Merry Christmas!!

here are my christmas wishes for everyone:

ÿ a great, happy, healthy semester (best of luck to you guys)

ÿ some sleep (for me too)

ÿ free enough to visit lil ol' me in good ol' Toronto

ÿ for santa to visit you guys next year (so be good!)

ÿfor a lot of snow to hit you and you get a day off

have a great 2nd semester guys. hope you had a great celebration filled with many traditions and/or fun!

so in words of the great Phoebe Buffay:

MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT! Y

Who's wrapping up?

I would like to point out that, like David, I am not talking about the relief of being done with exams because I still have one more. But it's psychology so it could be a lot worse. I mean, I could be David! Dodged a bullet there!

Sorry David!

On the bright side, I can start packing! Did I say bright side? I meant on the dark-abysmal-wallowing-suction-cupping-vortex-of-despairing-doom side. I utterly despise packing, which is strange because for the past 18 years, I've always thought I liked it. It's the unpacking I never liked. Packing used to give me that bubbly, excited feeling since it meant I'm going away! But for some reason, the joy of packing has moved on to greener pastures (to put it in a terrible idiom).

I am excited to go home though! Just the thought of packing is very unattractive at the moment. Right now, there is an abnormally large pile of books and snack containers that were taking up too much of my room and will be promptly shipped back to Toronto.

I also just did an enormous pile of laundry. (About a week and a half ago, it seemed like a good idea to save all my laundry and do it just before I leave. Now I want to get in a time machine and go punch Past Me in the face when I thought of that idea.) My room looks like a scene out of Wall-E. There's miscellaneous crap strewn everywhere.

On that appetizing note, I think I'm going to go do something productive like:

• Study for my exam, which starts in something like 8 hours and 21 minutes. Oh the anxiety.
• Pack
• Laugh at the unfortunate people studying for the calculus exam in three more days! (That's right, there are people here for a long, long time.)
• See if I can count my teeth using only my tongue.
• Find out where that mysterious hole in my wall leads to. It's about the size of an apricot and it's about 6 inches off the floor, right behind my bed. Curiouser and curiouser.

But as exciting as all those last three options are. I should probably be a model student and face plant into my psychology textbook. At least it's interesting stuff. With my profound knowledge of the brain and how the mind works, I could have you all well trained and offering me tasty cookies at the snap of my fingers! But until then, I'm going to give my hippocampus a workout.

And I encourage all of you to amuse your hippocampuses!

(Hippocampuses? Hippocampi? It's "campuses"...but it's also "octopi." Curiouser and curiouser.)

ITS NOT THE HOLIDAYS...yet for me.

STILL IN WATERLOO studying for a bio exam :D

I feel like the Grinch right now...everyone is in the holiday mood while I am STUCK HERE IN THE LOO STUDYING FOR A DAMN F***ING BIO EXAM. It’s so hard to concentrate here...so many people moving out. Exams are tough; the majority of my exams make up 60% of my final mark. I call this the "Do or Die" method. You can do well on your midterms but if you fail the final exam, u FAIL THE ENTIRE COURSE. FML. Calc and chem are worth 60%, Bio is worth 50%, management is 26%, and chem lab is 40%. FML FML FML. i am so stressed. I feel like I won’t even make it to term 1B. FML.

On a happier note, both Woo and Henry got jobs for their co-op terms.

Toodaloo,
From the loo,
David

sleep sleep sleep

Hey!

So everyone is starting to wrap up, which means I'll be able to see all you guys soon! :)

So currently, I am procrastinating cleaning, which I really shouldn't because I'm leaving tonight in about 4 hours to our grand 3-4 hours dinner. x_x"

Well I've been sleeping like 10+ hours a night! It's so crazy. My eyes are permanently half close. lol. But it's probably as much rest as I'm going to get the whole holiday. Once I have things planned, I'm going to up at the crack of dawn (10:00AM xD).

Well I can't wait to get my marks, I'm passing everything so far!! :D I'm sooooooooo going to fail art history though, so I have to figure that out. oyy. sighs.

See you guys soooon!!!!

Survival of the Fittest.

I just finished my final exam at Ryerson and it feels awesome. I thought I was going to die this week because it just wouldn't end. I'm currently packing up my whole room and it's craziness. It seems so empty and lonely in my room now. I realized how much I depended on my fridge and rice cooker because I barely ate anything this week. I also had to use up all my meal plan money because I couldn't transfer it to Emmers so that was a drag. Imagine buying $200+ worth of drinks... it was so heavy! I have so much Arizona, nestea, and vitamin water at my house now. If you want some, just holler!

Oh and it just hit me during my exam that I'm leaving tomorrow night for my vacay which I extremely need right now. I also need sleep... Zzzz

さよなら!

Get into that Holiday Spirit!

Twas a week before Christmas, I was still in my dorm.

Outside it was freezing and snowing a storm.

My roomie's gone home. Now her bed is my bench.

It took me some time but I got out her stench.

All this time I have left, in the silence I'll pass,

Or I could if that Scott weren't a pain in the...well, you know.

With no studying done and exams on the way,

I ventured downtown where I shopped for the day.

Past stockings and wreaths, maple syrup on ice,

I tried not to think that my room might have mice.

Rach may not agree Christmas shopping's the worst,

But she's got to admit it's been hard on my purse.

I trudged through the Byward, made faces at hobos,

And paid way too much for those brand names with logos.

But at last I was done! With a boot full of snow,

I got on the bus and back home I did go,

And who should await me, right out by my door?

But that mundane old Scott, an extremely dull bore.

He grumbled and muttered. He moped and he sighed.

He groaned on and on about wishing he died.

His grades were too poor and his life really sucked.

It's safe to assume that Scott really was...doomed.

But why tell it to me? Was he quite unaware

That I'd mock all his worries? Make fun of his hair?

"So you're life is abysmal, I don't really care!"

I told him with relish to strap on a pair!

"This isn't a movie, not everything's great.

Get out of my room, I've enough on my plate.

I'm sick of your brooding, your whining, your moods.

So please leave me be! Drown your pain in some booze!"

That Scott, he just stared with his mouth in an "O."

And without one more word, down the hall he did go.

Before he returned to the depths of his room,

He turned to me, staring with eyes full of gloom.

"I'm not gonna lie, Ve. That really did hurt.

But I understand." And he stared at the dirt.

I sat at my desk to pretend not to hear it.

But darn it, I can't rid that holiday spirit.

No one's that heartless. I couldn't ignore.

With a sigh, I got up and I knocked at his door.

"What do you want?" he asked with his arms hanging limp.

Reluctant I managed, "Merry Christmas, you wimp."

In light of the holidays, I'm sure you're all very excited about the snow. What's not to like? All that lovely salt that gathers in a white ring around your boots. That wonderfully frozen snowbank at the end of your driveway. Everyone has frequent spasms when they walk on the slippery sidewalks while cars drive extra slowly and splash great gobs of grey slushy snow everywhere. It really is a winter wonderland.

If all that isn't enough to make you want to fling your arms in the air and praise God for snow, here's how you can use snow to your benefit. I overheard this ingenious suggestion while taking the OTrain yesterday.

Guy 1: Hey, you know what I just remembered?

Guy 2: What?

Guy 1: We have a freezer now!

Guy 2: Oh yeah! Do you know what this means?

Guy 1: Dude!

Guy 1 and 2: TOASTER STRUDEL!

But wait. It gets better.

Guy 3: What? You guys have a freezer?

Guy 1: Well we have this snow bank right outside our window.

Guy 2: It's AWESOME!

I'm so glad we have post-secondary education to broaden our horizons and improve our minds.

The Mouse Attack of '09

I'm just going to get right into the story. Kitty and I found a mouse in our room.

I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of experiencing that delightful surprise. Let me assure you, there is nothing cute about mice. Jerry and Mickey can bite me because real mice are the absolutely terrifying.

I surprised myself a little with my reaction. I actually did the cliché Shriek-and-climb-up-on-a-chair-where-the-mouse-can't-get-you Routine. Don't laugh until you too are on your hands and knees with a flashlight in one hand and a cereal box in the other trying to scare the mouse out from under your bed. I will never again make fun of the women on the chairs. It's a perfectly normal reaction.

It was all such a blur. A blur with a huge adrenaline rush. One minute I was reading about the Maritime economy in the 1850s (for my history exam tomorrow, not for fun. I do have standards.) and the next, Kitty's shrieking and pulling her legs up onto her chair and frantically pointing at the ground.

Kitty: Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!

Me: What? What?

Kitty: Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod! Ew! Ew!

Me: What? WHAT? Nouns, woman! Give me something!

At this point, I'm already freaking out. When someone's freaking out about something you can't see, it's almost always a bug. My first reaction? Oh please don't be a cockroach...or a tarantula.

Finally Kitty manages to say: MOUSE! Oh my god, Ve! There's a mouse in our room!

Ve: Where? Where? (For some reason, I like to say things twice when I'm freaking out.)

She points under her desk and suddenly I see it dart out and it's sitting right next to Kitty's bag. I'm freaking out. She's freaking out. In hindsight, we were so stupid! We should have trapped it right then and there while we could still see it! But what did we do? We screamed for help.

You know what I love about residence life? How nobody will come to your rescue if you scream, "THERE'S A MOUSE IN OUR ROOM! HELP US!" People are just suddenly busy and unresponsive. I hate them all! I'm planning to get a particularly resonant set of pots and pans one day and just go clanging up and down the halls at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning. That'll teach those good-for-nothing people on my floor! Useless. All of them! Useless!

The only thing that happens after our screaming is the mouse runs out. I get up a little higher on my chair (like that's going to make it better) and the mouse dives under Kitty's bed. Kitty and I are a little smarter this time. I grab an old cereal box. All we had to do was to trap the mouse, slide it out the door and release it into the wild!

Well, that was the plan anyway.

What actually happened was another 30 minutes of clanging around the room looking for the mouse. There was no way we were going to bed with the knowledge of that mouse running around in our room. All this with our history exam starting in 11 hours. Isn't it great how life throws these curve balls at you? It's more like throwing flaming bowling balls at your while all you have a tissue to protect you. But I digress.

After lots of hunting and crawling on our hands and knees, we find the mouse under my bed. I didn't even ask at that point how it got there. You have no idea what it's like to simultaneously want to find something desperately while hoping it doesn't dart out and leap onto your face. I scare it behind my desk and I manage to chase it out behind our fridge.

We thought we had him cornered at that point. Kitty was all ready with a large plastic storage container to trap the mouse (a much better mouse-catching apparatus than my flimsy cereal box). Unfortunately for us, mice have an annoying way of squeezing themselves into small places. Our mouse disappeared under our fridge.

I took the cereal box and tore it open so that it's one long piece of cardboard and I slid it under the fridge. Kitty's still waiting with the box. I try not to think about the cardboard squishing the mouse and getting it stuck under our fridge where it can decompose nice and slowly.

Thankfully the mouse runs out and Kitty's got it trapped under the box. We take about five minutes to "Ew!" and "Gross!" at the mouse before we start sliding it out the door. After a few painful steps, we decide to slide the cereal box under the box so it's not as...rough of a ride for the mouse.

At this point, I was pushing the box towards the door while Kitty was in front making sure it doesn't get out. Suddenly, we lost the mouse. We have no idea where it went. I thought it was under the cardboard and so I start pushing forward again...slowly until I see Kitty's face. She had her hand over her mouth and her face was absolutely horrified.

"Stop!" she sputtered and I automatically froze. Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead. "You squished it, Ve. Oh my god. It's dead."

I really don't want to look at the box but it had to be done. I take a look and I see the mouse on its back pressed up against the back corner. I was a little grossed out (more than before) and I backed away. I couldn't think of anything to say. Kitty looked like she was going to cry. She nudged the box just to try to flip it over or something.

The mouse jumped up and started bouncing around inside the box. It was going ballistic! For a second I thought it had cracked. But there it was! Alive! We both exhaled. Was it relief? I don't really know. Maybe. The only thing worse than a live mouse is a dead mouse. We pressed on.

There was a second problem. There's a tiny ridge on the floor at the doors leading to the "foyer" (it's really just a little space between the main doors and the doors to our floor). If we pushed the box over the ridge, there would be a gap and the mouse would definitely get out again. We tried sliding more cardboard under it to make a ramp but it was no good.

We went with my idea: push the box over the ridge, let the mouse out and quickly trap it again. It wasn't great. But it was a plan.

By now, a girl on our floor was taking out garbage and she was staring at the box looking disgusted. She's just watching. Useless. Another guy that we never see, Roderigo, showed up. This is only the second time I've seen him since September. He's in fourth floor and no one ever sees him. On a floor of less than 20 people, that's quite a feat. But back to the story.

These two people both walked by and just stared at use. Real helpful. This was also the time that 10 people decided to walk by our floor. They weren't really in the way. One guy yelled, "Cockroach?"

"Mouse," I replied. We kept moving. This was hardly the time for polite small talk.

We were so close to the last door. Kitty and I threw all caution to the wind and just slid the box as quickly as we could all the way out the door and lifted it up. The mouse stood outside for a moment, almost frozen in one spot. It was kind of unexpected after all that crazy jumping around he was doing in the box. For a second, I thought he was going to turn around and run back inside but he slid under the open door (doesn't think to go around it) and disappears into the snow.

Kitty and I vacuumed like fiends. Our room is now spotless. I think it's the cleanest it's ever been since we moved in.

I now hate mice. I used to think they could be kind of cute. Now, I have no sympathy whatsoever. Kitty and I will just have to be extremely careful to the point of being anal about food. And if people come to visit, there is no way they will be allowed in with food, especially something with crumbs.

You can call me excessive. I don't care because I am NEVER doing that again.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed. I have an exam in 8 hours and 43 minutes and I don't know how I'm going to remember anything as mundane as the Rebellion of 1837 after what I've just been through.

We need to get a cat.

back home!

I am now back home in toronto! =] what a busy quarter it was. it felt like i had no free time when in fact, i did. and i had lots of it too.  So in the morning, I had arranged a shuttle to come pick me up at my dorm at 8:30. As with most campuses, the roads are pretty confusing, so I dont blame my driver, but man did he ever get lost. After thirty minutes of him making left turns, right turns, u turns, upside down and back again turns everywhere and anywhere, I decided to walk out to a main street by our student health center, and I saw him, but he did not see me until he was right next to me and he said on the phone, "Oh there you are! I see you.  You the one on the phone with me right?". So I got in the van and put my luggage away and off we went.  That is, off we went on another journey filled with all the turns I mentioned above.  So basically, all he really had to do right after he picked me up was go out onto the main road, turn left, then right. But no, he turned all sorts of directions I didnt even know existed. He was like "Damn this campus is confusin. Shit. I be dope if they made these roads clearer! I mean I already crazy but this making me even more crazy!" and then he said "Oh okay I got it now. This is the right way. Here we go baby. Come on light work with me. I be talking to lights now. Yea there you go. I got this. Man today has been crazy all mornin!"  So at this point, I decided to double check with him and clarify that he was going the right way and he said "Yea I got this. I was fine till I went in the campus. And then I tried to get out from the same place I got in and that didnt happen." So I just laughed.  I just sat and laughed and thought "wow, what if my flight wasnt delayed? I would be pretty behind schedule!"
And I guess I should just mention to clarify that my flight got delayed by an hour, which ended up with me sitting in Wolfgang Puck doing nothing for an hour and sitting at the gate for another hour and a bit. It was not fun. Even with the massive one hour delay with the driver, I was still early somehow by some miracle. And there wasnt even wireless at LAX. I thought there would be, but you had to pay 6 bucks an hour.

Besides all that, everything went pretty smoothly. The plane ride was nice and short. Just how I like it. When I got off the plane, I took a breath and saw white air coming from my mouth and was like, "what on earth is this" and then a second later I was like oh. I am in Canada. Go figure... I thought it was pretty darn cold in Irvine, being a city in SoCal. Like in the mornings I have to wear a scarf, gloves, and sweater. But then I got here and was like. Damn. So this is what cold is. haha.
I cant believe how much I miss being at home. Everything is so convenient and so comfortable.

Here is a list of things that I miss from my home here:
-My bed because to get onto the one in my res you need to do something similar to a pole vault. You know those times when you come back from class and just wanna plop down on your bed and lay there for a bit? Yea you cant do that with my bed. You need to summon up the energy to jump onto it.
-My bed again because its big enough to roll around on!
-My desk because it is actually big enough to fit more than my laptop and a desk light! :O I can actually fit my binder too! And a piece of paper if I wanted! :O :O
-My room that has a nice comfy squishy soft carpet floor and not the hard rough sharp carpet floor in my room at UCI.
-My washroom cause the washroom in my suite always smells like shit no later than half a day after the maid cleans it. And it also doesnt have random clothes, towels, toothbrushes, shampoos, toilet paper, paper towel, urine stains, grasshoppers, hairball, and general grossness lying around.
-Having wireless internet cause my dorm doesnt have any and for some reason, my wireless didnt work anywhere there.
-The restaurants here because they are actual restaurants and not a cafeteria!!! Right now, I would probably enjoy even the shadiest, sketchiest chinese restaurant here haha.
-YOU GUYS!!! cause I havent seen any of you in soo long!!! And most of you are going away to las vegas =[ but my holiday is too short for me to go on vacation.
-My family. I dont think an explanation is necessary. Even though I talk to them on the phone sometimes, I still miss em. =]

Here are some things that I do not miss from my home:
-The internet at my school, and probably like your schools' too, was blazingly fast and I wish that I had that at home.
-Whenever I want to go out for a walk, I can. Now that I am here, well..first of all, its cold. Secondly, theres nothing scenic. Everything is boring. Boring boring boring. Houses here houses there.
-Being able to open my window whenever I can without snow, rain, or anything else besides wind, fresh air, and sunlight coming through them.
-The excitement of opening my mail box and actually getting mail. I dont even check my mail box that often and I still never get anything, but when I do, it makes me feel like I am important.
-All of my friends at UCI and being able to see them everyday.

Wow, that was one long post! It might actually rival one of Veronica's! haha.

I could be studying, but let's not talk crazy.

I am running on 5.5 hours of sleep, which is practically nothing on my sleep-o-meter so we can all just ignore Melvin's comment about my beauty sleep. I am about 57% convinced that I am currently stuck in a temporary wave of mild insomnia and I am NOT enjoying it at all! And I know 5.5 hours is the amount of sleep you all get in a month but let's all get a little perspective, people! Put your sleep needs aside and feel my pain - my wide-eyed, unblinking, begging-for-a-tranquilizer, bloodshot pain.

Of course, I found a good outlet for all the extra waking hours that I suddenly have. I have taken the liberty of doing laundry at 8 in the bright and early in the morning...when I don't have any classes all day and the rest of the world is asleep. Do you know what I get as my reward for being productive?

My laundry is half dry. (See how I went for the positive spin? I could have said half wet but that would just be negative.) Isn't that just punch-you-in-the-face-spit-on-your-neck-fantastic? Don't you love when life hits you with little surprises like that? I know I do!

Before I go off to study like a good Chinese girl, I thought I would share something hilarious and mildly disturbing.

Don't say I didn't warn you. If you have a fear of lady's undergarments, I would scroll down to the bolded part now because I still have things to say after this.

Last night, Kitty and I came back from our last Jitsu class and I had just taken a shower. You can rest assured, the story is not about my shower. No, that's a story for another time. I was sorting my laundry for the next morning. So I pull out my laundry basket where one week's worth of clothes has been congregating and stewing for the last few days and I start separating colours and whites, the usual blah blah. (I know you're thinking, "Who has the time to separate colours? Just chuck it all in the machine and be done with it!" I too used to be a believer in that method but, I think wearing a pink ghi to Jitsu would be a little much. Don't you?)

Suddenly, I come across an incriminating article of clothing. It's a black bra. A LARGE black bra. I mean, this baby could hold grapefruits and possibly small cantaloupes. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not mine. I turn to Kitty.

Me: You know what concerns me?

Kitty (without turning away from her computer): What?

Me (thrusting the bra in her face): This isn't mine. [By which I am implying, "Keep your bras out of my laundry, you little nasty!]

Kitty turns and stares at the bra. There's a prolonged silence. We're both staring at it. I'm vaguely amused and waiting for her to take it. She doesn't even reach for it. She just stares back at me.

Kitty: It's not mine.

We stare at each other. We stare at the bra between us. We're not smiling anymore. Now, the bra is up on a shelf that neither of us can reach. Kitty flung it up there last night. After the initial horror dissipated, and we were no longer convulsed with laughter, we decided we couldn't just throw it away just yet. No, this was an item to be treasured, to be used to strike up friendly conversation with the people on our floor.

The sad part is this isn't the first time something like this has happened to us. About a month ago, the same thing happened with a sock. But let's face it. A big black bra is much funnier than an old sock. I mean, an old sock is just gross. A black bra is gross and mildly amusing.

For people who made the unfortunate decision to skip my lady's undergarments story, it is now safe again for your innocent eyes.

Being the kind, compassionate person that I am, I will offer you all some advice to survive your upcoming finals.

Step 1: Be a genius.

If you are not qualified for Step 1, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Find a genius and get a brain transfusion.

Okay, seriously now.

If you found Steps 1 and 2 unhelpful at best, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: In the case of emergency (i.e. you are sitting in the exam room and the exam started 2.5 hours ago and you have yet to pick up your pen/pencil), simply tuck your head between your knees and kiss your [insert favourite body part] goodbye.

Well I had to leave some room for imagination.

done with calculus! + new url

I never thought that I would be able to say this as early as I am saying it now, but I AM DONE WITH CALCULUS FOREVER!!!!!!!! wooohooooo!! I took my final for calculus today and I dont think I did too well, but I hope that I will still get above 80. which is still a shitty...erm.. bad 3.0. that will not suffice but there is nothing I can do. I am just my stupid self.  And here I wanted to tutor other people in the course so that I can have a part time job while I am in school. sigh.

Now I gotta write a 10 page journal that I shouldve done over the past few months but havent. That will be my (only) preparation for my final in management tomorrow.  Hopefully that will go better!

Just wanted to let all of you know that our blog will be moving to thegatheringtwentyten.blogspot.com at the start of the new year. I know I shouldnt have to mention this but I will cause I know how much sleep you guys have been getting (if any at all) with the exception of veronica with her beauty sleep - its moving cause if you havent noticed, the number at the end is actually the year!! *gasp* :O (oh and also "twenty ten" sounds better than "ten") And the link obviously wont work right now. yea just thought I would give you guys a heads-up.  Cant wait to come back home! I dont want my second quarter of lectures, quizzes, midterms, and work in general to start at all.

Exams....

As I kinda read the other posts...here at the loo, engineers dominate this uni and everyone thinks they are #1 in engineer. guess what, they aren't! Here in Waterloo, the science mascot is an amoeba that's right...an AMOEBA!!! I have no idea what I am proving here about o wellz :D

EXAMS, EXAMS, AND MORE EXAMS...
the library is packed these days with people munching away at their notes and textbooks. Its funny how I've haven't gone to the library yet to study. Well, my exam schedule isn't look too bright at the start. Got three exams in two days.

Dec 10: Chem Exam
Dec 11: Management Exam, Chem Lab Exam

That's right 2 exams, both 2.5 hours long, just like HTS days and they are one hour break in between them to rest up. joy.

Then i have 5 days to prep for math then a weekend to prep for biology.
Overall, I end on the 21st. I know it is late compared to other people *cough cough* emily, rachel, henry. But o wellz more studying time for me and less vacation! WOOHOO!

I'm not going to post for a while from now.
But good luck to you examinees!

peace
-david

Why Engineers Have No Friends

The Carleton Students Engineering Society had the nerdiest event a couple days ago. It's a charity LAN (That's right, I know what a LAN is now. It's a local area network, for those who are not in the know. I read up on my nerd vocab.) and they had a Magic: The Gathering booster draft. (I also know what a booster draft is now! My life has hit an all time low.)

It was basically a video game marathon with a card tournament on the side. All the people who signed up could play StarCraft or War Craft or Gang Garrison 2 or Borderlands (Every time I spew out these names, I surprise myself.) for 24 hours. And the best part is you don't have to feel guilty that you're wasting all your exam studying time playing dorky games with other dorks because IT'S ALL FOR CHARITY! And not just any charity, it's for the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. I'm pretty sure you get extra brownie points for helping sick little kids.

Anyway, my editor mentioned this story and asked if I wanted to take it and I thought of all you guys who would love to sign up for such an altruistic event.

But back to the explanation of my title: Why Engineers Have No Friends.

I had the wonderful...privilege...of interviewing the nerd champions of the world (i.e. the organizers of the event). Let me just say that the Engineering Society is definitely not the place for me or anyone who can conduct themselves in a reasonable manner while participating in social activities.

And by social activities, I mean holding a conversation.

It was absolutely impossible to talk to these people! They contradict themselves and they talk in circles and they do not answer the question. Do not get me wrong, they are very excited about what they are talking about. I learned way more than I ever wanted to know about StarCraft and "planeswalkers" and exactly how you participate in a booster draft. I shudder at the thought.

How I suffer for my art! I ventured into the murky depths of the engineering world to bring you news! And I never ever want to do it again. I walked out of that Engineering office so quickly, you would have thought Wile. E. Coyote was behind me.

Here's a link to the story. http://www.charlatan.ca/drupal/sites/default/files/issues/pdf/39_17.pdf It's on page 6. Thank goodness it was only a short article because who knows what my mental state would be if I had to interview more engineers! The horror! THE HORROR!

And to those who are considering engineering: We can't be friends. It was nice knowing you.

Z's Escape Me

I. Am. So. Tired.

After today, I will officially be done all my assignments (yay!) and start studying for finals (boo!). I am severely lacking in sleep because it is impossible to sleep any earlier than about 12:30 a.m. The people next door were whooping and laughing and cheering and shrieking into the wee hours of the morning (ON A WEDNESDAY NIGHT) and Kitty decided she would stay up with her 5000-watt lamp on and munch loudly on cookies.

To top it all off, she decided to get up at the crack of dawn and do her laundry. This would have been fine by me. I do laundry in the morning too (there's a smaller chance of someone taking all your stuff out and stealing your machine). But when I get up early, I try to leave the lights off as long as possible because Kitty's still sleeping. For some unknown reason, Kitty decides to turn on that horrific 5000-watt lamp again and LEAVES IT ON while she goes to the laundry room. So I was up at 8 a.m. when my class starts at 11:30 a.m. Why? I too would like to know.

I just realized that all of you are probably tearing out your hair and ready to kill for my 7.5 hours of sleep but I'd like to point out that I am not a night person. I need my sleep and it needs to start at 11 p.m. for me to be a cheery, radiant creature in the morning. Don't blame me, blame my circadian rhythm (think of it as a body clock).

I can't wait until Christmas so that I can go home and sleep whenever I want as long as I want in my own bed!

This is what I want for an early Christmas present:

• I want exams to be over but I don't want to write them.
• I want to find the Fieldhouse. I had no idea we had a Fieldhouse and I've never set foot in it. But I feel like I should find it soon because all my exams are going to be written in there.
• I want a large metal pot and a large metal lid so I can wake up at about 6 a.m., burst into the room next door and clang it over their heads just to give them a taste of what I feel every night when I want to be sleeping.
• I want a set a wire clippers to finish off Kitty's lamp once and for all! And when I have had my sweet revenge on its incessantly bright bulb, I shall fling it into the dark abyss!

I feel like I've been relatively good all year. I held the door open for an old lady the other day. So if Santa knows what's good for him and his gelatinous beer belly, he'll use the overnight shipping service.

Before I get back to my riveting life, I felt obligated to share some words of encouragement.

Study hard!

There. I was going to go with the usual "Good luck on finals!" but Vladimir Putin says "Fools are lucky. We work day and night." I have a soft spot for that dear old Russian so no luck for any of you! You're welcome.

whyyyy?

So today, my window opened to enroll in my Winter quarter classes. The enrollment officially began on like November 16 or something like that. The honors students chose their classes first, then students with disabilities, then the seniors, then the juniors, then the sophomores, then the freshman. So I kinda new that most classes would be full, but I didnt expect every single one of them to be full.  I was so overwhelmed that I kind of started to panic. I need to be working towards my major! Not taking elective classes that dont do anything for me!  Hope things will work out in the future...

Anyways, how are all/most of you done your classes, and end so much later than me while I am not done my classes and end earlier than you?!?!!? Doesnt make sense! I wanna go hooooommmeeeeee =[

Classes come to an end.

ヤッタ!! (YATTA!!!!)

I'm finally done all my classes here at Ryerson! So happy that all assignments are a thing of the past now. But now it's time for studying. FINALS >3 I'm really not looking forward to them... I have four, which is okay I guess. But STILL, who likes exams!? I for sure don't.

Just a short check-in...

oyasumi!

fried brain- officially

Hey guys!

Here I sit in art history and like only half the class is here.

I'm donnnee!!! -sorta. But I'm done with the late nights- possibly, depending on how my studying goes. But I just have 1 assignment, 1 project, 2 finals! woop woop! My project is like easy, soo it shouldn't take that long. And my assignment is like my passport and i just have to go back and letter everything. :P

But I can't even think about work. I'm just going to sleep this week! I slept for 11 hours last night. It feels so good just to sleep that long! My brain feels like gooooop. I can't think anymore. I just need to do useless things.

Oh snapp...I forgot to buy bread -__- ...just remembered. lol.

well i'm out of things to say. i'll see you guys soooon!!!!!!!!

23 more days till christmas! :D gotta go christmas shopping!

Western Life #6: Waiting for class

hey guyss!!

wow i havnt posted in such a long time! well i dont really have much to say, but i just decided to contribute to the blog while i wait outside for calc to begin. so i've been sitting here for about 30 minutes now and... brb gotta move into the classroom now... ok well then, so yeah i've been sitting outside for 30 minutes waiitn for calc to begin, but what i've noticed is that i dont hav a calc assessment until february... so why am i still attending class?? wellll the reason is basically after the midterm, i've gotten quite frightened. although i got a decent mark on my calc midterm, one of my friends got 6% on it...... wit the avg being a little over 40%.

Good news... i only have 1 more lab and then i'm done for the assessments until finals (which start next week =/).

Bad news... the code for the lab takes about 10 hours to complete, i've been stuck on the final part, and no1 knows how to do it. The prof tried to explain it to us today, but he spoke soooo fast and none of us really knew what he was talkin about. I'm not even sure if he even taught us that b4. Oh wellzz guess the TAs will just hav to teach us.

OOO on the note of bad profs, our TA for physics has become our designated 'prof' as no1 ever understands our actual prof. So our TA has bravely taken it upon himself to teach us all the course material. WOOHOO! saved by the TA. + this is one TA taht we can actually understand as he's from the US of A and not some foreign country that has english as their like 10th language.

ok well calc is about to begin so guess i'll hav to stop for now.

hope that ur all doin well! see you all soon!! :).

Fear me!

I am officially capable of jitsu-ing your butt! I got my yellow belt! Yay! Be excited. It was awesome in retrospect but at the time I thought I was going to fail (so many times!). I was just so exhausted. It was 4 hours of punching, kicking, blocking, throwing, falling. It was just so intense.

Now Kitty and I are both hobbling along discovering new bruises every 5 minutes.

On Christmas mode

My brain seems to have clocked out a few weeks early. I have this big empty week before exams while other people are still scrambling to finish essays. It's kind of awesome and I should be using it to study for finals, but that seems highly improbable with Christmas on the brain. Instead, I'm just going to spend a little time talking to you guys. Feel special.

Kitty's about to go to South Keys (a.k.a. closest civilized plaza to Carleton and you still have to take a train to get there) so I get the whole room to myself! I'm a hermit. Anyone have a problem with that? Didn't think so.

Let's see. What can I tell you that will make this post vaguely interesting. Let's talk about Clifford. Clifford is a rather flamboyant guy in my journalism, history, and politics class. He's a...round (to put things nicely) Chinese guy who speaks fluent French, Cantonese and Mandarin, some Korean, some Japanese and some angry and slightly racist comments in Farsi. He wears blue contacts and is never without a cigarette and an ice cap. Everything in his life irritates him to no end, meaning he has beef with EVERYBODY. Let's just put it very plainly: Cliff is the most stereotypically gay person in the history of the world! He fully does the limp hand flipping thing and talks in a permanent falsetto. All his friends are girls and he compliments all the female TAs on their "stunning" choice of tops, skirts, scarfs, colours, shoes, necklaces, hair accessories. He might as well wear a rainbow cape and be done with it.

So there's an image for you. People here are weird. There was that one guy who rides around campus on a unicycle. There's another guy who wears a panda hat everywhere he goes. There are these two guys who have light sabre fights outside in the dark. And someone stole the couch from our TV room. How does that even happen? I couldn't tell you, but we're still waiting for the culprit to return it.

I should probably mention that tomorrow is going to be the most terrifying day of my life. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier but Kitty and I both take Jiu Jitsu on Mondays and Wednesdays and grading is tomorrow. It's basically a test to see if you are worthy of casting off the white belt of a novice and adopting the prestigious belt of yellow. I feel like I'm going to be walking to my death. It was nice knowing you all.

I've really procrastinated long enough. I think it's time to put the nose back to the grindstone (what an unattractive image).

dinner party.

Hey Guys

Lemme know if you are in Toronto in Dec. 4, Kenny is going to cook and I'm having a dinner party type thing. So let me know!!

watttupp

i havent been doing too well posting on this blog, mainly cause...i dont know. its my fault. i kinda just forgot that this blog ever existed haha. but now im back!

so tomorrow, our thanksgiving holiday begins here at uci. mostly everyone here at res is going back home. im staying here, but my mommy is coming down to visit me =] so maybe i will get to eat some proper food.  but i really cant wait till christmas break. one, because i want to go back home. two, because i wanna dl a bunch of illegal stuff which i cant here lol jks not. three, cause i miss you guys!!! four, cause who doesnt enjoy holidays?

so if you havent heard, i utterly failed my second calc midterm. i got a 61%. i am pretty sure at this point that my professor thinks that i was cheating on my first midterm, cause i got 100 on that lol. well yea this course, which i dont even need cause i switched majors, is probably going to lower my average. but oh wells. shit happens. and a lot of it too.

oh yea, and just in case you were wondering and just in case you werent wondering, i changed my major! So before I was majoring in Business Information Management. Now I switched to Informatics. And because I switched my major, I had to go through the process of getting a new I-20. Its not a hard process, just a tedious one. Anyways, now I just gotta decide which specialization I wanna do. My choices are: 1. Software Engineering 2. Human-Computer Interaction 3. Organization and Information Technology. What do you guys think I should specialize in? dont ask me what the difference between those are, cause i really dont know. I am leaning towards 1 or 2.

Thats all for now. I wanna go to sleep cause im tired. See you in December!

*growl growl growl*

do you know the thickness of a wood floor?

do you know the thickness of a cabinet door?

do you know the thickness of a table top or depth of a cabinet?

i do! nor do i care atm.

i have a quiz on thicknesses/heights/design process. it's like out of 10 so no one doesn't really know what to study.

i pulled an all nighter and i'm just not functioning very well atm. i'm running on a extra large (yes i have upgraded to extra large) steeped tea, 2 sugar, 2 milk from tim's. Now you know what to get me when ever you guys are in town and I'm just dying away. Steeped tea is my coffee, so if it's bad for you, no one tell me! I'm averaging about 2-3 cups of tea. Maybe 4 today.

So after this week, I've survived first semester of the most intense program you will ever be in!!!!!!!!!!!! (Interior owns engineering&science&math in intensity) I was working on my 3 projects that was due today (would've been 4) and after 3AM, time freaking flies. the next time i looked at my clock it was like 7 and I still had to do 1 project, and I had a class at 9. But what I love about that class is we're pretty much done. The prof showed us his past work, giving me the chance to finish my project. Now I just have to study/cram for this quiz and memrize two sheets of measurements, both cm and inches. And I can't even do the math and use ratio (ew i can't believe i was considering ot do math) because the conversion ratios don't match up with each other. so fml.

I'm almost done. We're almost done! Just gotta last next week + finals (which I only have 2, so eh).

Can't wait too see you guys during Christmas!! Can't wait till Christmas :) [ugh i gotta go christmas shopping]

Bon freaking jour!

Allo mes amis! Le francais va me tuer bien tot et je vous invite a mon enterrement. C'est l'enfer vivant! Ma vie devient un grand trou, noir et plein de la tristesse!

But enough about the dark bilingual abyss. I have been practising for my French presentation tomorrow and I decided I needed a break. Since I haven't written for a while (I think?) I thought I would drop in and make sure everything's on the up and up.

Before my short term memory loss sets in:

DAVID: You will be pleased to know that I have eaten fewer cookies (though not entirely of my own accord).

It is healthy month at our res and I am slowly shrivelling away into nothingness. There's a challenge for every week. The first week was vegetarian, the second week was... I forget. I think it was no pop or no dessert. Yeah! It was no dessert. The third week was no pop. And this week is no carbs.

I think I'm dying! I miss cookies! I miss chocolate! I miss the salty, buttery goodness that is movie popcorn!

Luckily, this month is almost over and I will be compensating for my losses BIG TIME!

My accomplishments (they are few and far between in journalism, so I feel entitled to brag):

http://www.charlatan.ca/drupal/sites/default/files/issues/pdf/39_15.pdf Regardez le page 6! It was probably the most interesting story I've done so far.

I also got my profile assignment back from on Friday. I don't know if I've mentioned it. Basically, we were each assigned a person in our tutorial groups to interview, and we had to write a profile on them. It's supposed to be the biggest assignment of the year, worth 10%. And seeing as my marks are pitiful at best in all other aspects of this course, I was really hoping I wouldn't fail.

Well all my hard work paid off! Hallelujah, will wonders never cease? I got a 9/10.

To put it into perspective for the guys: This is not even like the new COD game to David. It's more like if David was being paid to play the COD game forever while being waited upon by dozens of Princess Leia's in gold bikinis (which, according to Friends, is an astronomical measure of greatness).

To put it into perspective for the girls: This isn't even like Rachel getting Jimmy Choo's for free. This is more like Jimmy Choo sending custom-made shoes for Rachel for free for the rest of her life.

I think I'll also throw this out there: I watched New Moon.

It was great! I'm not even a little embarrassed. I enjoyed that movie, hehe. I must say I'm a Jacob fan in movie. Edward is just pale and scrawny with hair in all the wrong places.

They have so much more money in New Moon and a new director so it's infinitely better than Twilight. Give it a chance! I was fully against watching it but I don't regret it at all. If anything, go to see shirtless Jacob! You will not be disappointed! Even if you're a guy, you should go and see what 30 extra pounds of pure muscle and 0% body fat will do to you.

But that's enough gushing. It's not really my style.

I suppose I should be getting back to work. Reading awaits! I have an appointment with the Fathers of Confederation. How riveting. Allow me to restrain my overflowing passion for the British North American Act. I float on clouds of joy at the signing of the Charlottetown Accord. Don't even get me started on the rebellion of 1837. Louis Riel, what a big hunk of man candy.

On that mouth-watering note, see you all at Christmas!

an update from the loo...

I've been a bad blogger...this is my 5th blog in...3-4 months? I haven't been keeping up with all your blogs. sorry too busy here at the loo.

Many students in the loo believe that "I dont need sex, waterloo fucks me everyday" and this is true. I have so many assignment and midterms that i have no time to blog but i do have time to game sometimes.

COD MW2 is an awesome game. I rate it 10/10. Its like my addiction to a drug. The multiplayer is amazing as well as the single player.

So this weekend...what to do:
1) STUDY FOR A CALC MIDTERM
2) Finish my formal chem lab report
3) major scbus group project
4) COD MW2

Everything is going ok and hopefully everyone is doing well in uni!!!

Rachel, you should do a blog review about your products as well LOL
Melvin, go to in and out burgers and buy me a double cheeseburger
Kevin, play more COD MW2
Kelvin, play less dota!
Emily, sleep more!
Kenny, cook me a gourmet meal in my rez :P
Veronica, eat less cookies?
Ron, i challenge you NOT to buy a laptop next year :P

I think i got everyone...
Final exams are coming up. GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!!
-David

The Things Girls Do for Shoes... [Repost]

[I decided to just copy what I wrote in my own blog and paste it here... it's a lot easier, but i warn you now, it's long... very long :)]

Last night was one of the most epic nights of my life.

Last night, I started to line up for the Jimmy Choo for H&M collection at TEN PM. There were already like 20 people there, so my friend and I decided to just stay on the street all night. We took chairs from Yonge & Dundas Square, but security had to take them away. The guy beside was a saviour because he remembered he had a propane heater at home and went back to get it! When they started to rope us in near the wall at around 5:30, people tried to bud by sneaking in with their friends, but they totally failed because a bunch of bitchy girls (aka these two girls beside us, and my friend and I) yelled at them and told security to make them go back where they were. Do not mess with girls that have been lining up outside since 10 o’clock and running on ZERO hours of sleep. BUT twelve hours on the street was definitely worth it. I bought the strappy black heels ($129) for myself, they are so effing hot, it’s ridiculous. I bought 2 pairs of shoes (heels and flats) for my mom… I hope she likes them. I also picked up some jewelry, pretty decent priced, and the black clutch with a star. My friend got the leopard print heels with the ankle cuff, we are wearing our new sexy shoes to the Lady Gaga concert!

The people that were beside me were extremely cool… this girl was as obsessed with fashion as I was, so I had a blast talking to her about the different collaboration lines in the past for H&M, also for other retailers.

I thought this launch was organized very well. The wristband system was really useful. The first 160 people in line got wristbands; there were 8 colours, so 20 people per colour and then you were allocated ten minutes to shop in a blocked off area that had the women’s shoes and accessories. I was in the second group (red), so there were a lot of selection for me to choose from, all sizes still there! :) I was really happy that the shoes came in a purple shoe box because typical H&M shoes don’t have shoe boxes, but these ones were ridiculously nice. The paper bag they gave you after was also really nice: glossy finish with ribbon handles. It was the same purple as the shoe boxes.

Not sleeping and waiting outside was all worth it… come on! It’s fricking JIMMY CHOO. This is probably the closest thing I’ll ever own of Jimmy Choo. I can say now that I have a pair of Jimmy Choo’s… for H&M that is ;)

Update: Product Review Time!

1. Black Strappy Heels - $129

These were the shoes that I bought for myself and I absolutely love and adore them. I am so happy I chose to buy the black ones because they are going to be shoes I can wear with anything, oppose to the red ones which might only be in style this season. They are actually very comfortable for heels, but it IS Jimmy Choo, so there has to be a standard of comfort. It’s 100% leather with a patent finish and it is a leather sole, which might be tad slippery but you can add one of those slip-proof stickers on the bottom.

2. Grey Booties - $179

These heels look pretty amazing and I chose to buy these for my mom because I felt that she could wear them to work easily because she mainly wears heels to work. From what my mom has told me, they are incredibly comfortable too. I didn’t want to get a pair of heels for her that she wasn’t going to where, so I was happy with that. I really like that they used suede for these boots because then it shows the contrast between the black thin belt wrapped around the ankle and the actual boot. The heel is cut-out and it’s peep-toed, but you can definitely wear these heels with black tights and a dress :)

3. Black Studded Flats - $79

Again, I bought these for my mom because she told me she wanted these flats. There were also the zebra print flats, but I chose these ones because I don’t know if she would want to wear such a print on her feet… The comfort level for these shoes is neutral because the toe part of the shoe seems really shallow so it might cause some problems for the sides of the feet (where the pinky toe and the bone that juts out). They look really amazing though.

4. Earrings - $29

The earrings look amazing when worn, but are a bit on the heavy side, which really sucks. BUT I have justified that with “I’m only going to wear it during formal/party events.” because I just can’t return them back to the store, they look too awesome. I really liked how they attached the jewels and the studs onto the chained part of the earrings. The cause of the heaviness is due to the chained part of the earrings. Even though it is heavy, I can’t give them back. heehee

5. Cuff #1 - $39

This is the cuff that looks like there are a bajillion thin bracelets together. And frankly I extremely love this cuff (along with another one) but there is just one thing I’m ridiculously afraid about… the elastic snapping that holds the bracelet together. So I’m going to have to be really careful when putting it on.

6. Cuff #2 - $49

This cuff is the one that matches the earrings and they look really nice when paired together. I really like the thickness of the bracelets and the blinged out factor of it, but the only drawback is that it is pretty hard to put the cuff on by yourself, so definitely have a buddy around when you want to wear it!

7. Bracelet - $29

So I basically bought all the bracelets that had huge jewels on them because those ones looked the best to me. This one was no exception! It had huge jewels all around with a line of beads on the top and bottom. This is the only one with no ‘buts’ or drawbacks because you can easily put it on and it is fastened with a clip (okay the word isn’t coming to my head right now).

I thought the shoes were definitely worth the price because of the packaging, design, and comfort of the shoes. But I personally didn’t think the clothes were worth it; they were nice but the $150-200+ price tag was just a tad outrageous.

This is one hellauva post. You can check out the pictures of the items on my facebook, but pictures don’t do the products ANY justice. You have to look at them in person, so stroll on over to your nearest H&M and look at the display window. Oh and my mom won’t return the flats, even though they might not be comfy, because she said, “You spent so much time and effort on getting all this stuff, I can’t just return what you spent 12 hours lining up for!” My response: aww :)

Lest we forget

Hi everyone. It's Remembrance Day and I couldn't even go to the Hill and watch the ceremony because I had class. What's the point of even living in Ottawa if you don't get to see all the cool stuff.

It has been about 50 years since I last posted and I apologize but I'm sure you're all feeling the same midterm stress. I liken it to being slammed into a brick wall repeatedly and when you think you can't feel any worse, the wall collapses on you and you become a pile of dust under a mountain of rubble. (Sorry for the run-on sentence, I am really missing the freedom of non-news writing).

So let's see what I've been doing. I just feel like I've been living at the library with my eyes glued to my laptop while my fingers type themselves into an arthritic state as I wait for my brain to go on strike and spontaneously combust. (Wow I really need to ease off on those run-on sentences. It's an illness really). I've written a 7-page essay on Irish people in Quebec. And to allude to Big Bang Theory:

Me: Do you know what's interesting about [Irish people in Quebec]?

You: No.

Me: NOTHING!

It was just 7 pages of word vomit. I'm so glad that's over. Then I had to do my profile assignment for journalism, which is where they actually test you on your writing (The exam is multiple choice. Kill me.) I had to interview this guy in my tutorial class and find out something interesting about him so that I can tell the world why he's a unique individual. And my prof made it very clear that this was NOT an obituary, meaning do not drown your readers in life achievements and biographical information. Easier said than done. Luckily, my guy is a freak who pretended to be a hobo for a week just to write his experiences in a story for his school newspaper. It's insane and makes for very good profile-writing.

I also wrote my psychology midterm and ACED IT! Ha! I'm allowed to gloat since none of you are in my class. The average was 60% and I got a 93! Yay! It's so good that people don't show up for class or do any of the reading. Excellent. Most excellent.

Too bad I'm practically failing in the only class that matters: journalism. But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about how I got a mild concussion!

I went to Jiu Jitsu and someone threw me funny and I hit my head on the floor. I thought I was fine but then I started seeing spots in my vision and little shiny strands of silvery tinsel that didn't really exist. I sat down and had a throbbing headache for a while.

So what did I learn? Apparently nothing. I'm going to Jitsu again today and I'm just going to see how that works out. Keep your fingers crossed for my brain!

Before I go to dinner (because I'm STARVING), I would like to point out that so many people are going home this weekend and it's not fair at all because I'm staying here. Kitty's going home so I get the whole room to myself! It's going to be awesome. But it's looking like I'll be staying here until Christmas, which I am NOT feeling. I miss Toronto! And I miss all of you guys of course. But my whole weekend will be gone before I know it because of work. There's also a giant sale at Chapters that I want to go to and stock up on books that I'll never have time to read. It's all good fun.

(I just read that last paragraph over to myself and there are a LOT of conflicting ideas in there. I apologize! I was going to fix it up or take it out but I've decided to let you all see what really goes on in my head. So many voices.)

Well as usual, this has turned out to be way too long already. But I would like to think that it's okay because I haven't written in millions of years. I'll try to blog more often if I live.

I'm new to this so bear with me!

So since Melvin was kind enough to let me on this blog I figured I might as well finally post something. To update my life! Chef School is amazing and going very well, thanks for asking. :)

Now to some more serious news. THE LEAFS ARE FINALLY WINNING GAMES YEAH. The Raptors remain without much drama as they are, at the time of this blog, 3-3. Hope everyone is doing well at school and enjoying it. As i said im new at this and i dont have much to say right now.

So this is Kenny Msi, signing off for now!

waiting for chinese food....

Alright thats not the real reason im posting cause then i'd feel like a shallow asshole who completely ignores the point of this blog and just goes on to kill time..... xP

Lots of things have happened in the last _ weeks since i havn't posted.. i think maybe 2-3. I've had 3 midterms, handed in 1 paper and .... thats about it? not including homework assignmnets. i still don't know how i did on the two econ midterms cause i havnt been to class since aug.26th (the first class) and i really cant be bothered to wake up at 12:10 to get my midterm result when i know im didn't fail or get below a B. Speaking of grades.... i have finally experienced the benefits of bellcurving. the first time in my life.....
I have a couple of korean friends who take stats with me and we all skip class and do the homeworks but struggle all ngiht trying to find how to get the answer. as all of you know inm math u get the answers but no steps.. when we got our midterms back this wed. i was surprised i recieved an 80% and all my korean friends ended up with near failing grades (5-6 of them in a 30 person class). the teacher then posted the B- mark on the board at a 72% which means i have a B or possibly a B+ simply because my korean friends are idiots hahah. Gotta love bell curving

I've just signed up for second semester courses and surprisingly its so much easier to sign up for classes and to get conflicts figured out than highschool.... EVEN WITH the 100s and 100s of classes and thousands of students. Why does HTS fail so hard?

My intramural football team epic wiped in the playoffs leaving me so happy i don't have to trek out to the lone football field in the middle of nowhere at 10 pm because they "need" another player.
Why is my chinese food not here yet.....
Do you guys have a lot of places to eat on campus? i have like 2 places + a tim horton's likeish place and it sucks. the one really close closes really early and the other legit one is up a hill.. and i don't feel like eating bagels for dinner.. Life sucks at a small school.
Why is it so cold?

rant from 3mily!

Hey Guys!

I've been so busy that I haven't even time to blog. I have so many things on my mind that my head feels like it's going to explode. They finally let us break this week, but then next week is like shit. They couldn't spread it out more couldn't they. They know we don't sleep and they make fun of us for not sleeping, but they still piling works on. Isn't Interior Design nice?

Basically to survive this program, you don't see anyone in 4 years other then the people in your program, which is in the studio or in class. You give up meeting new people or having a social life. In 3 months, I've had 2 weekends free. Whyyyyy?! Sighs.

Oh and I'm sick. x_x I'm coughing up a storm. And then I take my meds, then as they wear out I'm coughing up another storm. I really need sleep so I can get better. Fail though. My program doesn't allow sickness! I can't get sick! (too late, but you know) Trying to keep up/ pass/ get better is kinda near impossible to do.

Well I'm headed to Eaton after, possible retail therapy? I could use it. If I don't have time to shop, I go on a metro shopping spree or go get food when I know I have food. That's my retail therapy usually. So i have snack food and a lot of frozen food, but not a lot of healthy food. Sighs. Gotta go get some fruit/veggies.

So now I'm just ranting, but I'm bored in class. So don't mind lil ol' me.

Hope you guys are all sleeping more than me!

p.s. melmel i tagged! but you can add more. :P

memo

hey everyone! just decided to check in on how everyone's halloween went! I spent mine staying in my dorm, making dinner with my friends (the pics are on my fb). we made bruschetta and pita bread with hummus and chicken and also ordered a dominos pizza. and after that, we went to amc to see Saw VI which was awesome! i recommend that all of you, even if you hate scary movies like me, see it cause its a really good series. cant wait till next year's =]

oh and dont forget to change your clocks back one hour!

SAYONARA RYERSON... HELLO FASHION INSTITUTE.

Thanks guys for all your congrats!! I'm so happy that I got accepted! I'm so glad that I decided to apply again for a transfer... :D Second time's the charm! I was ECSTATIC when my mom called me to tell me about the good news, and after looking at the package, I couldn't stop smiling! Although I'll miss all the friends I've made at Ryerson (including you em!), this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, going to a fashion school in NYC! I have only been at Ryerson for a very short time and I'm already changing schools mid year... but I can't pass up this amazing opportunity! Ve, VERY WELL PUT: MS. OWENS SUCKS ASS. LOL

So back to reality: All my midterms are FINITO and I got 2 of them back already... so far so good! 88% on both! But I'm uber scared about my Organizational Behaviour one because if I don't pass the exam, I don't pass the course >O so I'm currently freaking out about that one. I just want this semester to be OVAH and done with.

I'm really feeling christmas break... :)

Happy Halloweeeeeen

Hey everyone!
So today our dining commons, Pippin, featured a special Halloween dinner! The decorated the entire place, with tons of balloons on the ceiling, ghosts floating around, renamed all their boring dishes with scary names, etc.  It kind of made up for the bad food that they served. And I treated myself to a Cola and Blue Raspberry ICEE.

Anyways, just wanted to say Happy Halloween to everyone, and congrats to Rachel!
Is everyone still enjoying their time? Or did you guys all commit suicide from the work? I will see you guys in December! lookin forward to it. =]

Congrats to RACH!

I think Rach deserves a big fat congratulations for getting into FIT! And with that congratulations comes an implied BOO MS. OWENS AND ALL HTS GUIDANCE PEOPLE!

So in case that wasn't clear enough, I'M SO PROUD OF YOU, RACH LAM!! I'm listening to Yellow Submarine right now and I have to say, it brought a smile to my humdrum life! I miss our awesome band.

Even though this is not really related to Rach's yay factor, I would like to point out that I am done with university! It's too much work. I want out! I want to go home and actually sleep without having to listen to people compare levels of drunken stupidity! I want to be able to roll over in my bed without rolling right off the bed frame. I am sick of eating caf food and living on Tim Hortons. I'm tired of taking a train every time I need to go to Loblaws. I don't want to share a washroom with three other people anymore. I don't want to stare at my dorm walls anymore or catch H1N1 from all the coughing sneezing people that refuse to stay in bed.

I want SLEEP. How am I going to survive the next four years? These are so not the best years of my life. Lies! LIES!

Random Busy Bee

Honestly, I haven't check this blog since my last post which is in September. LOL. So a bit out of it...i missed 64 blog posts + like another 15 in September.

So how is everyone doing? How are your midterms?

So I wrote three midterms in the past two weeks. chem was meh, bio was purely memorizing, and management online was a bitch. Guess whats next? MATH CALC sighs going to be my hardest midterm but it concludes the end of round 1 of my midterms.

Can't wait for round 2 o_o

Busy busy busy... no matter what...it seems like university is a lot more busier than high school. You have more freedom but I just watch youtube videos during that time :D

Now I'm going to type out whats randomly going on through my mind:
money, budget, mario, math, point slope form, groceries, what am i going to eat later?, how am i going cook the bread? grill? toaster? oven? PIKACHU! water water water....

k, ill stop now....
I should post more.
peace
-david

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

On a lighter note from my last post: http://www.charlatan.ca/drupal/sites/default/files/issues/pdf/39_11.pdf

Please see the biggest articles on pages 7 and 8.

I guess I can be a little bit accomplished after all!

Like an elephant is sitting on my head

SO NOT IDEAL! Journalism is so hard! I knew it was supposed to be hard but I had no idea I would want to reach down my throat and rip out my stomach just so that I would have something else to think about after every assignment or every little piece of evaluation that counts for like 20% of my grade. I have no idea how I'm going to get the marks for second year.

It's about 15 minutes after I wrote my leads test, which in non j-school terminology is that first paragraph under the headlines that basically explains everything that the article is about. Think of it as the paragraph on the back of a book that people read before buying it. You would think it's easy, but it's NOT. They gave us 30 minutes to write one sentence that is only allowed to be 28-33 words and I needed all that time.

I went through so much scrap paper and so many different sentences to finally get my perfect lead. I copied it onto the test paper and I was so happy with it. I thought to myself, "Yeah! I got this!" I wrote down everything that I had to include but you know what I didn't do? I DIDN'T CHECK, DOUBLE CHECK, TRIPLE CHECK, QUADRUPLE CHECK EVERY SINGLE FACT I STUCK INTO THAT STUPID LEAD! Right when I walked out of the building, it hit me like a giant pile of bricks on my face that I wrote down the wrong date. And apparently, the "when" is supposed to be the one and only thing you cannot CANNOT CANNOT mess up.

So there go my hopes and dreams. I'm going to end up as a homeless freelancer that no one will hire because I don't anally check my facts.

welcome ron!!

ronnn!

welcome! :)

twitter.

Warning: this is kinda an off topic post. Okay fine its really off topic from what we have all been talking about.

I have said this before, but everyone needs to get twitter!!!!! Please get it especially if you are on this blog =]

brain fried

midterm. fail.

brain. fried.

sleep. needed.

its that time of year....

Sigh.....seems like just yesterday that i moved into Reinfield 3 and now almost 2 months later i feel lik this place has become my home, no matter how much i don't want it to be. i can open the door and unlock it without looking at it, figuring out which key is my room/building/mail key is now no problem and my body even knows when to turn on the staircase while texting on my blackberry. Its that feeling that you get when you're in your own home. Things like walking around the house without looking up, knwoing where all the good things are and just the sense of security that you develope.

i have 1 midterm left... stats on monday and i dunno if its me but everyone is getting Cs here at Brandeis and i have no idea what grades i got on my econ/asian american midterm cause.....i missed class but thats besides the point. i was talking to some friends and they were all bitching about how they had no more time to play cause they were gettings C's. Suddenly 1 of my friends brought up the point "hey we all got As or got high SATs to get here, quit bitching and do some work". it was at that moment that i realized he was right. we had all struggled to come here at Brandeis and now that we're not working as hard as we used to we've fallen to the back of the pack.

Is anyone thinking about transfering? school the right fit for them? I'm really stuck between staying for my sophomore year and transfering to a bigger state school. i like the bigger environment and this "small close-knit" community doesn't really seem like its my thing. Lemme know your thoughts. Its a lot of work...applying through commonapp and all that stuff again but in the end it might change my life.

Anyways im off to class now, if you guys see me on msn feel free to hit me up. I MISS TALKING TO YOU GUYS. :(

L8r

midterms are acomin'

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well, or if you are sick, I hope you get better soon! cause being sick will doing school work isnt too much fun =[. so I just finished my first calc midterm worth 15% of my grade. I feel like i did well but anything can happen to your grades at college. work is also piling up, but for me it still doesnt feel like things are in a full swing yet. with that said however, my classes are starting to get boring and the homework is getting really repetitive, im slowly getting tired of the food at the cafeteria, and I guess i just want this term to be over, but its only the 4th week (out of 10), and you guys have been in school quite a while longer than i have. so I guess I have it better than most of you, especially with the weather here and all.

Anyways, im really excited to see you guys in december! hopefully we can have another gathering (shotty not my house). i was really sad that i couldnt make it to the thanksgiving gathering and play beatles rockband =[ also, someone needs to remind me to buy some "canadian" things for my friends over here cause they think I am weird with my poutines, toques, canadian bacon, etc. haha.

Western Life #5: Willpower + Lack of Sleep = Engineering

Hey guys!

So i hope every1 is all settled in in their respective universities (cuz well if ur not, then that mite be a problem :|). Western engineering has picked up full-speed and the marathon is on its way. 'cept we didnt see that the marathon is all up hill!! work has begun piling up and i'm startin to fall behind :S. *sighs* Assignments and labs hav begun to pick up and midterms r just around the corner. now

On a positive note, the engineering bball team that i'm on is currently 4-1!! WOOHOO!! something that is actually going right in my engineering program :D...for now...

ooo update on my design team. THEY SUCK!!! if i fail this course its probzz because of them. ughh. so we had an assignment due today (Thursday) at 5pm. Sooo i told all of them to hav a group meeting on wednesday, and wen i get there, only 1 of my team members is there and he hasn't done his stuff... so i just told every1 to send me their stuff so i can put it together and hand it in in the moring. 2 of my team members send me their stuff around 10 and the last one... well i waited up until 3am till he finally decided to send it to me.

it was great seeing u guys (some of u guys) on thanksgiving. it was so good gettin to catch up with u guys. + we got to try out beatles rockband :) which is soo funn. hope all of u guys r doing well!! best of luck to all of u on ur midterms. i'm sure u'll all do great! i mean we're all graduates of HTS, so how can't we do great right?? lol

Hi Peeps

Is everyone finding themselves super stressed right now? Or is just me? Contrary to popular belief, UOIT is NOT EASY AT ALL. My midterms are all over the place and I have most classes from early in the morning to 10 pm. KILL ME NOWWW.

Aside from the abominations called midterms, life here is pretty sweet. The campus is not too big, nor too small, and I can easily traverse the entire campus around 30 minutes. For such a small university, they sure can cram alot of people in here. They say only 7000 students attend, but it feels much bigger.

Residence is pretty sweet, since we're new and all we have new rooms :) new showers, and NEW TV'S!!! My roommate is pretty cool and all. My only concern is that his girlfriend lives with us. They're both really nice, but I sometimes feel like the third wheel. Make that all the time.

Oh ya, and I really have to post pictures of UOIT. It looks pretty friggin sweet here.

Update from Lil ol' me.

Wow we have all seem to have forgetten about this blog, but I'm just going to say "we are all very very very busy people" just so it makes us look better. :P

So I hope everyone is getting more sleep than me. I've planned out my next 2 weeks of my life and it all consists of 2 hours a night/morning. God help me. And I'm not even running on coffee yet. I am very proud to say that. lol. I'm skipping classes to get projects done and I'm not even allowed to. They can take 20% MINIMUM off my GPA. omfg. kill me now.

So I'm in the process of freaking out and saying my millionth "FML". I just want to sleep! :( But enough about mee. I hope all your midterms went well or are gonna go well. i'm sure you all did well/ are going to rock it. You are all smart cookies.

So I'm about to hand in another fail project. Soooo guys, keep me updated with your life. I feel like I haven't talked to a lot of you guys in like agesss, even though I saw David/Kevin/Ve during Thanksgiving.

Chin up! Bye!

mid-term season!

So how's everybody doing?? Everyone swamped with work/reading yet?

I sure am... I have so much reading to catch up on eek and I have 3 midterms and one paper due next week. FML but probably not as fml as some of you guys!

I'm so happy that I got to see some of you guys during thanksgiving break!! awesome times with rock band (ve, we were awesome singers xDD)

Nothing much has happened in the T.O :(

I should go explore the city more... something to do in my free time, which I don't have a lot right now EEK

OOH tomorrow I'm going to the women only self-defense workshop... gotta learn how to kick ass!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR MIDTERMS! がんばって!!

Sigh....

Its 7:02 am... a year ago i'd be turning off the first wave of my alarm clock only to be bombarded by the knocks on the door from my mom... then the yelling of my brother "KELVIN WAKE UP" and then another round of alarm... etc.
HOWEVER:
A year has passed and now i havnt slept for 7 hours cause i woke up at 12???? midnight* and my body clock is officially MESSED UP. I've had breakfast 2 days in a row but no lunch/dinner. Cereal = college kids best friend.

First midterm is tomorrow and i have a feeling i should study but its economics and although i know i should study i don't really feel motivated to. UWS = still a bitch. hate that writing class. I've skipped 4 classes (some because of important reasons) and i got a letter in the mail + 3 voicemails + 2 e-mails and a phonecall about how if i skip 6 in total i will fail the class. Turns out i get kicked out if i fail this class twice... scary? i think so.

I noticed my name isnt at the top of this page either... maybe i havn't posted enough. gotta get to that. hows everyone doing nowadays? work starting to pile up? i know mine has.

This last week has been such a pain. i lost my wallet about a week and a half ago only to receive an e-mail from the police station saying they had found it. no cash left only ID. at least thats better than expected. had to go through the trouble of canceling all my cards and getting new ones. parents wern't happy at allll :(

anyways.... emily's coming to boston!! so thats seomthing nto look forward to. i cant wait till thanksgiving (NOV.22) so i can come visit yo guys are your respective sschools :) that'll be really fun. when do you guys get off for christmas? im done dec.14 :)

TTYL

Going to Summit!

It seems that I may have forgotten about the blog a little bit. My apologies. It's been so busy! It's a lovely Friday morning. I have no class until 11:35 and yet here I am. 10:10 a.m. and have been awake for 2 long hours.

"Why is that, Veronica? Why were you up so early when you did not have any classes to attend?"

Excellent question! I woke up bright and early to pack my bags for...SUMMIT!

"But what is Summit?"

Ahh, Summit is a trip to Mont Tremblant for the weekend doing camping things all day everyday! I'm so excited! (Hopefully, there will be delicious hot smores) It's organized by C for C, which if you don't know is Campus for Christ. I am hoping it will be more than singing Kumbaya around the campfire.

So anyway, that explains my getting up early (plus I was STARVING) so I got breakfast and have been packing away. I also have to stock up on news for the weekly J-school news quiz since I will be gone for a whole day! Sadly, the world does not stop when I journey into the mountains. That also means Kitty gets the whole room to herself for 2 nights. (Maybe I should set up a booby trap around my bed so no one jumps on it while I'm away.)

That's enough talk for now. I NEED TO READ THE NEWS!

P.S. People better appreciate how short and sweet I made this post! (Short and sweet on my terms anyway) I'll tell you all about Summit when I get back on SUNDAY!

its all good in whis wood!

heyz yallz. howz itz goinz? yea I just thought that I should check in with you guys cause its been a while. Everything over here has been going great. From what I have heard, the weather in Toronto and Waterloo has not been too good lately. The weather here in Irvine has been pretty decent. My only complaint is that there is no rain. at all. it only rained once, and that lasted about 15 seconds.  my ics, mgmt, and calc classes have been going smoothly.

Unfortunately, I wont be coming back on Thanksgiving to see you guys, and even if I did come back during my Thanksgiving, you guys would be in school =[ and my holiday is only like 4 days. so I guess I will see you guys during Christmas! Ill be back around the 12th of December.

Aight I got lots of calc homework to do right now so I gtg. Its all optional, but I have a quiz tmrw thats on those questions. So see ya!

sitting in art history...

Hey Guys!

Well right now I'm sitting in art history and my bum is getting to the state of numbness. lol. I probably should be paying attention, but yeeeaaaa. Thanks to Mrs. C I've done this all before and I could just check back to my HTS art history textbooks that weigh 300lbs less. Why must my art history textbook weigh so much!

My life living on my own has been interesting. I've become very lazy after a month. My dishes are slowly piling up and I'm too lazy to do them. Before I would do my dishes right away. But now, yea...I just let them sit in my sink. My mommy came last weekend and she did them for me. :) Don't you just love your parents.

Well now we're finally moving on to today's scheduled lecture. We're such a bad class, we always talk and make her fall behind. :P

Since no one has been updating, I thought I would. Hope you guys are still alive! Miss you all! Thanksgiving get together. SHOTTY NOT MY HOUSE! :)

lululemon athletica.

Friends are more important than money.

Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment.

Living in the moment could be the meaning of life.

FEAST YOUR EYES

http://www.charlatan.ca/drupal/sites/default/files/issues/pdf/39_07.pdf

Scroll to page 5. Enough said.

Oh, I would also like to point out...LOOK WHOSE ARTICLE HAS COLOUR! That's right! Bam!

I'm allowed to gloat for a week or so. I took like 10 copies of this issue to bring home. It will be awesome.

Official Newsie

Well, it appears that I have been less bloggy than usual. I've been busy but since I'm sure you've all been so eagerly awaiting my updates on my awesome life, I took some time to narrate.

WARNING: This will be lengthy, even on my standards. But I have bragging rights. You'll see.

This past Tuesday was the craziest day of my life. Tuesday is usually my quiet day. My day of rest, relaxation, sleeping in, reveling in the fact that I have no classes. But THIS Tuesday was the day that I had to hunt down my story for the Charlatan. Oh yeah! Alas, I learned the hard way that Lady Luck is a heartless b****.

My Mission: Show the world how Carleton University was celebrating Ramadan on campus.

My Deadline: Tuesday night.

My Lead: a link to the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) where the name of the executives are listed. There are no phone numbers. There are no email addresses. Rock bottom is ugly.

I ended up going on Facebook (that's right) and did some digging for an MSA group in Carleton and I found it! There was one measly email to contact for more info but whenever I tried to send them something, I got the stupid postmaster email telling me that the email was invalid. Boo, technology. Boo!

But I, Veronica Tang, am a persistent reporter! Nothing shall stand in my way of knowledge! For the quest of truth, I know no bounds! So I ran to the news editors with my desperate pleas for contact info. One told me to facebook the MSA president. I repressed a scoff of disbelief. The other one was much more promising.

Good news: She has the number for a Ryan Fournier, the Head of Islamic Programming and Prayer Services (what a mouthful).

Bad news: She failed to record the last name in her cell and she knows 2 Ryans.

Great...I get to make the awkward wrong number call. But no matter! I was in no position to turn down any leads. So I trekked home and dialed the first number. Perhaps Lady Luck would stop shunning me.

Fat chance.

It was the wrong Ryan. I call the other number, very confidently, but no one picks up and there is no voice mail. Damn you, Lady Luck, damn you. I turn my attention to the President of the MSA, a Najeeb Siddique. Remember I have no contact info. But I figure: how many Najeeb Siddiques could there be in Ottawa? It's not exactly a John Smith situation.

And so, with the help of Internet (ahh, Internet, my cup runneth over with thine undying faithfulness), I search the yellowpages and I find 3 N. Siddiques. Excellent!

5 minutes and 3 phone calls later. I am miserable. None of these N. Siddiques is the one I'm looking for. I should probably also note at this point that I have also been running around campus at regular intervals looking for Muslim students to interview. As my luck would have it, they all chose Tuesday to go into hiding. I found no one.

Short of "my life sucks," I had no profound thoughts at this point. I decide to seek the big man himself, the President of Carleton (a woman in this case). She's handed out cookies on Wednesday to "celebrate the end of Ramadan." I decided to interview her, better than nothing and I was desperate. But just before I left to find her, I acted on the best idea I had all day. I called the second Ryan again. HE PICKED UP! 15 minutes later, I had an interview. Can you say, "RIGHTEOUS!"?

It did not occur to me that the President of a university might be busy on a Tuesday morning (it was about 10:45 a.m. at this point) so when I show up, the receptionist basically laughs in my face when I said I didn't have an appointment. I felt a little stupid. But finally, I hit a stroke of luck! The Pres was in between meetings! That's right, receptionist! In yo face! How do you like them apples!? Huh? Huh? What choo know about me?

Enough trash talk.

The Pres was in between meetings and I saw her in person but she didn't want to rush the interview so she offered to answer all my questions via email ASAP. Excellent.

Things were finally looking up. I had Ryan, I had Pres. I facebooked Najeeb. I found out that one of the guys on my floor was Muslim, but he was out for the day and would be back at night. So I wrote as much as I could with my info and played the waiting game.

Something unrelated to Ramadan: I got a call from a guy saying that he had a fruit basket to deliver to me. It's not code for something. I actually have a fruit basket...well, fruit bouquet. It's one of the Edible Arrangements that Daven keeps handing out flyers for. It turns out my mom sent me one while I was miserably trying to find some way to get published. What can I say, my Mommy loves me! However, this does not negate the fact that I laughed in the guy's face initially because I thought he was kidding. More about this later.

You know that feeling when you're waiting for a call and it never comes? And then you wait and wait and you have to go to the bathroom or take a shower or something but you decide to wait so that you don't miss the call? You wait, and wait and wait some more. The call never comes. You finally give up. You go to the bathroom. You're going to take that shower! It's almost a proven law: the minute you step into the bathroom and are past the point of being able to run out at a moment's notice, the phone will ring.

I know the phone-bathroom law well, having been a victim many a time. But this was just ridiculous.

I waited all day in my room because the fruit guy said he'd be coming by in the afternoon. 3:00 went by. 4:00... no fruit guy. No Najeeb. No Muslim. 5:00...no fruit guy. No Najeeb. No Muslim. 6... no fruit guy. No Najeeb. No Muslim. I went to dinner. No fruit guy. No Najeeb. No Muslim. I went to a club meeting. Everyone contacts me.

I'm telling you. My luck is really terrible. Right when I walked into an important meeting, I got a call from the fruit guy. I couldn't answer it. Najeeb text messaged me asking to meet for an interview. I couldn't reply him. The Muslim guy, Anas, came back from class. I wasn't in res to ask him for an interview. Life sucks.

As soon as the meeting ends, I'm running out of the room (for a while I was trying to chase down these two Muslim girls who were also at the meeting but I lost them. It was a very desperate point in my life. I'd rather not dwell on the fact that I was stalking other students). I'm running back to residence to catch Anas while I'm on the phone with fruit guy and then texting Najeeb. It was the most hectic 6 minutes of my life.

The next half hour was a blur. I got my fruit, I got Najeeb, I got Anas. I finished my article by 11:30 p.m. I may have sprouted more white hairs but other than that, I am no worse for wear. I have never been so panicked, stressed, desperate, miserable, happy, exhausted, and exhilarated in my entire life.

It was awesome!

As soon as the paper comes out (it's actually out today but won't be fully circulated until tomorrow), I will be posting a link to the Charlatan online.