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Day 18 - Random AU

Day 18 of the 30 Day Ghostbusters Challenge!

Author’s Notes: I thought it would be a fun idea for an AU if we saw a 2016 Ghostbusters movie that was more like the Extreme Ghostbusters cartoon!

Erin Gilbert stood outside the door to the lecture hall and shifted her satchel from one hand to the other. "It's no big deal, Erin," she muttered to herself. "Just the first day of the most important class of the rest of your life. No sweat."

She reached out to push the door handle, then hesitated and dropped her hand, losing her nerve.

Someone cleared their throat behind her and Erin jumped aside. A young man gave her an odd look as he walked through the doorway.

Erin squared her shoulders. "You can do this," she whispered. "You can do this." After all, no one inside the room was going to make fun of her. They were all taking the same class.

Then why was it so hard to open the door?

Finally it was time that motivated her. The idea of sliding into the class late and having all the students watch her while she tried to find a seat was more terrifying that the idea of opening the door. With a few minutes left to go, Erin grabbed the door handle and pushed through to the other side.

The lecture hall was a large one, which was the norm for the first level classes. One of Erin's worries had been that there wouldn’t be any seats left, but she found out she needn’t have worried. The hall could easily seat about a hundred students, but only a dozen or so people were seated toward the front of the room, with one or two others who had parked themselves in some of the back rows, looking like they were ready to fall asleep before class had even started.

Gripping her satchel, Erin inched her way down the lecture hall steps to the front of the room. There was no way she was going to miss a single word of any lecture in this class, so she was determined to get a front row seat, if she could find one.

Erin bit her lip when she got to the front. She scanned the row quickly, not wanting to hold up anyone behind her, and saw that there were two empty seats between two young women right next to the stairs. Normally she would want there to be three empty seats, because she felt more comfortable if there was a seat between herself and any other students, but at this point class was going to begin any minute and she had precious little time to make a decision. Taking a breath to steel herself, Erin sank into the seat closest to her.

Erin kept her head down as she pulled her notebook and two pens from her satchel, before she dared to lift her head. When she did, she was surprised to find the woman she had sat next to was staring directly at her.

"Hi!" the woman said, holding out a hand to Erin. She was short with a round face and long brown hair done up in a bun. "I'm Abby. What brings you here?"

Not used to someone introducing themselves so enthusiastically, Erin stared like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Finally she cleared her throat and took Abby's hand, shaking it once. "Um, Erin Gilbert," she said, since it seemed polite to say your name back when someone tells your theirs. "What brings me... why, is this the wrong room?" She looked around wildly, horrified at the thought that she had gone to the wrong lecture hall. "This is Dr. Spengler's class, right!?"

"You got it, chickee." The other young woman, who was seated to Erin's left with a chair between them, cocked her head sideways to regard Erin. She leaned so far to the side that she was almost stretched out horizontal across the chair. Her short hair fell in a cascade over one side of her scalp, the other half shaved short, and her glasses were the same tint of yellow as her hair. "Abby means, what made you want to take Parapsychology 101?"

"O-oh." Erin's voice got small. She didn't want to say why she was taking this class. They would laugh, whether they were taking the class for the same reasons or not. Everyone always laughed. "I, um, well. I--"

Abby was obviously a talkative one, and she plowed on ahead when Erin couldn't find her voice to answer. "I totally believe in ghosts," Abby announced. "I've checked out some haunted houses and I've even felt some things. I've read Dr. Spengler's Spirit Guide cover to cover six times." She had a pile of three or four books next to her feet and the top one was, indeed, Dr. Spengler's guide. Abby bent forward and patted it fondly.

The blond woman was still mostly horizontal, much to Erin's amazement. Erin noticed she had two pencils stuck behind one ear. "Jillian Holtzmann. Double major in Physics and Women's Studies. I've read a lot of online articles about the Ghostbusters' equipment, but they never go into details. Taking this class so I can corner the prof during office hours and pump him for information."

Erin stared at her in shock. Jillian smirked back.

A deeper feminine voice cleared her throat directly behind Erin; she turned her neck quickly to see an extremely tall African American woman with short black hair and a friendly smile. "I'm a History major but this counts as an elective. You know how many times the Ghostbusters saved the city? We're going to be taught by a living legend. We're basically making history just sitting in this class. That’s why I’m here."

"Have you ever seen a ghost?" Abby asked, leaning toward her, not at all offended that the woman had injected herself into their conversation.

"Nah, but I'm open to the possibility. I'm Patty Tolan," she added.

Erin sunk low in her seat. I'm surrounded by extroverts, I'm doomed, she thought to herself.

Before the conversation could continue any further, the door next to the stage opened and an older man stepped through, his blond hair pulled back in a simple tail, saving Erin from finding something to say. He was wearing brown slacks and a blue sweater. Erin was surprised by her first sight of Dr. Egon Spengler. She had expected someone in a suit, at least.

"Welcome to Parapsychology 101," the man announced without preamble. "I'm Dr. Spengler. Let me know if any of you had any trouble ordering the correct textbooks." The few students who were chatting quieted. Jillian Holtzmann sat upright. Erin quickly opened her notebook.

"I'm not too late to join, am I?" a new voice announced from the top of the stairs.

Dr. Spengler stopped short, clearly surprised. "Janine?"

The professor's reaction had most of the class turning their heads to see who was coming down the stairs. She was a woman about Dr. Spengler's age, wearing a short navy skirt and a complimentary short-sleeved blue top. Her red hair was short and her glasses were oval-shaped with gold frames, giving her a trendy look despite being older than most of the other students.

"Ah, yes, you're just in time, Janine," Dr. Spengler said, obviously trying to recover from his surprise. He turned to the rest of the room. "Class, this is Janine Melnitz. When the Ghostbusters were in operation, she was our receptionist and accountant."

"I hope you know that's not the only reason I’m taking this class, Egon," Janine said.

The professor adjusted his glasses. "Of course." He addressed the room again. "Ms. Melnitz also experienced paranormal incidents herself more than forty-two times during her employment with us."

Erin stared at the confident older woman in amazement. Beside her, Abby gave a smothered gasp.

Janine sighed and took a seat.

per kelly’s choosing, im going to tell you the story about how we are kicking a trump supporter out of our group in class. to preface - i can talk a lot lol. 

so the backstory is that theres three girls and 1 guy in our group. they all know eachother from hs and whatnot. the girls do not like the guy, and that became more obvious as the class went on. alright so. this guy has missed like probably 3 or 4 weeks of class at this point, including meetings for a presentation we had. he missed every meeting or cancelled; the day of the presentation we were supposed to meet thirty minutes early to go over it and make sure its all good. he texted us first letting us know hed be there. come time to meet up and hes late. we wait and wait and then class starts and hes still not there. our professor is giving him shit because hes missing again, and jokes about failing him so his admission to ucsb gets rescinded lmao. he also tells us that we can kick him out of the group if we want. at this point he had missed 4 weeks of class, meetings for the presentation, and now the presentation itself. 

we leave class and our gc gets a text from him saying hes so sorry he missed but he was in an accident. we start a side chat about this. he tells us he forgot his phone in the car and it went to the shop and he went to urgent care, he has a concussion. all of us call bs on him forgetting his phone in the car, like b real. we then call bs on all of it when hes driving his car, which has no damage and he shouldnt b driving w a concussion, and is at school the next day. 

come friday, after news of the alabama abortion ban, one of the girls sends us a sc of a tweet from his twitter “lessgo alabama sorry not sorry” then other tweets and things that expose him. which wbk that he was super conservative, whitewashed, and republican but ! this was ... tew much. after some gentle suggestions, agreement that none of us are comfortable with him being in the group any longer, and my offering to be the bearer of the news, we have removed him from our group document for our final study guide and decided that at 5am tuesday morning ill be sending him a text letting him know hes been voted off the island, literally just “we’re unanimous in removing you form the group, and [our prof] already gave us the go ahead. good luck w the final.” issa right 2 work state, baby, and ur fired! honestly fuck that guy, he got mad someone called prolifers rapists as if trump didnt call an entire race of people rapists and murderers. 

anyway, im ready for whatever drama is about to go down tuesday in class. tbh he better not press us on why we kicked him out cause i will expose him to the entire class and im sure most of the groups wont work with him anymore. i bet the table in the back corner will though, theyve got two meatheads, a blonde, and a guy who barely shows up. but also!! he deleted his twitter lmfao but we have the receipts !

tldr; this guy missed 4 weeks of class, screwed us on a presentation, and turned out to be an anti-abortion, trump supporting fuck so were kicking him out of our group two days before the final leaving him either on his own or to find another group 

FOREWORD from the "Ramblings of A Chemical Engineer" Book

FOREWORD I was inspired to choose chemical engineering when I first saw the chemical formula from my father's chemistry book. The chemical formula shapes look fascinating and interesting to me. My father was an organic chemistry lecturer in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). When I was 14, I read his organic chemistry book and willingly learnt from it by myself. When I was 17, I wanted to have a career associated with chemistry. Back then, my first choice was chemical engineering and my second choice was biochemistry. To be honest, I was unaware of what chemical engineers do and what the industry is like. I could not imagine it due to lack of exposure and information. After completing my high school education, I pursued my A-Levels and took 3 core subjects which are essential for engineering: Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Then I continued my degree in chemical engineering. I managed to get a place in Bradford University, United Kingdom. I was unlucky because in our contract, practical training or sandwich course is not included by our sponsors. Therefore, we didn't have any valuable practical and industry exposures. That didn't matter and I kept on studying until I graduated in 1999. Post graduate - Research and Development (1999-2002) After completing my degree, I returned to Malaysia and was appointed as a research assistant for 5 months in UTM. I joined “Chemical Reaction Engineering Group” (CREG), where its main research was developing a single step conversion of natural gas to gasoline using zeolite catalyst. It was a very interesting topic and that encouraged me to further my chemical engineering master's degree in it. Hence, I then became a full time research student and my research title was “Optimization of Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) Using Experimental Design”, which is part of the natural gas to gasoline research project. Oil & Gas Exposure – Servicing Company (2003-2005) After completing my master, I was offered a job as chemical technologist for a local oil and gas servicing company. In a year, I became a project/chemical engineer in the same company. My main task was to lead the “internal pipeline chemical cleaning” project for a local oil company. We basically have to assist the oil company to reduce corrosion activities inside the downstream pipeline and prolong the life span of it. To efficiently and effectively monitor corrosion activities in the pipelines, we utilized latest corrosion monitoring techniques such as electronic resistant probe (ER) and field signature method (FSM). I was also in charge of the oil and gas specialty chemicals. I travelled to a number of offshore platforms in East Malaysia to conduct deoiler and descaler tests for their oil reserved. It was very challenging and fun performing those tasks. I love going offshore because the working hours are less compared to the amount of time we spent on the platform. The foods are marvellous and comparable to 5 star hotels. Entertainment and other activities such as television, movies, snooker, ping-pong, gymnasium and reflexology chair are made available for the platform dwellers. To be able to go offshore, I have to undergo Helicopter under Water Escape (HUET) training and get myself an offshore passport. With this job, I travelled extensively and visited neighbouring countries, Singapore and Indonesia, for work purpose.. In Kalimantan, Indonesia, I joined our company principal to conduct bottle test field trial for local oil company on their onshore oil rig. It was a very interesting and exciting assignment because I got to see how simple the setting of an onshore oil rig because in Malaysia we only have expensive and complicated offshore oil rigs/platforms. Oil Fats Industry – Refinery (2005-2008) I love my oil and gas career but I was unfortunate because I could not continue being in that industry. The company management has bigger plans and they moved to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.  I was instructed to transfer which I could not do because I don't want to hinder my wife's career establishment as a lecturer/researcher/consultant in UTM and we also have just purchased a house in Johor Bahru, the same year. I seek for other jobs and managed to get one in a physical refining plant in the oil and fats industry. This is a whole new chapter and totally different from my previous job. I was required to punch in and out every time we enter or exit the factory. Life is no longer as flexible as before. I don't have ample time to do my work and that made me work longer hours and I always reach home when it's already dark. I don't really mind because it's a new working environment and I know I have to learn as fast as possible. I set my target to know everybody around my circle of work as soon as possible. My first task given by my boss was to identify and list down all the valves in the plant I was in charge of. It was an interesting and good assignment. It made me traced the entire pipeline from the feed tank to the plant and to the product tank. I learned a lot of stuff regarding valves. I know and understand various types of valves, brand/ origin, sizes, spare parts, principle/operation, tag number etc. In addition to that, indirectly, I learned about the plant process and operation. That was just the beginning. Being in a process plant is a perfect place to learn and put in practice my unit operation knowledge. It also gave me a better comprehension on what process control is all about. I learned about other supporting units like heat exchangers, cooling towers, high pressure boilers, utility boilers and much more. The learning curve continued every day and never stopped. Not only that I learn about all the technical stuff, handling manpower and conflict is another challenging area that I made myself good at. Manpower is not an easy matter to deal with. Some of my down line manpower never experienced any disciplinary action taken when they violated certain laws such as coming in late and simply not coming to work. Despite a series of reminder and warning, the bad attitude still continues. I could not stand it. With the support of my senior colleague, I enforced the discipline and forced them to obey. I gave the problematic staff some disciplinary action. I want them to learn some lesson and be more serious towards their responsibility and work. During plant shut down, I learned a lot. Techniques on ensuring the fastest and effective way to cool down the plant, managing and coordinating a team of people to service the plant, conducting air test, steam test and driving the plant start-up are among some knowledge I acquired. A Little Something from Me There is a lot to share, but it's impossible to include everything here. I'm glad to have experienced chemical engineering in three different areas; research (academics); oil and gas; and oil and fats. Each area has their own challenges, advantages and unique. Being very vague about the chemical engineering industry during my student life urged me to improve the situation. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody can tell and share what they can expect from the industry? It will be some sort of a chemical engineering informal education for the students and other junior engineers. That is why despite of my busy life as a process engineer (previously), I progressively and continuously share some of my experiences in my “Chemical Engineering World” blog that I created in 2006. I sincerely hope it can provide at least some useful information for fellow young chemical engineers. I believe it's a good thing if other professional and practicing engineers out there can do the same for others to benefit. It will be a great contribution. Below are some of the photos of those grabbed hold of my book :)

With Dato' Prof. Ir. Dr. Rafiq, Dean of Engineering Faculty, UTM. Thanks for the support Dato'.

With Prof Ir. Dr. Zain Manan, Deputy Vice Chancellor, UTM. Appreciate your guide and encouragement Prof...