Published on
October 27, 2009 in
General.
I am preparing to return to school, going to university for the first time, and am quite excited at the prospect! When weighing the options of what kind of education I wanted to pursue, I immediately looked into the obvious choices of the Bachelor of Integrated Studies and an Engineering Diploma.
The BIS program because it is aimed at mature students who are employed full time and are looking into a degree for professional advancement and the Engineering diploma as my background fits into that path.
The more I looked into the BIS program the more it seemed like it was not a good fit for me and I started looking into full degree programs instead. While looking into the Engineering path I noted you could get a degree in Math or Physics while getting a diploma in Engineering. But the engineering diploma, while sounding good, is useless without an intention to finish it elsewhere; which I didn’t have.
I have been watching a lot of Sci-fi lately (namely Star Gate SG-1, Atlantis and now Universe) and the heavy emphasis on science, and physics in particular, along with some coincidental reading on Carl Sagan I had been doing and reading sci-fi by Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clark and Larry Niven kept pushing me to review the course descriptions in the physics department. They all seem really interesting to me!
Physics has always come naturally to me, and reading articles and books by physicists has always engaged me and my sense of wonder and curiosity. Also, my work in energy efficiency is related not only to engineering but to physics as well, maybe even more to physics than to engineering. So last Friday when I sent in my application to UPEI I marked down Bachelor of Science, with physics as my major of choice. Who knows where this new path will lead me? grad school? research? back to where I started? It should be a challenging and very interesting path to travel though!
Finally I have gotten round to getting some photos uploaded! We are officially moved in, the mortgage has been completed, and we are “done”, although I don’t think the work will ever stop! There’s some niggly trim work to complete, a few touch-ups, there will be on-going stucco maintenance and inspections, fire wood to cut and split, a wood shed to build, the storage/garden shed to finish and organize, an addition in the next couple of years probably, landscaping, a garden or two, walkways, decks, etc… But for the next little while we are going to take it easy and enjoy a little break!
Enjoy the photos!
Forms for the concrete countertops. Keith wanted to try his hand at concrete countertops and we volunteered as the test case!
No photos of the pour itself, we were to busy trying to keep ahead of the setting concrete to take photos. Keith, Cayden and I did the pour in a couple hours or so.
Here are the kitchen counters in place after a nervous truck ride up from Keith’s shop, no cracks from transport though!
And here is the bathroom vanity with it’s top. I made the vanity from leftover cedar lumber we had.
The bathroom shower fully tiled and grouted, it’s one of my favourite parts of the house now!
Izmo on our bed the first night we stayed at the house, she was pretty amused to see our bed here in what had always just been “that place Dad spends his evenings…”
Fixing stucco, we switched to lime stucco last fall and the areas where we simply went over the old caly finish coat it didn’t adhere as the clay was too smooth. So grooves were scored in the underlying clay for the lime stucco to key into.
Kitchen counter-tops ready for carnuba/beeswax/oil finish
The kitchen nears completion!
Couch is brought up and instantly makes the house feel like a home! Note the pile of tools still in the foreground.
Stove and fridge are in place!
As well as the dishwasher and coffeemaker!
The funky blue sectional gets set-up too!
Thanksgiving dinner at our place, I filled up our firewood nook for the day although the cooking and number of people made having a fire unnecessary that day!
Debie and Izzy chillin on the couch.
Dad and Keith having a drink and waiting for supper. (Ignore the dirty windows!)
We had two tables set up for extra mouths to feed for Thanksgiving.
Izzy outside the house, at this point we have just the north wall to paint. The wall facing the camera in this photo was done first and has held up to at least 4 hard rains with wind since being finished, so far so good.
Tomorrow I will be applying to go back to school, enrolling in the BSc physics program with a parallel diploma in engineering. I will be attending part time, doing two courses per semester hopefully with the support of my workplace. It’s pretty exciting for me and the courses I will be taking will be both exciting and useful in my career.
I am a little worried that I will be able to handle the workload, however I think things on the house and at home should be calming down somewhat soon. We have moved into our house, are finished of three outside walls and 99.5% of the interior. Two weeks of rain have given us a good test for the wall system and it seems to be performing admirably.
*SIGH*
Relief.
I will hopefully be putting up some new photos of the house moved in and dressed up, as well as some photos of the completed outside walls. I wish Aliant would hurry up with the high speed expansion so we could get internet at home, but alas it is not available yet to us.
