Well, I made it back to Waterloo, yesterday at 4AM. I took the train down to TO Wed. and went to a New Year's party that night. We spent a few hours playing some fight game on a PS1. It was quite a lot of fun since for the first few hours we had no idea how to do anything. We were just pushing buttons. Then we discovered how to make the super moves and, well, the fights got more interesting to watch but it became harder for me to keep up with the other players.

In the news: Mad Cow fever seems to be back. This time in the US, although the rumours are flying that it's Canada's fault. Well, at least this time the US won't be forced to close it's border to Canadian cattle by the Japanese. I don't think the Japanese will be accepting beef form the US anyway. The cattle industries in the US and Canada are tied too closely. You really can't seperate them, apparently. Meanwhile, SARS seems to still be around in South East Asia. I don't suppose it'll be that long before we see it spreading again. The health systems of the world can't be everywhere at once....

Arrgh! The power supply on my webserver started going over the holidays. My flatmate noticed it, but I heard it this morning and decided to shut the machine off. Then I went out for the day. I got home about 7:30 and just spent the last two hours turning my workstation into the webserver. I think I'll get a new powersupply from quietpc.ca and put everything else back as was, but I haven't decided yet. I might just be rid of the old machine, leave my workstation as the webserver and go buy a laptop or something. A job would be nice first though.

In news about me: School started up again today. I think I've gone crazy. I decided today to try out taking six courses this term. I'm officially in 4th year, I started university 11 years ago, and I'm taking two first year classes, two second year and two third year. (Actually one of the second year classes is marked at UW as a third year but it's not. It's offered at WLU as a second year, so I won't call it a third year. I'll give the rundown on what type of courses they are another day. Right now I'm thinking about bed!

Well, taking 6 classes all at once seems to tell me I'm insane. I have to read over 200 pages this week... I'm sure I've gone crazy.

Monday I was talking to my academic advisor, and she suggested to me that I go to Librarian school and study Library Science. I told her I'd think about it. I know I'm not ready to do that right now. It's something to think about.

In the meantime, I've been told about a job that quite likely will be ready for me in May when I'm ready to work.

Today, I was looking into what I'm hoping to do during Reading Week. It looks really expensive, and I've got to make the decision within a week or two.

Okay, so I've got about a hundred of those pages read. Sleepy. I've got the weekend to read the other hundred pages and a few more pages for Monday's classes. I don't really predict getting that done, never mind the reading for Tuesday's classes. It looks like I'll be a bit behind for the next few weeks. :(

To describe one of my courses: Later Roman History. I haven't signed into this course yet. I'm waiting until next week. Also, I have not taken the prerequisite. This is considered a Medieval course according to my academic advisor, but the prerequisite is not. So I thought I'd just skip the prereq. The prof (who is also my advisor) said if I want to that's fine. So this week, I'm reading all the material that should be review to the people who have taken the prereq. Great fun. Laughs all round. I'm hoping that it'll be a good course, though I don't think it really gets into the Middle Ages, ending much too early in the Byzantine era. It would be nice if there was a course on the Byzantine Empire (aka the Eastern Roman Empire for the thousand years after the fall of the Western Empire in AD476).

In the news: it would seem that the milk cow in the US that had contracted mad cow came from Canada, but they have no idea how or when it contracted the disease. There seems to be nothing linking the cow last summer in Canada to the Christmas cow. Does that mean there are a whole lot of cattle out there with the disease but that these two are the only ones that were caught with it? Or that they were the only ones that caught it? Both seem unlikely. What happened may eventually come out, but I'm not holding my breath.

So, I've decided. I'm going to Holland for Reading Week. So far I haven't arranged a flight or anything, but it hopefully won't be too bad getting one.

For another course: Ancient Greek Society. It's the sixth course for the term. I'm taking it because a friend is in that class. I knew it wasn't that hard, so I thought I'd pick it up. It's a course on all the parts of ancient history from a birds eye view. I took the Ancient Roman Society and Early Medieval Society, so I have a good idea of what to expect on the exams. I figure I won't have too much of a problem. It's just an extra couple of hours reading each week for the first month and then at random times each week afterward. Not too hard.

So, I've finally got all my six courses registered. I was waiting for Hebrew to come through the system before I tried signing into the other two. I probably owe a bunch of money now. I've bought all my books and I'm ready to study for these courses now. Problem is that there's so many of them, and I won't be able to use Reading Week to catch up much since I won't be here.

Another course: Hebrew. This course is on various inscriptions found in the lands where people spoke and wrote Hebrew two thousand to thirty five hundred years ago. So far we've looked at the drawing of an inscription found in the tunnel that the Bible records Hezekiah had built to provide water for Jerusalem; an inscription from a tomb around the same time for a steward; and a plea from a guy that lost his garment because some guy claimed the author didn't do his work. Poor guy, he claimed he had done the work and wanted his garment back. Obviously, we have no way of knowing whether he did or not.

In the news: So far as I can count, there's only three possibilities for the leadership of the new Conservative Party. And the three of them not really big name people. It really doesn't look like they will be providing much of a challenge to Paul Martin and the Liberals whenever the election comes up. It's unfortunate that the NDP can't seem to offer much of a challenge either... Maybe we need a unite the non-Liberals party. Maybe that would give us a possibility of real choice at the federal level, but of course who would want to vote for such a party?

This morning I spent with 7 2-5 yr olds. Ugh, I feel like I've been working out all morning or something while concentrating too hard on French at the same time.

Another course: French, since I mentioned it. It's almost like an immersion course. The prof speaks in French at least 95% of the time, explaining the homework in French and everything. Problem is my French listening comprehension is not that great. I think we have a test on Tuesday, but I may have misunderstood. That's what it's like. She claims it'll get better, but I'm really not sure of that.

On the first day she told a story (in English, and told us it'll be the most English she'll use all term) about a woman that decided to send her son to French Immersion, but couldn't decide how to tell the 4 year old what was going on. So finally she decided not to say anything and wait for him to say something. Strangely, several weeks went by and he didn't say anything. So finally she asked him. "Yeah, I thought it was weird at first," he said. "At first, the teacher couldn't speak very well, but she's been getting better." Our prof then promised that she will get better. It's hard to believe, now while I'm struggling so hard.

In the News: The BBC is reporting that China has deployed missles aimed at Taiwan. The Taiwanese government has decided to have a poll to see if the people of the island want to beef up the island's defenses and a Chinese official is calling it "a one-sided provocation" on Taiwan's side. ??!??!? I'm a little confused. China has missiles(!) aimed at Taiwan and is claiming Taiwan is the provocator? If someone is threatening me with a sword, he really shouldn't complain when I get into a defensive posture... I'll admit I don't understand all the deal with China, but this is over the top. (Heh, actually, I have no idea what I would do if someone started threatening me with a sword. I've heard you're supposed to get in close so he can't swing properly.)

I've been somewhat busy the last few days. After making bread on Saturday, (there's nothing quite like fresh bread out of your own work and your own oven) I had a relaxing evening eating the first loaf. I gave two of them away on Sunday and the fourth I've been eating in my lunch all this week. Yummy.

I just got an email that looks like it made a few rounds before reaching me that describes Mel Gibson's new movie The Passion of the Christ. It's claimed that it's an amazing movie. I keep hearing rumours of it, and it's still a bit over a month away. It's certainly been well hyped.

A fifth course: I'm taking Latin again this term. It looks to be harder than the first term, since we have to remember everything we did last term as well as all the new stuff. There's really not that much to say. I'm thinking maybe I should have taken it last year along with Greek and Hebrew as was my idea, then maybe I wouldn't be getting it confused with French this year. Or maybe I would. Trying to figure out the alternate reality based on what's happened is not really useful and I think I generally get it wrong anyway.

It seems that George W. Bush is telling NASA to send people to Mars, and to stop fiddling around with stuff in low orbit, but, of course, the US Congress is not expected to actually allocate the money necessary for NASA to do so. I sometimes wonder about the whole US govt, whether it's even possible for it to do anything that it hasn't been tricked into doing by somebody.

I was outside for a while this morning and the hail coming down left me with a bit of a sting on any unprotected skin. It's nice and warm outside and the wind's not too bad, but the hail was a bit less than comfortable. Apparently because of the hail, all the schools in the region have been cancelled, including UW. Fun!

This morning I, therefore, missed my Radical Reformation class. It was supposed to be about the origins of the Swiss Anabaptists. We've so far been studying the world into which Anabaptism appeared, and some of the Church Reformers who seemed to lay the theological grounds for it. It's all very interesting.

Apparently, a Taleban (or Taliban or a some other spelling) suicide bomber killed a Canadian soldier about to return home from Afghanistan. Well, now that's just brilliant. Our suicide bomber killed one in his own death, which is not a very good fighter statistic, and commited suicide in the process which is absolutely forbidden in the Koran. I had understood that the Taleban were strict Islamic law followers, and here's one of theirs disobeying it rather badly. Seems they're having trouble getting things straight.