a day of extremes
Nanos sure know how to kick it.
Had our MSE exam this morning - I went in on maybe 4 hours of sleep, and halfway through the exam i was starving and the fatigue was starting to get to me. Nevertheless, i did it all; there was a much larger emphasis on the whole AFM/STM blah blah blah details than i expected, but hopefully it all goes over alright.
On a side note, Prof N. made fun of Binkley's purple bandana. This drew my attention to Prof N's outfit - he was dressed like grapes on a vine: purple shirt and green pants. Not that i really care what my profs wear... it just reminds me of a certain someone whom i tease about dressing like a carrot. Ahaha.
So after this exam toiling, we decided to watch a movie, to celebrate our quasi-freedom (8 days till atoms/molecules/solids). Half of us wanted to see Sin City, and the other half had already seen it, so we ended up deciding upon The Amityville Horror. Oh gods... spent pretty much the whole movie hiding behind my scarf... it never stopped being scary, so basically we spent 2 hours all tense. Add that to our morning exam... lol let's just say next time i'll be smarter about the choice of movie. Not that it was bad; it was alright, but i think it's a little much to handle after a night of strenuous studying. I was sitting on the end so unfortunately i was not a direct witness to Roger D's animated reactions to the scariness ;)
This all actually worked out well cuz now i can see Sin City w/ AngryBot. And, as a bonus to him, he didn't have to sit through a scary movie.
After i got home, even though i knew i should sleep, i ate dinner, watched the 24 i had missed (it sucked... C'MON PPL!! blergh), read about
the raising of a baby racoon (very entertaining, very long, involves a lot of poo), watched CSI, then Alias, made some muffins w/ roomie, watched CSI: NY, ate a muffin, watched the dubbed Japanese game show on Spike TV where silly Japanese ppl do all these weird Gladiator-like things (i wanna try!), and now here i am. Getting kind of hungry again but i think i'll sleep. I'm already bored - i need to find entertainment that doesn't remind me of school at all!!! I'm getting sick of knowing things.
Listenin' to Cat Stevens now... reminds me of the movie Harold and Maude, which i first saw in English class back w/ my super cool teacher. It's such a funny/sad movie. Oh the good ol' days.
LMAO episode...
So that everyone knows how lame i am... yes i am still watching alias, and i just finished the funniest episode i've ever seen.
*Spoilers ahead if you care!* (haha as if you will avoid reading the next line... sorry)
- Marshall + Spork + eyeball = genius...
(i bet Ada heard me laughing my head off... she thinks i'm crazy) - Man... i can't even think of anything else to write about this, there's nothing that tops that
Oh and the episode before that involved an 'amplifying glass', i.e.
frequency doubler (or actually, they said it amplified by a factor of ten)... haha feels strange to know exactly what they are talking about. Thanks Chris Yip (lol)!
Only 2 episodes left before there are NO MORE that i can watch (until Thursday that is). This is a good thing. I think i'll just get it over with now. Muahahaha
addicted... and lovin' it
So in the last week I polished of Alias Season 3. I did this in the days following Econ cuz i figured that if i got it outta my system, then i would be able to study for CHM and MSE, which are pure memorization courses. I mean seriously, with CHM this Monday and MSE this Wednesday, right after Econ was waaaaaaay too early to start studying. I can't study unless there's pressure. So, i must induce pressure by procrastinating. None of this 'being prepared days in advance' shit. It just isn't me.
After i finished Season 3, i told myself that i wouldn't get Season 4. After all, i'd have to hunt for all the separate episodes. You'd think that my laziness would deter me, and that i would start studying. You'd be wrong.
ALIAS is the BEST show i've ever seen. It's got hot chicks and hot guys. It's got spies and spy gadgets and uber-cool weapons of mass destruction. I thought 24 was cool, and when they had the EMP, that was exciting (*wink* moe). BUT THEN i just watched an episode of Alias, Season 4, which was aired BEFORE 24 aired its EMP episode, and ALIAS had an EMP too. It wasn't all fancy and glowing and throbbing with a sound like the machine was breathing, oh no. It was just a device, nothing very fancy. And yet, it also had a scene where a helicopter was downed and it crashed into a house and KA-BOOM. Sweet.
Jack may be 'the man', but Sydney could kick his ass any day.
Reasons Alias takes over as my new favourite show of all time:
- The character development is amazing in Alias. The only character that kind of upsets me is Weiss, cuz he's really just a 'cardboard cut-out' character on the show; i haven't watched Season 1 yet but i haven't seen much done with him; he's just a crutch to Vaughn and Sydney. I like Weiss though, cuz he's from Felicity... well ok a lot of the ppl are from Felicity but that makes it more likeable to me cuz i liked that show.
- It's a chick that kicks ass.
- Throughout every episode, there's always the feeling of a bigger, more sinister plot brewing. No matter how many secrets (*gasp*) are uncovered, the real thing is always wilder than you could ever imagine. 24 is kind of like this, but it's limited by its scope - terrorists vs. Jack, blah blah blah. There's only so many scenarios, or variations on those scenarios, and i think they've gone through most of them: bio-attack, nuclear attack, kidnapping high ranking officials, kidnapping the families of the main characters, bombs, etc. Alias has all this... and more. It's international. That's much cooler already - i love all the locations, i love hearing everyone speak in different languages. (Most of all i love when Vaughn speaks in French - Vartan is actually Parisian... that's super hot.) The enemies in Alias are also more constant, so you know there is a bigger picture as a backdrop to all of the smaller missions. All seasons of Alias are tied together by the whole Rambaldi thing, and that is really what makes it superior to 24. Continuity, bringing back old forgotten questions, the whole scope is huge. And that is what keeps it so engaging.
- I like my entertainment to be well rounded. Alias oozes drama, action, wit, humour, and love stories (often tragic). It seriously explores the archetypes of betrayal, trust, and duty through its characters, and isn't one-dimensional in that regard. It's all about the grey area. Nothing is clear cut. It's not about one man, one mission, one duty, through hell and high water. It goes past that, to the real issues plaguing the characters - it moves the audience through the emotion of characters, and not just by the circumstances. Sometimes 24 succeeds in this regard; the most recent episode was really well done, particularly the husband and wife who stumbled across the football thing - you don't know the characters well, but their story captivates you through their reactions.
- It's got imagination. It blends elements of sci-fi and fantasy with the whole CIA spy thing, and it's actually successful, in my opinion. You don't come away with feeling like the whole thing is cheap and unbelievable, you come away with the satisfaction of good story telling. That's probably the most important thing to me.
- It's a nerd's dream come true. All those gadgets and the crazy technology makes me drool. I love Marshall. I can see how maybe some ppl would think he's annoying, but I think he comes off perfectly as the 'adorable genius without social skills'. Yes, that does sound like a 1-D character, but the actor is amazing and he pulls it off really well.
All in all... i (heart) Alias. Watch it. You won't regret it.
last week of classes - out w/ a bang
I've been wanting to post since I got home from an AMAZING concert, wed night. Went to see Bowling For Soup/American Hi-Fi w/ Mohit, Saigin, and Ellie. Unfortunately Dave Stanley got stuck w/ a programming assignment and couldn't join us... poor guy.
*Wednesday*So I prepped for the concert in my usual way, given my past experience w/ many of these types of punk shows:
- cargo pants: many pockets to hold my stuff, no need for purse, things won't fall out if i mosh (though i'm too scared to crowd surf)
- long sleeved tee: don't have to touch all the sweaty people, more than possible
However, the show turned out differently than i expected:
- The venue (Opera House) was really neat, smaller than I expected, had three sort of tiers, the top w/ a bar, the mid level just... a mid level, and the floor level in front of the stage. I think this set up was more laid back than the single large rooms that I've been to before, but at the same time, since ppl had more room to spread out, it wasn't packed near the stage. There were less people overall than I expected as well, guess Bowling for Soup isn't that big yet. I was standing maybe 6 feet from the stage, and not a SINGLE person was touching me! Yay no fat guy in front of me with his ass in my stomach! (which happened at a Weezer concert back in the day... eugh...)
- Security was lax. Normally they really don't like you taking pics. But with the advent of camera phones... I guess it's gotten too much for them, or they don't care. I managed to take a bunch of pics w/ my phone, which i'll post here soon, in all their blurry glory. Again, no fear of dropping phone, cuz no one was touching me!
- NOT A SINGLE PERSON CROWD SURFED. Cause if they did... haha they'd fall on the floor... the crowd wasn't dense at all. I remember at some other shows I've been to, ppl were so squished that when the ppl around me jumped up and down, I got carried up and down by DEFAULT - it was wicked :P There was no mass crowd jumping up and down, like usual. When BFS came on there were a few songs where more ppl jumped around... including me, i love that part. There was a couple of very brief thrash circles though. But that died down by the time BFS came on (they told everyone to play nice and give a random person a hug... whereupon i was hugged by a 14 yr old blonde girl).
- I'm used to shows that have doors open at 7ish, and that end around 11ish. This show had doors at 7:30 (we got there maybe 8ish), then there were 3 front bands before BFS: MC Lars (more about this ridiculous guy later), Ritalin Kids, American Hi-Fi. BFS came on at 11. They played for... i forget... probably till after 12. I think i remember getting home at around 12:45am.
- Overall the front bands were not bad - i.e. they were fine to listen to, american hi-fi in particular was not bad cuz i know some of their songs. A lot better than one of the front bands I remember from a SUM 41 ... guy singer, all goth and in a tutu, and i can't even describe their music, but it was quite scary.
Which brings me to
MC LARS. He is an 'English major' at some uni in Cali. He raps in his dorm room. He has songs called "STAT60", about a stat class he sux at, and Raven, which is about Edgar Allan Poe ("Who's that/Who's that/Who's that, rapping on my bedroom door?/Raven/Raven/Raven, nevermore"). He is one man w/ music background that presumably he has mixed himself... in his dorm room. He SOUNDS like a kid in a dorm room, lol... it was... pretty amusing. It was like something on open mike night, poor guy. He had a ninja turtles jacket tho, that was cool.
Check out http://www.mclars.com/ if you so desire.
Bowling For Soup was incredible. They are really talented. Their live performace sounded like the CD, and in some cases, it was better - for example, they did a cover of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time", which is apparently on the Freaky Friday soundtrack... it was wicked, all rocked up, and of course the entire crowd knew the words and sang along. So fun. They also did a cover of Bon Jovi's "Shot Through the Heart", which was awesome. I completely enjoyed myself... they've got some great tunes. You could tell the difference between a good punk/pop band and one hit wonders... BFS's songs all had their own distinctive character, which is really refreshing - whereas some other bands had songs that tend to sound all the same. I've been pretty outta the loop when it comes to music, since EngSci, but BFS is on their way up for sure. Reminds me of the first time I saw SUM 41 at the El Mocambo (practically across the street from my apartment here!) - tiny club, band just starting to get recognition, intimate setting - amazing.
If you like feel-good music (it's more pop punk, not the usual whining about life punk), check out BFS.
*Thursday*I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!whooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo
After months of agony, with the inept PEY office working against me at every turn, I have finally managed to get a job. The position is with the Materials and Process Engineering/Operations department at ********, so it's a chem/process eng type gig. 16 months, and salary is pretty good... man I'm going on a shopping spree after exams ;)
So on Thursday, when all the rankings were supposed to have been posted, I checked repeatedly and still no word about Honeywell (which was my last chance, as I only got 2 interviews before second round ended, and I didn't get ranked for my other position). I finally called up the PEY office and asked them whether they posted all the rankings. "Yes." - oh shit. I gave them my name and the position. "Adrienne Tanur... doesn't ring a bell." - double oh shit. "Hmm I can't seem to find that information for that position... I'll call you back" - triple oh shit.
I went to class for a couple of hours, during which I kept my cell at hand (on vibrate... I just wanted to know). Very nervous. See, I really had my heart set on this job. It sounds wicked... really engaging. Also I can get a Six Sigma Green Belt out of it, so they tell me.
After class ended, I just decided to brave it out, and I went to the PEY office. The lady there told me she hadn't bothered to call me (quadruple oh shit..) - because she sent me an e-mail (ooookay....)... and congratulations, you were ranked first!
BIGGEST RELIEF OF MY LIFE!
So even though I hate the PEY Office with a passion... I'm slightly mollified now that I actually have a job. Hope things go smoothly from here... crossing my fingers that nothing else goes wrong.
Along with joy, comes sadness... cuz I will be leaving the best classmates I've ever had in my life. Only 5 people in Nano are going on PEY so far: me, Saigin, Mohit, Daniel (Wen), and Naazia. I'm going to miss everyone terribly... we were a really close-knit class, everyone was comfortable with everyone else, and so friendly, and helpful, together in Nano misery. I am always debating whether it was the smartest thing to do, joining EngSci... but for the people in Nano 0T6: you guys make it worth it. Finest people I have gotten to know, and I know many will be wildly successful in life.*Friday*I had a lotta stuff due on the last day of classes. MSE lab report, Physics Problem Set, and Phyiscs Lab Oral Exam. Ouch. MSE was really annoying to write up, but then we got a 90% on it anyways, so it was all good. Problem set - thanks to Eral for helping me out, it turned out to be a not too stressful day. Oral Exam... ahahaha. We get to pick one lab we want to talk about, and one lab the examiners pick. I was lucky (perhaps) because I only got 2 examiners: Bailey, and Mirco. The third guy, some sort of 'on call' TA who really doesn't have anything to do with the course, failed to show up in time for my exam. Fine by me. So I pick to talk about Ge detector first, cuz it's the one I know in great detail, and also, Bailey gave me a good mark on that. I was untouchable... Bailey and Mirco couldn't trip me up. Then came time for them to pick a lab. I waited for a couple of minutes in nervousness, just HOPING that they wouldn't pick Fourier Transform Spectroscopy. Bailey: "Hmm... how bout... how bout... F.... " (nooooooooo!!!!!) "Oh well, actually... Conductivity in less than 3 dimensions. I didn't understand that last time."
A wave of relief washed over me, but that lasted for about 3 seconds. I should have been on my guard from those 5 little words, "I didn't understand it last time." This is BAILEY we are talking about here. He was going to ask me about a lab that he knew NOTHING about. Even when we discuss a lab that he oversaw, he goes on these crazy tangents and picks up the tiniest details that no one would ever think of looking at. My lab partner Dave (from that last lab of death), once told me that he handed in his lab book to Bailey for marking, and it was an old lab book from Chemistry or something like that, so he put in a sticky note to direct Bailey to the physics lab. When he got back his book.... not only was his lab marked, but there were COMMENTS written on ALL of the other labs in the book, that weren't even physics! Now that is just craziness.
So Bailey started asking me about the difference between 2D and 3D conductors. Whereupon I explained that the equipotentials were either spherical or 2D circles, with the current expanding out, blah blah blah. Apparently that wasn't satisfactory. The talons of his convoluted brain latched on: "But, you ARE measuring something, aren't you?" Then he wanted to know about the difference in terms of V vs. r potential, and he told me to draw V-r graphs on the board. So I did. I drew the ideal V is proportional to 1/r plot, etc. He stared at it and started mumbling about stuff, like how he doesn't understand why it plateaus and stuff. Then he started trying to understand where the 0 V was, since voltage had to be in reference to something. Then he scrutinized my data plots, calculating in his head whether my horizontal error bars were of the proper order of magnitude. Finally, in the last minute, he asked what my main result was - which was measuring resistivity. Noting that my manual curve fitting was pretty inaccurate (I ended up with a range of 3.0 -3.2 cm for the thickness of the graphite slab), he joked
"Ah, nice range there, haha... well I suppose, as an engineer, you'd stamp that!" Ha ha.
So in conclusion, I aced one half of the lab interview, and bombed the other. I think this was a combination of 1) Bailey never being satisfied with simple explanations, always wanting I don't know what, and 2) the conductivity lab being run by Harlow, who is happy with the simple explanations and so I guess I didn't work hard enough to attain an air-tight understanding of every detail of that lab.
Oh well, I hope I get at least a 75%, then I'm all good to go for that course.
Last piece of news:
I am the new Nano Secretary for the
Nanoclub next year! This is the first election I've won... feels kinda neat. I'm really excited about doing lots of stuff for Nanoclub. We're gonna put it back on the map. The exec team is also made up of excellent people, and I'm pretty sure we will be creating new positions and whatnot, to really get everyone involved. Basically, if you want to help out and contribute, then you will be a Somebody. I disagree with the need to have such strict "Exec" labels, and we'll be a lot more productive with more people, providing that the organizational structure is still there (and I will attend to that).
Excited for next year... I start work on May 30th, so I get a nice month off from school. Same w/ Chris, so it's great, might take a trip together somewhere. wheee!
Collection of Evil Things - Part I
Here, I present some things that make me shudder. One is truly hair-tearing-out frustrating, another carries only a murky haze of vague malevolence, and the last makes my head explode.
#1: The door to the room of darkness and despair - aka the room in which I did my Fourier Transform Spectroscopy experiment in my Physics Lab Course.
Here I spent probably ~12 hours of my life turning a little crank, and squinting in hopes of seeing interference fringes in a Michelson Interferometer. It was kinda like an old movie theatre... sitting in the dark on that wooden stool, turning a handle and looking at coloured light. Except the movie was tres dull.
#2: This is a picture that I saved onto my computer from some random website years ago. I kept it cuz it is just so odd. And slightly frightening.
Just try and tell me that doesn't scare you a little. (Yes it was from one of those physics websites attempting to explain quarks and their flavours.)
#3: Last, but not least... an object demonstrating the Th point group. That's right, Th, not Td. Disgusting, isn't it. Reminds me of clowns. And not the sane ones, either.
Look closely... Even try applying some symmetry operators if you dare. I didn't want to put up a larger version - you need your heads, but your eyes can melt a little.
