News Update

Well my week off between the end of exams and the start of work absolutely flew by, and was mainly chewed up by house stuff and organising my final year project. I'm just about to finish my first week at L3-Nautronix doing some engineering vacation work, and I've also mostly organised my CEED project.

I'm really enjoying my vacation work, and it's really fun to get an insight into what the other half of my degree is all about. I've done 2 lots of vacation work as a software engineer already, but I was feeling a bit uneasy about the fact that I really had no practical electronic engineering experience at all. It's a bit strange at work, and I'm feeling really self conscious about being a complete beginner to the point where I've only soldered something once in my life, and I barely know how to use a multimeter. Oh well I guess you have to start somewhere! It's just strange because if I was programming I'd know exactly what to do, but I need to take baby steps on the hardware side of things.

Although, my tasks have been really fun! I'm in the middle of building a test box and I got to do some catalog shopping for all the parts I needed. Who says engineering isn't girly! I threatened to make the box all pretty, but alas the world is seriously lacking in pink pcb connectors.

My uni friends and I celebrated the end of exams last weekend with a notes burning session mainly aimed at destroying our piles of dreaded electromagnetic theory work. I thought I'd be environmentally friendly and only choose the most scaring of all my work, which included a selection of the worst tutes and some past exam questions. All in all it was actually a very healing experience, probably because inhaling all that smoke burned out the bit of my brain who's purpose it was to remember that I took electromag theory in the first place.

Christmas is fast approaching, and Matt and I have already put the Christmas tree up. It's looking a bit lonely without any presents under it, but we just couldn't wait! Although I have a feeling it's going to be a boring Christmas this year, since we'll be getting a lot of "necessary" house items, which we are of course very grateful for, but it's no fun opening a washing machine on Christmas day. I guess having a house on our own is definitely a present in it's own right though.

My CEED project is looking very promising at the moment, and I'm really excited about getting all the details sorted. I'm having a meeting with my project mentor (from Nautronix) and supervisor (from UWA) on Monday, so I'll post what I can about it soon.

I already can't wait until the Big Day Out... Arcade Fire, Bjork, Spoon... YAY! I get a big smile every time I walk past my fridge. (Our tickets are on the fridge... not that I don't usually smile at fridges).

And It's Over :)

Just had my last exam today (Robotics), which went absolutely great since it was the EXACT exam set in 2005 hahah lazy lecturers (oh well suits me fine). I got out of the exam room and the sun shone a little brighter for me today! Also, congratulations to everyone else who also finishes exams today, which is all of UWA, and Edith Cowan too I think.

I'm pretty much just going to relax tonight by watching a movie with Matt and getting some well deserved sleep, then celebrate tomorrow at Yvonne's going away and a 21st at night. Ahhh it feels so good to relax and not feel guilty about not studying :)

One Down

Just came back from my Electromagnetic Theory exam, and I think it went well! Definite pass, but I'm sure it'll look nicer after scaling. It was all over very quickly which sort of makes all those hours of study seem pointless. No more vector calc, time varying fields, and no more magnetostatics yayyyyy (at least for 6months anyway).

Still to go:
Saturday 10th: 9am Graphs & Geometry, 2pm Analog Electronics
Friday 16th: 9am Robotics