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

Google Sydney 2007

I had a fantastic adventure at Google Sydney for the 2007 Anita Borg Scholarship this past week, but now unfortunately it's back to reality. I was a finalist again this year, and the winner, Tracy, is from Perth UWA, so it's great to have a Perth girl on the winner's list!

The actual retreat involved spending lots of time at the Google Sydney office, listening to talks, chatting with engineers, and generally meeting a lot of smart people. It was also really fun to meet up with people from last year's retreat! I especially enjoyed the talk given by Robin, which involved the story of how she got to where she was today, and was very inspirational. There were also some "break out sessions" where the finalists were split up into small groups to talk about issues concerning women in computer science, and it was interesting to hear about everyone's experiences of how they ended up in this discipline.

Google pretty much took care of everything, and spoiled us thoroughly with hotel rooms in the Hilton, snacks provided every hour, dinner on the warf, and a cruise of the harbour. Plus I've made some friends for life from all over Australia, which is priceless given that the engineering and technical community is so tight here.

We also had a lot of spare time, which I mostly spent with Tracy, Dana, and Liz wandering about Sydney, shopping and the like. We also did the touristy stuff like going up the Sydney Tower and taking lots of photos of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. On the last day of our trip, Tracy and I went to Taronga Zoo which was voted to be the best zoo in the world a few years ago, and it really was fantastic. The position makes it much more than a zoo, with breathtaking views of the harbour from the chairlift and lookouts throughout. The highlight for me was definitely the giraffes and the tigers, and I'd highly recommend that everyone who goes to Sydney should spend a day there.

So the moral of the story is - APPLY FOR THE SCHOLARSHIP! Going to the finalist retreat at the Google office is a really great experience, so give it a shot girls :)

IKEA Wonderland

Had a very productive day today - shopping wise, not uni wise of course. Matt and I decided to take a trip down to IKEA to see what they had to offer by way of coffee tables and TV stands. We found two perfect pieces among a mostly crappy assortment of furniture, but that's always the way with budget furniture stores.

1. LACK Coffee Table: $49

2. LACK Shelving Unit: $119

3. Enjoying our new dining room: priceless.

OK so it's not priceless - it actually cost $168, but it's great to finally have some non-hand-me-down furniture of our own!

We also took a trip next door to Freedom and Furniture Bazaar, which are both slightly more pricey (but higher quality) establishments than IKEA. We definitely saw a few things to aspire to, but since a simple coffee table can cost over $400 we may put it off for a few years yet!

Matt's New and Improved Site

Matt's new site design is all done and looking shiny! Check it out for some cool widgets and iPhone apps :)

Busy Time

Well it's coming up to the end of semester and boy is there a lot to do! I don't think I've ever had so much stuff due all at once, and considering that Electromag Theory is one of my units, even the simplest* things take me days to finish.

I'm also sorting out my final year project for next year, and it looks about 99% sure that I'll be doing a CEED project with Nautronix (the company I've been doing vacation work for). It turns out that the engineering manager at Nautronix actually did a research project with my supervisor from uni so it looks like the project will go smoothly in terms of everyone getting along!

This weekend I also need to pack for Sydney for the Google retreat next week. I can't wait, but I'll be missing an important lab and also skipping out on my group assignments, so I'm trying heaps done before I leave so I don't feel too guilty. More on that when I get back, yay!

Matt's house is going very well, and I think we've pretty much moved in. We have all the basics; bed, fridge, table, tv, but we're still missing a washing machine so we've been dropping off the washing at mum's (good ol' mum and grandma to the rescue). I'm getting a knack for this cooking business, but given mine and Matt's busy schedule, it's been a chore to keep the fridge filled up with stuff to cook with.

No other major news really, since I've officially had no life since mid semester break. I'm missing the royal show AGAIN this year which is really unfortunate since I've been looking forward to seeing the duck parade again since 2 years ago :( Oh well, next year!

Keep an eye out next week for news on the Google Retreat!

*simple meaning simple to a person with an astrophysics degree

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!