Done and done!

First semester of my Master's finished. Boy does it feel good!

I and many of my fellow students spent an entire day from 9:00-7:00 in a case study competition. What a long day!!!

In the end I thought everything went well and my presentation went well.

Boy am i glad that case competition is over...

Here was my opening slide. I enjoyed it very much.

Stressed out grad students... they're everywhere

So it's been quite some time since my last post, maybe I'll add "attempt to blog more frequently" to my forthcoming (at some point in the future) new year's resolutions.

Anyways I am currently struggling to finish a 20 page paper due tomorrow, and figured it would be a perfect time to blog. Anything to pass the time, and procrastinate a little longer...

I've noticed that a lot of my fellow grad students are quite stressed out, and to be honest I am too, but I don't think i could live like they do. Maybe it's a woman thing (I don't have to be politically correct on here, and all the anecdotal evidence I have collect comes from women, and besides they make up a large substantial majority of the students in my program...)

Maybe these students are taking things more seriously than I am, maybe they cope in different ways. I just find that a lot of my fellow students are busy "freaking out" and I just don't get it. I'm enjoying the ride, and trying hard, and keeping my cool as much as I can.

I can't be bothered to get all worked up, I did that in my undergrad and it didn't end well. Perhaps, It's that sense of perspective I gained through those trying times..

Anyways I'm off now to get that paper done, wish me luck

A world without us

Well I've been busy with school and haven't had much of an opportunity to post on this blog.

However I am compelled to post because I have just finished an interesting book called the world without us by Alan Wiesman. It's an interesting premise, the idea being to explore what would be the legacy of the human race, if everyone disappeared tomorrow. Not through war or through a catastrophic event, but simple vanished.

The scariest chapters for me had to be the one on nuclear reactors, and also the one which describes the inability of nature to break down and biodegrade plastic. Every piece of plastic created by us since the 1950s is still with us. This coupled with the fact that much of it ends up in the oceans is quite disturbing.

Another chapter highlights the chemical complex that produces many of our everyday household products, the oil refinery complex in Houston. This chapter was just plain interesting, the way that different types of fuels and inputs for plastic making are separated and how the refineries are so connected and linked together.

It's definitely worth reading, although towards the end it gets a bit odd, and sticks less to its main theme.