Fall 2003

Seen on the "Virginia Engineering" Tee shirt sold around the U by
the local Tau Beta Pi chapter.

I are an engineer.  I carry a stapler.  I can quick draw a calculator.  I can't
spell my own name.  I can write the pledge in binary.  I can spout dozens of
digits on cue.  I don't need housing, I live in Thornton.  My lucky number is
"e."  I haven't seen an "86" in red ink since high school.

Someday I'll have to write a thesis.  Someday.  I am afraid of the sun.
I think Incas can fly.  I've never gotten full credit for a lab.  Ever.
I haven't slept in days.  Naps in the stacks don't count.  The university
ends at Clark Hall.  I've been wearing this shirt for three days now.

I've never seen Alderman Library.  Concrete floats.  I remember
hundreds of completely irrelevant equations.  The useful ones were
forgotten fifteen minutes after the test.  Estimation is acceptable if
lives are on the line.  Tau Beta Pi > Phi Beta Kappa. My life is
stored on magnetic media.  People come to me for tech support.
Instructions are for wimps.  Words are evil, numbers are our friends.
I hate UTS.  The four basic food groups are: caffeine, sugar, pain
killers, and pizza.

I have a 168 hour day punctuated by three short naps.  A horse is a sphere
if it makes the numbers easier.  Two times two is five for unusually large
values of two.  All I really need is WD40 to make it go and duct tape to
make it stop.  I mock the school of arts and crafts.  I take courses like
"electrical science" and "thermodynamics" by choice.  My computer emits
more heat than my space heater.  I have a diffeycue and I know how to use
it.  I spent half my plus dollars on coffee.  My health is shattered, my
nerves are shot, but when I graduate, I'll have a job.

Local Color - supplied by webmaster as a public service

1. pledge - The honor pledge is written out and signed on all graded work.

2. thornton - main e-school classroom bldg.

3. thesis - "In the fourth or fifth year of study, undergraduate
students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the
University of Virginia undertake a research project called the
undergraduate thesis."
It is described at http://www.tcc.virginia.edu/thesis/

4. stacks - 120 pc computer lab on 2nd floor of A-wing Thornton.
Usually hums with activity.  One must be quite tired to nap there.

5. Clark Hall - env.sci bldg and UVA's science and technology library -
next to thornton - boundary between the e-school and the school of 
arts and sciences

6.  Alderman Library - library for the arts and sciences

7. UTS - university transit service (bus line)

8. school of arts and crafts - possibly another name for the 
ancient and distinguished College of Arts and Sciences.  This 
college offers degrees in such career oriented fields as Sociology 
and Art History and Medieval Studies, just to name a few.

9. diffeycue - possibly an abbreviation for differential equations (Diff EQ)

10. plus dollars - student ID has a mag strip on the back and you or your
parents can put money in your Plus Account which can be used by showing your ID
at any dining hall.