Enjablog

Wow, I can’t believe I’ve neglected my blog for over a month. The end of the semester is in sight though…

I went down to Blacksburg on Thursday for my design presentation, which went fairly well. Met my design team for the first time after working with them for close to a year. We presented on Friday, had lunch with the advisory committee, and came home.

I’d spent the better part of the past week working on our presentation and finalizing assignments that needed to go into the presentation. We’re working on the report now and have that due in a little over a week.

Still to come, a presentation and report for my other class and a kickoff meeting for a study at work that I’m leading.

On the work front, I’ve been getting more interesting work to do and starting to serve as a task lead. Mostly because I almost quit a few weeks ago… which was part of the reason I stopped blogging. Something something unprofessional, etc. Things are better now and a few new people have been hired/started who are closer to the standard that I would expect my company to employ.

I’ve been having all sorts of fun with my professional society’s new website… And by that, I mean “fun.” They have discovered Web 2.0. I have attended one training session and been invited to attend dozens of others. I find their hour-long tutorial on how to upload a single document to be a waste of time. But maybe that’s just me.

In exciting news, I went to see the DC Rollergirls a few weeks ago. And it was a life-changing experience. I had been considering joining since I found out DC was starting a league a few years ago. But then I started grad school instead. And, for some reason, thought I wouldn’t have enough time for both. So… I have put that off until I finish. But I’m almost certainly decided on joining. Or at least trying out. I’m hoping my years of ice skating will translate well to roller skating.

Oh, and batting a thousand… wore my Quark Quark shirt to the roller derby and had someone stop me to ask where I got my shirt from. Happens every time.

On the grad school front, I think I might finish before 2012! I am sold on the idea of doing a thesis. I was hesitant mostly because I didn’t want to defend, but I find my public speaking skills almost completely dependent on my confidence in my work. And if I’ll have worked on something for over a year, I’m going to think I know my stuff. During my group’s design presentation, I found that I was able to answer questions for other people in my group when they were trying to dodge answering, not because I knew more than them, but because I was familiar with what the people on the committee (all people working in industry) were looking for.

In any case, with the thesis option, I’ll be able to continue my studies during semesters when I don’t have other course options. Plus, I came up with a thesis topic last week! And I mentioned it to one of my profs when I was in Blacksburg and she said that was an interesting idea that we could definitely work with. I could still make use of our design project (which was the original idea when I signed up for this course), but is much more interesting to me than studying aluminum.

Other stuff I’ve been up to…
- Volunteered for SeaPerch
- Went to Dahlgren for a couple meetings only to find out one of my friends knocked up his wife
- Also during the trips to Dahlgren, went with TLD to buy a new car
- Hosted a brownbag session at work, “Introduction to MathCAD,” which was received with a surprising amount of enthusiasm
- Later met with some MathCAD employees who were interested in the brownbag session and want to come in to do a follow-up
- Set date and found location for wedding (unfortunately, no moonbounce)