Enthalphy-Composition Data: Methanol-Water System

Enthalphy in BTU/lb-mole

click below to download excel file.

Enthalphy-Composition Data: Methanol-Water System

Just a random movie quote

“…I just don’t understand how God would let us meet, if there is no way for us to be together…”
~City of Angels

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

~Reinhold Niebuhr

I haven’t blogged for a long time…

Thesis research is very tiring. Lately, I extracted the oil using the rotavap from our biomass. The result was very unsatisfactory as it yielded only ~10%. I find my thesis mates less enthusisastic these days. Anyway, I can’t blame them. At least I know now every part of the research so I had an edge if I will do the thesis alone.

I don’t like these A H1N1 class suspensions

Influenza A H1N1 virus

Because of the flu virus A H1N1, The classes here in the UST Faculty of Engineering were suspended for a week(June 22 upto June 30 09).

There had been 7 days of no classes since Sunday and I’m already really bored. Though most people from other schools taught we’re lucky, it’s not the case for the most of the UST engineering students that I have talked to.

Maybe one of my  reasons is about being deprived of our allowance, but I think its more like, “I’m really excited for school since summer but I can’t hardly feel the school up to now because of the suspensions”. I’m sure there will be more suspensions because of the typhoons this July. I also think the Government’s measures in controlling the virus are already taking its toll on our education.

There’s No Problem, Think Positive!

Its been a week and I’m stocked here at home doing nothing. I’m bored and I think that this lack of exercise made  me a little bit depressed. I am sure I don’t have any serious  problems at all so I just took a  short walk  on the park and Voila! The depression is gone.

I remembered a newspaper article titled The Thomas Theorem. Unfortunately, I forgot the date of its publication and it was written 2 months ago so I can’t find that newspaper. I’m sure that newspaper was already on a local landfill if not collected by a recycling shop on our community. Still, I remembered some important points of the article.

According to the The Thomas Theorem:

“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

In simpler words:

If the man thinks he has a problem, he is most likely to create the problem.

It’s a little bit scary but true.

I’ll give an example. A healthy man feared he is infected with Influenza A(H1N1), in effect, he stopped going to work for a week.

In this scenario, the healthy man is no different from an infected. Being absent for a week, he created the consequence for himself.

So the moral is think positive!

Goodbye Summer…

Summer vacation is over and now its time to go back to school.

Maybe, I just hate goodbyes...

I’m excited but also, I’ll be missing a lot. I think this  vacation, if not my most enjoyable, is the most unique summer I had ever experienced. Perhaps, it is because of the new things that I learned and also, the friends that I met along the way, my bosses and my fellow trainees from my OJT.

People come and people go. That’s a fact.

Argh.. I hate goodbyes. I really hate goodbyes.

My impressions on OJT

Its raining hard today and I can’t get to work so I felt that this is my chance to write about my experiences on my OJT.

Learning from work and school are not totally different.

I was admitted for training on a refinery on April 2009. Its like going to my first day in a school and it actually reminds me of my highschool life. There are actually many trainees on the company and we’re divided on the different departments. Amazingly,these departments are comparable to the different class section in a school though I know someone whose alone on a particular department and it would be similar to being a alone in a class section. Well, those who are alone to their department happens to mingle with the closest department to theirs. I actually know someone on this situation and she happens to join us often perhaps maybe since we actually knew her personally and she’s actually the sister of my sister’s classmate in highschool. ^_^

Just like on the school, we’re always subjected to exams after each discussions. Sometimes, there’s also a pre-test and it could also be torturous (imagine memorizing the whole plant’s unit processes or being required to read a manual an inch thick for each processes.) Often, you will need to theorize and apply the knowledge you learned from school.

I still feel lucky, though besides the fact that we are given a salary which is  10x below the minimum wage and if you minus the transport expenses is not enough to buy us “lugaw“, the company gave us much love, attention and training which is comparable to the attention given to their normal trainee/employees. My boss is also very kind because he sometimes give me freebies like a free notebook and a printed instruction manual. Contrary to popular OJT belief  that we’ll just make coffee for our boss, we’re  actually making coffee for ourselves but this is not the case on all other departments.

Gaining friends is destiny. It depends on your department and you’ll actually felt that you were destined for each other. I quickly got comfortable with them specially that we share many things in common even we’re from the different schools across the country. Else, maybe the interview, biodata and the essay required played a role on our assigning in the department. We’re actually from the different schools such as UP, LaSalle, Adamson and ofcourse UST. Sometimes, I imagine ourselves  in an epic movie where in  a band of unlikely allies will travel for a fantasy adventure, but only we’re climbing storage tanks instead of mountains, and holding a pen and a notebook instead of a sword and a shield.

Philippines: Palawan subterranean river leads 7 wonders of nature!

Entrance to the Subterranean River also known as "St. Paul's Underground River"

The Philippine Subterranean River National Park in Palawan currently ranks first for the New 7 Wonders of nature competition, under the category of forest, natural parks, and natural reserves.

Well, this seems to be a very good destination, I already  heard much about Palawan for its beauty, seashores, islets and all. Surely, St. Paul’s underground river is also a must see.

The park is said to be the world’s longest underground river, which is about 8.2 km and passes through a cave with major formations of stalactites and stalagmites.

Travel Tips

In order to get to the National Park, you must take the Puerto-Roxas road which goes all the way to Sabang, where the park is located. There are also daily buses which leave Puerto Princesa’s San Jose bus terminal at 7am, and fare costs are at around P300/$6.50. Two or three jeepneys also take the same route, leaving the terminal at the same time, but are cheaper at Php 200. Trips take three hours.

To explore the Subterranean River, one must secure a permit at the Tourist Information and Assistance Center at the Sabang pier. This costs Php 150 for Filipinos and P200/$4 for foreigners. The office can also arrange boat transport to the river (round trip P700/$16, 15 minutes). Then after a five minute walk to the actual entrance, you will be given a lifejacket and helmet, and assigned a boat and driver for the trip to the cave.

(sources:  wikipilipinas, Manila Bulletin April 25, 09)

Today is Earth Day

It's Earth day!!

I made a phone call  today to Mr. Fonacier of Petron Refinery to inquire about my internship schedule, but Mr. Fonacier was not available when I called. They say he was on a tree planting. Though I can make a phone call tomorrow it first left me confused about his absence, but then, I realized that today is Earth’s Day. It  made me remember about our class in environmental engineering specially a topic about the 3R’s or  waste  hierarchy; “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle“

According to our professor, Dr. Laurito, reduce is the most important among the three. It was presented on  a pyramid where in reduce is on top followed by reuse ,then recycle at the bottom. The main purpose of the  hierarchy is to extract the maximum practical benefits from products and to generate the minimum amount of waste.

"Waste management hierarchy"

Earth Day is observed each year on April 22 to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year. The 2009 Earth Day theme  “Green Generation: Towards Low Carbon Development for Survival Against Climate Change ” aims to educate the people in reducing dependence on fossil fuels by developing carbon-free and renewable sources of energy to avert the effects of global warming.