4A, 4B, fall RA, grad studies, blogs, and more dancing

Having my last final on the 9th, it was a while until I started getting the marks back, and all is well! The only one to have not updated yet is law (typical :P). What I proved is that I could totally overload my schedule and still keep on top of everything. By no means am I doing this ever again. Managing six courses, part-time research, swing club, concrete toboggan, and travelling to Miami and Chicago were more than enough, but it was a really fun summer. If I am tempted to make a third term with a sixth course, for my sanity and yours, please stop me :).

The next academic term is shaping up to be

• CIVE 401 - Project course 2
• CIVE 405 - Structural dynamics
• CIVE 415 - Structural systems
• CIVE 422 - Finite element analysis
• CIVE 460 - Engineering biomechanics

The last one is the most iffy, it will be either biomechanics or geotech III, both of which are nice but I'm not overly thrown one way or the other. The term will be very structural based (more than enough courses for the structural certificate), and very math heavy. Due to the high level of interest in the topic though, it should be an interesting and perhaps even fun term. Seeing as this will be the standard course load, it might be a nice break (plus once the Iron Ring Ceremony comes in February, the tone will totally change).

I met with Dr. Narasimhan today to figure out what I'll be doing this upcoming term, and it looks interesting. The two projects lined up are:

1. FEM modelling in Open-Sees of existing MTO highway bridge (either steel or reinforced concrete in Ottawa or Toronto). Later in the term, the team will collect dynamical data and compare it to the models.
2. Modelling of soil-structure interaction using ABACUS from dynamic vibrations of subways or light rail in the sonic frequencies.

The first month will be starting to dig into the software, the topics, and find reading material to get my foot in the door.

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One thing I noticed recently is the explosion of blogs in my close circle of friends. Chantelle made a blog to recount her experiences in St. John's, Nfld for her masters. Mike has had and is currently improving his site. John is also totally revamping his blog site by hand without templates. Turlough is interested in a blog as well. I guess we've all hit points in our lives where experiences are worth noting, be it school, work, or hobbies.

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Recently, I decided that with my work keeping me in Waterloo, I will have time for my hobbies (even moreso than if I was in Toronto). This definitely includes curling and swing dancing. In particular, I decided to really step up the dancing. My aspirations are to gain the experience to teach and to maybe try competing someday. I suppose I miss part of that from figure skating where it was a reoccurring goal. So while maintaining the president position at the UW Swing Club, I'll hope to work more with John, Krister, and Dave/Amanda (through the Hep Cat Hoppers). I also got asked by Turlough if I'd work with him as my dance partner, which sounds like a great idea. I'm very excited! I've got some ideas for this term's upcoming UW Swing Club for fun lessons, cool moves (and maybe an event?). There'll also be beginner lessons for the UW frosh week Variety Night which should be fun and a whole bunch of socializing :).

Next dancing workshop in the wings (still deciding) is the Nick Williams and Sylvia Sykes balboa workshop in Montreal on the weekend of September 24th. Another one for sure is Followlogie in Montreal on the weekend of January 20th. I went last year with Martha, Dave, Amanda, Charlie, Kathleen, and Phil and it was tons of fun.

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As a side note, I really miss Anna and Chantelle, I got too used to them being around, in particular during the summer.

Square-to-Square in Uptown Waterloo

Square-to-Square, a monthly event this summer in Waterloo, closes King St. in Uptown Waterloo and Downtown Kitchener. A bunch of local swing dancers got some space on the street and danced for the afternoon. Thanks to Krister Shalm, the afternoon was recorded in a time-lapse video and posted on his blog, Quantum Pie. Frequenters of the video are Krister Shalm, Jaime Almond, David Trinh, and Turlough Myers.

The fastest and most efficient book review ever

Below is a picture of some of the books on my shelf, with the exception of the Tolkien works and some of the textbooks, the rest are just this year's additions. If you have any questions, let me know!

Not pictured:

Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens - 3
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander - 9
No Contest by Alfie Kohn - 8
Blue Nile by Alan Moorehead - 7
Poland by James A. Mitchner - 10
Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed - 10

TARDIS and Kitchener Bluesfest

Finding the TARDIS

While on a excursion to C&D while studying law, we were told there was a TARDIS on the lower floor of EIT. All excited, I grabbed the only decent camera I had (ipod) and went looking for it with Kristine and Tim. We found it.

Kitchener Blues Festival

Last evening and night was full of great free blues music, dancing, and a late night party to continue the dancing. Running into Arianne, Melanie, Alex, and bunch of others, we ended up super close for the Jimmy Vaughan concert at the main stage. Finding dancers later, it was great to see some faces that have been gone for a while like Chris and Jillian.

[Photo credit: Arianne Villa]

Collection of dancing pictures from this past year...

 Waterloo Uptown Jazz Festival. Turlough and I dancing to 'Sing sing sing'

 'Dancing in the Park' @ Waterloo Park, summer 2011. Turlough and I being silly.

  'Dancing in the Park' @ Waterloo Park, summer 2011. Krister and I.

  'Dancing in the Park' @ Waterloo Park, summer 2011. Me with my umbrella

  'Dancing in the Park' @ Waterloo Park, summer 2011. Dancing with an umbrella

  'Dancing in the Park' @ Waterloo Park, summer 2011. Leads are not always male, follows are not always female.

 TUX 4D, Toronto, fall 2010.

TUX 4D, Toronto, fall 2010.

 TUX 4D, Toronto, fall 2010.

Lindy Hop Under the Big Top (UW Swing club), Waterloo winter 2010.

The end is nigh!

This morning marks my second-to-last set of finals for my undergrad. Steel design, concrete design, law, timber design, all in a week. Then it's done, well, onto more studying for the GRE and figuring out what the heck I'm doing with myself after April 2012.

It's a great feeling, provided I'm ready. I remember starting university and some of my friends telling me of their last year and how mentalities change, which I see it as partially true. I feel it's because the nature of the courses narrow in scope and become more practical. There were some people that I didn't see other than in law (if that) because we actually do have options for specialization. On the other hand, there are some people you see for 10 hours a day (luckily they're nice people).

This weekend I got my event and plane tickets to New Orleans for the Ultimately Lindy Hop Showdown which is September 29th to October 3rd. So far it's just Dean and I but we hope to accrue more people. 3+ days of entirely dancing to New Orleans jazz with some of the funnest people around? Count me in!

In other news, two University of Waterloo engineering teams are starting up. The first is the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race 2012 to be held in Calgary, Alberta. It's a weekend of meeting other university teams, games, themed teams, races, and general nonsense. For more info contact uw-gnctr-2012@googlegroups.com.

The second is the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition, held at Concordia University in Montreal. Check out our Facebook Group!

Research, research, research!

I've neglected this blog. I found that after a few school and co-op terms that I did not have the same quoms with engineering as I once did. I believe it was just a few odd experiences in my early co-op terms that made me cynical of an organized profession. At this point, I've established that it's the societies and practices on the periferi of engineering that I'm concerned with (such as the Tool in the UW engineering circles), and involvement with these groups is voluntary.

Current school term - I have been steadily progressing through 4A for the last (almost) 3 months. This term is was timber design, concrete design II, steel design, law, structural analysis, and 4th year project. My favourite course was structural analysis since it feels the most fun. Admittedly, picking up Matlab after almost 3 years was a bit intimidating, but it came together quickly. This was the first structural modelling course I could take in undergrad, and seeing as how I liked it, it will not be my last. Steel was a slog but definitely necessary. Concrete II was useful and I enjoyed/understood the complex components better than I ever understood Concrete I. 4th year project was fun, challenging, with a bit of luck tossed in there for good measure. Kristine, Ben, Tim and I were able to get Dr. Scott Walbridge as our advisor before the term even started. This helped a bunch with the first few weeks of class so that we weren't scrambling at the last minute. Even though this term's project was only to get a project scope, develop three alternatives, evaluate them, and choose the best, we kinda started with our solution and worked backwards. One of Dr. Walbridge's projects is the development of a reusable steel plate design for temporary roads. The uses can range from road washout, rockslide, or construction. Due to the 4th year project, we had to narrow it down to a road bypass while the realigned Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph would be rebuilt (thanks to Tim on that suggestion). The project went super well in my opinion, the lifecycle cost analysis was very detailed, it may have been in Kristine's dreams, but it turned out great. Now it's on to actually using that option and designing the thickness more accurately, road textures, plate connectors and all that jazz.

URA - During this term I worked with Dr. Robert Gracie on a computational mechanics project using magnesium. 'In situ TEM compression testing of Mg and Mg–0.2 wt.% Ce single crystals by Jia Ye,, Raja K. Mishra, Anil K. Sachdev, and Andrew M. Minora', describes the qualitative results of a micro column axial conpression test on magnesium. Magnesium is cheap and strong but brittle, so the hopes for car manufacturers like GM would be to find an alloy of magensium that would retain the first two qualities of the pure substance and yield in flexure. Setting up a model of a column of magnesium at room temperature and putting it under compression, I would hope to see how dislocations or twinning occur. At the moment, I'm still working on the rate of loading that will best show these dislocations. Almost there!

Swing dancing - During my previous co-op term in Toronto at MMM Group, I got to go to Followlogie in Montreal, which was very awesome. I'm in the process of planning to go to ULHS, which is at the end of September in New Orleans. I'm told it's a lot of fun and I can't wait to dance with a whole bunch of talented dancers and musicians. Currently the president of the UW Swing Club, I'm a frequenter of the 'dancing in the park' at Waterloo Park, Monday night dancing at Maxwell's Music House, and when I can make it to Toronto I pop into Dovercourt and the Imperial. Because of Tuesday night class (law), I've had to skip on the Hamilton dances (boo).

GNCTR - It started out as me being one of three design team captains, then Carleton University bailed on hosting the concrete toboggan race. Then a few UW students (myself included) looked into doing it in Waterloo or teaming up with Western to host (but Western never replied). In the end, Calgary volunteered so that the competition would not cease to exist for the 2012s. Problem is that the only weekend Calgary can do this event coincides with UW's Iron Ring Ceremony, so most of the 4th years are backing out of the toboggan race. Being as fond as I am for old secret traditions, I was one of the few 4th years to continue with concrete toboggan because I find it so awesome. I now find myself the new captain of the entire team. A little intimidating but I'm sure it'll be a blast!

Fall 2011 - So the job I had set up a while ago in Toronto fell through before I even started, which got me all a flurry to find something new. Since I'm interested in grad studies after undergrad and that I'm finished work reports, PDEng, and my work term credits, I set out to find a prof in the structural engineering field that would have a spot for me. With a bit of luck, my structural analysis prof had never taken on an undergrad before but was willing to take me on! I applied for NSERC funding a month overdue (obviously I applied when I found out I no longer had a job), the civil undergrad secretary put it on rush and I got it just two days ago. I'm very excited about this opportunity

Fall term -