Here I am back at school. I am taking what will be my first and last class of the year. Today I called the Graduate Office and confirmed that my application for graduation was received!

Here is my class description

ECE 564 Control and Operation of Electric Power Systems

Unit commitment and application of dynamic programming, fuel budgeting and planning, probabilistic production cost modeling, hydrothermal coordination, power system security and application of expert systems, state estimation, optimal power flow, interchange evaluation and power pools, reactive power planning. Prerequisite: ECE 419. (3-0-3)


The class is Thursday from 6:25 til 9:05pm

I'm going to have to ask uxsquared to kindly hold onto my computer game Sims2. It seems to be addiciting once again.

I left work around 3pm with the intent of getting there early to avoid traffic, eat at my favorite chinese place, and buy a book. I did 2 out of the three.

I ate at my favorite chinese restaurant. Got chicken low mein and hot tea. Yumm.. and my stomach was bursting a little.

Drove to the IIT bookstore and was shocked that the used book for my class was $120 where as the new book was $145. I asked the lady running the register if she could remove the stickers on the back, and she was rude to me and said I would have to do it myself. I stood there blocking the register, like the stinker that I am, spending a few minutes removing the stickers. These "used book stickers" covered up about literally half of the back of the book and a quarter of the side. It looked horrible and they weren't coming off! I got irritated and complained to the store manager about it. I then asked for my money back because I believe they are ruining the books when they sticker half the back! I told him I just paid $120 for a used book that is ruined. He then questioned giving me a refund after taking off the top half of the stickers, and I said yes, I still want a refund. (They're just going to put stickers on top of them anyways!). so I got a refund. I then went back to store, wrote down the book info and isbn number. Then I logged onto e-campus and bought the same book NEW with shipping for $115. Fuckers. At least I am not supporting the IIT bookstore Nazi.

Here is a detail of my book

Power Generation, Operation, and Control, 2nd Edition



Haha I wonder if we will be studying the state estimation chapter in the book. That would be cool, cause that is what my job entails.


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I'm now writing after my first class of the year. It was a brain challenge and I am glad that I drank a mountain dew to stay sharp, because I needed to!!!!!

It was not boring.. but you could not let your attention drift for a moment.. or you would become helplessly lost in formulas!

We learned about Kuhn-Tucker Conditions, Lagrange multipliers, objection functions, etc..

And I thought I had seen the last of calculus. First set equations are now partial derivatives! Whew!

Anyways, I found out we have homework due for next week. Problem is, I do not have the book yet to do it. I'm hoping it comes in by Tuesday. One of my classmates offered to help scan the problems for me.

After class a black bum approached me on the street. Luckily he was on the other side of the fence of the parking lot. He kept begging for a ride to a missionary place but I told him that I didn't know if he had a knife or a gun on him. I ended up telling him to wait where he was, I grabbed my mace in one hand, $20 in another and gave him $20 for the bus. I am hoping that he's not going to use it on drugs, but who knows. I didn't want risk giving a weirdo a ride , even though it was bad weather, I gave him money for the bus, but I still feel guilty.The school is in the middle of a bad area too... what would you have done?

So it takes about 45 minutes to drive home because it raining sleet and ice. I had to be a little careful while driving, and I thought of a lot of things. Like the power systems class was full of people, like 25 people! Over half of these were foreigners. The two other girls in the class were chinese and all this time I thought that there are 10 foreigners wanting to have my job. I spoke to a few class mates who work for a consulting firm. They have an office in India. Imagine that. american power plants being designed in India.... what is my future? And don't think it can't affect your job. I hear they are broadcasting webcams on robots to india along with x-ray scans for analysis! This is a crazy crazy world where people will do anything to save a buck. Kind of like me bitching about the stickers on a $120 used book and refusing to pay $150 to the nazi bookstore for another one. But the store does provide students jobs, and I didn't think about that until now....

I miss Valparaiso University. IIT is nothing like or never will be like Valpo.

I also think that there should be more incentives to make it easier for American born citizens to go to graduate school and not live in poverty. Then we won't have foreigners taking all the good jobs.

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