Days 62, 63, 64, and 65: Second Week Back

Monday morning started with the same old, same old, getting up and working on my blog, and philosophy homework. Around 10:00, I headed out to Campus D, hanging around for a bit before catching the bus. I had to take pictures of homework #2 before handing them back to the students using Pablo's camera. I had packed a PB &J sandwich, but I stopped at the food court to grab a chicken sandwich and a Pepsi just in case.

Before getting on the bus, I ran into Suri at the bus stop. She said that she had gone to Prof Wei Wei's classes in the morning, but had to head back to Campus A because she had a dentist appointment due to a chronic tooth problem. We got on the bus and sat next to each other, but she saw her best friend, started chatting over the seats in front of us, and I told her it was fine for them to sit together to chat. I ate my chicken sandwich and read during the bus ride, still perfectly content.

She leaned back about halfway through the ride, and said Robert was trying to get a hold of me. I checked my WeChat, and he offered to help me take high quality pictures of the homework using the scanning app he had (my phone camera is awful), and apparently Pablo's phone wouldn't load the images to the computer.

I tried to get closer to the office by riding all the way to the back of campus, but it turned out it took a turn away from the office, rather than towards it, so I ended up walking longer than I wanted to. However, I ended up running into one of the Pakistani graduate engineering students that I had met on the subway when we were just beginning our trip around China. We asked how our respective trips had been, and he introduced me to his friend, who was also in Mechanical Engineering. I told him that we should hang out at some point, and we went our separate ways.

Pictures from along the walk

Getting to the office, no one was there yet. Pablo came in soon afterwards though, and I had already organized all the papers for them to be scanned in. Around 1:00, Robert came in, and tried to help me take pictures. I downloaded the app he used on my phone, and using the scanning app, as well as the superb lighting in the office, I actually had ok pictures. But he had already started scanning it in, so I just let him finish it. He sent it to me via WeChat, but I found out it was refusing to let me download anything at all, so after helping Pablo with pronunciation of Chinese students' names, he went home and emailed me the document.

I went to heat transfer, handing back homeworks, and I had a lot of students coming to me, asking me about their homework issues. Most of them were misunderstandings on the student's parts, but a couple of them were miscalculations on my part. I took pictures of the corrections, and emailed them, as well as the other documents, to Pablo.

After heat transfer, I sat in on the first hour and a half of electronics (the part before the dinner break, there were several parts to it because it's a compressed class), working on philosophy while I sat there, and then headed home.

Tuesday started with the usual morning routine, and then getting out to grade the Heat Transfer homework I had received the previous day so the students could study off of their mistakes for the test on Friday.

I biked to the TA office on Campus D and sat down, getting to work. There were problems with the answer key, like normal, but I caught one of the main ones quickly, realizing it was just a calculation error on the publisher's part. After grading 3.5 problems out of 5, I decided to go for lunch. I went to the upper level of the food court again, choosing a random restaurant, and pointing at a dish on another student's plate. When they were making it, they kept asking me questions that I was unable to answer. They eventually gave up on me, and just put random stuff on my plate. It tasted like a strange blend of Chinese and Mexican food, with peppers, rice, some strange gelatin stuff that could have passed for queso in another country (which I suppose I am in.......) and some meat that I think was mutton. I ate half of it, and saved the rest of it for dinner.

Going back to the TA office, I found that Suri was sitting in there chilling out and reviewing some notes for her classes. I talked to her for a few minutes, and then went back to grading. I finished grading a bit earlier than that, but hung out in the TA office for a bit longer.

Leaving, the tulips outside were still absolutely gorgeous, so I asked Suri to take some pictures of me.

Getting into the lab, I wandered over to the window to take a picture of the mess of discarded desks outside. It really is so strange to see them all just laying around in the abandoned courtyard. The lab turned out to be a very short lab. It was the one with the truth tables and logic that Dom and I had worked out fairly quickly the week prior. Most students had done pre-lab work, so it went even more quickly for them. The longest group only took 2 hours, and as students finished, they headed out one at a time.

Since lab got out early, Suri and Alexandra decided to go home, and Dom and I went to the JCI office to try to figure out where the printing office for JCI actually was. We were told that there were no assistants available to take us there, but that it was "the second or third yellow building on the second floor".

We decided to go home for a bit, Dom going to get some food beforehand, and I grabbed my bike from campus to take it back to the apartment. I got some work done with the wifi in the apartment, ate my leftovers, and at around 6:45, I pedaled like a maniac to make it on time for the 7 pm lecture. Wei Wei had had digital design in the morning to cover the concepts before lab, so it turned out that the lecture was semiconductor physics. He was covering capacitors, which I had covered the previous semester in physics 2, so I paid a bit of attention, but mostly worked on reading philosophy while sitting there. After class, I walked back with the others, and had some of the Skyline mac and cheese that Jessica had made the night before, as well as some Doritos, since I felt like I deserved comfort food.

I set my alarm for 1 am so I could get up and option for summer classes back at UC before the good ones were taken, but I overslept a bit, getting up closer to 3. Fortunately, all the classes I wanted were still open.

Wednesday morning started with reviewing a problem that I had to teach in heat transfer later, as well as going to statics and dynamics. Since I had left my bike on campus, I had to hurry up and walk to class. Somehow Nick and I still beat Will though, who left the apartment on a bike at the same time as me. Before going into class, I paused a few moments to admire the outside architecture of the building that I was walking around on. Nick had a very deep, gravely voice because he was sick, and he joked that he was Batman...which went over the second year students' heads, unfortunately.

 During statics, I received a new powerpoint from the previous week, and I had to go through it, and work on a problem that I ended up teaching to the class as well. I was pleasantly surprised at how well I've been doing with both teaching and remembering the material. After statics, I went outside to practice French with my friend through messaging back and forth (because he is a native French speaker, and apparently Wednesdays are our French speaking days now). The sunshine outside was uncommon, and amazing. I even took my coat off for a bit to enjoy the nice weather.

Before going to lunch, I met a girl named Heather, who asked if I was a foreign exchange student. I told her about our program, and she said it was nice to meet me. Getting to the cafeteria, dismounting my bike, I ran into her again, and we exchanged Wechats.

 For lunch, I had a variety of dishes, that were on a line of pre cooked dishes. You picked out the ones you wanted, and they put it on a plate for you. Each dish had a specific cost, and you scanned your card to reflect that. Even so, I got three things (an orange chicken patty, sweet potatoes, and potatoes with sausage) as well as rice, for 10.5 yuan. Normally I don't eat much, so I was surprised when I scarfed down my food ravenously.

 After lunch, I hopped on the bus to Campus A to go to Heat Transfer. I handed back homeworks to the students, and again, they found an error...but this time, it was entirely the answer key's fault. I vowed to give back students the points they deserved, but I didn't have to scan them in again, thank goodness.

Following Heat Transfer, we had a meeting on Campus D at 5:30, so I took Pablo with me to catch the bus to the other campus. We caught sight of Prof Wei Wei, Suri, Alexandra, and Robert in the line, and hopped in there with them. We were discussing our plans for the weekend, including seeing the new Wolverine movie, and showing the Chinese TAs Casa Maya. I had invited the Pakistani guys I mentioned before, but only one of them could make it.

After we got to campus, Wei Wei wandered off somewhere, and the rest of us made our way toward the meeting room. We saw a line of flags, and looked to see if all of our flags (Ecuador, China, and the US) were there. We found two out of three, and gladly took pictures. Right after we took it, a guy walked by with an American flag bandanna on his mouth, and we joked about getting a picture with him.

We waited for the others to show up, and at 5:30, still missing Sean, we started the meeting. It turned out that Sean was at the gym, and showed up about 15 minutes after someone messaged him. Wei Wei was our new supervisor, as Greg wasn't able to make it back this semester, and he ran meetings differently than Greg as well. Greg wanted us to have individual points to say at each meeting, and Wei Wei had his own agenda, and asked others for their opinions on each thing. We talked about grading issues, including ABET and its confusing qualifications, including the need to scan papers for the classes, apartment issues (of which we identified many things to buy/fix), phones and selling them back to the program (which Wei Wei informed us was no longer necessary, as the next TAs would be receiving phones.....to our slight dismay), and prerequisites for the 4th year students, reimbursements for items bought/having the program buy things for us, and grading in general (including our 4th year missing student). When we were discussing apartment issues, the Chinese TAs headed out to catch the bus, and Pablo decided to get a taxi and get reimbursed for it. All in all, the people who lived across town decided to call into the meeting next week, and save a trip.

Heading out, Sean and Nick went to get food, Dom went off somewhere else, and Jessica and I headed home. Walking back, we saw something flying erratically, and we realized it was a bat. Looking at it strangely, I realized that the poor thing had gotten up a bit early, and was looking for insects for its dinner. I joked that Nick should be here to see it, since he was the new Batman, hinting at a missed opportunity. Continuing on, I was stunned when something flew through the tree branches, past my face, brushing my nose. Taking a few seconds to recuperate, I realized that it was the bat! I kidded that I had been chosen as Batgirl, but I was still somewhat stunned by the close encounter.

Getting home, I was ravenous, so I fixed myself an omelet for dinner, heading to sleep soon after.

Thursday morning, I had decided to go to Prob and Stats to get a sense of what I would have next semester when I take the class. Will said that they were already several chapters ahead, but that I was welcome to sit in. I didn't know many of the formulas, but lots of it was common sense, and simple calculations, so I caught on quickly.

After class, we headed to get something to eat. There was a noodle place that Jessica, Nick, and Will had looked for the other day and hadn't found, so we went there. The line was horrendous though, so we went a few doors down, and we saw some of our students eating at another noodle place, so we figured it was good. Will ordered for us, two non spicy bean noodle dishes for Jessica and I, and spicy for himself and Nick. Jessica ordered some beef for her meal, which she split with me.

Will taught us some of the characters, using his laser pointer to point out what things on the wall meant. When it came time to pay, I didn't have change to pay Will back, but I figured I would give it back to him later.

 Jessica and Will both went to the bus stop to go home, and Nick and I stuck around for our respective office hours (me for Heat Transfer, and him for Prob and Stats), having confirmed that our 4th year students were indeed free at that time. Thursday afternoons were times off of classes for clubs or other meetings on Campus A, and for most of CQU in general. We both wanted something sweet for our dessert, so we decided to go to D Café to get a mocha for Nick, and a tiramisu to go for me. The office had changed, because apparently, there was going to be disclipinary action in the room next door and they didn't want noise near it (as if office hours make a lot of noise....)

We got to the room, and found out it was a classroom, and lots of people were studying. Put off by it, I messaged Pablo to tell him, and Nick and I sat on a bench outside to wait until it was closer to the time of the office hour. To pass the time, I organized homework grade spreadsheets, and Nick taught me how to use the charts for Prob and Stats that I was confused about. Dom even showed up, which surprised me, until I realized he had mentioned he was going to be on this side of the city today. We chatted for a bit, and then we went into the room, finding that Pablo was already in there. Nick realized that no one would be there today for Prob and Stats help due to the heat transfer test, and decided to head home with Dom after Dom finished talking to Pablo.

Dainty tiramisu

I was happy that about 5 students came in to look at homework solutions so that they could study more for the exam they had the next day. They were a bit shocked that they weren't allowed to take pictures (a rule from UC, high above us), but started writing down what they needed in order to do better. There were a couple questions (only one about grading), and when I successfully answered a conceptual question, I felt extremely proud of myself for being able to understand a fourth year class without 1. having taken most of the prereqs for it yet or 2. having studied very much for it. I realized I had been picking up more concepts than I thought simply by taking notes. I stayed longer than necessary, working on things, and answering more questions until I went to catch the bus. (And walking out, I found out that I was going to have to go to Heat Transfer to proctor the test and stay for the lecture afterwards rather than Models lab in the morning, which surprised me a bit!)

After getting home, I finished my noodles, and worked a little bit on learning the basics of Java, another coding language. The guys were going to watch the movie Sausage Party in their apartment with Sean, and Jessica and I decided to go. I was a bit shocked at how crude it was (every racial, ethnic, and sexual joke you can think of was most likely in that movie), but that did explain its R rating. The movie was having trouble buffering, which wasn't a shock, and we spent the rest of the time waiting exchanging memes, so it was a great time, especially with Nick's still deep voice.

Afterwards, it was about 10 pm, and I went back to the apartment to catch some zzzzs, before having to get up at 6 am the next morning to head to Heat Transfer.

-Zoe