Okay. So because I was getting sick last night I wasn’t able
to fall asleep right away (or I was but then I slept like 30 min and my body
was like no. It’s time to get up and do stuff (at like 2 AM mind you)). So then
after Tindering for like an hour and a half I finally managed to conk out and
sleep until 8:05 AM (sleep again is a very abstract concept since finals week).
Anyways I showered and Shoop came up for breakfast in the shared kitchen of my
flat (as his is littered with trash bags and is a mess). Anyways I had my
shredded blueberry jawns and several gut wrenching cups of that orange
concentrate to try and soothe my throat (didn’t really help). We walked over to
the Hines building (which looks like the logo for the Underground from Google
Maps) to meet Stefan and Nick at 8:50 AM. We spoke to Katy this morning for a
bit about what she wanted us to work on for the day, which turned out to be
just populating the content under the Energize Worcester website for the
Landlord section (they focused on writing the content for the students not the
landlords and really only had 2 articles (latest from February). Anyways so
after our quick staff meeting we set about generating content. We came up with
12 articles to write on everything from smart meters to the housing envelope to
the benefits of using the Green Deal program (and what it is). We each wrote
three articles and had them pretty much done in about 2 hours. We also
practiced our final presentation from ID2050 (which was a bit rough as we hadn’t
touched it in two weeks). We also somehow managed to cut it from 17 minutes to
10 minutes on the dot (easy once I stopped blabbering on about smart meters,
IHDs and direct feedback). At like 11 AM Peng came in and we gave him the
presentation (he even liked it too!). After that we went for lunch after
getting our ID cards (as staff members of the University of Worcester (ALL CARD
ACCESS!!!!! (not really that would be unsafe))). We had actually gotten them
yesterday but we needed card access to the kitchen next to our office and so we
had dropped them off at the front desk to get this. In the process our login
information (passwords) also got reset around 11:30 AM (so that was kinda fun).
Lunch
was pretty chill. We decided to eat at the main dining hall. Realistically the
main dining hall is more of a cafeteria take away place (as the indoor seating
is being renovated and there aren't meal plans at the University). I ended up just
buying a pastry called a steak roll (which looked like a flaky rectangular
golden pastry (like a croissant) with beef stew basically poured inside). It
cost only £1.50 and was actually good despite the degrading description above. I
polished it off before I basically sat down at the outside covered table. I
have decided that I will begin packing food as it’s too expensive to eat out
here. Literally a meal at a pub is like £10 which is close to $20 O.o. Thus I
have realized that in addition to my IQP here, that I am also working on my “Eat
myself broke” degree. It’s coming along quite nicely and I might even graduate
early!
After
lunch we returned to our office to finish up the morning work. We also had to
register for an account on this random booking website to sign up for an
upcoming sustainability event on campus. While here we will also be
participating in the coolest sounding event for middle and high schools ever.
Basically the premise is to introduce them to engineering by having them design
their own hexbug and then the University will be printing them out with a 3D
printer!!!! We even get to help with this! SO STOKED! Why did this not happen
when I was younger? Argh kids these days…
At
around 2:30 PM we walked with Peng Li for town to get SIM cards and fill out
gym usage forms before heading to the city council to present our presentation.
The gym forms were painfully slow to fill out and we may be charged up to £40
per month for membership (Katy is going to “sort it out” though). We also had
to fill out this like health survey when we were doing forms. It was strange. I
asked questions like “How many times have you coughed blood. Passed a stone. Seen
the light and walked toward it” You know those sort of questions (all with
answers of like relatively never to frequently). At any rate after that we
headed to the expensive SIM card store (not the SIMS online (although I felt
like I was in SIMS standing there)). A SIM card basically is the chip that
enables your phone to make calls and texts etc over a certain network. My SIM
card is US locked and I wanted to buy a SIM for making UK calls easier and I
ended up getting an entirely new phone (guess I can use that for all those
large capacitor orders internationally then I can’t be tracked by the NSA).
Shoop and Nick had to buy the same setup as me because their phones (like mine
is geo-locked to the US (thanks big dollar cell networks (it can be undone but
only by calling the company in the US on the phone that needs unlocking))). We
then walked to the city council building and entered without having to pass
through a metal detector!
We met
the council (which seemed to be about 3 people at the time). The one dude was
wearing a sweatshirt so I didn’t feel too bad about only wearing a button up
and tie. We gave our presentation and it seemed to go generally well. They
seemed to really like it! We had heard from Katy that her colleagues liked our
proposal too! I even saw the council woman sitting with a printout of our
paper. We also met Paul Brohnan (Bronan?) who is a retired engineer who lives
in the Arboretum and is on Transition Worcester and the Arboretum Resident’s
Association. He invited us over for dinner sometime and for tea and coffee
whenever we are in the Arboretum (SUCH A BRO!). Anyways we then had a brief discussion
about the project and working with houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs (not to
be confused with complimentary MOS logic (CMOS))). Generally the two members of
the council and the third woman in attendance (who was a project manager for
another area of the council) (besides Katy and Peng Li) were really enthusiastic
for the project. After this hour long meeting we were released back to our own
devices. We decided to get the bikes back at campus and head to dinner.
Back on
campus we grabbed and unlocked the bikes (we have two male bikes and two female
bikes (I have a female bike because that was the keys were distributed by Peng
Li (it’s better than the little girl’s bike from Mad Mad World)). I was
surprised that most of my group did not know how the twist shifters (part of
the handlebars) worked or how to shift with them. We rode back to close to the
council building and went to a place called Detroit’s. Detroit’s is a 50s style
American diner packed with America stuff from the 50s and with a 50s song list
of 10 songs on shuffle. The wait for food was unbelievable (like 25 minutes and
we were 4 of like 12 people there). The wait staff also doesn’t refill drinks
ever. The food is named like American icons (with the chicken sandwich I bought
being called the Grace Kelly). It was okay food although somehow my £10.48
sandwich magically became £11 when it came time for the bill (that’s a whole
dollar almost)! Anyways the food was average. Again I’m going broke.
The "Grace Kelly" (The red bucket is flexible O.o) (Burger, "salad" (lettuce), cheese, bacon, grilled chicken, onions and onion rings)
After that
we biked back and Shoop and Stefan went grocery shopping, Nick went to sort out
his credit card (like all his cards are being shut off by the danged companies…weird)
and I went skating outside on a path on the other side of the field by the
entrance. I was practicing my grapevine for a while and then it finally began
to dump rain. I kept skating. I didn’t fall. It was just like drifting every
now and again. It was actually pretty fun! I skated for a decent amount of time
and got both directions down. I then practiced handstands on the grass and was
judged pretty hardcore by some dude inside the window of the nearby gym. I even
lost my 10 pence coin in the grass (sorry mower dudes)! I eventually went back
and chilled and got ready to write my blog and catch up. So that has taken me
until 1:19 AM on Wednesday. But it’s updated! Gotta catch some sleep (as Katy
and Peng will be out of the office tomorrow in London, but we still have work
to do on the website content and maybe visiting the Arboretum)! Peace!
Walking to the Pierson library at 9 PM (What is that sky?)
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