by Chris Redmond
 
     To begin with, Nadia Bahar wants to make it clear that she
     does *not* belly-dance. That sign on her office door is a
     *joke*, she says laughing, an ad for a different Nadia whom
     she doesn't even know.
 
          The sign on the other side of the door is more
     truthful:  "Drafting". Bahar is draftsperson for UW's
     department of earth sciences, and spends her day doing
     technical drawings for journal articles, theses and
     presentations, with the occasional poster by way of variety.
     She's looking forward to the posters and special material
     that she'll do for a major international symposium the
     department is hosting in May 1994.
 
          "I've got a new computer, which is actually keeping me
     quite busy," she says. But it doesn't replace the pens and
     other old-fashioned tools that are racked up beside her
     broad drafting table. "You have to decide," she says,
     "whether to do each drawing by hand or do it by the
     computer."
 
          There are advantages to both. "Computers are not really
     fast," she says, destroying one illusion, "but you can do
     some neat things on them." On the other hand, there's
     nothing unique or original about a computer-generated
     drawing: "Anybody can push the button and it comes out the
     same."
 
          The biggest use she foresees for the computer will be
     in producing slides, which it can do directly. She has a
     choice of black-and-white or colour screens for the
     computer, and of course chooses colour when the finished
     product is to be a slide.
 
          Drawings might be cross-sections of geological
     formations, diagrams of some process, sketches of equipment,
     or maps, lots of maps.  She's in demand from all parts of
     the diverse department, but notes that the largest number of
     customers are from "hydro", meaning the hydrogeologists in
     the Centre for Groundwater Research.
 
          "I work quite a bit with the grad students," she says,
     "because the professors don't have much time. . . . I advise
     them on what they need and how to illustrate it."
 
          She also does some work for people outside earth
     sciences, since she's the only draftsperson in the faculty
     of science. Everything is on a charge-out basis, and she
     insists that the prices are reasonable because overhead
     costs are low and she only needs to bill for her hours of
     work.
 
          An engineering graduate from the University of Pilsen,
     near Prague, Bahar came to Canada with her husband, also an
     engineer, in 1969. She realized that she wasn't likely to
     qualify as an engineer in this country: "I had a little
     baby, and I didn't speak the language."
 
          Instead, she took a drafting job in UW's engineering
     faculty, and stayed there for a dozen years. "You can stay
     with one place too long," she says, and wanting a change she
     moved over to earth sciences in 1981. Her present office
     hadn't been built then: it was open space on a mezzanine in
     the Chemistry-Biology Link. In one of UW's periodic space
     crises, new offices were created there, and Bahar notes
     gratefully that to make up for the not-so-perfect heating
     and cooling system, she does have a window that opens.