A week left before classes start. I'm ready. Well, except I haven't bought any books yet. And I'm not sure yet where exactly one of my classes is.
Anyway, today's been a lazy day. I've been programming most of the day. The little project I've been working on seems to be working now. It's not too stable though. I'll have to do some more debugging and rework, since right now, it's all in one .c file.
Well, this is it. My last weekday before classes begin. After spending the month of August so busy, this week has been rather dull, which was nice, but I'm looking forward to doing stuff again. Studying, reading, homework, memorisation all fun stuff. Today I kinda want to go out and do non school type stuff. Ah well, I'll think of something.
Today was my first day back in classes. In a way, it was kinda fun. Not having been in classes for four years, I was at first slightly confused by the professors' manners. Appearantly, I had forgotten how professors act around students. I don't know what I had been expecting. It just seemed odd at first.
One funny thing happened. As I was leaving my first class, a person of the female persuassion, waiting to enter the classroom, reached out and patted me on the shoulder. I looked over and saw recognition and a smile on her face, but I'm afraid there was neither on mine. I'll see if I can talk to her on Wednesday after I leave that class. Maybe, just maybe, I'll figure out who she is.
Now, I'm off. I've already got a reading assignment, and homework to do.
Or whatever. A face out of place. She's somebody I've seen reasonably regularly for the past year or so, but was so far out of place I didn't recognize her and when I thought back missed her as a possibility. Ah well. My bad.
Interesting event for today: as I was leaving campus a bit before four this afternoon I came across someone looking rather confused. She asked me how to get to Albert St., then after I told her, she asked if she were walking along University. Okay, it was none of my business, but I guessed she was heading for Laurier, and explained how to find it. Then she told me that she didn't even know which building her class was in. It was To Be Announced. and it was at four. But, of course, the people she talked to at UW didn't know yet. Not too suprising, I guess, but you'd think the two schools could share the information of where classes are, since they share when they are. Three boos for beaureaucracy and for all those poor froshlings and froshettes having to deal with it, my sincerest pity.
So, life's trying to get into a routine. Get up, study, go to class, hang out, go to sleep, repeat. I'm rather looking forward to the weekend.
Yesterday, a friend took me into the Sweet Factory on University Ave. Lots of candy, too bad I wasn't in the market for candy just then. Have to arrange a party soon to get into it.
During my Hebrew class, the prof got confused as to the time. He spent 5 minutes near the middle of class saying, 'Oh we're almost out of time!' When he finally said that we were out of time, somebody corrected him. The transformation, from rushing through the material to relaxed meandering, was rather striking.
While I was waiting for that class, I bumped into a friend. That made for a much more interesting wait, though her class started ten minutes before mine. Ten minutes? That seems silly, but there you have it. For this one I'm not even sure I can blame on the beaureaucracy, since it would make more sense to a beuareaucrat to have everything start on the half hour or hour. Oh well, variety is the spice of life. Such things must be cherished until groking is.
Well, my first week has finished. It's a lot harder than I expected. Maybe doing two languages is more than I can handle, maybe the three other courses, which are all second year, are just scaring me, but I'm already feeling like I could not take on anymore work, and that I'm at the extent of my ability. Maybe it's a case of working harder not smarter, but I miss the life of a worker bee where, when I go home, I'm done for the day and don't need to think about my work anymore. Here, I have to read so much, and study lots that I can't just spend a block of time doing something else. Of course, I love the courses I'm in, they're exciting and interesting, but school has become too much like work: work being defined as the stuff you have to do but are not supposed to want to.
So far this weekend I've been able to do some few little things, like watching a movie (The Empire Strikes Back), a bit of programming (on the Hilltop weblog), looking over my Academic Plan and I went out today and relaxed at a friends house over lunch. Hopefully, all this will revitalise me for my second week.
Well, it does seem the weekend was just letting me reflect more than necessary. Getting back into school today was welcome. It seems I've been studying harder than some of my fellow students, and that should pay off for me later in the term, when exams come up and such like.
The support staff at Laurier went on strike today, so a few little things changed there: some of their services seem to have lineups, and I saw an art gallery had closed.
This is a dish I make around once a week. I've even got a few friends hooked on it.
The basis of Crazy White Man Food (cwmf) is the mixture of three things:
Ground beef,
Rice,
Tomato soup.
Brown some ground beef in a frying pan. Drain the fat off and add an appropriate amount of rice and a can of tomato soup, then enough water to cook the rice.
When the rice is cooked, the cwmf is done.
Now of course, that would be rather bland; therefore, I usually fry up onion into the ground beef as I'm browning it, and add parsley and other spices after adding the water. Usually, I use some combination of sage, oregano, and pepper. But I've heard some story that Worchestershire sauce works well.
Serve with sour cream, cheese (melted on top of the cwmf after putting it on a plate works well) and salsa. Salsa con queso works nicely as well. If you're looking for salt, nacho chips make an excellent utensil for picking up the cwmf and eating it. A healthier choice of wrapping the cwmf in cabbage works, but, generally, the cabbage falls apart.
The name: Crazy White Man Food was named by a room-mate, who happens to have been of Chinese ancestory. He had had a chinese classmate over, studying something or other. I made cwmf, and handed my room-mate a bowl of it. His classmate gave him a funny look, and he said, 'Oh, this is just some crazy white man food.' The name has stuck rather well.
History: My mother makes a wonderful dish called Porcupine Meat balls, which I always loved while growing up. Unfortunately (or fortunately), after I started University, I was never able to get it to come out properly. It's supposed to have a sauce, but mine always ended up much too greasy. Rather than fight it anymore, I grew lazy and stopped forming the meat into balls. Then, eventually, stopped adding the egg, and grew a little more adventurous with what I would eat with it. Originally, I had always eaten it with potato, but I slowly chnaged through chips (French Fires) to nachos, to using it as the solid food.
Conclusion: Cwmf is a very easy dish to prepare, uses only one cooking dish (the frying pan) (plus a cutting board when you're cutting up the onion into bite sized pieces) and takes less than an hour, so the next time you're looking for something easy to make and just plain yummy, remember cwmf.
Well, midterms are starting soon. This Friday, I have one; next week: three. It seems a little insane. I guess it's reasonable. After all, the profs don't know what other classes I'm taking, so they can't arrange that all the midterms are clumped together. It's just that they all choose to have the midterms together. Of course, having a midterm this early in the term, we're less than a third of the way through, is a little strange. I mean, how much are we expected to have learned?
The fun part is that, for two weeks after, I've got pretty much nothing happening. A quiz and an essay, and that's it, other than on the minute Greek assignments. The quiz is actually just a test of a couple of days worth of stuff, and the essay is almost a figment of imagination; so, no biggie.
It just happens that, the two intervening weekends, I've been invited on retreat. I should have time to go.
I picked up a cough this week. It's rather annoying. I'm sure I'll survive, but I don't really have time to deal with it properly, nor the desire to cough all over my friends. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better by Monday when I have to start studying for my next midterm.
Labour Day
by alan on Mon 2nd Sep 2002 10:10PM
A week left before classes start. I'm ready. Well, except I haven't bought any books yet. And I'm not sure yet where exactly one of my classes is.
Anyway, today's been a lazy day. I've been programming most of the day. The little project I've been working on seems to be working now. It's not too stable though. I'll have to do some more debugging and rework, since right now, it's all in one .c file.
Last Weekday
by alan on Fri 6th Sep 2002 2:41PM
Well, this is it. My last weekday before classes begin. After spending the month of August so busy, this week has been rather dull, which was nice, but I'm looking forward to doing stuff again. Studying, reading, homework, memorisation all fun stuff. Today I kinda want to go out and do non school type stuff. Ah well, I'll think of something.
First Day.
by alan on Tue 10th Sep 2002 12:39AM
Today was my first day back in classes. In a way, it was kinda fun. Not having been in classes for four years, I was at first slightly confused by the professors' manners. Appearantly, I had forgotten how professors act around students. I don't know what I had been expecting. It just seemed odd at first.
One funny thing happened. As I was leaving my first class, a person of the female persuassion, waiting to enter the classroom, reached out and patted me on the shoulder. I looked over and saw recognition and a smile on her face, but I'm afraid there was neither on mine. I'll see if I can talk to her on Wednesday after I leave that class. Maybe, just maybe, I'll figure out who she is.
Now, I'm off. I've already got a reading assignment, and homework to do.
Call it cognitive dissonance.
by alan on Wed 11th Sep 2002 3:45AM
Or whatever. A face out of place. She's somebody I've seen reasonably regularly for the past year or so, but was so far out of place I didn't recognize her and when I thought back missed her as a possibility. Ah well. My bad.
Interesting event for today: as I was leaving campus a bit before four this afternoon I came across someone looking rather confused. She asked me how to get to Albert St., then after I told her, she asked if she were walking along University. Okay, it was none of my business, but I guessed she was heading for Laurier, and explained how to find it. Then she told me that she didn't even know which building her class was in. It was To Be Announced. and it was at four. But, of course, the people she talked to at UW didn't know yet. Not too suprising, I guess, but you'd think the two schools could share the information of where classes are, since they share when they are. Three boos for beaureaucracy and for all those poor froshlings and froshettes having to deal with it, my sincerest pity.
Sweet Factory
by alan on Thu 12th Sep 2002 3:04PM
So, life's trying to get into a routine. Get up, study, go to class, hang out, go to sleep, repeat. I'm rather looking forward to the weekend.
Yesterday, a friend took me into the Sweet Factory on University Ave. Lots of candy, too bad I wasn't in the market for candy just then. Have to arrange a party soon to get into it.
During my Hebrew class, the prof got confused as to the time. He spent 5 minutes near the middle of class saying, 'Oh we're almost out of time!' When he finally said that we were out of time, somebody corrected him. The transformation, from rushing through the material to relaxed meandering, was rather striking.
While I was waiting for that class, I bumped into a friend. That made for a much more interesting wait, though her class started ten minutes before mine. Ten minutes? That seems silly, but there you have it. For this one I'm not even sure I can blame on the beaureaucracy, since it would make more sense to a beuareaucrat to have everything start on the half hour or hour. Oh well, variety is the spice of life. Such things must be cherished until groking is.
Week one down.
by alan on Sun 15th Sep 2002 9:11PM
Well, my first week has finished. It's a lot harder than I expected. Maybe doing two languages is more than I can handle, maybe the three other courses, which are all second year, are just scaring me, but I'm already feeling like I could not take on anymore work, and that I'm at the extent of my ability. Maybe it's a case of working harder not smarter, but I miss the life of a worker bee where, when I go home, I'm done for the day and don't need to think about my work anymore. Here, I have to read so much, and study lots that I can't just spend a block of time doing something else. Of course, I love the courses I'm in, they're exciting and interesting, but school has become too much like work: work being defined as the stuff you have to do but are not supposed to want to.
So far this weekend I've been able to do some few little things, like watching a movie (The Empire Strikes Back), a bit of programming (on the Hilltop weblog), looking over my Academic Plan and I went out today and relaxed at a friends house over lunch. Hopefully, all this will revitalise me for my second week.
Better
by alan on Tue 17th Sep 2002 12:04AM
Well, it does seem the weekend was just letting me reflect more than necessary. Getting back into school today was welcome. It seems I've been studying harder than some of my fellow students, and that should pay off for me later in the term, when exams come up and such like.
The support staff at Laurier went on strike today, so a few little things changed there: some of their services seem to have lineups, and I saw an art gallery had closed.
Crazy White Man Food, mmmmm.
by alan on Fri 20th Sep 2002 3:02PM
This is a dish I make around once a week. I've even got a few friends hooked on it.
The basis of Crazy White Man Food (cwmf) is the mixture of three things:Ground beef,
Rice,
Tomato soup.
Brown some ground beef in a frying pan. Drain the fat off and add an appropriate amount of rice and a can of tomato soup, then enough water to cook the rice.
When the rice is cooked, the cwmf is done.
Now of course, that would be rather bland; therefore, I usually fry up onion into the ground beef as I'm browning it, and add parsley and other spices after adding the water. Usually, I use some combination of sage, oregano, and pepper. But I've heard some story that Worchestershire sauce works well.
Serve with sour cream, cheese (melted on top of the cwmf after putting it on a plate works well) and salsa. Salsa con queso works nicely as well. If you're looking for salt, nacho chips make an excellent utensil for picking up the cwmf and eating it. A healthier choice of wrapping the cwmf in cabbage works, but, generally, the cabbage falls apart.
The name: Crazy White Man Food was named by a room-mate, who happens to have been of Chinese ancestory. He had had a chinese classmate over, studying something or other. I made cwmf, and handed my room-mate a bowl of it. His classmate gave him a funny look, and he said, 'Oh, this is just some crazy white man food.' The name has stuck rather well.
History: My mother makes a wonderful dish called Porcupine Meat balls, which I always loved while growing up. Unfortunately (or fortunately), after I started University, I was never able to get it to come out properly. It's supposed to have a sauce, but mine always ended up much too greasy. Rather than fight it anymore, I grew lazy and stopped forming the meat into balls. Then, eventually, stopped adding the egg, and grew a little more adventurous with what I would eat with it. Originally, I had always eaten it with potato, but I slowly chnaged through chips (French Fires) to nachos, to using it as the solid food.
Conclusion: Cwmf is a very easy dish to prepare, uses only one cooking dish (the frying pan) (plus a cutting board when you're cutting up the onion into bite sized pieces) and takes less than an hour, so the next time you're looking for something easy to make and just plain yummy, remember cwmf.
Open Season on Students
by alan on Wed 25th Sep 2002 2:12PM
Well, midterms are starting soon. This Friday, I have one; next week: three. It seems a little insane. I guess it's reasonable. After all, the profs don't know what other classes I'm taking, so they can't arrange that all the midterms are clumped together. It's just that they all choose to have the midterms together. Of course, having a midterm this early in the term, we're less than a third of the way through, is a little strange. I mean, how much are we expected to have learned?
The fun part is that, for two weeks after, I've got pretty much nothing happening. A quiz and an essay, and that's it, other than on the minute Greek assignments. The quiz is actually just a test of a couple of days worth of stuff, and the essay is almost a figment of imagination; so, no biggie.
It just happens that, the two intervening weekends, I've been invited on retreat. I should have time to go.
Cold.
by alan on Sun 29th Sep 2002 1:24AM
I picked up a cough this week. It's rather annoying. I'm sure I'll survive, but I don't really have time to deal with it properly, nor the desire to cough all over my friends. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better by Monday when I have to start studying for my next midterm.