Entered on 30 June 2003 at 8:51 a.m..
Back to Exile
So, I hear that some of you thought I'd flown off to some exotic and tropical destination for a week without telling anyone. Unfortunately that is only half true. While Budapest is somewhat exotic and definitely more tropical than Cranfield, I wasn't exactly lounging around on beaches for the week. Nope I was at the 7th Bi-annual FAA/Eurocontrol ATM R&D seminar in Budapest, Hungary. So you see my quest to see all of the former Eastern-block continues.
The conference was great, and I think I had a better time than just about anyone else. It was kind of like being given a get-out-of-jail card for a week. I made some great contacts and now when I call up to pester people not only will I know what they look like and what some of their attitudes are, they might actually remember me as the outcast british student and take appropriate amounts of pity.
There were about a dozen students there and I definitely felt more at ease with the other European students who knew more about how the beaurocracy of their particular countries' aviation systems than about real engineering research. I had a conversation with a girl from George Mason University who asked me why I was making my own simulator when "we've got TAAM". I politely reminded her (through laughing) that "we haven't all got TAAM," because "TAAM costs �700,000" a license. At which point she said, "yeah, but why not use TAAM." At this point, I politely dismissed myself from the converstation.
I also learned that the dynamics model I've based my simulator on is crap. Somewhere deep inside I already knew this, but to be told it by the lady who refused to help me figure out how to make it better, is still a slap in the face. So I was angry for a while at her, my supervisor, and the world in general. I'm over that now, and it has just added to my pile of bitterness that I've collected against Cranfield. Ah.
The polarity that my emotions take on when I think about my time here in the UK is startling. I have nothing but good feelings for most of my housemates, a few of my office mates, and almost everything not associated with the University. I love the country side, the walkability of most towns, the proximity to europe, the BBC, etc. However whenever anyone mentions Cranfield itself it takes considerable mental effort not to launch myself into a diatribe about how horrible the school is.
So at the end of the conference when a friend of mine stated, "So, you're headed back to exile now, are you?" I had to laugh and congratulate him on finding the perfect word for my feelings on my academic time spent here. Exile.