Week 33- Pretending to be an Engineer again

My body was put into shock on Monday morning as it found itself back in a lecture theatre. I had a relatively late start with my first lecture being at 09:00, mechanics of materials (solids), with a young man called Tom Allen. Tom only works part time for the university as he works in the Centre of Advanced Composite Materials the rest of the time. He explained his current project is a 30m boat that will be solo sailed by a ‘crazy Frenchman’ around the world in 45 days. I was very taken by him so I was off to a good start. During this lecture I sat next to Kim who kayaks for New Zealand and is hoping to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Sadly, she would only be in lectures for this week as she will be training the rest of the time. At this point I was technically only enrolled in three of the four modules that I needed for the semester, despite having received concessions for all four. I had tried to sort out the issue online but it proved impossible so I went to see the registration office. After explaining my situation to the person at the desk she claimed to have no idea what the issue was and promptly disappeared into a back room. After about 15min she reappeared and said that I was registered. I’ve no idea what happened behind closed doors but I wasn’t about to question it. My second class was control systems. I was a little unsure what the class was going to be about but it seems I’ll be using differential equations to model real world problems, converting these equations to the Laplace Domain (changing them from differential equations to polynomials as they are easier to work with), controlling the inputs and outputs accordingly and then changing everything back again. It sounds like it’s going to be a very challenging class but the lecturer has been doing it for 14 years and has very positive feedback.

My final lecture of the day was materials processing which is a chemical engineering paper. The most surprising thing was that the course coordinator is a woman. She’s very enthusiastic so I’m quietly confident that it’ll be at least semi interesting, although a large portion of the course will be learning off processes. After class I headed up to one of the Engineering labs to use the internet as we didn’t have wifi sorted at home yet. While I was there I rang our prospective internet provider to see when we could expect to see a technician. I was told to be patient. No closer to having wifi, Marlene, Ulysse and I set off for Pack N Save to do our big shop for the semester. On our way out the door, there was a shelf in the street with a sign that said ‘Free shelf’ so we brought it up to the flat. In hindsight, I don’t know what we would have done without this shelf. In the end we spent about $450 on food between the three of us and my bags were so heavy that I actually couldn’t walk from the bus stop back to our building without taking breaks. I cooked a big feed for the week and went to bed happy.

I had a not so relatively early start on Tuesday morning with my first lecture at 08:00. This time it was computational and mathematical modelling in mechanics (I was also supposed to be in my materials processing lecture but I have a timetable clash as both classes thought it’d be a good idea to have a lecture at 08:00 on a Tuesday and a Thursday!). The course is split half and half between fluids and dynamics with the first half being taken by a new English lecturer. Again, I had an overall positive feeling about the class. I was back into solids at 09:00 followed by control systems. I am fortunate that my timetable is pretty much entirely 08:00 – 13:00 each day. In the afternoon Marlene and I were working in the engineering lab and Ulysse, who studies history and politics, wanted to join us. As a joke, I said that he would have to pretend to be an engineer if he was going to come up (because we were all pretending to be engineers anyway!). Sadly, we didn’t get to see his impression as he decided to leave. When I got home, before leaving for frisbee, I discovered yet another problem in the flat, the freezer was not working. Having made this investment in meat, I didn’t want it all to go off with it not freezing. Another issue to sort with the landlord. I went to frisbee, doing my rehab and helping on the side line. Up until this point we had been putting off washing our clothes until we had acquired a drying rack. We had bought one on the NZ equivalent of Craig’s list and I was going to collect it that evening. We had arranged to collect it at 20:30. I arrived at the property at 20:10 and was told by the neighbour which the correct one was. I then waited until 20:40 to see if the owner would appear. I had a wander around the building and banged the knocker many times but it was evident no one was home. Once I arrived home empty handed Ulysse texted the wash-rack-man and he simply said that he must have been walking around the house when I arrived! A blatant lie.

I had a physio appointment first thing on Wednesday morning and we decided to book in for an ultrasound to see if there was anything we were missing. I had lunch with Marlene when we got a call to say that the company had come to set up our wifi but had been told no by the building manager. I then proceeded to try get hold of the building manager but long story short is the building has a monopoly on the wifi and charges extortionate rates for it. We had to find a new solution. Ulysse and I decided we simply had to do a wash so we split a load and forked out to use the dryer too. That evening the three of us and Harry were going to an outdoor cinema to see a series of short films about outdoor adventure and extreme sports. Before the films we joined Harry for dinner and consequently forgot about our laundry so it sat in the machines overnight as the laundry room was locked. We took the bus to a park near the zoo and before going into the grounds we were interviewed by what we discovered to be the company IceBreaker. They were asking about our outdoor activities and our plastic consumption/impact on the environment. There were 7 films in total, ranging from mountain biking, extreme skiing, base jumping and mountain climbing. My two favourites were about a trio who kite-skied across Greenland to kayak down a river they had only seen on Google earth and the other favourite was about two English students who went to Ecuador. In exchange for helping a local family, they were aided in cutting down a tree and making a canoe which they then sailed down the river. I think I liked this one because they were able to survive in the extreme conditions with no prior experience.

I went to my 08:00 lecture on Thursday and then darted home to meet our landlord, Mr Wu. He was supposed to bring a lease for me to sign but he didn’t. I gave him the inventory sheet that we filled out and explained about the broken freezer. He said he would send someone the next day. I re-joined the Frisbee and the Kayak club for the semester before going to the Kayak club opening evening. It was nice to catch up with some of the members, hear about the events for the coming semester and get some pizza! We went to the student bar after for a drink and then Marlene and I played pool against Harry and Ulysse. Sadly, the boys won. I’m sensing a pattern with my pool playing.

Friday was a good day for the flat as we had the freezer fixed and we sorted out some wifi. We got a plug-in dongle with a limit but it was the best we could find. I managed to last the day without buying any food. I first went and got free muffins from the Unleashed space (it’s basically a free workshop for any students to use) before signing up for the dessert club and getting a cookie. I got a free burger and sausage from the meat club before I went for my ultrasound. It was a strange process and the gel felt odd on my skin but I had to wait for the official report. Back at Uni I went to the physio to make another appointment and as it happened he had one free in half an hour. There was a competition taking place between University of Auckland and AUT, the city rival. While I waited I watch Auckland win the basketball match. I saw the physio and he could see the ultrasound images straight away but needed the report. After the basketball there was women’s and men’s volleyball so I sat down to watch. There were more free hotdogs and chocolate so I was doing very well for myself. Auckland won both matches but they were thrilling! I pretty much then went straight to the dessert club pizza evening to get more free food. They had far too much so I ended up cycling home with two pizzas for Ulysse and Marlene!

Ulysse, Marlene, Harry and I all went kayaking on Saturday. We went to the Puhoi river which is pretty much entirely flat. There were two groups but we were all in the first one. We were pushed off a ledge into the water and paddled along. It was very easy paddling but it was made entertaining as the riverbed was very muddy and it was possible to pick it up and throw it at each other. I felt like my 10 year old self! We climbed out at half way and were shuttled down to the beach where we cleaned off in the sea before having a club barbeque. That evening there was a toga party, again with the kayak club. Harry came over to figure out how to make a toga with us and he also brought a screw driver with him so I could take the safety off my 16th story window to let some more air in. We gave Ulysse the screwdriver and asked him how he would use it if he were an engineer. He then tried to figure out what was so special about this very ordinary screwdriver! He laughed about it too. We got plenty of strange looks as we walked along the road in our bed sheets disguised as togas. The party was good but we had to leave early because of noise complaints so we shared some ice cream with Harry.

We had a bit of a lazy morning before I went to do some shopping and I also got a spur of the moment hair-cut. We had dinner with Harry once more before going to the Chinese Lantern Festival in the domain as part of the Chinese new year celebrations. There were amazing displays and plenty of music and shows. Harry and I climbed up a tree to watch the fireworks at the end of the night too before retiring to bed, ready to go back to pretending to be an engineer the next day.

Again, I want to thank Ulysse Bellier for the use of his photos.