I finally managed to find the aero lab empty. Yes, completely devoid of the electric undergrads or the workaholic grad students. As I sat on the table eating Annas swedish thin biscuits and reading the book of general ignorance, it stuck me that I had never seen the lab empty. It was blissful. Then a CPU started whirring for no apparent reason. Whatever. I walked over to shut it down and decided to have a good look at the hangings on the walls. Flagship of the 21st century: Airbus 380, Flagship of the 22nd century: the USS Enterprise. The skeleton in the corner, its limbs horribly distorted by the rigors of engineering. The Lockheed Martin picture of a giant-ass transport aircraft. It’s just a painting. I knew it. Those suckers look bigger than Antonov 225s. Come back to the table and read about the things you thought you knew but really you don’t. Munch Swedish thins periodically. Express gratitude towards the wonders of globalisation. Dammit, globalisation has a s, not a z, but my spell-checker says otherwise. Ironic. Globalization. Yep. Just a couple of hours earlier, I was talking to Jin Suh, my South korean summer roommate and my friend from my New York trip, about SAE Aero and his plans for next year. You see, all South Koreans have to serve in the defence forces for a mandatory 2 year period. Now, Jin Suh wants to continue his studies but its probably best for him to get it over with. So I might have to look for a new roommate next year. Or go single. We’ll see. The aero lab has been my favorite haunt for quite some time now. Ever since I spent an entire weekend studying for my DiffEq exam and got a perfect score on it. Given, it has become more populated and noisy as time has gone by but I like it so much I decided to hang the Earth to Mars and back painting, that I drew during Starry Night, in the lab. It feels like hope even though I can’t log into any of the computers because I’m an ECE. The ECE lab smells. Expected. There’s so much I need to tell you. I’ll make separate posts instead of dumping it in one go.