Happy Diwali

Feeling: Full


Lights minus music. Although I don't know awfully much about Diwali, I celebrated it by going to all-you-can eat Diwali Dinner at Pujabi, my new favorite Indian joint. I went with my roommate, and the food was good as usual. I retold her my Diwali dinner adventure from last year, where I went to Khana Kazana, a bigger Indian buffet, and waited for almost and hour to get a seat. The food was ok, but mostly of what I can remember was eating too much and wanting to throw up afterwords, because my stomach felt like it was going to explode.

Today has been fairly productive. I went to the Black Culture Center for the first time on an "cultural experience" assignment for ME290. Some of the information was intriguing, but half of the time I just thought about how our tour guide can talk so much.
Tomorrow my 2nd round of exams commences. Sucks, since I had just finished the 1st round last week. I'm semi-confident about my math exam tomorrow, but I'm nervous about the phone interview I have tomorrow with Eaton.
The company had to cancel their on-campus interviews due to "travel difficulties", whatever that means, so they're only doing phone interviews. This would be my first time doing a phone interview, so I'm not really sure what's going to happen, but hopefully it will be easy. To be honest, I'm not overly interested about Eaton, but I am about Zebra, whom I really do want an internship with. Fortunately I landed an interview for this Friday (Halloween!), so wish me luck.

October Break Party

"My bridge holds 45 lbs. How many can yours hold?"

Feeling: Distracted
Current Love: Skeleton Boy - Friendly Fires

I should do my laundry. I told myself I would today, but the weather was blah this morning. I have done laundry only twice this semester, both at a friend's place. I would feel guilty asking him again, so I reluctantly am determined to go to the laundry mat..soon. First time is the hardest right? I think I can make it till the weekend...

This weekend was October Break. I was scheduled to fly home, but since my mom is off to the motherlands for 2 month, going home for 3 days seems like a waste. So my 1st home bound trip is rescheduled for Christmas break. I didn't do too much over break. I took the weekend off for work, because I thought I wouldn't be here. My first Saturday not working was not too exciting, maybe even abit disappointing.
To make up for the lack to excitement, I planned my Monday to be semi-productive. I woke up at 10:30 and went to the corec to exercise. Luckily the weather has been warm these past few days, so it felt especially nice to be outside. After returning home, I had a nice brunch and ventured to Lafayette with my roommate Christine. It was the 2nd time I that I had taken the bus to go shopping in the east side. I kind of like riding the bus out there, because I get to see many areas of Lafayette that I have never seen before. At the same time, it reminds me of how ghetto and jank the east side is.

We went to TJMaxx for a pair of converse Christine wanted (which they were sold out of...).We stopped by Sonic for Happy Hour and shopped ahoy. After a few hours of browsing, I only picked up some socks. Granted I found clothe that I liked, but I'm becoming really selective about the things that I buy.
We made it home around 6:30 and made yakisoba for dinner, broke out the Boone's Farm, and watched American Psycho. What a weird movie.

All in all, break was ok. I probably could have used my time more wisely, but whatev.

Happy Chipotle day

Fancy banner

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.