August 22, 2021

Winding Down this Summer

On about Monday or so last week, I was taking a shower when I felt my stomach drop; I forgot to write a newsletter for last Sunday! There goes my supposed “consistency.” I’ll just say I was “taking a vacation” from writing newsletter updates, that feels a bit better than saying I totally forgot.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t taking anything that resembled a vacation. On Sunday, I was in the lab, trying to get my project completed for my internship. I’m happy to say that the project is now actually “finished” (if MVP = “finished” in this case). Next week is my last week at Twitter, so I’ll be presenting my project to at a couple of meetings, writing and polishing some documentation ¹. I started working on my presentation/slides two weeks ago. I have to say that I really don't like making slides. I never know if I'm writing enough or too little, or including enough detail or being too vague. Hopefully this is something that becomes easier once I've made a and presented a few more slides.

I can't believe it's basically the end of August. I feel like this summer just flew by in a breeze. I'm both nervous and excited for the coming term. I finished all the course requirements for my Master's program, so I'll just be doing research. Also, I decided to not work as a TA for the next year, opting instead to work as a Graduate TA coordinator. This will be the first time in 5 years I won't be TA'ing, so this is some truly uncharted ² territory.

One of Gail's new students arrived in the lab earlier this week from Germany! Alison and I met up with them yesterday, and we talked for a long time about the education system in Europe and how it compares to Canada and the rest of North America. They were in a program that basically matched them with a company in Germany, and that company would fully pay for their tution and give them a salary on top with that, in excahnge for them taking a few weeks on/off school to work for their company. This effectively seems like a much more cohesive co-op program where you can get work experience, and get paid, and basically go to college for free. To say that I am envious would be an understatement.

On another note, UBC still has not updated any guidelines regarding any COVID guidelines for the upcoming Fall term. No comment there other than I'm sure that UBC administration is thinking about us. A lot.

That's it for this week's newsletter, not too much to talk about. I think next I'll have more to say, since my internship will actually be over. I think our research group is planning to have a small outdoor get-together, so it'll be nice to go bother Gail again.