a summer update

It's definitely been awhile since my last post, and a lot has happened!

First of all, I'm proud to say that I (just) turned in my Master's Thesis! As with any project, it was frustrating and illuminating at times. I can't say that the subject matter is my passion, but I did learn a lot and I am proud of the work I've done. The next step is preparing a kick-ass powerpoint and presenting it in 2 weeks! The next two weeks are gonna be tough... I'll not only be defending my thesis but also packing all of my things and saying goodbye to Valencia and all my friends here.

About my UNIDO internship in China, everything has been going smoothly. I've received all the materials I need to get my F visa, which is for visiting scholars, businesspeople, etc. My official position is Research Fellow at the UNIDO Regional Office in Beijing, China. I'm also going to apply for a scholarship for internships abroad from UPV, which would be a big financial help.

And as for what's happened in the last couple months, it's involved lots of travel and seeing old friends. I spent the first part of the summer June and the first half of July working on my thesis. During the last half of July, I traveled to London for the USE Efficiency course on energy efficiency in sports buildings. Afterwards, I traveled to Greece, Lebanon, Denmark, AND Sweden! More details and travel stories are to come.

tesis/tesina/trabajo fin de máster/proyecto final... and London!

As that September deadline slowly creeps up, I have finally established a topic and started working on my master's thesis. Despite having been exposed to so many new ideas and such a wide variety of fields in the master, it was extremely difficult to find a project that satisfied my criteria: interesting, do-able by September, and useful in some way. I'll have to admit that at first, my biggest concern was the timing and being able to submit the thesis by the September deadline. I talked to A, one of the professors of the master, and I started doing research on the topic of cost projections for electricity generation in California. The problem? The topic was extremely open-ended and was purely for my own benefit; my (supposedly 300) hours spent would not contribute the slightest to any current project nor any future project. I understand that a master's thesis is not nearly as extensive as a doctoral thesis, and I'm not trying to make any huge steps for mankind while writing it, but it would be nice to know that my work has an application outside of my own education. When I expressed these concerns to A, he told me with all frankness that the only other people (other than the two of us) who would read my thesis would be the three professors on the master's defense 'tribunal.' 

This brings me to the second part of the post title. Last week, I found out that I was selected to receive a scholarship to attend USE Efficiency Summer School, a university energy efficiency course that is held annually. There are 11 participating universities from around the EU and each sends three students to the course; during the course, teams are formed to perform energy audits and, of course, the idea is that bringing together students from different cultural and academic backgrounds will allow for knowledge exchange and so-on. Last year, the course was held in Valencia and this year, it will be held in London to coincide with the Olympics! The details are still a bit fuzzy, but before the course the three of us from UPV will put together an energy audit and during the course, we will also perform an energy audit of an Olympic building or facility. Needless to say, I am extremely thankful for this opportunity and I really plan to make the most of the course! (I should also mention that the two groups who received the highest grades on the energy audit project were interviewed for the scholarship to 'test' their English. Since there are students from all over participating in the course it is conducted in English, and a big part in taking full advantage of the course is being able to communicate well in English. Luckily I scored a 9.5 out of 10 on that part.)

So you're probably wondering what these two unrelated topics have to do with each other. I ended up changing my thesis topic and working with a different professor C on a completely different project both of which are related to the energy efficiency topic of London. My new project is developing a methodology for the measurement and verification after an energy audit is performed (for example, how do you measure the savings after you install energy-saving lightbulbs? it doesn't just improve your electricity bill but also your air-conditioning bill since it produces less sensible heat.) as well as the results of demand response improvements (what are the savings on cost and emissions if you run your washing machine in off-peak hours -in the night for example- rather than in peak hours?). Part of the project is also making a proposal for developing an organization and course that would be analogous to USE Efficiency but for UC Berkeley, where my advisor is collaborating. Anyways, this topic is much more interesting and I do enjoy the fact that a) my work is useful in the very immediate future and b) being a native Californian and also having studied in California, I can provide some unique insights and experiences. Furthermore, my thesis work will help me in London and I'm sure I'll also pick up ideas there as well. 

Looks like it's all starting to come together.

and it starts again

After a 4-day break, second semester of the master has started. Here's my class schedule:

Distributed Energy Resources
Analysis and Optimization of Installations
Environmental Impact of Energy Systems
Biomass
Design of Renewable Energy Installations
Geothermic and Other Renewable Resources
Hydrogen

So far it looks like we have less exams than last semester but more projects. And again, some are very theoretical and research-based, like Hydrogen and Geothermic and Other Renewable Resources, while others are more practical (Analysis and Optimization of Installations and Design of Renewable Energy Installations). The point, supposedly, was to put less of a workload on this semester so we could focus on writing the master's thesis. I'm not sure how much progress anybody will make on their master's thesis but a couple of my classmates seem pretty determined to go back to their respective countries and jobs in July, and September at the latest.

On a related note, ¡yay!- I passed all my first semester classes

high-tech hitchhiking: comuto.es

Last weekend my traveled to and from Barcelona via rides found on comuto.es, a Spanish rideshare website. I had used a similar website (mitfahrgelegenheit) in Germany once, and had also used craiglist rideshare once in Los Angeles. I personally have a relatively high level of trust for strangers on a website like this and am not terribly paranoid about getting kidnapped or run off a mountain or anything like that from a rideshare, but I guess it's understandable if others are. I just see it as a good way to travel, share costs, have some company for an otherwise boring trip, and decrease the size of my carbon footprint :). And the people from comuto are never boring!

On the way there, I called Bouzid and he said that at 8 or 9am he would in Valencia... little did I know that the next morning I would receive a phone call at 6am from him, telling me that he was already here! (It ended up being ok, he waited for about half an hour.) Anyways Bouzid was born in Algerian, and has lived in France for quite awhile. His Spanish was really good though, and we chatted about quite a few things. I learned quite a bit from him. For example, I learned that there are 4 words that mean cat in Arabic and also that Toulouse (where he lives now) is known as the Ville Rouge and for the Airbus factory. I'm not sure what he does now, but in the past he worked as a French language teacher. Also, it seems like everybody has something to say about "La Crisis" in Spain. According to Bouzid, the reason why Spain is in crisis was that 20 years ago, they entered the EU and received a lot of aid because they were among the poorer; but of course, not all this money was wisely spent and much of it was pocketed, wasted, etc. After more countries had entered the EU, Spain was no longer receiving aid and couldn't keep up the level of construction that they were doing.

So the ride back had some interesting people as well. One girl, Nuria, was a pastora for a living. She's originally from Barcelona but has lived in the Pyrenees for about 5 years, doing substitutions and taking care of animals. I guess her boyfriend's family needed someone to help out so she started working with them, and then she took a class, and then people were introducing her to other farms that needed help. She also mentioned doing work with olives. Another woman on the ride was originally from Venezuela but she said she had always felt more European than Latina. She moved to Germany when she was around 25 and worked as an au pair, and then after 2 years she worked in Zurich and now she's lived in Spain for about 5 years. She seems quite content now... she lives in a small city and works as an unlicensed dental technician/hygienist.

I've only met about 5 other people through ridesharing websites, and in my experience the girl driver I was with in Germany was the most "normal" or mainstream while the ones in Spain were more diverse or "alternative." The ones in California were definitely the weirdest (one was a conspiracy theorist who had to go to court because he accidentally voted once, and another one was going to visit her chemist boyfriend who experimented a lot... she experimented as well but in different ways to be clear).

the way in...

is through the stomach!

Food and culture are so interconnected that I realized my posts about my travels in Morocco and Moroccan history and culture are incomplete without some explanations of their cuisine. Feel free to indulge!

1. Escargot- The first time I came to Morocco, I had escargot on the beach of Tangier and it was absolutely wonderful. It's cooked in a hot broth with spices, and can be found nearly everywhere... on street corners, by the beach, and in medinas.




2. The national dish of tagine, a dish of meat (can be chicken, lamb or fish) with vegetables (can be chickpeas, carrots, potatoes, etc.) in the recognizable tagine bowl:


3. Here's a cheap and delicious of fried fish with Moroccan salad and fried aubergine (eggplant). Moroccan salad is similar to a Mexican salsa fresca- crushed tomatoes with some onion and cilantro. However, cumin is what makes it Moroccan.


A close-up of Moroccan salad


4. Very very fresh seafood in Essaouira


5. Sheep brain... one of the famous dishes in Jamaa el Fnaa in Marrakesh


6. Mint tea, the national drink (aka Moroccan whiskey)


7. One of my favorite discoveries (after Moroccan salad) was the avocado milkshake


8. The ubiquitous fava bean soup (served with a dollop of olive oil, and paprika and cumin sprinkled on top) and lentil soup




9. Finally, any discussion of Moroccan cuisine with no mention of the bread is incomplete. It's eaten with every meal and every dish. Because Moroccans eat with their hands, the bread is essentially what they use to pick up vegetables and mop of soups.