During lunch i went over to TU Delft (Delft Technical University) to meet with the MSCE faculty. TU is a very reputable engineering school in the netherlands. This week is master's week so i went to talk to some professors about the curriculum etc. One was named Sjaak (pronounced Shaq) and he was like an old school geologist. jeans and a plaid shirt. long white beard on glasses. classic!! the other was more eurohip - fun glasses, dress shirt and shiny shoes. they disagreed on EVERYTHING. so i asked a question about doing a thesis at fugro just on a project i was working on. one said yes the other said no. i asked if i could complete the thesis in the US. one said yes one said no. UGH!!! i finally just made an appointment with the international student advisor next monday and hopefully i can get some more info. The program is still quite small for a geotechnical engineering masters, only about 20 students. i'm excited about going back to school, but i'm crazy about it. maybe i'm just not crazy about TU Delft. its a 2 year program. 1 year would be a lot better for me. i will have to make a decision soon. its a committment i need to be 100% behind. going back to school is going to be a schock after working for 5 years, but its very important to me to continue learning, improving my technical skills, and becoming a better engineer. i want to continue working while going to school, which is not possible in SoCal. actually i just want to do everything all at the same time. sometimes i wish i didnt have to sleep.
the Fugro West president stopped by to see me today! he's in leidschendam for the annual big-wig meeting. i didnt know he was going to be here so it was a surprise when he popped into my office! we talked about what i was working on here, and also we talked about how his meetings were going. he indicated that there were many exciting projects coming up this year and that the forecast looks strong.
random thoughts - the pavement is so interesting here. the residential and downtown streets are brick paved. i saw some paving in downtown delft and basically they just put down some grey leveling sand and place the bricks by hand, then fill in the cracks with sand. no mortar. apparently that's all they need for light car traffic and pedestrian traffic. the main streets and highways appear to be paved with some sort of rubberized asphalt, and the highways i think use permeable pavement since it rains so much here (practically every day). they are very concerned about noise pollution here, and the rubberized pavement greatly reduces the highway noise. in certain residential areas, the speed limit is reduced to also minimize the highway noise. the roads overall are well maintained.
other random thoughts - the weather. so far, not too cold! have to wear a winter jacket, scarf and gloves, but not cold at all with that on. it does rain here alot, everyday almost. its intermittent. and the big difference is that the raindrops are very small. almost like a mist but heavier. so even if you're standing out in the rain for awhile, you dont really get too wet. in the US, the raindrops are big fat ones sometimes and the rain can really soak you. so, even though it does rain all the time, its really not that bad. and usually doesnt last that long. but when the sun shines - its so gorgeous and green here; it more than makes up for all the rain. :)
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