It's Good to be (a Girl) in Engineering

I had a really bad day today. Tuesdays are usually my worst day since I have 9-5 uni with an hour break for lunch. For some reason 9-5 uni is SO MUCH WORSE than 9-5 work, probably because you can't choose the pace you're going at, and only so much information can go into your brain before you start going insane.

I had a three hour Embedded Systems lab this morning which involved translating a C program into Assembly. I would usually find that sort of thing very fun, but when you've got three hours to debug an Assembly program, it's not so good. What makes it worse is what we were actually doing. The actual program we were writing was a key-guessing game, and was being loaded onto this little robot thingy (which pretty much consists of an LCD screen, 4 buttons and most importantly, a faulty power cable for our enjoyment). Now the program plays you 3 random notes, and then you have to press the corresponding buttons to repeat the tune (higher levels involve longer sequences, but we only had to implement level 3 in assembly). So imagine about 8 groups each with one of these bloody things all making stupid noises in a small, resonant lab at 9 in the morning, while trying to figure out why your stupid stack is screwing up. GRRR! At least we (finally) got it finished in time.

Next was an awful Communication Systems lecture. The material is very interesting but unfortunately for the class, the lecturer has a thick Chinese accent accompanied by an adorable lisp, or rather, would be adorable if we didn't actually REALLY need to understand what he was saying to pass the unit. By this time my cold and flu tablet started wearing off, but on the bright side at least my cough kept me awake during the lecture.

My one hour lunch break was spent going over the Communications assignment which is due on Thursday with Adam and Lara, so that was extra fun. Then the final stretch of the day involved an Embedded Systems tute, a Circuits and Electronic Systems lecture, and an Artificial Intelligence lecture (nice light entertainment to finish the day off). I've actually really fallen behind in Circuits so those lectures could actually be in Spanish for all I know. In the AI lecture we started learning about lists in Prolog which must have taken a very unique form of insanity to invent. When the day was finally over, I was off through peak hour traffic, looking forward to relaxing at Matt's house and watching the final Prison Break, which turned out to be really annoying, (I wont say too much), but there'll now most definately be a 3rd season.

Annnyyywayyy, now to the point of all this complainin'. So I get home after an annoying day at uni, check on Morris the Mouse (c), and sit down for a nice cup of tea, and realise I have a letter from the uni. I open it up and it turns out that I am:

"the recipient of the Motorola Prize for 2006 to the value of $300. The prize is awarded by the Board of Examiners in Engineering, Computing, and Mathematics to the female student with the highest weighted average mark in the following units: Circuits and Electronic Systems 2, Electromagnetics and Electromechanics, Digital System Design, Signals and Systems 3 and four BCM major units".

Nice and specific. That letter couldn't have picked a better day to arrive on! It really made me happy, (not so much because of the money, but hey that helps!) because no matter how hard uni gets, how stressed out I feel, how far behind I fall, it reminded me that I'll always manage to catch up because that's just what you do when you're a student, and you love what you're doing. I guess the moral of the story is that when you're feeling lost, you should remember all the little signs that have proved you're on the right path, even when it feels like you can't remember the reason why you got there in the first place.

My MacBook Arrives!

Yesterday after a loooonggg wait, my MacBook finally was delivered to the uni. It was actually meant to be in last Friday, but the store was refurbishing it's main desk and so things were going slow all round apparently.

After the long drive home (everything seemed to take so long!), I had to quickly rush to the bank before it closed to deposit the cheque from Google into my dad's account, since he paid for the Mac on his credit card (yet another delay!).

Finally I got home and started unpacking :) I was taking photos along the way, which took a huge amount of patience, but hey you only unwrap a Mac once. The packaging was really cool, and I actually forgot that it came with a remote for Front Row, so that was a surprise when I saw it in there. I also got a video connector so that we can connect it to the tv. I'll probably need another connector to plug my monitor in but I'll get that one later.



It really was great fun opening it up, and because Matt has a PowerBook, I already knew how to get started, so I could get into it straight away. I set up some nice folders for uni and transferred all my work from this semester from my pc, which was really fun since it's all ready to go if I want to take it with me on Monday (how exciting). It's sort of hard to decide what to put on it legacy wise; I've decided to keep all of my old photos on my pc and eventually just burn them to DVD, and I'm just in the process of transferring all the 2007 photos onto my Mac, so I'll sort of start fresh from this year with iPhoto.

I'm really looking forward to learning how to use it properly, since it takes a bit of getting used to before you can use a Mac to its full potential. I started writing up an AI tute on it last night and it just felt so nice for some reason. I guess because it's so cute, but also because it already feels like home.

When Matt got to my house after work he didn't quite know what to do first! He was playing with the Mac for a while before he realised he had his iPod to open! There was a special offer from Apple so that if you by a MacBook you get an iPod for $200 off, so Matt got a 30GB iPod video in black, which is really awesome. Now I've just gotta figure out how to get the rebate, since the instructions are all cryptic.

So I am now officially a Mac user! I'm still going to have to install Windows on it (how disappointing) since there's a couple of programs I need for engineering that only run on Windows. But I'm so glad I finally decided to get one, and I'm in love with it already :)

A Nice Surprise from Google

When I got home from uni this afternoon there was a FedEx package waiting for me in the study. I had absolutely no idea what it was or who it was from, and I certainly wasn't expecting anything. When I picked the box up, I noticed it was very light, and it also had the word "ball" scrawled on it in red marker. I was pretty sure I wasn't expecting any balls in a big package, so this further perplexed me.

So I finally found a pair of scissors and opened up the box to find... a surprise present from Google! It was a giant black and pink throw blanket with the Google girls logo on it. There was a really sweet card from Meghan, Neetu and Will from Global University Programs at Google, mentioning that the blanket was a memento of the Google retreat in Sydney, and is intended to keep me warm "as the weather cools" (how sweet is that - thanks guys!).

It was a really nice surprise and considering that it's just crossed into autumn and already started raining, it will definitely go to good use right away, as you can see in the pic below :)



In related news, the $1000 reward money from Google also arrived in the mail today (it's been an exciting day for opening things today for me)! I've already decided what it's going towards (and it's arriving next Tuesday yay!). I'm getting a 13inch MacBook as an upgrade to my PC, and I just can't wait to get it. I thought it would be nice if the prize money was put towards something relevant rather than me slowly frittering it away on shoes and clothes and the like. Also, there's a special offer on at the moment that if you get a Mac, you get $200 off an iPod! I've already got a mini so Matt's decided to get a 30GB iPod for effectively $180 so hooray all round :)

So it's been a good day all thanks to Google! I'll definitely fall asleep tonight smiling under my Google blanket, dreaming about my Macbook, ahhhhhh :)

My New Pet - Morris the Mouse

Last weekend Matt's little sis Elissa rescued a little mouse as he was being attacked by her cat. She knew I wanted a mouse so she made a little cardboard box house for him and kept him in there until we had time to figure out where to put him!

We couldn't quite figure out what he was since he didn't look like a regular mouse - he was much more pointy and stood on his hind legs a lot. It turns out he's a field mouse, and we originally thought he was a baby (since he's SOOO small) but it looks like he's full grown and won't be getting any bigger.

So we went and bought Morris a cage for him and tried to make is as comfortable as possible with lots of fun things for him to play with. Unfortunately, at the corners of the cage the bars were slightly further apart than everywhere else, so in about 5 minutes Morris squeezed through and was running around the house quick as lightning. Elissa managed to catch him again, and we put him back in the cage but made sure to seal the big spaces up with masking tape.

It took him a while to get used to it, and he kept hiding under the newspaper. After a while he built up the courage to explore and finally discovered his wheel. It's so cute! He runs on it for like 10 minutes at a time, but he's yet to figure out that if he stands on top of the wheel, it will turn and make him fall off.

He's really nimble so I haven't been handling him much (he's so small I don't want to hurt him!) but he's already used to people and doesn't get frightened at all. He actually keeps running in his wheel even if I'm carrying his cage around! I've noticed that as soon as we start talking to him he'll run out of the house and go straight to his wheel - I'm pretty sure he's showing off to us!

My parents were angry at first (my grandma still wants to kill it) but now they love him (how could you not!) and I often catch my mum or dad talking to him when they think no ones looking :)

Tomato Sauce Day

Yesterday was Tomato Sauce Day, the day that Matt's (very Italian) family makes tomato sauce for the year ahead. I think I'm the only person that actually enjoys Tomato Sauce Day, probably because it always ends up with everyone in the pool after a long day's work, but mostly because my family is quite small and I always enjoy the big family affairs of Matt's huge family.

So here's a glimpse into how a traditional Italian family makes tomato sauce...

Step 0. Wash the Tomatoes
We washed the 20 crates of tomatoes on Saturday ready for the actual making of the sauce on Sunday. This is the boring part and your fingers always get all wrinkly by the end of it ewww.

Step 1. Cut the Tomatoes
I should mention that everyone always plans to get up at like 5am and get started, but no one is ever that organised on a Sunday morning, so we actually started cutting at about 8am. Me and Matt got there early, but a few people arrived later on (shame shame shame) . I got a photo of the driveway at about 11am, and about 3 more cars arrived after that!

We cut them up in quarters and get the core out. Everyone has their own technique for getting the core out (and everyone thinks theirs is the best way, but I KNOW my way is the best). Notice that everyone's wearing gloves so that our hands don't turn red just yet - there'll be plenty of that later on.



Step 2. Boil the Tomatoes
We put the tomatoes in material bags, and boil them in a big pot to cook them and soften them up. This is what the dad's usually do, and everyone doing it usually gets burnt some way or another.



Step 3. Run them through the Machine
The boiled tomatoes are all run through this crazy contraption that has one "in" pipe for the tomatoes, and two "out" pipes - one for the sauce and one for the scraps. The scraps are run through a couple of times to get all the juice out. I love doing this part, but all the steam coming out of it means that your pores get filled with sauce - which is not a good place for sauce to be.



Step 4. Put the sauce in a Big Bucket
All the sauce that comes from the machine goes in a big bucket ready for the bottles. We have to stir the bucket occasionally to keep the consistency constant otherwise the bottom gets all chunky.



Step 5. Fill up the Bottles
We fill up all the old beer bottles with the sauce, leaving enough space so that the bottles don't explode on the shelf. This part takes skill and you can usually figure out how much to put in the pot so that you can fill the bottle to the right place all in one hit. When filling starts sauce pretty much goes EVERYWHERE including in your shoes, in your hair, on the dog, on the ceiling etc etc.



Step 6. Close 'em Up
Putting the lids on is the worst job and I'm really bad at it - I usually just stick to other stuff. That's Chloe (Matt's brother's girlfriend) putting the tops on.



Step 7. Boil the Bottles
All the bottles go back into the pots and are boiled to sterilise and seal them.



Step 8. Pack the Bottles up
After they're all boiled, the bottles are split up between everyone, and the sauce is ready to go. But of course nobody actually feels like pasta after spending a day pretty much soaked in the stuff.




Step 9. Bury the Evidence in the Back Yard
All the scraps then get burried in the back yard in a big hole. You can't really see how deep the hole is but there's a lotttaaaa tomataa in there.



So that's it! After we finished me and Elissa (Matt's little sister) were the only ones who braved the icy cold pool, but I think I would have gone in no matter what. And I can tell you that the shower after sauce day is the BEST shower you'll ever have in your life.

Look What Matt Did!

Matt's been busy working in secret on a dashboard widget for the Mac. It started when we wanted to know when Lost was coming back, and got sick of continuously checking. Matt came up with this handy solution, take a look! I'm so proud :)

Adventures at Google Sydney!

This is kind of a long story, but here's what happened to me last year that ended up with a weekend in Sydney and at the Google Sydney office...



The university always sends out emails about the various scholarships that are out and about, but I never apply since I'm rarely a candidate. Last year, I got an email about a scholarship being offered by Google, and thought I'd give it a go! It was the (official name) "Google Australia Anita Borg Scholarship", and it's the first time the scholarship was run in Australia, so I'd never heard about it before. It's for women in technical fields, and commemorates the name of Anita Borg who was a pioneer for women in engineering.

So... I applied! The application process involved writing 3 essays to some interesting questions, and a proposal for a technical project. So I sent my application in, feeling I'd done a good job, but not really expecting to hear anything. Amazingly, I was contacted by email by the scholarship coordinator telling me that I'd been short listed as one of the 12 finalists and needed to do a couple of phone interviews to see if I would be awarded the scholarship!

The phone interviews were really fun. I was interviewed by two Google Girls, Alice from the Sydney office, and Maricia from America. The questions weren't technical, but I think more to just have a chat and find out a little about the finalists. I was a bit nervous at first but the interviews were really fun, and we ended up just chatting after the 30 minutes alloted for the interview questions.

I was shortly telephoned by one of the coordinators to let me know that I didn't receive the actual scholarship, but that Google was so impressed with the level of the applicants, that they were awarding $1000 to each of the finalists, while the two actual recipients each were awarded $5000. I remember being disappointed, shocked, and excited all at the same time! Although it was mostly shock since nothing like this usually happens to me.

Google was organising a retreat for all the finalists to meet in Sydney, get to know each other, have a tour of the Google office, and talk to some important people. I replied saying that I couldn't go; being a student means that going to Sydney for a weekend isn't exactly on my things-I-can-afford list. I got an email back saying that the coordinators would organise my flight and accomodation if I could make it. So I decided to contact the head of school at Computer Science UWA for some financial help, and he said he'd gladly help me get over there. What I misunderstood was that Google planned to ACTUALLY PAY for the whole trip! Flight, accomodation, food, fun, AHHH! So my adventures began...

This was officially the first time I'd done anything completely on my own, so saying goodbye to my family before I got on the plane was terrifying. I felt so lonely and scared! It didn't help that once I got on the plane it took bloody 3h to get off the ground due to some lady's llamas having to be repeatedly put on and then taken off the plane for some reason. When I landed, I had a driver waiting for me at the airport with my name on a little plaque like in the movies. It was really bizarre. The car was this awesome BMW that took me straight to the Hilton where I left my stuff as I explored Sydney.

I couldn't check in until 11am, and I'd arrived at 7.30am, so I thought I'd be a tourist and see the sights (on my own, like a loser haha). It was fun to go around and explore on my own, it made it all feel like a fairytale, and the cloudy weather made it feel even more like a dream. Sydney really felt like Perth, but bigger. It was like every street was Hay street, and people just seemed more dressed up and busier than here. And the shopping is HEAPS better (Queen Victoria building is awesome). So after a bit of exploring, I went back to the hotel for a nap.



The hotel room was really nice, and I was actually sharing with another finalist. I thought I'd be able to get in a quick nap before she arrived, but about 1h after I was comfortably dozing in my pj's, Layla, my room mate arrived! How embarrassing. I was actually worried my room mate would be weird or something, but Layla was great and we ended up being great friends.

That night was an open house at the Google Sydney office. After some snacks and cocktails at the bar at the Hilton, all the girls headed down to the office. One thing I should mention was that everyone was really... normal! Like many other people, I had this idea that girl + computer science (probably) = strange. But that was seriously not the case, and the group was really awesome. The whole night was pretty surreal, since I was still getting over the fact that I was in Sydney, at Google, on my own, plus I was still jet lagged.

When we got back to the hotel, me and Layla pretty much went straight to sleep - we were exhausted. But at about midnight, ok this is strange, my arms started tingling and I felt really short of breath! After trying to fall back asleep and not being able to, I woke up Layla and asked her if I should call the doctor or something. She realised that SHE felt sick too! We realised that it was EXTREMELY stuffy in the room, and that the aircon was stuffed, and since we were on the 37th floor, there were no windows, so we had been breathing the same air the whole day. After we called someone up to fix it, we started feeling better and got a good night sleep for the long day ahead.

The next day was spent at the Google office. The day was split up into various activities like listening to some lectures by some of the important people at Google, getting to know the other finalists, and splitting up into undergrad/postgrad groups and getting some advice about our careers. I found this last part particularly useful, since we got an insight about how some of the engineers ended up at Google by following really different paths.

The whole day was really interesting, but it flew by really quickly and so I didn't get to ask as many questions and find out as much about Google as I would have liked. I did find out a lot about the way Google works in terms of development, like people can choose what they want to work on, as long as it's a high priority project, and everyone has one day a week to work on whatever project they like. People are encouraged to do what they're passionate about, and work on ideas that they think are worthwhile, which I think a really good ideology to follow.

OH and the Google Sydney office is AWESOME. The place where the programmers work is really open planned to encourage people to work together a lot. Everyone has two 19inch LCD's and lots of desk space. There's no vending machines - only fridges with free drinks in them (Nudie juices yummm). There's a lunch room, with a smorgass board of freshly cooked food every lunch time, with a pool table and massage chair. They sure know how to keep the workers happy!

The retreat was coming to an end, and to finish it all off, we went on a cruise of the Sydney Harbour at dusk. It was a short weekend but we'd all made really good friends so it really felt sad to be celebrating our last night. We had a group breakfast the next morning, said our goodbyes, and each headed off. Me, Layla, and Dana explored Sydney until we each had to leave.

So it was off to Perth again after a fantastic adventure in Sydney. The reason I'm posting this now is because I'm getting the $1000 soon, so the Computer Science dpt at UWA has just realised I was a finalist (I am now officially famous). On Friday a local paper is coming by to take a photo for an article, so that'll be nice and embarrassing! Also, Google has been in touch since they want to start a relationship with the uni, which will be really great for UWA, so I've offered to be an ambassador for anything they want to do. I'll keep you updated on what's happening.

By the way, if you're wondering what I'm gonna do with the money, it's going toward a MacBook so I can finally get rid of my PC :)

So that's my adventures at Google Sydney! Hopefully there'll be more adventures there in the future... when I finish my degree... and need a place to work... *wink wink*

Last Day *sniff* At Nautronix *sniff*

Last Friday was my last day at Nautronix! I decided to take a week off before I go back to uni to get everything organised, and get my sleeping patterns all back in check. I was looking forward to this week off, but I really had a great time at Nautronix so I'm sad that my vacation work is over for another year.

Just a little bit of background info...

I worked at Nautronix as a software engineer, and so I was mainly writing code. Last time I worked there I was working on an acoustic simulator that was helpful to the company, but not exactly a product. This time I was writing code that is embedded on devices that sit on the bottom of the ocean... Scary!

Nautronix deals with underwater acoustics and all sorts of projects that derive from this. There's many sub projects, and I worked on two of these during my time there. I also developed a set of wiki pages to help new people ease into working at Nautronix, since going from uni to a company is a gigantic learning curve, (or rather, a learning cliff of death if you get overwhelmed!).

The last day...

My last day was also the last day of James (another vacation student) and Ryan (an engineer leaving to Aberdeen for a while), so everyone went out to lunch at Sandrino's in Freo to celebrate. I think almost everyone got the number 10 pizza, which would have to be my favourite meal in any restaurant in all of Freo.

It was really sad to leave! There's a lot of people that taught me A LOT, and I just learned so much, that I feel like I'd rather stay there and get more educated than I do at uni! It's not every day that you're surrounded by people who are all smarter than you, and when that happens you just need to be a sponge and get as much advice/info/suggestions/mentoring as possible.

I'll also miss the culture. I guess it's because Freo is a walk away, and the fact that the beach is so near by, that people are just so relaxed. People generally walk to get lunch, even if its just to get some fresh salt air. Oh I just remembered I didn't write about my yacht adventure! Side tracking...

When one of the projects was coming to an end, Mark took us out for a twilight sail on his yacht! How exciting. I'd never been on a yacht, and I actually didn't KNOW what a yacht was. It was really great, but not what I expected. I envisioned relaxing on still water with cocktails, but because it was windy, it was quite a rough sail, and there's no time for cocktails when you're holding on for dear life! When the yacht turned, the side of the yacht was actually in the water! It was awesome though and although I feel quite useless at actually doing anything, I'll quite happily be a passenger again. Anyway enough about that...

Oh OK there's this really strange thing... There's this plaque that is passed around from cubicle to cubicle, and you sort of pass it on after you've had it for a while. Paul, one of the engineers, bought it at a garage sale, and it's been at Nautronix since then. I myself had it the last day I was there, and passed it on to Alistair, an engineer who started the same time I did. It's this small plaque of a bizarre red dragon, with an interesting message on the back. Joshua... if you are out there... please tell us the origins of the Dragon Plaque!



So that's that!

The summer went really quick, and I'm already busy getting stuff organised for uni. I've already found out that I need to change my enrollment, so that's a good start to the semester :( Oh well, I'm planning to go back as a vac student again next year, so hopefully that all works out. So to all the Nautronix people - thanks for always taking time to help me out, and thanks for everything you've taught me - you'll all be missed!

Valentine's Day Picnic

Valentine's day is one of those occasions where you KNOW that it only exists to money off poor young lovers, but you just can't help celebrating it anyway. We decided that we couldn't be bothered doing the usual restaurant dinner (along with all the other millions of couples), so we had a nice relaxing Valentine's day picnic at a gazebo by Emu Lake near my house.

We didn't quite know what to expect with that gazebo, and we were half expecting it to be taken, but we got there just in time! About 5 minutes after we sat down, another couple arrived looking expectantly at the gazebo (yessss we got it first). We made a picnic dinner that we had to earn by fighting off the bull ants who were finding their way through the tightest cling wrap (how the hell do they get in there?).

So it looks like we'll be doing that from now on! I'd definitely choose a quite, scenic picnic by the lake over a packed, loud, bustling restaurant any time!

I was in a Car Accident! (Well, kind of anyway)

Monday was a really really long day. I'd been at work since 7.45am and was in the process of moving onto a new project. I'd finished a little section of my new task at around 4.30pm, so I decided to leave then instead of starting a new section when it was so close to home time.

I'd just left the office and was looking forward to a speedy drive home (in my 1985 190E Mercedes pictured there) since I'd be avoiding the 5.00 peak hour traffic. Still in the heart of fremantle, I was waiting, stopped at the South St/South Tce intersection lights, just outside of the Shell petrol station there. All of a sudden, something hits me hard from behind! The next thing I know, all the stuff on my passenger seat has gone flying onto the floor, and my mirror is wonked completely off it's mount.

Out of instinct, the first thing I do is adjust my mirror so I can see out of my back window. Looking in the rear view mirror I see a white car that is extremely close to the back of my car. So close, in fact, that it was an impossible view unless that car was partially inside of my car, which was pretty much what had happened.

I finally clicked and realised what had happened, so I drove into the petrol station which was conveniently right next to me. When I looked back to make sure that the other car was following me, I saw something that scared me a little - the front of the other car was completely smashed up! I immediately came to the conclusion that if his car was that bad, my car must be completely smashed up as well. Now my car may be old, but I love it and my heart sank at the thought of it being hurt.

After I parked in a space at the petrol station, I got out to meet the other car's driver and make sure they were OK. The driver was a young guy named Matt, probably my age, who was actually quite shaken up! He was a really nice guy, and was asking if I was OK and all, but he was obviously stressing out. He was fully ensured so there was nothing to worry about at all, but I guess he was just a bit shocked after the hit. These things happen, so I guess you just have to shrug it off instead of getting worked up. I wasn't angry at all, so hopefully this helped him feel a bit better. We both seemed fine so it was time to check out the cars...

I step around to the back of my car to find... that it was... COMPLETELY... FINE!!!?! Seriously.... FINE! Weeelllll... the bumper had some scratches on it, and we need to get it checked out to make sure that none of the panels have moved, but I can't tell you the relief (and surprise!) when I saw my boot perfectly in tact where I expected a wreck! Lucky I wasn't driving my old car (an old Barina) otherwise the outcome may have been quite different (I'd probably be in hospital right now).

Matt's car, on the other hand, was much (much) worse off. You'd think my bumper took out a bat and smashed up his bonnet when it saw his car get too close! The lights were broken, and the bonnet was all curled up and crumpled. But it still drove, so at least the motor still ran. Also, the doors still opened so the panels couldn't have moved back too much. In the end the insurance will take care of it anyway, so it's really just the hassle of waiting for the repairs.

So me and Matt checked out our cars some more, and exchanged contact details. He still seemed pretty shaken up, so I offered to go get him a drink, but he said he was OK and was just going to call a friend to pick him up. I felt kinda bad just leaving, but he seemed OK, and was already on the phone to his friend as I pulled out of the petrol station.

So that's my first accident! (If you can call it that).