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!! :).