What's going on outside?

this comic came from a place called PhD comics.  

It's one of my personal fave's
AND
it reminded me of something that happened today.


SO
3:00 rolls around and it's time for my 3 hour signal processing lab.
I sit down at my computer,
log in,
and wait for the rest of the lab section to show up.

people trickle in
then WHAM
the lights go out.
(okay so maybe it didn't make a WHAM noise, but you get the idea)
We're all a bit taken aback.
After a couple minutes of talking,
we decide to go into the hall
with the security lights
and work on homework
until we figure out what's going on.

Then the TA remembers,
"Crap, this happened a couple years ago
when the construction crew hit our main power lines.
The fume hoods in the Chem E labs stopped working
and everyone had to evacuate the building
before the gasses leaked.
Let's go ahead and evacuate now just to be safe..."

We exit the Clyde,
and see it is a beautiful, GLORIOUS day.
We sit out front the building
where lots of other engineering classes,
as well as classes from other buildings (who apparently also lost their power)
congregated, continuing on with their lectures.

The other classes seemed so happy to be outside,
enjoying the beautiful sun.

We stood there squinting.

I don't think we quite knew what to do with warm sunshine,
and a bright sky...

most of us enter the Clyde around 8 am,
and don't exit until around 7 pm...
As cliche, stereotypical, picture perfect as this may sound.
It was so true.
I'm sure we looked crazy.
Just standing there squinting.
We honestly didn't know what to think of non-fluorescent lights.

And just to add to the humor,
today was a HUGE engineering career fair
with LOADS of recruiters interviewing students for jobs and internships.
The Wilk lost power too.
Which means all the recruiters were standing outside as well.

For an hour or so,
it was a giant nerd convention all over campus.
Guys dressed all fancy in their suits and ties
talking about C++, micro-processing, biotechnology...

It was a sight.

Long story kind of shorter,
the power came back on a little over an hour later
and everyone went back into the windowless Clyde
to continue on with their studies.
We weren't able to do lab 3,
so I'm not quite sure how we're going to make up for that.
But I did get a lot of other work done.
Stayed in the CADEM until 8:30!


Man,
I love being an engineer.