Reasons Why Working at Home Beats the Library

This is the first time I’ve had to work on group projects in the library, and I am not enjoying it.  In undergrad, we’d all meet in someone’s apartment or dorm room to work, which in theory could still be possible here, but never happens.

Here are the five main reasons why I hate working in the library:

1. No temperature control: The library is always freezing with no hope to be able to control it.  So if I’m uncomfortable, while working on a project, I just have to accept it and keep working.  It also means I have to bring a sweatshirt to the library (and class) if I want to have any hope of staying warm.
2. No snacks: Working in the library means you have to plan better for interruptions.  If I get hungry Ieither have to deal with it, go home, or have planned ahead and brought a snack.  Working from home means I just have to walk over to the kitchen, get a snack, and then go back to work.
3. Terrible night lighting: With huge floor to second floor ceiling windows the lighting in the library during the day is fantastic, but it gets dark relatively early, and while the lighting in the library is beautiful, but doesn’t offer much actual light.
4. Too Formal: Working at home means it’s okay to tell jokes or stories, have a laugh, and then go back to work.  It doesn’t have to be very formal and that means everyone is more comfortable.  Get a bit loud in the library, and undoubtedly you’ll be disturbing someone else.
5. Need Better Planning: If everyone is coming over for a meeting it doesn’t matter what I’m doing beforehand, but as I was baking bread and cupcakes the other day, I realized I hadn’t started early enough and was going to be late.  It ended up being a minor deal, but if we weren’t working in the library, everyone could have settled in and gotten started while I finished up the baking.

These are only a few of the reasons why working in the library doesn’t cut it for me.  Unfortunately, at least until the end of the semester, I don’t have much of an option.  The library is the only place I have access to the software I need for a group project.

Learning about Singapore

Aside from class lessons, having an international faculty can be interesting if the professors are willing to share about their lives before or after class.  I have a professor this quarter that has done that and it's been so interesting to learn about Singapore where he worked before coming to Saudi Arabia.  Most of what he's talked about has been cars and taxes, but since it's so different from back home, I thought it was interesting enough to share.

It has been fascinating and frustrating to learn about Singapore because it has definitely made me realize that not everyone has the same values as me.  I wish they did!  But they don't, and learning to handle that realization is kind of defeating.

He's told us about the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) that Singaporeans have to buy from the government before they can get a car.  When you buy the COE, it isn't a fixed price; the price is determined by a blind auction, and the number of people who get the COE is determined by the government each month.

So, if Singapore decides to issue 10 COEs one month and 15 people bid ranging from 100,000 - 500 then the 10th highest bid sets the price of the COE for everyone.  Thus the 9 highest bidders pay less than expected, 1 bidder pays as expected, and 5 people get their money back and don't get to buy a car.  If you were one of the unlucky 5 people who didn't get the COE, you would have to wait until the next month to try again.

If you did get to buy the COE, then you can now buy a car, but the COE is only valid with that specific car and only for 10 years.  After that, you go through the process again.  Since there is a big incentive to scrap or export your used car, very few people in Singapore own cars that are more than 10 years old, and Singapore is apparently the second largest exporter of used cars.

This system seems like it would work well if you're very well off, and apparently if you are you're more likely to have more than one COE (and thus more than one car), but the lower classes of society have to pony up for the licenses which have higher prices as a result of the limited supply.  At least Singapore does have the option for public transportation, but my professor never mentioned much about that.

This business of the COE is intended to allow the government to control the number of cars on the road as with only 275 square miles of space, Singapore is tiny compared to its almost 5.1 million population.  The certificate does exactly what it says; it entitles those with money the right to buy a car.  To me this almost feels like too much government control, and while I understand the need to limit cars, I think the decision to buy a car shouldn't necessarily be based on your ability to buy a piece of paper.

Every so often, the price of the COE drops significantly, which does allow more moderately well off citizens to buy cars.

He also talked briefly about some of the other taxes they have such as the monthly tax on the number of toilets in each house!

I also got the impression that car loans were quite common along with high interest rates and great discouragement to pay off loans early or get a shorter loan.  He then mentioned his Lexus and the one he bought for his son.  While I appreciate that he is in a completely different phase of his life, it still seems ridiculous to talk about the price of a Lexus in Singapore when all of the students in the room make at most 1/3 the cost of that car in one year.  Lifestyle inflation to some extent is inevitable, very few people want to live like they're in college forever, but having it pushed on you can be both offensive and off putting, and that's exactly what this was.  I don't want or need a fancy car, but having someone act as if I obviously did was irritating.

All of this talk about cars and taxes segued into talking about the Saudi taxes, which are non-existent.  There are no sales, income, or even sin taxes here.  The price you see on the shelf (if there is one) is the price you pay (rounded of course).

One of the nicest aspects of no taxes means no gas tax.  Back home gas taxes vary by state but can easily be up to 50 cents per gallon.  I'm pretty sure it's even higher in Europe and Singapore.  My professor mentioned that in Singapore it would be up to $110 Singapore dollars ($85 USD) to fill up.  Since gas is only a mere $0.46 per gallon here, he said that everyone should go out and by V12 cars and trucks!

Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive, but it seems utterly irresponsible to go burn through resources simply because it happens to cost less.  Why can't people continue to use at the same level and just be grateful for some cost savings?

I don't think I'm cut out for life in Singapore!

Different Ways to Travel

There are so many different ways to travel.  You can go solo, big groups, organized travel groups, backpacking, posh living, cruising, and many more.  I was chatting with some of my classmates before class the other day and was pleasantly surprised to find that there is another group of students who are traveling to Italy over spring break.  We are both flying into Milan, but sadly on different flights, and we were discussing our various destinations and ran into a huge difference in travel style.

I mentioned that we were going to spend four days in Milan and then four days in Florance and the first reaction I got was that this was ridiculous and unnecessary because four days in Milan was just too much.  I was taken aback by this as I wasn't expecting to have our travel plans critiqued and deemed inadequate, but after talking more, I'm content with our plan.

It turns out that they are going to vising both Milan and Florence as well as Rome, Venice, and Padua in nine days.  I'm assuming it's nine and that they aren't skipping classes on either end of the break to extend it, which is incredibly common here.  That ends up being less than two days in each city and a lot of traveling in between.  I think it would be way too rushed for my style.  I don't want to simply check cities or countries off some predefined list of awesome travel destinations.  I want to see more than just the typical two or three sightseeing spots in a city before rushing off to whatever is next.  Something similar happened in Athens, when one of our roommates suggested that there was absolutely no way to fill two weeks in Athens. (Turns out he was wrong.)  WhyGo Italy even has a two week itinerary for those who still need suggestions or don't like planning.

It all comes down to differing preferences and travel style and I don't think either can inherently be called wrong.  Despite that, it didn't prevent another student from chiming in that my travel preference was a result of my being married!  I have no idea why being married would be the primary influence on my travel style as opposed to my actual feelings about it.  So while married people can't go rush around Europe, I'll be enjoying nine days in Italy.

If you want to check out some great pictures of Florence and Pisa, Everything Everywhere has a couple of fantastic photo galleries you should check out!

Follow our journey:

Travel Plans are Never Final

Different Ways to Travel

How We Get Ready To Travel

Italy Day 1

Italy Day 2

Shopping in Italy 

Keeping it Alive by Trying New Things

Italy Day 3: Part 1

Italy Day 3: Part 2

Pack and Move

Or check out our Italy tag!

On Memorization

The most unusual difference between graduate and undergraduate has been the increased emphasis on memorization.  In undergrad, the professors seemed to realize that memorizing equations was much less important than being able to use them to solve problems and as such spent more time teaching how to solve the problems instead of theorizing on the equations.  Here it's the opposite with the primary focus on committing to memory equations that will forever be referenced from textbooks or internet searches, and almost no time, if any on solving actual problems.  I didn't realize that simply knowing theory was enough to result in above adequate problem solving skills, but apparently that's the running assumption here.


This transition has been a real struggle for me because my memory just isn't that great and it doesn't convert short term memory into long term memory, at least not when it comes to academics.  My way around this in my general life has been to write everything down because otherwise it has a very high chance of being forgotten.  There are probably mental exercises and tricks I could do to improve this, but I'm not that interested in doing so.  Filling up my head with tons of mental clutter doesn't really suit me.  Who really needs to try and keep a juggling match going inside their brain while still adding more and more information every day?  It is just exhausting to try to do it.


For academics, as a visual remember-er I focus on summarizing everything into a few pages of notes, which I then vigorously try to shove into the nooks and crannies of my brain.  At some point I think the memorization does turn into actual learning but I'm not convince that in my case much of it is sticking around for an appreciable amount of time.


Does anyone else have this problem or know what to do about it?

Looking Towards the Summer

It seems too early to be thinking ahead to the summer session since it's still early March, but alas it's definitely that time.  All of the decisions about how long we'll be here in Saudi Arabia depend on what I'll be doing this summer.  Part way through the fall semester the university announced that students could reduce their course load to three classes instead of four and then graduate in three semesters plus one summer session, instead of two semesters and a summer session.  At the time I strongly considered dropping one of my classes, which was giving more trouble than I thought it was worth.  In the end I decided to stick it out since the semester was over halfway complete by that point and giving up on that much work seemed lame.  Since the program is equivalent to ten classes, by taking four classes in the fall and spring, I will only need six more credits to graduate.  I have two ways to go about doing this:

Taking two classes this summer on campus gets me the credits I need.  The summer session is only eight weeks long so either the classes would be condensed to fit in the shorter period, or the lectures would be increased to compensate for fewer weeks.  I haven't heard anything about the length of classes at this point, so I'm assuming it will be as similarly manageable as the regular semesters have been.  They finally put out a list of the summer courses for my division and it's not a surprise that only one of them is actually chemical engineering and not biological engineering.  I'm hoping there will be a decent environmental engineering class offered to fill the second class requirement, otherwise I might end up taking something purely for credit despite a total lack of interest or indication of usefulness in my future career.

My other option would be to find some "internship" either on or off campus.  I'm pretty sure that despite the appealing terminology this would end up being more research than engineering based, so I'm not that inclined to go this route.  It also requires a non-trivial amount of paperwork along with my academic advisor's approval and finding someone on campus to judge the work and give the internship a grade.  For an internship lasting 8-10 weeks, it doesn't seem worth this much effort because I'd also have to go out and hunt down and get accepted into whatever internship I would participate in.  The benefit would be ability to do the internship either back in the US or elsewhere abroad, however finding the right program would be challenging.

There is also the potential to find an internship on campus, and I have a lead on one from a very eager visiting professor which I might follow up on to give me another option when the decision time comes.  This would allow me to split the credits between class and internship and given the weak course offerings announced thus far, this might be a really strong option to consider.  I've got a feeling based on the professor's description of the project that it is more along the lines of mechanical engineering (which is what the professor teaches) so it might not offer what I'm looking for, however I'll follow up with other professors to see if something more along my degree is available.

In the end, whichever option I choose, I should still be on track to graduate at the end of the summer.  That being said, if anyone knows of some jobs for one dashingly smart and motivated chemical engineer as well as a mechanical engineer, you should hook us up.

One Awesome Video

In my Clean Fossil Fuels & Biofuels class, we've been looking at the various kinds of biofuels that are currently being or trying to be produced, and one of the companies we looked at was Evonik.  They're making a biodiesel out of a nut called Jatropha, and to advertise or market this, they put together an awesome little Middle Eastern puppet-esqe show.

Here's a little screen shot from their website showing the two main puppets in the film.

Sadly, I can't embed the video, so you'll have to click over to Evonik's website and click on "Open the long shot of the film tract" in the purple box to view the video.

Charting Rudeness?

I've been working on a little data collection project during WEP, and now that it's over, I'm dismayed and pleased to show you what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks.

During all of the WEP classes and lectures I had to go to, I've been keeping track of the number of cell phone rings each day.  This all got started when in the first lecture I attended there were at least 3 rings in the first 15 minutes of the lecture!  I don't know if people here realize how rude they are being, but oh man are they ever rude.

The worst part is that people would answer their phones and actually have hushed conversations instead of ignoring the call or leaving the room.

So here you go, cell phone rings per hour for WEP.  A few notes, I started on Saturday because that's when our work week starts and thus Thursday and Friday as our weekend have less or no data because I didn't have to go to lectures. 

 Also, the Sunday where there were 7 rings per hour was actually all from the same lecture.  This was an especially awful presentation so the big jump in cell phone noises doesn't surprise me.

Overall there ended up being an average of about 2.2 cell phone rings each hour and 114 rings in total over 13 days, which is more than enough to be annoying and certainly enough to be rude.  I'm really irritated and disappointed that there were so many distractions.  Are people so busy these days that they can't turn off their phones for an hour?

Even worse than the cell phones was the sheer number of people who showed up late, but that's not at all surprising and in fact is very common.  So common, that for my 9 am class this semester, only nine people out of 32 have managed to show up on time!

I'm just shocked.  What do you think, am I overreacting?

Field Trips are Fun even in Saudi

For my membranes class this fall, we had the opportunity to take a tour of the Desalination plant and the wastewater treatment plant.  I think it's pretty cool that we get to drink the same water that we can go swimming and boating in.  It's a pretty big win for science and the desert.

The plant just opened last year and it was so sparkling clean.  The plant I worked in this past summer has been in operation in various forms since the early 20th century, so a lot of it was filthy dirty, even though they were making soap!

Exterior pumps!

View of campus from the RO plant

Large strainers inside the plant.

Membrane units in the plant

Exit side of the membrane modules.

Since membrane units are modular, it's really easy to expand in the future.

Exterior of the Wastewater Treatment Plant

Sinky poop water being aerated.

Aerators, seen because this tank wasn't being used.

Cooling towers off in the distance.

All in all, my membranes class was pretty interesting, and I learned a lot about something I didn't really know much (anything) about.  Sadly that wasn't the case for most of my classes.  I'm not really sure if anything I learned will be directly applicable in the future, but you never know right?

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We're leaving tomorrow for Greece, but we'll still have some posts that will go up automatically while we're gone.  Since they'll go up automatically, we won't necessarily be posting links to them on Facebook.

Make It, Bake It, Do It: Day 3

Today was a quiet, laid back day.

We made a paper chain to hang in the study, baked cheesecake bars, and went to a concert on campus.

The paper chain was pretty simple.  We can totally handle cutting paper and stapling.

I also did laundry, dusted, and devised a new way to copy internet pages into OneNote, but those are way less exciting.  For about half an hour I had the motivation to do a French manicure, but after buffing and polishing, I gave up.  Maybe tomorrow I'll actually paint them. Who knows.

 Paper Chain hanging in the study

We tried to make cheesecake bars courtesy of Baking Bites, but we haven't been able to find cream cheese, just cream cheese spread.  We hoped that somehow it would turn out alright despite this.  Unfortunately it didn't have a very good texture, and mostly ended up with a baked egg texture, which I find gross.  Oh well, add cheesecake to the list of things we'll have to wait until we get back to make.

Cheesecake bars out of the oven

The concert was really nice, the angklung ensemble played a few songs, and it was really impressive.  Each person is responsible for only a few notes, so it takes many people to play a song.  Here's a video of some students playing (not here at school):

It's a hard knock life when you get trapped without your toys. (Steve took this)

Check out the beginning, Day 1, and Day 2 of Make It, Bake It, Do It.

On an end note, grades came in and I finished the semester with a 3.59, which I'm pretty pleased with.

Coccyxitis or How I Broke My Bottom

Ok, so first off, my bottom is NOT actually broken.  Inflamed, yes, broken probably not.  Starting last night I had really strong pain in my tail bone (coccyx).  Apparently it's the last bone of your spinal column and back when we were creatures with tails, if that ever was, this is the bone that would make up the end of the tail.  Oh, and when this little bone is in pain, you cannot sit at all.  I'm not joking, it is incredibly painful to put a lot of pressure on my tush.  After large doses of Excedrin, which taken late at night do nothing for your ability to sleep (each pill contains as much caffeine as a cup of coffee) and a cute little homemade rice heating pad, I could finally lie in bed and fall asleep.  Unfortunately, I have class at 10:30 on Tuesday mornings so going to Emergency wasn't going to be a realistic option unless I was willing to ditch class, and frankly I wasn't.  I was pretty glad I stuck it out, we toured the NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) Lab for my Polymer class, and it was so cool.  Yes, this makes me ridiculously nerdy, but wow it was impressive.  After my last class ended around 2 I darted over to the medical clinic here on campus.  That was also pretty darn impressive.  I'm really grateful to have good medical insurance here.  Even though I went to emergency because I didn't have an appointment and honestly wasn't going to go through the trouble of scheduling one, it was still quick, relatively efficient, and free.  I've heard horror stories about how people wait all day in emergency rooms in the US and I'm so glad that wasn't the case here.  Unfortunately, since it's my tail bone that is the problem, there is very little they can do to help me.  So after a couple of prescriptions for pain and anti-inflammatorys, we were done.  Since sitting down is a major issue, most people with tail bone problems use a doughnut  pillow to sit.  But, they don't have any here.  So I'm going to be doing a lot of standing in the next week or so because the only other option is lying down and it is really quite hard to get anything done when lying down (big surprise).

Since I'll be working standing up for awhile, Steve improvised me a workstation!  It's pretty clever, just one of the small end tables stacked on top of the coffee table and it's the right height for working and computing!  Thank goodness for small wins.