Brisbane Floods

As everyone knows, Queensland was hit by terrible floods that damaged many houses and infrastructure as well as disrupting lives around the region. Although much sorrow has come from this natural disaster, my work has become quite interesting as I'm now working on repairing flood damaged buildings as part of my vacation work with Bovis Lend Lease. I finish up at Bovis this week and am looking forward to an exciting semester at uni.

On a side note, my room mate from my exchange to the USA is studying at UQ this semester. I've been helping her get around with the little English she knows.

Vac Work

I've been busy these holidays doing vac work at Bovis Lend Lease in Brisbane. I'm part of a team that is calling for expressions of interest and putting to tender the preliminary infrastructure stage of a large scale 15 year staged redevelopment project. I've been having a great time learning about subcontractors, tenders and how much a steel Brisbane City Council rubbish bin costs. I've met some other undergraduates and recent graduates who also work there and it's a fun work environment.

I've just returned from Sydney, where I spent Christmas with family. While there we went to Luna Park and took my 3 cousins aged 4, 6 and 8 on various rides including the 'Wild Mouse' and Coney Island. The wild mouse is a gravity-fed roller coaster which is almost 50 years old. Coney Island was constructed in 1935 when Luna Park was first opened and hasn't changed much since. It's a 'funhouse' and has lots of old rides like giant slides, rotating barrels you walk through and moving platforms you walk across. It's great to see that these rides have been preserved!

"Death Ray"

A friend of mine recently told me about the Vdara Hotel, a concave glass building in Las Vegas which was accidentally desgned to focus light into a hot spot, or 'death ray' as peole are calling it. The sun refects off the glass building and is focused onto hotel guests on the pool deck below. This spot on the pool deck is so hot it has burned hair and melted plastic. Work is currently in progress to fix the problem, however to complicate matters, the hot spot moves throughout the day depending on the location of the sun. Unfortunately I didn't see this building when I was in Vegas, I'll need to go back to check it out.

Last night I volunteered at the MS QLD Moonlight Walk, which is a 10km fundraising walk through Southbank, Kangaroo Point and the Botanical Gardens held every year. It was a great night with people of all ages involved, and some participants even dressing up for the occassion.

With exams starting 2 weeks from today, I'd better get back to studying. I also have a massive group assignment due on Friday where we are designing a steel portal frame building. It's an interesting assignment but I need to do a lot more work on it!

Engineering>Law

Life has been pretty hectic lately. Last week I had a mid semester exam and a 50 page group assignment due and then today I had another mid semester exam. But on the upside, last weekend was the engineering ball which was held at the convention centre. It was an awesome night...much better than the law ball - engineers clearly throw better parties

On Friday night I volunteered for MS QLD collecting donations at the Valley Fiesta. There was a lot of support for MS and the funds we raised will go towards finding a cure and supporting those with MS.

Lately I have been playing squash with friends on weekends which has resulted in extreme muscle soreness. At least I'm improving...I can now hit the ball off my backhand side. Sometimes.

Careers in Engineering Evening

This Thursday (19 August) is the Careers in Engineering Evening at UQ. It's a chance for high school students to meet industry representatives and current university students and get a real idea of what it's like to study and work as an engineer. If there are any high school students reading this, I'd highly recommend coming along. It kicks off at 5:30pm and should be over by 8pm and is held in the Hawken Engineering Building.

There is also an afternoon session for current UQ engineering students to network with industry representatives...and maybe even line up vacation work. It runs from 3-5:30pm and is also in Hawken Building

Women in hard hats

I just watched a video about women taking on non traditional roles, such as in mining and engineering:

http://www.women.qld.gov.au/hardhats/resources/downloads/index.html#movie

I think that videos like this one are really useful in letting young girls know what opportunities are out there. When I was in grade 11 at high school I went on the Australian Student Mineral Venture (ASMV). It's basically a trip for students in grades 10, 11 and 12 where you learn more about careers and opportunities in the minerals industry. I went on the Northern Region trip which was based in Townsville and we visited refineries, smelters and mines in the region. It was a real eye-opener for me because before the trip my idea of a mine was based on Tonka Trucks and the movie Zoolander:

It was also a really fun holiday because I met lots of other high school students from all over Queensland as well as 'mentors' who were mostly mining engineering students. I would highly recommend going on an ASMV trip if you have the opportunity.

For me, the idea of being a girl in a predominantly male field has never really bothered me. Maybe it's that by having 2 brothers I'm used to hanging out with guys, or maybe it's just that I'm not very observant, but I often don't notice that I'm surrounded by boys in my lectures. Not long ago one of my friends pointed out to me that I was the only girl in my tutorial of 30 people - I hadn't even realised. But that's not to say that I wouldn't love to be in an engineering lecture filled entirely with girls!

I don't think that I've had any bad experiences being a female in engineering. In fact if anything, in my experience I think that instead of being discriminated against, girls are almost given an advantage in engineering. I'm all for encouraging more girls to do engineering but I am opposed to having awards for the best female engineer. I don't see why there can't be an award for the best engineer and if a female happens to be the best candidate then she should get the award. Likewise I hate it if I am offered a job because I'm a girl. At a careers fair I was talking to a representative from a company who said that they would love to take me on as a vac work student because I'm a girl and implied that they wanted to boost their female staff numbers. I politely declined her offer. This annoyed me because although I know it's meant to help out females, I would rather get a job based on my merits and because I am the best person for the job.

I think that one of the best ways to encourage more girls into engineering and other non-traditional roles is to make the workplaces more female friendly. Although I've never felt discriminated against I'm sure there are women who have been. Workplaces need to have more flexible work hours and be willing to allow women to take leave when necessary. There are also some great support networks outside of employers. I've found that organisations such as Women in Mining and Resources Queensland (WIMARQ) provide fantastic networking events and talks. There are also some fantastic female role models out there and by encouraging more girls into engineering, the number of role models is only going to increase.

At the moment at UQ the proportion of females in engineering sits at around 20%. This is an improvement on past years and it's definitely heading in the right direction, but I think there's still a way to go.

Back into uni life

After going on exchange my subjects are a little mixed up, so this semester I have 2 elective courses. I haven't done the prerequisite courses for the 4th year civil electives which are run in semester 2 so I'm doing 2 business related electives: financial management and business law. So far they're really interesting and provide a nice change from civil engineering subjects. It also means that I only have 3 days at uni which allows me to work 2 days per week at Golder Associates. My civil engineering subjects are structural design and catchment hydraulics and open channel flow. For the structural design subject we have 3 projects where we need to design something based on what we've learned in previous subjects. For the first assignment we need to design a sound barrier to go alongside a highway, which are actually a lot harder to design than you might think

Vac Work

I've been back at Golder Associates for 2 days now and am really enjoying it! I've been mainly using Excel to create spreadsheets, but at the end of this week I'll be using a program called Slope/W to analyse failure planes in soil embankments.

On Friday night I'm going to the UQ Engineering Alumni Celebration Dinner at Customs House as part of the university's centenary celebrations. It'll be a great way to meet some of UQ's senior engineering alumni and hear about which paths they've taken to get to where they are today. A nice way to end the week!

Back home in Brisbane

I arrived back in Brisbane on the weekend and have almost adjusted to the time change. It's nice to have internet again and I can finally update my blog. My exchange to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass) only lasted a semester, but I can honestly say that it was the most exciting and rewarding semester I've had so far. I learned so much from living and studying in another country. In many ways, my time on exchange was like something out of a stereotypical teen movie: having a room mate, red cups (yes those actually exist), frat parties, hot dogs and sodas, jocks and cheerleaders, beer pong, taco bell and shopping at the mall. I also experiences a different teaching style: the class sizes were much smaller compared to UQ and a lot of the assessment was weighted towards weekly 'homework' rather than one final exam. But the most memorable times were the ones I spent with friends, whether it was going bowling, hanging out at the DC (dining common) or just watching TV together. I made some amazing friends at UMass and it really doesn't matter where you go on exchange, it's about the people you meet. I cannot recommend going on exchange enough, despite the huge amount of effort it takes to organise I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

After my semester at UMass I spent about 5 weeks travelling around the USA. I started in Boston, then I headed up to Niagara Falls, Toronto and the Thousand Islands, followed by New York City and then a week long camping tour around Florida which went through Orlando, the Everglades, Key West and Miami. Then I flew to San Francisco followed by Las Vegas and a 10 day camping adventure of the canyons and national parks in Arizona, Utah and Nevada. I visited the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. I spent my last few days in Los Angeles. I have so many photos from the trip, unfortunately there's no way to put them all here. However I've picked out a few of my favourites...

Castle in the Thousand Islands

Clearwater Beach, FL...literally had very clear water

Southernmost point of the continental USA, Key West FL

Giants baseball game in San Francisco...it went on for about 6 hours

The beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

'Painted Ladies', San Francisco

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

View from the Navajo Native American Village in Monument Valley

Forrest Gump scene, Monument Valley

Grand Canyon, this photo doesn't do it justice

Horseshoe Bend

Double Arch in Arches National Park, it was worth the hike

The incredible 'Hoodoos' in Bryce Canyon

One of my new favourite buildings: Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

I start vacation work again with Golder Associates at Toowong in Brisbane either at the end of this week or the beginning of next week. I'll be working in the Civil Design Group again and can't wait to get back into it!

Photos!

Just a few pictures of Niagara Falls, which was incredible! There are actually 3 falls, the American Falls, the Bridal Veil Falls and the Horseshoe falls. Due to erosion by the flowing water, the Horseshoe falls have moved 7 miles in 12, 500 years. The rate of erosion has been decreased in recent years to about 1 foot per year because the hydroelectric plant now diverts some of the water.

And an interesting supermarket in Syracuse, upstate New York:

Travels

It's been a while since my last blog post due to the lack of internet access. Unfortunately I can't post any photos at the moment because the internet connection is very slow here, however I'll be sure to post some when I find a better connection.

After finishing my exams at UMass and saying some sad goodbyes, I left to go to New York City. From there I visited Niagara Falls, Toronto and the Thousand Islands. I then spent almost a week in New York City and then flew to Orlando to start a camping tour of Florida. I'm currently in Key West, the Southern tip of Florida. Next week I'm spending a few days in Miami and then flying to San Francisco. I'm then going to Las Vegas and doing an another camping tour through the Grand Canyon and the national parks in that area. I'll try to keep the blog up to date whenever I have internet!

Hiking Mt Holyoke

Yesterday I went hiking up Mt Holyoke which is about 20 minutes from UMass. It was a fairly easy hike to the summit where we had a view of the surrounding towns, including the UMass campus.

View of UMass from the summit

More of Boston

Only a few weeks until the end of semester, I can't believe how quickly this semester has gone! Once the semester has finished, I'm travelling around the USA for about 5-6 weeks. I've booked an adventure tour of the Grand Canyon and the national parks in Utah, Arizona and Nevada and am planning on visiting New York City, Washington DC, New Orleans, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I can't wait!

I spent the weekend at my room mate's house in Boston. On Friday night we saw a performance by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre which was fantastic! On Monday we watched part of the marathon - the whole city lines the streets to cheer on the runners and little kids hold out sliced oranges and cups of water as people run past. We also went to Cambridge where we walked around Harvard and saw a comedy show.

Whitewater rafting

Yesterday I went whitewater rafting with the UMass Outing Club on the Millers River, which is about half an hour drive from campus. The water was only a few degrees above freezing so I'm glad I didn't fall in!

With only a few weeks left before the end of semester, the work load is getting a bit crazy. I have 2 exams, 3 assignments and a lab report due this week! There is something to look forward to though - next weekend is a long weekend so I'm going to Boston with my room mate.

Canada Baby!

I just got back from an amazing week of skiing and snowboarding at Mt Tremblant in Canada. The snow was melting a little as it was 14 degrees Celcius on the slopes but we still managed to get some good runs in. Funny story: as soon as we got across the border we stopped at a supermarket and my room mate she would buy about 1 pound of turkey. She then proceeded to do the conversion from pounds to kg backwards (Canada uses the metric system), so instead of buying approximately 0.5kg she bought 4kg of turkey! Needless to say I am a little sick of turkey. Other than lots of turkey, highlights of the trip included going to an Irish Pub on St Patrick's Day, snow tubing and cooking 2 minute noodles in a coffee pot because we didn't have a stove top. The only downside is that now I'm back at uni I keep wishing I was on the slopes instead of doing a fluid mechanics assignment...

Snow tubing!

View from the gondola

Noodles + coffee pot = resourceful

Mini shopping trolley! The turkey didn't fit.

COUNTDOWN TO SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!

With only 2 weeks until spring break, all of my lecturers seem to have decided they need to have a million items of assessment. At least there is spring break to look forward to! My room mate and I are heading to Mt Tremblant, near Montreal in Canada, to go skiing with the UMass Ski and Board Club. I can't wait! In the mean time I really need to finish that fluid mechanics lab report...

Just a few more photos, the photo below is of the UMass campus. The building in the middle in the foreground is a fraternity and the tall buildings in the background are where I live on campus.

I swear I didn't fall over!

Long weekend in Boston

This weekend was a long weekend so I visited Boston with my room mate. It's a beautiful city :)

Here are a few photos:

Frozen lake in Boston Common:

Freedom Trail:

More Boston Common:

Cultural highlight: Dunkin Donuts

Snow Day = best idea ever

Here at UMass they have come up with a brilliant concept: SNOW DAYS. Basically under 'extreme weather' circumstances they cancel classes and close the university. The rationale behind this is that many people live off campus and need to drive to get to uni, so if there is a lot of snow they won't be able to get here. So today is a snow day. I think UQ should adopt this idea for 'Storm Days' or 'Hail Days'.

The hockey game I went to on Saturday was a bit of a disappointment, UMass lost 7-1. Here are a few photos from the game:

Waiting in line in the freezing cold before the game:

WEEKEND!!!

Tonight I'm going to another ice hockey game which is sure to be even crazier than the last because UMass is fighting for 2nd place!

Then tomorrow I'm going ice skating at the rink on campus (yes, there is an ice skating rink on campus). And at some point I'll need to find the time to do the 2 lab reports and 3 assignments which are due next week...

Should be an interesting weekend

Australia Day

It's now my second week at UMass and I'm having an awesome time. My room mate and I dressed up for Australia Day and gave out tattoos for people to wear. As you can see, we went a bit over the top...

I went to an ice hockey game on the weekend which was fantastic! All of the students here really get behind the UMass sports teams so the ice hockey centre was packed to capacity. UMass defeated Vermont 3-1 so everyone was particularly enthusiastic.

My classes are all going well so far. I've found that the focus here is more on assignments and projects as opposed to in Australia where the final exams are heavily weighted. The final exams here are around 20-25% of my overall mark whereas at UQ my finals can be anything up to 65%. This means I have quite a few assignments to do at the moment, but hopefully the final exam period won't be too stressful!

UMass

Some USA lingo for y'all:
soft drink is soda
gum boots are rain boots
rubbish is trash
biscuits are cookies
timetable is schedule
jumpers are sweaters
metric units are ANNOYING IMPERIAL UNITS!!!!

What a crazy week! I arrived (completely exhausted) in New York City on Wednesday night last week after a 30 hour trip. Bag weight: 19.5kg
I spent the first 2 days catching up on sleep, adjusting to the cold and buying warm clothes. On the third day I went to Central Park and China Town and then had to pack everything up again for the 5 hour bus ride to UMass at Amherst. Bag weight: 25kg! So maybe I bought a bit too much at the shops...
Although I only saw a fraction of New York, I'll be returning there later in the semester to check it out properly.

I arrived at UMass Amherst on Sunday afternoon and met my room mate, Catheline, who is lovely! My residence hall (what we call a college in Australia) is 21 floors high and I'm on the 7th floor. I met 2 other Australians who are studying here for the semester but they're not studying engineering. The food here is amazing - it is actually like Sizzler every day except healthier and with more variety. There's sushi, pizza, salads, stir fry, soft serve, waffles, fresh fruit, pasta, hamburgers, soups, bagels, omelettes, sandwiches and lots more. Everyone is really friendly too - especially when I say I'm from Australia.

Classes started yesterday and a major difference is that the class sizes are much smaller than at UQ. At UQ, most of my subjects have 100-200 people whereas here there are only about 30-50 people. This means that they are taught in a classroom instead of a big lecture hall. According to the people I've met in my classes, the subjects I'm taking are quite challenging, so it looks like I'm in for an interesting semester!

Here are some photos from New York and UMass including Central Park (first picture), Times Square (fourth picture), my residence hall (third last picture) and the library at UMass (last picture)

Hello 2010!

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the festive season!

I've been flat out since uni finished working five days a week at Golder. Vac work is going great and I'm learning a lot, especially about the Queensland Gas Company (QGC) ponds located in the area around Chinchilla. QGC mine the coal seam gas (CSG) from the Surat Basin in South Western Queensland. CSG is a natural gas mostly made up of methane and is extracted through wells. However when the gas comes out, lots of pressurised water flows out of the well. This is where the ponds come in, and Golder who design the ponds. At the moment the water is left to evaporate in these ponds because it is not suitable for any other use. However there are investigations underway into treating this water. Strangely, I've also learnt a great deal about meerkats. Meerkats practise interdependent safety, where everyone looks out for each other, which is what Golder encourages in the workplace. They're also very cute, but I think that's beside the point...



I finish my summer holiday work with Golder this week as I have been accepted to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, to undertake a semester of study abroad. I only mention this now because up until recently I was still organising subjects, housing and my visa and wasn't certain if the trip would eventuate. But now it's all sorted and I'm definitely going - I fly out on the 13th of January and start uni on the 19th of January! I'll be studying 4 engineering subjects: soil mechanics, fluid mechanics, transport engineering and waste water systems, as well as 1 astronomy subject which should be interesting haha. I've organised it all through UQ Abroad and despite the amount of time and effort I've put into planning it, I'd strongly recommend it to anyone as it's a great opportunity to study and live in a different country. I get credit for all of the engineering subjects as though I was studying them at UQ, so it doesn't add any time to my degree. I'll be living on campus and I'll have a room mate. I'll keep you posted via this blog on whether those American teen movies are an accurate portrayal of uni life.

MS Moonlight Walk

Only 1 exam left so by about 8pm tonight I will have finished uni for another year! I can't believe I'm halfway through uni and how quickly it has gone, it seems like only yesterday I was sitting in the first year learning centre trying to understand thermodynamics.

Last week I volunteered at the MS Moonlight Walk which raised almost $80000 for people living with MS. There were quite a few colourful characters, one group being the 'Stormtroopers':



Better get back to studying for this last exam!

Civil Engineering Ball

On Thursday night I went to the CESA (civil engineering student association) and PSA (psychology student association) ball. The logic behind this seemingly strange combination is that civil engineering has lots of boys and psychology has lots of girls, so there's more of a gender balance if you put the 2 together. For any high school kids, uni isn't all work - almost every student organisation hosts a ball or a cocktail party so there's always something fun to look forward to. The photo is of one of me and one of my few female civil engineering friends (it was a masquerade ball by the way, so you don't think I'm a freak for wearing a mask)

SWOTVAC, Boeing and emus

It's SWOTVAC already! I'm not quite in panic mode yet but rest assured I will be by this time next week. 3 exams in 3 days, oh how I love exam block!

About 2 weeks ago I went to the Inaugural EAIT (Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology) Scholarship Student Seminar, which is basically just a long way of saying a dinner which was held at Custom's House for UQ scholarship holders. We heard from Mr John Duddy, Managing Director of Boeing Defence Australia, and were able to 'mingle' with other Boeing representatives, lecturers and fellow scholarship holders. It was a great night and hopefully the EAIT faculty will host another one in the future.

I forgot to post photos of the family road trip. I don't have any exciting ones to post other than this one I took of an emu family we saw out near Mitchell (which is a bit further west of Roma):