Reflective entry: Deep Cove Hiking Trip by CHBE GSC

Yesterday was an awesome day to go to Deep Cove Quarry Rock trail. It was perfectly sunny and the ambient temperature was about 16 degree celsius, as comfortable as the environment in an air conditioned room.

After the initial commotion regarding the limited vehicle seats, 14 of us in two car (one was driven by me, another was driven by Dr. Y.) and a mini van (driven by M, the main organizer of the hiking trip) to Deep Cove.

The trip to Deep Cove was surprisingly long. With the rush hour traffic at close to 5 PM, it took me about 1 and a half hour to arrive at the destination. Mine was the last one to arrive at Deep Cove. Anyhow, we took a group photo and move on to hike the trail to Quarry Rock.
Although some of us were first time hikers, everyone was able to reach Quarry Rock view point in less than 45 minutes. It was a great achievement!

At the Quarry Rock, we relaxed our body and took many pictures. We were joined by another group of friends. After staying at the Quarry Rock for about 30 minutes, we decided to descend, so that we can have dinner at Cazba Restaurant. It was about 7:30PM. M was making the seat reservation on the Quarry Rock. Cazba was a very nice place to have dinner. I got a lamb shank with some spiced rice and salad. I really enjoyed.

The thing that I least enjoyed was driving. I am very used to relax on the bus and read my ebook. When I was driving, I had to focus on driving and that was a bit boring.
As for the organization of the event, as the President of the CHBE Graduate Student Club, I wish to train the next generation of leaders in the CHBE graduate student community. M was one of the promising leaders. Although the way he handles fund is a bit chaotic (he refunded drive mileage to other one other driver without receipt), he and another grad student, F had successfully organized the trip and smoothened any issues that occurred. It was them who convinced Dr. Y to participate in this event.

My hope is that M, I and the rest of the CHBE GSC committee can come to an agreement regarding how to financial will work. I am hoping to keep some funds to build in-group incentive for the committee members themselves. For instance, the fund can be used to organize end of term hangouts with the executive and committee members, attend professional workshop, visit plants and also pay for the refreshment during the monthly meetings.
I sincerely hope that everything will go better this term. I know I, with the help of all the enthusiatic committee members, will be able to make the CHBE GSC more successful than past two years.

My Election Platform for UBC CHBE GSC Presidential Election

Dear friends,

My name is Jun. I am a 1st year PhD student in the Chemical & Biological Engineering department. I was a Master's student in the CHBE department from 2013 to 2014. I currently serve as the secretary of the CHBE Graduate Students Club and served as VP Communications in 2013/2014 committee.

I wish to announce my intention to be a candidate for president of the CHBE Graduate Students Club in the upcoming election on Monday, April 27, 2015 (Link of Event). I strongly hope to improve the structure of CHBE Graduate Students Club operations and to engage you (fellow grad students) in the organization of events.

My wish is to build a strong graduate student community in the CHBE department and to foster leadership among graduate students who will keep the graduate club activities running in the future.

My goals as the president of the CHBE Graduate Students Club:

• To create a guidebook, which will provide details on the roles of executive members, the annual budget and an agenda of events that will help steer the activities of the club; the guidebook shall be updated annually.
• To organize more social events, such as hiking trips and barbecues during the summer time, and special occasion events, such as Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas parties;
• To organize career and academic workshops throughout the winter/spring terms for personal development;
• To establish the weekly coffee break tradition as a forum for grad students to voice their concerns and feedback regarding their experience in the department;
• To help improve the working environment of the grad students by conveying their concerns to the department.

Qualifications:

• Have more than 2 years of experience working in the CHBE Graduate Students Club;
• Possess excellent administrative and organization skills;
• Served as the administrative coordinator for CHBE/APSC Research Day in 2013 and 2014;
• Am enthusiatic and reliable, as evident in the organization previous grad club events.

I hope that you will vote for me to build a better, more engaging community in the CHBE department.

Yours sincerely,
Jun Sian Lee

Improving my learning through reflective writing

From this article "Improving learning through reflection - part one" by Karen Hinett and my sustainability leadership CHBE 573 course, I have learnt that reflection is one of the best way to reinforce what you have learnt in reading and activities. It helps "individual learners to understand what, how and why they learn. It is also about developing the capacity to make judgements and evaluating where learning might take you.

The general steps for reflecting on what happened or what have one learnt are shown in the picture below.

Source: https://www.kent.ac.uk/learning/PDP-and-employability/pdp/reflective.html

Following my discussion with my dad, I am convinced to start reflecting on my experimental work by asking:

1.Why did I use this method? 

2. What has worked out? What has not? Why is that?

3. What is the best method to record my thinking? Personally I think the best way is to write it down on a piece of paper, which may get lost.

Also, when I am feeling down and unhappy, I should write down:
1. what happen? Who are the one involved?
2. why do I feel this way? Did I experience one of the ten mental distortions?
3. How can I improve my feeling? Should I accept the feelings and move on? Or, should I do something to improve the situation?

First hand experience with UBC Academic English Support (AES) Program

Today I had an appointment with my coach, Emily from UBC Academic English Support (AES) Program. She is an very attentive person and a great listener.
I am definitely happy that I joined the program. I am very grateful that Hasti, my colleague in my research group, introduced this program to me.
I really think that this program will improve in my writing skills and my note-taking skills, as well as my speaking skills.

Emily taught me an english idiom
You are preaching to the converted.
From idiom.thefreedictionary.com, it means: try to convince someone who is already convinced,
Emily said it eloquently: I agree 100% (before I tried to convince her on a matter)

Academic English Support (AES) Program Flyer

How to write your job experience on your resume?

Quoting LifeHacker,

Here is a simple formula from Google's HR chief that'll help you put the best information on your resume:

"The key," he said, "is to frame your strengths as: 'I accomplished X, relative to Y, by doing Z.' Most people would write a résumé like this: 'Wrote editorials for The New York Times.' Better would be to say: 'Had 50 op-eds published compared to average of 6 by most op-ed [writers] as a result of providing deep insight into the following area for three years.' Most people don't put the right content on their résumés."

The only 3 skills graduate students need to learn (UniversityAffairs.ca)

Today I have an article that important points I want to keep in mind.

Quote from the article:
"If you’re trying to transition from academia into business, the first decision you need to make is the decision to improve your oral communication skills. The best way to do this is to start interacting with people in person.

Next, you need to decide to start taking action on your own. Show initiative by going to networking events and conferences to find job leads, instead of sitting behind a computer and sending out a resume. Start building up your online platform. Start commenting on LinkedIn threads related to your field. Start your own group. Just start.

Finally, decide to think about things in a different way. Make sure you’re choosing to focus on the right problems. Don’t get stuck putting out fires and don’t get pushed around by other people’s agendas. Zoom out mentally and identify the right problem for why you are where you are. Then, find a way to get to wherever it is you really want to go. Your choices will determine your path."

Link to the article: The only 3 skills graduate students need to learn

Is soaking wood pellets in glycerin a good idea?

It have been a while since I posted something. Let's have a literature update.
Today, I read a article that comes in my Google Scholar Alert. Article link here:  http://www.ijens.org/Vol_14_I_02/141102-8383%20IJMME-IJENS.pdf
A group of researchers from Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada decided to try crude glycerin on wood pellets. The results? mmhmm, not bad..?

Glycerin is a by-product from biodiesel production. Researchers have been trying to figure out more ways of using this glycerin by-product because this crude glycerin is expensive to purify for use in the food, pharmaceutical, or cosmetics industries. Thus, biodiesel producers must seek alternative methods for its disposal or value-added uses.

So, soaking wood pellets with glycerin to increase its calorific value might be a good idea. This is exactly what the group of Canadian researchers did.

Taken from www.srsbiodiesel.com

The test results on the pellet durability, percent fines and bulk density were not very good, i.e. soaking pellets in glycerin greatly decrease pellet durability (from average 96% for pure pellets to average 70% after soaked) and increase percent fines from average 0.05% for pure pellets to 5% after soaked). Bulk density decreased from 675 kg/m3 to 550 kg/m3.

It is not all bad news. The gross calorific values did increase and the emissions of NOx and CO2 decreased as a result of the addition of glycerin. However, the emission of CO increased, implying that the combustion of glycerin soaked pellets is less complete compared to combustion of pure pellets.

One type of pellets (pellet type C) performs better than other two. The researchers concluded that the producer of pellet type C should try glycerin on their pellets and. 

Personally, I think addition of glycerin might not be a good idea, as it increases the control parameters in the wood pellets production, and at the same time, results in poorer quality wood pellets, in terms of durability, percent fines and bulk density.