The thing with being an engineering student is that your escapades around the campus start being the ones that entertain everyone else. I mean, only one out of four of my subjects are engineering and already I've got quite a few weird stories to tell. The thing with being penniless students with no proper equipment is that we have to improvise. And sometimes that looks weird. So if you had happened to be walking by a certain stairway in the engineering area of campus you may have been met with a strange sight. My group wanted to measure the spring constant of a spring which involves putting weight on one end on the spring and measuring how far it stretches. Except all we had to use was the stuff in our houses so we brought a bucket, measuring cup and some string. So now we had to tie the top end of the spring onto something. We looked around, and the only thing we could see was the stairs. We spent a good half an hour pouring water into a bucket tied to a spring tied to stairs and taking measurements. Plenty of people saw us, some people even went up those stairs, and didn’t even react to what we were doing. Makes me wonder what counts as weird in the engineering faculty. The reason we needed this spring constant was for our project which was tennis ball flinger, which needed to fling a tennis ball 10 metres so it would hit a target 1.5 metres off the ground. So obviously we could not test this thing inside, which called for more public demonstrations of undergrad engineering. Like, using a footpath as a firing range. Because obviously footpaths are just waiting to be made into firing ranges. Before you think it’s just my group that’s weird, it’s not just us! To date I have witnessed the civil engineering kids carrying around LOTS of long sticks made out of newspaper and sticky tape (to make into mini bridges of course) and some aerospace eng people throwing paper gliders in the foyer of one of the science lecture theatres. So that might be why when my tennis ball flinging machine group was carrying our machine along with a 12 litre container of water to the testing site, people asked questions and looked at us weirdly around most of campus but when we got to the eng section of campus, no one really cared except to comment that it looked cool. Oh and also our lecturer shows us videos like this one:
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Ok, I've got to confess, every time my astronomy lecturer say the word 'Uranus' in lecture, I get the giggles.
There are two ways (that I'm aware of) to pronounce the word Uranus. The kinda weird but less entertaining Uran-us, or the extremely hilarious Ur-anus which sounds almost exactly 'your anus'. The entertainment value should be obvious. Please allow your mind to interpret these the wrong way: Uranus is a gas giant. So, how was Uranus discovered? Uranus has quite a cold surface... If we were to take a spaceship into Uranus... (okay so it was actually Jupiter, but it's a lot more entertaining with Uranus) Uranus is gaseous. I know it's really quite immature but at least I have fun :D I got this idea during an astronomy lecture a few weeks ago but it wasn't a big enough idea for a story so I decided to have a go at drawing a comic. Please ignore my bad drawing skills, it's never been my strong point.
I hope everyone celebrating Christmas is having a lovely time. If you're not already in the Christmas spirit, here's something to help you along! (although if you don't celebrate Christmas, it's still very much worth watching) Today was quite a day to remember, and not just because it was the last day of Year 12 classes and of high school EVER.
Today I decided to wear flats to go with my remade school dress. Then I miss the tram so decide to walk to school. Bad idea. By the time I got to school I had a giant blister on my left heel and was not doing a good job of walking. Planned to find a band-aid but got distracted by about fourty girls signing each other's dresses in the locker bay. There was no other option but to join in! I had maths class first, and spent that signing people's dresses and asking if anyone had a band-aid. No-one did, so about halfway through I commenced my quest for the never-ending fountain of band-aids. I limped bravely to the edge of K2, climbed down that grand mountain, and through the psychic tunnel down to the lair of the Glove. Thrice, I completed this epic journey, and each time I found my way barred by an invisible barrier. Each time I had to climb back up the unforgiving mountain to K2. What was I to do? The gong sounded and the last ever meeting of pie was adjourned. I was defeated! I followed everyone out to our base camp wondering how I will survive this sad, sad day. I was checking my supplies when I saw Princess Mulan in our base camp. She invited me to go with her to hunt for food. I told her of my search for the never-ending fountain of band-aids and she offered to help me. Now there was still hope! We trekked back to the edge of K2, climbed down its unforgiving slope, and made our way through the psychic tunnel. This time, the invisible barrier was gone. It was a miracle! I entered the lair of Glove and located the never-ending fountain of band-aids. It was then that I could claim my prize. Not one, but three band-aids! To celebrate we all went hunting for some food to be prepared for lunch later than day. Moving stealthily across the grasslands we spotted our prey. The grand teen of can. All it took was a few quick moves and we had it. Some celebratory lunch for Princess Mulan! Satisfied with our hunt, we returned to base camp. So anyway, we spent most of the day signing people's dresses and getting ours signed by others. We took a break only to go to assembly, and even then people were signing each other's dresses. During period 4 I got recruited to accompany an act for final assembly tomorrow and spent most of that time doing that. My last French class was perhaps the most productive, with fifteen of the ninety minutes spent working on a listening task. After school I had choir, and it was after that the next weird thing happened. I got home from that to find that my mum was freaking out because she forgot I had choir and had started calling people to ask where I was. Whoops. I'd forgotten to make sure my phone was charged so she couldn't reach me, although I still think that calling people was an overreaction. And because of the whole blister thing I can't wear flats any more, so there goes my princess costume. I have no idea what to wear to the last day of school and the act at final assembly tomorrow will probably be a slight disaster :( Apparently brain fog is when your thinking goes "foggy", which for me usually means my short term memory gets really quite bad.
Today, I took bad memory to a whole new level. This afternoon, I went to a local chemist to buy some epsom salts because I heard they could be quite relaxing in baths. My dad was waiting for me so we could go somewhere else, so my mission was to go in, get the salts, pay for them and meet him outside. So, I went in, quickly found the salts, and quickly walked to where my dad was, outside the store, money in one hand, and the epsom salts in the other! My dad saw that I'd just walked out without making the side trip to the checkout and asked me what the hell I was doing. I realised instantly what was wrong and went back in to pay for the stuff, trying not to burst out laughing. I suppose it was lucky there was no-one paying attention to what I was doing. If some security person had seen me walking out of the store with "stolen" goods I'm not sure how I would have explained myself. 'I meant to pay for it I swear. Look, I'm even holding the money for it.' or 'I forgot to pay for it before leaving the store. I know this seems like some line people caught stealing would feed you, but this time it's actually true.' They'd probably send me to some sort of asylum right then and there, either because they actually believed me, or couldn't believe I'd give such a ridiculous excuse. Saying all that, this will probably be the highlight of my holidays. lol. |