Delusion-Elle

I just spent the last 10 minutes staring at pictures of my favourite hockey players. Someone help me.

Once again it has been far too long since my last blog entry. I feel that with my short attention span and love of instant gratification I have been spending much more time on Tumblr. It probably doesn't help that I am pretty darn busy these days.

A standard day for me used to be this:

9:30am: wake up
10:00am: procrastinate online
11:00am: play Heart's "Alone" on piano + random movie soundtracks
12:00pm: eat lunch
12:30pm: go to school
5:00pm: arrive back at home + watch hockey
6:00pm: eat dinner
8:00pm: do homework
12:00am: sleep

But now my life has been flipped, turned upside down. I have 3 interviews for co-op coming up, one on the 19th, one on the 20th, and one on the 27th. Two of them are IT support type jobs for the federal government, and the last is actually for the Engineering faculty at school to work on their web courseware. I'm most keen on the school one (strangely enough -- I mean, how much more unglamourous can you get?), but the interview for that isn't until the 27th. I'm just freaking out over what these next few weeks will be like, what with interviews, school, work, driving lessons, applying to more jobs, and trying not to be totally anti-social.

Not going to lie, I felt like throwing up today when I found out that my interview on the 19th would force me to miss school and was less than 24 hours before my interview on the 20th. Good thing I hadn't eaten yet.

If I had one of these right now, it'd be a huge patch of unhappy.

WARNING: long, somewhat personal, soul-baring diatribe ahead.

I went into this telling myself that whatever the first offer I got (should I get one at all), I would accept it. Really, that's how co-op works, anyway. Once you apply for a position, presumably you do want it and so it is expected that should you be offered a position, you would accept it. And really, I did want the jobs when I first applied for them. But having talked to my coordinator today, she asked how many IT support jobs I had applied for with implications abound that I should not have applied for them, that I could land an actual coding gig. She's always emphasized aiming and shooting high -- "I'd rather you say more about yourself and really sell yourself and have to hold you back than you saying too little" -- and I feel as though she's got her bar of expectations set this high while I am really only aiming for something below that. And honestly, my confidence and self-esteem is probably 6 feet below that.

I really had no (emotional) problems before talking to her about those IT jobs. Now I feel regret. Like I shouldn't have applied to them.

But on the other hand, I really don't have any job experience with computers, not in the IT field or the coding field. I mean, yes, ideally I would get a nice little web developer job and look at HTML and CSS all day, but "ideally" tends to pass right by me.

The bad thing about co-op in my faculty is that it's at my own pace and I'm very much at the mercy of the employers. If I get an offer from job A and just barely handed in my application for my dream job, job X, then I'm kind of stuck with job A. My mom just told me to look at it like this is just the beginning of my co-op career. Yeah, these positions are for 8 months, but that's only 2 work terms and I need a minimum of 4.

"Next time," she tells me.  "Next time you can be a little pickier and go for the coding ones."

In terms of applying for things, I think that I've applied to around 11 jobs now. The deadlines for maybe half of them have passed, and of those 6 or so, I've gotten 3 interviews. That's not bad, really. I'm rather surprised. And if it weren't for the current remorse/regret/guilt trip that I'm currently on, I'd be really pleased with those results. There haven't been any really exotic positions that have come up (I think the closest was a general posting for IBM saying "go check their site", though their only positions in Europe are in Italy [WHY COULDN'T IT BE FRANCE? OF ALL THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES. HONESTLY. THEY WANT SOMEONE FLUENT IN ITALIAN. MIO DIO.] and Israel), though I'm working on applications for positions in Ontario and Quebec.

How cool would it be to work for RIM in Mississauga or EA in Montreal? My brother is already (and falsely) saying "When you're gone..." to me and lamenting how sad he'll be, which is really kind of adorable and endearing. He says that I have to Skype him every day, and of course he tries to cover up his sappiness by saying "Because you'll need to ask me for recipes and on how to cook because you can't do it by yourself". Haha, what a cute kid.

And really, that's better than my dad who says "If you're going, then we're moving there." Really, dad, really? You of all people?! I guess my mom was right when she told me that my dad and brother always whined about me not being home that often during the school year. And then he got all excited about how if I get a position in Montreal and we move there that we could go to Habs games and have lots of fun and yaddi yaddi yadda.

My family. Honestly. They need to get a grip. It's not even like I do anything at home. I just sit at my computer and argue with people.

So yeah. This is going to be a fun couple of weeks. I feel like rolling up into a ball and just dying. Or playing in traffic. On Knight Street. With all the cargo trucks. Fun fun fun.

Apparently I look like a man (says my brother). Also, don't tell my project partner that she used to be Arnold. That might make her freak out. It's kind of sad that it was easier to make Arnold into a teenage girl than it was to make Miss Frizzle into one. Huh.

I contemplated sticking some random prisoners in the back windows but I couldn't think of who to stick in there. God knows they would be prisoners given my driving.

Anyhow, tomorrow will be dedicated to getting my music assignment done as well as getting some studying in for my 2 quizzes on Tuesday. G'night!

How to read my day as a Harry Potter fan:

I already have forgotten the last time that I blogged since it didn't feel like having a real blogging session or anything so perhaps I can make up for it here and now as there are obviously "a lot more details to take into consideration" that I've just upped and forgotten. Well then.

It's only been a couple of days really since my last entry, but it's felt like ages. School has been thoroughly exhausting. Yesterday I was at school until 1AM working on not one, but two CPSC assignments, one for each course. Thankfully I did finish my weekly 213 assignment at around 4PM and it's all handed in and done, however even after spending a good... 9 hours on it yesterday, I was still not done my ruddy written assignment for 221 that even now, I am still not done. Granted, me and the two guys I was working with aren't the best at writing proofs (and neither is my assignment partner), but it was difficult even getting a hold of someone who could help us. I think that each of us made a phone call to try and get someone to help us, but alas, our contacts were: a) not answering, b) working on an assignment for another course, and c) drunk. So we watched YouTube videos, discussed the differences between males and females in regards to romance, found out that I can do video Skype calls on my new iPod (my brother's getting my old one since there's supposedly going to be a Minecraft app/game coming to an iPod near you), marveling over how many gadgets we had between the 3 of us, singing The Lonely Island songs, and BS'ing proofs. It's fun hanging out with guys. Even if you get to hear about their porn stashes and hear comments from one about how the other fails at shaving. Oh men.

Today it was apparently a nice day out. Though it's not like I knew; I was indoors all day either sleeping or working on this written assignment. It should honestly be illegal to assign something that requires 6 different proofs. That being said, I think that we were productive for most of the day, despite me being forced to listen to Disturbed, Mudvayne, and Slipknot, the two former being bands that my super girly giggly assignment partner likes, and the third being a band that puts her to sleep. I kid you not. Also, she drew pictures on our printouts of the assignment. Crazy girl.

Also I want to make a statement about my Facebook account and what the point even is in me having one.
I like to think of this as an experiment. I am redefining the word "friend" in a Facebook context and injecting a bit of fun into the use and abuse of this site. Because Facebook is just that horrible. Also, I'd like to prove that it's not as addictive as everyone seems to make it out to be.

The Facebook Experience Experiment

First and most foremost, I am not using my real name. I have several reasons for this. Of course, there is the obvious reason related to Internet privacy and the likes, and in the incredibly tech-savvy field of Comp Sci it is practically a given that future employers will stick my name into Google. However, this is not my sole reason for using an anagram. Yes, I initially used the anagram to stay off of most people's radar, but I've realized that it not only does that, but it requires an extra step of people who do want to befriend me on this godforsaken social networking site. More often than not, people were required to speak to me and ask me for my Facebook name. And if they didn't, then they most probably had to do a little sleuthing to find me, albeit fairly menial sleuthing, but sleuthing nonetheless. The fact that people would have to take this extra step indicates to me (no matter how superficially at this point) that they put even that little bit of extra effort to do that little something for me. And of course, it's nice to know that I'm relatively safe from creepy TAs and the likes.

What I've found to be a sentiment more common than I thought was one about how having a Facebook account is somewhat of an obligation; they just have one for the sake of saying that they have one. Honestly, where's the fun in that? It seems to me that the befriending craze that runs rampant on this Facebook thing has its repercussions; people are expected to interact with mere acquaintances and/or those they'd just rather not socialize with. People are forced to interact with people they don't necessarily want to enough in real life, why drag that into Facebook? For this reason, I've decided that my Facebook "friends" will actually most certainly be friends, or at the very very most, be people I've known for a long time that I get along fairly well with and/or have a mutual respect for.

In terms of improving the "fun" factor of Facebook, I think that I've already made some progress. I don't think that I need to go into all the gory details, but I have a feeling that whatever my antics are, they're maybe possibly slightly more interesting than people's clubbing pictures and requests for asinine things in Farmville. Oh yeah, and "for fun" is essentially the whole reason I'm doing this. I'm really not using my account as a communication tool to keep in touch with anybody or anything. This is just a crappy, overrated, browser-based MMORPG as far as I'm concerned. :P I'm not saying that my arguments are sound, reasonable, or logical. They're just my reasons and they make sense to me; no point in trying to argue them.

Sorry, no linkspam tonight, kiddos. Though, the Canadian dollar is absolutely rockin'. I think we exchanged some CAD for USD the other day and we got about $18 more. I'm sure that America's economy will pick up again within the next couple of years and we'll be left in their dust once more, but right now, it's a great time to exchange your money and go shopping stateside.

I feel like I made a lot of progress today in terms of my term paper, the subject of which is focused on Vivaldi, Venice, and the concerto. I started today's ongoing essay-writing session at 852 words and now I'm at a jubilant 1338. I hope to get this done before going to bed tonight!

(Word count: 1338/1600)
So my day was another uneventful day spent at home. Not that that's a bad thing, really. My project partner came over to try and start working on our project (I hate C++), but we kind of got distracted by hunger and  pokémon and animé. More specifically, this animé:

It's called Madoka Magica or Puella Magi, I'm not sure which exactly. And apparently it has a lot of elements of/parallels to the story of Faust, which appeals to me, though I am not really seeing it. And I've been forced to watch like 7 episodes of it so far. So yeah. I'm not a big animé person or anything, but it seems alright.
I actually quite like the closing credits theme song, which is "Magia" by Kalafina. That being said, I don't think that I'm turning Japanese or anything.

The harmonies are so nice *0* And it is amazing to see some Asian (non-Filipina) girls who can actually sing. Or maybe I'm just used to seeing all those sad sap talent competition contestants on TV at my grandparents'. Anyway... today was not a productive day in terms of CPSC.

(Word count: 1447/1600)

In other news, America is contemplating charging us for crossing the border. When my mom first told me about it, I was all "oh noes, now how will I buy cheap things?!" until she clarified that people driving down in private vehicles wouldn't be charged. Whew. Though honestly, I am not digging the charging extra for flights. The USA is a swell place to vacation in, but it's already kind of expensive to travel by plane, and now, if this proposal becomes anything more than just a proposal, it just tacks on another cost. I suppose that, like with most "extra fees", I understand the point of this, but it just seems like an extra nuisance. I like things the way they are, thank you very much, Obama.

(Word count: 1500/1600)

I was looking at some random articles on Wikipedia about the European Union (a concept that was unclear to me, especially after reading an article mentioning the Eurozone) and I saw some pictures of Finland and Estonia. And man, I am having another one of my bouts of Eurocrave (because the Euro- prefix makes everything cool).
And speaking of Europe, I came across this deviantArtist who's doing this little series called "Scandinavia and the World" where countries are personified and stereotypes are glorified. Silliness aside, it's actually kind of interesting to see these stereotypes in comic form. Her comics are also rather educational if you aren't Scandinavian and/or don't know Scandinavian history.

(Word count: 1607/1600)
Yesssssss, I've reached my minimum word limit! Time to turn in!

Also, I've just realized that I've had pizza for at least one meal for 5 days in a row now...

Let's see what my word count is now after about an hour and a half of alternating between reading, blogging, watching YouTube videos, writing, and Googling for download links.
(Word count: 1813/1600)

Before I pass out for the night (and maybe get in another 100 words for my paper), I'll do a quick review of the last two days...

Tuesday was my Guitar Hero party. It was also the day that my high school friends met my CPSC friends. Le gasp. Luckily things went well and I couldn't be happier with how things turned out, really. I think because the group was split pretty evenly in half (in regards to the "type" of friend), there was little to no exclusion, and things went pretty much the way I wanted them to, right down to the time the last of my friends left.
And apparently my friend went to the wrong house. He didn't even tell me about it, but he did tell my mom. Seriously. He told my mom. As my mom relayed it to me today:
"I didn't know what to say to him. Like, was I supposed to say: 'Oh wow, for such a smart kid, you sure are stupid'?"
Th-thanks, mom. @_____@ Thanks for not saying that. Whew.

Today I celebrated my friends' birthdays by playing some laser tag (at Planet Lazer, where Bieber punched a kid in the face, and then proceeded to buy new equipment for the place) and then going out for hotpot. Laser tag is really quite fun. I even managed to get a somewhat decent score. Honest to God, this was the... third time in my whole entire life that I've had hotpot. So yeah, I admit that I was a little slow to start because I was trying to very slyly watch how other people ate so I wouldn't have to ask embarrassing questions. There were also some absolutely fantastic birthday cakes from Thomas Haas.

Alright, time to get that word count up a bit before passing out for the night.

I was going to do a little post-221 midterm blogging yesterday, but I came home exhausted and lackadaisical. Overall I thought that it was an okay midterm. I'm not super confident about how I did, but I don't think I did too badly. I had enough time to do it, for sure, and it WAS an open-book exam, but unless my mind worked in a mathematical proof fashion, then I probably didn't do fantastically well on it.

Today my mind's been all over the place ("Oh, like normal," you say) so I'll do up a little list of things I made mental notes to myself about:

• ... I didn't wish anyone a happy Chinese New Year. I barely even remembered that it was today. If it weren't for the radio DJ's mentioning it while I was in the SUB this morning, I totally would not have remembered, save for a couple mentions on Twitter.
• My mom just came up to my room with a bowl of chips. "In an attempt to appeal to your Asianness, here are some lobster chips," she said, and plunked down a bowl of red chips in front of me. They tasted fairly generic in terms of seafood-flavoured Asian chips. Now I have crumbs all over the place. Greaaaaat.
• I don't understand why this Asian guy in the SUB was wearing a Reebok jacket that said "Sweden" on the back of it. In Swedish. o___o
• People annoy me. The first CPSC friend I told about my Guitar Hero party offered to invite people for me. [bitch] First of all, this is my party. At my house. I kind of would want to know who these invitees are. And I don't know *that* many people in CPSC so I don't think there would be much overlap between who he'd invite and the people I know and am comfortable enough with having at my place. Second of all, dude, I've known you for all of... 2-3 weeks? I never said that I was throwing this party specifically for CPSC peeps. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I started by saying that my friends were going to come to my place for a GH party. Please don't jump at the opportunity to invite people like it's half my party and half your party. It isn't. I'm being a possessive jerk, but it's the truth. [/bitch] I mean, I'd love for my group of friends to meet my CPSC friends so they know that I'm not just referring to phantom people all the time, but seriously.
• I didn't do any homework today... BUT I DID MAKE A WEBSITE. Here it is. It's going to be a fansite dedicated to my favourite band in the whole wide world. I don't think I'll have time to really add content/other pages until reading break (maybe) so you can take a look now, but don't expect any big changes or updates for a while.
• It's kind of depressing knowing someone who is kind of like you, but like a thousand times better. I would create a chart to compare and contrast but that would be unhealthy methinks.
• In an attempt to find some good in me, I will think about what my two little piano students said yesterday about how it was like "being in a music video" when I played something (but on an actual piano-not-keyboard it sounds loads better -- yay overtones!) I wrote for them. x)

I realized that if I don't specifically figure out what I need to get done, I don't get anything done. So, for my school career's sake, here's what's going down before reading break:

• Stat 241: assignment 2 [due Feb. 11]
• CPSC 221: midterm 1 [Feb. 7], weekly labs [due Monday]
• CPSC 213: weekly assignment [due Saturday night]
• Music 101: midterm [Feb. 10], assignment #5 [Feb. 10]
• Music 121: term paper [Feb. 21] (start it before reading break!!!!!)

I think that music makes me happier than anyone or anything else. I can't even put into words how hyped up I get when I'm about to listen to Kamelot or if I find a new, catchy song to listen to. So yeah, that's all there is to it.

WHAT CAN I DO TO CHANGE YOUR MIIIIIII-EEEE-IIIIIII-EEEE-IIIIIIIIIIIIIND?!

With my CPSC 221 project done and out of the way, I can now focus on the bazillion and one other things I have to do. These include my unfinished 221 lab, 213 lab, 221 written assignment, and studying for a 213 quiz on Tuesday. Unfortunately these things aren't due until next week or so. This can only mean one thing: Procrastination.

Oh, and this coming weekend is the NHL All-Star weekend!! Which means very little work is going to get done.

That being said, I feel like if I just get down to it, I will get things done. That's strangely how things seem to work out for me; I struggle and whine and try my best, and sometimes with a little help, things work out okay in the end. I just wish that the struggling would diminish.

I swear to God, I cannot sit at the back of the long/articulated bus in the mornings anymore. And the reason is that there's this couple always sitting back there. And they talk. And PDA all over the goddamn place. I just want to sleep, thank you very much. So I sit with all the single riders at the back of the front half, even though I feel like I should be sitting on the back since I get off at the last stop and all. Eurgh.

These past few days I haven't been getting any good amounts of sleep so I've been passing out on the bus. Luckily it's always been for just the right about of time. I should be sleeping now and catching up, but you know me. I must subconsciously be a masochist. Or maybe I'm just afraid of the next day coming so quickly. I don't know.

Volunteering today was good. I am in no way a good teacher, but it seems like my two students are starting to get the hang of reading music, though very very slowly. I'm starting to wonder what it was like for me when I was learning how to read music and play piano. It was so very long ago that I have absolutely no recollection of it; I just have a codex in my head of all the notes and key signatures and things. Though, it's definitely something that comes with practice.
Admittedly, the best part of the day was when my students asked me to play something and I played an intro to something I wrote back in grade 11 and they really liked it. :) +50 SELF-ESTEEM.

... is it weird to have started playing the piano at the age of 5? I mean, my students were surprised when I told them, but then they're in grade 3 now, which is... 8 years old or so? But whatever, I never did ARCT so any sort of "oooh ahhh" factor to that fact is negated by my noobiness. It's just that everyone I know who plays the piano that I've talked to started at an early age (usually 5-6).

And to me, this has been old-ish news for a while now, but the fact that OH NOES internet usage will be charged for in Canada is finally making waves in the news! Admittedly, I see the lucrative side of this and I totally understand why companies would want to do this. But this also makes me sad because I don't have oodles of money to feed my internet addiction. :( Sorry, mom and dad. Also, this whole "Canadians are too plugged in to their computers/Internets/social media/etc." point reminds me of how Blenz is going to be offering red bands to single people to put on their coffee to show that said coffee-drinker is single and ready to mingle. Vancouver is a sad sad city, is all I have to say.

Also, I made friends today with my 221 lab partner's friend. They know each other from the shared year or two at the private school they both attended (before one did IB -- OVERACHIEVER ALERT!). I am sad to say that west side private school kids are not as bad as I thought they were. I mean, they're nice guys. And smart. It seems highly unfair that they are nice, smart, AND rich. The only thing is that I get the feeling that they are bit hoity-toity. Like, I swore in front of them and they seemed extremely bothered by it. Did they not understand that I was under intense pressure to finish a project on top of a 6:30AM wake-up?! Oh right, yeah, west side kids' commute to UBC is like half of mine. [/rant] Okay, yes, I'm jealous. I admit it. I'm probably about as green as the Green Giant now. Lovely. It's unbecoming, I know, but it's not like I care.

Have a comic!:

... I would totally call it LifeIsBoring.cpp because that's as descriptive as I can make it at midnight. Yeah, I've got C++ on the brain. And yes, life is boring. Well, there are small things that liven it up from time to time, but overall it's fallen into a boring rhythm. And we're only into week 2 of term 2. Woot.


#include "Boring, personal account of the past two days.h"

Admittedly, nothing of real interest has happened in my life. There is no real reason for why I didn't blog yesterday. Oh, except I realized at 11PM that I had done the wrong questions for my music assignment (due today). It took a distracted hour or so to do the right one.

During that distracted hour, I was introduced to this by a friend:


Firstly, "Butterfly" really takes me back to around grade 7 or 8 when I used to be a mallrat and played DDR at the arcade in the mall. This song was also used a lot for fanmade MVs of the animé I was into. Secondly, Pokémon. POKEMON. The nerd in me approves. Thirdly, download link. Now I can listen to this during my commutes and giggle to myself, thus scaring away all of the nearby passengers. Also, the only way to get any decent standing room on the 49 bus when it's crazy crowded is to blast this song.
No, no, I kid. Though, if anyone were to do this, they would have my eternal love~

So, in terms of actual life things, I guess I'll do a quick run-through of yesterday...
Stats -- meh, boring; missed my bus, was jussssssst on time but couldn't save any seats for any of the 5 people I'd promised to save seats for; felt like a miserable failure in that sense.
Music -- tutorial, mildly interesting, but my prof was just trying to show us how to write a cantus-firmus; realized I don't take notes in my music theory class; begins considering maybe taking notes; decides against taking notes for things I learned when I was, like, 13. *headmusicstand*
CPSC -- speedwalked like a beast to class; sat with project partner and could pretty much follow what was going on in class.
CPSC lab -- the first 2 questions of the lab were easy, though my lab partner was having problems with the 1st one and I think he's too proud to ask for my help ("Oh but she's a GIRL. GIRL'S CAN'T CODE."); I know I can't, but if you need help we're lab partners...
post-lab -- hung out in friend's dorm trying to work on project; ended up being unproductive for 3/4 hours I was there; was forced to watch scary animé; it wasn't actually scary but I was being my snarky self; ride home with mom.

Today began with my music courses. Theory was alright, overall. My prof is a very talented sight-reader, I've learned. I used to think he was absolutely boss for just being able to improvise and ornament some really nice chord progressions. But today, he took someone's anthology and just started playing the "Drinking Song" from Verdi's La Traviata (pretty sure I didn't study this opera before, but THIS tune is famous). He used it as an example of a theme/tune that was based on mostly tonic and dominant chords. For some reason, I just could not concentrate on anything in history class. I think we mostly just were discussing music in Lutheran churches. When are we going to study Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, or Mozart, dammit?!

After my music courses, I had my Stats lab, which went alright, though one guy didn't show up, so our group of 4 was 3 today. Oh well. His loss, in terms of marks, I guess. The other two in my group aren't incompetent so that was good. It was just that one was extremely soft-spoken, though his proficiency with Excel more than made up for that. I felt sorry for the group of two behind me, where one guy had just switched into my lab section, and the other one didn't seem very familiar with the Windows OS as a whole. Yes, I drop eaves.

My break was spent with my high school friends and that was fun. I'm pretty sure that that entire section of the SUB was sick of hearing me laugh and say weird things. I blame that Pikachu Butterfly remix for my silliness. The last bit of my break was spent in the Comp Sci building at the request of my genius friend. Weird coincidences: I complained to him about that TA who was harassing me and it turns out that his friend dated that TA this past summer. And then that TA was wandering through the Comp Sci building ("Oh shit, he's here. Still wanna come visit me?") and I ended up saying "Sorry, dude, if that TA's there, there's no way in hell I'm going to visit you." He ended up leaving and we hung out for like 5 minutes before class.

CPSC class was... Well, my lack of focus continued and it didn't help that my friend pointed out that the girl in the row ahead of us was wearing a grey knit hat that had a drawstring... on the top. And she hadn't pulled it all the way, meaning a 3cm-radius circle of her hair/head was showing at the very top. I'm still trying to figure out if this is just hat fail or a fashion trend. Or maybe it was a poorly-crafted leg warmer that she felt like wearing on her head. I have no idea. All I know is that I wasted my class time trying to find what it was on the internet and ended up finding a "fashun dachshund". I'm pretty sure that my laughter was not well-hidden regarding that horrible joke.

In other news, I'm being urged to report that TA by my friend so maybe I'll get around to doing that. Eventually. When he isn't in charge of my marks. Because he *IS* a TA for one of my courses this term. *sigh*

I'm NOT looking forward to my 213 lab tomorrow (I don't need reaffirmation of how lousy I am at socializing with females), but I'm definitely looking forward to volunteering. I love that feeling of doing *something* even if it's insignificant in the long-run and is unrelated to the alleged track my life is on.

If Apple ever comes up with swanky boots that will specifically help short people like me hop over puddles (with the aid of propulsion or levitation or anti-gravity, IDK), they definitely should name them the iHop.

In case you actually remembered such a trivial detail as my having a lab on Fridays, I'll have you know that my prof addressed the failtastic lab issues this week (TAs not showing up, etc.) and my lab today was cancelled! Yaaay! And next week we'll be starting anew with lab 1 again, since I think 2 lab sections (out of 4?) were without TAs at some point this week. We also do not have a course website or Vista module -- which is quite sad given that it IS a Comp Sci course -- so there was no easy way to get a hold of lab materials or anything. I guess technically the other lab sections have a headstart, but it sounds like the lab is hard anyway.

Yesterday I neglected to jump on the blogging bandwagon and discuss the addition of a new zodiac sign: Ophiucus, aka some dude carrying a snake. I personally don't believe in horoscopes and astrology, but with this "new" system, I'm aware that my sign has changed. I suppose that I am no longer that melodramatic Leo. Alas, no, I am now an armoured crustacean. Good grief, Leo and Cancer are polar opposites (fire versus water, sun versus moon), too. That right there should be evidence enough that astrology is a load of codswallop. Consider this QED'd. /geekiness

Heh, my geekiness there reminded me of my 221 prof today, which in turn actually inspired the title and opening line of today's entry. We were discussing the speed of running programs based on equations, and the unit "nanocentury" came up. My prof said an easy way to think of a nanocentury is "pie seconds". Whether that was a typo on his powerpoint slides or a pun on his part, I will never know, though it did lead to a weird little anecdote which began with a short recitation of the first 20 decimal points of pi:

"3.14159265358979323846... That's how I met my wife; we met over pi(e). We discussed pi(e) over breakfast at the International House of Pancakes. Her roommate was an international student and so we were at the International House, and it was a pancake breakfast. I didn't get any pancakes."

Anywho, I should get going to sleep so I can get epic amounts of reading done tomorrow. Looking back at yesterday and today's CPSC lectures, it feels really good to actually be able to follow what's going on in those courses.

Also, doing voice-leading exercises where the chord progression is already given to you is strangely enjoyable.

... said my Stats prof on Wednesday.

I saw this layout and thought it looked nice and thought that it was time for a change with the start of a new school term and all. Plus I need some inspiration for the layout that I'll make when I finally get around to it (probably never).

The weather has been rather typical as of late (a euphemism for "raining like crazy"). But does that explain why I said "leafs" instead of "leaves" yesterday? And no, I was not referring to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time. Strange. I was also a victim of the Canadian "sorry" today when someone walked into me on the bus. I don't really see what's wrong or overly polite about saying "sorry" when someone bumps into you. For me, yes, it's automatic, but when I think about it, I think I'm apologizing for being in the way. I suppose the goof could've looked where he was going before blindly walking into and stepping on me, but maybe I should've predicted where he would be going a little better. Anywho...

I realized that I didn't blog on Wednesday about my M/W/F classes because I was all wrapped up in the WJHC fever so I'll give my general thoughts and impressions now.

Starting at 8AM I have my Stats 241 class. When I first registered for this course I was confused by the incredibly small class size: 40 people in a lecture hall for 200 and 5 people per lab section. Upon entering the lecture hall it became apparent that this was a class of more than 40 people. It turns out that STAT 241 is combined with STAT 251, which is the required Stats course for Engineering students. 241 is essentially just for CPSC students, and the numbers are different for administrative house-keeping business. And lucky me, I get to save a seat for not only my CPSC friend, but also for my good friend's ex-boyfriend, and some guy from my high school also in CPSC who I'm not even on terms as friendly as those with my friend's ex, but rather civil acquaintanceship, I suppose. From the ex, I found out that it is in fact a 3rd year Engineering course. Huh. So not only am I going to be measured against those smarty pants Engineering kids, but also OLDER smarty pants Engineering kids. Greaaaaat. I do not foresee a very good mark, though I appreciate the eye candy. Smart eye candy. Also, my prof (a pretty cool 30-something year old) mentioned the WJHC and Under-17 on Wednesday so he is automatically a win in my books.

After an hour long break, I have my second CPSC course. I'm surprised I didn't blog about this class sooner given that my prof called on me in class, causing instant mortification for me. I won't relay the exact incident, but let's just say that today was better since there was no picking on me. This is probably the toughest course I'll be having this term, I'm thinking, since I will have to learn another programming language as well as completing projects in this language. At least I'm on good terms with my genius friend and he's nice enough to help me, though I know my stupidity irritates him sometimes. Today I sat with him, my friend also in Stats & CPSC 213, and my genius friend's friend who is a COGS student and is also in my Stats class. COGS actually sounds rather interesting as it is CPSC and Philosophy combined. Fancy that. Anywho we were a somewhat motley crew in class. Woo ethnic diversity and varying levels of stupidity!

I find it highly unfair that my genius friend (who is doing honours and a combined major) doesn't have to take my Stats course. If anything I thought that honours students would have to take more and harder courses!

As I was trying to get in the mood for doing some reading for Stats this evening, I came upon this video which shows the progress of 200 countries in the past 200 years. (And I know that eBaum's World is a rather suspect website in terms of some of its content, but I'm not a regular there and found this interesting:)


This weekend's to-do:

• Music 101 assignment #1 (notate answers using software)
  
• Read Stat 241 textbook
  
• Read CPSC textbooks (Comp: 2.2-2.3/3.1-3.4, 3.9.3) (4.5-4.7, 5, 6.1-6.3, 6.5)
• Read Music 121 textbook
  
• Prep labs (Stat/213/221)
  

And then the NHL All-Star Game is coming up January 28th! That's always fun to watch. :)
Back to work!

And Canada tries to cheer itself up by tweeting about that "Unruly Russian" team. Apparently they were booted off by a flight attendant for being unruly. I wonder if the flight attendant was Canadian. I'm not sure if this is really worthy of being a news item, but I think that Canada is clamouring for some justice, and a way to deal with the blow.

Now that it's January, you know it's that time of year again! Dine Out Vancouver will be in full swing January 24th - February 6th. I'm looking forward to tasting more of that west coast cuisine we're apparently known for. Really, people come to Vancouver just for the food. We must have some good stuff out here, but I just don't have the money or time to taste it all. And I don't have the most discerning palate so perhaps it's for the best.

Since telling my parents about getting in for co-op (a feat that was not accomplished purely because I am female), they've been decently supportive, though I can tell that my mom still is rather against me going out of the country/continent. They also showed me this article (top of page 8) today about the top 10 jobs, based on outlook, income, cushiness, etc.

10 best jobs 1. Software engineer: $87,140 2. Mathematician: $94,178 3. Actuary: $87,204 4. Statistician: $73,208 5. Computer systems analyst: $77,153 6. Meteorologist: $85,210 7. Biologist: $74,278 8. Historian: $63,208 9. Audiologist: $63,144 10. Dental hygienist: $67,107

10 worst jobs 1. Oil rig roustabout: $32,143 2. Ironworker: $34,127 3. Lumberjack: $32,109 4. Roofer: $34,168 5. Taxi driver: $21,127 6. Emergency medical technician: $30,168 7. Welder: $35,126 8. Painter: $34,152 9. Meter reader: $34,171 10. Construction worker: $29,211 (All salaries listed in U.S. dollars)

I guess that's somewhat reassuring for me. Though I'm not so confident about anything that I'll go and do an honours degree like what my friend is urging me to do. I'm not sure how much of a difference having a little 'H' next to my name would make in terms of... everything.

I've already got homework (aside from reading) for this weekend, so I'll try to make myself scarce until Monday, or at least until procrastination urges me to post my findings here.

Like all good Canadian teenagers/young adults, I spent my evening watching the gold medal game of the WHJC where Canada took on the Russians in Buffalo, NY, at HSBC centre in front of a sea of red and white. For this entire tournament, I swear, it's like Canada annexed Buffalo what with all the Canadians there for the WJHC.

After ousting the tournament favourite (USA), Canada was feeling good. We wanted the USA after clobbering the Swiss, and we got them. The biggest act of revenge was over and done with. But we wanted gold, too. Oh, alas, it was not meant to be.

I moseyed on over to the live stream on TSN and participated a bit in the Facebook live chat that was going on while Canada dominated the first period with two solid goals. The second period saw another goal by Canada, but it became clear, most notably during the Canadian power plays, that Russia was starting to wake up. After a 3-0 lead for two periods, Russia charged back in the third with 5 unanswered goals, earning themselves gold medals and the title of champions.

Yes, I admit that I am not thrilled with the results, but considering that this Canadian team had no "superstars" and that they were in no way favourites, they did manage to snag silver. That in itself is quite a feat considering the fact that their pool included some tough opponents.

That being said, the fallout on Twitter was... well, interesting to say the least. Throughout the game, various player names and "Gold Medal Game" trended. After the game, the list of trending topics was invaded by various Russian players' names as well as "National Travesty" and "Soviet Russia". I have to say that "National Travesty" was borderline ridiculous and originated from a tweet by a certain Canadian World Juniors superstar from a few years ago. I admit that I got quite a few kicks out of the "Soviet Russia" trending topic as "In Soviet Russia ..." jokes cropped up, the majority of which contained a bittersweet hockey twist.

In Canada, hockey is srs bznzz, folks. You do not deny this country a gold medal in ice hockey. Ever.
All I can say is that Russia had better watch out next year, when the games will be held on Canadian soil.

Some good did come of this disastrous game, and that includes Brayden Schenn's goal which has him tied for the record of most points in the WJHC. Good on him!

Another good thing that came of this was that I made amends with a friend I hadn't talked to in 6 months.
"How about them sneaky Russians?"

In other news, I think I may have pulled a leg muscle after slipping and falling (into a violent half-split) on the bus this morning. It kind of hurts to crouch down or even go down and kneel.

ALSO. I'm in for co-op! :) This means that every Thursday 12 - 2PM I'll be in a co-op workshop meeting thing. Despite the fact that that means I'll be seeing high school buddies less, my epically long 4.5-hour break will not be quite so long.

In retrospect, I should've spent more time studying Math 200 stuffs than CPSC stuffs. My CPSC final today was pretty alright. There was nothing that I hadn't seen before, and the bits of code that I had to write didn't seem all that difficult... I mean, for Pete's sake, the prof of the other section (who was invigilating) said that we could write pseudocode if we couldn't remember syntax exactly. Pseudocode. For realz. Why more people don't go into Computer Science, I will never know. Or rather, I think I *do* know, but the reasons are asinine. I am such an example, or actually, a counterexample (which then disproves things and is a valid way to solve a proof, yaddi-yaddi-yadda). I don't know what I'm saying. Too tired from staring at Greek symbols all day. @_____@

Something off of Overheard @ UBC:

In MUSC 120, on the subject of castrati:
Student: "So like... um... how do you get like... chosen?"
Dr. Fisher: "You mean, how do you get chosen to be castrated?"
Student: "I'm not interested or anything. It doesn't sound too awesome to me!"
Class bursts out laughing.

Yup, I was there. And I know the guy who said it.
Note to cousin: you know him, too! xD

And I found this article on how music is a good remedy for pain. I also found this article on Cracked (while I was harsh procrastinating yesterday) about some other good things music can do for you, in a more physical sense.

While I was getting caught up with all the new discussion posts on UBC Vista last night pre-exam, I came across this...

What the--? O_______O A Google search tells me that this Eason (insert Chinese characters) Chan is indeed a real Hong Kong-based pop star who will be performing at Rogers Arena on Dec. 14, but srsly. Is he taking CPSC 211?! Somehow I doubt it. I have a feeling that it's just a snarky student impersonating Eason Chan, but how on earth did the kid change their name on Vista to "Eason (insert Chinese characters) Chan"?! None of the other Asian kids taking this course have special characters in their names. It's a mystery~~~
And then someone replied saying something along the lines of "Nah, your ticket prices are too steep. And I thought you were studying Architecture!!". It's very hard to discern much of anything on the internet, I find.

Another thing. My Musc 120 prof just sent this e-mail out stating that "due to street paving and arborist work, University Boulevard will be closed to all traffic on Sat, Dec 11 from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.   Buses will be re-routed.   Other access routes to campus are not affected." I can't for the life of me remember which road University Boulevard is. If I don't remember by Friday night (and if no one gives me hints *hint hint*) then I guess I'll look it up Friday night.

I am so dead for Math tomorrow. T____T

I need to make plans for how to study and do homework or else I won't get anything done and I'll end up being a bum on the street.

Today: Math homework (9.1), study for CPSC midterm
Monday: Read more for research essay, study for CPSC midterm some moar -- I officially kick sequential circuit butt :D
Tuesday: Math homework (9.2) -- CANNOT FINISH HOLY JESUS SO HARD D:, study hardcoar foar CPSC midterm some moar
Wednesday: ptfo when I get home from CPSC midterm, maybe read some moar for Engl?
Thursday: read Psyc, read Phys, START ENGL RESEARCH PAPER!!!
Friday: Math homework (9.3/9.4), work on Engl paper -- probably postponed to Saturday so I can have fun :D
Saturday: Math homework (9.5/9.6), work on Engl paper -- probably postponed to Sunday
Sunday: read Psyc, do moar Math practice stuff

And procrastination ends... in 5 minutes lol

EDIT: I got distracted again by this. And I was doing so well in terms of homework, too. :( LOL AND THIS SERIOUSLY HAD ME GOING FOR A WHILE XD:

It's been a few days since I last blogged.
I'm supposed to be studying for my CPSC midterm, but I slacked off for like 5 hours and just read articles on cracked.com, like this one about cat behaviours and the evil explanations behind them and this one about how music affects people. It's 'cause of this that I looked at the other articles on this site lolol.

I became addicted to Kamelot's The Black Halo album again. So freaking good. Best album I've ever heard. It even has punch-you-in-the-face moments of goodness. And if I listen to it, I actually can make myself do homework so yay. I told myself that I would do Math questions until I finished my 3rd listen of the album today and now it's on its 4th go and I'm still working on questions.

In other news, I finally got a new iPod (yay thanks Savo!) and I was looking at the cover flow stuff yesterday night after the 30 minutes it took to synch everything to it -___- and now I feel the urge to actually attach album art to everything LOL. Sadly (and nerdily enough), one of the first free apps I downloaded was an eReader. 'Cause I'm lame like that lol.

I just realized that I have like 3 pages in draft because Blogspot limits you to 10 pages and I can't commit to anything.

No CPSC lab this week so that's a bit of a relief in terms of work for this weekend. Shit, but I'm going to be behind in Psyc reading if I don't get on it... like tomorrow (Sunday).

AHHHHHHHHHHHH I just looked at the course syllabus for Psyc (which has the week-by-week reading schedule) and it's just 2 weeks until the Muse concert!!! :D Joyness!! But I think it's going to be a pretty hectic weekend since I really really have to catch up in Physics readings. Hopefully after my CPSC midterm and Math test, I can concentrate my efforts on passing Physucks.

No, it fucking sucks when you wake up mid-dream and you're lying on your stomach with your head on your arms and your arms hurt like crazy because your head made them fall asleep D:

Finished that crap I had to do for English. I think this is the most last-minute I've ever left an assignment. But it's okay. It's done.

Updated list of crap to do:

• read Phys (forever...)
• read CPSC (IDK, so behind ><)
• MasteringPhysucks (March 15)
• CPSC assignment #3 (March 19) -- 100% done!!
• prep next CPSC lab (March 16)
• read over next Phys lab (March 16)
• read Math (March 30)
• get caught up in Math homework (March 30)
• respond to Playland (March 19)
• fix up Engl proposal/bib according to tomorrow's peer review (March 15)
• register for summer course + $100 deposit (March 18)

I think we should have a group trip to the Harry Potter theme park @ Universal Studios. I think that it would be fun :) I mean, THEY FREAKING MADE A REPLICA OF HOGSMEADE VILLAGE. But maybe in a few years so we can build up our moneys to afford it.

As in Mad-Eyed Moody!
Nah, I'm just kidding. WG & AN blogged tonight (yesterday?) so I felt like blogging too. Hurrah for peer pressure! :)

Time is running out to catch up with schoolwork, and I've stopped caring about anything and everything school related. But life isn't about lollygagging around and doing things you want to do. No of course not. That'd be far too easy and we can't have life being easy now, can we?

Had a loltastic talk with WG today. x) I don't think I can ever talk to her without actually lol-ing at the screen and getting weird looks from my brother.

Just a little warning in advance, this is probably going to be a somewhat self-absorbed post.

I'm listening to that "Calling to the Night" song again and it's got a chokehold on my heart. Every time I hear it, I come close to crying. I know that it's already inspired the start of a story that's gone onto my brainstorming notepad file. But I'm forcing myself not to do any writing right now. I know that if I do, I won't be able to do any more schoolwork or studying, which is why I had to finish that story. It was stealing my time and energy. I want to sing this song so badly. But people are in bed and the house is not empty. I wish I was standing on the corner of a busy intersection of endless traffic. I like that feeling of being there, but not quite at the same time. And the noise is loud enough to cover my voice.

I don't even know what I want anymore. Sometimes I think being in a relationship would be nice. But I also think that I enjoy my solitude. I love my friends and sometimes I think that there is no room for anyone else in my life. But I shouldn't even think about these sorts of things. These thoughts just make me feel weird. In the end, I know that I could do just fine by myself. Relationship talk makes me feel weird. I know I'm young, I know that I shouldn't believe in words like "never". But I don't know. I don't want to know.

Well, I think I've just got to study Math hardcore, review some more Physics, and try and finish CPSC lab 5 (from before the reading break lololol) before school starts again.