Published on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 .
Man, it’s so close it’s killing me. Also killing me is the fact that the prof has yet to tell us how we did on our projects! The whole Global Media (Political Science, an elective) course is based entirely on three things. The midterm was worth 30%, the project another 30% and Friday’s final exam will be worth 40%. I scored 88% on the midterm and only one person beat me by 2%. While that’s all well and good I want to know where I stand so I have a better clue about how much sleep I’m going to lose before the final. With the Olympics going on my hours are all over the place and I’m lucky the exam is an evening one. I sent the prof an e-mail yesterday asking when we’ll receive our project marks that he promised he’d have ‘a few days’ after the end of the course. I know profs generally hate those type of e-mails but, too bad, it’s been more than a few days now :(
I feel a little stressed right now since I was so unproductive yesterday. I mean, I did a lot of stuff but it wasn’t study-related. I took a 2 hour nap in the sun, found out there was something wrong with my credit card and managed to get it fixed without tearing out all my hair or going broke, found some $4 s-video cables I needed, I figured out how to output through said s-video cables to my Canon XL2 , then had to use a ridiculous plethora of tricks to get colour output since it was reverting to black and white cause SCART is stupid, and I was gonna start figuring out how to record sound from my newly-split PC output on the XL2 while in VCR mode but I was rapt watching the amazing triathlon last night and then decided to try and sleep.
On a related note, I do not like when classes require you to go out and find papers that aren’t available in the library or handed out as course material. Yes, research is an important skill and absolutely vital when you are writing papers that require at least 5 scholarly sources but I get annoyed when the whole class has to fight to get their hands on the single copy the prof places in the office for us. I’d gladly pay a little extra at the bookstore for a courseware pack in order to avoid this headache every single week. This also makes review at the end a serious pain when you want to reread stuff and the articles go missing. GAH. I want it to be Friday.
Published on Sunday, August 17, 2008 .
Published on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 .
Mountain Biking! Links, videos, personal experiences, it’s all good! I used to actually be an avid mountain/rough trail biker in Etobicoke since I was close to Centennial Hill and loved being alone out in the wooded areas and parks. Much to the eternal chagrin of my parents I’d be out there for hours until the sun went down and I’d stumble back home. Once in a while me and/or my bike would even be in good condition. See, I’m not much of a technical rider, yet. I’m one of those “too fast for my own good but thankfully has the reflexes to balance it out a little” riders. I have developed a little bit of foresight over the years but I know it’s my instincts that save me when things feel a little out of control. Case in point, I managed to find and fall off of one of the few cliffs in Etobicoke and still managed to walk away. I had to carry my bike home and get a new helmet but I was otherwise unhurt ;)
So this fall I’ve made the difficult decision to not bring my hockey gear back to campus. It’s not that I didn’t have fun last year playing with my brother, mind you. I guess my tolerance for BS in hockey has again reached an all time low. Yes, I’m a girl. Yes, I play guys hockey. No, I’m not a superstar but, no, I don’t suck. It doesn’t matter that I’m a defender with a zillion assists and blocked shots, I’m still “just a girl” and that’s not going to change here. I also don’t have the time to spare to go for Varsity since I’ll be taking on a very heavy courseload going into my second year. I’ve spent a lot of time the past month planning my fall semester very carefully and by Thursday (I hope!) it should be all set. Anyway, not to drone on about academics since that comes later this week, I was scouring through all our club and sports listings trying to find a suitable replacement for hockey and my best friend totally came through with an awesome suggestion.
She’s been bugging me for years now about racing with her on the inter-university mountain bike circuit. Now that I’m actually in school I can finally go for it and realized that it’d be perfect for me this year (even though my parents are probably screaming right now as they read this)! A Windsor student has competed in this circuit in the past but it was only one guy, literally, and he appears to have graduated. So I wrote the head of the league to ask about getting started and, next thing I know, I’m the official Windsor rep. Woo! The organizer did his undergrad at Windsor so in my last e-mail I had to ask him for an ideas of where to train since this town is as flat as bowling alley. Of course, now I need to look at maybe getting a new bike (or at least borrowing one) if mine isn’t suited to these courses and I have some paperwork and advertising to do to start an official club at Windsor so it’s not just me racing. At the very least, I am allowed to compete with or without official backing and still have any points I earn count for me as an individual and as a team if that happens down the line :)
Are you an avid mountain biker? Do you ride as a hobby? Talk to me in the comments!
Published on Monday, August 11, 2008 .
Wednesday Night: arrive back in Toronto, promptly fall asleep around 4am
Thursday Morning: more sleep
Thursday Afternoon: Hung out with Darren and Shannon and showed them a little around Etobicoke including one of my favourite places to eat ever since I was a little kid, Il Paesano’s.
Thursday Night: Took them to the brand new Second City Toronto show, Barack to the Future. Good time was had by all.
Friday Morning: yup, sleepy time.
Friday Lunch: We got together with NDA and chatted about NDA and got a look around NDA so we NDA, NDA, and NDA‘d. It was loads of fun; wish you were there ;)
Friday Afternoon: Shannon had never been to the Eaton Centre on any of her previous trips to Toronto so, obviously, we had to correct that. D picked up some amazing slippers that I can’t wait for him to take photos of to share.
Friday Night: Got together with some friends and head out to the bar, as anyone on my twitter feed is probably well aware of. More good times ensued. Sadly had to part ways with D and Snubs since I had very important plans for Saturday. Continue reading ‘week/weekend timeline’
Published on Monday, August 4, 2008 .
Basically, it’s a day off.
Today is dedicated to doing my final project for the Political Science class I’m taking this summer session but I realized I wanted to ask the internet for advice about a non-school project I’m undertaking later this week. After I moved out of my apartment and before going back to school my parents graciously let me store all my extra stuff under the stairs in the basement. Over the past year I’ve been adding more stuff to that pile as I realized I could live without it, needed less clutter, needed less distractions around my dorm room. Now it’s become quite the little tech hideaway under there! NES, SNES, extra SNES, Cube, PS1, big PS2, slim PS2 and more with the boxes and boxes and boxes of games I own for it. Even my Virtual Boy. Yes, I have a Virtual Boy and a chunk of games for it. I got lucky at a hockey tournament as a kid and picked it up really cheap. It actually does have some great games, really!
Anyway, there’s also enough game posters down there to wallpaper all of campus, an old Tablet PC or two, cables for a zillion whoknowswhats, lots of gaming and anime mini-figures that no longer decorate my room, and on and on and on. Later this week I hope to go through EVERYTHING under there and figure out what to do with it. Since May(ish. maybe earlier) I’ve been working on simplifying my life as a personal goal and I think I’ve made some great strides that way. Since I don’t have an apartment anymore and don’t plan on one for a few more years I gave all my furniture to my brother in honour of his first place last year, so that took care of the easy stuff. It’s been really easy to give away clothes I haven’t worn since grade school. I love sharing books with people so I’ve been slowly paring my massive collection down to something that might actually fit in a single room — and people think I’m only a hardcore gamer. Surprise! Books rule :) — even if it’s not a dorm room. Now I’m down to the harder stuff, like games and tech, and everything else that I just chucked into boxes years ago thinking I’d need it again some unspecified day in the future.
So, yeah. I think a fire sale might be in order and I’m not sure how to go about doing it. Parish has had some luck on eBay but I’ve never sold anything on there before and I’m not sure it will be worth it. For the stuff I do find myself willing to part with I will be happier knowing that they’ve gone to good homes (aka: you guys and gals) instead of a garage sale so I will try and catalogue what I’ve got and what I’m giving up when I go back to see my parents.
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