Day one:
Today was a half day. Myself and the 3 other students in my program met for our first lecture/discussion for a few hours. The topic was structural concepts and instead of just chatting at us, the prof took us on a mini tour of the campus to a few buildings that offered exemplary views of specific important structural details.
We discussed the basics of what keeps a building off the ground. It's all about support. The roof is connected to or supported by purlins which bear the load of the roof and run perpendicular to the roof spans and the beams underneath. It's like chain links - they are all interconnected. The purlins sit on beams, and the beams in turn are supported by columns which make up the vertical support of a building. All of this sits on piles.
Piles can be poured in place or prefabbed and driven into the ground. The same is true of concrete floors. They can be poured in placed or prefabbed. The thickness of the concrete floors and the thickness of the beams is determined by how load is expected to be resting on either.
Fun stuff. It may not make for an interesting blog update, but it was a good day nonetheless.
It was only a half day today because my prof had to meet with the program people to discuss some changes to the course. I think they were supposed to meet last week, but you know how that goes.
I took some photos of my apartment and a few around the neighbourhood. I should have mentioned that I moved out here over the weekend with the help of my dad. Everything went really well with regards to the move, but I brought way too much stuff and had to send some of it back to Alberta. Thats ok. I did pretty well going from having a whole house to myself to just having a bedroom and the lower shelf in the kitchen pantry.
peace.
