This website specializes in advice for people who want to have a long break in their careers and just travel. Very cool. Too bad I don't have a career yet!
http://briefcasetobackpack.com/
Here's a NYTimes article about it:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/travel/17Prac.html?pagewanted=all
Btw, I am in LA (well, LA metro area) right now. Attending a geotech conference Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Conferences: 1 of 2
Haven't written in so long that I had to check my Google calender to see what happened since the last time I wrote. I've been really busy the last week. I had a normal-ish week Monday to Wednesday. Wednesday was especially long though because one of my classes got moved to the afternoon so I didn't have a nice block of classes. And then I flew off to Indiana on Wednesday night for the ESW National conference.
It took us 2 separate flights to get there and 2 separate flights to get back. I slept a lot on these series of flights. Circumstances just made it so that I was really tired when I got to the airport. I think I fell asleep on most of these flights before the plane took off and only woke up right before landing. I didn't even realized that my first flight was showing a movie. I also slept at the airport. On the way back, we walked to our gate and slept until it was time to board the plane. Didn't even bothered to go buy food or look for free wi-fi.
The conference itself was very interesting. I think we all got a lot of out meeting people from the different chapters. Honestly, I didn't know very much about the national organization at all before this. I had no idea what other chapters were doing so it was great to hear about other people's projects. I wish we had more sharing time though. What projects are other people doing, how are they progressing, next steps, the structure, how many people does it take to run something, etc. Totally seeing myself getting sucked into this organization at more than the project level.
At some of the member meetings, we introduced ourselves with name, university, major, and role in ESW. I was stumped by the "role" part for a while and decided on "project leader" after thinking it through. I honestly had never thought about my role in ESW. It's just something that I do. Never thought about it as a job description.
Most of the conference consisted of "breakout sessions" where there were 1-3 speakers from industry and academia. They talked about various topics, mostly about what their organization is doing in the context of sustainability. Again, I wish we had more time for discussion because people asked a lot of questions and they were generally very good questions. I will write more about this conference and the various adventures that we had soon. Right now I need to catch up on some sleep!
It took us 2 separate flights to get there and 2 separate flights to get back. I slept a lot on these series of flights. Circumstances just made it so that I was really tired when I got to the airport. I think I fell asleep on most of these flights before the plane took off and only woke up right before landing. I didn't even realized that my first flight was showing a movie. I also slept at the airport. On the way back, we walked to our gate and slept until it was time to board the plane. Didn't even bothered to go buy food or look for free wi-fi.
The conference itself was very interesting. I think we all got a lot of out meeting people from the different chapters. Honestly, I didn't know very much about the national organization at all before this. I had no idea what other chapters were doing so it was great to hear about other people's projects. I wish we had more sharing time though. What projects are other people doing, how are they progressing, next steps, the structure, how many people does it take to run something, etc. Totally seeing myself getting sucked into this organization at more than the project level.
At some of the member meetings, we introduced ourselves with name, university, major, and role in ESW. I was stumped by the "role" part for a while and decided on "project leader" after thinking it through. I honestly had never thought about my role in ESW. It's just something that I do. Never thought about it as a job description.
Most of the conference consisted of "breakout sessions" where there were 1-3 speakers from industry and academia. They talked about various topics, mostly about what their organization is doing in the context of sustainability. Again, I wish we had more time for discussion because people asked a lot of questions and they were generally very good questions. I will write more about this conference and the various adventures that we had soon. Right now I need to catch up on some sleep!
Friday, October 1, 2010
500 Posts!!
The next two weeks will be very busy. Two conferences in a roll. Not sure why I decided this was a good idea in the first place. It should be good though. I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of people at these conferences. Great places for networking to happen.
Speaking of networking, I spent a bit of time applying to jobs. So I guess the job hunt has started. I mainly looked at companies where I don't have any contacts for and emailed their HR departments. Not sure if this actually works. I'll see what happens, I guess.
Last night was a long night. Got back from the ESW presentation pretty late. We did a presentation for SEG people and other people who have been involved in the project. There were some new people. Wish there were more new people, in particular, more of the new Masters students. But maybe it's because everyone was working on the 280 homework.
Speaking of 280 (structural analysis), this class kept me up pretty late last night. I think it was about 3am when I went to bed. Got up at 7am to finish up stuff, return things to the Blume Center, and tried to get some stuff done before the 9:30am class. Tried to submit reimbursements for the trip after the class but it turns out we need a lot more things than we realized. Almost there though. Really wish there are clear instructions for me to follow. I don't think I understand how everything works in the first place. Anyway, just waiting for an account number now. All the paperwork is ready to be submitted. Wouldn't have been able to do this if Greg hadn't brought me lunch. Super low on energy this morning.
Got back to my dorm and slept for about 2 hours. Made myself get up and went running in the afternoon. Literally ran into a classmate from MIT. He's my year but took a year off and is now doing a Masters in Environment Engineering. I knew he was here but not vice versa so he was a bit surprised. Really nice to finally see him. Even though we're technically in the same department, all the groups are pretty separated so we don't really see the other groups the department very much.
Two BBQs tomorrow! Looking forward to lots of good food. I think I will try to do some work in the morning, go to the BBQs, do some cleaning in the afternoon, and do some more studying. Not entirely satisfied with my classes this quarter. Not even sure if one of my classes is still happening because the professor didn't show up on Wednesday and we haven't heard from him at all. I even emailed him today. Maybe I should have dropped by his office. Might end up having to take linear algebra (again) in order to have enough units. It's looking like a better and better option now that I think about it. Anyway, I'll see what happens. I need to start working. I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen and haven't been able to develop a routine because of this.
Speaking of networking, I spent a bit of time applying to jobs. So I guess the job hunt has started. I mainly looked at companies where I don't have any contacts for and emailed their HR departments. Not sure if this actually works. I'll see what happens, I guess.
Last night was a long night. Got back from the ESW presentation pretty late. We did a presentation for SEG people and other people who have been involved in the project. There were some new people. Wish there were more new people, in particular, more of the new Masters students. But maybe it's because everyone was working on the 280 homework.
Speaking of 280 (structural analysis), this class kept me up pretty late last night. I think it was about 3am when I went to bed. Got up at 7am to finish up stuff, return things to the Blume Center, and tried to get some stuff done before the 9:30am class. Tried to submit reimbursements for the trip after the class but it turns out we need a lot more things than we realized. Almost there though. Really wish there are clear instructions for me to follow. I don't think I understand how everything works in the first place. Anyway, just waiting for an account number now. All the paperwork is ready to be submitted. Wouldn't have been able to do this if Greg hadn't brought me lunch. Super low on energy this morning.
Got back to my dorm and slept for about 2 hours. Made myself get up and went running in the afternoon. Literally ran into a classmate from MIT. He's my year but took a year off and is now doing a Masters in Environment Engineering. I knew he was here but not vice versa so he was a bit surprised. Really nice to finally see him. Even though we're technically in the same department, all the groups are pretty separated so we don't really see the other groups the department very much.
Two BBQs tomorrow! Looking forward to lots of good food. I think I will try to do some work in the morning, go to the BBQs, do some cleaning in the afternoon, and do some more studying. Not entirely satisfied with my classes this quarter. Not even sure if one of my classes is still happening because the professor didn't show up on Wednesday and we haven't heard from him at all. I even emailed him today. Maybe I should have dropped by his office. Might end up having to take linear algebra (again) in order to have enough units. It's looking like a better and better option now that I think about it. Anyway, I'll see what happens. I need to start working. I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen and haven't been able to develop a routine because of this.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Long and hot days
Only 10 blog posts (including this one) during the month of September?? This is unacceptable. I was looking over my blog earlier this week. Some months are more exciting than others. Can't believe I've had this thing going for three years now. Credits to my readers. Otherwise, my writing would just be lost in cyberspace.
Today is the one year anniversary of the September 30, 2009 earthquake in Padang, Indonesia. I think the city was planning to have an evacuation drill to commemorate the event and to raise tsunami evacuation preparedness. Hopefully they managed to get that going. Did you know you can get email notifications from USGS about earthquakes? You can set your region and magnitudes of earthquakes you want to hear about. There were two big earthquakes 6.2 and 7.2 Mw near Papua yesterday. A tsunami alert was raised and then canceled. Don't think there was much damage because the area is sparsely populated.
Yesterday was the longest day on campus so far. I got up at 7am for an 8am class and stayed on campus until midnight. Had class in the morning, until around noon. One of my professors didn't show up. I wonder what happened. We still haven't gotten an email about it. I hope that class is still happening because I need to units. Went to a SWE lunch after that. The pizza was pretty good. Cleaned up my office in Blume a bit and worked on homework in there for a while. Went over to Y2E2 and worked on some more homework.
The evening was all ESW stuff. During undergrad, I did a lot of ESP stuff. Now we're just moving down the alphabet. There was an ESW general meeting where we introduced the organization, talked about events, introduced the officers, and the summer interns talked a bit about what they did over the summer. The president sent out an email earlier this week asking for 2 slides for each team. We sent in our 2 slides and talked for our allotted 5 minutes. I think we confused everyone as to what the project involved. The other teams had more slides and more talking. Apparently they didn't get the memo... But it's okay since we're giving a longer presentation on just our project tonight (Thursday).After the meeting, we stayed in Y2E2 and worked on that presentation and other ESW stuff until midnight. I was really tired by 9pm but we managed to finish the presentation. I should make sure everything works beforehand...
ESW national conference next week. Going to the midwest. Exciting.... I don't think I have any friends out there so it's much more difficult to find a place to stay. It's no problem finding a place to crash in big cities like SF, Boston, NYC. But Indiana is different story. Not even sure I can identify the place on a map... I really need to travel the US.
Today is the one year anniversary of the September 30, 2009 earthquake in Padang, Indonesia. I think the city was planning to have an evacuation drill to commemorate the event and to raise tsunami evacuation preparedness. Hopefully they managed to get that going. Did you know you can get email notifications from USGS about earthquakes? You can set your region and magnitudes of earthquakes you want to hear about. There were two big earthquakes 6.2 and 7.2 Mw near Papua yesterday. A tsunami alert was raised and then canceled. Don't think there was much damage because the area is sparsely populated.
Yesterday was the longest day on campus so far. I got up at 7am for an 8am class and stayed on campus until midnight. Had class in the morning, until around noon. One of my professors didn't show up. I wonder what happened. We still haven't gotten an email about it. I hope that class is still happening because I need to units. Went to a SWE lunch after that. The pizza was pretty good. Cleaned up my office in Blume a bit and worked on homework in there for a while. Went over to Y2E2 and worked on some more homework.
The evening was all ESW stuff. During undergrad, I did a lot of ESP stuff. Now we're just moving down the alphabet. There was an ESW general meeting where we introduced the organization, talked about events, introduced the officers, and the summer interns talked a bit about what they did over the summer. The president sent out an email earlier this week asking for 2 slides for each team. We sent in our 2 slides and talked for our allotted 5 minutes. I think we confused everyone as to what the project involved. The other teams had more slides and more talking. Apparently they didn't get the memo... But it's okay since we're giving a longer presentation on just our project tonight (Thursday).After the meeting, we stayed in Y2E2 and worked on that presentation and other ESW stuff until midnight. I was really tired by 9pm but we managed to finish the presentation. I should make sure everything works beforehand...
ESW national conference next week. Going to the midwest. Exciting.... I don't think I have any friends out there so it's much more difficult to find a place to stay. It's no problem finding a place to crash in big cities like SF, Boston, NYC. But Indiana is different story. Not even sure I can identify the place on a map... I really need to travel the US.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Getting back into grad school life, sort of
I just spent most of the day relearning undergrad structural analysis. So painful. I don't know why I am taking advanced structural analysis. Never really liked this stuff. I feel like every time I attempt to learn these things, I just keep looking up examples and follow along. Not sure a whole lot of understanding and intuition are coming along. I found out though, that I should have a pretty good background in this stuff because apparently I took pretty good classes back in Cambridge. If I had actually managed to learn that stuff, I would be in really good shape. I'm not sure I did though...
I got the motherboard of my new computer replaced, for the second time in a year. Also got the power cord, usb connections, sound connections, all replaced. The computer decided to freeze every once in a while the past few days. Probably due to a fried motherboard. I was really hoping for a long lasting computer. I suppose I'm putting my warranty to use. I should write down the date that the warranty expires so that I can make sure I get parts replaced if I need them. Apparently you can even ask for things like rubber feets. So I'm thinking I'll need a new screen and probably webcam before this is all over. The LCD screen is missing some pixels from the last technician who came out.
Going to the ESW national conference next week in Purdue. Need to find a place to stay. So if any of my readers have friends in Purdue that I can stay with, let me know! It should be an interesting conference. I think the talks are pretty interesting. I'm very interested in finding out about other projects. I want to know what other people are doing out there.
I was looking at the Human Development Index from Wikipedia earlier. They categorized countries into 4 categories: Very high, high, medium, and low human development. I realized I have spent significant amounts of time in all four categories (well, not so much for the 'high' category but I think that's okay...). I feel really lucky to have had these experiences. I know it's not good to generalize and countries have different regions where the HDI might be very different. But I think, especially for people who live in "very high" areas to grasp the idea of a "developing country" since there is so much variance. The range is very big. Sierra Leone definitely skewed my idea of a "developing country" so I'm definitely glad to have spent some time in West Sumatra where people are much better off. I think even for people who do work in developing countries, it might still be hard for them to imagine life in the "low" category.
The week after the ESW conference, I'm going to a conference in Hollywood. Still need to work out the details for that one but I've already booked the flights. There are so many conferences and seminars out there. I feel like I've managed to discover a lot of professional societies in the past year. Maybe there are more of them out here since there's not only the normal ASCE stuff, there's also a bunch of seismic related organizations. There are overlaps on event advertisement so I don't feel the need to join every single one of these things. But there are a lot of events though. I've also been trying to participate in some geology related things as well. Getting to the point where I'm hesitant to even write down events because I don't actually want to go to all of these things.
Been feeling rushed and busy the past few days. I feel like I haven't had time to do stuff on my own. There area always events (see above paragraph) and meetings to go to. There's just so much stuff happening. Maybe it's just that I haven't gotten into a routine yet. And I haven't started working yet so it feels like I'm waiting for something to happen. Speaking of working, I haven't seriously begun to look into job stuff yet. Definitely feeling like I'm punting on that one. I need to come up with a game plan. I mean, I can start emailing my contacts but I think I should come up with some general strategies and goals first. Maybe later this week...
I got the motherboard of my new computer replaced, for the second time in a year. Also got the power cord, usb connections, sound connections, all replaced. The computer decided to freeze every once in a while the past few days. Probably due to a fried motherboard. I was really hoping for a long lasting computer. I suppose I'm putting my warranty to use. I should write down the date that the warranty expires so that I can make sure I get parts replaced if I need them. Apparently you can even ask for things like rubber feets. So I'm thinking I'll need a new screen and probably webcam before this is all over. The LCD screen is missing some pixels from the last technician who came out.
Going to the ESW national conference next week in Purdue. Need to find a place to stay. So if any of my readers have friends in Purdue that I can stay with, let me know! It should be an interesting conference. I think the talks are pretty interesting. I'm very interested in finding out about other projects. I want to know what other people are doing out there.
I was looking at the Human Development Index from Wikipedia earlier. They categorized countries into 4 categories: Very high, high, medium, and low human development. I realized I have spent significant amounts of time in all four categories (well, not so much for the 'high' category but I think that's okay...). I feel really lucky to have had these experiences. I know it's not good to generalize and countries have different regions where the HDI might be very different. But I think, especially for people who live in "very high" areas to grasp the idea of a "developing country" since there is so much variance. The range is very big. Sierra Leone definitely skewed my idea of a "developing country" so I'm definitely glad to have spent some time in West Sumatra where people are much better off. I think even for people who do work in developing countries, it might still be hard for them to imagine life in the "low" category.
The week after the ESW conference, I'm going to a conference in Hollywood. Still need to work out the details for that one but I've already booked the flights. There are so many conferences and seminars out there. I feel like I've managed to discover a lot of professional societies in the past year. Maybe there are more of them out here since there's not only the normal ASCE stuff, there's also a bunch of seismic related organizations. There are overlaps on event advertisement so I don't feel the need to join every single one of these things. But there are a lot of events though. I've also been trying to participate in some geology related things as well. Getting to the point where I'm hesitant to even write down events because I don't actually want to go to all of these things.
Been feeling rushed and busy the past few days. I feel like I haven't had time to do stuff on my own. There area always events (see above paragraph) and meetings to go to. There's just so much stuff happening. Maybe it's just that I haven't gotten into a routine yet. And I haven't started working yet so it feels like I'm waiting for something to happen. Speaking of working, I haven't seriously begun to look into job stuff yet. Definitely feeling like I'm punting on that one. I need to come up with a game plan. I mean, I can start emailing my contacts but I think I should come up with some general strategies and goals first. Maybe later this week...
Saturday, September 25, 2010
First week!
Another epic first week of school. I have to say, this has definitely been one of the weirdest, most jam packed, and exhausting first week of school ever. I guess part of me still feels like I'm somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. There is still a lot of work to do for the ESW project but I didn't quite expect to be doing so much right after getting back to Stanford.
Monday and Tuesday, I went to a lot of classes. Both days ended with doing ESW stuff. I was really conflicted about my classes after Tuesday because I felt like I went to good classes both days. But I decided on classes Wednesday afternoon after talking to some more people about my choices. Usually I do whatever people tell me NOT to do. But I think I'm going to try out this "listening to advice" thing. Might be a good idea. Anyway, classes that I am taking this quarter:
GES 283: Soil Physics
CEE 280: Advance Structural Analysis
GP 160: Intro to Computing in Earth Sciences
Independent study for the ESW project
As you can see, the three classes that I am taking are all in different departments. I'm so glad I chose to go to school in a place where they are flexible about graduation requirements. I mean, I really think you should get a lot of freedom in class choices when you're doing a Masters degree. At this point, you should know what you want to do (to some degree) and tailor your learning to what (you think) you want to do in the future.
I went back home Wednesday night. I woke up Wed morning pretty convinced that I was going to go to some Thursday classes and therefore, unable to make it home. But all my classes are on MWF so I decided to go home Wed afternoon and got to spend mid-autumn festival at home with my family.
Thursday, I spent some time work on more ESW stuff and organizing in general. At night I went to a SFGI awards talk. Most of the topic was over my head but I had seen some of it before through working at Arup. I think I really need to do some studying in the subject of soil dynamics and seismic soil stuff. Seems extremely important for working in a seismic area.
Came back to Stanford Friday morning. Had to get up at 6:45am in order to take BART, MUNI, and Caltrain back. All three public transit systems worked very smoothly since it was rush hour and it didn't feel like I was in transit very long. The Stanford shuttle though, was another story. That thing is so slow. At least all three shuttles were waiting for Caltrain passengers when we got off the train. They were all available and ready to go.
I had class until 11am, went back to my dorm for a little bit, and then went back onto campus again carrying a giant poster. I feel like I'm always dragging weird stuff across campus. After dropping off the poster, I went to stand in the really hot sun for 4 hours, recruiting for Stanford Splash at the undergrad activities fair. Because this is California, the activities fair is outdoors. It was super sunny with no clouds in sight. I got sunburnt.
I was really tired and dehydrated after this and headed off to the CEE grad welcome reception. There was food and friends to catch up with. It was really good. Didn't managed to meet a whole lot of new students though. Oh wells, getting old. And then, I went with Joanna to a IEEE BBQ where we were amazed by the amount of guys in attendance. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise by now but it somehow still is. Then, I went home to my roommate's birthday party where I tried really hard to stay awake because I was super tired by that point. People went off to the Rains Welcome Back party afterwards but I couldn't get myself to go outside again and went to sleep instead.
Monday and Tuesday, I went to a lot of classes. Both days ended with doing ESW stuff. I was really conflicted about my classes after Tuesday because I felt like I went to good classes both days. But I decided on classes Wednesday afternoon after talking to some more people about my choices. Usually I do whatever people tell me NOT to do. But I think I'm going to try out this "listening to advice" thing. Might be a good idea. Anyway, classes that I am taking this quarter:
GES 283: Soil Physics
CEE 280: Advance Structural Analysis
GP 160: Intro to Computing in Earth Sciences
Independent study for the ESW project
As you can see, the three classes that I am taking are all in different departments. I'm so glad I chose to go to school in a place where they are flexible about graduation requirements. I mean, I really think you should get a lot of freedom in class choices when you're doing a Masters degree. At this point, you should know what you want to do (to some degree) and tailor your learning to what (you think) you want to do in the future.
I went back home Wednesday night. I woke up Wed morning pretty convinced that I was going to go to some Thursday classes and therefore, unable to make it home. But all my classes are on MWF so I decided to go home Wed afternoon and got to spend mid-autumn festival at home with my family.
Thursday, I spent some time work on more ESW stuff and organizing in general. At night I went to a SFGI awards talk. Most of the topic was over my head but I had seen some of it before through working at Arup. I think I really need to do some studying in the subject of soil dynamics and seismic soil stuff. Seems extremely important for working in a seismic area.
Came back to Stanford Friday morning. Had to get up at 6:45am in order to take BART, MUNI, and Caltrain back. All three public transit systems worked very smoothly since it was rush hour and it didn't feel like I was in transit very long. The Stanford shuttle though, was another story. That thing is so slow. At least all three shuttles were waiting for Caltrain passengers when we got off the train. They were all available and ready to go.
I had class until 11am, went back to my dorm for a little bit, and then went back onto campus again carrying a giant poster. I feel like I'm always dragging weird stuff across campus. After dropping off the poster, I went to stand in the really hot sun for 4 hours, recruiting for Stanford Splash at the undergrad activities fair. Because this is California, the activities fair is outdoors. It was super sunny with no clouds in sight. I got sunburnt.
I was really tired and dehydrated after this and headed off to the CEE grad welcome reception. There was food and friends to catch up with. It was really good. Didn't managed to meet a whole lot of new students though. Oh wells, getting old. And then, I went with Joanna to a IEEE BBQ where we were amazed by the amount of guys in attendance. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise by now but it somehow still is. Then, I went home to my roommate's birthday party where I tried really hard to stay awake because I was super tired by that point. People went off to the Rains Welcome Back party afterwards but I couldn't get myself to go outside again and went to sleep instead.
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