Field trip, camps, and the wonderful extensometer

Just a quick update – yes I am still alive.

I had MUCS camp (aka choir boot camp) last weekend and then the Apollo Bay field trip the weekend before that, and will be having SALP camp this Saturday. Time to study/get projects done during weekend = zero.  That being said, these have been fun and added a whole new dimension to my university experience. Now… I just have to figure out how to keep my strength back during the week – coffee doesn’t work, energy drinks can only go so far, so I’m in search for new ‘strategies’ to keep me awake and alert during classes.

In other new, I had my first lab for Engineering this week – which basically involved 30-odd students staring at some machine called ‘extensometer'(?) stretch plywood and steel up to breaking point. The plywood was alright, it didn’t take much to break it. The piece of steel, however, took a long time to break, which meant we had to stare at it for something like 10 minutes. At that point, some people were already betting how many Newtons of force it would take to break it (oh, we were also supposed to look at a computer reading of said force). This exercise would have been better if there were only 10-15 students in the lab; but no, more than 30 people have to crane their necks watching an extensometer (quite a tough feat, coz a few of the students are something like 6-ft tall). Another Uni cost-cutting measure, perhaps?

Oh well, I better get out of this website soon and start with projects projects projects. A difficult thing to do as I’m quite distracted by my impending trip to the Philippines. I haven’t been back there for more than 3 years now, so I am excited and already thinking of what to do and where to go when I get there – which is really a bad thing to do when I still have mid-sems to study for and projects to do. Needless to say, I can’t wait for Saturday week!