pencil and paper ALERT!

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Still here.

I doubt anyone's reading anymore, but this is therapeutic. So where am I? Third week of classes, majorly procrastinating, living with my sister and fairly annoyed with her... and very homesick. I guess that's normal.

I'm not sure about my relationship with my sister. It's degenerated to the point where we can go about a day at a time without talking to each other. I don't think it's active on her part or mine; it's just that I leave at 7:50 every morning and when we get home, we're studying or sleeping. Or in my case, watching TV for just 15 more minutes before I get started on my homework, until the 15 minutes turns into 2 hours and I go to sleep, since I have to wake up at 6:30 every day and that's tough.

We finally have an internet connection, and we have a wireless router but it's not configured right. The modem is in my sister's room. She left her laptop's power adapter at home, so we had to use my computer to set everything up, and because the router isn't up yet, the internet is only in my sister's room, with my computer. She also left the printer's power adapter at home, so I'm spending 8 cents/page to print at the library.

Homesickness is boring. I wonder if my parents noticed that I was decidedly frowning when we left on Sunday. I keep procrastinating, and chalking it up to my debilitating homesickness. That takes some skillful self-deception... I'm proud of myself.

I'm learning Biology! It's grade 11 material, according to my classmates. Well, good. Now I know about all sorts of macromolecules, like lipids and carbohydrates and nucleic acids and proteins. Biology is my scariest course, because all the material is new.

I totally don't go to chem and physics tutorials. Everyone says they're like free time with TAs. I don't have time for that. I have to go buy groceries and do the dishes and throw out all the spoiled food that my sister was supposed to eat... before it spoiled. Man, living off-campus sucks. Good idea, dad and sis.

So I made some friends. I decided it would be better than going it alone, because I always go to lectures with 2 minutes to spare and never get a good seat. Friends save you seats down front. The only problem is they're annoying. I know, this sounds horrible, but they really are. They look over my shoulder whenever I write anything down during the lecture that's not on the overhead, and then copy it into their notes. When we're sitting around, and I'm doing an assignment, they ask questions about it because they haven't done it yet (or haven't figured out how to do it yet.) Then when I answer them, they grab whatever I'm working on, look at my work, and ask me to clarify whatever's on the page. Or in the math tutorial, where we have an assignment to do, they "discuss" every question with me (read: continually ask me how to do every question until I've basically given them the answers), copy my work, and make me wait for them until they're done so they can "just check if they've got it right". Maybe I have less-than-intelligent friends. Whatever, they get to lectures early and always get me a good seat.

UofW has two Tim Hortons! It's like two times the caffeine paradise.

posted 05:44 p.m. |

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Well, it's been a good month or so. I figure it's time to check back in.

Seriously, though, I haven't had much time to surf the web aimlessly and badly write entries. July 29 to August - 13? 14? I haven't kept track of the date for a while - was Road Trip 2005, also known as merely Road Trip, since there wasn't one before it. My family and I loaded the Hybrid Accord with a bunch of clothes and electronics, and set off across Canada. We almost made it to the west end of the Trans-Canada, but the exit to the ferry to Vancouver Island is before it. My sister planned most of it, which meant we were basically looking for photo ops, which meant we went to a lot of parks, which meant we went on a lot of walking tours.

Here are a few tips to driving across Canada: it's boring. Prairies are painfully boring, forests are boring, mountains quickly become boring. The rest of Canada is not as disgustingly hot as Toronto. In fact, at night it gets down to around 5 degrees, even in boring Sault Ste. Marie. Lastly, Tim Hortons is my sanctuary; "medium steeped tea, 1 cream, 2 sugars" my mantra. You have to say steeped or they'll put a tea bag in there and by the end it'll be too strong. Caffeine is indispensable. So is a GPS navigator, although its voice becomes annoying and sometimes it tells you to go the wrong way and do a u-turn or go on an unpaved road for 20 km for no reason.

So after 2 weeks we came back to the familiarity of Toronto and relaxed for a whole week before packing up again on Friday and heading for Waterloo, this time. We drove straight through the storm, missed the brunt of it - though we did see some cool lightning. We saw cooler out in Manitoba, though. We got the keys for my sister and my party house, although it is in no state for parties as of yet. Right now, the kitchen and I suppose the bathrooms are the only rooms up and running. We brought our family's principal television set, because my dad's buying a new one. Thankfully the cable hadn't been cancelled there yet, so we had something to do other than cleaning or being squeamish and not cleaning or ripping down three layers of ugly wallpaper.

Oh, right, school. That needs paying for this year, right? Actually, I think I've got this term covered with scholarships. But I sent them $500 and I don't know what happened to it.

posted 07:16 p.m. |

Monday, July 18, 2005

Well, I haven't been around here in a while, have I? What's happened... well, I got a G2, but I still don't drive regularly. My driving without a G-level driver with at least four years' experience in the passenger seat has been limited to driving my mom to the mall... the one that's a ten-minute walk from our house. I drove on the the 401, though, which was a learning experience: I learned that I automatically stop accelerating at 60 km/h, and that 100 km/h is fast. In fact, I don't think I went past 95.

Course selection for first-years started today for Waterloo, but I forgot and only started around 5:00. The result is this. Yay, a 7:00-10:00pm biology lab and Psychology, a course I've never wanted to take, ever! I should have applied to Life Sciences instead of Honours, so I could get into the better labs, but no, I had to choose the freedom of Honours Science. Bleh.

I finished Half-Blood Prince the day it was released, just like I told everyone I would. I think it's pretty obvious that I liked it. Someone spoiled it for me. That's okay, though; I think everyone knew this death had to happen. I have a lot of wild speculation, but I can't write about it without spoiling things, so instead I'll talk about another theory that has nothing to do with Half-Blood Prince: Ron is Dumbledore. Wouldn't that be so sad and noble? Harry, Ron and Hermione realise that Dumbledore's not just some guy, he's Ron who went more than a hundred years back in time, and then they have some really sad scene where they say goodbye to Ron as he leaves to become the only wizard Voldemort ever feared. It's true because Dumbledore used to have red hair, and Ron has red hair, so they're obviously the same person. And, Ron always gets socks for Christmas; in Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore told Harry that when he looked in the Mirror of Erised, he saw himself holding a pair of socks - and that no one had given him any socks for Christmas that year. And, of course, Dumbledore knows everything will happen before it happens - obviously because he's lived through it before. This evidence is, clearly, damning. But it doesn't matter, because JKR already said it wasn't true.

In two weeks, my family is leaving on a two-week drive across Canada. I'm quite wary, and on the lookout for good earplugs. However, we might be going to a dinosaur dig site in Alberta, which could be the coolest thing ever. I'm going to find a fossil of an unknown species (with minimal effort, too) and make them name it after me.

Maybe I'll check in again in a month.

posted 10:13 p.m. |

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Algebra and Discrete Mathematics, you are going down. Seriously. I'm going to annihalate you tomorrow just like I did Physics, Calculus, Chemistry and English... I'm not so sure about English, but that's okay. I've overstudied for every exam this week, and by that I mean I spent about an hour for each one after a couple of weeks of not even glancing at any notes. I hope university is like this. I asked my sister, though; she said it wasn't, and that I'll have to study like a normal person. Bah.

Next week is my G1 driving test. Or G2 entrance test, I don't know what it's called. My backwards parking is not up to par - I'm thinking I get it right about 70% of the time. I have this thing where I don't like to correct when I park wrong, and instead just get all the way out and start over again - I should stop that. I heard they sometimes don't ask for reverse parking. Here's hoping.

My dad is buying a house in Waterloo for my sister and I to live in. I'm not quite sure how it escalated to this. Originally, I was supposed to be my sister's roomie in some student apartment. Then my dad wanted to buy us a condo, so we wouldn't have to worry about finding a new place each semester. Then, he found that he didn't agree with the condo corporation's rules (the student occupancy limits, I think) and now we're buying a little attached house near the campus. The basement has paneling all over the walls, with no "seams" for the doors. You can barely see them, except for the handles. It's great.

posted 05:47 p.m. |

Saturday, June 11, 2005

I got my laptop, and it's just like I thought it would be - the best laptop ever. Well, my best laptop ever. Okay, my first laptop ever.

But it's so cool! The built-in wireless is better than the wireless cards we have on our other laptops - I picked up two other wireless networks in our neighbourhood. I spent way too much time Thursday night setting up my bookmarks and extensions on Firefox. And it came with some cool stickers for the touchpad. I don't use the touchpad, though, because it came with a free RF mouse.

It's too hot, I'm leaving now.

posted 07:04 p.m. |

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

We just ordered my new Asus S5N notebook. It looks like this and like this - i.e., it's gorgeous. We got 256 MB of extra memory and a 9-cell battery too.

3 ISUs down, 2 tests to go. Physics was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but I still probably made some stupid mistakes. English was nerve-racking, but fun - I actually got some discussion out of people. Chemistry was a big letdown. I pored over chem notes through the last act of King Lear for that? It's so nice when you overstudy.

Now that school's winding down, I'm posting more, I think. Summer rules.

posted 06:48 p.m. |

Saturday, June 4, 2005

What's this? An update? Hey, I never thought I would come back either. I've got some time on my hands. Prom was nice, but I get bored easily, so about half an hour into the dancing, I left (around 11:00). It still took until 2 in the morning to take out the thousands of pins (actually around 60) in my hair, wash out the glitter and hairspray, and let my hair dry enough that it didn't soak my pillowcase.

Oh man, if I weren't such a suckup I would skip class all the time. There's nothing like lazing around, eating ice cream at the mall and seeing stupidly funny movies (Madgascar!) when you know others your age are languishing in school. Actually, the only scholarship I'm getting ($2000 President's Scholar from Waterloo) is confirmed now that my mid-May marks are in, so I can let my average fall under 90... not that I will.

I want this. Asus S5N series notebook: somewhat underpowered, with a fairly annoying external optical drive, and a rather small battery, but holy crap it's 2.8 lbs. and less than an inch thick! That means a weakling like me can carry it around all day and have fun computing. My sister got some HP notebook, it's like 1.5" thick and too heavy for me to carry safely with one hand and its fan always sounds like it's about to explode. And she opted for internal CD and floppy drives. Like heck I'm getting one of those.

Physics and Chem ISU + English IS presentation + Physics Light and Waves test + Organic Chemistry test + all happening next week = I'd better stop writing now and study.

posted 01:11 p.m. |

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Ugh. I'm bored, but I have work to do. Too many things are tomorrow: ISU presentation, SIN Physics contest, Spring Concert. I'm only concerned with the presentation now, but still.

School is so terrible these days. All I'm doing now is maintaining my marks, nothing else. I don't do homework at home anymore unless it's absolutely necessary, I just watch TV and read some boring sites on the Internet. Weekends are the worst for homework - I don't even give my backpack a second look until right before I go to bed on Sunday night.

I'm having terrible thoughts too. Like, being happy about going to university because I won't have to see people I don't care for. Is anyone else doing that? I hope it's not only me.

I was told that if I didn't go to the formal, I would be beaten up, so I bought a dress last weekend. It's a generic formal dress, dark red and very simple. I'll look like everyone else, except my South Asian friends who are all wearing saris. It fits perfectly except for the length. I think the fact that it was the second and last dress I tried on shows how much I don't care about formal dresses. The first one was the same dress in a different size.

I am wasting time.

posted 09:23 p.m. |

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Well, I've had a nice, full weekend. Fixing that layout wasn't part of it; I'll get around to it. Saturday morning, I had my job interview at Canadian Tire, which went pleasantly - the manager was impressed by my "Award of Distinction" on the Fermat contest, which I hadn't thought of as very impressive; apparently, I would make a good cashier. I was thrown when she asked me how I would maintain a south-facing garden, and all I could say was to start with good soil, put in some plants that thrive in full sun and water them correctly. But that's all part of the training, anyway.

The rest of Saturday was childhood nostalgia - I helped my dad change the minivan's oil, I played darts with my brother in the garage and beat him spectacularly, we inflated a bunch of basketballs and a soccer ball for little reason other than the air pump is fun, I played basketball with my brother in the backyard and he beat me spectacularly, we washed the minivan and the car, and my sister won a free donut from Tim Horton's so we jumped into the still-wet car and went there and got a bunch of donuts.

I started working on my Fifth Business seminar notes today around 2:30, and one (or... I) would think I'd be done by now. Unfortunately I forgot most of the book, so I spent the afternoon and evening reading the whole thing slowly and taking notes. And damn, there's that Physics stuff.

It's strange; the status of the TTC has fluctuated almost in synch with my own hopes for it. Friday afternoon I was decidedly against TTC service on Monday, because hey, long weekend. As the weekend continued, it became clear that my dad would not let me stay home from school for something like a lack of public transportation, and thus the strike would be a lot of trouble for me rather than a way out of school. And Sunday afternoon, approaching the eleventh hour for carpool plans, there it is.

I hope my copious seminar notes will somehow meld together to make a coherent presentation.

posted 11:37 p.m. |

Sunday, April 3, 2005

So... my new layout was flawless in my various Mozilla-based browsers, but the stylesheet didn't take at all in IE. So it's gone, until I can figure out what the heck is wrong with IE. In the meantime, there's a line between the date and the entry. Isn't that cool? And the comments are formatted for the new layout; I'm too lazy to change them back. It's like a preview.

posted 01:27 p.m. |

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Heh, I changed my layout when no one was looking. I was bored of last year's flowers, and the blue was too depressing for spring. I guess I should start posting photos so this doesn't look too drab.

A lot of stuff has happened since my last post... like March Break. I didn't do any school work, nor anything interesting. Also, we did some test driving and recently bought a new car. I thought my dad was joking when he told me about his plans a few weeks ago, but I guess he wasn't: we now own a hybrid Accord. We test drove (or at least inquired about) the Ford Escape Hybrid and the Toyota Prius also. The Prius gets incredible mileage, but it's tiny. The Escape is an SUV; its weight pretty much cancels the benefits of its hybridness and makes it like a regular car. The hybrid Accord is apparently more powerful than the regular Accord, but its mileage isn't amazing. Isn't this interesting?

I hope the new layout keeps me from abandoning my blog for weeks at a time again. Wow, typing is more of a hassle than I remembered.

posted 10:33 p.m. |