About work.

Half of the week has passed and I actual have got work to do, already. My primary task is the modelation of an underground structure, a two tube tunneling - one three, one four lane tunnel – in Brisbane, Australia. Using this excavation model, I’m going to simulate the stresses and strain around it. This is done via a numerical program, in this case Examine3D by Rocscience, which calculates this data using a method similar to FEM, the so called boundary element method (BEM). Hence modeling of the excavation geometry means, discretizing its surfaces or meshing this surfaces with a 3dimensional triangulated boundary element net, in order to create a discrete series of equations a mathematical algorithm is able to calculate.

After getting used to the program, I’m right now searching and reading literature about the analysis and interpretation of the produced data, which is going to be the hardest part because the most theoretical, and due to it’s complexity ill occupy me at least the rest of the week.

I’m thinking back, two years now, when I failed in a course at university – numerical mathematics – and had to do it again. I was furious then, blaming the whole world but me, that this course was senseless, only created to give work to the institute for applied math, specific on only one actual program which was going to be outdated before I’d ever come to use it and over all to early in the 4^th term.

Well I still think it was to early in the 4^th, but knowing how to solve equation systems using Gauss-Seidel elimination procedures or what Q-R decomposition is, helps a lot when it comes to numerical simulation, which is exactly what I do. Who would have thought that, huh? :-P

Week 1

Since I´m still working on the Layout of the Blog, news are going to come at the end of the week! :)

Webalbum

So, there should be a Link now to my Webalbum, including all the Pics I´m going to make down here. Look in the sidebar on the right---->

Day 2, 29.06.2007

After refreshing 12 hours of sleep, I start wondering where Michael – the other intern – was, as he should have arrived at 06:30 local time. 6 hours and “some” phone calls he gets out of the cab with a, “you wouldn’t believe my last 24 hours” on his face.

After trying out Vicky’s noodles with Won Ton recipie, we hop on a bus to the office. Which was supposed to be our first day in the office turned out to be only 2 hours. After taking our workplaces - wahhooo got Internet and Skype - we are forced out of office at 5 pm. “Happy hour” – the new companies Friday-after-work-program was this week a dinner in a nearby restaurant.

Steem Pot is also a usual describtion for what we found there. A boiling pot with a spicy and a regular soup, and "all you can" eat to put in. And all you can eat doesn´t only mean as much as you want, it rather means everything a human beeing could possibly use as nutrition. Shortly after Vicky and Josephin (a draftswoman from the office) took over my plate and fed mee with what ever them pleased, I stopped asking - I just ate it. Just the cow-stomach turned out to be a little weird. The only thing I was actually affraid of, was the chineese fellow who guzzled his crab with such a joy that literally "die Fetzen flogen", without leaving anybody uncovered with stains on the whole table, and probably also the next. Sorry for not taking pictures, but I was actually worrying for my camera.

Later that evening the heavenly spiced soup turned out to be astonishingly digestible for a human stomach and after a while I fell a sleep, realizing to have finally arrived in Singapore!

Day 1, 28.06.2007

After arriving one hour late while I had an appointment with Vicky, the secretary of Geoconsult Asia Singapore - my employer - we finally met in my “tiny” apartment. This tiny apartment turned out to be quite a nice two storey flat with a huge living and dining room and to be situated on the “waterfront”. Unfortunately not the Pacific Ocean as one might have assumed, but the Bedok Resort Lake. So 30-34 degrees outside, aircon only in the bedrooms, that cries for a cooling jump to the lake. Yeeah, would so, if it wasn´t forbidden as almost everything here in the city of Fines. But still it´s a good place to live in a place with “4over” inhabitants. So running in the green should be possible – at least around 5 to 6 am.
Right after letting me put my stuff in the bed room, Vicky took me to a local supermarket to buy some groceries. A while later and packed with stuff like fish, prawns, instant noodles, soya and oyster sauce, we are back at the flat, and within seconds gone again to find the public transport way to work. Astonishingly smart ticketing systems blow away that middle age paper-stamp thing back home. Touchless cards you could also use for shopping in the sevenelevens make life much easier. When arrived in the 17th floor of the Shaw Tower on Beachroad in “Bugis” I meet the 10 people counting staff I’m going to work with in the next month. Senior Engineers from Swiss, China and Austria as well as CAD-drawers from Singapore and the Phillies. I’m actually a little afraid to work with (if not compete), this 20 year old wiz kids from china ;-). So much for that day – hope you stay tuned!