CUDOS Optical Switching Tutorial

Just got back from Coogee beach, Sydney, after a couple of days at the CUDOS Optical Switching tutorial. It was really interesting stuff! The majority of students there were physics students, but there were also a few electrical engineers. Quite a bit of the material was too in depth for me, since I had no previous experience with photonics, but there were also quite a few sessions on applications and integration which were right up my alley.

The schedule was fairly tight so I didn't manage to see much of Sydney, but I went into the city on Thursday night with a few other students and we spent some priceless time at the Oprah House bar enjoying the views of the house and the bridge.

Had some fun, made some friends, but now it's back to reality and my ever increasing pile of things that are due. Although I'm back in Sydney for the Google Australia Anita Borg retreat on the 11th of October so that'll be another fun weekend to ease the pain :)

2007 Google Anita Borg Scholarship

Just got the word that I'm an Anita Borg Scholarship finalist again this year! Currently awaiting an email back from Google for the date of my phone interviews which will determine the winner. Fingers crossed :)

I Always Wondered How Far I Ran

I just discovered the coolest feature on Google Maps that lets you plot a journey without snapping to the roads. I have two routes that I take depending on how nice the weather is, and depending on whether I feel like walking or running. I'd always wondered how far they were, and I estimated that my run was about 3k (it's actually just under) and I estimated that my walk was about 6k (it's actually WAY over haha). It tells you the distance of the route, and you can also save the routes so you can actually see my walk and my run! How cute!

The House feels more like Home

Matt's house is finally officially his, so we've been doing a lot of work lately cleaning and moving lots of things. It's been really tiring, but also really rewarding and every day it feels a bit more familiar and comfortable.

It hasn't quite sunk in yet that we have a house, and that we can choose where things go, and what to do and when. It's so cool! It's also fun to do stuff on our own, but we still need a lot of help from the parents when it comes to making new electrical sockets and antenna plugs etc. Yesterday we went shopping for a new shower head which we picked and installed in the big bathroom yesterday all by our selves! Ok this all might sound stupid to many people who have already lived on their own before, but this is the first time for me (and for Matt too).

Another thing we need to do is to start making friends with our neighbors, who all seem really sweet. One night when we arrived at the house, the couple next door was cleaning up our driveway! Another neighbor left us a welcome cake, which was delicious. We had our first guest over last night, Adam, who came over to watch the old Transformers movie (it gets more confusing every time). We still haven't stayed the night because we currently only have a king single as a bed, and plus my parent's house is only 5mins drive anyway.

In other news, the UEC (engineering) cocktail night was on Friday, and I went with a few uni friends. It's Simona's 30th birthday today and I'm just about to start getting ready to go to the bbq at her house. I also need to take Penny (my little mouse) to the vet to get her last installment of itchy cream (she was all itchy behind her ears, but she's almost better now). After a lot of thought, I've applied for vacation work at Nautronix in the hope to get some engineering experience with a company who cares about me. I decided to do this after looking through endless other job descriptions about equipment maintenance and installation, monitoring, writing user manuals, and other boring crap.

And that's about it for now! Oh I had an electromag theory test on Thursday (which went OKKKKK but we'll see), which ended in an interesting way. At the end of the test, everyone had to pass their tests to the end of the row. I was sitting next to Lara, and so Lara and I passed our tests to the guy sitting to the right of me. Lara and I started to talk about the test when I realised that I still had my equation sheet. As I turned to ask the guy at the end for my test back so I could slip my equation sheet back in, I noticed that he had his pen in his hand, and was busy copying the front page of my test onto his paper! Plagiarism at its best! We told the lecturer, but considering that the first page was only worth 3 marks out of the 60, I'm guessing it didn't help him much anyway.

More on the house later!