Paris!: Random Tuesday Thoughts

This week I'm doing my own edition of Random Tuesday Thoughts.  It's no longer Tuesday where I am but that's okay.



I'm currently in Paris, France, enjoying a vacation.  I've been here for four days now and have another three to go.  Paris is interesting, to say the least.  There is a lot of history here!

Frostbite hurts.  I do not recommend getting frostbite.  How do you know you have frostbite?  Not sure; my feet were simply cold, then numb, then I couldn't feel them, and when they started warming up they turned multiple colors and got really itchy and water that was slightly tepid was burning.  In other words, painful.

I expected the star marking the center of Paris to be much larger than it actually was.

The center of Paris, France.  Little, no?

Napoleon has a really large tomb!  Really, really large tomb.  I saw a couple of pictures of the tomb before I arrived but they simply did not do it justice.  Plus there were no tourists in the pictures (for a visual scale) so I thought it was a normal sized tomb, not one that is well, I can't find the dimensions of the sarcophagus that he's buried in but it's seriously gigantic.

I have a hard time looking angry/fierce while roaming the streets.  I found that if you smile, especially around the Pompidou Center where the fake deaf and dumb people are they will chase you down asking for money.

My sleep schedule is very messed up.  I'm on the wake up early (7 am - this is vacation after all!), get breakfast (9 AM), explore the city (till 4 or 5 PM), nap (till 9 PM), dinner, stay up late (it's after 2 AM here now).  Much sleeping.  That was fine the first day or so but now the number of days left is less than the number of days completed and my list of things to see is still very long!

I can't handle the mustard.  I'm very weak.  At the table of most little restaurants is very spicy mustard.  Now I ask for ketchup right away.

If you plan a trip to Paris, I recommend going during any season but the winter.  Planes are delayed.  Can't see the Eiffel Tower (oh please be less cloudy/foggy soon!).  And my feet are cold.  Despite all that it's still rather lovely.  A nice break from school / work!

Women Leaders

I ran across this article today (I think from a tweet by Felicia Day) and thought it was worth mentioning here.

The video is from a TED event for women and features Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook.  In this talk she shares her experiences being a female leader and says there are three very important things women can do:

1. Sit at the table
2. Make your partner a real partner
3. Don't leave before you leave

I'm guilty of violating number one; last week I wrote about how I feel about what I'm doing and I did not give myself credit.  Lunch with the VP of my division today made me feel better and help me realize that I'm awesome. 

Anyway, watch the video, it's really good.

Finals Week (or Wordless Wednesday)

Today was the official start date of finals at my school.  Got home from work at 5:30 PM.

Prepared for finals by cleaning my desk off.

   

Presentation Thursday, final exam Friday. Homework due next week Tuesday.

Workstation setup.

Time to get to work.

Women in Power

Friday I ran across an article about an interesting woman in power.  Technically it was just a brief interview with Diana Tremblay, the VP of Manufacturing and Labor Relations at General Motors, but one thing she said really stuck with me; which also happened to be the main point the article seems to be drawing attention to as well.  Diana said:

I have never felt that I was given an opportunity solely because I was a woman, but I also know that it helped at times because it made me unique. 

I don't know if I can say the same for myself.  It's a question I was wondering a lot last year as I was trying to figure out what to do after graduation.  I was finishing my bachelor's and master's at the same time, working on my master's thesis, looking for a job, and working 24-32 hours a week.

My undergraduate degree is closely tied to the construction industry, an industry that was not doing so hot last year, and I wasn't getting a lot of call backs for interviews.  I finally asked the company I worked for about a job and originally they mentioned relocation to an operating unit in the Carolinas to do renewables.  The boyfriend was upset ("why can't you find a job here where I am?")  so I kept looking around.  Another month later my company asked me if I'd ever considered going to school for my Ph.D.  It wasn't something I'd ever considered before, Dr. KB?  I don't know.  But I didn't seem to have a whole lot of other options.  Fast forward a couple of months and I am looking around universities for a research group to work with for my doctorate.

Many days that summer I wondered if the opportunity I was given was because I was a female.  My company has mostly undergraduate co-op students and they have a strict policy about only hiring those with at least a master's degree, though everyone they'd hired in the last four years had their doctorate.  I was an intern (not a co-op) who was just supposed to be there for one summer.  On my last day one of my projects wasn't done and my project team asked the director if I could stay.  The director talked to the VP of the division and my internship was extended indefinitely.  Why did they let me stay?  Maybe because I was providing support for a lot of projects, maybe because I was cheap to pay (who needs money when you're in school?), or maybe it was because I was close-by compared to the other co-ops from Madison.

It's a question I've never voiced out loud, perhaps because I'm scared of what the answer will be.  Some days at work I feel on top of the world: I'm accomplishing mini-projects left and right, I feel helpful, I feel like I'm contributing, I'm pulling my own weight.  It's those days where I feel like anything I've achieved is because of my own merit, not because another female engineer was needed.  Then there are the days where my stuff deforms, my coating fails, I spend too much time on a task because I can't figure out something simple. It's those days where I question why I am where I am.  It also makes me wonder, am I the only one who feels this way?

I wonder if young engineers (male or female) who are just starting their careers feel the same way occasionally.  A combination of "I don't know enough!" and "I taught my co-workers something new!"

I think I'm going to put "work on self-esteem" for my New Year's Resolutions list.

Dead Grandmothers

It's no secret that a student claiming a grandmother has perished close to midterms, finals, or the due date of a very large project has a high percentage of being made up.  Numerous people have written about this phenomena before; they're typically professors who have had the excuses given to them.  I happened to enter my college years with two grandmothers and graduate with none.  In fact, I had four close family deaths while I was in school but none of my professors questioned me when I said I was going to be out of town.  

My first grandmother died while I was a junior.  It was after midterms and rather sudden, but she was 96 years old.  The next grandmother died my senior year during a really busy time of the term.  Later that spring my surrogate mother for a summer passed away very unexpectedly and it was a rough couple of weeks.  And it was during my fifth year (year two of masters) that my cousin died.  Hers was the only funeral that I could not attend because it was short notice and during the middle of the week.  My professors never asked me for documentation (though I could have easily provided it) and were very kind to me during those rough patches.

One of my grandmothers and my cousin.

The reason I'm bringing this up?  Next week is finals week.  My boyfriend's grandmother has been in a very critical condition since last Saturday and it's not looking good.  My boyfriend and I have been together long enough where I've seen this grandmother practically every holiday.  While I'd love to think there is going to be a happy ending and his grandmother will get better, no one is holding out much hope.  I'm just hoping that if it is a sad ending these professors will be as understanding as the ones at my old school.

Holiday Spirit

While Milwaukee finally had its first snow fall this past weekend it still doesn't feel like it's time for the holidays.  I'm not into it this year and getting my decorations out has been a chore.  Could be lack of sunlight, could be depression.

Even school doesn't have much in the way of decorations; just these things they stick in the planters.  Of course they're all covered by snow now.

I need to put up my tree.  Maybe that will help.

I am not a Corrosion Engineer

I am not a corrosion engineer.  I do not have a materials engineering background.  In fact, I had one materials class.  My freshman year of my undergrad studies.  What do I do now?  Why I am an engineer in the materials department at a manufacturing research and development facility.

It's not so bad actually.  I am only in the materials department because my area (water) had two people in it: my boss, a water treatment research engineer, and the VP of development, who also happened to be the director of the materials group.  I've been here a year and a half now and while I didn't remember much from that freshman materials course five years ago, most of the memories have resurfaced.  

One of the projects I'm working on now is a new coating.  I'm running a life test on the coating current and today was my weekly day to check the panels to see how they're doing.  One panel looked funny but not in a discernible manner.  The only real "test" I've been doing with these panels is cutting them open once they fail.  Since that wasn't an option for this panel (it hasn't failed yet!) I needed a different test to try.  

But what?  The extent of my tests to now has consisted of weight loss/gain, blister, and potentiostat.  None of which were suitable for what I needed.  Then I remembered something one of my co-workers had suggested for a different coating: AC Impedance.  Unfortunately all I remembered was that the equipment to run the test is in the lab and that it's used for some coatings.  I needed more information.

When professors would retire at my alma mater they would leave behind any old text books they no longer desired and students could pick and chose if they wanted any.  When a professor from my department retired last year I managed to snag the book Corrosion Engineering by Fontana.  This was the book I turned to today to get an idea of what the AC Impedance test entailed.  Unfortunately, Corrosion Engineering only talked about the theory behind AC Impedance, I wanted more.  

The next book I turned to was one from my work's library called Electrochemical Techniques for Corrosion Engineering by Baboian.  This book gave me more details into AC Impedance evaluation for coatings with a lot more graphs and figures than Corrosion Engineering did.  More importantly, from this book I learned that I could take this technology and apply it to a different project to get more insight into a filmed electrode.  

I didn't end up trying an AC Impedance test today, I already had my plate full with linear polarization and tafel plots anyway but it would have been fun to work my way through a different test.  I put the funny looking coating back on test and moved on to another project.  There will always be more days, I'll just have to wait until a less busy one.

Oh, Snow

Hello snow, my old friend.  Today was the first snowfall in Milwaukee.  My parents up in the Twin Cities have already have three snowfalls this year - and not light dustings either.  I knew snow was coming but I'm glad it held off till the 1st of December.

There was snow on the ground earlier in the day but it was all gone by the time I left work at 5.  In honor of the occasion I put up some holiday decorations.   The extent of my decorations?  Penguin and snowflake window clings that cover one of the three windows in my apartment.  I do have a small tree but it's in the basement storage and it's scary down there!  I probably won't set that up till this weekend and besides, I have to clean the apartment first.

It's hard to believe that finals will be soon and the term will be over.