iMech

Oh Miami, how wonderful you are.

Ah~ where should I start…?

It’s been so long since my last post, that numerous ideas on how to start this post are fighting in my head. So please accept my advanced apology that this post might be a little jumbled.

Well, first thing is first. Since my last post on the odds of dating, I have finished writing my thesis, successfully defended it (YaY!), travelled to Miami, and started my journey as a PhD student at the very same university that I now call ‘home’. Besides the things that most people consider a big deal (like getting my MASc stuff out of the way), there were some other big things that happened since February that I am quite happy about.

South Beach

For example, when I was planning my trip to Miami (for a conference of course), I quickly learned that I had literally been a workaholic who has a serious fear of taking vacations. My friends can tell you all about how I spent days worrying about whether it’s possible for me to actually have fun outside of the lab and spend days at a non-Vancouver location without work. In deciding how long I should stay in Miami after the conference (as a means to take a break from all that thesis writing and defence preparation), I was seriously worried that I would quickly get bored and start missing work/lab if I took more than a day to myself in Miami. Part of the reason was that I was going to be travelling alone, but I’ve travelled by myself many times before. What scared me was the thought of the amount of days I could be spending without working. I mean, what am I going to do by myself in Miami?! Anyways, upon much pondering, I left for Miami on a Thursday and came back the next Thursday. And I guess I don’t need to tell you that by the time I was heading back to Vancouver, I had shaken off the workaholic-ness out of me and did not want to come back.

The Wreck Beach, on campus!

Upon returning to work, I had an epic realization of a fact that should have been obvious three years ago — that Vancouver is an awesome staycation city. It’s a city filled with vacation-like things to do and vacation-like places to go. I mean, living on campus, I am practically only <10 minute walk away from a beach, short bus ride to many other beaches, have free access to the UBC Botanical Garden (I haven’t been to it yet by the way), not to mention the countless things that Whistler, the mountains, Okanagan, and other not-to-far places have to offer. Why did I not realize this before? Well, maybe I did realize it, but I kinda drove right into my thesis project and started my workaholic lifestyle when I got to Vancouver in the summer of 2009.

So, since my return from Miami, I began striving to live the mystical lifestyle that everyone’s been talking about for so long — a balanced lifestyle. Without intending to, my post-vacation attitude and the gradually summering weather of Vancouver has naturally pulled me away from work during weekends.

Two of the MANY plants I have acquired since my return from the mini-vacation.

There’s another big change I am happy about. I have become quite serious about gardening since my return. This is going to sound very cliche, but I have begun to notice things like flowers and such in a way I didn’t before. I’ve become so much more appreciative of the time I spend on things not work related, that I’ve decided to pick up another hobby — gardening. And guess what? Yesterday happened to be a big garden sale day at the UBC Botanical Garden (I still haven’t toured around the garden, but as of yesterday I can say I’ve visited the shop of the Botanical Garden). So I woke up early enough in the morning, took out one of those grocery caddies and happily went shopping for plants. Now I have a blueberry bush, lavender, basil, star flower, and many lettuce, spinach and other veggies planted by my windowsill and outside my door.

Just epic.

From now on, I shall wake up and see the beautiful flowers and greens by my window, and I shall go to work watching my blueberry plant grow. Oh, imagine how delicious the blueberries are gonna be, and how sweet scented my lavender filled room will be! So forget all the depressing odds about finding the right guy to make me happy and all. The mother nature is going to keep me happy with the interesting creatures I’m now a bit freakishly excited about (I can’t stop thinking about getting pretty clay pots to replant my plants).

Another big thing is that I’ve become a happier person after coming back from Miami. Well, the vacation probably has much to do with that. But I think it’s also the fact that I have, somehow, come to terms with my MASc thesis itself. I mean, near the end of the thesis writing process, I really had this thought of “I couldn’t care less about this, I just wanna get this over with!” But I wrote what I consider to be a humongous document with an enormously long title: “What should a robot do?: design and implementation of human-like hesitation gestures as a response mechanism for human-robot resource conflicts” and I feel proud to have finished it. Yes, I could have done things differently, and yes, there are many thoughts that need further thinking. But that’s what the masters program is for, right? You do research, but you are also learning along the way. So the things you worked on in the beginning is in a rougher shape than the things you did later.

Since April 18th of 2012, I have officially been a PhD student at UBC.

I still have the same desk, at the same lab, with the same two supervisors. In a way, my student status seems to be the only thing that have really changed from MASc candidate to PhD student.

Some people call it an academic suicide to get multiple degrees from the same university. But I believe I’ve made the right choice, and that whether I make my choice to stay a suicidal one is really up to me. Because the truth is, everything is different. Unlike almost three years ago when I started brainstorming randomly about what my research question should be (and also wondering what on earth research questions should look like), the randomness in my thought process has been tamed and self-guided. It feels like I’ve been given more freedom than before, because I now have the knowledge of how to properly seize the opportunities I want and have confidence in knowing what I want.

In a sense, I guess one of the biggest things that are different about me as a researcher now compared to me three years ago is my comfort level in jumping into the unknown/unexplored. The fact that research is about exploring things that haven’t been explored and answering questions that haven’t been asked (i.e., there’s no textbook and no solutions booklet) used to feel very daunting. But now, I am hooked at the very notion of jumping into the unknown. The less explored, the better. Because I have full confidence that, even if I fall into a chasm in research of some sort, the army of support network that I have in and outside of the lab are more than enough to pull me back up and onto the right path.

So, watch out world. Here comes the transformed AJung.

And here is the ironic ending to this post.

Continue reading

Wow, would you look at the calendar?

Feb. 14th is over, and I am sure the heart shaped cookies and chocolates in pink wraps are on sale in stores all over the city. I couldn’t tell you if there are good deals out there, since I haven’t been poking outside campus after Valentine’s day. But nonetheless, some couples appreciate it being over, because they feel obligated to do something for their significant other on that day, and many singles appreciate it being over since singles tend to be more sensitive of the day than couples seem to be. Or so is a short summary of my qualitative behavioural data this year.

Today, I am in a mood for sharing some quantitative data that may entertain you, and this is inspired by a really funny, and well filmed, video from UBC Mech featuring the excellent hidden talent of Dr. Schajer that I was not aware of.

Alright, so it may not surprise the public much that a lot of people I know in grad school are single, and not particularly by choice.

But, it may surprises us grad schoolers (well, myself, rather) to know that there are “99.6 million unmarried people over age 18 in the U.S., representing nearly 44% of the adult population.” according to the  U.S. Census Bureau, America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2010. Does that mean we single grad students should take a road trip to the US this reading week and take advantage of the numbers? I mean, nearly half the population down there is single! Well, hear me out before you take drastic measures.

According to Statistics Canada, there are about 4.3 million people of more or less balanced male/female ratio in BC (well, in 2007 anyway). Of them, there are 1.8 million people who are single, 53% of which are males (i.e., sorry guys, there’re less single ladies in BC than there are available guys, but good news is coming. Read on.). Of course, I am assuming both numbers are counts of eligible adults, and not people under the age of 18. Breaking down these numbers a bit, this means about 40.9% of BC’s adult population is single, and no road trip should be necessary to find your significant other.

From http://www.unmarried.org/statistics.html

Time-warping these data to the number of grad students at UBC in 2011, we can realize that we UBC grads make up a total of 0.23% of BC’s population –> (total number of UBC grad students) / (total BC population) = 10,111/4.3million = 0.23%
But, I don’t think this is the correct way to deal with the numbers given the number of singles we know exist in grad school. So, if we assume that 70% of us grad students are singles (7078), then we make up 0.4% of all of BC’s singles population. Quite a whooping number if you ask me.

Interestingly, there are more studious girls than there are guys at UBC it seems. Overall, both masters and doctoral students combined, 54% of the grad student population are female (see guys? I told you there’s some good news), although there’s only 37%(642 people to be exact)  of female population in the Faculty of Applied Science. Ok, so that pretty much means, if you’re into dating fellow grad students (totally single, or just married – if you’re into that) then you could take a convenient pick in UBC from 5470 female or 4641 male students.

Age is also an important factor if you’re looking for a suitor. According to the chart that I’m embedding here for your convenience, you can see that, although people tend to get married later as years go by, people generally get married in their mid to late 20′s. That means it’s important to consider how many of us UBC grads are in that single and looking age. According to UBC stats, about 37% of us are in the age group of 25-29 (19% in the 20-24 group, 21% in the 30-34 group). Hmmp, that’s a problem isn’t it? For those gentlemen looking for a fellow lady grad student of age 20-24 to date, you’d be looking at only 19% of 5470 females (1034). To give you a better perspective on reality, that means you’re actually looking for someone who falls under 1.9% of UBC’s total population — which is 54,125 (undergrad + grad). Provided that you’d be looking for someone who is single, that 1.9% should actually be lower to reflect the reality. Odds are better, but not much better, for ladies looking for male grad students of age 25-29 (1717). It’s about 3.2%.

You could say, ‘hey, don’t worry about the percentages, we’ve got thousands of single grad students at UBC, and we should just meet up!’ But dear fella, I am afraid that these percentages are important because they represent the population density — i.e., the odds of running into an attractive guy (or a girl) who happens to be of age, single, and shares that natural nerdiness of being a grad student is terribly low.

So what are the odds of finding someone within that 1.9% or the 3.2% who will make you happy and you’d be happy to be with?

I won’t calculate those numbers for you, but I think it’s fair to say that it’d be a near miracle to find someone in this world, even if over 40% of us are single.

So long story short, my conclusion from this quantitative data I’ve pulled together from UBC, US, and Canadian stats websites is that those of you who aren’t single are terribly lucky to be so. And the journey of having found someone to call your significant other may have occurred by defeating these terrible odds and making a miracle happen.

Continue reading

Arriving at the YVR airport, a strange feeling came over me.

I hadn’t stayed at my parents’ place for such an extended period of time (exactly a month) ever since I started my masters. Coming down the escalator and going through the now-all-too-familiar automated customs booth, I felt a sense of reality sink in. Even just a few hours ago, I had this illusion that I could do everything I wanted to do. For example, I was sure that I could carry back two suitcases, my ski, and ski boots, and my carry-on bag all by myself. When I got to the Toronto Pearson airport though, I had to leave my ski and ski boots behind because of the realization that carrying five heavy and bulky things with my two hands is not going to be easy. I no longer have access to a car, my family conveniently sharing the load with me, and other things from home that make me feel as though I am invincible in some way. I contemplated taking the skytrain and bus 99 back to campus with the three bags full of stuff, but decided against it. There was no guarantee that I would find a seat in the busy bus.

I let out a sigh.

After a taxi driver dropped me off at the residence, I fumbled for a moment before opening the door, and entered the house that is now quite obviously lacking human presence.

I was glad to find the house tidy though. I don’t know about you, but cleaning the house before leaving for a trip is my number one rule. Because I find that coming back to a messy house after a tiresome journey is one of the most disheartening experiences — the reality just screams out at you, saying that you made the mess, you are the only one to blame, and are the only one who gets to clean it up, on top of unpacking and cooking and feeding yourself from the fridge that is certainly empty of useful ingredients.

Anyway, my friend Jee understands this feeling of ‘coming back’ very well and takes a good care of me whenever I come back from a trip. She and I ended up going for groceries and having dinner together that day, making the ‘coming back to an empty house’ type feeling a little less obvious.

There was no time to remain droopy though. Over the winter break, I had written a gigantic journal paper that needed a lot of work before the late January deadline. After quickly unpacking and washing up, I headed to the lab.

My footsteps on the fresh snow outside my rez! Yay snow!

Tagging my fob by the lab door and hearing the familiar beeping sound, I felt another sense of reality sink in. Just steps away from the door were my labmates busily typing away on their keyboards, chatting away about something funny they found on the Internet, and putting on a serious face by a robot that sat speechless and immobile. Soon enough, I found myself happily chatting with them about my winter break, my trip to New York, and my upcoming deadlines, and the events from their winter break. The reality that sank within me was that, despite being away from home, this is a great place to be.

Since my coming back to Vancouver, not everything remained the way I had left it back in December of 2011.

I have decided to change my routine and to not consider deadlines, papers, and projects as occasional things that suddenly take over all other items of priority in my life. I mean, if I am to go on and successfully finish my PhD, then I should consider my research life as a marathon rather than a 100km race. This is my long winded way of saying that my new year’s resolution for 2012 is to learn to pace myself.

I am going to try and wake up consistently on time everyday. Rather than going to bed super late and waking up late just to feel the guilt of having wasted a half a day sleeping, I am going to wake up by seven at the latest. AND I am going to try and exercise a little more often. Crazy, eh? These two things are going to make me feel so much healthier!

…

Man, these things sound like something that other people take for granted.

Waking up to find snow outside my window was just epic. JUST what I was missing in the unusually warm Ontario this winter.

Well, whatever. It’s hard enough for me to wake up at seven every morning, so give me some credit here.

Anyway, I am taking small steps to keep up with my new year’s resolutions and really looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year at UBC has in store for me. And I am really looking forward to spending another year with the MEGA members (although I am no longer part of the execs), CARIS lab members, and my Vancouver friends. It will also be exciting to meet new members to our Department in September. Oh, oh, and did I tell you about the new summer course being offered from our Department? It’s a course on Roboethics (MECH 550R) — crazy awesome is what it is! It’s going to be an epic year. I know it!

I hope you all have had a chance to think about your plans for 2012 and are also excited about what’s to come (despite the rumours of the world ending this February or something).

For those of you who weren’t here for a couple of weeks in January, I took a couple of pictures of the beautiful snow that coloured the campus in white. I was absolutely delighted to wake up to snow, although those of you commuting may have had some difficulty getting in.

With best wishes for the new year,

AJung

Continue reading

Merry Christmas everyone! YAY~

I know, I know… Christmas is rooted in Christian culture. But it definitely grew past that for quite some time now. So, with mine and your religious backgrounds aside, I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas (and Happy Holidays, for those of you who feel awkward about it).

Since the last time I blogged, about my experiment being done and how I am overcoming the emotional aftermath, I flew for about 5 hours and have been hiding at my parents’ place here in Ontario. I expected things to be a bit more cold and snowy, but it really haven’t been that way. I guess the climate change really is showing itself to us rapidly these days.

Anyway, when I arrived at the Toronto Pearson airport and was greeted by my family – whom I haven’t seen for about a year – I felt a sense of ‘Phew’.

The thing is, I have been living by myself for a while now that I got used to eating bad food (i.e., some of the foods I cook), same food (e.g., I ate five boiled eggs in about a day, just to finish them off before flying out for the holidays), and singles’ fool (i.e., instant noodles, spam, frozen microwavable whatever). And the kind of food you eat definitely shows on your face. My “same food, bad food, singles’ food” diet for the past year definitely left some noticeable marks on me (some call it dark circles, and some other terms associated with accelerated ageing). So, regardless of the fact that I tried my best to look presentable for my once-in-a-year reunion with my family, I didn’t look very well nourished – according to my mother at least.

Henceforth started the 3 kg of weight gain since my arrival. With a few happy sighs of being home, I was definitely reminded again how wonderful it is to have my parents treat me like I am still too young to cook my own food, and to pay for her own stuff.

Unfortunately, I am still being very much myself, and working under a journal deadline (and trying to write up my thesis as well). But the writing process is happening while I sit on the couch and mimicking the hesitation gestures my robot enacted.

Yes, that’s right. I haven’t forgotten about my thesis project.

I mean, lots of hesitations were necessary to express my uncertainties in choosing snacks while writing – whether to snack on a pecan tart or apple tea rings from a nearby Amish bakery delivered to me via my parents’ car (yes! I have access to a car!) – and dinner menus – oh the home made Korean food I missed for so long.

Anyway, I digress.

I guess studying at a place far from home/family made me cherish these little things a lot more – the things that used to be just everyday routine. I have a feeling that it’ll be harder going back to Vancouver this time. Partially because I know what’s in my fridge (I made sure I emptied it completely before I flew out), and partially because I know that I will remain far away from my family like this for quite a number of years.

But I am glad that I have people in Vancouver who are my family away from home. I would not have had the same exciting and eventful year without the support from them. And that’s definitely an understatement.

I know that a number of these family members are travelling to see their family. If you are one of them, please~ please~ stay safe, and have an epic time. And those of you unable to spend the holidays with your family, my warmest wishes goes to you. I will have to bake you some goodies when I get back - don’t worry, my baked goods don’t count as bad food in my dictionary.

I won’t write too much more, because I know you’re all going to be running away from your computers to enjoy the festivities – I hope you do even if you weren’t planning on it! Anywho, have a wonderful winter break everyone and thanks for letting me babble on the blog this year! See you all in 2012~!

Continue reading

It feels great.

Just great.

It’s been a while since my last post, but there’s a good reason for it.

I finished the last set of my experiments for my masters and that concludes the end of the things that I need to program, tighten, loosen, and crack open in the literal sense of things.

Woot woot!

I had over thirty subjects come in to the lab, and interact with the robot I had set up for the experiment. The  experiment was called Sorting Hearts and Circles with a Robot, and I am so… so… glad that so many people were interested in participating. Thank you participants! Big hug goes to you all.

And now that all the experiments are done, I could not wait to start analysing the data. It’s crazy how work works. You get one thing done, and then you find another thing to get done. It’s a never ending cycle.

However, I felt really good about the new work that sat staring at me on my desk — data.

For over two years, I had been working to get here. My goodness I had three different phases to my study, and thank goodness I finished them before my patience and all virtues in me dried out.

So, while I started to busy myself with the newly collected data, I was reminded that it was time for me to take down my experimental set-up.

It’s a weird feeling to take down something that you’ve worked so hard on. It feels like you’ve constructed a very elegant multi-layered cake with the most beautiful decorations and fillings by working hard for hours, and then you are asked to destroy it – with the reason being, that’s the way things are for all cakes, no matter how beautiful.

I had been working on this system for… about half a year now? I know every single line of code that made the robot do its thing, and I like to feel like I have my own personal ways of fixing the robot when it crashes on me – the ways that I had to learn by trial and error. You know… there’s that feeling of … there must be something special produced from this that will last forever.. the things that makes all the late nights and early mornings worthwhile. But you aren’t quite sure what that is yet. You don’t want to say that ‘I’ve made some scientific contribution that will last forever’ because it feels like your attachment to your project is stronger and more important than whatever the scientific contribution will do for the world. You know… a breakup from a long term relationships tend to give you that kinda feeling…

So, the day I was supposed to take down the system, I decided to take lots of videos of it, take pictures of every single corners of the set-up, and do everything special I could imagine. Collecting everything that will last.

And when that was all done and over with, I sat.

I sat there staring at the robot.

And the robot sat there, like it always was at the end of the day. Its arms folded and cuddled up.

It kind of felt like having a breakup talk.

“Hey… I’m sorry, but I am not planning to come around no more. This is it. It’s over.”

Don’t worry, I am not crazy. I do not really consider the robot my ‘friend’ or a relationship material of any sort.

I just have some attachment issues with my projects.

As I sat there having these breakup talks, somewhat feeling a sense of relief, but also doubting whether I am making the right choice (as in, should I get a few more subjects before I take it down?), my labmate Navid looked at me and said ‘All done?’

“All done…” I said.

Then I realised that Navid will be the one taking over the robot now – for his experiments, of course. And that reminded me that there’s going to be many more researchers working with this robot. It was clear that I need to clear out of its way.

So I took one last couples picture with the robot, with the spongy hand that I made for it and stuff.

Awwww….

Then I had to go out for dinner with a friend of mine to celebrate the end of experiments, and the start of results and analysis. Afterwards, I did feel the temptation to go back to the lab when I came back from  the dinner at like.. 11ish.. but I resisted. This was it.

A clean breakup is a good breakup. No middle ground “let’s be friends” stuff, and no regrets.

I learned so much from this project, and I am so glad that the experiment is over.

I am moving on.

Let’s get the data party started!!

Continue reading

Done and done…!

I have finally started my final experiment for my masters.

In order to finish setting up for my experiment, I had to climb the highest mountains, fight the toughest storms, catch a dragon alive and pull all it wisdom teeth out (I am assuming that would be very hard). Anyway, what I am trying to say is that it was a long journey that took over 5 months (I think?) of me sitting in front of the same robot and the same computer doing the same thing (coding, debugging, running, crashing things, and repeating this routine over and over again). Just to give you an idea, I had a conversation about encoder failures yesterday, and I ended up having a nightmare about it. In my dream, the robot’s encoder failed, and was drifty for no reason. And I was sitting on that very desk I’ve been sitting on for the past 5 months, staring at the screen and looking at the encoder drift,confirming that all the data I’ve gathered through my experiment are useless. Yes. It’s a terrible dream to have. But also funny now that I think about it…

Anyways, the experiment setup is not perfect. It could be better – sooo much better. But I had to say “This is good enough” at some point. I had to define where I stop perfecting it.

Well, I don’t want to go on and on about how working on the robot felt like taming a dragon. The important thing is that the experiment has started and it’s now too late to change anything. I must continue on. Continue to collect data.

I was supposed to give myself some pampering sessions the first day I started the experiment. But by the end of the day, I was so tired that I couldn’t do anything but to pass out in my bed.

Tonight, I find myself organizing the initial set of data I’ve collected, and questioning whether the data will support my hypotheses or not. The initial sample size is too small for me to tell anything off of it, but I still have this urge to find out the results now. And with this urge, and a gazillions of things that I need to do before I defend (hopefully in December), I’ve decided to pamper myself with whatever is in my fridge.

Turns out, that most stuff in my fridge is moldy, overdue, or about to be so. Then I remembered my leftover bottle of Baileys and a tub of Creme Brulee ice-cream I had bought fairly recently.

Done deal.

I had this genius idea of pouring a shot (may be a tad bit more) of baileys all over the creme brulee isce-cream. Epic creation. If anyone needs pampering in the sugar/creamy sort of way, to wash away your long journeys of fighting the toughest storms and slaying a dragon and what have you, try it out – I won’t judge you on your sugar and alcohol consumption habits if you don’t.

Continue reading

Hi guys,

So… this a little bit embarrassing for me, but I was on a radio show earlier this week.

You might be reading this saying “Oh man, this girl is totally a show off… bragging about broadcasting and such on blog posts.”

Well, but this post isn’t about me bragging. It’s more of the opposite I must say – a bit of lessons learned, rather than ‘Oh man, I rock’.

Here is the thing. Last summer, I had another broadcasting event, which was actually my very first broadcasting experience. I will save you all the details of how it went and the long story leading to the event, but simply put it this way: I was super nervous that… every time I opened my mouth to say something, to answer questions from the host, my mind went blank and I started talking super fast. Given that it was my very first time, I think it didn’t go that badly. But back then, I thought it went so terribly that I wanted to change my name so that other people won’t recognize me from the show.

So, given that experience from last summer, I figured out why I my mind went blank during the show. I think I was being super conscious of myself that I didn’t know what to do. But the point of being on a show is to inform and entertain the audience, which was the point that was being overcast by my super conscious self – do I look ok, do I sound like someone who knows her stuff, am I talking ok? etc.

This time, I decided that I will keep the audience and the purpose of the show in mind, so that I won’t be so nervous.

But the day of any big presentation (MECH 598/698??) usually gets hijacked by terror and nervousness that does not end until the presentation/show/talk or whatever is over. This time wasn’t an exception. I had been in my thesis project mode for so long – i.e., debugging my code, other people’s code, stitching them together – that all I could think about was the robot I’ve been working with, and the super specific code issues I am having (e.g., my c++ code called gesture_engine.cpp is receiving wrong quintic coefficient values from its server codes I think, I should fix it soon). That also meant my lack of staying in touch with the rest of the world. I was worried.

I felt like I should know the worldly issues, even in my busiest times. I felt that there was a good chance that someone was going to ask me questions about happenings in Libia and somehow ask me to comment on that in conjunction with something about robots and my project. But as the time drew near, and I walked over to the broadcasting station, I knew that there was nothing I could do to review all of today’s worldly issues and happenings in my field. If they ask me stuff that I don’t know, then so be it. I am only a master’s student.

So, the first half and hour of the show was a bit unnerving. I could not believe that they actually asked me to be on the show for the whole hour. The clock just seemed to be stopped and not ticking away the way it should. I hadn’t really figured out the pace of my voice, the clarity of my sentences, and attitudes of my tone. I was just nervous.

But as the show went on, I reminded myself of that key thing that was supposed to help me: “I am not as important as I think I am. I am here for the audience, and to convey information to the audience.”

And there it was. An hour gone. And it was an hour of a very good experience.

At the end of the show, I didn’t feel too badly about how I did (until I listened to the recording of the show, and wanted to hide in a corner somewhere). I felt kind of comfortable about the idea of being on a radio show, and felt great that I got to talk about my thesis project on the show – although I am not sure if anything I said made any sense. Anyway, I was super glad to have been given the opportunity to participate on a show, and felt that more of us engineering grad students should be given these chances because I don’t think we talk about them in the context of large lay audience very much. It’s all about conveying information to the audience, presenting yourself as an expert and actually succeeding at it is secondary.

Maybe next time, I will do better.

Continue reading

This is going to be a short one.
Why?
Because I am about to fall asleep.

I am not sure about you, but whenever I concentrate on something late into the night, I sometimes forget to eat, to rest, and to take a break. It is especially true when I am debugging or writing some code. I always feel like I can get it fixed or written faster if I work on it on one go, rather than taking a break, and then coming back to it. I always feel that taking a break in the middle of debugging makes me lose my train of thought or something, which could mean making or breaking of a code.

Anyways, whenever I end up working on one thing for hours and hours on into the night time, I have trouble braking the momentum in my brain and cannot fall asleep.

Those of you suffering from the same issue as me, please let me know how you cope with it. Because, for now, I am going to see if having a shot of baileys in my one and only espresso cup followed by a warm shot of milk in the same espresso cup will do the trick for me tonight. I vaguely remember it working like a charm sone days ago, but we’ll see if it works. So far, I am widely awake.

Continue reading

Usually, I find the big red E in the middle of Main Mall. The big red E, symbolic of engineering at UBC, is painted onto a somewhat pyramid-like concrete structure that is large enough that you don’t want to lift it yourself, and shows as large of an ego of engineering that other departments want to paint over it out of jealousy – or so I am told.

This morning, I took my usual walk from the Thunderbird residence to my lab in the ICICS building. Including the time I take to pick out and put on my shoes to laying down my bag on my lab desk area takes only about 3 minutes. Literally. So my morning walks are usually not very eventful other than me noticing something about the weather or seeing how full or empty the parking lot near the Forestry building is. But this morning was a little bit different.

I found the big red E on the entrance of the forestry building. Yes, it’s true, and here’s a picture evidence to prove it.

The place where the big E was found this morning.

But what I read at the bottom of the big red E made me laugh. It said “We are a real faculty”.

Of course we are, I thought. And we are a faculty with a sense of humour! I am guessing that Forestry took over the big red E in the Main Mall recently, and the engineering students are trying to get back at them. Regardless of what the behind story is, I think it’s fun to have such a tradition, and a symbolic item for our faculty. It gives me a sense of ‘fun’ and ‘community’, and a somewhat eventful mornings even in my three minute home-to-lab walks.

Continue reading