Journey to the iron ring

Reflections on Year 2 and Thoughts on Year 3

2011-07-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

It was challenging. The novelty of going to school again had worn off, and it was grinding through. I was going through some personal challenges as well, which made it less enjoyable, but in the end it turned out all right.

I finally had a full engineering (ie. 6 courses) courseload and it was, well, busy, as you would expect. On the bright side, I had no more labs, and I got to write a few papers, which was a nice change indeed.

On a side tangent: no labs is a definite win. Those 1 credit lab courses sometimes take just as much time and resources as 3 credit courses. I find that frustrating. I also find it frustrating that some lab instructors prefer to mark labs based on perfect data. If labs are not a place where you can explore and make mistakes, then I don't know what the point is. As students, we are trained to all but put our self worth in our grades, so if they want perfect data, then students will give them whatever they want.

I guess I've been thinking about that for a long time, considering I had no labs since first year.

However! Onto UBC and year 3. Although sometimes I really wish it were all over already, the change of scenery should be new and exciting! The courses should also be much more interesting. New people, new residence, in Vancouver, one of the nicest cities in the world. It's going to be great.

INCLUDETEXT in Word 2011 for Mac OS

2011-07-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

*This is totally unrelated to anything school or engineering*
I just discovered something great for single-sourcing snippets that are repeated in a larger document. It uses Bookmarks and Fields.
To insert a document or part of a document (a.docx) into the main document (M.docx):

In document (a), highlight the part of the text that you want to bookmark.
Click Insert > Bookmark, give it a name (let's say "Zoo"), and click Add.
In the main document (M), place the cursor where you want the bookmark text inserted.
Click Insert > File, and browse to the file.
Select the Link to File check box and type in the name of the bookmark in the Range/Bookmark field.
Click Insert.

If you right click on the text and select "Toggle Field Codes", you'll see that the field looks something like this: { INCLUDETEXT "Macintosh HD:Users:myhome:Blah:a.docx." Zoo }
This looks quite different from the Windows version which includes double backslashes:

{ INCLUDETEXT "C:\\My Documents\\a.doc" Zoo }.
There are probably other nifty optional tags in the field that I don't know about.

Yay.

Online Organic Chemistry Drawing Tool

2010-11-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

I have some great news for anyone else who might be agonizing over organic chemistry!
My brain has been absorbing lots of organic chemistry in the past 24 hours in preparation for a midterm. Among my Internet travels, I have found the Molecular Property Explorer, which has been super handy for checking simple things like chirality and E/Z (which I somehow make mistakes on all the time!). It appears to be for pharmaceuticals or more hardcore o-chem stuff, but hey, it works for me.
If it could do IUPAC naming on the fly, or show reaction mechanisms, they would make a lot of students really happy.
By the way, in case you can't tell (and it took me a while), those weird looking buttons at the top say "Clear" and "Undo".

Year 2 begins!

2010-09-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

After dreading the evitability of returning to school and Prince George all summer, here I am.
Surprisingly, after unpacking everything and saying hi to my good ol' roommates (same as last year), I feel fine now. In fact, after the first week of classes, I feel... excited, even!
I get to learn all this cool stuff:

ENSC 210 Material and Energy Balances. As far as I can tell, this course is stoichiometry on steroids. We've been told by former students that this course is tough, but very important stuff to know in our field, so I'm interested to see what we're going to learn.
ENSC 451 Groundwater Hydrology. Lots of terminology but rest assured, apparently all our testing will be based on calculations. Is this taught by an engineer? Yes.
MATH 371 Probability and Statistics for Scientists and Engineers. This course is legendary in how hard it is. Luckily, this semester they've set up Supplemental Instruction (SI), which is basically a separate tutorial led by a peer tutor who has already taken the course and done well.
ENSC 302 Energy Development. Endless charts and graphs of CO2 emissions, energy consumption, forecasts of global temperatures - per country, per capita, etc. Quite depressing, really - the future looks rather bleak. This course has no pre-requisites, though, so there isn't a lot of math involved, which is a nice change.
CHEM 201 Organic Chemistry. Brute force memorization. Again, I don't think there is going to be much math involved in this course either, but I don't think this course is going to be any easier because of that fact.
CHEM 200 Physical Chemistry. So far I think this course is all about manipulating/differentiating/integrating all kinds of crazy equations that try to improve on PV=nRT, which, we have already drilled into our brains from the first few lectures, is useless for REAL gases.

There are 6 courses on there, but on the bright side, no labs, so I still consider that a win. My optimism might fade by midterm-time, but until then, life's good! My life consists of going to classes, hitting the awesome gym, potlucking with friends, and of course, never ending studying and homework.

My goal this semester is to agonize as little as possible, by which I mean I plan to do things the easy way instead of the hard way whenever possible. So I intend to spend more time working with other people and asking for help and less time agonizing alone.

Yay for efficiency!

We'll see how this goes.

Freedom!... for a few months

2010-05-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

Final exams for winter semester have come and gone, and I'm happy and proud to say that I survived first year engineering. Phew. I'm not gonna lie - the last semester was the hardest one I've ever had. With up to 10 hours of labs a week - which is practically a part-time job - I felt like I barely had time to absorb anything. My MO was to get shit done, which was easier once I found some people to work with... which leads to my next point, which is that the importance of teamwork in engineering coursework cannot be overly emphasized. A word of advice for anyone reading this going into engineering: find reliable people that you can compare/share homework with. If you're not confident that what you're handing in is already correct, by the time you get it back and find out it's wrong, you don't have time to relearn it.
Another word of advice: locate and use all possible resources. By this I mean solution manuals, teachers' solution manuals, a cramster account, former students' homework and assignments, etc. Trust me - when you know you have something reliable to double check your work with, life is much less stressful.
A run-down of my courses:

Math 101 (Calc 2) - The lectures were terrible and I gave up on them after the first 2 weeks. I basically taught myself out of the textbook. But that was actually not too painful except for the last few sections on expressing functions as power series and the Taylor series. Like most math courses, if you do enough practice problems, you're good.
Physics 101 - This course covered a ton of material and it was pretty tough, by my standards, anyway. We covered gravitation, pressure, fluids (Bernoulli, buoyancy, etc.), thermodynamics, heat engines, wave functions, standing waves, doppler effect, beats, electric fields, gauss' law, point charges, dipoles... the list goes on. I'm sure half of it has already fallen out of my brain. The labs were totally unrelated to the lecture material - mostly about electricity - and were actually easier than the labs in Physics 100. Or maybe I just managed to follow their marking system. Sometimes, things are marked in a dumb way, but as long as it's consistent, you can give them what they want. That's all I will say about that. Also, they have this 24-hour due date policy with physics labs. It made a lot of people unhappy, but it didn't bother me that much. I wanted to get it off my plate as quickly as possible anyway, so I always just handed it in the same day.
Chem 101 - Pretty much followed the same format and style as Chem 100. Same professor (Dr. Whitcombe). We did a lot of acid/base/solubility ICE tables. He makes it pretty straightforward.
Chem 121 - This 1-credit lab course was the bane of my existence. The marking scheme was punitive and I found it discouraging, much like last semester.
Ensc 150 (Environmental Engineering) - By far the most interesting course of the whole year. Dr. Helle is a great instructor - good lecturer, approachable, and helpful. We covered interesting topics like how everything is toxic, figuring out how much chemical is in or moving through soils/air/water, risk levels, mass balances, etc. I found this course challenging, but some of the 2nd years in the class said it was easy. Maybe some of the courses they had already taken gave them a big advantage.
Ensc 151 (Engineering tools) - Another 1-credit lab course. This one was not bad though since we learned how to use some presumably useful and important software: Excel, Visio, ArcMaps, and AutoCAD. I thought this class was interesting.

On a whiny note, I don't like that lab courses are only worth 1 credit when they are 3 hours a week just like lectures, and we end up spending the same amount or more time on them (particularly for chemistry).

And now, back to my summer...

Canadian Wildlife: Dr. Geist lecture

2010-03-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

On a whim, I attended a lecture given by Dr. Valerius Geist about the future of Canadian wildlife, which was extremely interesting. Dr. Geist is very engaging and approachable. So much that I even started taking notes on a topic on which I know basically nothing.
A few points:

The need to keep wildlife as a public resource, so it does not turn into a private plaything for the elite (as it has been in other places). This 2009 article, The Peasant Wars, has some great quotes:

“The miracle of North American conservation is that it is basically a blue-collar system, grounded in the political and financial support and the active participation of large numbers of middle-class citizens who bring their basic honesty and decency to bear on important issues. This is just the opposite of the elitist system that has existed throughout Europe for centuries and is spreading like cancer around the world today, even right here at home.
“Because of the democratic nature of American hunting and wildlife management, and the demands for accountability it implies, our system has worked miracles in returning wildlife to a continent that, just a hundred years ago, saw the near-extinction of most big game animals and other wildlife. In my mind, this represents the world’s greatest environmental achievement of the last century.”
“Take away wildlife or make it irrelevant to the citizen, and wildlife winds up as private property, jealously defended. There is good reason for this as wildlife is a creator of wealth and privilege and thus very valuable.
Currently, simple-minded efforts to spread and multiply wolves lead to a depletion of wildlife – severe enough to lose the hunting public and with that the passion for wildlife. And with that it moves very surely into private ownership.
“And when wolves, grizzly bears and cougars are private property, the public has no say over their fate. I need not emphasize that even in North America the de facto grasp for wildlife by large land owners has led to the defense of that wildlife against the public with force of arms."
Game farming is another step in the wrong direction.
- Destroys wildlife as the first step is domestication. Animals are bred to be placid and lose fear; domestication is not a conditioned response - it is genetic.

Large handlers create a trophy market. However, large antlers are only seen on bulls in the wild who don't breed... so from a farming perspective, this doesn't make a lot of sense. This is also seen in bison farming, where they are bred for trophies and to resemble large cows for the choice cuts of meat.
Quickly become centres of disease and pathogens, which soon become bridges of transmission to other animals and humans. Elk farming resulted in predicted epidemics of bovine tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease in the 1990s. CWD is particularly worrisome as it is transmitted via fluids and can jump species.
Dr. Geist is quoted in an article from 2000 in The Atlantic, Money Game, which discusses game farming from a more financial perspective, but also addresses the same biological and health concerns.

Wolves

Traditionally considered vermin and actively hunted and killed, but became protected and idolized by conservation groups. Populations are increasing rapidly to the point where there are scarcely any deer left.
Have no natural predators, like cougars.
Will interbreed with any canine, like coyotes and domesticated dogs.
Geist suggests a need to curb this population as soon as possible. Because they breed so quickly, killing 80% of the population would be required just to maintain status quo.
Wolves/coyotes/canines carry and spread hydatid disease, also known as echinococcosis. This is one nasty parasite for which there is no treatment other than surgical removal of cysts and chemotherapy. (Geist reported a 90% infection rate for the wolf population - I didn't get the details on which one.) The eggs are in their feces and are easily transmitted through the air or liquids to dogs and humans. This parasite is no joke. I didn't need to see some of the pictures that I happened to run across. Ugh.
Dr. Geist knows of no case where humans and wolves co-existed.
Are becoming a danger to livestock and humans, as their natural prey are running out. In light of the death of a student attacked and killed by wolves, his article: Where Wolves Have Become Common, sums up these issues nicely.
The January 2010 issue of The Outdoorsman also provides quite a lot of information about the concern of hydatid disease. It's quite disconcerting.

Very interesting. Also, a little unsettling.

Midterm madness

2010-02-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

At this point, I am done 3 out of 4, so the worst is over. The physics midterm format alone was stress-inducing: 4 multiple choice questions (5 marks each) and one show-your-work (15 marks). It's brutal, but still better than last semester's physics midterm (different professor). At least this time around I feel pretty confident that I passed. My usual goal is to be above the class average.

Oh reading week - take me now! Oh wait... I need the week to catch up on calculus, which I have been ignoring because I haven't had time to work on it, what with prepping for labs and scrambling to finish assignments. The last time I went to lecture I had no idea what was going on. But neither did anyone else, so I don't feel so bad.

Maybe it's because I am studying with super-keeners this semester so their neurosis is rubbing off on me, or maybe it's because the material is harder (I don't think it is), but this semester feels a lot harder. These midterm weeks feel sort of like finals week last semester, except, well, this semester isn't even half done yet. I suppose the novelty of moving here and being a full-time student again has worn off now.

It must be said, however, that when I put it all in perspective, though, I'm still enjoying it. I just wish I had more time to do everything.

Degree 1/9th complete

2010-01-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know whether to be inspired or depressed by that. The journey has begun, and it's good to be, well, not at the very beginning anymore, but it seems like a very long way to go.
Notes from last semester:

Math 100 turned out to be not so bad. The prof never actually asked us to regurgitate math definitions and theorems, only apply them. All that agony for nothing.
Chem 120 (lab) was a pretty bad experience. More on that in a later post.
I studied for the physics final like I've never studied for anything. And it turned out okay. Not amazing, but all right. Now that we're onto waves and pressure and other stuff, I can push all that kinematics to the remote regions of my brain.

Starting again this semester was difficult, for a number of reasons. For one, the break didn't feel long enough and I wasn't ready to start again. However, here I am, into week 2, and it's not so bad after all. On the schedule this semester is the following:

Math 101 - Calculus 2
Physics 111 - Waves and Electricity
Chem 101 - General Chemistry 2
Chem 120 (Lab)
Ensc 150 - Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering
Ensc 151 - Engineering Tools

Ensc 150 is quite interesting and has a lot of practical application, like converting between science-y and industry units for concentrations, and figuring out things like how much of a toxic spill will evaporate and how fast, etc, etc. It's meant to be a first year course, but there are a lot of second year students in it. It's probably incredibly easy for them, since most of them have already done organic/biochemistry and physical chemistry, material and energy balance and hydrology. (Read: I feel and probably look like an idiot asking questions.) The prof is good, but his notes are sometimes hard to follow because he skips steps. All you teachers out there: please write down everything.

Sheet music goldmine

2009-12-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

Hey, people! I'm not kidding. This is a legit goldmine. If you're looking for free classical piano music, look no further than the IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library, a public domain sheet music library. It's essentially a music-oriented Wikipedia community. (Wikis - one of the greatest Internet developments ever.)
I printed out my favourite Joplin rags and I'm pleased as punch. Now I need a piano in the apartment. One of those electronic pianos that comes with headphones would be perfect. Just thought I'd throw that out there, in case Santa reads my blog.

Anyways, there is seriously a lot of music here, and not just for piano - lots of other instrumental music is also available, including complete orchestral scores. I'm no orchestra expert, so I don't know if this would actually fulfill anyone's needs, but it seems pretty awesome to me.
On another note, I remember hearing a Mozart piano piece at a recital years ago, and I have no idea what it's called. The classical music naming system doesn't help at all here since everything is named the same. I'm pretty sure it was a "Fantasy" or "Fantasia", and I think it was in a major key, but mostly I remember there being a lot of arpeggios in the left hand, but possibly also in the right. It was definitely allegro-paced. Also, there's a good chance it's in the RCM syllabus - if so, it would have been grade 10 or ARCT level. However, I didn't find it in the Petrucci Library based on these descriptors, so it's possible that the name is not at all what I thought.
If you know what piece I'm talking about, please do me a favour and leave a comment. Please, please, please. Thanks.

The Homestretch

2009-11-14T12:58:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe I'm going to be home in just over a month, by which time all midterms, labs, and final exams will have been announced, agonized over, studied for, and written. (And passed, of course.)
In the meantime, I'm getting homesick. Although I've been very lucky with residence and roommates, I miss my family and friends. And food. I definitely miss good food with good company. Being on a student budget, I don't get to go out much here (and for other reasons explained here).
But it's okay, because I'll be home soon.
As my brother says, "this means you're almost 1/8th done!" I'm not sure whether to feel this is a great accomplishment or if I've just barely started. The latter, I think.
I can't wait until this semester is over!
Honestly, though, it's been pretty good. I've never been completely overwhelmed (lots of time for that later, I'm sure), and I've been filling my brain with good new stuff, which on the large scale of things is always fun.
On that note, I better get on that chemistry lab report.

Autumnal treat

2009-10-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Baking is such a soothing activity. There's just something wonderful about eating something warm and tasty right out of the oven.

One cranky morning while getting stuck on homework, I decided to ignore schoolwork for a while and make something sweet and autumnal. Combining apple recipe ideas, I adapted this apple cake/tart recipe from the Traveler's Lunchbox. I believe this vaguely resembles a clafoutis, as it is unleavened batter sitting on top/around fruit, and the whole thing turns out quite thin, and slightly crispy on the edges.

As an aside, pots and pans that can also go into the oven are one of the best things ever. Who needs extra clutter with bakeware when you can just use a pot or pan?

(I'd have taken a picture to post here, but with only 3 servings and 3 roommates, well, it's gone now.)

With the first bite, my grumpiness melted away and I felt as if I were tasting the essence of all the cozy parts of autumn.

Makes 3 small, 2 medium, or 1 large serving of Apple Autumn Tastiness.

1 medium-sized apple (I think it was a Gala but really, all I know is that it was red.)

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1/3 cup melted butter (mine was salted - if I had unsalted butter I'd add a pinch of salt as well)

2 tbsp plain yogurt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Preheat oven to 350F.
Peel, core, and thinly slice the apple and place in a layer to cover the bottom of the pan (mine was probably 8"), and sprinkle with cinnamon.
Combine the sugar, butter, yogurt, vanilla, egg, and flour and pour on top of the sliced apples.
Bake for 30 min or until slightly brown and crispy on the edges.

As you can see, it is incredibly simple, and as you will discover, so incredibly tasty. People tend to like coating their apples with lemon juice/sugar/flour, but I don't care and am too lazy about that stuff. My stomach doesn't care if the apples are brown. Besides, they're hiding under a thin cake blanket so you can't see them.

I will totally be making this again. Maybe tomorrow.

Surplus sales

2009-10-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

I just found out about Government of Alberta surplus sales which are apparently on every weekday.
I'm going to have to check it out sometime - I think it'll be a great place to go when you need a desk or chair or something utilitarian without having to pay hundreds of dollars.

Physics update

2009-10-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

Good news. I passed the physics midterm... with a whopping 57%. This would normally be terrible, but in this case, the class average was 50%. So really, it's not so bad.
In fact, I feel pretty jubilant about both passing PLUS beating the class average.
:)

Physics demoralization

2009-10-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

The midterm was terrible.
We were told we should be able to do problems quickly: 10 multiple choice (2 marks each), 1 long answer (10 marks) in 50 minutes. I went in feeling somewhat confident, having done lots of extra practice so I knew the gameplan for most types of problems. I had no idea that I was going to be in a state of panic for the next hour.
When the professor said "quickly," I didn't realize he meant "be able to do these in your sleep." To break this down: the long answer question is worth 30% of the exam, so theoretically you'd want to spend at least 10 minutes on it, if not longer. A chunk of time at the end to review everything is required, but with the time constraint here let's give 5 minutes. So that leaves 35 minutes for the multiple choice - 3.5 minutes per question. I don't know what the average speed of solving problems is in my class, but for me, that is FAST.
To be fair, the questions were very straightforward. For example:
A rock is thrown vertically up at 20m/s. Two seconds later, another rock is thrown up at 24m/s (from the same height). At what height will they pass each other?
It's not hard. I know how to do it. But it still takes me a couple minutes to figure out what the equations are. Thinking in equation format is not a natural thing for me - maybe it is for physicists. And being me, I usually came up with an answer that wasn't one of the options, so I had to go back and figure out where I made my inevitable stupid mistake. Minutes. Ticking away.
After spending 10 minutes on one question, I flipped to the long answer, whereupon my panic increases. This is not a problem I've seen before. It's similar, but with an extra part that I don't know how to accomodate. I don't know what the gameplan is. Well, I wrote some stuff. I didn't get anywhere close to coming up with an answer, but I can always hope for mark parts...
I feel better that I knew how to do most of the questions, even if I didn't have time to do them well - however, if this exam was considered reasonable, then I am quite far behind.

Ginger oatmeal flax spice cookie bars

2009-10-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

The "Cornerstore" on campus sells large, individually packaged cookies which are very tasty, and very expensive ($1.50 each). I can't remember the brand but I know they are locally-made. At first I scoffed at the price, but on closer inspection, the flavours intrigued me so much that I caved in. Cookies that I have eaten or want to eat:

Ginger flax cookie - chunks of crystallized ginger, molasses, flax, rye flakes. They also used canola oil, which I felt made it tasty kind of greasy. I enjoyed the chewy texture and the "healthiness" of it, but felt I could do better. More on that below.
Lemon poppyseed - like the muffin, but in cookie form. No complaints but not a favourite. More crumbly than chewy, tending more towards a shortbread.
Green tea cookie - green tea, dried cranberries, possibly some nuts, (I nibbled on this during a lecture so I wasn't paying attention), and a chunk of chocolate in the middle. This one was tasty and I'd consider buying another one.
Hot! chocolate - a spicy chocolate chip chocolate cookie! Ooo. I haven't seen this again since the one day I happened to notice it, so I'm waiting impatiently for them to come in again so I can try one.

To take a break from doing chemistry and physics homework yesterday, I did some research online and came up with my own recipe for a better version of the ginger flax cookie. Of course, I'm too lazy to dole out cookie dough on multiple cookie sheets, and plus, I only have one sheet, so I decided to make bars instead, using a combination of recipes I found online and hoping for the best. My roommate said I was brave to invent baking recipes, having screwed up too many recipes. What can I say - I bake on the edge. Well, not really. But in the end, they turned out very nicely indeed. (Unlike this photo taken by my phone camera, which is pretty bad.)

Sweet, chewy, soft, and full of autumny flavours: ginger, cinnamon, cloves, apples.
And now, about the recipe.

It is quite heavy on the crystallized ginger, but I feel that their natural chewiness makes them perfect for bars. There is quite a bit of sugar on them already, so I didn't need to add any extra - only a little honey, since I needed a little extra moistness.
You'd think with all the oats and flax that they'll turn out like a granola bar, but there are enough other cookie-dough ingredients that make them turn out very oatmeal-cookie-ish in texture.
Instead of gross tasting canola, I used a combination of applesauce and butter. Mostly applesauce, really, since these are all oatmeally and healthy. But a little bit of butter is always necessary for that je ne sais quoi in baked goods.
As a side note, it seems I can't seem to stop making bulleted lists anymore. But you gotta admit, they do make for easier reading...

Ginger oatmeal flax spice cookie bars

Dry:

1.5 cups old fashioned (big flakes) rolled oats

3/4 cup flax meal

1.5 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup crystallized ginger, chopped

3/4 tsp salt

Wet:

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 egg

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup honey

2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix dry ingredients together. And preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Make a well and add wet ingredients.

3. Mix well with a spatula and/or hands.

4. Press tightly into an appropriately-sized greased pan (I think mine was 8" by 8").

5. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the edges start to brown a little.

6. I cut this into pieces while it was still warm, though they aren't hard, so it probably doesn't matter.

First-year calculus ridiculousness

2009-09-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

Having calculus fresh in my mind, I thought I'd be in for an easy ride for this course. But it is now officially my most (and only) retarded class. Lectures have been full of formal definitions and theorems, such as:

"Suppose a function f is continuous from [a, b] and N is any number between f(a) and f(b) where f(a) != f(b). Then there exists c, which is an element between (a, b) such that f(c) = N."

These bunch of words means that if you have a continuous function, pick two points and it will be continuous at any point between. Why can't they just say that?
Here's another one:

"Let a function f be defined on (-infinity, +infinity). Then the limit L of f(x) as x goes to negative infinity means that f(x) is arbitrarily close to L for x sufficiently large negatively."

Is that even grammatical? "for x sufficiently large negatively"? I would think "for a sufficiently large negative x value" makes a lot more sense. Grammar aside, I believe this particular sentence contortion says that getting close to negative infinity means that you get close to negative infinity. Hm. I thought you weren't supposed to use the definition word in the definition. Maaaybe... that's because not everything requires a definition. Am I talking crazy here?
My point: I assumed these little gems were simply, you know, good-to-know-type things. Background-building-up-to-important-stuff-type information. Alas, no. We were told that we are expected to regurgitate this load of pedanticness.
I don't understand:

why they/we must define obvious things in a way that is harder to comprehend than the concept itself
the point of memorizing these. I get the feeling it's not "for our own good" like memorizing trig identities might be, but rather just as fodder for testing. Apologies to mathematicians, but I don't feel that pure math is useful, even for doing math. If a function is said to be continuous, I'm okay with believing that - I don't feel the need to prove it myself.

I'm not done yet! Here's another reason why Math 100 makes no sense:
We are not allowed calculators in exams - this part is fine and expected - but our assignments are all done in Maple. Even having to work with Maple is all right, though a bit frustrating, and not useful outside of university. What IS pointless is that we were told the assignments will not prepare us for the exams, making them a giant waste of time, when we really should be practicing problems with pencil, paper, and brains... or in this case, brute-force memorization.
It's October tomorrow, and we haven't done derivatives yet.

Life is good

2009-09-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

(Cheese warning!)
I had such a moment of appreciation when I was at the gym this morning between classes. I thought about how lucky I am to be able to go back to school again to fill my brain with new stuff (though it's a bit challenging), that residence life is much better than I expected. I've also been lucky to get great roommates! And the campus gym is an awesome facility, which is great, because I spend time in there almost daily. To be in great health and be financially, personally, and mentally ready to change career is pretty exciting. I do miss family and friends, and of course, eating out. And my old paycheque.
Yesterday my roommate (not in engineering) asked me how I decided to just change into something totally different, and that she gets a little worried when she looks at all the courses she has to do and wonder if she can really do them. I feel a bit relieved that she said that, because I feel exactly the same. I admit, I'm not exactly brilliant at math and science - I mean, there is a reason I didn't choose to do sciences the first time around - but I'm confident in my capacity to learn new things. But it's all about baby steps, right? One thing at a time. Today my chemistry professor said that by the end of the year, we will have covered material including research resulting in 3 Nobel prizes. Pretty neat.
I think my dad said it best: "Nothing is hard once you know how to do it." It's just a matter of how much time you put in to get those connections firing in the brain with greater and greater ease.
On that note, I better work on some physics problems!

Challah = nonstop bread eating

2009-09-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made a loaf of challah for the first time from my trusted recipe source, smittenkitchen.com. And it turned out very tasty. Just a little sweet, moist, and tender. I've never actually eaten challah before, so I'm no expert on what it should be like, but it is damn tasty.
I halved the recipe, substituted 1/4 of the flour for whole wheat flour and threw in a few spoonfuls of vital wheat gluten. I feel too guilty making bread with 100% white, though I admit, that fraction of whole wheat flour by no means renders it "healthy." Also, instead of using 2 eggs and 1 yolk, I substituted about a teaspoon of butter for the extra yolk. It's a pretty insignificant amount, but butter makes everything better, right?
Anyways, I didn't braid it, having very little counter space here, but I did do the egg wash. Usually I consider that kind of thing frivolous and ignore it, but I have no regrets about this as it came out of the oven so pretty.
I've been basically stuffing my face with this bread at every opportunity: Some for breakfast, some while studying, some around lunchtime, some more while studying, a slice before the gym, a slice after the gym, and a slice while studying some more. Geez. I really ate a lot of bread today. I'm cutting myself off for the rest of the evening.
I'd offer a picture, but now there is less than a quarter of the original loaf left. My roommate sheepishly admitted to cutting off a slice this morning. I usually strongly encourage sharing, since more carbs for other people means less for me, and plus, it means other people like your baking, but this time I felt slightly begrudging about sharing.
Conclusion: studying with a kitchen nearby is bad news. Especially when there's a fresh loaf of bread sitting in there. But! Challah is good stuff.

More pictures of UNBC

2009-09-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

It's really a beautiful campus. I have never seen so much green and so many trees on a university campus before. I love it - so far - my attitude may change in a few months when winter comes along.

Morning fog in the parking lot

Slightly less foggy with more cars

Part of that green sign says that snowboarding is not allowed. Just one indication that I'm not going to enjoy winter in Prince George.

Foggy path from the gym to the rest of campus.

Same spot, about an hour later. Oooooo.

Studying... Snacking... Sleeping

2009-09-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

It's only been 2 weeks, and despite my best efforts to stay active, the result of sitting on my butt most of every day is making itself known to me: my jeans are definitely tighter. I fear that working out almost daily is not enough to combat the munchies + sitting in lectures 4 hours/day.

One problem, which I think should be the topic of someone's grad thesis, is the directly proportional relationship between studying and snacking. The more I study, the more I get the munchies. And it's not a matter of being hungry at all - I just desperately crave tastiness in my mouth. (This is a very slippery slope.) For example, last night I inhaled a bagel - didn't bother toasting it or anything. And between lectures, I feel a strong need to eat something. So I usually do - but I think I'm going to put an end to this starting tomorrow.

Also, studying takes a lot out of me. I'm getting 8 hours of sleep a night, and I feel I could use even more. I figure my brain is requiring extra cataloguing and info-absorption time, and so far, I've been happy to oblige.

UNBC campus

2009-09-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

The beautiful campus (see pictures below) is on a gigantic hill on the edge of Prince George. I'm not kidding about the giganticness of this hill. Google Maps tells me it should take about 40 minutes to walk to the bottom, and then at least another 10 minutes to get to the nearest strip mall or other useful place. That makes it essentially NOT walking distance to anywhere.

Luckily, it is fairly well serviced by 4 main bus routes - however, the buses stop running around 9pm, so no nightlife for us students, unless you're willing to pay for a taxi.

Pretty buildings on campus around dusk

The edge of campus, looking off the hill towards the mountains.

Healthcare in Prince George

2009-09-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that for non-PG students, healthcare here stinks.
There are 2 options:

Campus clinic. The doctor is in 2 half-days per week.
The only walk-in-clinic in PG. I was told to avoid going here by a PG resident because you might end up waiting 6 hours or longer, and there's a good chance you may get hypothermia while doing so.

Okay, there's a third option - if you are dying, you can go to the ER at the hospital. This is usually not the case for most of us.
And that's it. Period.
I called a slew of doctor's offices to see if I could book an appointment outside of those options. Half of them were closed down (weird), and the other half are not accepting new patients. So then, I called the hospital to get a list of doctors accepting new patients, and guess what? The list is empty.
Great.
If you're a family medicine doctor, can you move to Prince George, please?

Environmental engineering 1st year fall courses

2009-09-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

My 1st year engineering courses at UNBC this semester:

Introductory Physics I: Mechanics
General Chemistry
General Chemistry Lab (apparently this is a separate course - it's possible to take Chemistry sans lab)
Calculus
Introduction to Engineering Seminar
Geomorphology

I'm amazed at the resources available to students to help us be successful here. For example, you can get free tutoring at the Teaching and Learning Centre. They also try to get more senior students to sit in on first year math and science classes so they can set up separate help sessions later. Wow. Having not done math and science since, oh, high school, this makes me feel a lot better about things.
The one class I feel anxious about now is geomorphology. I thought this was going to be my fun, easy, non-number-crunching class. As it turns out, there are 9 labs, all of which must be handed in twice: once for a quality/completion check, and the second time after they post the answers and you mark up your own lab yourself. I see this is a good idea because I almost never look at assignments once I get them back, so I don't learn from my mistakes... but... I have 5 other classes to do here! Geez! I thought this one would require the least amount of work.
Sometimes, when a wave of cynicsm comes over me, I think they do this on purpose because a class about geology/geography would be just too enjoyable (and maybe easy) otherwise.
But anyways. Now that a wave of optimism has hit, I've decided to embrace this class and do my best to get the most out of it. Right? Right.

Shawty

2009-09-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

I learned a new word today.

Shawty: term of endearment originating from Atlanta, formerly meaning "Shorty", but now referring to any male or female friend or associate: "Wassup Shawty!" Also can be used as a 3rd person pronoun: "That shawty over there is hot."

UNBC Day 3

2009-09-07T14:26:00.001-07:00

The boxes have been packed, moved, and unpacked, the room mates have been introduced, and the tearful goodbyes have been given. Now what?
Blog for a while, I guess. Not much else to do other than eat.
Here are some (terrible phone) pictures of what our place in residence looks like:

Little hall into my room

View outside my window backing onto the forest. This is very nice and very quiet.

Living room. No TV yet.

Kitchen. Microwave coming soon!

2 sinks

The shower and toilet have their own entrances. This is a great idea.

Before I have more time to ponder/wallow in my temporary loneliness, I'm going to go to the gym.

5 more days to UNBC

2009-09-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

I am moving myself and all my swag to residence in 5 days to start a new career for the next few years: life as an engineering student.

It's funny how this seemed like such a wonderful remote idea 6 months ago when I decided to apply. It's still a good idea now, of course - just scarier now that it's being realized. You can't go too wrong with more education. There are much worse things to do other than not work.

The thought of leaving all friends and family to go somewhere where I know nobody?
Then: "No big deal - it's only temporary."
Now: "Oh dear."
But hey, with the Internets, you're never alone, right? We've always got msn messenger.

Also, if I think of this in terms of being a new adventure, I feel a lot better. UNBC, here I come!

And don't worry, everyone! I won't turn into one of those engineers. I promise.

The solution to dense bread

2009-08-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

I made 2 loaves in the last few days, one being a Bread Without a Timetable and another the Dill bread, both from Smitten Kitchen. Both turned out pretty good, but somehow really dense.

I figure it's 2 things:
1. My house is not warm. The dough takes more than twice as long to double in size. With the dill bread, it was more like 6 hours compared to the 1.5 to 2 suggested in the recipe. After 2 hours on the counter, it looked almost exactly the same! So I turned on the oven to "warm" for a couple minutes, stuck the bowl of dough in and shut it off, then left it for the rest of the afternoon. It looked great after that.
I did the same for the second rise, except I forgot to turn off the oven that time for about 6 minutes. As it turns out, "warm" is actually pretty hot. After a mad dash to the oven to yank it out, there was a thin crust just starting to form. Oops. Luckily it still turned out okay. :D

2. I don't have bread flour, so I use regular all purpose flour. I think this is the big factor. I am going to try these again with some Vital Wheat Gluten next time and I think they will be much more soft, chewy, and bready-awesome.

Bonds

2009-08-10T16:10:00.001-07:00

With the current interest rates progressively sucking - most "High Interest" Savings Accounts - and yes, those are sarcastic quotes - are now at 1% or less. Just a year ago or so, some of them were up to 4%!

Anyways, I was looking for somewhere better to park a chunk of money, so I asked around, and a friend told me about corporate bonds and how you can buy them at a discount (ie. pay 90 cents for 100 cent value), AND get a decent interest rate too - maybe 4% (what I later discovered is called the coupon rate). Not amazing, but for security, better than 1.2%.

To me these fee like GICs, since they're both locked in until the maturity date, but corporate bonds are slightly less guaranteed. By this I means it depends on the rating - and there are several different scales. According to S&P, for instance, AAA is outstanding, which means very secure and stable, like banks. (Read: You will get your money back with the rate promised.) Then it goes down to AA, A, then BBB, etc. Once you get down to the C and D ratings, you are risking not getting your money back. Of course, these "speculative quality" bonds tend to have better coupon rates.

Correction Aug 15/09: Turns out these aren't locked in. So not like GICs at all.

So I did some research, and I did not find great deals. A lot of bonds were selling for over par, and the 4% and up coupon rates had maturity dates that waaaaay into the future. Like 2015 or later. Combined with the fact that the minimum purchase is $5000 per transaction, I don't think it's worth it. I assume (or hope) there will be better opportunities in the next 4 years.

What I don't understand at all is why people would even bother investing in bonds that are over par with a tiny coupon rate. If your yield is going to be less than 1%, why not just put it in a savings account or make a GIC ladder? There must be a reason, right? Or are those people chumps?

In the meantime, I've learned a little bit about bonds, so it's not a total loss, even though I haven't found a solution yet. :)

Addition Aug 15/09: I think my solution, after talking to people, is trust funds. But apparently those are going to disappear in 2011 in Canada because the government wants that taxable income. Jerks.

Chinese dictionary with drawing capabilities!

2009-08-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

For anyone who knows Chinese or is learning it, check out nciku.

This is by far the best Chinese/English dictionary I've seen online, because instead of having to look up words by stroke number (the traditional method) or pinyin (not useful if you don't know how it's pronounced), you can just draw it in a little box, and then pick the one you want from a list that populates as you draw. Neat, huh?

I noticed there are lots of neat tools for learning Chinese, like a conversation of the day section, a stroke-order section, faqs, etc.

Right now I am making up characters to see what comes up. :)

Vos in Guatemala

2009-08-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

While on a recent trip to Guatemala, I stumbled on an interesting dialectal Spanish variation: the pronoun vos.

As in many other languages, it is one of the multiple forms of 2nd person (you), but in this case, it's a step in familiarity above tú. For those unfamiliar (no pun intended) with Spanish, here's a quick overview of the standard:

Tú. Familiar 2nd person singular, used between family and friends.
Usted. Formal 2nd person singular, used to politely address strangers, acquaintances. Also used in power/age difference situations.
Vosotros. Familiar 2nd person plural, the plural counterpart to tú. Generally not used in Latin America.
Ustedes. Formal 2nd person plural. In the absense of vosotros, it is used for both formal and familiar situations.

I asked the locals to describe how vos is used in Guatemala, and here are my exciting findings:

It is more familiar than tú - for very close friends and family. In Guatemala, it does not replace tú. It does in other dialects, such as in Argentina.
The verb is conjugated differently from any other pronoun. The stress is generally on the last syllable, and when irregular, it usually follows the infinitive form.

"you have" tu tienes / vos tenés
"you can" tu puedes / vos podés
"you eat" tu comes / vos comés
According to one Guatemalan guy (in his mid to late 20s), the connotation is a bit more forceful. This explains the necessity for familiarity before using vos, or you're definitely going to offend people.
Some interesting gender usages:
Between guys: vos. Apparently it would be weird between close buddies to use tú. "It would be too... flowery," said one guy.
Between girls: vos.
Between genders: tú. It is weird or inappropriate - I'm not sure which - to use vos to address someone of the other gender, even if you are close friends. However, this doesn't apply between siblings.
This is not a generational difference. People of all ages use vos.

Of course, a big disclaimer is that personal preference or type of relationship overrides general guidelines:
One guy said that with one particular friend he always uses usted. "I don't know why - it's just something about her."
Another girl told me she knows a family where one guy (about 25) uses vos with his brothers, but usted for his little sister. "Que feo!" (how horrible!) she remarked.

Bagels

2009-07-12T21:10:00.001-07:00

Ahhh, bread. Bread is the best. Today I made bagels. I was inspired by the bagel recipe from smitten kitchen. I made a small sponge (6 tsp water, 6 tsp flour, 1/2 tsp yeast) last night and let it sit at room temperature, and did everything else this morning. After kneading, I let the dough rise for over an hour (to compensate for being in the fridge overnight) and then proceeded to bagelize. I let the shaped dough rest for about 5 minutes, then boiled them for 2 minutes per side, baked for 6 minutes, rotated, then another 4 minutes or so.

Ingredient-wise, instead of barley malt, I used honey. I didn't have bread flour or high-gluten flour, so I used all-purpose. And I substituted one cup of it for whole wheat flour.

So... now that I look at the changes I made, I realize that it's not really the same recipe at all. Hmmm. I'm notorious for not following recipes.

However, the texture of these is just great. Mmmmm. After having both NY and Montreal-style bagels, I've decided I like something in between. Somewhat chewy on the outside - Montreal-style, but soft and moist inside - NY-style. It may be sacriligious to say this, being Canadian, but I find the truly authentic Montreal bagels overbaked for my taste. They always seem to veer towards being dry. (This includes the ones I ate in Montreal.)

My only issue with these is that they're faintly yeasty. I wonder if I put in just a little too much yeast... In total, I put in about half a package, which was somewhere between 1.5-2 tsp.

Next time, I want to experiment with adding some buckwheat flour. Does anyone have experience baking with this ingredient?

The Weepies

2009-07-12T09:12:00.001-07:00

I'm always on the lookout for great music. Recently I found out about The Weepies. I was at the library and their latest CD was sitting there staring at me with a whale on the cover, so I checked it out. Yep, the whale sold me - ha!

I really had no idea what the music would be like, but as it turns out, their songs are sweet, mellow, and enjoyable. The way the two of them harmonize is just sublime. Great melodies and great lyrics, too.

Shirts for sale

2009-07-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

My friend is selling some of his shirts so I helped him take pictures of them. We had a fun photo shoot. And at no point did I tell him to "work it," though I initially told him to give me his best Blue Steel. It wasn't pretty, so I stopped.

Skool is kool... or, and now, for something completely different!

2009-07-11T23:00:00.001-07:00

I'm going back to school in the fall. I know this strikes a chord of dread in most people, but I actually quite like being a student. I discovered that I really like feeding my brain and knowing... things. Random things are okay too. I've developed a habit of Googling anything remotely interesting pretty much immediately. (Having an iPhone is awesome for this addiction.)

Anyways, the market being what it is, and being not too excited about work but having no good other job opportunities, I figured it was a good time to do this. It's a giant step in a completely different direction, but I think I'll be all right. I'm confident that my brain can handle it, though I'll admit, math and science don't come to me as easily as writing. But I've decided that learning things is just a matter of practice - you just have to make those connections in the brain and keep 'em firing.

Befriending the superbrains, profs, and tutors probably won't hurt, either. :)

Ooo!

2009-07-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

Yay!

I'm not sure what I'm going to talk about yet. But it may include some of the following:

thoughts on books
baking adventures
back to school adventures
dancing