Category: Uncategorized

I emailed my US Congress representatives and told them to oppose the bailout. Except Durbin, because his website is disabled. It was cathartic, but I should call him tomorrow to finish the job.

I’m planning on heading in to pittsburgh 10/10-10/13. I want to check out CMU’s engineering and public policy program and the green design institute. I would also like to see people while there. Anyone reasonably close to campus have some spare couch space? Anyone in the area available to hang out that weekend?

I’m having my usual post project completion mope. And I have an ear infection. Whee? =)

So one of the applications for a PhD program wants me to flesh out a full research proposal, including methodology. I can define the scope, I can define the area of interest, but I’m not intimately familiar with the data sources out there nor the typical methodologies. I was planning on spending the first year of the PhD taking daily trips to the library to get a handle on the literature, what’s been done, what hasn’t been done, etc.

Ideally I’d like my dissertation to be about a life cycle analysis of the environmental impact of residential development, and the impact of different development technologies and policies. In particular, I’d like to analyze how the US Green Building Council’s LEED system works, and how the LEED system plays out, given the technological and environmental environment. I’d also like to compare it with similar systems in other countries.

I’m not sure how to go about breaking down the system for analysis, where to get the information. Obviously, you really can’t do it with controlled studies. I don’t know how vague or how detailed to get on the essay. I don’t know what sort of information I can realistically access. I figured this was stuff I would pick up in grad school, not stuff I needed to know beforehand.

Blah!

This is the document driving alot of my other documents. It provides context for my recommenders. It provides focus to my “I’m so awesome, you should bring me in, and give me money to study with you.” essay. I’ll figure it out, but need to vent.

No one judges you based on your clothes.

Math 800 (again)
Verbal 800 (woot!)

Essay I felt better about my issue essay than the argument essay. But 45 v 30 minutes will do that. And the argument essay was basically as engineered for my research interests as possible. So, of course I wanted to write for 3 times as long as they gave us.

Still, this shouldn’t hurt my application. Might even help them overlook my gpa. =)

I’ll be in Champaign for an engineers without borders meeting, so I had to reschedule my GRE. And my choice was this weekend or mid-October. I opted for this weekend. That means I’ll have to do some practice essay writing over the next few days. I also want to have a solid draft of my research objectives by the start of next week to share with the friends who’ve volunteered to help me with my essay. (So I can give it to my recommenders by the end of next week as well).

Grad school ho?

Yay, screen replacement ordered online worked like a charm. Cell phone is back in business. When my contract is up (in July), I’ll probably switch to an HTC Dream running Android or something like that.

There is nothing to fill me with greater despair than grad school applications, promotion applications, performance self-appraisals or anything else where basically, I have to attest to how awesome I am. Fun times.