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| *burp* |
[ Thursday, February 27, 2003 | 9:31 p.m. ] |
I decided to hold off on doing any work until I'd had my usual early dinner, so what better way to fill the time than a quick 'n' dirty blog entry. Hopefully the constrained timeframe will limit my usual tendency to write four paragraphs for each sentences' worth of useful information... In brief, I've been having fun over the last two weeks, maybe too much fun.
First off, I got back three midterms, all of which I did okay on. The funny thing is, there was an inverse relationship between the amount of time I spent studying for each exam and the mark I received. (I think—I can't quite remember how much I studied for algebra.) I've gotten sketchy on the CS 241 assignments, however. By that I mean, as of last week, there were four assignments remaining, and I had four lates left. So I submitted Assignment 3 late, and I'll definitely be doing the same for 4. Last week was also "reading week", so I had Thursday and Friday off. I did a marginal quantity of work on those days, and spent a fair bit of time on the phone. This whole week hasn't gone much better, either, though I've spent less time on the phone. I made up for it by playing Crack Attack! and Snood, moping and sleeping.
Hah! How much did that not happen?! Quick post then dinner then work, said I, at five o'clock. Now it's nine—four, count 'em, four hours later!—and I still haven't done any work. I talked to my dad, then Sean, then ChiQui online, then Sean again, and finally dad again. I had dinner. I played some more Snood. Now I feel sketchy. Village food is not sitting so well with me this term. Or maybe it's just the chili-dog, beef fajita & samosas that I had today. I can feel them churning and mixing together in my stomach into some horrible burning compound. I should really go work now. But maybe I'll just lie in bed and rest for a few minutes first. Right.
Regrets over yesterday and fears of tomorrow are the twin thieves that rob us of the moment.
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| Trés Bizarre |
[ Tuesday, February 18, 2003 | 2:00 p.m. ] |
Ahh!! I changed a setting in Netscape, and it erased everything I'd typed. Fuckers.
Anyhow, my CS 241 lecture today lasted only 40 minutes. It was bizarre. It also left me with 50 minutes until the start of 251, and I was very tempted to leave. Why stick around for a class I don't even understand? Speaking of 251, I totally half-assed that last assignment. It was due at noon on Friday, the same time as combinatorics, and I started both of them around one o'clock, Friday morning. For reasons I myself don't understand, I decided to start with the C&O, despite it being worth nothing (<1%), while the CS was worth something (3%). As usual, I spent hours figuring out the questions in rough, then hours writing them out again nicely. I finished at six.
Then I had to do the CS. Actually, not just do it, but get out the textbook and learn the stuff first. I also still cling firmly to this notion that few things short of interviews and acts of God should keep me from lectures. I ended up doing all the questions but the last two before class, then scrambling in the SLC at 11:30 to make a photocopy of Figure 5.29. (Amusingly, the person using the photocopier before me was copying the same thing. He left his book in the copier.) My answer was total off-the-top-of-my-head crap, but hey, it might still get me a few marks.
Oh, how time flies. Time for 251. Excelsior!
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| Sealed with a Kiss |
[ Monday, February 17, 2003 | 2:19 a.m. ] |
Being one a.m., and having class at nine-thirty, I was going to go to sleep and leave this for tomorrow, but then I changed my mind. I've had quite a weekend. I had quite a Valentine's Day. What can I say? Wow.
Friday evening, I got a lift home from my dad, as usual, then Sean came over and picked me up. When we got back to his place, after I waited in the hall for a minute, he walked me over to his room. When we got to the door, he covered my eyes and led me in. He'd put on Phil Collins, and through his fingers I could see that the room was dimly lit. Being Valentine's Day, I was expecting something romantic, but I was pretty blown away by what he'd done. When I opened my eyes, I felt like I'd stepped into a movie. The room was filled with candles, and the bed covered in red rose petals. In the middle of the bed was a pile of gifts for me, including a single red long-stemmed rose. (He also gave me, among other heart-shaped things, a teddy bear in a biker jacket holding a rose, a bunch of cinnamon hearts in a heart-shaped glass bottle and a DVD.) I got him red silk boxers covered in hearts. We ordered in Swiss Chalet, watched a West Wing episode he'd recorded for me during the week, and stared dreamily into each other's eyes. It was all terribly sappy and wonderful. A night I won't soon forget. The rose petals... they really did it for me.
Saturday, while no Valentine's Day, was fairly cool as well. Sean came over early in the morning, since he had to go to work at eleven, so we hung out at my place for a few hours, which was of course great, 'cause it was hanging out with Sean. The afternoon, though, was just crazy. Around noon, mom and I dashed over to Yorkdale and went on a bit of a shopping spree. Well, it wasn't a spree in terms of the number of items purchased, but it was definitely a spree in terms of dollars spent. First off, I got my belated 19th-birthday present: a suede shirt from Roots. It's... beautiful. So, so buttery soft. *Mmmm* And then there was the long-awaited Christmas present (yes, El, I finally got it): an hp iPaq h5450 Pocket PC. It's no Palm, whose handhelds will always be more usable and practical, in my opinion, but it has some features that I just couldn't resist. Primarily it was the built-in 802.11b wireless LAN, which I can use both on my wireless network at home and, hopefully, on the network in MC. Oh, and of course there's Everquest Pocket, which I forgot to pick up, but I will as soon as it's physically possible. It's all good.
(Well, not all good. After three years, I finally managed to loose the stylus for my Palm in a lecture last Thursday. And none of the stores I went to had replacement styli for the III-series anymore. I'll have to scour around some, or, if worst comes to worst and I can't find any, order some from the Palm online store. The Pocket PC's got it's uses and cool features, but nothing, nothing, will ever replace my IIIc.)
*yawn* My goodness, look at the time. I should go to bed. I think I'll bid you all good night, and assail you with more stories of my horribly-spoiled life tomorrow. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.
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| Ahh! |
[ Thursday, February 13, 2003 | 7:06 p.m. ] |
Ugghhhh... <shudder>
That marks creepy insect number three spotted in my room this term. I noticed the now-deceased big fella when he crawled onto the screen of my laptop. God, two more months of this...
There's no place like Village,
There's no place like Village,
There's no place like Village... Or so I try to convince myself.
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| What, me, worry? |
[ Monday, February 10, 2003 | 3:07 p.m. ] |
Someone on my floor was blaring hip-hop. I responded by blasting Korn. A third party added some music that I couldn't decipher.
The girls in this house have a strange habit of screaming randomly. And I'm not talking about the usual "Eeeee!" shrieks of excitement. No, these are blood-curdling, horror-movie screams.
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| The Six Days of Tuesday's Clothes |
[ Monday, February 10, 2003 | 1:54 p.m. ] |
Wow, what a sketchy weekend. I mean, it was a good weekend, but it was also a tremendously sketchy weekend in that I did absolutely nothing schoolwork-related. You see, being in the middle of my first set of midterms, I decided to break from my usual routine and stay in Waterloo for the weekend to study. Yeah-huh. Like that was going to happen.
Clearly, the whole staying up most of the night to cram for that midterm on Thursday really killed me. It's sad (I should've been able to handle it), but true. I almost fell asleep in my CS 241 lecture that afternoon, and my evening was completely unproductive. After I got back from class, I flopped down onto my bed and immediately felt not-tired. I knew I was exhausted, however, so I lay there determinedly until I drifted off. I figure I got about an hour's napping in before my dad called, though, strangely, I remember already being awake when the phone rang. Sean called a few minutes later, and I talked to him for about an hour. By the time I got off the phone it was seven, and I figured that I should start working. Instead, I played PilotMines in bed for two hours, then set my alarm to give me six hours' sleep and turned in.
At three a.m. on Friday, I got up to finish my combinatorics assignment. (After writing some e-mails.) Like the calculus assignments from last term, due at the same time, I found that clarity would only strike me Friday mornings, some time between four and five a.m. I suddenly realised, 'Wow, you Dumas, you've been making the same Dumas mistake on every question.' Anyhow, I got it done, and I got some sleep. After my classes, I finished my CS assignment, which just consisted of adding ridiculous amounts of comments to the programs I'd done on Monday or Tuesday. So, three of four things from my checklist were completed.
The last thing was.. taking a shower. As I type this, I know this is the kind of stuff that I should keep to myself. For most (all) of you, this will fall under the category of "too much information." However, the exhibitionist tendencies that cause me to write in this blog in the first place are compelling me to tell you. See, it all started on Tuesday. I have Tuesday mornings off, so I usually take a shower during that time, and last week was no different. (Oh, right, plus, at the time, Sean was supposed to be coming up to visit me that night. This ended up not happening due to the weather.) So I showered and changed into clean clothes, and it was all good. Oh, another thing to note at this point is that most nights I sleep in the clothes I wore that day, except I change from jeans into pajama pants.
So, Tuesday was good. Wednesday, however, I think I had a hard time getting up in the morning or something, because I remember frantically getting my stuff together and rushing out to class. I was in a hurry, so I didn't bother to change, and so began Day Two in Tuesday's clothes. In the end, because of the spacing of my lectures and tutorials, I didn't come back to my room until later that night, which you've heard about. The night became the morning in a blur of cramming and half-sleep, and it was Day Three. On Thursday I wrote my exam, updated my blog, went to class, and passed out. No shower, no change of clothes. Friday morning was another case of a barely-noticed transition between two days, and Day Four in Tuesday's clothes.
On Friday afternoon, I was determined to get cleaned up. I should've had time after finishing my CS, but I got distracted by some web-surfing and talking to Sean, and next thing I knew I had to run off to find B1 and the 241 midterm review session, where the tutor, Michael, did I pretty good job of scaring the shit out of me, but apparently just not quite good enough to actually get me to study. When I got back I decided to have "dinner"—Frito's Twists and C.C.&G.—while playing some games and talking on the phone some more, and eventually I went to bed.
Saturday morning was cool, since I got to sleep in. It was also strange, though, since it was the first Saturday this term when I woke up in res. (I stayed in Waterloo on the first weekend of the term, but come Saturday morning I found myself.. elsewhere. A hotel room, if you must know.. Sean didn't like the washroom setup in V1.) It also marked the start of Day Five. I wasn't working, and I felt strangely bored. Around noon, my mom offered me a solution, and I soon found myself in the car, driving back to Toronto with her.
Saturday afternoon was awesome. Instead of the usual thing where I'd come home but mom and I would both do our own things, we hung out together and just talked about all sorts of things. In the evening, we decided to visit Sean at work so that I could give him the last of his birthday presents. So, mom, Sean and I ended up having tea & cider together at Starbucks. (We went to Starbucks as a last resort—nothing's open downtown on evenings or weekends.) And, strangely, the whole thing went very well. The three of us sat there for almost an hour talking about various things from satellite vs. digital cable to Ellie's academic progress. Verdict: he's a very nice guy, but I should be more open to meeting or going out a few times with some WatBoys. I don't want a WatBoy. First of all, I'm already dating someone; stop encouraging me to cheat on him. Second, the goods are odd, woman. The goods are odd!
Where was I? Right. Saturday night. After our downtown adventure, mom drove me back to Waterloo. (I am so very spoiled. No FED-bus or Greyhound for me.) So I got back to my room, and I called Sean, and we talked for a while. (Oh, yeah, while I'd been home I was sure that I'd take a shower, since I had the opportunity to do so in my nice, private bathroom, but of course I did no such thing.) Saturday night was coming to a close, and I still hadn't studied or worked. I still had all of Sunday, however, to do that, I reassured myself. Hah!
Sunday was, perhaps, my sketchiest day in recent memory. At nine-thirty I got up and opened up Internet Explorer. By the time I called Sean, around two, I had 18 IE windows open. I went crazy, gorging myself on the sort of dreck that I find tremendously interesting whenever midterms or finals roll around. I'm talking horrid crap here: quizzes on how well you know your mate, endless articles on sex and relationships, and astrological compatibility readings. If I binged on Cosmo like that I'd hate myself, but since it was online, it was okay. And that wasn't even the sketchiest part of the day! No, that had to be the phone calls. In all, I'd estimate that we spent about six hours talking on the phone together. While he was at work. ("You're talking to your girlfriend again?" quipped his co-worker.) But, you know, we'd barely seen each other in, like, a whole entire week...
[I know. It's disgusting. We act like two giddy 16-year-olds caught up in the throes of first love. The thing is, while neither of us is 16 (he's very much not 16) it is first love, for both of us. So, to some extent, I think our behaviour is reasonable.]
Of course, what with all that time on the phone, I had nary a chance to change my clothes, so I finished Day Six in Tuesday's clothes. I also finished another day of not working and not studying, which isn't a good thing.
In sum, I'd set out to stay in Waterloo for the weekend and study. I failed at both. However, I did manage to take a shower before lectures this morning, and I am now, finally, out of Tuesday's clothes. However, tomorrow's Tuesday, and this whole mess might just start all over again.
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| I love to work I love to work |
[ Friday, February 7, 2003 | 4:14 p.m. ] |
I don't usually post the lyrics of entire songs, but as I was listening to "Stress" by Jim's Big Ego this morning, I thought that I should make an exception. It's a perfect tribute to the UW lifestyle.
"Stress" by Jim Infantino
I'm addicted to stress that's the way that I get things done
if I'm not under pressure then I sleep too long
and I hang around like a bum
and I think I'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous
Everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's thinking about me.
It's the little things that get you,
it's the little things that get you
when you weren't paying attention,
It's the little things that get you,
it's the little things that get you,
it's the little things that get you
when you weren't paying attention.
I'm trying to cut down on my caffeine consumption
so when I get up I just have one cup of coffee
and I like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast
and on the way to work I like to get a cup of coffee
like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with a doughnut
'cept I never get the doughnut I just have the cup of coffee
and when I get to work I like to have a cup of coffee
'cause I like to have a coffee when I'm talking on the phone
but it usually goes cold and I need to get another cup of coffee
and it's lunch and I have an espresso.
And when I get back it's not morning anymore
so I have a diet cola and another diet cola
and by then I'm feeling fine and I'm feeling pretty sharp
and I'm feeling pretty wired and I'm getting things done,
but right about two I get this little tiny migraine
and it starts behind my eyes and it moves to the back of my neck
and it moves to the bottom of my spine
but it doesn't get there until five or six o'clock
which is the end of the day so I'm fine so I'm fine
so I'm fine so I'm fine, except when I have to work late
when I have to work late which I usually do.
I'm addicted to stress that's the way that I get things done
if I'm not under pressure then I sleep too long
and I hang around like a bum
and I think I'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous
Everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's thinking about me.
I love to work I love to run I love to play real hard
I love to steal little things from the grocery store
like a piece of bubble gum or sometimes I just stick my thumb in a peach
and leave it there.
I love to work I love to run I love to waterski, snowboard, jetski, skydive,
parasail, hang-glide, rollerblade, mountain bike, bungy-jump,
well I mean I'd love to do these things if I ever had the time,
I love to work I love to work, I love to work out after work,
I love to spend a little time with this woman that I'm seeing
'cept we never really get a little time to spend together
so we call each other up and we talk about work.
But what I think I'd really love is to get out by myself
on a little tiny island in the middle of the ocean
with just me and a book and a cellular phone
and a personal computer in case something came up
and I'd eat and I'd drink and I'd run and I'd sleep
and I wouldn't do nothing except swim all day
'cept you know my beeper doesn't work under water,
where are the sharks? where are the sharks? where are the sharks?
and there's this kind of anemone
that sticks in your foot and the poison goes up to your brain and you die
and sand fleas? sand fleas - yuck!
but actually I think it'd be really relaxing
just me by myself in the middle of the ocean
and that's what I'd really love to do more than anything else
except I'd probably hate it.
I'm addicted to stress that's the way that I get things done
if I'm not under pressure then I sleep too long
and I hang around like a bum
and I think I'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous
Everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's out to get me but I feel alright,
everybody's thinking about me.
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| Precedence |
[ Thursday, February 6, 2003 | 4:00 p.m. ] |
Op (req'd)
CS (tomorrow, 6 p.m.)C&O (tomorrow, noon)- shower (ASAP)
sleep (NOW)
<pass_out>
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[ Thursday, February 6, 2003 | 12:41 p.m. ] |
Just got back from midterm and lunch. I studied from two to four, then slept until six, and studied again 'till nine. (Also, I did the one thing that I said I wouldn't—study in bed—but I figure it's okay, 'cause that's just the way that arts courses are meant to be studied for.) In the end there were two chapters from the textbook for which I only read the summaries and key terms, and skimmed the rest, and there was one lecture's notes that I didn't get around to reviewing. There was quite a difference when I got to questions from those sections, but I think I managed to fudge my way through. It was multiple choice after all. Fifty questions, two of which I know I got wrong, several I know I got right, and the rest up in the air. I think the marks will be up next Friday.
Really, though, I had only one bad, bad time, and that was this morning. When I don't sleep, I generally suffer the same consequences as anyone else, i.e. I feel tired and slightly crappy. When I drink a couple of cans of Coke, under normal circumstances, they have no effect on me, save delighting my taste buds. However, when I combine the two... Ugh. I had *one* can of Coke around three this morning, so I woke up feeling like absolute shit. I'm talking nausea, churning stomach pains, the whole nine yards. Basically, I can handle both on their own, but when I combine sleep deprivation with even the smallest amount of caffeine, it really fucks me up. This does not bode well for my life in general, and especially for my life as a coder.
Well, in any case, I'm feeling better now. In the second half of class, after the test, we watched a Fifth Estate episode about children who believed they'd been abused by Satanic cults. It was sketchy, but quite amusing. (They showed a two or three second clip from a video about the threat of Satanic ritual abuse that was apparently hosted by Mike Farrell.) The interviewers were being pretty rough on the people who supported the belief. One guy got all pissy about how he wasn't going to be cornered into saying something me didn't mean or some junk like that. Another part, with a supposed expert in the field who's interviewed a lot of these kids, went like this:
"I believe 3 out of every 100 Canadians has been a victim of ritual abuse and witnessed a murder."
"I've done a quick calculation here, and with a population of around 24 million, that would make 750,000 murders."
"Yes. What's the problem with that?"
"750,000 is a lot of murders."
"Well, some of them might have been imaginary."
<snort> Right. ... Aw, man. I was hoping to get a quick nap in before I went to CS, but now I've got to leave if I want to get a seat. Guess I'll nap at four. I'm off to MC!
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[ Thursday, February 6, 2003 | 1:54 a.m. ] |
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Almost two a.m. Read all my regular blogs again and caught up on the occasionals. Now I will grab a coke from the mini-fridge [yes, it did have that texture because it was partially frozen] and, honest-to-God, do some studying.
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| It's Still Rock And Roll To Me |
[ Thursday, February 6, 2003 | 1:02 a.m. ] |
I have a midterm at nine thirty tomorrow morning, which is nine hours from now. I must do two things in those remaining nine hours. One is study, which I haven't done at all, and the other is sleep, which I really, really enjoy. Basically, I should be stressing out just a little right now. Instead, though, I feel perfectly calm. It's like, well, I feel normal.
In repeating a familiar set of actions, I feel more like myself than I have in quite a while. Since coming home after studying in the SLC (where I think a guy tried to pick me up—?!?) and attending my moderately helpful combinatorics tutorial, I've done the usual not-studying things. I ate cake. El called, and we talked for an hour and a half. I read everyone's blogs, and then when I was done, I went back and checked them all again to see it anyone had updated while I'd been reading. Sean called from work and we talked for forty-five minutes. (Actually, he called and I called him back, since I signed up for a flat-rate long distance plan. It's nice not to have to think, 'Eek, I've been talking for an hour, increment my phone bill by $4.50.') I pissed away an hour or so playing Pyramids at Yahoo!Games, which really brought back the memories from last summer in King.
I know I've been neglecting my blog, but there hasn't been much to write about. I'm either busy working or busy not working. Last week tended toward not-working. It was bizarre. I had no assignments due. (Well, there was CS 251, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy—just truth tables—and I finished it at home(!) on Sunday.) That left me with hours of free time, and without any strong motivation to start on the next week's work. Conveniently, Sean was working midnights during this time, so most of the time that I was awake and not in class, he was free. We were averaging three or four phone calls a day, some as much as two hours long. (Unfortunately, this was prior to the flat-rate long distance.) I didn't get much work done, but that was fine, since I didn't have much work to do.
This Friday was Sean's birthday. We went out for dinner at the Keg Mansion on Jarvis. The steak was good, but the experience was rather brutal. We got there around eight, and got a table around nine thirty. While waiting, we were sitting in the bar/lounge area upstairs, and I felt very sketchy. For one thing, I'd just come down from Waterloo, and I'd stayed up until something like four that morning. Mostly, though, it was the atmosphere. The place was absolutely packed with people, and just the aggregate noise from their conversations created this immense roar. The longer I sat there, the sketchier I felt. I came to the conclusion that I really wouldn't like going to a bar or a club; the things that other people get jazzed on, the crowds and the loudness and the bustle, really bother me. For Valentine's Day, I vote we stay in and order pizza.
Ah, well, as much fun as I'm having—and I am having a lot of fun—I should really do some studying and then go to bed. Reminder: the one thing I must NOT do is study in bed, as this will only lead to tragedy. ... Terri, stop being such a baby. Suck it up!
"Should I try to be a straight-A student?
If you are then you think too much."
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