MaybeMoe's Blog

ati on the way up....

2006-05-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

great stuff for ATI handheld
Things looks to be booming over at 66 triverton (or wherever that building is). I'm sure a bunch of our pey friends will be in hot demand once they graduate. Congrats!!!

concertS!

2006-04-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

Forgot/Lazy/Busy to post about this any earlier..

Firstly, the vic choir.

TONS of fun.. it really was a great time. Thanks to all those who made it out and randomly screamed words of encouragement throughtout...

I was a bit nervous at the beginning... yes.. but eventually it all went away and it was cool. There is supposedly a video floating around somewhere, but I have yet to get a hold of it. If and when I do get it.. after a visual inspection to ensure it's not too embarassing (I don't want to see it on ebaumsworld), I'll post it somewhere. I will definitely be back next year.

Secondly, nocturne..

Overall it was lots of fun and there were some great performances. Crazy Train... WOW... Random songs to which I have no idea what the lyrics mean (by you know who).. Grrrreat... PO.. incredible (obviously) but also very funny of course.

Last year PO delighted us with a very cool rendition of some classical piece of music (forget the name), which was out of this world.. but what it made it really great was the ending. A long chord, followed by PO taking the guitar off and bowing, while the chord was still going. Sort of cool.. but a lot more funny.

This year PO shared his true colours. There was head banging.. YES.. head-banging. Some enthusiastic movement around the stage and some other stuff I missed while I looking around to confirm I was not the only one finding his antics amusing.

Great times indeed..

those who read this.. don't forget the end of the year nano party. YOU CANNOT miss it. E-mail myself or beyondchatsworth if you're down.

all for now.

the hardest part

2006-03-26T17:46:00.000-08:00

posts come in bunches.

partly motivated (I'll admit) by seeing a few very well-written posts by some friends.

Thursday, thursday, thursday.. by far the best time I've ever had at a concert and arguably the best at the ACC.

coldplay is incredible live.. not to mention having an insane atmosphere at the ACC.

so.. a recap.

We got there about 8:15ish, a little into Richard Ashcroft's set... too bad.. cause I didn't know he was once the lead singer of the verve!.. I didn't used to be a big rock fan.. but even I knew some of their songs. We did catch most of the set though.. including a rendition of "bittersweet symphony" which was grrreat.

then a super long break to coldplay (45 mins). We, being opportunists, were up on the balcony (first row though!) and saw the floor in our sights. Led by Q-man we made our way on a wild chase to find the way down to the platinum area. After some backtraking and going through the same gate twice, we finally found our way down. The key is to pretend you belong, so random conversation with a friend coupled with timing it just right (just when someone else is showing their ticket). It worked like a charm. We bypassed two checkpoints and made our way onto the floor. We were all "yah man!.. wooo. we made it!..", then we quickly realized.. we actually didn't :( They ran a tight-ship. Everyone was at their seat and the isles were completely clean. No mobs, no place to lay low. Just a bunch of random security ppl with flashlights. We realized we had no chance and quickly made our way back to our seats, just in time to catch coldplay's opening number.

High energy and great music from the start. They played all of my favourite songs (even Yellow and the Scientist), were treated to a Johnny Cash cover and incredible lighting/video effects. I thought it's supposed to be all about the small concert scence, small club, intimate setting...etc.. True, it has its benefits, but the big crazy sports arena/stadium has its benefits too. .... "Lights will guiiiiiiiiiiiide you home" with a sea of lighters and cell phones across the ACC.. wow.. WOW.

----

umm.. also want to mention how great having a mentor can be. I was dt for a meeting on friday with my mentor from three-lettor company acronym. He gives absolutely incredible advice and a joy to talk to. If you ever have the opportunity to enter into any sort of mentorship relationship, jump at it. It gives you a candid opporunity to discuss your personal goals, ambitions, problems whatever..

that's all for now..

ahhh.. why not

2006-03-19T18:03:00.000-08:00

if anyone still reads this... wow..my hat's off to you..

in honour of choir (performance at the end of the month - 31st! - free admisson - isabel bader - 8:00pm)

I'll structure the posting.. (the blog pretty much writes itself once you get some structure)

doe... a deer.. a female deer.
umm.. a deer -> hunting -> Cheney -> corporate america -> business strategy?
okay a big stretch.. I'm reading "co-opetition".. supposedly applying "game theory" to busness.. ummm.. okay... sort of working with competitors is more beneficial than being at war with them. It's a bit long-winded at times, but it has opened my eyes to some new things. I definitely recommend.

ray... a drop of golden sun
Summer!.. coming.. YEAH.. summer is great. Last summer was tons of fun at work. No one really did anything, we played basketball and beach volleyball everday and we always left early. Makes me think what it would be like to move to a warmer climate. But then there's the whole, can't feel pleasure without pain type deal and I'd eventually stop appreciating the summmer. SCREW THAT.. if I get grad school in california.. I'm gone.

me.. a name.. I call myself
Me.. what's up with me... work is chill.. I've been trying to take on new tasks and have been mildly successful. It's hard to pick up good work as people, frankly, are reluctant to pass it off as they want the thunder for themselves. Yup.. office politics people. So, the work I often get is what we term "bunk". I figure I'm going to continue to try to build up my soft skills, get running again (going for 5k in april and 10k in may), get working on my sort of nano market survey and just continue to have fun (it is pey after all).

far.. a long-long way to run.
School seems very very far away. Meh.. I'll take care of it when it comes around. Some people are looking forward to it, others dreading.. me.. indifferent. We'll see how this changes in a few months.

sew.. a needle pulling thred..
umm.. yeah.. I'm not going to talk about clothes or some crap. I'll mention 24. GREAT!!!.. as usual. I'm following it religously. Prison break is coming back too. Watch out for Mondays ppl, watch out.

la.. a note to follow sew..
Skule nite was GREAT yesterday. shinpads did an incredible job!.. some parts were a bit risque.. ie. chubby guy in a thong, and another in his underwear. But definitely some very very funny scenes.

tea.. a drink with jam and bread..
makes me think of "god in running shoes" guy who drinks tea everyday at a certain time like the british.. way cool!.. GREAT to hear about the job offers and grad school acceptances. YEAH ENG SCI!!!.. my main source on the developments in the nano realm has been hornyhasmter (thanks man!).. WE MUST have an after exam party before we split ways. WE MUST!!

that willl bring us back to doe..!

that's all she wrote folks.

peace.

like old times..

2006-02-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

In the SF comp lab posting.. just like old times.

we gotta wait it out for the n sci dinner so hornyhamster recommended I post.. and here I am..

let's see..

some notable things that come to mind.

Yes.. I'm in a choir. A lot of people have heard from one way or another about this. It's nothing too spectacular and no.. I won't break into a number just for your listening pleasure. BUT.. there is a concert in about a month and I will let you know about when and where. You are all more than welcome to witness a spectacular performance.

No.. I lost the apprentice competition at work. I CAME IN SECOND!!!.. AHHH!!.. our team of two smoked mr. 666 buddy (not beyondschatworth).. but I lost out to my fellow teamate when it came to a vote of the audience. I really didn't stand a chance and those that were there would confirm this. You see, we were given a chance to explain ourselves to the crowd. My teamate seemed a bit shy, so I (thinking I was being a gentleman) decided to go first. I pulled the normal BS "It was fun, learned a lot, all for charity.. blah blah...", got a nice round of applause at the end.. thought I had a chance. THEN... her turn. First lines "You know.. being a girl in engineering is hard.. with so many guys around.. it's similar here.. but I've done my best".. BAM. I was soo done. The sympathy vote!!.. DAMN DAMN... so I lost. No shadowing the VP for a day, so no supposed fame... BUT BUT.. coming in second came with some decent raptor tickets.

Yes.. I was at that amazing game last wednesday and also the one with the free chris bosh bobblehead. The first time was courtesey of the free raps tickets from apprentice, the second time through a ticket deal at company X. Both times were great. We snuck up on both occasions to see two great games (untypical of the raps I know) with great seats. I don't think I've ever seen more exciting basketball, let along watching it live!!.. great times indeed.

Yes.. I think I've figured out thesis. I'm going to try to do some cross company x project with a prof in ece (keeping those business doors open) with some experiemental stuff with another prof in chem (hopefully!..). Keeping both options for at least another 6 months or so.

No.. mr. jesterhat wasn't as great at badmin as I had expected (sorry man..). Good, but not extraordinary. Perhaps it was the shorts... he has refrained from wearing his real badmin shorts (the short short type) thanks to our relentess jokes.

Yes.. that's all the time I have.

Till next time..

correction

2006-01-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

craziness at three letter acronym company has subsided.

We finally did have that honest, open meeting on the downsizing.

and it looks like my job role will change thanks to this reorganization. Yeah!. just when I was starting to get bored.

happy new year!

2006-01-02T11:38:00.000-08:00

yah.. been a very long since my last post. It's not that I haven't had the time, it's more that I haven't had anything to procrastinate from.

but.. one day before I head back... a bunch of work to catch up on... and here I am. It's a mix of me taking on too much at work and just the general oddness at three letter acronym company that leaves me wasting away my last holiday.

at work they tend to sort of "ignore" or let the bad things go quiet but openly acknowledge the good things, even if they're much smaller.

for instance, a promotion in the department is met with a meeting of all the top people, congratulations all around, a small speech etc.

but.. the laying off of a few key ppl and the voluntary leave of my immediate boss, someone who has been at the company for 18 YEARS!.. does not even merit an e-mail. tsk... tsk.. I must find out through hush hush conversations and through simple deduction (eg. passwords being changed and accounts being reassigned). whatever.. only 8.. actually 6 more months to go..

back to new years.
I've never been a fan of new year's resolutions. I don't think you need a particular date to be setting goals for yourself, but if that's what people need for motivation then why not. I recall a entreprenuer info session at the career centre back in first year that was of a husband and wife team who built a very succesful company from scratch. The man made it very clear that setting goals for oneself is very important. And even more importantly WRITE THEM DOWN, somewhere... anywhere. If you don't, you'll continually make compromise after compromise. The takeaway, write down your goals for 2006.

all for now.. one of my new years resolutions is more posting for 2006!.. actually, not really.. but I will do better than one every two weeks. I promise.

wow.!!.. an n sci playing god in running shoes..

2005-12-18T05:26:00.000-08:00

there was a HUGE article in the globe and mail yesterday discussing synthetic biology.. and it just so happened that n sci's very own Emanuel Nazareth is featured in a VERY LARGE picture as well as mentioned sporadically throughout.

Article - CLICK ME!

Great work Emanuel!.. I knew he was doing some crazy stuff with Davies but I didn't know he was doing this!.

I highly suggest reading it through. It's worth the some odd 10 minutes that you'll lose while studying.

fyi

2005-12-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

I came across this in my reading of "the world is flat" (an overall great book recommended to me by PK) and something that I think all young people should know. I might be running into some copyright problems but here goes anyways.

How to ensure your future job doesn't get outsourced

There are four ways to accomplish this.

Firstly, be special (and I'm not talking about the special you hear about in elementary school). I'm talking about ur favorite tv star, sports star or artist. They have a special talent and no one can touch them. As this is sort of a rare thing, I'll move on.

Be geographically anchored. Have a job that requires you to be physically there. This could be a barber (I don't think a remote haircutting device will ever take off), a family doctor or any number of service jobs that require face to face contact. This is a shady category as it's true that these jobs will not get directly outsourced but productivity will be continually increased through it. So a family doctor will have people checking out x-rays, blood tests etc.. from halfway around the world, but in the end that face to face contact is necessary. Overall, still not extremely applicable to me.

Be specialized. How can they ever replace a chemical nanotube nanospecialist?.. as there are likely very few in the entire world. This just tells me to go to graduate school. There are millions of computer engineers graduating every year from india and china. It's not good enough to spend those four years and be done with it.

Lastly, be adaptable. This is where engineering science comes through. How many times have we been thrown a bunch of new stuff and forced to learn, make sense of it and apply on a super tough test or exam? As markets will shift quicker, todays technology will be tomorrows paper weight, being able to learn quickly and change roles will be a great asset for tomorrow's cutting edge company.

So overall, don't fret my eng sci friends, we're well positioned. Our acquired ability to learn quickly is an extremely useful asset today and will continue to grow in usefulness in the future. You've likely heard the line "Learning to learn" and never gave it a second thought. But I must say that this is ringing true nowadays especially after experiencing first hand how little school directly prepares for the work world. You learn on the job all the way.

I'll likely post a few more times as I continue through the book but that's all for now.

oh no.. I'm destined for research

2005-12-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

You Should Get a PhD in Science (like chemistry, math, or engineering)

You're both smart and innovative when it comes to ideas.
Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer - or develop the latest underground drug.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

I can't believe I'm so messed up that this mini-survey above is actually having an effect on me!!... ahh.. research or business?!?..... crap crap crap

and thanks for the link adeline.

more bitterness towards our cities finest

2005-12-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

if you've read this previous post of mine you can already sense my dissatisfaction with our police and judicial system, now this has only come to grow.

Actually.. there was this one time a few months ago where I was doing 84 in a 60 zone and the cop let me get off with a 74 in a 60 zone so no demerrit points, but besides that, the experiences have not been great.

I don't want to go out and blame the police for their inability to do things but sometimes it's annoying that they don't even make the effort.

For instance, my sister and some of her friends had their wallets/purses stolen from their parked car last night. The hoodlums (as I will refer to them as), broke in and took everything. Now, I do see how this isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but an annoyance nevertheless. So, when calling up the credit card and phone companies, it was discovered the hoodlums had bought gas and made phone calls!.. You don't need to be Gill Grisham (CSI person), to catch these people. Find out who they called, find the gas station where they bought gas and check the video cameras for license plates. EASY!!... I do see how getting enough evidence for a conviction would be tough, but it wouldn't hurt just talking to these hoodlums and perhaps putting a scare into them. I doubt they would try to pull any of it off again. But.. the cops are indifferent.. it so happens that my sisters friend's boyfriend is a cop, he said in plain english "We can't do anything.. sorry"..

The natural counterargument is of course, "The cops have better things to do".. YES.. I agree.. totally agree. But does it not occur to anyone that the 50 cent wannabe gangsters shooting up Toronto started somewhere?.. perhaps breaking into cars and getting away without thinking twice?... stop it before it starts. So, instead of going on TV and claiming "50 cent encourages violence, let's stop him from coming to Canada", why don't you stupid MPs, stop coming up with bs excuses and get to work.. FIX the problem, stop complaining, stop promising useless crap like a 2% reduction in GST and DO SOMETHING USEFUL. Man.. makes me want to go into politics and fix some of this garbage.

k.. that was some hardcore ranting.. felt good.

bye for now.

focus

2005-11-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

I have a weird set of personal goals for myself while at work, the number of which is continually expanding. A few that I've accomplished or are close to finshing... having an analyst call setup just for me (that's talking to an expert in a particular area.. normally costs a lot of money), working on a project with every person in the department (close.. but there are still a few elusive people) and most recently, observing a focus group!

yes!.. I was one of those guys behind the two-way mirror. VERY cool. I can't get into too many details, but it was a great time. It made me feel all important.

Focus groups are an extremely useful tool in marketing in general, but one of the more unusual uses that I've heard about is in the use of high profile court cases. YES.. not joking. How did OJ get off?.. what about Michael?.. I bet focus groups were the key to their cases. Let me explain. So, a big part of these trials is the jury. And when picking the jury it's all about demographics. Through focus groups, the lawyers can learn what demographics will lean towards innocent and in turn pick the same type of people for the jury. They'll then mimic the jury with a focus group and test things out on them and see how it plays off. Test their opening statement, line of questioning for a witness, closing statement.. it never ends. The only prohibiting factor is the green. But if you've got the green you'll likely get off scott clean. My rhyme for the day.

bye for now

crazy mall

2005-11-27T20:06:00.000-08:00

I don't really have any idea what I'm going to post about, but I'll start here and see where it goes.

I finally got a chance to visit the crazy vaughn mills mall up in the boonies as some would put it. If you haven't been, go.. it's nuts.. honestly. It's by far the best designed mall I've ever seen. They group similar stores together in places they call neighbourhoods to hopefully make shopping more convinient and is overall a very large place. One of the more odd stores is a large sportsman type deal. Besides being insanely decorated with stuffed everything you can tell by the crowd that this was a serious hunter store. The big tip off was a sign asking all customers to hand in their "guns or bows" before entering. Ohhhkay.. I didn't think that was really an issue north of Texas but I guess I was wrong.

hmm.. I could go in many directions.. k..
my battery is running out here and I am too lazy to grab the ac adapter so I'll try to hurry up.

I also got a chance to watch finding forrester today. Some would call it a wannabe good will hunting, but I really liked it. I'm always a fan of the unknown genius, sort of like cinderella but a lot less gay. In any case, I especially liked the song the movie ends off on. After some googling I found out that it comes from this famous hawaiian guy. Listening to the song sort of makes me want to take up the guitar. But I'll have to see about that. Here's the website I downloaded it from if you're interested.

http://mediakit.blogspot.com/Israel%20Kamak%20-%20Over%20The%20Rainbow.mp3

all for now.. bye

Stumble upon..

2005-11-26T08:36:00.000-08:00

for those who are unaware, stumble upon is a great way to waste time. All you do is click a button and you are thrown to a new and interesting site. Bored, click again. It never ends. I equate it to channel surfing with an unlimited number of channels. I highly recommend the tool. It came to me from beyondschatworth who got it from forr, so I could be preaching to the choir here, but if you're not using it... do it now!!..

a few sites that I have stumbled upon that are of great interest allow you to look at files people have put up but don't necessarily know are publicly available. You can imagine the possibilities. Movies, music, pictures etc.

http://www.filesearching.com/ <-- let's you search ftps, althought most seem to be unaccessible, a cool idea

http://www.googletutor.com/2005/04/15/voyeur-heaven/ <-- teaches you how to use google to find publicly available directories.

This is borderline hacking. My experience with web servers is quite limited but the main idea is that you need an index.html in your directory otherwise people will be able to see the raw files. The raw files are still there with an index.html, but the public has no idea what is there, if anything. This site exploits this fact by searching for the terms seen when you look at the publicly available directories, so terms such as "size", "description", "path"..etc..

If you find yourself looking for something and is not easily found through traditional channels (Kazaa, BT), perhaps these sites can be your answer.

Just thought I'd share...

the team dynamic

2005-11-20T05:34:00.000-08:00

teams at work are a lot different than what I'm used too..

in school it was usually the same. The requirements of the task were always clear, we all shared similar goals, and were more or less fairly capable. Of course ignoring POs inability to build a simple ball sorter. [j/k...]

at work, it's different. People may have hidden motives, the requirements are rarely if ever clear and often change, and lastly, people are capable, but usually super busy.

but I consider myself to be a team person. I much prefer it over working independently, which can be at odds with my job at times, so to counteract, I've tried to join as many teams as I can.

A very weird and odd team I'm on is one of those very poorly led ones. The requirements are not clear and often change, meetings always go off track and in general, I rarely feel included or know what's going on. It's a train wreck. And kills my motivation. I never want to do work for the team and don't really care if it succeeds.

On the other hand, I'm on another team where it is quite the opposite. I feel included, know what's going on and the meetings are run well. So my motivation thrives, I go above and beyond what is expected and contribute wherever possible.

Leading me to... where you work, specifically who your boss is, is incredibly important. Although most of this is often out of your control it is good to note that if you find yourself in a leadership position, be aware of your importance.

I guess I sort of went down this path as I just watched office space again. I scored the special edition box set with the mug, mouse pad and red stapler. Still a great movie.

lastly.. I went nuts on Saturday and bought a bunch of coldplay tickets a good ten mins after they went on sale although they were supposedly sold out after 4. I bought a foursome that I'll keep, but I have a twosome I bought for the hell of it. If anyone is a good ebayer or is interested, let me know. I won't lie, the seats aren't great, but it's coldplay.

ohh.... and the oc has turned to garbage. The low point being when ryan went nuts on a punching bag. I was laughing my ass off.

bye bye.

puzzle mania..

2005-11-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

12 hours of intense struggle, coupled with moments of dissapointment, bewliderment and sometimes being plain fed up sounds like a regular, lackluster day in the world of a eng sci. But for me, it was tons of fun.

I guess that's what comes with being an eng sci, we enjoy pain and endure it, just so we can get past it for those brief but very worthwhile moments of glory.

The Microsoft puzzle competition was a great time and for the first time in perhaps 6 months that I've needed to push my mind to the limit. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job and there are times when I need to be creative and think differently, but for the most part, doing things by the book is the way to go. You might have of heard of the competition from word of mouth, but the main idea is 21 puzzles over 12 hours, which are very difficult (and that's an understatement). The majority of teams, comprised of teams of four from some of the top schools in the north america are lucky to solve a third of them.

The puzzles range from finding that random thing that will blow things wide open to the ones you still don't understand even after the solution is presented to you.

Our team did..... okay. We solved 7 of the 21 puzzles putting us in the upper third of all teams, decent.. but still very far from the front, which was dominated by teams from that school in massachusetts.

I was a tad disappointed in myself as I felt that I was thinking closeminded at times and not as creatively as I used to. That's another problem with working (in my series on business vs research). Most jobs, even the good ones seem to stifle creativitiy. Something I absolutely despise and another reason for going into research. I thought I'd just mention this and if anyone still reads my very infrequently updated blog anymore, please comment and let me know what you think. I do realize you can pursue creative, challenging endeavours outside of work, but I guess that's something I need to do more often on my own as I used to take it for granted that I would get the challenges at school.

moving on.. I also wanted to share my surprisingly successful Friday night. I, an amateur, even beginner won a poker tournament (Texas Hold'em) against 13 good, experienced players!.. a complete surprise... I'm guessing I caught them off guard and were a bit thrown off by my somewhat random, aggressive behaviour.

That's it for now. I'll try to post more often (I always say that.. but this time I'll really try!)

Friday... how I love thee..

2005-10-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Fridays are great. Not much work.. usually leave early and more recently.. the introduction of grey's anatomy..

you avid tv watchers (mostly talking to kd here), would be quick to correct me. Grey's anatomy is on Sunday.. no?.. yes and no.

I've begun replaying the show every week (starting from the beginning) for some fellow workers in a well picked presentation room. So, I've in esscence got a bunch of people hooked, and it feels great. Nothing beats a great tv show other than a great tv show with a bunch of people to talk about it with. Fridays could be even better if they led into... wait for it... a 56 hour weekend.

No, I'm not crazy. I'm talking about the concept of the 28 hour day. Before you think the lack of schooling has gone to my head, hear my out.. it's actually an interesting idea, in the age of lights and curtains.

So, a work week is how long... 40 hours (supposedly). That means we could equally do 4 days @ ten hours vs the 5 days @ eight hours we currently endure. That leaves an extra two hours for more relaxation/sleep whatever.

How does this help?.... think about commuting. How about reducing that by 1/5, including the pollution that goes with it. How about you being able to identify the day by the time of sunrise or sunset? How about a reduction in crime as night will not always coincide with darkness?... etc.. Overall, it's an increase in efficiency.

I know this will likely never happen as there are billions or possibly even trillions of dollars invested in software and products that coincide with a seven day week. But it is something to think about. It seems like an advanced society would put the crap aside and go for what's more efficient as in the end it would be the most beneficial.

There are also the biological factors which are something that cannot be ignored as we have always been used to a certain cycle. But some quick googling found that we are actually more in tune with a 25 hour day than 24, so maybe 28 isn't so ridiculous.

In any case, some thinking outside of the box for you.

you wanted it.. here it is

2005-10-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

what to post about...

since work is not a bundle of fun nowadays with me working away at stuff I don't much about (which is good and bad), I'll talk about a day downtown that will likely lead into a talk about something else.

soo.. it was Wednesday and I headed downtown for a mentorship meeting. It was cool.. I got to talk about completetly random stuff (which I enjoy).

after that was the long trek back to good old MP for some general rel.. friggin PO... followed by BK, snes and then the very long trek back to markham. Traffic doesn't bother me as much as it used to..

I didn't post about this before, but you Torontonians likely remember our little baby flood several months ago. It just so happened on this day I was on the 404 heading south on my way to pick up my brother. Now that was traffic. It took about four hours to move a few km, then about two to go back the other way. This leads me to the tonne of natural disasters that have occured. I don't know if I notice them more now that every waking moment of my life is not spent studying and worrying about school.. but there seem to be a lot more. Tsunami, Katrina, Earthquake and a bunch more.

I think we need to be prepared for a continuing trend. Our fast paced highly specialized world is extremely vulnerable. Our friggin super mini flood shut down our city. Can you imagine something slighty bigger? The damage would've been exponentially worse. When they built our infrastructure it wasn't designed to take our new crazy storms, flash floods or hurricanes (my brief stint at the ministrey of transporetation taught me this). The solution?.... spending billions upon billions of dollars on improving infrastructure with money we don't have.. the better solution? How about a world organization, highly trained, highly funded who can swoop in and help in cases of emergency. Something like the UN but more specialized and without the bullshit politics and bureuacracy. When disasters do strike, the response is usually there, or trying to get there. What happens?... local government, aid organization, charities. whatever.. stepping over each other trying to provide help. One properly run organization with the same resources could do a LOT more. And it's not like there will be a shortage of interest.. I'm interested.. sign me up. Many very capable would be interested in such an organization.

it's probably not possible and I'm likely preaching some sort of utopian kind of crap, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

grey's anatomy is finished... hence the end of this posting.

bye

Thursday...

2005-10-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

thursdays.. OC... chilling at home and more recently, reading. It started off as long-term study tool for the gre but has really started to grow on me. I haven't had the opportunity for some time as school always sort of made me hate reading. There would always be an insanely dense and boring textbook that would be calling me instead of an enjoyable Tom Clancy or something similar.

but, instead of a book, I just finished reading a few articles in the most recent Fortune.. yes... yes... taking this business stuff to heart. It's not easy coming into a position of mine as it requires an intuitive feeling of the business world and I have zero experience and background in the area. But, I am learning and it's getting better.

So, the one article that I found particularly interesting is the one about the current ceo of ge. Nuts, nuts, nuts... he's nuts. 100 hours a week, 5am-9pm everyday, flying every which way, speeches, lunches, meetings... all while leading the biggest company in the world and honestly, with power only short of the idiot in the white house, the crazy man in Pyongyang and a guy I don't know a lot about in China. And what's makes this even more interesting is ge doesn't like to play musical chairs with it's top man, he's there for twenty years barring some major disaster. If you want to make an impact in the world, be him. It's his job to forsee future growth markets (including nano.. yeah!!) and push the company to capatalize. This is big. His investments in nano can prove to be the tipping balance to millions of jobs, the next cure to cancer, the next anti-aging cream.. whatever.. you get the point. In any case.. it's another argument towards going into business, you can have a bigger impact in the world and affect positive change and growth. Moreso than a lone researcher studying the photoluminescent properties of nanowires (sorry to use you as a scapegoat kd, you shouldn't have asked me to proofread that paragraph of yours!!). I'm not saying that the research isn't important.. it is.. very important.. but I think I can have more of an impact motivating and leading a large group of researchers in a more business role instead of being on the frontline doing the research myself.

enough of that.. onto hockey. I just need to get this in here. Hockey's back.. yeah!!!... it's a good game.. I almost forgot. New rules = too many penalties, but the players will eventually get used to it. Shootout = crap .. a really bad way to end 65 minutes of hard nosed play for 3 breakaways. Besides, the leafs suck in that department, they sent lindros, allison and o'neil.. they got problems. Maybe the shootout will grow on me.. we'll see.

k.. that's all for now.. I hope this doesn't induce more anonymous comments.. I seem to be a magnet for them.

bye

life without school..

2005-09-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

I feel I must post as the most lazy blogger in the history of the internet (PO), commented on my lack of posting...

Things are different. After considering and finally going through the whole PEY fiasco, I wondered what it would feel like for September to role around and there to be... NO SCHOOL. I can't honestly say if it's better or worse.

I recall school as being somwewhat good. I know that's a shitty description but it's all a big blur. There were obviously the good moments and the bad. The good being the people, the learning and the atmosphere. The whole idea of comitting yourself and fully immersing yourself in something is cool. You don't need to worry about anything, you live, sleep, dream and work towards learning. The bad, the late nights, the tons of work, the bad parts about dedicating your life to something ie. becoming an introvert and putting friends and family on the backburner. hmmmmm....

I know it might not be a fair comparison but I'm under the impression that I can extrapolate these feelings towards reseach and business. For those reading.. is this a fair comparison? Research like school and PEY like business. hmmm...

I was under the impression that I'd go for research but I'm not so sure anymore. If I were to fully commit to looking for a job in 4th year and end up with something goood, I'm thinking I might take it.

screw it.. I still have a year to figure things out, too bad for you 4th years who need to make the decision now.

this post was crap.. but I dunno, I got the idea of "thinking about the future" crap in my head and there I went.

I'll try for more cheery posts in the future.

lazy me.. should've posted many times before..

2005-08-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

that's what happens when you don't post for awhile, it takes me a minute to collect my thoughts and write, before the BS would just flow out.. crap..

okay, so I'll start with last weekend. I may have told some of you, but I was off to ottawa with my bro, sis and a few cousins for white water rafting. I very highly recommend going if you haven't had the experience, it's tons of fun. I did not at all realize that they did not shy away from attacking the rapids, flipping the raft over and tossing people out. I think it differs greatly from any sort of rollercoaster ride you might ever encounter, because you genuinely feel that you are at risk and you have some control over your own destiny. I myself, was tossed out twice, one time was a bit more adventurous and painful than the other.

As our raft was one of the ones near the back and since we were the last group of the day (no need to hurry), we were able to paddle back to one of the rapids and try to surf. The main idea is to get the boat stuck in one of the standing waves in the rapids and ride it out. On one of the attempts our boat didn't make it deep enough into the wave, dipped down and got tossed up into the air. I, frantically paddling, couldn't get a good hold of the boat and got thrown out. That's not even the scary part. As the boat was airborn I somehow was tossed at high speed directly underneath it. It was enough to send me down the bottom where I banged my knee on a rock and was prompty popped up directly underneath the boat! Remembering what our instructor said, I pushed off from the boat with me legs and emerged at the surface. From there I took a few precious breaths of air and swam to safety. Very exciting, I must say, one of the more exciting moments of my life. One of the other exciting moments was when we stopped for a snack at the side of the river and they allowed people to jump from a cliff into some white water. It was one of those I left my stomach at the top sort of experiences.

enough of that... I'll move on to an even more extreme experience, skydiving.

Organized by a fellow intern at work, about ten of us headed out to Niagra for some tandem skydiving. After ignoring some very crappy google map directions, we arrived there at about midday ready to take our plunge. There was the pages of waivers, along the lines of "I realize that skydiving may result in serious injury or death due equipment failues, instructors, or the aircraft.. Initial Here ___". A great way to keep you motivated. Then came our instructional video, "Do not at anytime, touch your instructors hands", "Maintain the arch position" and "Do not panic"... more fun. The training overall was surprisingly very quick. After a brief demonstration on a mat that you could arch your back, stick your legs and arms up and jump out of mock airplane door, you were ready to go. I met my tandem buddy, and life saver (someone who you do not want to piss off), suited up and headed for the plane. I've flown in a small aircraft before, so that wasn't a big deal, it was doing it with the door wide open that was the scary part. On the ascent up there were the nervous looks around, words of encouragement and last minute instructions. When we reached the "drop zone" at 14,000 ft (using the lingo), the green light turned on and we were ready to go.

The single jumpers excitedly went out first some doing flips and others jumping out together (again, quite scary, realizing that I'll need to do that in a minute). Then came my turn. Got up right against the door, arms crossed, knees bent, feet shoulder width apart... 3.... 2.... 1.... go.. the leap of faith. Turned around saw the plane... crap.. it's flying away, turned back around, WTF... can't scream, can't breathe, can't do anything... oh crap.. forgot to arch... oh crap.. my hands are out of position, oh crap.. my head is facing down... thumbs up, thumbs up.. trying to breathe, not really happening, trying through my nose... uhhh.. sort of working. Okay.. still falling, very cold, wtf.. we're turning.. the bastard is turning me, oh crap.. ground getting closer, shouldn't we be pulling soon????... He pulls, woah... pulled way up... ohkay.. nice.. pull out the camera take some pics.. shit.. I better not drop this thing.. put it away.. where the hell do we land?... it all looks the same.. okay I see it.. cool. We do some practice landings, some nice turns, and make our approach. Relax... feet up... pull... nice landing, butt first, no need to be a hero and land with my feet (that's how you break legs). Unlatch, kiss the ground, pull out the camera and take pictures of the others falling to earth.

Picked up my certificate (now hanging in my cubicle next to the holiday schedule and my xxx family fundamentals certificate), grabbed some dinner and made the drive back to Toronto. A very exciting day indeed. Will I ever do it again?... maybe.. just maybe... the only problem being that the cost is a bit steep.

okay.... I was gonna talk about some of the leadership stuff I learned at the two day seminar thing, but I honestly don't remember much.. I think it was a whole lot of "leadership is a learned skill", and "make sure you listen well and engage people".

hope this wasn't too long..

bye

sunday morning tv shows..

2005-08-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

many of you probably never get the opportunity, likely hung over from saturday night or simply used to waking up in the early afternoon, but I usually watch tv on sunday mornings. It's not that I don't like to sleep in, but the regularity of waking up at 7 on the weekdays coupled with my early bird noisy family usually gets me up in time.

so, what is there exaclty these days.. I sort of know a few shows well. There's "That's so Raven" and "Phil of the Future". Keeping in mind the quality is far from 24, they are still better than the bs american political news shows that are on at that time.

Today, I caught Zoey 101, starring... you guessed it, Britney Spears' little sister. The sunday morning tv show can be a lauching point to stardom. The key is to attract a younger audience and as they grow up you'll have them hooked. This is displayed most notabley with young hilary duff. It's like the clash of two worlds, on the one hand she's on much music in some borderline music video that screams statutory rape and on the other she's in some wholesome "today's lesson is" sunday morning tv show. Weird, weird. It's almost like the publicists are setting young britney up for stardom. They try to portray her as all innocent and caring.... blah.. blah.. It won't be long till she cracks out some music video and we'll be on our way. I see the transformation from wholesome kid to suppoed sex symbol as very weird and disturbing. It's like with the olsen twins. Whenever someone refers to them as "hot" or anything of the sort I find it very odd as I did watch them grow up on full house.

I know it's a short post and there is more to talk about, but I really need to buckle down for a certification text week.

bye for now.

hopped up on a large coffee from tim hortons..

2005-07-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

for those who know me I'm not an avid coffee drinker but today I needed it.

yesterday was... different.

the day started off odd enough when my cubicle mate came in about an hour late, forcing me to push back a meeting by an hour. What was much worse was why he came in late. He was heading on the subway past north york centre in the front car when he heard a large bang. The power was cut and the train came to a complete stop. The whole train was in panic as no one knew what was going on. But my cubicle mate seeing the subway driver in complete dissarray and having heard of similar stories, figured out what had happened.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one, but I've been totally oblivious to the suicide attempts that frequently occur on the toronto subway system.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-04-15/news_feature.php

as the article states, the media is not allowed to report any of it, so we can only really hear from word of mouth. I of course don't like posting things like this, but I thought I should share this with everyone. I'm not a big fan of censoring things even if the case may be as extreme as this. If it's a problem I think it should be out in the open so we can confront it and hopefully try to do something about.

....writing that was a serious mood killer but I'll try to continue on.

Following the meeting was the sweeping cancellation of both volleyball and basketball (due to rain), allowing me to attend my first activities meeting as the next lead. But... coming in the way of this possilbe momentous occasion was mr. nonatiroomate's birthday!! His sister wanted to throw the young man a surprise party with all of his coworkers and friends. After jointly compiling a list of e-mail addresses on who to invite and working out some minor details. She proceeded to send out the secret meeting invitation to everyone..... BUT.... she forgot one thing. TO REMOVE HIS E_MAIL FROM THE LIST!!!.. oh noo.. so the secret invite when to the birthday boy... kind of ruins the surprise but whatever... Sort of ignoring the mishap we went out and got the cake, cutlery etc.. and arranged it all. Although it wasn't a real surprise in the end there is no way he could have expected about fifty people to show up in his honour. So it was successful. The highlight of the event being the company x interns booming out 50 cent in a conference room with the full timers outside in their cubicles trying to work. If I have anything to say about it, it won't be the last time.

Following the party, I found a pile of work in my inbox. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem but I had to leave early for a nano meeting. So, I told my cubicle mate I'd work on it that night and headed out the door. After some nervousnes about being late, I actually arrived early for the meeting (thanks to the college streetcar). I have to say that the meeting was hugely successful. Mr. nanohead is a very nice guy and let us whine away. I especially love to complain about school (see my first 30 or so postings) so it was great. After the meeting we all headed back.

Okay.. I don't have too much time left so I'll be quick with the rest. I got home, went bowling for mr. nonatiroomate's birthday, bowled a 147!, my personal best!! and got home too late to do any sort of work. Had to wake up insanely early.. 5:15!!! so that I could get into work at 6:00 (got the best parking spot possible!) to finish off the work I was supposed to do the night before. Hence, the large tim horton's coffee and me being hopped up.

that was an odd post. but whatever..

oh ya.. playdium next week.. HOPEFULLY.. to say goodbye to mr. recentlyshavedhead who's off to greece.

bye for now.

date with the evil team..

2005-07-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd do a quick post before our mandatory ip class here at company x (for those on pey, you probably know what I'm talking about... for those in research... too bad).

I've probably mentioned before how I'm on a bball team in an intramural league at company x. For those who have seen me play, I'm not what you'd say the next brown yao ming, but I'm okay (that being a relative term). We can of course ignore the beating I took at the hands of the eng sci prof team...

Luckily, however, my team is good (unlike the eng sci bball tourney.... j/k). We've got the tall brown man in the middle and a good support of other random peyers on their way out of company x. Today at noon is the final and we're up against a very dirty team named "company x product" wizards. When I mean dirty, I am not lying. They are by far the most underhanded team I've ever played against. They'll look for anything in the "rules" that they can stretch to their advantage. For example, we don't have shooting fouls, so you can guarantee that you'll never get a basket without being hacked at or pushed. When the ball goes up and people are looking for rebounds, you'd better watch out, as boxing out takes on a whole different level. Playing a team like them totally ruins the game. I don't even know how this people live with themselves. They're such two-faced bastards. One second they're all nice and friendly in the office and as soon as their on the court they adopt a "win at all costs" mentality. Man, I sooo want to say or do something as does the rest of my team, but there's a line you just can't cross. These people do not realize that this is friggin intramural ball at company x, geez. These were the guys who were picked last in elementary school and now they think they're some sort of superstars. We're playing for fun.

The game today should be very interesting.

I'll update later..

bye for now.

my personality type...

2005-07-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

drum roll........ ENTJ!... entj?

for those that might be unfamiliar there's this well-known Myers-Briggs test that pigeon holes you into one of 16 groups, mine being entj. I had the opportunity to find out mine and what it actually means thanks to a half-day course courtesey of company x. entj is....

E -> Extroverted [over introverted] .... okay...
N -> Intuitive thinker (over systematic)....good.. who wants to be systematic
T -> Thinker (over feeler)... good again
J -> Judicial (over perceiving)... this was the borderline one..

so, do you remember that simpsons episode where lisa took some test and it told her to be a homemaker and she didn't like it? This is sort of what the test does. Adults in all types of careers (who like their job) are given the test and put into one of the categories. If you're in the same category as them, bingo, you should be in that career.

My careers (so says some random website)

Possible Career Paths for the ENTJ:

* Corporate Executive Officer; Organization Builder
* Entrepreneur
* Computer Consultant
* Lawyer
* Judge
* Business Administrators and Managers
* University Professors and Administrators

yah.. that doesn't help.. whatever, but some of the stuff they said did make sense. They put us in groups with people of similar personality traits and put us to work on a specific task. I honestly don't think I've ever worked so well in a group before, it's very surprising. Almost everyone was in agreement and we all seemed to find each other's jokes funny... very odd indeed.

k.. enough of that.

I should prolly go on to mention my latest success in being selected to lead the activities team in the intern club at company x.. yeah!! The real kicker being that other two team leads are two good friends of mine, mr. nonatibrownroomate and his vball playing cubicle buddy. It's gonna be some mad screwing around and some good ol' abuse of power.

all for now

bye bye

randomness..

2005-07-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sorta tired and very lazy these days. I could clean my room, get some needed sleep, do some work or even read my massively long tom clancy book of which I haven't made a dent... but.... blogging is a high priority, so here I go.

I realized the importance of blogging again today, when I had to hammer out a paragraph about myself for the company x intern club's lead position application. I found it a lot tougher than expected. I need to rekindle some of that BS I've become famous for. I tend not to practice that art form too much these days as there are no good ol' kai midterms to bs on or bad physics lab results to somehow explain..

so, what's going on..

I went down to the indy this past weekend with my younger cousin as I usually do. He's more of the hardcore race fan whereas I'm more of the casual sort of viewer. I know what you're thinking, "racing is boring, they just go in circles"...., I've heard it all before, but I have to say it's a totally different experience when you're actualy there. You can never really appreciate the speed and power on TV. And besides the actual race there's a whole bunch going on off the track. There's always a ton of free stuff being given out and plenty of cars of all types on display. From a macho guy sort of perspective you can't go wrong as I can honestly say you'd be hard pressed to find another place with so many great looking girls roaming about. I highly suggest checking it out in the future as the ticket prices are reasonable and it's a unique experience.

also..as I eluded to in a previous posting, the golf lessons have finally begun. You cannot understand how useful they are. I had absolutely no idea on how to hit a ball before going to the first class, I would simply hack away. But after a mere half an hour of instruction on the very basics of a proper swing I was semi-consistently hitting straight with decent distance. It's by no means an easy sport as semi-consistent is pretty much useless as you gotta hit it right all the time and under non-ideal conditions but at least the vision of playing 18 holes does not seem so far away anymore. I'm trying to hit up the driving as often as I can in hopes of improving my swing, so if anyone ever wants to hack away let me know.

that's enough for now..
bye bye

my day in court..

2005-07-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

the majority have of you have probably heard my story about the two cars racing north up the 404 and the ensuing accident.

so, yesterday finally came the day of the "trial" of one of the drivers. It was COMPLETE BS..

after spending a good 15 mins finding a parking spot, I spent a good 20 mins sitting outside a courtroom talking to some random guy constantly complaining about missing work to be there. I wanted to say something about his indifference to the whole judicial system, but as I were to soon find out, he had good reason to feel that way.

After the wait outside the courtroom, came out what seemed a stressed out prosecutor. He gathered the "three witnesses" and told us about a plea bargain the defendent's lawyer had proposed, which was pretty much a drop of all charges and a simple slap on the wrist with being billed the court charges and a minor speeding ticket. We totally disagreed with him and pushed him to reject the plea bargain and go after the conviction. But his hands were tied. The cop was not there. There exists a loop hole that allows the defendent to send an "agent" to court on their behalf. So, the defendent does not need to be in court unless the arresting office actually escorts them in. This allows the defendent's "agent" to push the proceedings to trial and without the actual defendent in the courtroom there is no way of identifying the person who committed the crime. As I said, complete BS.

In conclusion, the bastard got off with a speeding ticket.

I was quite upset. The bastard of a person who could've easily killed innocent people... got off. He's such a coward. We (the witnesses and I) pretty much saved his life and he we didn't get as much as a thank you or anything. WTF. People like that piss me off. This made me consider a brand of my own vigilante justice, but it turns out his name is too common for google to find him, so I'm screwd.

My whole faith in the judicial system is out the window. There's this as well as the whole Karla Homolka situation where the crazy bitch got out after only ten years when she should really be sent to the electrical chair.

Overall, I'm glad I didn't ever consider being a lawyer and now share the apathy of others towards the judicial system as a whole.

that's all for now..

bye bye

ahhh.. very bad nite indeed

2005-06-23T06:26:00.000-07:00

so, last night was tough.

you see when they were putting our house together the ceiling guy must have been drunk or something as the ceiling in almost every room in the house has some sort of visible defect. So, now a year down the line they've finally gotten around to fixing this problem, which made last night a complete disaster.

After stumbling home at around 10 I came into the house only to find a maze of plastic sheets draped all over the place and almost every room in the house inaccessible. Being very tired and hungry, I showered, ate and dropped onto one of the old couches in the basement, too lazy to create a suitable bed. I don't know what your experiences are with sleeping in unfinished basements but the random noises are not fun. There's the humidifier, dehumidifier and air conditioning all turning on and off at random times. I must have been awaken over a dozen times by these noises only to emerge in pain from in part sleeping on the crappy couch and from my slopitch escapades. My office chair and footrest are feeling very comfortable right now and it's gonna take some energy to prevent myself from dosing off throughout the day.

what else...

ohhh, I REALLY think I'm gonna start playing golf now... so if anyone else is a beginner and wants to learn, let me know. I stress the term beginner.

lastly, I found out the other day that I will need to make a 20 minute presentation to some executives at company x... uh oh... on a report I didn't write.. double uh oh..

it's not the presentation that scares me, it's the questions. And these aren't stupid mr. crazynano random questions that no one takes seriously, these are tough, intelligent, probing questions that test if you really know what you're talking about (which of course I don't).

ahh. whatever.. we'll see what happens.

bye for now

it's been awhile...

2005-06-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

sorry mr. crazysmallcell I will follow up on my previous post..

so, activity day was.... interesting.

The day started off with each person being placed into a designated team. From here was a bunch of very basic team-building type games, one particularly odd one being "Fear Factor", which involved sticking your hand into a bunch of milk/oatmeal/dirt to pick out letters that eventually spelt out a number of company X products. It was not particularly challenging but almost sort of disturbing when I heard of some people actually voluntarily go bobbing for letters with their face. I can only hope that I was before these odd people otherwise I was likely sticking my hand into some of their nasty saliva as well. The main driving or motivational force behind it all was the promise of a "prize" for the top team. Although we were fairly certain this prize would be some meaningless company X paraphenalia (and it was) it was enough to push us along and get us into the whole spirit of things. The low point of the day likely being when my team failed to come up with a cheer and me needing to crack out some of my "bring it on" type moves. You know your team is in trouble when I am the one coming up with the ideas for a cheer.

Following these team building games came some decent bbq and then a "round table discussion between some company x leaders". The talk was interesting but there were some definite boring points and repitition. It's hard for me to take what a lot of these people say and apply it to what I'm doing now as it seems they were moving up in the company in a totally different time period. They entered the work force when their skills were a great commodity (ie. the abscence of millions of indian programmers willing to work for a tenth of what we get) and when company was growing very rapidly. I don't see how anyone can really enter at the bottom of company X and move up very far without being absoloutely extraordinary, ie. hardworking and being able to kiss some behind. After the round table discussion was a bunch of boring lectures followed by some good strawberry shortcake. It's funny what you end up remembering.....

After the end of activity day was our first slopitch game. And what a fiasco that was. This was during the period of my arm problems so I had to place myself into the areas where underhand throwing was an asset, which of course put me at the pitcher position. I don't remember a whole bunch but I do know we got destroyed. Hopefully the other teams are not as good otherwise it'll be a very long season.

.... on a totally different note... I am hoping that company x will come through on a nice linux desktop for me. I would like to rekindle some of that linux skill I worked so dearly to obtain last summer. Although I would curse good old tux (the linux penguin) a lot of the time, it was truly a love-hate relationship. There's nothing like a good terminal window....

it's kind of late and I'm tired so I'll have to end it there. I of course would like to post more but the postings would have to focus on company x and there isn't much I can write about without getting into supposed shady confidential areas. anyhoo, I'll try my best...
bye

as I wait for "Activity" Day..

2005-06-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

So today is the much anticipated likely overexagerated "Activity" day at Company X. It's supposed to be a day of fun for the interns but I expect a good portion of it to be the same old BS I've been hearing for years about time management, team-building etc..

anyway, I didn't realize the whole thing starts at 10 so I'm up early waiting it out till then. I thought I'd take advantage and make one of my more less frequent posts. I did also capitalize on Day One of Dell's 10 Days of Savings with an 80gb iomega external hard drive for $89! which also comes with a $20USD rebate. This is an insane deal. I plan on taking the drive down to mmm-donuts place and filling it up as soon as I get it.

today is also supposed to be the first slopitch game at company X with mr. donowork and mr. iamnotthattall. But, unfortunately I'm still uncapacited with a screwed up arm. Its a serious pain getting through the day with limited use of my right arm. Eating is an adventure and putting on a t-shirt is a slow painful struggle. I do feel it getting better so hopefully I'll be ready for future slopitch games and some tennis with mr. iwontgiveyouthepassowrd.

and then there's work. It's moving along. I along with a fellow intern are gonna go downtown next week to check out a analyst briefing on wireless technology. Although I have no clue what company X does with wirless or "pervasive" technology, I look forward to some free food and scoping out some of the competition. My main goal is not to embarass company X by looking like a complete moron.

I guess that's all for now.

bye bye

lazy me = a lot to post in one blog

2005-05-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

delaying the posting for this long only makes it that more difficult.

the highlight of my weekend would have to be my birthday party. I know what you're thinking, my birthday was last month so how the hell does that make any sense. Well, it turns out in some weird twisted plan this was supposedly done as a ploy to throw me a suprise birthday party. And.. it worked. Even after the token surprise was yelled I still did not comprehend what was going on. It took awhile for things to sink in and when they did, it all started to make sense. It is sort of shameful that I didn't figure it out, but the whole throwing the party a month after one's actual birthday was enough to prevent myself from connecting it all together. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I certainly cannot complain about the new influx of cash from the birthday money and my first pay cheque.

work is actually turning into work now. Now that I've learned their stat program I'm in a position to write reports for random market strategists at company X (beyondschatworth suggested it would be a good idea to now be more discrete). It can be time consuming but I hope to get the reports done as soon as possible so I can move on to some more entertaining stuff, hopefully market forecasting down the line. From my brief discussions with some on this forecasting, it turns out it is a lot like a physics lab. I know I like to hear about the value of nano in the real world so I'll throw this out there. You set up your experiment, which is like a market survery or data mining, take your results and analyze. You apply different models and see what fits best. Once you get a model that fits, try to explain how it makes sense in accordance with what is measured, extrapolate and you've forecasted. So there you go. Nano is applicable in the world of market research, go ahead and feel good about yourself.

onto the tv shows... there is TONS to write for this.

24... the two hour finale. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with how the missile thing turned out, it was sort of expected. The real surprise came with the "killing" of Jack Bauer, the identity that is. Next season should be very interesting, I do not see how Jack can at all return to CTU in any sort of capacity, so for once I think we're gonna see some big changes in the upcoming season. Too bad I'm gonna have to wait till January of 2006.

OTH.. if you haven't downloaded don't read on.

weird, weird, weird. I have no clue what's going on with that. They've thrown everything up into the air. Every character is a mystery.

Brooke - does she like Lucas? is she gonna come back at the end of the summer?
Peyton - how is she gonna handle jack leaving and wtf is with this lady who claims to be her mother?
Lucas - scrrrrewed. He used to have everyone, not anymore. Brooke is gone, nathan doesn't want to have anything to do with him and his mom is halfway round the world. sorry man
Nathan - does he go to high flyers? take Haley back? tough decision
et.. etc.. I could on and on

I don't think many of are actually interested in that, so I'm gonna end there.

see ya

it's that time of the year

2005-05-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

my nightly schedule nowadays is pretty much blocked out for tv. There's 24, the OC, and One Tree Hill. All of which I'm mildly obsessed with and are all functioning at top-notch levels of entertainment and nearing their respective finale's.

24
I've just learned from good old yahoo news, which I personally find to be a lot better than google (most popular is not always best!), tells of 24 being renewed for two more seasons on fox. That's nuts! What started off as a one season speciality show will turn into at least a 7-season series. I guess I'll be following along for at least two more years. I can only hope that they bring back Kim next year in some sort of capacity. Currently, the show is heading into its two hour finale next week with the same sort of suspense we've come to expect. Millions are about to die and Jack has to make another one of those, what's more important my best friend or ten million americans type decisions. It would be interesting to see them change things around in the show, ie. put Jack in a different position and KEEP HIM THERE. He always ends up being head of field ops one way or the other.

OC
Thanks to a nano meeting that ran a bit long on Thursday and me falling off to asleep trying to wait for the time-shifted version, I missed the OC episode. And to further my luck it turns out the MPAA bastards have shut down btfenet, leaving piratebay as the only functioning torrent place I know of. It took me almost a full two-days to download the show, but in the end it was worth it. A lot happened in that one episode. I personally feel that particular episode could even stand alone as a season finale, the only problem being that there weren't enough cliffhangers. I'm at least glad to see summer and seth back together... again, hopefully it'll last a bit longer this time.

OTH
Discussion of this nights episode ahead, so be careful.

Things have seemed to take a major turn in the show, particularly on the whole nathan and haley issue. I can't really see how the two of them can end up together in next weeks finale, so some of the hardcore nathan fans are gonna be disappointed. And then there's lucas and brooke, which they've managed to successfully delay for one more week bringing back some of the painful memories from OTH past when the love triangle was in play. Something big is going to happen and as it stands now I can only make random guesses at what it might be.

that's all for the tv shows.....

Work has not changed much over the past while. Still setting up things and figuring stuff out. Some of the number cruching I have to do can be a bit mind-numbing but hopefully I won't need to do much of that down the road.

Lastly, I've been reading War of the Worlds by mr. wells and in the book there is constant reference to a "heat ray" used by the martians against the humans. When I visualize it I imagine a large light sabre so it almost seems that mr. lucas may have borrowed that particular idea from mr wells. I just wanted to mention that as it sort of ties into last weeks oc episode.

that's all for now. bye bye.

DB2, CM, SAP, SCM, WAS, WSMQ, ISV, VAR......

2005-05-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

you thought nano characterization acronyms were bad the one's I'm encountering these days are much worse. Who knew how complicated the whole software industry was, it's really insane. There's the front-end, back-end and stuff inbetween. And IBM seems to have their hand in everything.

I got the opportunity the other day to watch some footage from a focus group. For those that may be unfamiliar that's when a market research firm brings in a certain group of people and asks them questions to trigger discussion all while a bunch of analysts watch behind a two-way mirror. It was pretty interesting watching the footage. Not just because of what the people were saying but due to their physical movements and reactions to different things. For instance, whenever the moderator would hand out something for the group to fill out, this one guy would quickly fill it out, finish it, put his paper and pen down and proceed to rock back and forth in his chair all while having a smirk on his face. I could so picture this guy back in high school along with all his fellow geeky A/V club buddies.

work overall is pretty chill right now. I've luckily been put under another student who is taking his time training me. It's great. Today alone I dicked around for several hours chilling in what they call "Oasis Rooms" and playing pool. I could get used to working there full-time that is of course if there was never any work to do.

Tommorow looks like another write off with a two-hour lunch and me needing to leave early for the nanoclub meeting. Work is looking pretty good right now....

That's all, bye for now.

second day

2005-05-07T05:34:00.000-07:00

First off, the solution. I am not entirely certain of the four cases I have written down but they do seem to make sense. Let me know if there are problems.

From what I've learned on the first day I'm not even sure how much I'm allowed to discuss on my blog due to supposed "sensitive" IBM information. They're nuts about that stuff. I have a bunch of passwords for everything imaginable. And if you happen to lose your laptop they sit you in front of bunch of executives and grill you as well as your manager. No matter how nice you manager is, I doubt they'd be very pleased with you after that.

So, I've still done pretty much nothing besides setting up a bunch of accounts, renaming passwords etc.. but I have a feeling that's still a lot more than some of you research fellows. For instance, mr. funnybowlingalleyfall's sole task for his first week was to get familiar with his environment.

One thing I have started to notice is the many different type of people I see at work. Since I'm at the software lab there are mix of some business and mostly software type people. The software people can range from your quiet, reserved programmer to your outgoing "I love to code and I'm gonna let everyone know" programmer. There aren't many of the business type but so far they seem to be nice and helpful.

I'm gonna get some breakfast. bye for now.

day one

2005-05-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day at IBM.

I arrived at the main lobby precisely at 8:30am to find about 100 fellow interns waiting around. A good portion of the day was like frosh week. We walked around in large groups, no one seemed to know what was going on and there were those random keeners who asked lots of questions. The main focus seemed to be a bunch of boring presentations on all types of security, privacy and protocol. One of the highlights of these boring presentations being when mr. throwslibrarybooksaway yelled "shut up" into his cellphone with everyone else thinking he was referring to the speaker. One of the more odd moments of the day was when I first arrived and introduced myself to a random intern. He seemed nice enough and had actually worked at IBM for the two previous summers. However, things between us took a turn for the worse when he drew up a math problem during the presentations and passed it over to me. I'm sure he had good intentions but I honestly did not feel like following through with the problem as I was sort of paying attention to the presentation and I knew I didn't really stand a chance. So, he explained the answer to me and I a nodded in agreement with everything he said. I have posted the question below and will attempt to write out a solution for tommorow.

It also turned out that less than a third of the students at the lab are from ut. There were of course a lot of waterloosers and others from across canada. I did finally get to meet the other intern in my department who seems nice enough. She's a management/engineering student from mcmaster. So it seems that ibm posts their jobs everywhere and interviews tons of people. Lastly, I learned that I will be getting a new laptop which I can look forward to tommorow. Till then will be two hours of fresh new OC.

Try the problem! and let me know if you don't understand.

Mohit

life as a commuter and CMM

2005-05-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

I headed downtown once again today like a regular commuter. I don't get how you commuters do it. I ran into three wackos on the way down alone. WTF. And then there was the whole rush down st. george to make my pseudoappointment to get my cell phone back. It's hard not to be in control of how quickly you get somewhere. I can't drive faster or walk quicker, you have no choice but to wait it out for the next train. It's no wonder why commuters are much more likely to suffer heart attacks (quoting hornyhamster). I did however get my phone back which made the commute worthwhile. It was all a bunch of bureacratic crap as I was sent from office to office finally to get my phone with a minor warning not to do it again. I also got a chance to read over the engineering calender in detail on the way back. It turns out they've totally revambed the eng sci curriculum for the incoming class for next year. And that we only have (4) choices for our forth year. The calendar is actually a piece of crap for us nanos as very few courses are listed as possible electives. There are a bunch more if you consult that e-mail that Morag sent awhile back.

Onto CMM (chad michael murray). If you consult the front-page of your entertainment section of your toronto star you'll see mister CMM outside the brass rail at what seems to be very early this morning. WTF is wrong with this guy. He has sophia bush as his wife and the bastard still needs to frequent establishments like that. The guy needs help. And how does this fit into his supposed nice guy image with films like a cinderalla story and other bs crap like that. I think I've lost whatever respect I've had for that guy.

Work starts tommorow so I'll likely be posting.

all for now
Mohit

gotta keep posting

2005-05-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

I headed downtown today as a regular commuter. The plan was the retrieve my cell phone, get a new battery for my watch, play some halo, do some shopping at the eaton's center and watch the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy. Only halo and hhgttg happened. Lots of halo to be more precise. I guess things never change.

the movie turned out to be pretty entertaining. It was all very random but it somehow ended up fitting altogether in the end. Following the movie we got a glimpse of the madness outside much music that was an interview with the stars of house of wax, mainly CMM (chad michael murray) obsessed teenage girls and a few horny teenage boys who likely have a thing for paris. We headed to the crowd and saw mr. beyondschatworth jump into what seemed to be a line for 8 grade girl's gym to gain entry into the inner barrier. Hornyhamster, mmm-donut and I took the more "pretend we don't care" sort of approach and waited more on the perimeter. We got our quick looks at Elisha and Paris from a distance and decided to head off. Mr. beyondschatworth faired much better and claims to have seen them from very close of course giving us the very obvious line "they looked very good". No one needs to remind me that Elisha looks very good, I am well aware of that fact.

After all was finished I did get back in time to catch OTH. Another very interesting episode with a lot more drama in store. I can see it all building up to a large season finale.

all for now
bye.

still recovering

2005-05-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

Friday was a rollercoaster ride. From the stealing of my cellphone by a nazi vigilator in the exam at 2, to me stumbling back to the appartment at about 4 in the morning with mr. beyondschatworth, it was a night to remember.

Firstly, I must stress that I hate that nazi vigilaor. wtf, give me a break. Okay, I'm an idiot, I missed her repeated warnings but as soon as I heard that annoying voice I started to tune her out. And what was with the two profs who didn't defend me but rather took the side of the vigilator. We're supposed to be on the same side and they bowed down to that bitch.

ahhh.......... whatever, I didn't want that to ruin my day so I shrugged her off. I hope to get the phone back on Monday or Tuesday when I head back downtown to catch the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy.

And then was the start of the night out with the nanos (+mr. infra and mr. jesterhat). First on the agenda was heading way down south to mr. greenjeans at the eaton's center. It turned out to be a nice place with good food and a good atmosphere. Time flew bye and before we knew it, we needed to rush out to the bowling alley uptown. A memorable experience indeed. We definitely need to get some of the video from Fone's camera and post it online. The personal highlight being when mr. tennis took a nasty fall on the bowling lane while trying to get an action shot of mr. infra. Only rising seconds later to blurt out "I'm alright, the camera's okay". We were literally laughing our asses off. It's too bad we didn't get that on video, mr. tennis would've become infamous as an ebaumsworld casualty.

I'll skip ahead to the post-bowling part as I'm sure that won't be discussed in much detail in other blogs either by blogger discretion, lack of memory of what happened, or simply lazy bloggers (referring to jesterhat and mr. beyondschatworth).

On the subway back a good majority of the nanos headed down bloor to find a suitable drinking hole. We ended up at gabby's and a perfect round table that seemed to be out of king arthur's court. It wasn't long before the drinks were flowing and I was learning some very interesting things about our fellow nanos. In summary, I learned never to mess with mr. spaceelevator and mr. whatifyoushootherinthehead and that drinking cc is not the best way to get drunk as was evident from mr. mmm-donut. Following what seemed to be several hours, mr. thatsnotthe1stBZ, mr. jesterhat, mr. beyondschatworth, mr. givemeonemoresecnogami and I took the familiar drunken walk back to st. mikes in hopes of catching the night's OC and apprentice. Not a good idea. About an hour later we emerged without having watched anything, our cookie cravings satisfied and a different respect for some fellow nanos. Finally, everyone minus the st. mikes two headed back to mario kart central to play the obligatory game before calling it a night.

A great night indeed.

The only part that sucked was me needing to wake up at 8 in the morning, pack up all my crap and move it all. All while having a nice piercing heacache and little to no energy.

I have to say it was the best post-end of exam party we've ever had. There were tons of people involved (over 20 nanos) and great planning (thanks fo mr. beyondchatworth and mr. insanelysmallcell).

I will miss our little nano community and I will make it a personal mission to visit as often as I can in the school year on supposed nano-club related reasons.

I will also continue posting throught PEY and hope to see regular posting from everyone else as well. I want to hear bout those embarassing moments in the lab and those office space type experiences.

that's all for now.

now vs. 24 hours from now

2005-04-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

It is very hard to study when you pass the 24 hour mark. That is, you know in 24 hours your life will DRASTICALLY change.

Right now, I am tired, bored, confused, restless and annoyed. In 24 hours I will be floating on a cloud (WITHOUT the help of any sort of drug... except maybe alcohol). We've all worked sooooo hard this year and when it all hits me when we're finished tommorow I might collapse to the ground and break out in tears. No school for 16 MONTHS... that's a hulluva long time. No PSETs, No BS memorization, No labs, No struggling to understand what the prof is saying.. it's gonna be great.

I think I'll continue ranting.....

After some discussion with mr. beyondschatworth I realize the toughest thing I've had to overcome during these last years of university is learning that I cannot understand everything. I always thought that if I spent the time and thought about if for awhile I could understand any logical scientific argument, sooo has not been the case this year. Coming out of high school I thought the problem with eng sci would be sheer volume, which was mainly the case in 1st and 2nd year.. but not anymore. We have had an abundance of time for this last exam and I feel that this has worked to be a disadvantage. I have had more time to cast doubt on what my understanding is and repeatedly reach different conclusions about certain things only realize a day later that I was completely wrong.

I don't have the energy to construct logical arguments anymore and I apologize if I've written a bunch of garbage but I honestly don't care.

24 hours and it's all over.

ALLLLLLLLLLLLL OVER.

24 was nuts today...

2005-04-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

if you're not familiar with the show you won't appreciate some of things I find astonishing and exciting... but I dun care.. it was amazing.. one of the better 24s of the season.

1) the return of palmer...
not just a small role mind you, he's gonna come back and run the country!! the current president is a complete idiot and needs "advice". He's a puppet. You need to have seen palmer in the previous four seasons of 24 to appreciate the leadership he brings as president. One of the best TV presidents I can think of.

2) chloe in the field..
again, on its own a big deal as she's a huge cocky computer nerd. but to have her be attacked then needing to pick up a damn rifle and take down a terrorist is on a whole different level.

I can smell an insane conclusion to 24 coming...

edit: a 24 two-hour season finale costume party is in the works. I'm going as Chase...

why is there still school?

2005-04-25T13:57:00.001-07:00

life is messed up right now.

things don't seem to fit. I feel relaxed, I want to chill I sooooo want to chill but I can't. My mind is at a constant war with itself.

There's the responsible side pushing me to study. Its weakness is alcohol.

The logical side, telling me not to worry as everyone else is slacking off so it'll be alright. Its weakness was materials chem, no logic could exist there.

The fun side, who was is in control today, telling me to screw it all. Its weakness is eng sci in general.

sooo.. thanks to fun side, I have sort of written off most of today thanks to the interpreter and trying to find mmm-donut who sort of dissappeared for awhile on our way to paramount.

the movie was okay. Not great but not bad. It didn't have as much action as I would've liked but there was a good storyline if you can ignore a few flaws. It did drag on for a bit with long camera shots directly faced at nicole kidman looking mysterious or something but luckily she's hot so that was okay.

I'm gonna try to get in some studying before the much anticipated return of president palmer on 24.

bye for now

what to post...

2005-04-24T07:19:00.000-07:00

not much has been happening over the last little bit that warrants much posting, I am in the study a little, check e-mail, check fark, check msn, watch a movie, watch tv, study a little cycle at the moment.

but I will touch on some of the interesting points.

The Friday morning return to Spadina Towers.

As my previous postings have stated, I went home on Thursday afternoon and returned Friday morning for the nano meeting and to supposedly get some studying done. When I arrived back at the appartment at about 10:00 in the morning I found mr. beyondschatworth singing along with his microphone to his favourite killers songs. Luckily or unluckily depending on what angle you look at it from, his room door was closed so he had no idea that I was even back and continued to sing. He got through at least three songs before I realized that I had to take advantage of the current situation and record him. So, as quietly as I could I turned on my computer and tried to position a microphone near his door. It was all looking good as Indie Rock and Roll was coming and if you're unfamiliar with the song it has quite a few high pitched notes which would "accent" mr. beyondchatsworth singing ability. BUT.... as my computer started up so did my msn. Without any warning I was bolted to the online status and to my dismay the singing immediately stopped. He had seen me come online and realized I was in room next to him..... DAMN!!! that would've been an interesting mp3..

Nanoclub meeting

Besides the $3.75 all-day breakfast the meeting itself went very well. It seems as though we're on the right track and have a great base of people who are willing to put in a lot of hard work. We all share a similar vision and I am certain next year will be a success.

Movie watching that stems from procrastination

If you haven't watched the 9th gate (johnny depp), I highly recommend it. Besides its natural thriller appeal, the storyline is insane. There are many small details in the movie that one can easily miss if you're not paying attention. I consider myself a person who usually follows movies quite well and I only knew what was going on after reading through some of the insanely long discussion thread on imdb. So, watch it, get confused, then ask me or read up about on the net...

that's all for now.
if you're a nano.. get back to studying, we'll meet up later in the week to go through exams, if you're anything else, SCREW YOU.. stop reading blogs and go out and enjoy the summer you bastards..

the akward transition period.

2005-04-22T05:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday brought some more relaxation.

following my watching of a random teenage british movie that was supposed to be Spanglish (damn Ares) came some random naps then the voyage to good ol markham for some R and R only truly capable to be done at one's own home.

fresh off the purchase of a new TV, we took advantage and got one of those roger's hd boxes. I gotta admit that the picture quality is pretty nuts but it turns out very few channels are hd compatible and those that are rarely take advantage of it. For instance, the only show that was in hd that was of interest to me was the OC. A big show like the apprentice doesn't even come in hd. complete BS. I only really see a huge benefit when it comes to watching sports, but it's too bad the raps are garbage, the nhl is a piece of crap and the football season is long gone. So, in conclusion, hd is not good... at least not yet.

onto the title of the blog, the akward transition period. I am now in the middle of my conversion from lazy bum back to hardcore student. Not an easy task. This is where the closeness of the nano group really pays off. I won't have the ability to slack off any longer as the group will push me forward and encourage me along the way. I still believe we are in one of the toughest options in n sci and the only reason we haven't all broken down and gone crazy is the faithful support group.

gonna get some breakfast.
bye for now

roman vs. saigin

2005-04-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd put up a side by side comparison of these two guys, who took VERY similar pictures of themselves.

blog after part deux

2005-04-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

MSE was..... unexpectedly difficult. Not good difficult as in challenging problems based on sound fundamental theory we understand but rather by asking random points from obscure lecture slides that force you to pull out a random acronym.

and.. as mmm-donut mentioned, prof. nogami consistently held a smirk on his face for the entire exam. Not sure what this can be attributed to but you've got to be scared by it. It reminded me of the smirk that Sipe always gave, something along the lines of "I'm smarter than you and you're getting owned on the final".

Following MSE a bunch of us headed over to paramount to catch the amittyville horror.... a pretty scary movie. Not just BS random ghost scary but consistent relentless terror. They didn't let up. It was sort of along the lines of the exorcist but change little girl for scary house and brave for "I'm frightened by your house" get me the hell out of here, priest.

I now look forward to some much needed rest and studying for a course that has some substance.

bye bye

blog before part deux

2005-04-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

.... 30 mins before the exam, got that relief/nervous feeling going on, kind of hard to explain.

I can't help but think about 3 hrs from now when it'll be over and I'll have time to finally relax. I did not have the time to come down after the railing that was materials chem and I've been kind of screwed up ever since. Two days of intense memorization cultivating to the realization that it was all a waste of time has a lasting effect on a person...

whatever... gotta go..
will blog after
bye

the blog after

2005-04-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

it was baaaaaaaaaad... but it could've been worse.

so... looking at my winning strategies

1)

manners puts an upside down paper on harnik's desk. Since it's double sided he can still read the questions. Manners continues down the row.

me: So how does it look?

harnik: what the hell, GIC batteries

me: it's okay... there's choice

harnik: wait.... no it says ALL

me: shit..

there was no choice and all of it was concentrated on the second half. Kai is a bastard. my strategy was based on choice and I was gonna choose questions from the first half. sooo.. my strategy was TOTALLY WRONG.... ah well

2) Manners was not a bastard... good. his part was actually okay. besides asking for a structure that wasn't even the notes... which I luckily randomly looked up on google a few hours before (thanks to mr. beyondchatsworth)

3) Marking? I won't know until that faithful day on ROSI

X-Factor
- the exam ended bout 10 mins after 9
- random talking and complaining for 10 mins
- getting subway 5 mins

got to 24 at about 9:25. I still continued ahead and watched. Probably not the greatest idea but I did want to get onto studying for MSE sometime soon.

that's all for now.

bye bye

the blog before

2005-04-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

I thought it might be interesting to try a quick blog before and after the exam.

So, I'm gonna go through the IBM winning strategies (for those who watch Raptors games)

1) Choice in the Solid State materials section. ie. something like do 4/6 or 3/6 of the following questions. I honestly don't know much about phyllosilicates.

2) Manners not being a bastard. If he doesn't ask very specific reactions/structures I might be okay.

3) BS Marking. After it's all said and done I'll have no idea if I did well. I can tell if I've done bad, but there's no knowing if they'll take a bastardly marking position.

and the Gatorade X-Factor.

Not finishing early and cotemplating leaving for 24 when I should be checking my work over.

We got owned / Memorization Problems

2005-04-16T05:12:00.000-07:00

Vince destroyed us yesterday. Although we seemed to double him whenever he had the ball he managed to break free and put up big numbers. The raps suck. Here was the most anticipated game of the season and the raps came out with little to no energy in the second half. I admit that Jalen can be clutch but he needs to pass the ball if things aren't working for him. And Rafer has got to cut out those pull up 3s if he can't hit them. The only bright spot was some solid play by Pop So (or whatever the spelling is). It was great to see him alongside bonner in the front court actually holding their own and doing some damage. They better make some big changes in the off season and get some support for CB4.

Now onto memorization problems.
So, if you ask a typical nano these days if they understand something in materials chem you'll get the line

"Not really, I'm just gonna memorize, that's all you need to do"

I agree 100%, and I'm sure I've even said that line.. BUT.. there are different levels of memorization.

1) Understanding and hence minimizing the amount of memorization to be done. Eg. the molecule is in a tetrahedral shape, with the pz orbitals overlapping dz^2. The dz^2 and pz are below the other orbtitals on the MO diagram and are filled with space between them and the other orbitals. Creating a large bandgap and hence an insulator.
OR
Since the molecule is tetrahedrally shaped we have overlap on the z-axis. The orbtals in this direction will have lower energy than the other directions. Therefore, lower in energy than other orbitals creating a bandgap on the MO diagram.

The second method entails VERY LITTLE memorization, perhaps only that of the shape of the molecule.

Understanding... ANY sort of memorization does help.... Try memorizing a bunch of slides in the very piecewise manner described in the first case and you'll go crazy.

2) if understanding can't happen you can turn to the acronyms. Another sure fire way to make you go crazy. I find it helps to develop acronyms that may relate to weird or interesting stuff, it'll go a long way in helping you tap into some otherwise vaccant memory space.

For instance, I STILL KNOW the charater of rights of canada I learned in grade 11 because of a good acronym.

MOM FED AL

Mobility rights
Offical languages
Minority rights
Fundamental freedoms
Equality rights
Democratic rights
Aborginal rights
Legal rights

okay.. I admit I looked up a few of them, but you get the idea.

that's all for today. have fun memorizing and if you come up with a killer acronym please let me know!

I'm not good at drawing...

2005-04-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

I need help!!! I suck at drawing, which can be a serious pain.

examples..

1) playing online win, lose or draw type games. if the clue doesn't involve some sort of stick person and possibly a three-dimensional cube (which I have perfected), I'm in trouble.

2) probably the most famous example, which is ACTUALLY FALSE occured in organic chemistry when I had no clue what was going on during a quiz. Roger D was trying to show my how to draw the chair conformation of cyclohexane but I was so messed up that I didnt even know cyclohexane had multiple conformations. The conclusion that roger drew and continues to propogate to this day is that I can't draw the chair conformation of cyclohexane. When in actual fact I CAN!!!

3) physics oral exam interview. I was being asked bout NMR so I did what I thought was a smart thing, I drew the experimental setup. A BIG MISTAKE. if you're not familiar with NMR there are a bunch of moving rf fields all over the place and eventually my drawing turned into a 2D piece of crap with lines everywhere. This confused the hell out of the examiners and brought on a bunch of questions from mr. crazy guy with glasses. Not a fun time.

4) MSN 7 now has a convinient drawing feature. My lack of ability to draw coupled with the randomness of the mouse makes for bad pictures..

and lastly..

5) all of those crystal structures we draw for mse. I'm not good at them. I can get FCC and simple cubic but that's it. For BCC I just draw a random circle in what I think is the center of the cube and don't even get me started on zincblende or HCP.

.....OC time

fcuk... too much to memorize

2005-04-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

damn, damn, damn.... 150 slides... little to no understanding and no room for error.
very, very hard.

the beast that is nano knows I'm leaving and is not letting me do so peacefully.

gotta push through till OC/Apprentice.. will post later.

wtf

2005-04-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

it turns out I'm the first hit on google if you type in mie374

that's some weird ass crap

frozen oreos taste good!

2005-04-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

some of you may think I'm crazy but you've got to try oreos fresh from the freezer. They taste very good. I stole the idea from Emeril back in the day when I had the time to watch cooking shows. They can be pretty exciting, especially shows like the iron chef.

yesterday brought out some mad procrastination as mmm-donut described in detail in his posting. I along with mr. beyondchatsworth watched napolean dynamite. A great movie. Not much of a storyline but very, very funny characters. The highlight being the pickup line..

"I see you're drinking 1% milk. Is that because you think you're fat? Because you're not. You could probably be drinking whole milk."

if you're looking to procrastinate, I highly reccomend checking it out.

I got a good lesson in the power of google when I was e-mailed out of the blue by a comp eng student at UT. He somehow found me off of google and wanted some old mie374 exams as bertrand also teaches his econ course and as we all know likes to repeat questions. I have no clue how I got searched up... it must have been from a blog... sooo.. BEWARE what your write in blogs and what names you name, you might get someone in trouble down the line.

See what happens when you type in our esc ta's name with dick and blog. You get hornhamster!! very dangerous.

thats all for now

one done, three to go

2005-04-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

one of the more interesting times of university is that little bit of relaxation after you finish an exam. It's a bunch of very raw, mixed emotions, consisting of joy, fear, relief, hunger and lethargy. To actually go through an exam without going insane ie. constantly repeating the names of some primates (homodipidae., colimidae.. etc..), we need to to delude ourselves into thinking what we're doing is not that important. When in actual fact a good portion of our lives depends on how we perform in those faithful 2.5 hours. The end of an exam is a signal to let your guard down and embrace the realization of whatever state you're in, be it of a joy or depression. Next time you finish an exam, take a minute and look at the expressions of different people and you'll probably see a side of people you never saw before, when everyone is very vulnerable and releasing true emotions. I specifically noted PO today, who looked like he was coming to the realization that he lost our little bet and would be providing me with some BK. dun worri PO, you'll always be one step ahead of all us nanos, you work on the pico level.

I was dissapointed to hear that our faithful study group did not use our full proof JPPOR (Jobs, Pollution, Profile, Obesity, Road Rage), one answer fits all acronym! c'mon guys, we don't just make up this stuff for fun..

hmmm.. what else...
there was 24 yesterday and the BS use of the name "nuclear football" to describe a briefcase that controls all of US nuclear arsenal. It looked nothing like a FOOTBALL!! I wanted to see some football shaped object that somehow opened up to reveal a high-tech screen and control panel. It would been nice albeit a little OC like to see someone through this "nuclear football" in an act of desperation. neverthless, it was still a good episode as I believe we have moved onto the last part of the terrorists plot. Ex-president palmer is supposed to show his face soon and I have no idea in what capactiy he'll return. It could be anything. 24 is not predictable. Anyone can die on any night (minus Jack of course), so we might even see Palmer as a terrorist or something. That's what makes 24 good.

that's enough for now... see y'all later.

it's over. it's all over.

2005-04-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

my post from this morning.. damn blogger was down.

It's hard to believe that I won't need to attend class for a full 16 months... no random funny comments, no quick naps, no chance eye contact with other people who have no idea what's going on and want reassurance that they're not alone. I don't think I'll miss the teaching, but I'm sure I'll miss the people. That's the problem with eng sci.. we're used to seeing each other everyday and don't realize what sort of friendships we've had until it's all over. I hope I can stay involved with school activities ie. Nanoclud during PEY so I have an excuse to drop by ever so often. I also hope I can throw together a party on the date of the last exam so some of the nanos can get together before we all split. I am in desperate need of ideas. I'm looking for something that is fun, inclusive, social and able to handle 20 people. Let me know if you have anything in mind.

okay.. so it's been awhile since I last posted so I'll touch on some of the key items of the week.

There was the much anticipated 24 on Monday. The show did live up to the hype. Lots of insane action, Jack killing a bunch of terrorists and even the possibility that the president is hurt or dead.

I had the pleasure of watching Sin City with hornyhamster and beyondchatsworth earlier in the week. I thought it was pretty good. It was very different and I respect that. Movies continually seem to be recycled garbage nowadays. For instance, take the movie Sahara. It's gonna be one of those let's run through the desert looking for treasure with hot girls who are wearing some not so authentic revealing native clothing. It's been done a million times. Creativitiy is key. Even though they may be pretty screwed up sometime like some Charlie Kauffman movies (adaptation, eternal sunshine .... ), they're pretty cool and interesting.

Moving on.. there was the concert on Wednesday. The venue was a lot smaller than expected, which made it seem sort of OCish back in the days when Seth was with Alex and Ryan with whatsehername. The only difference was there were 14 year old girls pretending to be 18 instead of 20 something girls pretending to be 18. That forces one to be careful where the eyes wander. You don't want to put yourself in a situation where you're one step away from being in immediate legal trouble. Overall though, it was a lot of fun. Bowling for soup was really good.

Lastly, yesterday brought the OC and apprentice. The OC was okay. The comic book storyline is developing which seems interesting and there was a climactic hail marry crystal egg toss to seth who came through in the clutch.

k.. enough out of me, I'll try to keep up with more regular posts.

bye bye

Uncle Moe

2005-04-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm now officially an uncle. Actually, I'm sure that some distant cousin of mine in India has children but that doesn't count.

I went to visit the very little 6 pound 5 ounce Aditi (I know it's like mmm-donut's name!) at Scarborough General Hospital today. She's sooo small, and I was quite afraid to hold her, but luckily there were about five well-experienced inlaws, uncles and aunts instructing me along the way... this leads me towards a case for semi-private healthcare in Canada.

My cousin, Richa, had the baby yesterday at 3:00pm and in accordance with hospital rules, she's out the door exactly 24 hours later. And since she gave birth on the weekend her personal doctor won't get a chance to take a look over the baby before being released. That's seriously not right. At some places they don't even give you a private room. I mean come on already. If you've worked hard and made a decent amount of money you should at least be given the option to be more comfortable. Take a few days in the hospital, have your own room etc... This won't cost the government a cent and it'll make people a lot happier. The major counter-argument to this is that eventually we'll enter into a well-defined two-tier system. One being the nice semi-private system, the other being the not so good public system. It's a very tough debate and there are no clear answers. But unless the healthcare system in Canada improves drastically, a semi-private system will definitely emerge.

k.. enough for today, I gotta back to econ.

bye bye

ESC is done!!!, physics close behind, economics in the distance

2005-03-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

ESC is finished!!! YEAH!! No more BS, no more principles, no more "look at yourself in the mirror and answer that question for yourself"

No OC today.. Fox is trying to push one of it's new shows by tricking people to tune into it while they're looking for OC. Cheap network tricks. I instead checked out some of the office which comes highly reccommended from Hornyhamster. It's very random. There's this weird boss who tries to be funny and comes off as a complete jackass. I'll look into the british one, that's reccommended by "Hello Cheers guy" who generally has high TV standards.

I wasted a good portion of the evening writing up a statement for the nanoclub elections. I'm not very good at writing such paragraphs. There isn't anytime to develop some BS. You need to be funny, serious and direct all at the same time. Hopefully I'll get acclaimed and none of this will really matter, but you never know who might change their mind at the last minute and throw their hat in the ring. I've learned that it's not worth worrying about who your competition is. There were the good old days of high school when I won one of two spots over fifteen people. I still think there was some corruption with vote counting back then, but I guess I'll never really know.

I should probably get working on physics lab.

bye for now

Tuesday from hell: Part 2..

2005-03-29T04:45:00.000-08:00

uh oh.... it's Tuesday and that means more liquid helium with a side of frustration. Anyway I look at it, my data is bad and there isn't a thing I can do about it. I'll have to crack out some hardcore BS for mr. superconducter prof.

24 was again very nice yesterday. Next week is going to be insane! The terrorist stole the stealth bomber and CTU is planning an assault on Marwan's hideout. I hope Behrooz makes it though, I can see him as being the next Jack Bauer. Kim should dump Chase, marry Behrooz and run around in slow motion a la baywatch while saving the country. That'd be interesting TV.

I also got the opportunity to play some bball yesterday. I along with mr. beyondchatsworth made up for some of our eng sci embrassment by smoking mr. facebookaphile and friend. If our team had a little practice we could do some serious damage in the eng sci tournament.

That's all for now..

bye bye

it's been too long..

2005-03-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

I continually pushed refresh on my blog when it said I hadn't posted since TUESDAY. I can't believe it's been that long... I've been slacking.

So, I guess I'll talk about the busy day that was Thursday. The morning brought the "special lecture" by the "Lo and Behold" (LB) man. It was actually very good. He did a thorough review of his section of the course and most of it was making sense. To top it all off, he came through with a total 8 LBs to break the 50 mark..

Then came materials chem. Again, very good. There was the need to make up a few polymer names and structures but other than that I believe I should do well. I expect at least an 80% class average. Hopefully this class will balance some of the arts and science beating we got with quantum last semester. Luckily mr. liquid nitrogen was ill with something so we were let out a full hour early.

We took advantage and headed south to China town for some dinner. We scored a nice cheap meal and headed back for Nocturne. It was insanely packed. I don't recall nearly that many in previous' years and the talent was also much better. Besides some classical music which seemed good (I can't really tell), some nice jazz, random guitar players, saigin et al (did well) and Juan was the piece de resistance, jesterhat. Pulling out some random guitar tricks and mild head bobbing he wowed the crowd. I don't think people fully appreciated what he was doing as we were all in a state of awe not realizing that he was playing a classical piece of music!! Good work jesterhat, you sucked it up in design but came through at nocturne.

Following nocturne was Pav's bday party at Peel Pub. We first started the OC download then headed over to the eng sci pack event. A lot of people were finished with midterms so there was a lot of alcohol flowing. It's all kind of fussy after that but I do recall heading back to Roger D's place to catch the OC after it finished downloading. It sucked... Ryan's Bro turn good guy?... I'm not liking this. He'll hook up with Marissa get someone pregnanat, pretty much following in Ryan's footsteps.... OC has some work to do..

This weekend.... lots of basketball/movies (again) and stydying EMPs..

I gotta get down to work, so that's all for now..

bye bye

110 dollars down the drain...

2005-03-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

Today.... was crap... crappity crap (a G version of the famous aditya line)

Some helium, a bunch of nitrogen and little results. Damn power supply wasn't working so I had a choice between 4.20K and 4.15K, two points don't work well for fits. And the apparatus was eating liquid helium like a mofo, went through almost 20 litres and at 6 dollars a pop you get the title of the blog. I now have to waste another Tuesday doing it all over again... at least I don't need to go in tommorow morning. I'll be working on ESC and studying materials chem, my idea of a good time.

There isn't much else to talk about, the whole day was spent staring at a voltmeter, which set me up for doing little to no work up until now. I need some down time to recover from the stressful and annoying day.

In this down time I spent a good hour playing this win, lose or draw game hornyhamster sent me a link to. It was fun. There is however a bit of pressure when you're forced to draw for fifteen people and possess my drawing skills. The worst was the word "start"... not as easy as you think. I tried to draw people lining up for a race and someone shooting a gun... but that didn't work out so well. It's those simple words that screw you up.. I still can't think of a good way of approaching that one.

I also watched some of the amazing race. It annoys me when people on that show complain and bitch. They have the opportunity to travel around the world for free and they don't even realize it. They could be anywhere and it wouldn't matter it's all about the next taxi, the next challenge that keeps them going. If they would just step back for half a second ever so often and realize where they are and what they were doing it would go a long way to help their morale and motivation. The money is good... actually great... but that can't be the only thing. This is leading me to the amazing race is like life analogy.. but screw it..

that's all for today.

bye bye

Dina dead, Jack screwed...

2005-03-21T20:16:00.000-08:00

I did not see this one coming. I thought Dina was going to play a big role in the show and they have gone ahead and killed her..... or have they? We haven't actually seen her dead body, the shooting was behind a wall and they do seem to be pushing the Behrooz deal again. I'm thinking he'll play a bigger role somehow. Out to get Marwon to avenge his mother's death... that'd be cool. Enough of 24.. I'm gonna move on.

This morning brought some frantic MSE Pset finishing. Let me reiterate that I do not mind working hard, crazy problem sets, loads of work, that's fine. What I hate more than anything is unclear directions, vague questions and crappy teaching. I think that pretty much sums up the MSE course. And damn Phil... the bastard. He went over the easiest problem in tutorial claiming that all the others are trivial. The bastard can't draw.. that's the real truth. And the prof who's unable to answer a question about the problem set 30 mins before it's due. Greaat.. fucking great.

Then there was economics, probably a good lecture but I was continually falling off to sleep. All sense of time was thrown off. Everytime I woke up in class it looked as though we hadn't gone ahead, all his slides look the same. I thought we were still on the same topic, so I figured that it wouldn't mean much to nap some more. That all back fired when the class ended and I realized that he had in fact covered 20+ slides... damn..

Following the nap I headed over to the Physics lab. Tommorow will be the much anticipated six hour block of time where I finally start taking some data. I think I have a decent understanding of what's going on, I can only hope that the data comes out nice... There's nothing like some good physics data, it's like opening a gift and getting a surprise. Pushing submit on faraday and seeing a reasonable chi-squared probablilty...

The things that bring joy to an eng sci....

gtg.. bye bye

Two days to catch up on...

2005-03-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

I did it again.. I acted like a complete bum for the entire weekend. I did absolutely no work and watched a bunch of movies/basketball.

Ladder 49 and Flight of the Phoenix suck.. big time... One has no action the other no story.. When I mean no action or story I'm not lying. Ladder 49 was a predictable sob story that looked like some 9/11 tribute whereas Flight of the Phoenix was a plane crash with a bunch of other randomness. Damn... how the hell are these movies popular? All I was looking for was a nice action movie with a decent storyline, a hero and some hot girl to tie it all together. Steven Segaal needs to get back in the business.. his under seige movies are classics. You haven't seen a real action hero till you've seen him snap a neck like a twig. I bet I could make an action movie.... all you really need are these components.

(1) Your hero. Ex-military/ex-cop who has done their bit for their country and wants to relax a bit. Even better if they're reluctant to be the hero in the beginning but are slowly forced into it.

(2) Villian and his small army. Somehow has a grudge against a hero. Usually of russian origin, ex KGB or something like that. But nowadays they could be from the middle east as well.

(3) Hot girl, either a girlfriend, wife, daughter or a random girl who ends up falling for the hero in the end. She has to somehow unexpectedly get caught up in the whole mess with the climax being when the villian ends up going head to head with the hero while holding the girl hostage.

(4) Authoritative figure(s). Someone who dissaproves of the hero and questions what they're doing. Making it tough for him the entire way, until the end where they finally realize that the hero is all they got and he'll save the day.

(5) Lots of bloodshed (Obvious)

(6) Hero wins in the end (Obvious again..)

If I go heavy on (3) and (5) I'll have a blockbuster..

k.. enough with that..

Basketball was everywhere this weekend. NCAA, NBA, CIS (canadian university championships)... which brings me to more complaining. Why are sports treated like crap at UT? We are the biggest university in Canada and we stink at men's sports. Everyone is gonna bring up the whole university is about academics and we shouldn't waste the money.. but it turns out that well-run sports programs bring in the most money for universities. There are ticket and merchandise sales as well as more alumni contributions. I will admit for UT to turn the corner it is going to take some money but I really don't mind. Everyone seems to be at the trough feeding off incidental fees, why shouldn't the sports teams take some... on a temporary basis at least. It'll raise school spirit which UT is in dire need of and raise the profile of Canadian universities.

I gotta finish the MSE Pset..

bye bye

Blaze of Glory..

2005-03-18T06:05:00.000-08:00

ahhh... I missed OC yesterday.... actually, when I think about it, it's the first time I've missed it since the christmas break... I've had to move myself into the lowly class of torrent downloader, which in the post-suprnova times, is not so easy. Luckily, I did find the oc torrent late last night. But, when I awoke in the morning I found it had only downloaded 20% of the file. Damn leachers... I only hope it'll be done before I need to go into the lab at 1..

So, why did I miss the OC? An insanely long production of skule nite. From start to finish the entire thing lasted three and a half hours! (with a 15 minute break inbetween). Overall, it was good, but it could've been a lot better if they concentrated on fewer storylines and actually told some engineering jokes. I know that's the reason I came... who doesn't love a good artsie or eng sci joke? I guess the skule nite producers don't. Perhaps they wanted to take a different direction this year... not sure.. but nevertheless I'll probably attend next year, it was still well worth the price of admission.

We also got back our ESC formal reports yesterday. Although I did fairly well comparitively, the comments given to me are not fairly constructive. So, I don't see how my mark can improve much with a second revision. The comments don't seem to say much as they are quite vague and even contradictory. For instance, for one of my conjuctive adverbs (something that connects two sentences), he indicates that it should be changed to "however". Seems good, but then he goes on to comment that I use "however" too often. WTF?!?

I gotta get some breakfast so that's all for today.

bye bye

The simple life.

2005-03-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday.... was kind of boring. With no new ESC material to complain about, all I really have is economics. Due to the lack of deadlines, I've been starting to slack off. So, to counteract this laziness I decided to attend the ill-attended economics tutorial yesterday. I quickly realized why only about 5% of the class shows up to these things. They're boring, the TAs suck and they're placed about two hours after the last class of the day. I can deal with the boring and scheduling, but the TAs are just inexcusable. Our TA knew nothing. The question she discussed was sooo easy and yet she somehow managed to confuse the hell out of everybody. She shrugged off questions from the class and pushed forward so she could finish a full half an hour early... wtf. She's almost as bad as Tae-Ho, the infamous inorganic TA. Who's paying them for this crap? I could go on and on about bad TA experiences in eng sci, but I think I've proved my point.

Onto the title of this blog, "The simple life". Yes, I admit it, I watched some of the show yesterday. It's like that time I watched "When celebrities don't wear makeup" or something titled similar to that. You know it's garbage, the lowest type of information out there, but you somehow can't change the channel. Celebrities have this type of intellectual hold on all of us. For those who are confused, "The simple life" is the supposed reality show of one Paris Hilton. The stupid ass rich heiress who can't figure out that it's not a good idea to videotape/picture yourself doing explicit things. What the hell is wrong with her family? They must be smart, intelligent people if they were able to build a hotel empire, did they just let her go? Why not cut off her money, force her to go to college.. something.. their family name is forever screwed and I thought that sort of thing was important to rich people. Ah... whatever... it's just that people like that piss me off... She has unlimited resources, all the time in the world and she can't make something respectable of herself... I'm sure she'll be one of those "don't like it people" (from constantinine) when the time comes..

That's all for now. OC and Skule nite.... my motivating factors for the day.

bye bye

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue..

2005-03-15T19:01:00.000-08:00

The morning brought the much anticipated nano vs. cheng (and Morag) meeting. Although there was no juice or muffins, the meeting did feel positive in that we have made some progress. "Action items" (as cheng puts it) that stand out are:

(1) Impeach the nano club (hence the white house reference). They suck. They used to be good, but they suck now. The forth years simply lack energy and drive. They like their titles but don't want to do anything. Our solution, kick them out and takeover. Screw them. Who do they think they are? Who elected them? They are obviously not doing anything of relevance. Networking events, a lecture series, anything... just so we can feel good about nano and that our education means something. We're young, intelligent and motivated, with the proper planning, the nanoclub can easily evolve into one of the best clubs in engineering.

(2) Curriculum changes. We are planning to re-evaluate all the core courses in third and forth year. There is an outside chance that the changes can be made in time for forth year.

After the meeting, there was Nogami... boring as usual.... then physics labs. I actually did some work on the first day, which is very surprising. I think I figured out how to take data, the key is to figure out what to do with it. Some sort of meiseler effect crap with hardcore E and M. To help me figure the stuff out, I took out a few of the reference books from the library. One of them is "Introduction to Solid State Physics" by Kittel (the same guy from thermal physics). Where has this book been? What the hell have we been doing in the first part of phys elec, atoms now, and random points in nanostructures. Just give us a course with this book. Holy crap. This is a core course... this is nano. Someone needs to tell perovic and cheng.

okay.. so I think I get nano a bit more or am at least able state that I am in.. Solid state physical and chemical, materials and electical engineering..... that's the working title for now. That'll shut them up when they ask what nano is.

gtg.. bye bye for today

A fitting end to pi day...

2005-03-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's Pi Day, don't ask me how I heard about this but today is March 14.... still don't get it?!? 3/14... 3.14.. I know, it's pretty lame, what's worse is pi approximation day, July 22, or 22/7 an approximation to pi.. k.... enough of that...

so, what else is new... I must mention jesterhats unfortunate leaving of a radioactive sample under the muon tank. A big no no. I hope Tack et. al don't blow up at you.. If in doubt... blame someone, I suggest Roger, as he was working with radioactive samples with compton and he doesn't read the blogs so he can't get mad at me. I used to have that luxury with saigin..

24.... it was again pretty good tonite. They're now trying it seems to counteract some of the stereotypes the show is projecting, namely that all people of middle eastern desent are terrorists. Two random middle eastern guys helped Jack take on a bunch of commandos, but not without a whole speech of how the two were going to stand up for their country... blah.. blah... blah.... I'm glad they're making an effort but they can be a bit more discrete...

Lastly, tommorow morning it the much anticipated nano vs cheng meeting. It of course won't live up to the hype but you can never go wrong with muffins and juice. It'll be great, combining two things I love... free food and complaining. Kind of like george did with the whole sex, food and tv fiasco on seinfeld....

that's all for now.

bye bye

compton finished, raps go insane...

2005-03-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here on a Sunday night... chilling. Yes, Sunday night... no problems sets, no labs, I'm finished it all.. I think I'm starting to like school again. It's great when there's no work to do.

So it turns out the compton scattering lab wasn't bad at all. It was made a whole bunch easier thanks to people like Saigin and Jesterhat (thanks guys). I hope "guy with glasses" doesn't go wacko on me in the interview, if not, I don't see why I shouldn't smoke the lab.

Speaking of physics profs, I probably told you all about this but NMR/Aperiodic guy was in the toronto star. Although it had nothing to do with his research it was about his teaching, which people do not at all value enough at the university level. We almost show disrespect to instructors or lecturers just because they're not of professor status. It should be the reverse. I'm in my undergrad, I'm here to learn, teaching is top priority. Screw UT in its we don't give a crap if you can't speak english as long as you publish policy. Now I can see why pure undergrad places like Simon Fraser are good places to learn, there are no pompous profs who take lecturing as a royal pain in the ass thing they do inbetween their research.

Onto the raps. They were INSANE today. Threes raining from everywhere. Donyell Marshall was on fire. All he needed to do was walk over to the corner behind the three point line, wait.... get the ball and shoot. Philly really sucked it up on defence. The guy was on fire and they did nothing. I'm not complaining... it was extrememly entertaining and Donyell picked up an NBA record in the process. I guess I'm still holding onto that very outside chance that the raps can make the playoffs. You never know with this team. They can lose to the hawks one night and tie a franchise high in points the next. With the leafs gone, toronto needs a team to get behind. April is going to feel very dull without the usual hockey playoffs to keep us all entertained, it would be great for the raps to fill some of that void.

that's all for today.
bye bye

revenge of the profs?!?

2005-03-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was... interesting.

Not your typical Friday to say the least. I actually slept in for once, which I frequently get the opporunity to do but rarely take advantage of. There's always some BS lab or assignment to take care of, but things are looking good for once, it seems like clear sailing, at least until finals...

About 30 mins before I had to head out for my TEM lab, I was given the star wars torrent. Under normal circumstances, downloading a 60 mb file off BT in 20 mins would seem difficult, but I guess revenge of the sith brings out everyone's benevolent side. The trailer was pretty amazing, tons of special effects, some natalie portman, and some insane fight scenes. The trailer and ceph (a surprising star wars fanatic) also helped me make some connections. I never realized that palpatine was that nasty evil looking emperor guy. I'm now very excited about the May 18th opening.

So, the TEM lab... ahhh.. it was three hours of extreme boredom, which I could normally handle.. BUT... when you are with two other people who seem interested it just makes things worse. We were cooped up in some stuffy room for 2 hours with a faint ethanol smell, a compressor that periodically turns on and off and lighting that constantly needed to be changed. Think about it, it was a damn torture chamber. .. I'm just glad I have that lab over with, it's not something I want to repeat, hence the underlying advice, avoid the TEM for grad school and thesis if at all possible.

Then there was of course the piece de resistance, eng sci basketball. We probably shouldn't have played but some strings were pulled and our crap ass team was the given the opportunity to fall flat on our faces. I'll mention the highlights.

- Getting smoked by the prof team, 7-0.. but I "inadvertently" knocked Cheng to the floor (that made it all worthwhile)
- Saigin getting hit in the head on a rebounded ball
- Pier sending me a pass through someone's legs, a good idea, but I had no idea PO was capable of such things, so I missed it
- Us TYING a team, 2-2, and it wasn't some shitty team they had some skill, we just worked harder.

Overall, it was fun. I of course want to play in future tournamants I only hope we can make some drastic improvements and be more competitive.

that's all for now.. I apologze for the shitty posting, not feeling so great with a slight headache and sore everything (thanks to bball)

bye bye

Blogging is good!

2005-03-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

Why might you ask?

Two specific instances from today will help me elaborate:

(1) ESC Midterm
I had no trouble at all (trying out the bold) writing BS. It just flowed out of me. I was very relaxed and able to write a bunch. Most of it is probably crap but I don't give a damn, hopefully AC will just look at the sheer amount and conclude that I know what's going on. I must apologize to mmm-donut. I was sitting next to him and I think I made him a bit nervous with my pages and pages of writing. Soo.. in this regard, blogging has helped remove the middle man between thinking and writing. The little man inside who mans the gate between the two processes is out for lunch, taking a break, watching TV, whatever...

(2) Cheng appointment
My complaints about nano might be useful after all... WOW! We're going to meet with her next week and I will bring forth all of my complaints. Maybe she can do something about it. And thanks to blogging I have a bunch of complaints ready to go, all I need to do is print them off, it'll be 4 per page on duplex but it'll be with me when we go in for the talk. Damn ECF print quota. Damn Kai Langstrom, bastard kept on changing the notes, and Damn nogami whose lecture notes can easily make up an entire textbook but somehow still manage to explain nothing..

I must also mention that I watched the contender today. It was very good indeed. Lots of excitement and action. Check it out..

back to compton, bye bye

OC vs. OTH ...

2005-03-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

The age old battle, two of the best shows on TV.. but which one is better?

This is a very time dependent question.

So, I will look at different stretches and compare.

(1) First half of season 1

OTH - I watched these shows in about a span of two nights and I don't think I've ever seen better TV. The first few episodes were alrite but once the storylines kicked in it was great. Peyton, Lucas, Brooke, Nathan, Haley, the love PENTAGON!! that was insane.

OC - also good, but it took more time for the show to develop. The whole summer and seth thing wasn't really there, which is all I really care about with that show.

So.. round 1 goes to OTH

(2) Second half of season 1

OTH - started off great was moving ahead really well but started slowing down. Lucas was getting comfortable with the whole haley thing, we saw less basketball, there was Brooke pregnancy thing and nathan divorce crap. Still good but not great.

OC - really started to take over. There was the oliver stuff, more crap, seth and summer getting together. I just remember it being good... really good.

Round 2 to OC.

(3) Up until now..

OTH - developing some insane storylines. As it stands now the whole town is up in smoke with Jules, Brooke, Karen, Andy... very crazy stuff. I still don't like the felix and anna stuff and what the hell happened to the basketball?

OC - kinda slow at the start.. but with summer and seth, the spiderman stuff.. AMAZING...

OC takes this one..

(4) Future..

I have to give it to OTH, there seem to be a lot more storylines in play. All I see in OC is "MORE OF THE SAME", seth and summer (which I like), but marissa and ryan..?? wtf.. new characters?? wtf.. More Julie?? I don't like that.. OC has to do develop some new concrete storylines to win me back.

I give this one to OTH..

So... all tied up then. Girls? I only like Brooke and Summer and I'm pretty split on that one. Other charcters? I like seth, I think everyone does... but he's the only one on OC... in OTH I like Lucas, Nathan and Andy... so, I can't say much on that.

right now as it stands I'm looking to the future.. so I choose OTH.. sorry hornyhamster..

I wanna work for google...

2005-03-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

Sooo.. mr. ummm-dounut and I attended the google info session today in hopes of getting free stuff and... we did! We both ended up with some pizza, cookies and a google pen/t-shirt. Google continues to be one of the places where I want to work, it's too bad they don't do anything nano-related. Perhaps some mems or neoms that search for stuff, I know, it's a stretch. Besides free lunch and dinner and the friendly work environment, you're allowed to spend 20% of your free time working on whatever you want... For instance, google news and maps both started as "20% percent projects". It's a place that really cultivates creativity.

hmmm.. what else.. okay for PO, I'll throw in the lame physics guy pick up line

"Hi, why don't you in I go into the raman effect room and pretend we're taking data"... hahaha.. yes yes.. very funny.

Eng sci basketball is this friday.. but .. we need a girl!!, not the p diddy song type girl but one who plays basketball. Actually.. they don't even need to play basketball, we'll take anybody.. we're taking PO and Saigin so the standards are already pretty low (j/k guys...). If they can dribble and pass ( I mean both of those in the most basic sense ), we'd be more than happy. That's the story of eng sci, like three girls who play basketball and they're all taken within a moment's notice.

wow.. I actually got through a blog without complaining about nano.. I can't have that... so on that note.

third year nano still sucks.

bye bye

Mr. Speaker... the President of the United States..

2005-03-08T17:29:00.000-08:00

Compton was actually going well today. We were getting some nice peaks, getting a bunch of data (thanks to Jesterhat) and then the dude with glasses walks in. He's soo random. It's like he comes in to complain. He saw us using one apparatus and kept on insisting that the other was working this morning. I don't give a crap, it wasn't working then. He's such an asshat. We have to get data some time and I'm not going to waste my time with a piece of crap spectrum analyzer. There's just too much wrong with that guy, I don't understand how he can function as a prof.

Onto the subject of this blog, good quality political tv shows. They're great. The West Wing specifically. Whenever I watch that show, I end up wanting to work in the white house.. but then I remember I'm Canadian.. damn. So, I could end up working at... hmmm.. what do they call it in canada.. the canadian parliament buildings?.. wtf... I don't want to work there.. BUT, I also realize that if I were to work at the white house it'd be for someone like George Dubya Bush... fucking great. Why can't the leader of the free world be smart? Is there no one out of the some odd 300 million that's smart and a leader? Look at the west wing and jack & bobby, those are real presidents.

man.. I wish life were like TV. I'd be rich, there'd be hot girls in all of my classes, I'd go to all these crazy parties and if it did rain it's be so that I could mimic spiderman and kiss someone like summer. DAMN!!! Life sucks, TV's great...

bye bye

The following takes place between....

2005-03-08T04:44:00.000-08:00

Michelle is back!!!, 24 is absoloutley insane. The excitement never ends. After what seemed to be a lackluster episode after 40 mins came some of the best 20 mins the show had this season. It's not just the pure action that drives the show (alhtough that is pretty amazing), they seem to build character conflicts that are played out in the midst of it all. There's now Michelle and Tony with their whole history and Jack, Audrey and Paul with their love triangle. To top it all off they've put Jack into another new impossible situation, trapped in a building with important information while being chased by security guards with no electricity thanks to the EMP. Can't wait till next week.... TV is what keeps me going in the horror that is third year nano.

Again, I will bitch about school, frankly because it's sort of therapeutic in the sense that it relieves stress. So, I think I can make a case for nano being the most difficult option in eng sci. In the world of university I believe there to be (4) types of courses (cracking out the rhetorical toolbox):

(1) An essay writing type course eg. philosiphy, english.. etc.
(2) A reading, memorizatioon type course eg. typical life sci course
(3) engineering course, understand formulas apply them to solve problems eg. thermodynamics, circuits, signals
(4) hardcore thinking and problem-solving eg. quantum mechanics, advanced classical mechanics.. etc..

The typical outside observer would choose (4) as being the most difficult and they would be right. But that's not the full story. A typical intelligent person will be good at one or two of these courses. Those who become doctors will destroy type (2) courses, physicists will be good at (4), but reverse the courses ie. put the doctor in (4) and physicist in (2) and you'd be looking at some bad gpa. That's nano. Biomeds get (2) and (3), Physicists (3) and (4) but Nanos get (2), (3) and (4). I ask you to find someone who can memorize like crazy and still destroy quantum, you'd be looking at very few number of hard-working geniuses. We're destined to do bad. Each type course requires a different method of studying and mental preparation. You spend one week prepping for something insanely difficult, try to read everything you can, search the web etc.. to understand a key concept, finish the exam then move onto memorizing one hundred pages of BS. It can't happen. It's very difficult to adjust your mindset and focus so quickly. I agree that physics and say electrical engineering are hard but they can concentrate on doing things one way, approaching problems the same way and using the same thinking because all the courses are designed and approach as all the others. We don't have that luxury..
I hate third year nano..

bye bye

Britney and Alan.

2005-03-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

So, what does one do with the first weekend in a long time where the work does not seem insurmountable?.... blow it off. I watched a bunch of CSI Miami this weekend thanks to my sister. She's a big CSI fan and after quickly finishing off the normal CSI episodes (about 4 season's worth), she's moved up to CSI Miami which is actually pretty good. Every episode is big, there don't seem to be any simple killings in Miami. Everything from serial killers and rapists to snipers was covered in the first ten episodes. It's a show that quenches the need for action, mystery and the display of good winning over bad (typically) in 40 mins. This brings me to seeing ceph's display of a news article that quoted Britney Spears stating that she wanted to be a forensic scientist of course inspired by the CSI tv show. I can't really picture her digging through trash for hours looking for something that might not even be there or watching countless hours of video looking for a mysterious person but if she wants to do it.. go ahead.... I know I wouldn't mind providing her with lots of personal tutoring.

Now that I've wasted my Saturday, I'm now "working hard" on my formal lab that's due tommorow. I'm finding it difficult. There is a lot of stuff I need to cover and I'm not sure I can spell it all out without writing a boring textbook. I think I'm going to need to resort to the famous "beyond the scope of this lab" phrase. Knowing Alan aka "the bastard" (or whatever hornyhamster calls him), he'll probably dock me or something. screw him.. I don't care anymore. It's almost impossible to find a comprimise between sounding mickey mouse and being unclear. And those damn principles.. sure.. wtf is mastering the sentence rythm. Does my formal lab need to double as the lyrics to a Megadeth song? Actually.. it probably could, no one knows what they're saying anyways... (directed at you jesterhat)..

gtg.. bye bye

edit: yes, I know I make spelling/gammar mistakes, but I don't care, it's a blog.. not english!!

My abstract

2005-03-04T04:42:00.000-08:00

Quantum Electrodynamics and its relation to the periodicity of reciprocal space nanocrystaline materials using perturbed variational methods with russel-saunders coupling is a hot-topic in many rheological studies to date. This paper will dive into the issuue by examining the Hamltonian related perturbations using nanocharacterization methods such as the SEM, TEM, SAD, XPS, XRD, AES, EDX and WDS. The results are surprising. They contradict the earlier multidimensional Hamiltonian polymer work of Juilofik and Smith [1]. The problem lies in the evaluation of the superconductor based cooper pairs of the polymer in relation to its degree of crystallization and breadth of molecular weight found using simple GPC methods. Finally it is reccommended that this is all complete BS and I fucking hate third year nano.

forgot to post yesterday... oh no!

2005-03-04T04:14:00.000-08:00

Damn, there goes the streak... I honestly don't know what happened. All I remember is reading about "the principles of writing" and then somehow waking up the next morning. The long Thursday coupled with no OC and Communications is a deadly combination.

Damn FOX. They had to put the reruns on. I hate it when they claim they're doing something special when all they're doing is pulling out episodes from the archives. "Back to Back" OC episodes, complete BS. It is all just one big scam. I somehow think it has to do with the star wars trailer they're going to show during next weeks fresh OC (to steal a WB term). They can be certain that next week will have a large viewing audience both to watch the OC and to watch the trailer so the two will be able to feed off of each other. Star Wars of course wants to be the big movie of the summer and OC is trying to introduce some new characters which can cause the loss of casual viewers unless they watch the episode in which they were introduced. All one big scam. I prefer 24, two-hour premiere, 20 weeks straight, two-hour finale.

okay.. what else.. see that's why you must post on the same day you're writing about! I must have some sort of maximum memory capacity and long since cleared out the bad long-term memories and BS coursework. For instance, we had to sign a going away card for cheng today. When I was trying to think up crap I hit a roadblock. What the hell did we learn in that class? All I could remember was the dipping bird which Adrienne had already written about, some sort of adiabatic cave and that Sid Smith room we had class in. Not much material to crack a joke about. We learned garbage back then but I sure as hell miss that bell!

gotta go read about LEEDS

more wasted time..

2005-03-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

I always seem to find ways to screw myself from getting ahead. I tried to make an effort in getting my formal lab done but it just wasn't happening today. Crap just always takes longer then I intend, which discourages me and then sends me off doing something else. For instance, the formal lab requires a lot of organization and planning that I did not realize. And not to mention my need to draw nice diagrams in illustrator, which is great for making that perfect diagram but it entails an insane amount of time.

Following the frustration of the lab came some of the raptors game and resume help for some second round PEYers and others. If I'm skipping a year I'm going to make it my personal mission to get others to do the same. So any blog readers out there who need someone to read over their resume or cover letter, contact me and I'd be glad to help.

k... so today was an overall quite frustrating thanks to the physics lab. Damn peak analyzer stopped working on me and NO ONE knows what's wrong. Bailey and is clueless and Mirco the genuis TA is dumbfounded. I hope that it somehow magically works when I come in on Friday. Otherwise Tack is my only hope. I'd hate to be the one who broke the analyzer after 25 years of faithful service, it's not something I want to be remembered for.

kind of tired, need to work on lab and must wake up early to book tennis courts.

bye bye.

campaign, grad school, lab, oth..

2005-03-01T21:27:00.000-08:00

So, I finally had some free time today to help out a friend of mine with his SAC campaign. It didn't amount to much besides handing out flyers and quoting the random BS one liners "He'll reduce metropass lines", "He'll make SAC more accountable". It actually all seems like a lot of crap, no one seems to care, less then 10% of the student body votes and it's all very disorganized. But I did learn of a person who commutes from Barrie to Toronto everyday. HOLY SHIT THAT'S far. It's soo far that even jesterhat can say it's far. Whitby seems pretty close by comparison. That guy is nuts, he must sit on a greyhound bus for at least 4 hours a day. Not a great way to enjoy university. He's just one of the extreme commuter cases. If you look at a guy like him you can understand why people are apathetic.

Following the campagining came the grad school talk. It was more crap. Fucking advice they gave. They were almost discouraging people from applying to places. I hate it when they reassure people with high marks. THEY DON'T NEED REASURRANCE YOU IDIOTS! What is the point in saying something like "If you have 90% you don't need to worry", honestly like ten people have that in eng sci and trust me they're not worried. I did learn however why grad school at UT is not so bad after all. You're pretty much paid for whether you get an NSERC/OGS or not. If you get decent marks, maybe even over 75 you get about 20k a year, which is easily enough to live off of. Not bad. I don't see a reason for not doing grad school in that case, even if it is at UT.

I'll skip the lab which was a bunch of playing around with some radioactive samples and go to OTH.

WARNING OTH SPOILERS AHEAD!!! I'm talking to you hornyhamster!

It was crazy tonight.. so many things are happening. I could not have predicted any of it and I have no idea where it's going. Brooke might leave, Nathan is on his way to Haley to either get back together or ask for a divorce, Deb has gone crazy, Karen is now the evil one, and Keith... well.. he's just screwed all around. I have no doubt that oth will have an amazing conclusion. I don't know if I can say that for OC in which there aren't many storylines right now, only ryan and marissa really.

k.. enough out of me.. g'nit

range of emotions..

2005-02-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

Yes, all in one day can one go through a range of emotions. Indifference to Anger to Excitement to Exaustion. Fucking third year nano.

In the hours before the midterm I was fed up. Three days of stress for 50 mins, it's BS. The timing ratio is totally out of whack. So of course I just wanted to get it all over with. I was done trying to figure out his horrbile class notes and make sense of all the quantum numbers. Try reading through a quantum book with not being able to tell the difference between S (the operator), S (the coupled spin eignevalue) and S (the single electron eigenvalue) and you just might end up killing yourself.

So, during and after the midterm I was pissed. It did not at all reflect what we had supposedly learned over the term. The questions were very specific to some obscure concepts he talked about in lecture and did not test much of our understanding. I honestly could've studied the night before and done better. I hate not having the bell, I've gotten so comfortable to riding it that I've forgotten my perfectionist ways of high school. DAMN!! I probably got destroyed on the midterm so I'm gonna have to look forward to another 100% final.

It is of course still Monday so there's always 24 to get me hyped up. It was a farily eventful episode tonight. They finally got to the override and were able to prevent the last power plants from melting down, Driskles daughter committed suicide and they are hot on the heels of the terrorist leader.

Lastly, I'm tired... g'nite.

Third year bitching...

2005-02-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

oh no.... don't you just hate it when you're so sick of studying that you start wondering about the whole damn university system. Actually no, it's just another form of proccrastination, and I love that.

Soooo, what are the ways to be successful in third year?
a) Be a genius, not just your run of the mill definition which would probably encompass all of those who get above class average in n sci.
b) Work like a MOFO and I don't mean go to class do your homework go to sleep and repeat. I mean cut sleep out of the equation go to every office hour you can, sit next to the geniuses from part a) and become addicted to crack.
c) There is no c)... shit.. I'm fucked!

Third year is such a bitch. So much worse than first and second year. We're learning difficult meaningless crap with horrbile teaching and textbooks. And it feels like I'm still a complete dumbass. I remember quite clearly in grade 10 how I was pissed of at my teacher for giving us some crap about ionization energy trends on the periodic table. "Shielding" was what she told us.. sure that's just total BS. Well, it turns out it isn't!! We can't solve crap. We take such horrible approximations for Helium. Helium goddamnit!! We can't even touch the hyperfine splitting of Hydrogen (fucking Z=1) because it's too complicated and we need Born and Oppenheimer for H2. Man .. that deeper meaning I was looking for does not exist. I definitely don't want to go into physics... good luck jesterhat, I saw what you need to take next year, quantum II, relativity I... you're going to get smoked.

Screw it all.. I'm going to bed.

champagne supernova.... (not biting hornyhamster)

2005-02-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

As I was sprawled out on my bed very much annoyed with atoms I began to hear my roomate singing along to champagne supernova.. this of course reminded me (thanks to hornyhamster) that there's always procrastination and it's available in the form of blogging.

Actually a pretty uneventful day thanks to atoms. Besides wasting two and half of hours watching as good as it gets I've been trying to study. While watching the movie a bunch of random cheesy commercials were aired. I guess TBS has lowered its standards. I've actually always been a fan of the infomercial genre. It's absolutely great. You can lie, make up corny puns and invent random payment plans that will somehow can get a lazy ass coach potato to pick up the phone and buy your garbage. It's an art form really. Whenever there was an option of doing a presentation in high school we would somehow try to spin it towards an infomercial. It's so easy and fun. All you need is a scientific type guy who is willing to lie through his teeth, a complete idiot who will buy the scientific guys crap, a deep voice over that continually adds on the stupidest products as an additional incentive and the famous payment plan.

I'm not sure how effective the infomercials are but there has to be better way. I remember from the movie the Truman Show they went completely commerical free by advertising IN THE SHOW. It doesn't even need to be that obvious. For instance, I'm sure that bagel consumption is on the rise in no small part due to the OC. Also, if you look closely most of the computers on TV are macs. Perhaps in the near future we'll see seth cohen lace up some nikes, throw on levis jeans and drink some cold pepsi instead of hearing about in the break. As long as the end product is less commericals and more OC I don't mind at all.

Anyways, that's all for me...

Burgess to the rescue...

2005-02-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

I just checked my e-mail and to my surprise it turns out I still have a decent shot of recieving a chem nserc (I know... we got notifications of denile but professor Walker informed me that I was on some sort of wait list). Normally, I would regress and regret my decision to take a pey position .... BUT.. Burgess to the rescue. YES that same old man from first year chem!

I think I need to clarify. Tonight was the night of the N Sci "industry dinner". It's actually just an excuse to get companies to pay for dinner but nonetheless it was an interesting night. The guest speaker was not your typical N Sci.. a successful wealthy businessman. I normally don't pay much attention to guest speakers but this guy seemed to help put things in perspective. He reitarted many times that we are a product of our experiences and that we must ensure that these are vast and wideranging. Ideas change, industries change but someone with a solid base and good experiences will always be in demand and sought after. Success should not be measured by how many years it takes you to get a phd but how many challenges you've overcome along the way. I have the opportunity to learn about business and get paid in the process, PEY is the right decision for me.

Following the guest speaker was a presentation of a lifetime contribution award to Prof. Burgess. Here was a man who has been teaching for FIFTY years. After he stopped teaching he TAed and after he stopped TAing he gave extra-help sessions. A man who truly loves his work. After recieving his award he slowly made his way to the podium and mumbled just one sentence "I got from more you then you got from me". WTF... I need to find something like that for me... I can only be so glad to end up like him in my old age, reflecting on my life and realizing that I made a difference. A new experience and a new environment will help me find my path.

No more doubts!!!

I gotta get back to atoms...

Prof mad, MSEasy, New Polymer Man, Atoms trouble and OC insanity..

2005-02-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

A normal crazy thursday.

So..
Prof Mad
The prof who I was supposed to work for in the summer sent me back an e-mail and sounded a bit upset that I was declining the NSERC. He supposedly was in close contact with the undergrad office and helped my application along. Honestly, I don't give a crap. I told him at the very beginning that I could not make any sort of commitment and he told me in clear plain english that I was allowed at anytime to walk away from the project. He claims that he could've found another student. Again, that's complete BS. There's no one else who approached him before the nserc deadline, he's just bitter. I normally don't like to piss off people as you never know when it might come back and haunt you but I guess it's too late with him. Ah well....

MSEasy
I called it, the midterm was easy. The calculation section was a joke. The characterization stuff was alright but overall I expect a pretty high average. Damn Nogami doesn't know what nsci's are capable of. I predict he'll come after us in the final to prove that the stuff we're learning isn't mickey mouse, some sort of ego thing I'm sure.

New Polymer Man
Bye Bye Kai, hello manners. The materials lecture was pretty informative and interesting today, a MILLION times better than Kai. There's still a bunch to memorize but at least I'll have a good understanding which I hope will make studying a bit more bearable.

Atoms Trouble
I'm in trouble for atoms, plain and simple. I've got a ton to read and no motivation. DAMN!!!!!

OC insanity
I knew it.. Seth and Summer are back together. It was pretty corny with the whole spiderman rip off but whatever that's OC. I'm glad to see Sandy has dropped Rebecca but not that we may be headed for Marissa and Ryan hooking up again. We're going to end up right where we started!!! They'll be introducing new characters.. blah blah and possibly some more teen pregnancy crap.. more blah blah.... OC needs to build some good storylines if they want to compete with OTH.

Maybe I should go read some atoms....

Day before MSE.. I should be studying!!

2005-02-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

but I cannot miss a post... I must keep the streak alive!

It has actually been quite an eventful day.

Following a bunch of MSE studying of XPS, AES, XRD, SEM, TEM, STEM, CBED, SAM, TED, OIM... ( I just wanna show off all the acronyms I now know!!), I had to present for the second time in ESC.

It really sucked. I practiced at least three times... and every time I came in at about 6-6.5 mins but I somehow ended up at 5 (with the alotted time at 6 mins). I was dying at the end. After the realization that I was going to be way under time I started stretching my crap information which put me into a downwards spiral of stumbling and akward pauses. DAMN!!! Normally I wouldn't care too much but the TA is a real bitch for time. BASTARD!!!

The day got even worse when I found out I was awarded an MIE nserc, which is complete BS because I cannot accept it due to PEY. At least I didn't get the chem nserc that would've really pissed me off... those are much more prestigous and difficult to get.

There's a bunch more for me to talk about, but I don't have the time.

I'll write more after Monday (Atoms mmidterm)

Leroy Wells

2005-02-23T06:03:00.000-08:00

Leroy Wells.. can you dig it.. too bad he got arrested.. he could've been famous!

Second day.. more randomness.

2005-02-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

ahhhhh... life stinks right now.. I hate studying for materials. There's too much information and I don't seem to be taking any of it in. So many damn characterization techniques that all seem the same to me. Electrons going in and electons coming out.... Sometimes there are ions and x-rays involved but how the hell am I supposed to remember that. I hope nogami takes it easy on us... he probably will which will send the class average very high and then he'll come after us on the final... damn... I don't want to think about finals, I know it's going to be a very tough time. Last term was pure insanity around exam time it took me the whole chirstmas break to get back to my usually lazy self.

hmmmm.. what else... we sort of blew off the physics lab today as it's the first one of a new experiment and no one really cares unless you're on the few keeners. Again, after some more nano grad school talk I am even more certain that I want to go away for grad school, as far away as I can get from UT. It's so damn competitive and impresonal here and if I have to walk through SF or Bahen one more day than I need to I'm seriously going to shoot myself. I hope all the third nanos get into good grad schools and hook me up when I get back from pey. It'd be absoloutley amazing if a bunch of us ended up at the same school. I guess I'm always looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. I recall an upper year comparing Eng Sci to the Shawshank Redemption, I don't think he could more right. But the thing is they actually escaped from the prison at the end and wound up on a nice beach.. to truly complete the story I need to get out UT and go down to UC Berkley or Stanford or somewhere else.

I hope my undergrad has an ending like the movie....... a happy one.

I know.. two times in a day..

2005-02-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Okay.. so we got our midterm and assignment back.

We got railed on the assignment and I did surpisingly decent on the midterm. Imagine if I had that old midterm.... I would've DESTROYED that exam. I HATE THE PROF!!

However, a bunch of people I know got nailed on the midterm. Which would be okay normally.. but with a 77% class average.. not a good thing. I imagine the biomeds had the goods and didn't share with nanos. DAMN BIOMEDS!!!

That is all..

First Posting.. cue cheesy music and opening credits

2005-02-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

It's my first posting..

I'm with hornyhaster in the ecf lab waiting for economics to start, so I decided to start a web blog. I was thinking about going in late to the early class but it's always so damn packed. Lazy ass nanos and phys can't wait an hour.

We're getting back our midterm and project back today... I don't think I did well in either. I hate the prof, he's such a bastard. He does a good job on lecturing but he reused the midterm from the previous semester, so unless you somehow luckily looked at that specific midterm you're kind of screwed. I HATE HIM!!! Why do we need to memorize such worthless crap, like what goes on a balance sheet.... MAN.. I hate it when they expect you to understand and learn for soooo long and then expect us to memorize like a life science student whenever they feel like it. ECON and MATERIALS... HORRIBLE courses.

Hornyhamster also told me that Kai our Materials prof only marked half of the midterms and somehow came up with a mark for the other half. BS holistic marking. I can't complain too much though, I didn't study much for that midterm and still ended up with a decent mark. That was some week with all those PEY interviews and that materials chem exam, I'm glad I came out alive...

Which brings me on to the whole idea that I always feel the situation I am in at the current moment was way worse than what it was before. As it stands now I feel more screwed that I've ever been, but I seem to recall thinking that a few weeks ago and a few weeks before that... etc.. This sort of reminds me of the guy in office space who told his shrink that each day in his life got progressively worse, so in fact each day he lived was the worst day of his life. I don't think I can honestly say that each subsequent day is tougher than the last but it sometimes feel like that. I sometimes wonder when it will get easier.. if it ever will!!! When will all the hard work pay off?!?!? It probably never will in the sense that things will be easier, knowing the type person I am I will always take on that new challenge, the harder job, the harder assignment... Eng sci is pretty much the story of my life....

Sooo.. what else... I guess I have 24 to look forward too tonight. Jack has to save Beruz in order to get his mom to talk about the where the remote controlling device is. I just hope they bring back Michelle and hopefully Kim. I'm not a big fan of Erin Driskel or Edgar Stiles...

Okay, that's enough for my first post.

See ya.