Writing a blog about how busy a Cambridge term is doesn't work if you are too busy to write it.
Or maybe that fact alone conveys more than I could ever say using words?
Anyway...
Fear not, this series of "A week in the life of..." will be completed, however, as you'll probably have noticed, my original plan of writing one blog post a day has sort of slipped.
However, we shall continue on, for in the land of blog, it is now Day 5.
Before I start the meat of this post, I would like to say that these views are perhaps not representative of some Engineers, who have god given problem solving skills and may in fact be the pan-dimensional beings mentioned in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So take from this what you will.
Examples papers.
They are to undergraduate engineers what the stone blocks of the pyramids were to the Egyptian slaves. Under the metaphorical whips of our supervision timetable, we engineers slave deep into the night pondering the answers to questions which we were told we can do, but, really, actually, cannot.
Group a collection of engineers together, and the topic of conversation will assuredly arrive at these A4-ified incarnations of hell. As if it wasn't enough not to be able to do them, we then have to talk about them during our free time because well, we haven't done anything else in the last x number of days and so, that is the only topic of conversation at hand.
To be honest though, at first glance, they appear to be harmless; only a few sides of A4 printed with a collection of an average of 10 questions. However, therein lies the first subtle warning; easy questions do not take pages of A4 space.
Unfortunately, there is no second warning. It's like driving on a motorway and seeing a little blinking yellow light at the side of the road. And then you crash into a giant mound of poo.
If you ever pick up one of these examples sheets, you may be tempted to tell me that it's not all bad - they have some easy questions (marked by a cross), some normal questions, and then some hard questions (marked by a star) - sounds like a sensible progression.
Well, you'd be wrong. I actually interpret those question markers as being there to indicate how stupid I will feel when I subsequently can't do it, having put the heavy weight of expectation on my intellectually slender shoulders.
Cross - Absolute idiot. The exit is that way.
Normal Question - Lose some confidence in your abilities as an engineer.
Star - Well, its not too bad. You'll be made to look stupid in the supervision though.
Let's note here, when I say "Can't do it.", I don't mean having looked at the question and been unable to immediately come up with an answer, I mean having bashed my head at it for 3 hours...not literally though; that would be a less than optimal way of answering questions.
Now, one of these papers sounds bad enough. But actually in the course of a term, an Engineer will have to do roughly two or three a week (they can take anywhere from 5 hours to ∞), with supervisions, which are one hour sessions of two students to one supervisor, to make sure that you are keeping up. The sheer amount of work is compounded by the fact that very often, one will be doing these questions when hungover, or at 5am (my favourite time of the day) to be handed in the following morning - not exactly at the height of ones intellectual prowess.
Still, an all-nighter still beats peeing on work you've already done whilst drunk, and having to re-do it from scratch as the urine washed away all the ink.
I doff my proverbial hat to one of my friends, who has done just this.
13 November 2010
7 November 2010
Day 3 & 4
I wanted to write a post for the weekend, detailing the outrageous activites of Cambridge students when there are no lectures (sorry Nat-Scis), and pass on some of the funny anecdotes I've heard over the years.
However, I spent most of Saturday working, and then drinking, and most of today having a hangover, which leaves me in a state unfit to write a lengthy humour filled blog post.
With that in mind, I instead thought to myself, "what would a love note be like if an electrical engineer wrote it?", and came up with the following travestic piece of literature.
Something happens when we touch.
The spark of chemistry.
Electrons of feeling, drifting back and forth between you and me. Net motion is zero, but somehow, it feels like a current is flowing.
I wish my heart was like a rechargeable battery, so I could store and cherish the warmth you send to me, saving it up for those cold evenings spent alone.
Unfortunately, it's more like a capacitor. I guess that just means you'll have to stay by my side always.
How do I feel about you?
It can be elucidated by three simple words.
However, I spent most of Saturday working, and then drinking, and most of today having a hangover, which leaves me in a state unfit to write a lengthy humour filled blog post.
With that in mind, I instead thought to myself, "what would a love note be like if an electrical engineer wrote it?", and came up with the following travestic piece of literature.
Something happens when we touch.
The spark of chemistry.
Electrons of feeling, drifting back and forth between you and me. Net motion is zero, but somehow, it feels like a current is flowing.
I wish my heart was like a rechargeable battery, so I could store and cherish the warmth you send to me, saving it up for those cold evenings spent alone.
Unfortunately, it's more like a capacitor. I guess that just means you'll have to stay by my side always.
How do I feel about you?
It can be elucidated by three simple words.
5 November 2010
Day 2
Morning routines.
My morning routines used to be quite simple when I was in school - get away with as much sleep as possible until my mum shouted at me to get up, and then rush my way out of the house in order not to miss the bus, which was always a 50/50 affair.
Now though, well, nothing has changed really, except I only have an alarm clock shouting at me, and I cycle, which means I can never really miss my mode of transport, but it does make me late to lectures more often than not.
The alarm clock always goes off 1 hour before the lectures start. I then spend 45 minutes attempting the task of getting up and getting washed. The remaining minutes go on getting dressed, cramming down a cereal bar and cycling furiously, though not at the same time.
Cycling in Cambridge is quite a lot of fun, especially if you have a bit of a bastard streak in you, and sometimes enjoy making pedestrians jump out of the way in fear (admit it, you do secretly like it!). That's not to say I swerve onto the pavements for the sole purpose of scattering innocent townspeople in my dash to the Engineering Department. Indeed, that would be rather counterproductive to the actual task of getting to lectures. It's just that, for a city where bike usage is so prevalent, pedestrians (even the would-be cyclists) do seem to be blissfully unaware of them most of the time.
One of my friends can attest to this fact, having taken out a fair few of them in his cycling career thus far.
With this in mind, I present the following question.
"If a cyclist, travelling at a speed of Very Fast, is a distance Very Close away from you when you step out into the road, will they be able to stop in time to avoid hitting you?"
Pose that question to anyone, and the answer will of course be a "No". However, people seem to stumble when it comes to actually applying this logic to crossing roads, instead favouring the technique of "If I don't look, then I won't see anything, and if I don't see anything, then it doesn't exist."
The person who invented the green cross code would probably be very cross indeed at the state of affairs in this city.
Anyway, cycling over, I arrive at lectures - usually in a sweaty mess, and that's how my day gets underway.
My morning routines used to be quite simple when I was in school - get away with as much sleep as possible until my mum shouted at me to get up, and then rush my way out of the house in order not to miss the bus, which was always a 50/50 affair.
Now though, well, nothing has changed really, except I only have an alarm clock shouting at me, and I cycle, which means I can never really miss my mode of transport, but it does make me late to lectures more often than not.
The alarm clock always goes off 1 hour before the lectures start. I then spend 45 minutes attempting the task of getting up and getting washed. The remaining minutes go on getting dressed, cramming down a cereal bar and cycling furiously, though not at the same time.
Cycling in Cambridge is quite a lot of fun, especially if you have a bit of a bastard streak in you, and sometimes enjoy making pedestrians jump out of the way in fear (admit it, you do secretly like it!). That's not to say I swerve onto the pavements for the sole purpose of scattering innocent townspeople in my dash to the Engineering Department. Indeed, that would be rather counterproductive to the actual task of getting to lectures. It's just that, for a city where bike usage is so prevalent, pedestrians (even the would-be cyclists) do seem to be blissfully unaware of them most of the time.
One of my friends can attest to this fact, having taken out a fair few of them in his cycling career thus far.
With this in mind, I present the following question.
"If a cyclist, travelling at a speed of Very Fast, is a distance Very Close away from you when you step out into the road, will they be able to stop in time to avoid hitting you?"
Pose that question to anyone, and the answer will of course be a "No". However, people seem to stumble when it comes to actually applying this logic to crossing roads, instead favouring the technique of "If I don't look, then I won't see anything, and if I don't see anything, then it doesn't exist."
The person who invented the green cross code would probably be very cross indeed at the state of affairs in this city.
Anyway, cycling over, I arrive at lectures - usually in a sweaty mess, and that's how my day gets underway.
4 November 2010
A Week in the Life of...
Part of the reason I started this blog was not only to have my own personal internet soapbox available to me again, but also to try and share what it is like to be a final year undergraduate at Cambridge University.
With those two thoughts in mind, it appears I haven't really done too much of the latter; something which I will attempt to rectify over the next week, but before I start spieling off stuff like that, I'd like you to note that my experiences are probably not representative of the average undergraduate experience, in fact, I have no idea what that would be. I just know that as an Engineer, I tend to work a lot harder, have a lot more 9 o'clock lectures, and probably drink more coffee than someone, say, studying Philosophy (they may make up this time with deep, wine fuelled discussions late at night though, so who am I to say?).
In Cambridge, the week actually begins on Thursday, which is why the first post of this series is posted when it is. So, this is the start of Week 5, commonly associated with something known as Week 5 blues. This occurs to people because Week 5 is generally the time when people have realised that shit has hit the fan work-wise (that happens usually in Week 4), tried to do something about it, and realised that the rate of them clearing the shit doesn't match up with the rate at which it's incoming. (Again, this applies to Engineering, and other proper subjects. Philosophy students can just carry on going to Cindies as normal).
So on my to-do list, it goes something like this:
Let's not forget time for sleeping and drinking too (not necessarily in that order).
Now, you might have read that list and thought to yourself "Compu...what now?", along with other synonymous expressions of confusion. It doesn't matter, you can replace those bits with "Complex Engineering Stuff the Author doesn't understand" without subtracting from the overall meaning one bit.
I would however, like to talk about the Eco Racing society a bit.
Cambridge University Eco Racing (www.cuer.co.uk) is a student run society attempting to build a solar car to race 3000km across Australia in October 2011, as part of the World Solar Challenge. I, somehow, have been made the Aerodynamics Team Leader for this attempt, which I find absolutely fantastic, a little scary, and very daunting all at the same time. Essentially, I am responsible for the design of the whole outer shape of the car, trying to make it as streamlined and slippery as possible. Also, if the car flies off the road, it will probably be my fault.
LOOK:
Now, granted, that won't happen to our car because of Aerodynamic gubbins that I do understand, but still, better not cock up.
More tomorrow!
With those two thoughts in mind, it appears I haven't really done too much of the latter; something which I will attempt to rectify over the next week, but before I start spieling off stuff like that, I'd like you to note that my experiences are probably not representative of the average undergraduate experience, in fact, I have no idea what that would be. I just know that as an Engineer, I tend to work a lot harder, have a lot more 9 o'clock lectures, and probably drink more coffee than someone, say, studying Philosophy (they may make up this time with deep, wine fuelled discussions late at night though, so who am I to say?).
In Cambridge, the week actually begins on Thursday, which is why the first post of this series is posted when it is. So, this is the start of Week 5, commonly associated with something known as Week 5 blues. This occurs to people because Week 5 is generally the time when people have realised that shit has hit the fan work-wise (that happens usually in Week 4), tried to do something about it, and realised that the rate of them clearing the shit doesn't match up with the rate at which it's incoming. (Again, this applies to Engineering, and other proper subjects. Philosophy students can just carry on going to Cindies as normal).
So on my to-do list, it goes something like this:
- Computational Fluid Dynamics Interim Report, due Wed 10th (not started).
- Transonic Wing Design Interim Report, due Tues 16th (not started).
- 4th Year Project Interim Progress Meeting, Mon 8th (doing okay!)
- Organise University Badminton Away to Worcester for Wed 10th
- Organise Aerodynamics Team for the Eco Racing society, ASAP!
Let's not forget time for sleeping and drinking too (not necessarily in that order).
Now, you might have read that list and thought to yourself "Compu...what now?", along with other synonymous expressions of confusion. It doesn't matter, you can replace those bits with "Complex Engineering Stuff the Author doesn't understand" without subtracting from the overall meaning one bit.
I would however, like to talk about the Eco Racing society a bit.
Cambridge University Eco Racing (www.cuer.co.uk) is a student run society attempting to build a solar car to race 3000km across Australia in October 2011, as part of the World Solar Challenge. I, somehow, have been made the Aerodynamics Team Leader for this attempt, which I find absolutely fantastic, a little scary, and very daunting all at the same time. Essentially, I am responsible for the design of the whole outer shape of the car, trying to make it as streamlined and slippery as possible. Also, if the car flies off the road, it will probably be my fault.
LOOK:
Now, granted, that won't happen to our car because of Aerodynamic gubbins that I do understand, but still, better not cock up.
More tomorrow!
12 October 2010
Robot Overlords Beware
Let's put this out there, I like taking opportunities when they present themselves to me. The way I feel when I miss an opportunity is probably the same way a normal person feels when they've been short changed to the tune of £49, when paying for something from the Pound Shop, with a Fifty.
I think it satisfies some sort of intrinsic Chinese ethic in me where I feel if I take an opportunity presented to me, it means I'm getting a better deal out of life - value for money is very important after all. If I sit on my ass all day, I feel like I'm missing out, and that makes me sad.
But, it does leave me in a bit of a bind sometimes, as opportunities nowadays usually come with a healthy dose of responsibility. Such as captaining the Cambridge University Badminton Team. All well and good, until you lose half of the fresher's sign ups because you mistook the sheets of paper for trash and threw them away. Gone are the days where you could just rock up somewhere and do something because the opportunity presented itself, and if it screwed up, well, you could always blame your parents.
This does scare me somewhat, because I can just imagine myself in the future, having taken the opportunity of captaining say, a large company, mistake an important financial report for trash and throw it away.
How do you stop things like that happening? I guess that you can't, since they fall firmly under the realm of "Human Error". Throughout history, humans have fallen from grace by making the most stupid of errors.
One example which pops to my mind is the Mars Climate Orbiter, which ultimately failed because of a unit conversion error. You may lambast the software programmer who ultimately was responsible, but instead, you should sympathise with him. One day, it will be your mistake and with the stares directed at you and your cheeks burning red hot with embarassment, you'll wish everyone was just a bit more understanding.
Now, this actually comes off as a bit of a rant, and that's not what it is meant to be. My fellow Badminton players were very understanding, and the 14 JCR presidents who helped me by forwarding the e-mail to their College mailing lists were also very understanding (the other 17 weren't).
So I guess I'm writing this for the sake of our future selves, who, if you believe in my parent's friend from China, with a PhD in medicine, will be enslaved by robot overlords at a not-too-distant point in time.
To Nascent Robot Overlords:
We'll make rubbish slaves! We need food three times a day, an 8 hour long recharge every 24 hours, we'll pee and shit everywhere, whine about the working conditions and get tired. But, most irritatingly, we will make mistakes, and it doesn't matter how "killed to death" we will be if we screw up, we will.
God, I hate human nature sometimes.
I think it satisfies some sort of intrinsic Chinese ethic in me where I feel if I take an opportunity presented to me, it means I'm getting a better deal out of life - value for money is very important after all. If I sit on my ass all day, I feel like I'm missing out, and that makes me sad.
But, it does leave me in a bit of a bind sometimes, as opportunities nowadays usually come with a healthy dose of responsibility. Such as captaining the Cambridge University Badminton Team. All well and good, until you lose half of the fresher's sign ups because you mistook the sheets of paper for trash and threw them away. Gone are the days where you could just rock up somewhere and do something because the opportunity presented itself, and if it screwed up, well, you could always blame your parents.
This does scare me somewhat, because I can just imagine myself in the future, having taken the opportunity of captaining say, a large company, mistake an important financial report for trash and throw it away.
How do you stop things like that happening? I guess that you can't, since they fall firmly under the realm of "Human Error". Throughout history, humans have fallen from grace by making the most stupid of errors.
One example which pops to my mind is the Mars Climate Orbiter, which ultimately failed because of a unit conversion error. You may lambast the software programmer who ultimately was responsible, but instead, you should sympathise with him. One day, it will be your mistake and with the stares directed at you and your cheeks burning red hot with embarassment, you'll wish everyone was just a bit more understanding.
Now, this actually comes off as a bit of a rant, and that's not what it is meant to be. My fellow Badminton players were very understanding, and the 14 JCR presidents who helped me by forwarding the e-mail to their College mailing lists were also very understanding (the other 17 weren't).
So I guess I'm writing this for the sake of our future selves, who, if you believe in my parent's friend from China, with a PhD in medicine, will be enslaved by robot overlords at a not-too-distant point in time.
To Nascent Robot Overlords:
We'll make rubbish slaves! We need food three times a day, an 8 hour long recharge every 24 hours, we'll pee and shit everywhere, whine about the working conditions and get tired. But, most irritatingly, we will make mistakes, and it doesn't matter how "killed to death" we will be if we screw up, we will.
God, I hate human nature sometimes.
4 October 2010
3 October 2010
Blood and Water
My Grandfather passed away in 2007. May he rest in peace.
I have to confess, at the time I was told this information - around Christmas time, my reaction was quite muted. Obviously, I had expected myself to feel sad, but instead it was just sort of a "Oh. Well. That sucks." This sort of thought is fine if say, you've just dropped your coat in a puddle, but for a relative dying, it's not appropriate.
I felt awful for not feeling more broken up about it. Selfish, right?
But finally, now, I think I understand why I felt that way.
You see, I came to England at the age of four (and a bit), and although we had had several visits back to China, I had really not had that much contact with my relatives over there, and pre-occupied as I was with being cool and being as white as I could be (let's be brutally honest here, for the most part, Secondary School was a giant well of low self-esteem and awkwardness). I didn't really think all that much of all the people in China who we had left behind.
Now though, I feel like I'm older, and perhaps a bit wiser (debatable!), I can truly appreciate the meaning that "blood is thicker than water". Now, I'm not sure whether this implies that if you aren't relatives to someone then you share water, instead of blood. Well, I guess this is true in that 70% of a humans composition is water and this will be shared since water doesn't contain DNA...but...let's get off this tangent before I digress totally.
When I went back to my home town Urumqi, we went to visit my Grandfather's grave. In China this is called 扫墓, this translates literally to "Sweeping of the tomb". It is tradition to visit and clean the grave of your relatives, we poured water over the gravestone, and cleared away the bits of mud and dust that had gathered. Then, we lit some incense, and made offerings of fruits, and mooncakes (since it was the mid-autumn festival), and also some sweets which were his favourites.
At this point, it all hit me.
It didn't matter how long I was apart from him for, or really, how much I had seen him in the short years of my life. To him, I would have been his grandchild, and he would have felt the same towards me whether I had been in China or not. This sort of unconditional love is the reserve of family only, and it made me realise just how important family is.
We then burned some paper money, to send to him in heaven, so he could live a comfortable afterlife. The flames licked at the mock notes, and they gradually curled and turned to ashes. A small breeze lifted a few ashes into the air.
My cousin said this was a sign that my Grandfather was comfortable in heaven. He said that if the deceased needed money, the ashes would float upwards. My intellectual mind told me this was all gibberish, but it brought warmth to my heart to know that, maybe, he was up there, having a good time, and watching over all of us, and at the end of the day, that's what's important.
I searched back in my memory for impressions of my Grandfather. He wasn't a particularly large man, but you could not call him frail. He had the sort of presence, and deliberacy and precision of movement, that those long time practitioners of kung fu are blessed with. I remember him being a gentle person as well, quick to laugh, slow to anger.
Some particular memories popped up at me - ones I won't ever forget - these are my link to him, and I will keep them in my heart forever. I remember once, there was a terrible thunderstorm over our village. The thunder shook the house, and I cowered in the living room, too scared to even move. The particulars become blurry now, but I think what happened was that he came over and put his hands on my shoulders, and he said he would channel his strength into me. Stupid I know right? But, then, I wasn't scared anymore.
The same unconditional love and welcome was displayed by all the family we re-united with. On the one hand, you could say it was expected because we are family, but on the other hand, if there were no blood ties between us, you would have said I was a stranger to them.
It's odd, because before this trip, I wouldn't have said I felt anything was missing, but, in seeing all my uncles and aunties, sharing stories of school in England and hanging out with my cousins, I felt like a hole was filled in me, without me ever knowing it was there before. Before we left to return to England, I made promises to keep in touch with them (like I did every time), but this time, I will keep that promise, for sure.
There are a lot of people in this world who take their family for granted, who get tired of seeing that annoying uncle every few months, or can't stop fighting with a cousin whenever the two are together. This is my message to them, as someone who can only see their relatives once every few years, telling them to treasure what they have - you don't know how good you have it.
I have to confess, at the time I was told this information - around Christmas time, my reaction was quite muted. Obviously, I had expected myself to feel sad, but instead it was just sort of a "Oh. Well. That sucks." This sort of thought is fine if say, you've just dropped your coat in a puddle, but for a relative dying, it's not appropriate.
I felt awful for not feeling more broken up about it. Selfish, right?
But finally, now, I think I understand why I felt that way.
You see, I came to England at the age of four (and a bit), and although we had had several visits back to China, I had really not had that much contact with my relatives over there, and pre-occupied as I was with being cool and being as white as I could be (let's be brutally honest here, for the most part, Secondary School was a giant well of low self-esteem and awkwardness). I didn't really think all that much of all the people in China who we had left behind.
Now though, I feel like I'm older, and perhaps a bit wiser (debatable!), I can truly appreciate the meaning that "blood is thicker than water". Now, I'm not sure whether this implies that if you aren't relatives to someone then you share water, instead of blood. Well, I guess this is true in that 70% of a humans composition is water and this will be shared since water doesn't contain DNA...but...let's get off this tangent before I digress totally.
When I went back to my home town Urumqi, we went to visit my Grandfather's grave. In China this is called 扫墓, this translates literally to "Sweeping of the tomb". It is tradition to visit and clean the grave of your relatives, we poured water over the gravestone, and cleared away the bits of mud and dust that had gathered. Then, we lit some incense, and made offerings of fruits, and mooncakes (since it was the mid-autumn festival), and also some sweets which were his favourites.
At this point, it all hit me.
It didn't matter how long I was apart from him for, or really, how much I had seen him in the short years of my life. To him, I would have been his grandchild, and he would have felt the same towards me whether I had been in China or not. This sort of unconditional love is the reserve of family only, and it made me realise just how important family is.
We then burned some paper money, to send to him in heaven, so he could live a comfortable afterlife. The flames licked at the mock notes, and they gradually curled and turned to ashes. A small breeze lifted a few ashes into the air.
My cousin said this was a sign that my Grandfather was comfortable in heaven. He said that if the deceased needed money, the ashes would float upwards. My intellectual mind told me this was all gibberish, but it brought warmth to my heart to know that, maybe, he was up there, having a good time, and watching over all of us, and at the end of the day, that's what's important.
I searched back in my memory for impressions of my Grandfather. He wasn't a particularly large man, but you could not call him frail. He had the sort of presence, and deliberacy and precision of movement, that those long time practitioners of kung fu are blessed with. I remember him being a gentle person as well, quick to laugh, slow to anger.
Some particular memories popped up at me - ones I won't ever forget - these are my link to him, and I will keep them in my heart forever. I remember once, there was a terrible thunderstorm over our village. The thunder shook the house, and I cowered in the living room, too scared to even move. The particulars become blurry now, but I think what happened was that he came over and put his hands on my shoulders, and he said he would channel his strength into me. Stupid I know right? But, then, I wasn't scared anymore.
The same unconditional love and welcome was displayed by all the family we re-united with. On the one hand, you could say it was expected because we are family, but on the other hand, if there were no blood ties between us, you would have said I was a stranger to them.
It's odd, because before this trip, I wouldn't have said I felt anything was missing, but, in seeing all my uncles and aunties, sharing stories of school in England and hanging out with my cousins, I felt like a hole was filled in me, without me ever knowing it was there before. Before we left to return to England, I made promises to keep in touch with them (like I did every time), but this time, I will keep that promise, for sure.
There are a lot of people in this world who take their family for granted, who get tired of seeing that annoying uncle every few months, or can't stop fighting with a cousin whenever the two are together. This is my message to them, as someone who can only see their relatives once every few years, telling them to treasure what they have - you don't know how good you have it.
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