Success at last, at cost of health

I have triumphed over OpenSees, my model renders, the natural frequency is within predicted/reasonable numbers (around 2-3 seconds). This obviously makes me very happy considering this is 2-3 months in the making. It took a month to really get a feel for OpenSees and Abaqus in order to really get into it. Even though there wasn't much in-program help for OpenSees, there is a fantastic wiki page and a forum that are a million times more helpful when you do have that handle on what you are trying to achieve. Using MatLab for the laying out of nodes, loads, masses, and elements was way easier than using the tcl built-in commands of OpenSees, had I known sooner! I have pictures of my bridge, but I will wait to post them until I render them better (lines instead of dots).

Even Abaqus is going not too shabby, I reduced it to a 2D problem because all of the literature I was finding from papers and grad courses here at UW only did 2D. That's going way better! Doing some literature review to see if people have thought about what kind of foam they'd put in the ground to absorb the vibrations before they reach a structure.

In other research news, I've bounced around the idea of staying on these projects part time next term. I know I promised everyone I wouldn't take a sixth course or a URA, but this makes sense, right? Right? I'm at least not taking a sixth course, though my schedule is pretty awesome: 4th year design course, FEM, Dynamics, Structural Systems, and Applied Math: Modelling of Cellular Systems. I battled to get that last course as it's a third year AMATH course, but I heard it's good and useful cause it introduces dynamics but from the proof/math perspective. Like...nothing like that happens in engineering, so sad. Plus, it's biology, huge win, because I miss it so.

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This week marked my first grad school application officially sent in. UBC only notifies the referees once you pay, so I figured I should just stop sitting on my application. Next is Berkeley on December 14th, UofMichigan at Ann Arbor in February, and UW in March. It starts... eep!

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I've had the same persistent cough for over three weeks now, and it has also accumulated congestion, joy! Funny how I get the most work done when I'm sick. Definitely seems like there's something going around, but no one in my immediate vicinity is sick, good for them :). John's been super busy with his paper so it's allowed me some space to try and recover and feel better when we have time to hang out.

In other news, someone's going to ULHS next year and has a ticket already! Early bird sales were just recently and I got mine for $120. Huge savings, AND on the off chance I can't go, it will be super easy to sell without losing any money. I'm already excited. This actually threw a few things to the front of my mind, including what the heck I'm doing with myself in the summer. I had thought of Herrang, but meh, it's too lindy hopper for me. Iceland/northern Europe's still on the table, Anna's offering that I go to Scotland with her, a road trip around the US isn't bad, North American competitions/workshops are definitely an idea too (or combining the last two).

As a recap, the Naomi Uyama workshop and night with music by her and Gordon Webster was really great. I'm listening to the music from his CDs as I write this :D. Lots of life at the Button Factory, people from  Waterloo (even those who haven't been out in ages), Hamilton, Toronto, and Windsor. I have great hopes for the future of Waterloo's event potential!

Upcoming stuff:

Waterloo Holiday Dance - December 2nd

Hamilton Christmas Dance 

Toronto Christmas Dance

Tayler's coming to Waterloo

Christmas :D
New term

TUX V - January 20th ish

Followlogie - January 27th ish

GNCTR - February 8th ish

Swing-a-dance? Quebec City February

Troitsky in Montreal - March 2nd

Pirate Swing in Ann Arbor - March 9th

busy!