A-ha

Well, so my best guess is I didn't account enough for the significant stress concentrations that occur at discontinuities in force.

Also, that boundary conditions are more likely in reality to be towards simply supported than fixed.

Bugger - my poor heater tried its best...

Lonely

I am really satisfied with my school life as a grad student - I take challenging classes that are useful for what I am interested in, I have an awesome advisor, and I feel like my project is relevant and important. I get along fantastically with my labmates and other colleagues, and I realize I am really fortunate to have all these things in my academic life going so well. (With the exception of the blasted broken heater issue).

But I am, if I stop long enough to think about it, lonely. I can keep myself busy with school and my own projects and hobbies, so I'm never bored. But I can't fix lonely, I can only ignore it.

I have a great group at work - my labmates, and other grad students in mechanical engineering. I can always count on lunch invites, chats in the hallway, people to grab pizza and study with, and somebody to sit next to me in class. I also have a set of people I enjoy in the dorm - other officers who say hi when they see me, other volunteers to banter with while we prepare meals. I even have friends I see at bible study - once a week friends with whom to sing and study biblical topics.

So I am blessed, and I have more than enough people around me to satisfy my introverted personality. So I feel almost guilty for being lonely.

But what I am missing is the kind of friend you can call up at any hour, the ones you can count on when you are upset. I had these friends in undergrad, and some of my favorite memories are with them: random nights watching crappy reality TV, spur-of-the-moment road trips. Occasionally there would be episodes of somebody crying on the bathroom floor, or someone holding an impromptu ice cream binge after a breakup. But if I was ever upset, I knew I could call. And if they needed me, they knew I'd be there as soon as I could.

One of the guys at school has a girlfriend who recently got a cortisone shot in her back. He took off a few days to take care of her - bringing her home from the hospital, making sure she ate (well, he ordered in fast food instead of cooking, but hey whatever works....), sitting through chick flicks with her while she recovered. If I ever needed somebody to take care of me like that, I don't know who I'd call. You don't ask people from work to do that, (in fact being that close to people you work with can backfire). It takes a different kind of friend, and I'm not sure how I go about finding that kind.

I think I partly shoot myself in the foot because I am so independent; I so rarely need to be taken care of I don't even think about how valuable those kinds of people are. So this logical engineer needs to remember not to neglect her social life. That, or just avoid ever needing to go to the hospital...

Where do your "anytime, anywhere" friends come from, internet?

London Wrap-up II

To continue my list of adventures in London:

- Saw some amazing architecture: Tower Bridge, Lloyd's of London (the inside out building), London Wall, London bridge, The Gherkin glass building, and too many churches and government buildings and palaces to count. London is not a very tall city, but it is rich with history.

- Took the "Jack the Ripper" tour, which goes past the sites of Jack's murders, and stops at other places with sordid stories. London has had a great many hangings, plagues, beheadings, and general pestilence. One spot in particular I thought was cool is a spot on the bank of the Thames that runs into the Tower of London. They call it Dead Man's Hole, because the currents of the river and architecture of the pool all conspire to wash people in there and keep them stuck. They pull out an average of 50 bodies a year from that spot.

- Poked my nose around an old bookstore, and bought a book to read in my spare time. No internet in the cheap hostel, you know, so I have to have something to pass odd hours! I especially liked the children's section, believe it or not, they had all these darling illustrated children's books. Including some I read when I was a child - I think sadly my best-read genre is children's books. I read voraciously as a kid, then lost the time when I started college.

- Had lunch at The Porcupine, which is a very old restaurant that used to be a haven and lodge for the FreeMasons. They specialized in "pies" which I thought meant dessert, but forgot that I was in England. They make all their own meat pies, like shepard's pot pie. There was even a cornish game hen pie, and a kidney and onion pie. I passed on the kidneys...

- Went to see the new Underworld movie. The movie theaters work a little differently than ours - there were about four or five movie theaters in close proximity, so my labmate and I wandered around to see what each was playing. It turns out that instead of them all playing the same movies, each one was quite small and only played a few, with no overlap between theaters. So you go to the movie theater that plays what you want to see, instead of going to the theater and seeing what's on. Kinda cool, and efficient (if all the cinemas are close to begin with, I suppose). A little odd to see only two or three movie on the queue, though...

- On the walking tour, we went past Westminster Abbey and the church display board outside said that they had "Evensong" every evening. I asked about it, and it turns out this is a nightly church choir service. I really wanted to go, so my labmate dragged himself along. We went to see the soccer stadium because he wanted to, so really it was only fair. :) Okay, maybe a church service isn't quite on the same order. In any case, we showed up right on time and the doors were locked! We couldn't find a way in. I was quite dissapointed, so I suggested we just walk around the church and then head home. But it turns out the entrance was on the backside - yay! So we got to go after all. It was gorgeous - the church is incredible, and the choir music was excellent. The effect of those beautiful Latin harmonies in that old church filled with art was just inspiring.

Crimeny

Well, in the words of Dr. Isis, I am being "bent over by science."

I went to run some experiments on my equipment yesterday, (equipment that I designed and built), and one of my two heaters was not working. The very expensive, fancy heater that is one of the key innovations in the machine. Did I mention expensive? That I've broken once before? The first time I broke one was unexpected, my advisor was very understanding that these things do happen during research, and I changed my design to account for the reason it broke.

But this time when I saw my data going screwy, I just had a sinking feeling. I checked all my wiring, everything was good. I opened up the machine and took out the heater... and it was shattered. Blast.

The worst part to me as a scientist is I have no idea why it broke. It can't be the same reason it broke last time, because I changed my design, unless of course I was wrong last time about the reason it broke. Tomorrow I am going to double-check my calculations for some design decisions I made, and make sure I didn't design something else stupidly. I sent in a note to my supplier to ask for a quote for a new one, so I can get it replaced as soon as I can. But I don't want to replace it unless I know why the damn thing broke, or it'll just break again.

And I'm not really sure what I'm going to tell my advisor at our next meeting (which happens to be one of the one-on-one variety... of course...). The truth, I guess, along with my calculations that I'm double checking, and any guesses I have as to why.

Crimeny. Did I forget to tell my equipment I am trying to graduate?

Inflection Point

Weekly lab meeting with my advisor was today, and in the course of discussion my advisor made the comment to the group that I am "at an inflection point." And I have been thinking about that, and I think he is exactly correct - that describes this point in my career nearly perfectly.

The trip to Singapore marked the 10th anniversary of the Singapore/World's Best School partnership, and also the official end to the program. This means that each subdivision of the partnership has to plan its end-game, what it wants to accomplish as the final contribution to their respective fields.

In my lab, last summer a large group of students undertook a major project we dubbed "microfactory," or ufac for short (mu-fak, sounds slightly dirty but it's not, just geeky - mu is the symbol for micro). Ufac had some very specific goals we were trying to reach over the course of three months in the summer. We almost made it, we were so close but ran out of time before classes started up again.

I am getting to the point, here, hang with me.

Point 1
So my advisor has decided that our lab's end-game is going to be Ufac, Part II. So there's the first inflection point I've been thinking about - the focus of the lab is now going to streamline down to Ufac II as we use up the rest of our money and look toward the future. I am really excited about this - my research fits perfectly with this project, and I was really dissapointed last summer when we didn't quite reach our goals. I think if we can get it to work it will be a major contribution to my field, the culmination of 10 years of knowledge gathering.

Point 2
The only problem is that most of the students from last summer are trying to graduate, and won't be around for Ufac II. So the second change going on around here is a bit of reorganization in personnel. Normal weekly meetings with my advisor have always been his two PhD students and myself. But since they are now both in the home stretch to graduating, he will be meeting with them one-on-one. I will be meeting instead with the newly formed Ufac II group - which is myself and the only other two students from last summer who will be around. That will be biweekly, and I'll meet one-on-one with my advisor on the inbetween weeks.

Point 3
This one-on-one in the inbetween weeks is because I am also trying to graduate - although only with my Master's, and I'll be staying for a PhD. I actually turned in the first half of my thesis to my advisor today - yay! - for him to review and return to me with comments. I aim to be done and have the thing signed by the end of February.

Point 4
Which is good because in May I am taking the qualifying exams to be admitted into the PhD program. This is a high stress operation, requiring an average of three months to study. I don't want to be worrying about the Master's thesis while trying to study for these things, and I need to start studying... well, yesterday.

Point 5
And then as soon as I finish with quals, I have to decide what I want to do for my PhD. I've just started thinking about this recently, trying to figure out how the Ufac II project might lead into a PhD research topic. It's odd to focus on the long-term planning, since I've been spending the last year and a half working on my master's topic. But hey, that's why I'm calling it an inflection point.

So to sum up this lengthy post: I am currently changing all at once the focus of my research, the people I work and meet with, and my degree status. I need to begin to study for qualifiers, and begin to think about long-term PhD plans.

Quite an inflection point. I'm crossing my fingers that I'm at the local minimum, and it's all up from here... :)

Unexpected Surprise

I serve on the government of the graduate dormitory where I live - I am the equivalent of an undergrad RA (residential assistant), except for graduate students. This is mostly a social or facilitator role; my job is to know everybody, foster community, and use money I am given to throw dinners, study breaks, and organize the occasional outing for my residents. I love doing this, as it indulges just enough of my outgoing side while still letting me retreat at the end of the day to my own room. I have become friends with the other members of government over the year I've been doing this, and so I end up volunteering a lot to help with other dorm events. I also have a selfish side - the events we throw almost always include free food (and good stuff, too, not just pizza), and I have learned that the volunteers get to eat as much as they want beforehand if they help prepare the food.

So we serve brunch twice a month, and if I make pancakes I get to eat however many I want before the long lines show up. Yum, strawberry ones! And once a week is coffee and dessert hour, and I get to steal a slice of cheesecake if I chop pineapple and apples and bananas. Last night we had a one-time event, "Chocolate Feast." Well you know I'm going to volunteer to help for that one. We had boxes and boxes of Godiva chocolates, a huge chocolate fondue fountain, cakes and cookies and rich creamy hot chocolate... oh, yum. Of course we also had lots of fruit, which is what I helped chop and peel and prepare. My specialty is pineapples - nobody else likes to do those, for some reason.

In any case, it was sublime. I got to pick several Godiva chocolates, and sip my dark hot chocolate in peace. Then at opening time everybody showed up and surrounded the fondue fountain, and in order to conserve resources we could only let people have one Godiva chocolate and one piece of gourmet cake.

But I digress.

The other half of my office's responsibility is to go to monthly house meetings. These are generally painless and only 45 minutes long, as opposed to student government meetings in undergrad which could easily last two hours (mostly of arguing, if the law students showed up). Tonight we had an unexpected item on the agenda: appreciation gifts. I was pleased to see some of the hardest working officers be recognized with gift cards, and clapped politely for all the nominees.

And then they called my name! I was floored, I didn't think I was doing anything above and beyond my position. But I got a nice little speech about me before I got my award, saying I did a great job involving my residents, contributing new ideas, and giving extra of my time to volunteer.

It was absolutely lovely to be recognized for something I enjoy doing, even more so because it was unexpected. If only there were more such awards for being social and eating macaroons...

London Wrap-Up I

The flight to London was uneventful - which is to say, wonderful! My luggage arrived with me, there were no delays or reroutes through other countries, and I had two seats all to myself. One other labmate also had the time and interest in stopping through London on the way back from Singapore, so we took on the adventure together. This is going to read like a "Dear Diary" but you, internet, will just have to deal. I want to remember things later. As in, after next week. I forget fast. :)

- We stayed in a hostel for four nights, here in fact. It's in central London, which is handy, and it's a converted jail, so major cool points for that. It's also really cheap: $185 for two people for four nights. In fact, we didn't even choose the cheapest option: we had an eight-bed room instead of ten or twelve, and we had our own shower and bathroom in the room instead of common showers. I have never stayed in a hostel before, but I really enjoyed it. There were young people from all over staying there - I didn't see anybody over 30, and I heard many, many languages being spoken. Which makes sense, I suppose, because anybody over 30 is not going to put up with bunk beds and toast and cereal in a cafeteria for breakfast. You get sheets upon check-in to make your bed with, and you rent a towel for 1 pound (which you keep until you either check out, or break down and want a clean one). There's a bar in the basement, maps in the lobby, and really, what more do you want?

There were never the same people twice in our eight-bed room for the four nights we stayed. Our room was co-ed, because my labmate and I booked our room together. So it was a little strange one morning to wake up and find two new boys sleeping on either side of me, that had come in late the night before... Even though the room had its own bathroom and shower, the bathroom was tiny - the same size as the bathroom and showers I have used in RVs before. I tried taking a shower in there the second day, and I couldn't even wash my hair without hitting my elbows, then I tried to towel off and nearly took out the sink. So I ended up using the common showers after all, which are like camping showers - nice and large, but also mixed gender. Ah well, nobody in that hostel is ever going to see me again, so what do I care?

- The first day we got there it was raining, but the second day was sunny so we went on a free walking tour of London. Our guide did an excellent job, and I really liked being able to walk through the sites instead of driving by on a bus. On the other sunny day, we also did a lot of walking on our own. All in all, we saw the Constitution Arch, Buckingham Palace, Leicester Square, Westminster Abbey, Horse Guards Parade, the Mall, the changing of the Guard, Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, and of course Big Ben. Nearly everything, I think! I was glad my shoes were comfortable...

- Stood in line at the student's half-price ticket booth for same day musical tickers, and scored 18.50 pound tickets to Wicked. Yay! I really wanted either Wicked or Chicago. We got nosebleed seats, of course, but it was a Tuesday night so the theater was lightly populated. You better believe when the lights dimmed we moved up by one or three or twenty rows... actually ended up with pretty good seats. The cast was incredible, and the story was excellent. The lead singers just had effortless voices. I'm a bit of a singer myself, and I so envy and enjoy when other singers can make their voice their instrument to do whatever they want. I hummed the songs all the way home, which I think my labmate did not appreciate. But oh well - 'cause IIIIIIIII'm defy-----ing gra--vity!