think the best way of describing my feelings about this would be, "EEEeeeEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEE!"

Why I'm the coolest nerd EVAR

2008-06-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

This is my baby.

I had always been entertaining the idea, deep inside my mind, that owning a pinball machine would be AWESOME. My rational, higher brain told me that I was full of baloney and that I would get bored of it and disenchanted over time. I really need to stop second-guessing myself.

People on the Train, Part II

2008-06-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

I love little old ladies. Well, not really, sometimes they're kind of terrible. But it's so adorable how they always put so much effort into their appearance, carefully preserving their perms so that they don't have to wash their hair all the time, powdering their skin, and wearing those horrifyingly matching outfits. You know, the ones where everything is made from the same eye-gougingly ugly material and there's a matching brooch, pair of earrings, gaudy necklace, and hat to go with it.

I've seen meticulously groomed old men, and dirty disgusting ones, but I have never seen a disgusting old woman. Case in point: There was an ancient drug addict at the train station this morning. I wouldn't have been able to tell that she was an addict, were it not for the fact that SHE MATCHED THE COLOUR OF PAINT SHE WAS HUFFING TO HER CLOTHES. Pink blazer, skirt, necklace, and paint stains on the face. Now THAT's co-ordination.

Why nerds should stay inside

2008-06-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

I walked home from work the other day because I felt guilty taking the train when it was so nice out. Hours later (ok, maybe just hour later), when I was nearly home, I saw a couple of little green caterpillars drop down from the trees, suspended by threads. And all I could think was, "Aww, they look just like Metapods."

Cut me a deal, yo

2008-06-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I went to the mall to try and convince a telephone company to let me switch my old phone onto their network. It's a phone from a different company, but both companies are using the same standard. I'm sick of paying all these stupid system access fees and whatnot, which double my bill, for a cellphone that I only use a few times a month. Yes, you heard me correctly, a few times a month. Not a few times a day or a few times a week.

An employee flocked to me like a moth to a candle and started trying to pitch their new phones. Maybe I should cut in here and describe the employee before I go any further. She had cutting scars up and down her forearms, AND A FRESH CUT. A FRESH CUT. VERY RECENT. At the end of the day! While some of her coworkers wore long sleeves, she chose to wear short sleeves. Is this hygenic when you're BLEEDING? In most occupations, you have to cover up an open wound while you're at work. Regardless of how you came to acquire said wound, it's dangerous and irresponsible to bleed on other people! And wouldn't you want to hide the fact that you've been cutting from your employer? In retrospect, I hope her employer notices and helps her find a therapist or someone else who can help her with whatever problems she may be having that are leading her to cutting.

Anyway, I explained to her that I already had a phone, I just wanted to switch it to their network because their phone company offers employees from my company a special (read: awesome, no system access fee) plan. Long story short, she could not understand this. She explained that her phone company does not offer employee discounts to employees of other phone companies. I do not work for a phone company. Somehow in the conversation the word "Firmware" comes up, and she says, "Oh, your phone has no firmware because it can't take pictures."

Eventually we sort things out, or so I think. Sadly, I can't use my current phone on their network because it's GSM and the network isn't. So, I made the mistake of looking at phones in a store full of salespeople on commission. They actually refused to sell me the cheapest model to protect me from myself because if I bought such a plain, simple phone I would inevitably end up miserable and unpopular and forever resent myself for making that decision. Is it really so strange to want my phone to make and receive calls, my Ipod to download and play songs, my camera to take and share pictures, and my computer to surf the internet? I don't want some overpriced stupid thing that does all of those things poorly.

For reference purposes

2008-05-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

Some day, I plan on going somewhere. This is more exciting than it sounds, I've only ever been on a plane 3-4 times in my life, and always within North America. To help me decide where to go, my plan is to play Carmen Sandiego (Deluxe!) until I catch Carmen, then go there.

Just so I don't die, I decided to check out international travel advisories and cross off some destinations. I'll just have to come up with a plan B if/when I catch Carmen in one of those countries. I also crossed off a couple of places I don't feel like going to yet. This is my list of Carmen Sandiego travel destinations, for reference purposes.

Here's a list of possible travel destinations(thanks, Wikipedia!):
ACME HQ (San Francisco)
Kabul, Afghanistan Conflict Situation
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sydney, Australia
Vienna, Austria
La Paz, Bolivia Civil unrest? Violence against foreigners? Meeep.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Montreal, Canada Not boring but I want to go international
Santiago, Chile
Beijing, China Olympics might be kind of nutty... Err and human rights?!? This could be a no.
Havana, Cuba I might even have friends to stay with!
Copenhagen, Denmark Remind me to tell you my Cophenhagen Dutch cabbage story some day...
Quito, Ecuador
Cairo, Egypt This would be super cool, but a bit dangerous
Paris, France A little cliché? I might get a job there next term!
Berlin, Germany 1: I don't like beer 2: I would go to all the museums and get depressed 3. I'm not cool enough
Athens, Greece
Guatemala City, Guatemala Might have to cross this one off, there's a warning against using public transit.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Reykjavík, Iceland Woo volcanos!
New Delhi, India What if I get lost?
Jakarta, Indonesia
Baghdad, Iraq
Jerusalem, Israel Not so interested in religious tourism
Rome, Italy
Kingston, Jamaica
Tokyo, Japan Oh, this would be extra nerdy <3
Phnom Penh, Kampuchea "should have comprehensive medical and travel insurance policies that include provision for medical evacuation by air" Iffy!
Nairobi, Kenya
Bamako, Mali
Mexico City, Mexico
Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Yangon, Myanmar I don't think they'd let me in, anyway.
Kathmandu, Nepal Kind of a bad situation right now.
Wellington, New Zealand Birds! Vacation full of birds!
Lagos, Nigeria Armed attacks against foreigners.
Oslo, Norway
Karachi, Pakistan
Panama City, Panama
Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Lima, Peru
Manila, Philippines
Warsaw, Poland
Kigali, Rwanda
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Cape Town, South Africa
Seoul, South Korea
Moscow, Soviet Union Hm, not exactly what I would think of as a tourist destination, but I bet there's lots of neat architecture
Madrid, Spain I kind of want to watch a bullfight... yeah, morbid.
Colombo, Sri Lanka Avoid non-essential travel
Stockholm, Sweden
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Bangkok, Thailand
Istanbul, Turkey
London, United Kingdom Kinda pricey
New York City, United States Broadway + wallet = death
Caracas, Venezuela A little too close to Columbia, maybe...
Hanoi, Vietnam
Kinshasa, Zaire Is Zaire even a country anymore?

Best. Day. Ever.

2008-05-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

The other day I was walking back from work and a bus drove by with an ad for Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. I LOVE that show (the British version), but I don't have cable so I rarely get to watch it. As I opened the door to my house, I saw some friends on my couch, drinking beer and watching Kitchen Nightmares! TV on psyhic demand, that's better than Tivo. And it gets better, they had just ordered pizza! Friends, pizza, and British TV... life doesn't get much better.

Too much beer

2008-05-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

A drunken engineer was trying to convince me that it was impossible for a person to lift more than their own weight due to the laws of physics. I can't recall the details, but I do remember finding it absolutely hilarious. He even drew a free body diagram. Dork.

What do other people talk about when they go drinking? Does it involve free body diagrams?

Pokémon OCD

2008-05-23T20:41:00.000-07:00

Here's my dorky revelation of the day:

I can't stand having a Pokémon party where the Pokémon are at different levels. They have to all be at the same level, or at least within 2-3 levels of each other. Also, I can't have more than one of the same Pokémon in my party, and it has to be properly balanced between types to minimize any weakness. I even go so far as to level up my friends' Pokémon if their party is really unbalanced (starter Pokémon or a tank at a really high level, all other Pokémon at low levels).

Me engineer. Must optimize ALL!

English for Enginerds

2008-05-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

I had to write an essay about how trebuchets make me feel. Seriously. I appreciate the effort to umm, tailor English to engineers, but seriously... The feelings I have for my trebuchet are private. PRIVATE.

I fully expect a zombie invasion by Tuesday

2008-05-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a strange week. People say I have ADD because I'm always off on a tangent and coming up with non-sequiturs (even though that's not really what ADD is all about). It's not that I don't try to pay attention to normal things, it's just that there's usually something more interesting going on that other people might miss out on. Or, it's that I'm a product of my environment and some days my environment is screwy. Case in point:

Saturday: A gangsta got on the bus, sat down next to me, put his arm around me, and started smoking a joint.
Sunday: Dug up a road sign in my garden.
Monday: Watched police find a dead body
Tuesday: While riding the bus, watched a man kick in the window of an apartment building and steal a TV.
Wednesday: Saw someone subdued with pepper spray after trying to assault a police officer who asked him to stop sitting in the middle of a busy road. Can you say craaaaaack?
Thorsday: Saw what was nearly the world's first roller disco casualty (but ended up only being a concussion and an ambulance ride).
Friday: Went to a Rocky Horror screening, hehe. On a related note, bought lingerie from a Salvation Army and a Goodwill store. They give you weird looks.

I manage to find something strange and amusing in every day, and this pleases me.

Unspoken rule: Whenever there's someone crazy, and I mean absolutely mental on the train/bus, they will ALWAYS come sit next to me.

Creaming

2008-04-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

I quite appreciate the free hot chocolate mix in the company kitchen, and the continuous supply of boiling water. As delicious as it is, I always secretly long for a bit of milk to make the hot chocolate with. Then I realized that the company stocks the fridge with enough creamers to make coffee for a small army of continuously caffeinated engineers. I just made the most delicious hot chocolate OF ALL TIME. If only it didn't take 20 little creamers to make a whole cup...

For the sake of my arteries, I only put in a couple of creamers, and the rest was 2% milk, with just a bit of boiling water to heat it up to deliciously warm but not painfully burny. I might actually start enjoying mornings if they involve free delicious hot chocolate.

More people on the train

2008-04-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

I saw Hercule Poirot on the train today. Seriously. The only thing missing was a French accent (or Belgian). Instead it was Hercule Poirot with an Australian accent, which was almost bizarre. He had a waxed moustache and a lot of hair gel (pomade?) that made his hairstyle look really... ummm.. old? Antiquated? Out of place? Also, he was wearing a meticulously clean suit, and he swept off the surface of the seat before sitting down. I'm just waiting for an unsolvable mystery to show up in the paper, and then summarily get solved by a visiting foreign super-detective.

I rawk

2008-04-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

I made an R2D2 cake for my birthday. Ok, I had some help from friends, but it's not like any of us knew what we were doing. My plan kind of worked. Sweet (and delicious)!

P.S. This was enough to feed 6 people for 2 days. Srsly.

Funny conversational snippets

2008-04-06T11:51:00.001-07:00

Funny snippets from my last week

"Why do 50% of engineers end up in management? Because as we get older, we start to forget all that technical stuff."
-Engineering Manager

"I am NOT empire building"
-German engineer

"So let me get this straight... you don't like coffee, and you don't like tea, so logically you must also dislike hot chocolate because it is also a hot beverage. What? You love hot chocolate? YOU DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE"
- Co-engineer

Apparently I don't follow the logical rules of beverage preferences.

I'm still not the secretary!

2008-03-27T16:36:00.001-07:00

I keep on having to go to a giant pile of archives to look for things at work. Very important things... *cough* Yeah. It's such a huge pile of things that there are multiple secretaries that dual-class as librarians taking care of it. Their job is to help you find things and then photocopy them for you so that you have a nice big productive looking pile of tree to bring with you to meetings.

Well, apparently their job is to find things and photocopy things for EVERYONE BUT ME. This is the second group of people I've met at (large engineering company) whose brains physically can't lump me into the engineering pile. Even though I've been introduced to them on multiple occasions as an engineering intern, it doesn't seem to stick.

One of the secretaries went ballistic on me this morning because I dared to ask for her assistance in finding a file and photocopying it. She more or less called me a stupid lazy bitch and told me it wasn't her responsibility to train me to do my job. I ended up being late for a meeting when the printer ran out of paper and I couldn't get the copies I needed. Instead of doing something nice, like showing me how to refill the tray, she decided to rant about how stupid people are these days and then gave me an instruction manual for the printer.

So shoot me, I've never worked in a large office before, and I really don't have innate knowledge of which tray (A, F, B145, or Quillbert?) the 11X17 paper goes in. Or where the paper is stored. Or even how to use the damn machine, really.

It actually got to the point where I was wondering if I really had missed out on some big "change the paper in the printer" training day. But then male student in my office walked in, asked her to find a binder and copy it, promptly received copies, and left. Grrrrrrr.

I wish there was a polite way to say, "I'm not a fucking secretary and I in fact have NOT been trained in the ancient traditions of making copies, fetching coffee, and booking appointments!" Because it would really help clear up this situation a bit. Grrr.