Rocks and Conception

It was a warm and sunny day on Friday. Left home early in the morning with my brother Shek to uni. The plan was for him to get to uni early to finish off a structures assignment whilst I went to Paine Reserve near uni to complete defect mapping for a site investigation for a civil engineering project. Man that sounds complicated doesn't it? I sound like a professional =)

In layman's terms, site investigation in a geotechnical (studying rocks and soils and their behaviour) engineering always consists of guessing what type of material is below the ground surface of your construction site. So from walking around the site, we might be able to get some hints as to what's underneath. This guess is then checked by drilling holes to check what's really underneath. So why guess? Well my lecturer points out unless you're looking for specifics, you will never really get a detailed plan of what's underneath. He has some quote about, if you're just looking with no direction then you only "observe" but if you do have a direciton then you "see".

So anyway, this Paine Reserve is situated on Botany and Rainbow street of Randwick.

We were to assume we were going to put a pump house at the corner as shown in the diagram. Our job was to do an investigation as to what was underneath the ground, what sort of tests we need to do to get the strength of the rock/soil, what type of foundations to use... In short, making sure it's safe to put something at the corner. We did a previous site walk over to get a general idea of the site, but we missed out on the detailed mapping of 'rock defects'. Breaks, changes in rock that will affect its behaviour and strength.

We wrote a lot of notes and made some measurements. It's amazing how we can look back so far just by looking at something so simple. These rocks we were seeing were millions of years old.



Sand and soil get dumped in layers, and so you can see here, the horizontal layers on the rock, well not really... too small? Anyway it's slightly tilted now, so that means the ground moved somehow due to past plate tectonics. So what we ended up seeing is folds in the rock, meaning the earth underneath would be just as wavey as well, that means the rock is strong in different directions. See the picture under? It's wavey! Anyway we kept reading compass bearings and directions and mapped the whole place out.



After that was done, it was straight to Macquarie Uni! Conception Day is today! I haven't taken a bus from UNSW for ages, ended up waiting for an express bus that took longer to start than other city buses. Oh well, I didn't mind waiting, no rush I guess.


Hopped onto a train at Central to Chatswood station. Haven't been on that red line for a while, and certainly haven't been to the new renovated Chatswood station! I wanted to take the train straight to Macquarie Uni. Haven't been on that train stop either... so a lot of new experiences. I remember going to MQ uni before by getting off at Epping station then taking a bus, or a bus direct from QVB.


Finally arrived at Chatswood Station! It looks nice. Didn't have to wait long for a train to MQ uni. Was on one of those millenium trains again. I don't get to ride them much, so I don't usually remember, but I noticed how LED's light up the door for preventing trips or warning there is a gap! That's so awesome! hehe not really, but im an engineer, everything amuses me.






Macquarie uni station! It looks pretty awesome, imagine all the work gone into making this station... just mapping the rock defects, guessing what's underneath, site investigations for the tunnel and all... that would have been a large amount of work, and the less accurate about their predictions, the more expensive the project is going to be. To make sure the road and buildings above aren't going to collapse down, tunnelling is not going to shake the buildings... and the anesthetics of the station, it's pretty good I think!




Check out the support for the escalator... hmmm ... i know, engineering geek, I analayse too much sometimes don't I?


Well I got to MQ uni, and after eating a big fat Oporto lunch with lots of oil, I was ready to drink hard and immerse myself in this legendary party I have heard so much about but never been. The line to get in was amazing... Quite long... below is only just a tiny section of the line too!

Dance floors, bands, stalls and even a ferris wheel!




So how was the party? I didn't like it. Maybe for a few reasons:

• Time of party
• Queue cutters to the bar
• Music
• Lack of close friend company
• No hot chicks

Apart from the first and third point, it is quite self explanatory so I won't dwell on those points. Let's begin with Time of Party. Some people entered this party at 11am. AM. That's right, what party apart from 6 yr old birthday parties start in the AM?! There's something about the human mind that's very complex and interesting. Drinking in the day, makes it less fun. Getting pissed during the day... is dumb. So it was hard to drink. Well not hard, but different. We don't have the comfort of the darkness to veil our shameful acts and vomited goods. However, this isn't really a major point I suppose. I haven't placed a great deal of weighting on this factor as I knew this before the party was started... Just found it interesting to share.

Music? Everyone has different tastes to music. That's why I suggest if you are going to have multiple dance floors, have different genres. Forcing a one size fits all does not do well. From trance to hardcore trance... I don't think so pal. Let me conduct a survey:

What type of music do you prefer at a club/party?
A) RnB
B) RnB
C) RnB
D) RnB

It seems that from the results, 100% agree on me that RnB is the way to go. Not only is it a "modern" feel, it is the most less controversial. What do you mean? Most music these days can be classified as rock/RnB. Sure, like I said, different tastes, some really hate RnB, (idiots) but! We just need a regular beat, nothing too fancy, just so we can bounce around, bob, or get into what is known as the "party vibe". Trance...please... unless you know a bit of Shuffling, is just a bit weird to dance to, or even just relate or heaven forbid... sing to. Weighting was slightly higher on this as it sets the mood and gives people to do. Oh yes, the bands, wolfmother ok.. but that Jack Ladder guy that just echoes? Come on. Better quality music, but most importantly, different genres of music. (RnB)

Lack of close friend company was my fault mainly so very little weighting was placed on this. The most weighting was "no hot chicks". Though there were some very-short-skirt-so-I-can-see-butt-cheeks... the average quality overall wasn't good to say the least. I'm just joking folks... Who am I to judge? I'm not that superficial... but seriously... it weighed the most.

In conclusion: On a scale of 0 to 10, the party was around a 4 or a 5... Has potential, but not that awesome.

I left at 6pm, and I went to Chatswood to eat at Makoto, a sushi train. I wasn't full when I finished, but I knew if I keep going I would be broke. Man sushi trains sure are expensive. It was good though. Last time I had Makoto was in the city, on my 19th birthday. That time i ate 50 dollars or 60.... Kha and I were seeing how much we can eat... He won in the end, but still it was fun... and hell expensive. Here's an old photo recap: