Running in the Park

I've managed to run almost every other day in Central Park for a few weeks now. I try to run at least 3 times a week. I would probably run more but it's been raining here a lot and I don't want to run in the pouring rain. I've gotten to the point where I don't get sore from running anymore, which is a big improvement over week 1. Not that I run a lot. I usually do a short loop of ~2 miles. Today though, I decided that I want to run a little more than usual since I managed to leave work at 6pm (that's early!). I usually enter the park from the south side and run north. Today, I decided to go more a little more north and turn around at the reservoir (as in, run to south of the reservoir). But after jogging along the path for a while, I noticed that the reservoir was next to me. I didn't realize this for a while because the path next to the reservoir is elevated, I guess, for when the water is high. So I ended up running way too much and spent a lot of time walking instead. Anyway, I guess it was good. Hopefully by the end of the summer, I can manage to run to the reservoir and back without stopping. I don't really care about how long it takes, I just want to work on the running for now. Anyway, might be sore tomorrow from all this running...

Other news, I've booked a flight for home! Leaving NYC on September 1st, with no plans of coming back to the east coast anytime soon. Feels a bit weird...

We had our last intern event today. It was an ice cream social where they invited four recent grads (who started last year) to talk about their experiences at Arup so far. One of them had worked as an intern before he joined. They had a lot of positive things to say about the company, which is to be expected. I wish they left more time for chatting after the event. Everyone just kind of left. They invited a good range of disciplines to talk about their experiences. I wish they had invited people who had worked longer at the company as well.

Anyway, there were a ton of toppings for the ice cream and they gave us all a lot of ice cream. I was stuffed. Half way into the talk, they wanted to move the ice cream upstairs because we all had enough and the ice cream was melting. When they asked if anyone wanted any more, I jumped up and grabbed the a bowl of M&Ms. No one else moved, which I thought was lame. Anyway, I shared with the people around me. Afterwards, there were still some bowls of M&Ms left so I refilled my bowl and headed back upstairs. I should have grabbed the bag of marshmellows that were sitting there and added that to the cookie drawer (my group has a cookie drawer). lol. Anyway, my group was very happy about the M&Ms. Too bad I couldn't save them ice cream. haha.

I think I will be one of the last interns to leave (if not the last). Some people are leaving at the end of this week. There won't be a end of summer presentation. Too bad... Anyway, three and a half more weeks to go. Too soon.

4 More Weeks Left!!

I had a dream one morning about saying good bye to people at work. I was a bit shocked and almost woke up completely. I think this has been my best internship so far. It will be hard to say goodbye and leave. I don't even want to think about it. Leave the office indefinitely... unthinkable! I'm sure I'll see these guys again though. The geo community is really small so I'll probably end up working with or for them someday. It would be kind of weird if I end up working as a subconsultant for one of their projects. I've thought about that too. I had a sudden realization one day that it is not very farfetch to be going to a meeting and finding myself working for/with a former supervisor or coworker. It will almost definitely happen if I work in NYC or San Francisco.

I think a lot of the interns are leaving on the 14th. That's in 2 weeks! So soon. Yesterday, there was an intern event where we went on a site visit to the Fulton Street Transit Center. I realized that not too many of the other interns work on my floor, which I found strange since my floor is the busiest. Anyway, I don't think very many of them were actually interested in seeing the project. I think they just wanted to get out of the office. I wish I had worked on the project a little so I would appreciate seeing the site and be able to orient myself more. But all the design work for the project is done so it's just working with contractors and such. Anyway, I thought it was cool. The whole thing was scheduled to be from 2-5pm. We were done at around 4:40-ish and everyone left to go home. The only people who came back were the two guys that took us around, 2 interns (including me), and a new hire. The other intern came back because he was working on a project that is wrapping up for a submittal. I know this because I was working on the same project for the last 1.5 weeks. We got back to the office before 5pm. Couldn't believe all the other interns left! Didn't they have work to do?? Anyway, I got quite a bit of work done before being sent home. haha. I was being dumb and didn't manage to enter all the data before plotting everything. Working at this office makes me feel like I have a LOT more to learn, which is the way it should be.

Actually, this summer has made me feel much more enthusiastic about geotech. I really want to learn more and can't wait to take classes on this stuff. I think I would learn a lot more about the actual practice if I went to Berkeley. I would definitely be taking classes on stuff I did this summer which would be very satisfying. I doubt this will be the case at Stanford. I think Stanford's curriculum will be much more analytical and geology oriented. There seems to be a pretty good structural geology group. Anyway, I don't mind skipping out on the more "traditional" geotech stuff. I think I'll learn those on the job anyway. The analytical and geology stuff are stuff that are harder to learn on the job. People who have those skills and knowledge seem to be sought after.

The Rain Was Chasing Me...!

Last Sunday, I volunteered at two different projects. The first one was in a park in Washington Heights, way up on 190th St. We were clearing brush. It was pretty humid out but there were lots of volunteers so we finished early. After this, I headed to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The entire way there I was feeling really sleepy. So sleepy that I was tempted to get coffee or something with caffine in it. I think it's the humidity. Anyway, I got there after spending more than an hour on the trains because both the A and the Q were making all local stops. I get to the Park and it turns out that the event was a lot smaller than expected. There were supposed to be over 70 vendors at this art festival but only 20 showed up because the weather forecast was scattered thunderstorms. And of course, it did not thunderstorm until after the event. So we didn't do very much. I mostly chatted with some of the other volunteers. That was nice, I guess. We helped with clean up and take down for a bit. Right at 4pm, when the event ended, it started thundering. The winds picked up. So we did everything really fast and left for the train station. The train was wet when it got to the station. The rain was coming from the south, heading north.

So of course, knowing of this impending rain, I stopped by Chinatown to get some rice. Luckily, I was in the store when a wave of rain hit. I managed to wait for it to stop and got on the subway again. When I got out of the subway though, it was pouring rain. It was raining really, really hard. I got out of the NRW stop and can see the apartment across the street. So I put on my jacket and walked across the street. Just crossing the street got me totally soaked. It was like swimming. Anyway, glad we live so close to this subway stop. It rained a lot for the rest of the evening. There were flood warnings.

Luckily, it didn't rain on Saturday at the Arup picnic. The place was very cute. Definitely a great camping place for little kids. Too bad we didn't have a kid to bring with us. We took some pictures which I will post soon.

This week at work started out kind of dull. But I think I need to stay late the next couple of days to finish up some drawings. Arg! They aren't even proper drawings, just figures in a report. Seriously, I don't understand all the fuss.

I met up with my Big Sis (freshman year!) from McCormick today for dinner. She's working for a structural firm in the city. Also did Course 1 and then went to Stanford. We talked a lot about school and work. Apparently she's worked at Arup too, same office, same group!! What a coincidence. I thought that was really cool. The group's changed a lot since she worked there... 3 summers ago. Anyway, it dinner was great.

This blog has been a bit dull lately. No pictures. Not much excitement. This is not to say that I am going to make this entry an exciting one. Just stating some facts here... Anyway, got out of work at 7pm today, along with the rest of the group. We all left in a woosh. Long day.

I went running yesterday. It was satisfying since I haven't ran since Sunday. I had to make a trip to the library on Monday and it rained on Tuesday. I almost did the entire loop that I ran on Sunday without stopping. Except I came out of the park too early. Oh wells, shouldn't push it. But I'm not sore at all today. So that's a good sign. I probably would have gone running today too but it was raining again.

Went out to lunch with the group yesterday. It's cool eating together. Sometimes the tunneling guys join us too. I wonder what it's like in the winter? Can't sit outside. I guess they just go out and sit inside somewhere. But that's not the same. You can only join the group if you don't bring your lunch.

I've been sitting at my old desk this week. It's so different out there. But now people come visit me more often because they have stuff for me to do. The only advantage of going back to my old desk is being in the middle of the civil group again and most of them are working on the same project I'm working on. So they can help me with the stuff, especially the AutoCAD parts of it. Seriously, no one in my group really knows AutoCAD. Really pushing my abilities with this software. Next week, I'm moving back to the middle of the group again. Playing musical chairs here because of vacations and work travels. I borrowed a wheely chair from someone who's on vacation this week.

Anyhow, looking forward to this company picnic on Saturday. Should be fun. Unless I get sick before then of course. All 3 of my roommates are sick. Sadness... I should boil more vinegar.

Attempts at Exercising (End of Week 6)

Half way through my internship!! Man, I feel like I'm just getting settled in at work. Really getting to know people and such. Nothing particularly exciting at work this week. Well, maybe other than the fact that I spent the entire day trying to do a problem that really should have taken a couple of hours. Sigh, oh wells. At least now I know how to do these types of problems. I should keep a binder with calcs. So far I have uplift, liquefaction, settlement...

The sun was out all week so we have been sitting outside for lunch. It's always hard press to find an empty bench outside the office that would fit all of us. People are always taking up a bench by themselves. Yalu has been packing me sandwiches for lunch. It's been great. My coworkers were impressed.

The guy whose desk I took over will be coming back on Monday. He's going to be here for a week and then taking two weeks of vacation. Glad he's back but I had to move all my junk back. And I'll have to walk whenever I have questions. Such a hassle. Anyhow, everyone will be back in the office next week so it should be more interesting.

I went running in Central Park Wednesday and Thursday after work. I'm sooo sore. I wasn't too sore after running on Wednesday. I really shouldn't have gone on Thursday. I was in the Park for 10 minutes and was extremely sore by the end of it. It was really painful to walk today. I'm hoping I will be less sore by Sunday and be able to go for a long(er) run in the morning.

Ideally, I would go running tomorrow (Saturday). But I'm volunteering all day. When I say all day, I mean 7am - 4pm. I really need the hours given that I only volunteered 3 hours last month. Yeah, only 3 hours. Seriously slacking. I only need about 60 more hours. I can be done by the time I go home if I manage to volunteer about 8 hrs every weekend. I think it can be done. And I don't mind since it means I get to go to different parts of Manhattan. See things that tourists normally don't see. I think this volunteering thing has actually given me a good excuse to go and do random things.

It's been sweltering hot these past couple of days. The office is freezing cold, as usual. I hope it doesn't get any hotter. I'm sweating just sitting here.

Weekend at the library and zoo

Saturday was a disaster. I signed up to volunteer to walk seniors around Central Park. Seemed like a great way to spend a Saturday morning. Walking around Central Park and chatting with people. Except I didn't make it there. I took the bus the wrong way and ended up on the south tip of Manhattan, in the East Village. The East Village is pretty nice actually. There are some NYU buildings there and everything seems like a college town. Low-rise houses, bagel shops, university chemicals, etc. It seems like a pretty chill and nice to walk around neighborhood. But of course, I was trying to find my way back and didn't really enjoy the neighborhood all that much. I called the team leader for the volunteering event and told him I wouldn't be able to make it. Sadness. Anyway, I've signed up for more volunteering stuff this upcoming weekend. Hope those work out.

So I ended up spending some time at the library, got some books and Macgyver videos. I came back and did some reading. Yalu's mom came for the weekend. We went clothes shopping in the afternoon. I've been buying a lot of clothes lately. I think I'm doing pretty well on the work clothes front now. Yalu didn't manage to buy anything so we'll have to go back some day.

Sunday morning, we got up and went to the Bronx zoo. The trip was shorter than I thought. We got in for free with Yalu's ID and got tickets for the monorail. We had to wait quite a while for the monorail to start because we were the first train and they were still trying to get some of the animals to go on display (i.e. to awake up). It was a pretty nice day out. Not humid and not vey hot. So we had a pretty good time at the zoo, looking at all the animals. I thought the red panadas were really cool. So cute! Looked just like the shifu on Kung Fu Panda.

This morning (Monday) at work, I finished off the drawings for the project I've been working on. Well, they're not totally done yet but they should be by the time I go in tomorrow morning. Speaking of tomorrow morning, we have this call/seminar thing with the London office so we have to go in extremely early. They're doing it during their lunch time, which is 7:30am for us. Usually I'm still sleeping. Better be interesting. Anyway, it seems like I have a queue of people wanting my help with their projects. Don't know why they didn't hire two interns. The tunneling team doesn't have any interns. But they have a new hire. Our new hire didn't start today. So maybe Monday? I doubt he will take any work off of me though since they will probably want to have him work on one or two projects on a long term basis.

Summer Plans

So I've decided to take PB's offer and work in San Francisco this summer. Probably not as exciting of a location as spending the summer in Europe or China but I really think I will learn a lot with them. The other two places are probably not as keen to have me actually working. I also realized I don't have any experience working for an American engineering consulting company, which is what I want to do after graduating.

Next fall, I think I will apply to some grad schools as well. Apparently, Berkeley is the best in civil engineering. At least US News thinks so. Need to do more research into this topic. Hope I'll manage to study for the FE/EIT exam at home...

Anyway, now that I'm back at MIT, I'm starting to study for the Easter term exams. I think I was supposed to start a long time ago. Oh wells, can't turn back time.

And what are you doing this summer?

Wanted to keep this post up top. I added a poll to the left for anyone who has a strong opinion of where I should be working this summer. Also I got a phone call last night pass midnight from Parsons in Sacramento. The manager for one of their construction projects called me because he said that their HR person couldn't get through to me and he really wanted to know if I'm interested. Construction management sounds really cool and again, they have an interesting project. I told him that I've gotten other offers and I'll get back to him if I'm interested. It's such a shame since he must've really liked what he saw on my resume to call me instead of waiting for the HR people to try again.

=====original post. 3/5/08=======

Choices, choices. Earlier this week, I got an email from the Happold Trust saying congratulations, I have been selected to receive a scholarship along with a summer placement (internship) in one of their offices. Since Buro Happold is one of the biggest names in structural engineering, this is great. But... I'm not sure what I want to do. If you want to help out, keep reading.

So placement with Buro Happold will be 8 weeks long and mine will take place in Bath. The scholarship is £2,100. The monthly rent in Bath seems to be around £300 so it's enough to live on. They haven't told me which group I will be working with yet but it will most likely be a structures group. I might also get some experience in geotech because they do foundations as well. Bath itself is a World Heritage Site, seems like a nice place to live, very close to Wales, which I haven't been. There are many advantages to this internship actually. I would get to travel around Britain during the weekends, which I haven't done yet. Yalu will definitely come visit since she'll be in Paris. And since my internship is only 8 weeks, I will have time to do some serious traveling (with Yalu) at the end of the summer. And I just realized that working in England means that I can start my internship right after my projects are done (i.e. start the 2nd week of June), maybe come back to Cambridge for May Balls, and have more time at the end of the summer to travel. The only reservations I have about this company is that the female and male ratio is not great. When I went in for the interview, I actually had to look for the females because there were not so many. Also, people dress nicer than in the US. In most US engineering places, people just wear a shirt, jeans, and black shoes. There the guys had ties and nicer shirts. They do have some offices in the US, namely New York City and Los Angeles. But the LA offices is really small. No big plants like in Berlin. No one really had much personal pictures around their workspaces either, I'm starting to wonder if that's just an American thing.

So after hearing back from these people, I emailed MISTI China and asked about the China situation (China Communications Construction Company CCCC). Appearantly, it looks like they've already decided to take me as an intern but failed see the need to tell me. I think this is another one of those cultural differences business. See, American companies tell you as soon as they have decided so that they can grab you. These Chinese places don't see this as a priority. They don't realize that they've got to compete with other places for me. I think if I didn't ask, the whole thing would've ended up like last year where I got an email in June asking "So when are you going to arrive in Shanghai?" Okay, now that I've finished ranting about this place, let me tell you what they do. They're one of the biggest construction companies in China, working on mostly projects in ports. I would be working in a design office. Where? I still have no clue. Not sure if they're actually going to pay me for this internship although MISTI China will reimburse me for the flight, I'm sure. So I've been wanting to do an internship in China for like 2 years now. The reasons are that I want to improve my spoken Mandarin, understand the culture (since going there with parents and living by oneself is totally different), visit family, maybe seek out old friends, and of course, travel. Oh, and the food. Asian food here is questionable. Also, besides this, MISTI China has no civil engineering contacts. I would be helping future Course 1 students to have the chance to work in China for a summer.

And of course, there are other places that I am really interested in but haven't heard back from yet. There's Parsons Brinckerhoff. I did a phone interview with their office in San Francisco with their geotechnical group. They guys I interviewed with seems really cool. And they have cool projects. There's 2 major projects going on and they said there'll be plenty of work to do. Working for them would mean that I would get excellent experience in geotechnical engineering, which is something that I can't say for the above 2 places. I also interviewed with Gilbane Construction in Boston. An internship with them would mean really good experience in the construction field. Definitely on-site versus hanging out in an office like all of these other places. And there's potentially something in Iceland through Course 1 with Iceland's biggest structural engineering firm. Other than the opportunity to travel around Iceland, there would be other MIT students working there as well. And I would still get to travel Europe with Yalu if I work in Iceland. Not so realistic if I work in China.

Okay, there it is. One really long entry about my summer plans so far. Comments are welcomed.

Construction

To even out a slightly angry post from earlier today, I want to write about a couple of exciting things that just happened to me within the past few hours.

On Saturday, I got an email from the course 1 internship coordinator about a possible internship with a company that does construction management. Now when I decided to do civil engineering, I never knew about all these different paths that a "civil engineer" can take. You can work on everything from fluids, to skyscrapers, to bridges, to tunnels, to highways. Now I've done a few things with fluids and wanted some experience with the structural side and geotech (underground stuff, foundations) side of things. And now I've realized that there's a big difference between the design people and construction people. Designers design. They sit in an office and make sure what those architects dream up (no offense to anyone) stand up, work, is safe. Construction people (the builders) actually go out into the field and... solve the problems that the designers couldn't solve. That sounds so much more interesting... I mean, I don't have any practical experience to base this on but I don't think I actually like calculating stresses and moments and looking at CAD drawings (nevermind making CAD drawings... ewwww). Anyway, the guy I talked to is an MIT alum, course 1 undergrad. He seems like a really cool guy. The company started in New England and is all over the US. They have offices in Boston and San Jose. San Jose is a bit far from Oakland but I would be on a project team and be working wherever the project is so.... not sure what that means.

Anyhow, I was feeling really good about this company and the construction business in general when I got an email from Sean Gilbert, the MISTI-China coordinator. I think (not sure about this but), an MIT alum contacted him to get some course 1 interns for a Chinese construction company. The Chinese Communications Construction Company. Now he's forwarding my resume along. This sounds really awesome. Apparently they're one of the biggest construction companies in China. It's too bad that it's not a US company that has an office in China (which is what I really want) but they seem really well established and this seems such an awesome opportunity. I mean, it's construction+China, so cool. Anyway, I hope this works out. It sounds promising. Maybe I'll be in China this summer.

Yeah, I'm really happy about this turn of events. I was getting kind of worried since I haven't really heard back from anyone else yet.