Friday, March 03, 2006

To the bastard talking down to me, Your whipping boy calamity, Cross your fingers, I’m going to knock it all down, Can I graduate?

Random thoughts and events from yesterday:

“A Biofuels Fellowship at the Forest Product Development Center with David Harper has been announced. David is a co-PI on the chemical modification of biomass research with me. He is a great colleague who I have been working with for 3 years. He is an expert on biomass materials, their structure and chemistry. A major part of the engineering work will be lab studies of bio-oils from pyrolysis in fluidized beds. We have agreed that a Chemical Engineer would be an ideal candidate. This would be funding beyond the funds for two students listed above. If you are interested attending graduate school at UTK and in the utilization of biomass, I want you to apply for this fellowship immediately. There is a desire to fill this position as soon as possible and our desire is for it to be a ChE.

The attachment, FPDC Biomass Fellowship 01_2006, contains the fellowship announcement asking you to contact David Harper. If a duel degree in ChE and Forestry looks like an exciting opportunity, Biomass is the future! David and I have looked at the course requirements for both degrees and we think it can be done by only taking 3 additional courses.”

I took a 3.5 hour thermo test yesterday. By hour 1.5, I had 5/6 problems completed. By hour 2.5, I had 5/6 problems completed. By hour 3.1, I had the sixth problem almost started. This entry in the chronicles of the testing center has a happy ending at least. I finished the problem, and I’m fairly certain I got it right. Still, I spent 2 hours of my life figuring out how to find the enthalpy difference (read “heat”) between a saturated organic liquid at 0.1MPa and its vapor at 600K and 1.2MPa. May I just say that though I’m out of my mind for spending so much time on one problem, academia will be pleased with my actions? Read: Academia is also out of its mind.

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3 comments:

Tolkien Boy said...

If this is a new concept, you haven't been here long.

Like today, when I wrote a paper so filled with academic speak that I didn't feel the need to include actual content.

I got an A. It's frightening.

4:22 PM
yaj000 said...

Congratulations?
You won't have to worry about funding for your graduate work. Unless of course it is your area of interest and if UTK is your top choice.

So are you going taking up a job or grad school?

I love those problems which take forever, as the joys of completing the challenge are totally worth it :).

5:51 PM
emily said...

Yeah, sometimes I think that is part of what makes it so attractive. You know, like similar minds (occupied or otherwise) tend to gravitate toward one another. By the bye, you've been tagged... and that is a great word verification: eabgag. I'm considering it as a new interjection/expletive.

6:40 PM

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