Happy Chipotle day

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Feeling: ?
Current Love: Strangers in the Wind - Cut Copy

I'm 3 for 3 on free burritos. Today was Chipotle's annual free burrito day.

I got off of class at 1:30 and scouted out the line. The entrance was clear to my surprise, but then I realized the line was going in the opposite direction. But still, it wasn't too bad. I dropped off my stuff at my apt, luckily only 2 minutes away from Chipotle, and cut in line with my friend Rachel.
I still remember the grand opening 2 years ago. Ironically, John was in line again with us this year. Funny how I wrote about how he didn't talk much, and it being awkward; can't say that things have changed too too much.
After the "event" started at 2, the line moved relatively fast. We got our food probably around 20 minutes later. I think they've improved on the "assembly line" every year, but all the employees seemed like they were attacking you.
The things you do for free burrito.

While waiting in line, I was thinking about why Chipotle do these kind of things. Do they just have too much money to throw around? I don't see it as a very good marketing scheme, seeing everyone who decides to spend hours waiting in line for a burrito must already be a dedicated Chipotle eater. The more logical goal I thought was for statistical purposes. But what can they really get out of it? :ponders:

Forgotten dreams past 10 minutes

Isn't she lovely?

Feeling: Semi-productive
Current Love: N/A


I can't believe it's almost half way through September already. Despite the fact that first week was slow, these past two weeks flew by pretty fast. I still feel like I'm new to all the classes, but before I know it, it's gonna be exam time...
Out of all my classes, I'm not particularly enjoying my ME design class and partial diffeq. I really looked forward to math before school started, but my professor is kind of boring. Design class is also a big disappointment. I'm not that interested in our problem, and there's a lot of tedious research and memo writing. boo.
ME365, Systems and Measurement, is actually turning out to be ok. The first few lectures were not that enjoyable, and my professor isn't very good at teaching either, but we just started doing some basic statistic and sampling, which brings back memories of my IE stat class. Maybe I miss it alittle, but I think I did myself I favor switching out of IE. In the 365 lab today, we played around with an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), which basically translate analog signals to bits for the computer can interpret, and the converts it back to the original signal to be outputted. The lab wasn't that interesting, but it was in the end that made everything so great. The TA demonstrated the ADC converter with music. The input was a song playing from a computer, and the signal is monitored on the oscilloscope. The input runs through the ADC and then it output it through speakers. He demonstrated the change in signal by tweaking the sampling rate and adding filters, where all the effects are noticeable by the change in the music.
It was really insightful, because I finally understand what sampling rate meant in mp3s, how hi-pass/lo-pass actually works, and lots of other things. I always hoped that I would learn about this, and now I have.
Science is a great thing.

Speaking of science, this whole week had been pretty busy with all the job fair dealies. I was pretty excited about the prospect of Industrial Roundtable, because I was really looking forward to speaking with some of the companies. Last Sunday I attended "Day with Industries" hosted by PSWE. Basically it was banquet lunch with company representatives followed by 3 seminar sessions hosted by different companies. The lunch was pretty good, and I sat by a BME grad from GE. I'm not really interested in GE, but it was good networking considering the people at my table had some interesting experiences. The seminars were abit boring. They were pretty much the same and talked about how students should prepare for the career fair. I did attend the BP session, where they talked about projects and activities in the downstream refineries.

Tuesday was the first day of IR. I was still a little nervous stepping foot on the fair ground even though I've experienced it last year. I spent about 3 hours on Tuesday talking to companies and loitering around scouting out free stuff. Surprisingly I was able to give away all 10 copies of the resume I had printed off. Not bad, plus the bag full of loot, with half of it being food products from P&G and Unilever. Tuesday night was a pre-interview dinner with Chevron. They pre-screened a lot of the resume before the fair, so I landed an interview with them wed. The dinner was at Maize, and I had a really tasty Brazilian steak. My past 2 experiences at Maize wasn't that great, but I did enjoy it this time. The Chevron rep that sat at my table was a CE. He talked too much, and so did everyone else at my table, but I guess the food makes up for it. I glanced at the bill at the end of the night, and it ended up being a gram (I'd say there were about 20-25 people). Damn cooperates and their monies.
Too be honest, my interest in oil companies is pretty indifferent. I really want to work on a alternative energy project, but that's not available for interns. When I was going to my interview, I ran into a friend/fellow ME student, and he frowned upon the fact that I'm interviewing with an oil company. "I never expected you would want to work for them, oil companies are evil" he said.
I told my interviewer about the story, and asked what his thoughts were. He answered it very well, and concluded with "before you blame others, look in the mirror."
Totally well put.
The interview with Chevron was harder than I thought, and I didn't enjoy it too much. I still did well though, and got a pretty decent backpack out of it. Because my interview was in the afternoon, I didn't get too much time to walk about IR afterwards. I stopped by the companies I was interested in, and went home.
That night, I got a call from International Papers, whose booth I visited on Tuesday. I had an interview with them the following day, and it went well. My interviewer talked a lot about his experience with international projects, and it was so cool to hear all the global opportunities. in retrospect, that's really what I want to do when I graduate, work and traveling.
I'm still waiting to hear from the companies that I was really interested in, but that might not be few a few month. I'm excited about the prospect of an internship in a great city, with great people, and a wonderful company.

Hello 3rd year

View from atop the $600 apt.

Feeling: Refreshed
Current Love: American Boy - Estelle

Happy 2nd day of school. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the beginning of school, I've felt pretty good being in classes again. I'm only taking 13 credit hours this semester, so my class load is pretty light (minus friday, which I have 4 classes and 1 lab. Totally lame, and I can't switch sections because everything else is full). I woke up monday morning around 10:30, my semi-usual time that I've gotten up for work over the past few weeks. I had a nice breakfast/lunch with my leftover pizza from La Scala, and headed out for my 11:30 class. I took the usual route to campus as I do for work, but this time around, there's a lot more people...a lot more. It felt weird, but at the same time I was happy to see the campus "alive" again. Seeing all the students reminded me of when I strolled around campus as a high school students. I felt pretty intimidated and out of place back then, wishing there weren't so many people...Funny.

ME323 went ok if not abit boring, but that's expected. My 2nd and last class of the day was MA304, which from the looks of it, should be fairly easy. After, I went to work for 2 hours and then to the pool with Kaveh, Bridgette, and Stephanie. We planned the very 1st Podka of the semester, set to be at my place. There wasn't a big attendance, and also lack of "po", and just a bit of "ka". Nevertheless, it was still fun, including the very random party venture into the $600 apt across the street.
I didn't get to bed till 3 or so and woke up with a slight headache. Luckily I only had 2 classes today, both in the same room: ME263 and ME365, my 2 lab courses for the semester. I suppose that's about it for now, hopefully the rest of the week won't be too bad.

Burning Down the House

Feeling:?
Current Love: None

4 more days until I began my junior year at Purdue. I'm not ready for school yet, deep down. I'm pretty content with my lifestyle at the moment: work, food, sleep, party, movie, etc. Looking through the textbooks for the semester gave me headaches. Maybe I'm a little scared, because I feel like I haven't learned as much I should have last semester, and that everything I learned have already disappeared out of my head. I guess we'll see how things go...
Being a Junior also feels weird. Am I already half way done with my BS degree? In a way, I'm still trying to figure out how everything I learned thus far will apply to my career later on. I'm hoping it'll all piece together soon..very soon.

In other news, I almost burned down my new apt the other day. What seemed to be another day of light lunch cooking turned into a flaming disaster. I was starting to make fried rice for lunch. I heated up the pan very hot and added the oil, unexpectedly, the oil set aflame and was burning like an unstoppable forest fire. I was shocked at first, because I've never had this happen before (granted I was using my roommate's skillet). I was hoping the oil would burn out in a few seconds, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. I panicked and tried to think of what to do. It crossed my mind to pour water over it, but I pictured the aftermath to be a disaster and am glad I didn't do it. I ended up finding a lid and covered up the flame. Soon it died down, but the entire apt was left in a smog of clouded black smoke. The fire detector went off, which didn't alleviate the situation very much. My roommate emerged from her room and was pretty confused. I didn't know she was home, which made the situation a little awkward for me. We did our best to ventilate the place, and after a few minutes the beeping finally stopped.
All the smoke vented after a few hours, and the metal/smoky smell finally went away later, leaving trails of black ashes from here and there. I realize now how people suffocate from fire smoke. Even though my apt wasn't blazing, it was still hard to breath under all the smoke.
I suppose in the end, I'm glad things didn't turned out any worse. I don't want to be homeless right before school starts, plus, I'm taking quite a liking to that little building I call home now.