Stupid Scholarship Selection Committee

Never volunteer for anything. I really couldn't afford to waste the last two hours.

I’m doing a presentation on CCDs (the sensors that make digital cameras work) for one of my classes so I went to the research group I was working for two years ago and dug up my logbook. I was doing some research related to CCDs so I figured I’d find something useful, at very least a good description of the technology I remember reading. My logbook makes for rather amusing reading. Apparently, I spent the entire summer in a state of anguish over the fact that I didn’t actually know what I was doing. At one point I actually have “Ahh!” written. I credit this experience as helping to convince me I don’t actually like research and thus have no interest in graduate studies. Spending al day sitting in front of a computer and banging my head on the table lacks a certain appeal.

In other news, I recently realized all of my seven classes have group work in them. All seven.

Crap, now I have some idea of how my Mom feels. I've worked 8 1/2 hours and it's 4:30pm.

Grad photos went very well. The guy who does them is amazing. Also, I'm apparently a size 6 1/2 ring.

Grad Photos

I have grad photos tomorrow so I got my hair cut today. Naturally I'm not really happy with it. I can't believe how there's been absolutely no notice or warning about this (the photos). Yesterday I received a forward saying that the sign-up sheets were up. Well they've been up for over a week, all the best time slots are long since taken and the people in the SESS office don't seem to have a clue who put up the sheets or exactly who should be signing up.

My grad photo from high school is crap (no really, I'm utterly unshaven and I my eyes are half-closed because I was exhausted). I really want my university grad photo to look good.

The other day my sister and I had an argument over whose book was more impressive: her new Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS) or my new FAG rolling bearings catalogue. While her book is a complete reference for every Canadian drug and may be extremely large, my catalogue handles everything from ball bearings to needle bearings, is hardcover and has TWO ribbon bookmarks in different colours.

I hit her with the CPS. Serves her right.

Midterm Season

I had my first one today. It went rather poorly. I would have done exceptionally well if I'd had another hour to actually write the exam once I figured out how to do the questions (they were all very simple if you made the proper assumptions and used the proper models). As it is I have a messy pile of numbers for which I'll receive no part-marks if the answers aren't correct.

All right, time to move on and think about my two exams on Friday. At least the one today is only worth 15% if I do better on the final (which I think has only happened once in my life).

There's no hanger for my coat.

I've just realized that every time I mean to write yay (an exclamation of joy), I write yeah (the word everyone on the idol TV shows adds to every song). I have no idea how long I've been doing this.

Yeah! Breast Cancer!

I’ve finally found out what my fourth year (well, fifth year for me) design project will be and it’s awesome. There were basically two crappy projects and one good one. My team beat the odds to get the best project which involves, you guessed it, breast cancer!

The specifics: The goal of the project is to build a small, cheap, portable, and easy to use device for detecting tumors in the breast. The principles are fairly simple. Healthy breast tissue consists almost entirely of fat, which is not good at absorbing near-infrared light (red light, basically). However, tumors grow lots of blood vessels to feed themselves with, and the hemoglobin in the blood does strongly absorb near-infrared light. Thus, if you shine said light on the breast and measure how much light is reflected, any tumors should show up as dark spots. By fortunate coincidence, the lasers in CD players operate at 780nm, exactly the frequency absorbed by hemoglobin. It is also easy to get LEDs (those little blinking lights on your VCR) that work in this range (which is what we’ll probably end up using). Hopefully, we’ll be able to come up with a design cheap enough (and easy enough to use) that it can be used in third world countries, remote northern locations, or even purchased at a health equipment store.

I’m also excited about working with the professors who are supervising this project. I’ve had three classes with one of them and I know he’s very easy to work with and he has an engineering approach to things. The other guy also seems very good, though I’ve only met him once. I believe that groups that have worked with these supervisors in the past have done quite well in the design competitions (the two professors normally work as a team). Actually having some supervisors with experience is quite rare.

So in conclusion: Yeah breast cancer detector!