Murry Xmus

In short, my camera is not working so there's no pictures this year. :(

However, despite certain people's disdain (you know who you are) of artificial trees, our plastic tree still has many memories that you can never get from buying a farmed tree, dressing it up like a tart, and then chucking it out or burning it at the end of the season.

This year my mum didn't want to put it up because she said she'd be the one putting it away and it was just a chore for her. However, my siblings pointed out that she never did the putting up nor putting away anyway (except one year I think). In addition, she also went the environmentally conscious way and kept all the presents she bought in giant plastic bags to place next to the LED tree she made on the window. It looked ugly, so I surprised her by making the stupid tree on the 24th while everyone was out. Too bad I can't show you how awesome it is this year, Mario and Luigi and Kirby and all...

We just hot-potted ourselves to oblivion last night and this afternoon. This evening apparently there will be both turkey and roast beef. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a second stomach.

Sum'n thut t'wus unuswully guud t'mungl th'unglsh wuth u's. Nut tu fuur frum sum unglsh ut thur.

Daily Show mentions

After a week of waiting for some comedic commentary from our favourite show, POLITICKS finally appears on the Daily Show. :)

Pet Peeves

Sticky things
Paying money for things that I can do myself for much less
The tablet mouse (just the mouse)
Garbage bins without lids
Traffic jams with Jorghnassen in the car (sorry)
Clothes that show how lumpy I am in all the wrong places
A story without a point
Anything above 27C
Students who think half a page of scribbles counts for points
Running out of hard drive space / memory / everything
Shopping alone
Shopping with someone who doesn't want to go shopping
Waterloo
POLITICKS

The Craigslist Conversation

Chance encounter at the park?

Reply to: cbear45@yahoo.com
Date: 2008-07-19, 11:19PM EST


I saw you walking your dog at the park today wearing a pink fuzzy sweater and a grey skirt. I wanted to talk to you but your dog kept barking at me and you hurried away before I could get your number. Let's meet again without interruptions. :)


**

re: Chance encounter at the park?

Reply to: spot667@hotmail.com
Date: 2008-07-20, 9:31AM EST


You weren't wearing any pants, you sick freak.


**

re: re: Chance encounter at the park?

Reply to: cbear45@yahoocom
Date: 2008-07-20, 9:45AM EST


Just the fact you wrote back shows that you do want to see me again! Same place, same time?

Nostalgia for Stupid TV

I'm not one to write about nostalgia often. That's Jorgh's brother's thing. However, once in a while it will happen - as it will happen to all people I'm sure - that I get bitten by a memory of something that happened in the past. And then it never goes away until I tell Jorghnassen about it until he gets sick of hearing it, or it just eats me up inside until I forget about it a week later. Then it comes back to me again.

None of my memories from the past that torture me are ever pleasant. I do have some good memories, like falling into the rivière du moulin up to my neck (oh wait that's not that good but whatever), getting to see the Rockies and the Atlantic ocean, and making childhood friends whom I am in constant fear of them finding me. But much of the things I remember are either mundane or horrible things I'd rather not remember.

This entry, however, is not exactly horrible but completely inexplicable: some classic sitcom TV shows between the 80s and 90s.

***

Everyone knows of the "reedeeculus" Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, and Full House successes (and consequent successes/downfalls/scandals of the Olsen twins but that's an aside). My family would watch television every evening together for their wholesome, slapstick and childish antics that would unite the entire generation of American and Canadian families in that era forever.

There's also the older Small Wonder that more and more people have gained memory of, lost under the sea of Facts of Life, Growing Pains, Family Ties, and Cosby Show episodes. (Now why would Bill Cosby's show be called "The Cosby Show" but have a character named Huxtable, (same occurance for all his other shows) is also completely inexplicable.)

However, few people remember the really, really stupid shows that would only last a few episodes or a few seasons. I mean really stupid. I'm not talking about shows that were found to be retarded, like how they made a Little Muppet Monsters short that came after the Muppet Babies cartoon. Or other idiotic cartoons made just to sell toys (millions of examples come to mind).

This one is really stupid.

When ABC's TGIF shows became huge successes, the network counted on the stable, popular and long running shows like Full House and Family Matters to boost ratings on newer shows they'd slip in during the two hour block. This particular show was called Going Places.



I can't even begin to explain what this show is about. I couldn't tell you even when I was 10 or 11 watching it to begin with. If you watch the intro you'd think the show was about two young couples having wacky adventures in Hollywood and living it up on boats or something.

Let's just assume that that's the case. I'm ashamed enough about this show... because for some inexplicable reason, when I was 10 or 11, I was crazy about it. The song, the characters, their house, their jobs, the idiotic jokes (that I don't remember), EVERYTHING.

And I can't even tell you what the show is about because I don't remember a damned thing about it.

What I do remember, and this will probably haunt me forever (and I will probably regret putting this out in the open), is that I was so nuts about this show that I wrote a story about it. I wrote a fanfic about a terrible sitcom in the 90s before the internet became mainstream. I even remember the title: Going Climbing (maybe because their living it up Hollywood style wasn't enough that they had to get out of Hollywood to have anything else outlandish happen). It was probably about the four main characters going mountain climbing. I especially remember showing the rough pages to my friend in school, and his response was, "You really like that show, huh?"

However, I think I recall vaguely how I felt when the show was cancelled after a year. Devastated? Crushed? Somewhat relieved? It was probably the reason I wrote that fan-fiction. I must have chucked it out a few years later, but I would have liked to see exactly what I wrote and why I was so obsessed with that show.

Lessons from Junior Senior

Yesterday I discovered that my latest favourite band, Junior Senior, had called it quits since the end of September. No surprises actually, as both Junior and Senior (Jesper and Jeppe) had been pursuing solo works over the last little while.

In the off chance you have never heard of Junior Senior, there are many videos online of their music. Their breakthrough in the NA market is probably Move Your Feet, noted for the pixel art featured in the video, back in 2003 when it made the run throughout the geek blogger circles.


Another notable song was done with the collaboration with the B-52s singers - Take My Time:


Last year, I became entranced with the band. I listened to their albums constantly while driving back and forth between work while in Waterloo. I forced Jorgh to listen to it while I made the 8 hour marathon drives, and I still listen to it to drive him nuts.

The reason I listen to it all the time, and have not gone nuts, is that JS never goes old. Well, there's two reasons actually; as a musician, I'm used to excessively repeating pieces, and I don't get as tired of hearing pieces I like, as other people might. (Which is also why I annoy Jorgh with Queen as well, but that's another story.)

Every song in their repertoire is fun, catchy, and definitely good for dancing. Inspirational when you're down in the dumps. Celebratory when you're doing something great. (Stupid when you're doing the vacuuming but whatever.) There's definitely an element of fun-for-the-sake-of-it in their songs, rather than something grandiose or corny. I'm sorry to see them split but at least they gave the world a great sound. :)

All the pressures you embrace
They take you to a magic place
And take your magic place along
And put that feeling in a song

And keep on working through the morning
Working through the night
Until you see the light
Cuz You can hold it in your hand
And try to understand
Just do it do it do it get it down
Cuz music's not just sound

Keep on working on something better
Keep on working on something better
Keep on working on something better

-Junior Senior, I Like Music (W.O.S.B.)

Ha ha! Hee hee!

Here's a classic repost.

Happy Hallowe'en!

haha oh god the fallout

After I posted the bacon monstrosity here, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to present it to the SA forums. (It was mainly due to an SA member that I did post it in the first place.)

Boy did it go well. I got a small number of positive or constructive responses, but the vast majority decided to go for the Internet Goon responses. I'll let you see a sample:

- Maybe because of the description that I wrote the "maïs en crème" part, he didn't get it.


- Oh Horatia, you card. ;)


- The discussion moved to weird places.

Then I wrote a rebuttal to all the people who seemed to become culinary experts over an internet recipe of a "bacon pie" that not one of them had made before.

- He probably ate at that buffet too.


- LOLZ


- This one was cute. I wrote "C is for clogged arteries."


- He didn't get it.


- Good luck.


- I feel sorry for all you vegetarian quiche lovers.

At least it was all worth it in the end:

- He laughed his ass off. ;)

EDIT: Haha I forgot to check SASS.

EDIT 2: AND it's on Forum Friday's Monday.

Hey, do you like bacon? And do you like pie?

This is BACON PIE.


Ingredients

• 1 lb listeria bacon


• 3 potatoes or so


• 1 onion


• some mushrooms


• sour cream


• spices... well, use your imagination.

Method

1. Slice up your vegetables. I used a mandolin that would be much more useful if it could only stay sharp for more than a few vegetables. (Gonna have to get a real knife sharpener, not just that cheapo-sticko thing.)




2. Lay the bacon from the center to the edge of the cooking thingy. Here I used a glass casserole bowl with lid, but later you'll see that it was probably a bad idea. The original recipe said to put it in an oven-safe frying pan.




3. Place your sliced stuff in the middle. This might have been too much actually.




4. Add some sour cream and various herbs and spices. I forgot to mix them in with the vegetables before that, so don't do what I did. Also, random green stuff.




5. Bring the hanging edges of the bacon together. Now you have a bacon package. Do not eat!



6. Cover it, stick in oven at 400 F, and bake long enough for the potatoes to be probably cooked. Like an hour, maybe.




7. Oh crap, the bacon pie exploded.




8. Well, that's okay. Just flip it over and put it back in for another 10 minutes, without the cover... and you might want to drain it. The bacon underneath wasn't finished cooking anyway. :(




9. Your bacon pie is browned. Time to get it ready! :D




10. Here, we present to the gourmands and discriminating tongues, the finest in contemporary cuisine - a serving of red potatoes, onions, and champignons wrapped in crisped salted pork belly, with a side of crème de blé d'inde. A profound fruity rouge, Rasteau, from the Côtes du Rhône villages (2005) pairs nicely with any provincial meals.

What the hell - this is the first time I made this dish and I didn't know what I was doing. I only did it because of a suggestion from my cap'n Crooks (from PP).

Chialer et Riposter

I'm not comfortable enough to write a blog post completely en français, but at least I can read...

Anyway, two quebecois websites I was recently referred to (by Google, from lack of any warm bodies to ask in the vicinity of 200km) during my quest to right a stupid mistake by stupid B&M:

riposte.ca - I found a whole bunch of people pissed at every single furniture store in existence in and around Montreal (at least), rightly for stupid things they did (or didn't do). Ah, if only it were possible to band together and turn them upside-down by the nostrils...

chialons.com - I saw that segment on Infoman recently on this site. I have no idea what it's about yet.

Memoirs

... but not about me. However, I'll show you an excerpt of what I did get so far:

Most people studying in university and follow an academic track flow through these stages:
1. Enter undergraduate studies and feel completely self-assured.
2. In the early years, find that your peers are completely retarded.
3. In the middle years, find that your peers are as intelligent as you are.
4. In the final years, find that your peers are so insanely bright to a level that you can’t even squint to see.
5. Exit undergraduate studies and enter graduate studies, where the real struggle starts – among peers whose brain power is so overwhelmingly immense that the comparative scales make your intelligence level equivalent to a bagel.

It is true that no matter where you go in the world, there is always someone smarter, stronger, more handsome, more blah blah blah than you. This is the understanding that hit me so hard that I started to falter.

Quebec City Online, revisited

Since my first long-ago misguided journey on the intarwebs for the wonders of Quebec City, I can now say that it had been much further developed since back then. (In fact, it had been developed before to some extent but I couldn't find it as easily.)

One is the ever-popular notorious Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph. Back in 2005 (wow was it really that long?) it looked as wonderful as McGill's old web page did. Now it is a hotbed of sweet anglo community news online action with its stunning interactivity of blurbs like: someone is mad at a license plate; or the new publisher's plea to quebeckians online to do the newspaper's job.

To be completely almost completely serious for a moment, I know that it's not fun to watch an anglo community fall apart like a sweatshop chinese electronic device. I've lived among them - we're pulling ourselves together like some old granny underwear. But it's a comforting underwear, despite its holes and the discolourations, and... uh... well, you have to drop some stitches sometime.

So I'm holding out the thread. Hey, anyone who is interested and/or wants to contribute to the cultural/news life of Quebec City, just drop these guys a line, join them, or help out some old culture newsies in their new media format. The INTERNETs.

Awwww, freaking AWWWWW

I know that it's retarded to post only a link to another site, but this is just damn too cute for words; just retarded, stupid, human noises going AWWWWW.

la Verandrye

A few of you have already come to visit our house. Good for you! Then you will know that the intersection from our street that goes out to the larger road (la Verendrye) is a pain to turn left (westbound) on to return to the highway, or to go anywhere for that matter.

To the left when you turn, there is a downward curved slope (towards the left) and an annoying hedge, juuuuuust high enough to piss you off, that makes the west side hard to tell when cars are jetting up the road at 110 km/h in a 70 zone.

To the right is a large fence and hedge that is too high to see anything coming that way, and the inclined curved slope (towards the right) also keeps anyone wanting to turn onto the westbound lanes to take it easy and turn in a safe, sane manner.

The grocery stores, commercial buildings, and everything else is to the left. (In the previous post, I mentioned that the Rav4 is in the body shop - one of the repairs is to the left turn signal, which made this turn even worse over the last week.)

The city of Gatineau decided that this intersection - with its crazy curves and slopes and idiotic lack of street light or any signs - is too stupid to exist, and will instead continue the divider down la Verandrye so that:

1. drivers will be forced to turn right from our street


2. drivers will be forced to turn southbound on rue Main* (which will be the topic of another post)


3. drivers cannot go straight


4. drivers on the main road can continue to careen 110 km/h up or down the slope like morons.

This is bothersome because that intersection seemed to have been developed just for the purpose of pissing people off. I would have preferred a standard lights intersection with crossroad and signs indicating stop lights ahead. One of the things Jorgh had mentioned when he was convincing me to buy the house (without seeing it) is this intersection, where he hoped the same thing would happen.

However, the green sheet delivered to our front door last week from the city indicates otherwise. (It's a nice FY to welcome us to the city.) Today, the city delivered another sheet stating there would be a "consultation" next week at city hall, hoping to "answer our concerns" about the change.

Let's hope the answer to our concerns is "my bad, we dum."

There's a Monster on My Parking Lot

For reasons not yet divulged but hinted at on this blog, the Rav4 is in the body shop for 3-4 days. It was not easy finding a garage here that I could trust, considering the guys at the Kitchener one were so nice (and $_$ aside, it was actually quite trustworthy). But I think this one down the street rides the line between "kinda sketchy" and "just trying to make an honest living."

I picked this garage essentially because their estimate was less than everyone else. Why? They're using aftermarket parts. Before you start yelling at your monitor (and therefore indirectly at me), Jorghnassen's dad - who had given us this car - had no qualms either for aftermarket auto parts. The price difference was substantial enough. Also, the Toyota dealership didn't even have an appointment until November, which is completely retarded.

Some of you with more experience with cars and driving (which is probably four or five of my readership) would understand this next item.

I dropped off the Rav4 on Monday morning. Their courtesy car, in exchange for this light SUV, is a Ford Windstar. Not just any Ford Windstar, but the most frighteningly un-maneuverable shipping crate on wheels with messed up driver-side door locks. Jorghnassen, who accompanied me to the garage to exchange the cars, agreed it was scary even to be sitting in it. To top it off, the "Check Engine" light is on.

We immediately went to the grocery store, bought enough food for 5 days, and then went home. I've been house bound since then.

I miss my car. :(

How we moved out of Waterloo and into Gatineau

Ha ha ha! Whoever moves in next (Eugene ^_^) will be cursed with this terrible pot of crap from the market.

Said goodbye to these babies.

Got into this baby.

Drove for 10 hours or so in total, to arrive at the house in Gatineau. After a few days, it looked like this.

And then we discovered some unwelcome neighbours.

We fed ourselves this.

And this.

But finally after hard work (by everyone else), I could now see the floor.



Yay~!

BONUS PIC:

Goodbye little plateau condo. :(

House

There's finally news on the Ottawa front - Jorghnassen and I took possession of a house. That is, we did not overwhelm and tearfully bully an innocent bystander out of his or her domicile. We did, however, legitimately purchase a residence in Gatineau that is more likely to be permanent than the other places we've been living at in the last several years.

Before I get all mushy about the move (and divulge more details about it), let me show you my house. (*This is the realtor's photo.)
*
Right now there's nothing inside, as the previous owner had just moved out of the house yesterday and I finally stepped inside the thing for the first time ever. We drove from Montreal to Ottawa to arrive to find the ever-efficient and handy Mme Emond and Hector waiting outside for us, to report that the house was indeed empty and they were ready to start fixing up, cleaning and painting our house. Fantastic!

There are no real complaints about the house itself. It's got its quirks and such that Jorgh noticed after an empty house examination, such as curved walls, a completely lit basement with one switch, and cables running through every room from holes drilled through floors and walls:

I suppose it just means there's more places for TVs to be found in the house. Not that I'd want a TV in every room. Oh, by the way:

...walk-in closet. Or room-sized closet.

We hope our paint colour choices will not be distasteful. For instance, quick sloppy 'shop jobs (and not sure what the actual colours are anymore):


Boy, my 'shop skillz teh suXX0rs.

To be fair, I did drive 8 hours back to Waterloo after visiting, and I had to get a coffee to get through the last hour because we were both falling asleep. Which also explains such a late post.

Montreal-Bound

I'm ditching this hole for Montreal tomorrow for Kathy and M-C's wedding on that lucky day. I'll be staying at my sister's place, so don't nobody do nutin' until I get there. Yeah, I'm a narcissist.

The dying throes of the Cheap Lamp Made in China

#@$% it, I'm tired of everything around me breaking.

As far as I know...

This is the floor plan for where we are going to be living. Actually, it's not. It's a guess as far as I know, from the limited photos available from Jorghnassen, the inspector, and the realtor's web site. I seriously have no idea what it looks like.

Anyway, there's three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, and a finished basement. Not only that, but there's enough patio and patio windows to complain that there's too much. Oh, what will we do with so much BBQ space??? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Jorgh mentioned that there's a possibility of making a third washroom in the basement, thereby completing the trifecta of places to run for toilet emergencies when your two other washrooms are occupied for some reason when there's only two people living in the whole house. I am against this prospective washroom because then that would make it three toilets to scrub. I already hate doing one.

---

In the meantime, while Jorgh and his parents have been busy taking care of absolutely everything else about the house, I've been assigned the task of finding a mover who will not break our stuff transporting it to Gatineau. On one hand, it's not hard to find a mover. On the other hand, it's quite difficult to find the mover who will agree to:

• Not be a douche and move our shit across the provincial boundary (I know, Ottawa-Gatineau?)


• Come to the apartment and actually look at the stuff to be moved to give an estimate


• Come over to our apartment to give a written estimate that isn't ridiculously huge


• Call back after the estimate and say that their written estimate will be ready to be emailed, even though it was written down in front of you while they were here.

I'm just about ready to pick the movers once they actually do the last point.

---

It's very odd to find polite people wherever you go in a city, but (as long as I'm not driving) everyone here has been exceptionally friendly and wonderfully courteous. There really is a small-town feel when I'm going around town, even though it's been reported that this area is actually expanding too quickly for its water supply to catch up with.

If there's anything I'd miss about Waterloo, it's the way people actually regarded each other in their everyday interactions. Except while driving. They're polite, patient, and very friendly. Except while driving. They're very quaint, what with their Mennonites and farmers markets and small community strawberry and apple festivals and their warped ideas about cheeses... so adorable. Except while driving. They go as far as helping a stupid woman take care of her windshield wipers, bringing her to a "mall" when asked, and tolerating our every single critique when we were looking for edible food.

On the other hand, the one thing I will not miss is the food and restaurant choices. This guy puts it more succinctly: "More than half the times I think I haven't got the energy to cook, N suggests we eat out, I run over the possibilities in my mind, and then I get up and cook a meal."

Mind you, I enjoy the few places that Jorgh and I visited, like Raintree Cafe and Sakura Island, but for mind-blowingly awesome you'd really have to go back to larger and/or more diverse cities. Or where they know what a loaf of bread looks like.

Thank you, Waterloo, for teaching me to be less lazy in cooking meals at home because you have no viable alternatives.

And thank you, Waterloo, for teaching me that drivers are just as crazy here as they are in Quebec. I don't feel so bad anymore.

The dying throes of the GPS Unit

I have the video of the exact moment the GPS unit's switch broke. That was the time that I gave the keynote speech for graduation. At the end of the speech, I played a song (if you still don't know what it is, you fail HARD) with an mp3 accompaniment playing on the GPS unit. The unit is notoriously hard to turn on and off because the face of the switch is like a floating pancake with a toothpick under it, and the electronic component of the switch is like a ROCK. The toothpick has to push the rock hard enough not to break.

Well, right at that last time I turned off the accompaniment to the song, the rock got unseated from its circuit board, and now no pressing of the pancake will ever turn it on unless someone managed to resolder the stupid thing.

It also turns out that nobody in Canada will service this thing, and the only way that this gift from Jorgh's father (through credit card rewards) can be fixed is if we exchange it at the point-of-sale. Which would be great if there were a point-of-sale. Nobody sells this unit.

Once my batteries have finished charging, I will show you what miracles have (temporarily) revived the GPS unit, and you can decide whether it should be used like this from now on or not.

The dying throes of the Breadmaker

Another stupid thing that happened just last night was that one of the two paddles of the breadmaker decided to not want to turn anymore. I know, you're wondering, "How does an appliance decide it doesn't want to work for you anymore?" It's simple - appliances are designed to not give a flying fork about humans. They are programmed by their masters (inhuman human beings) to flip you the birdie when the time is right: while you are using them.

Anyway, I withheld taking it apart today to see what is wrong until I can find out if I can get this thing serviced.

The dying throes of the Tablet

Strangely enough, a Wacom Graphire 2 tablet mouse can last a million falling-on-the-hard-ground episodes, can be clicked hard enough to become slightly inoperable if not for a convenient jimmy with a piece of paper, and can be used for nearly 8 years... but if you use the scroll wheel just a little too much it suddenly doesn't want to work for you no more. :(

Here's a brief review of my tablet's condition:

Its pen works perfectly fine, but I discovered that the pen mouse driver for this computer doesn't work for DOS games that have mouse capabilities. Its tablet interface is still quite workable, if only for a few scratches and the plastic covering wearing down over the last several years. Its mouse, as stated above, even keeps trucking along while pieces of plastic slowly degrade over time.

I periodically explore the possibilities of buying spare parts for my tablet, but it really hasn't been in need of one until today. It seems that Wacom discontinued the Graphire-with-the-wire line a long time ago. On top of that, nobody sells the Graphire 2, 3, or 4 parts, in favour of the newer Bamboo or Cintiq models. I don't even know if they have Intuos parts but it doesn't matter as none of those are even compatible with my tablet.

There was a time when Wacom's direct site did sell parts but only to the US. No possibility of shipping to Canada, even though we're closer to ship here than if someone wanted to order from, oh, say Alaska or something just as logical.

Nobody sells it online either, even on eBay (if I had ever been inclined to buy from there having had a brain transplant or hell froze over).

It looks like I might have to bid my mouse farewell. All over a stupid scroll wheel... :(

ADDENDUM: After taking it apart and looking very intently at the innards, I discovered that it is indeed unrepairable unless I suddenly gained the ability to mold unbreakable plastic and rubber parts about 5 mm in diameter.

EDIT: The Wacom eStore is still down. :(:(

Summer Camp 2008

Before I talk about the huge party up in Quebec City after the school term ended (since I lament the fact that I came back from there probably 2 weeks too soon), I must speak of the Summer Enrichment Program(c). The school put together students mainly from Ghana in the dorms of the universities and then give them a month of workshops, trips, and other exploration activities. Tokulah put it best when I arrived back last Monday, in that it wasn't called a "summer camp," but an "enrichment program."

Thus, I was asked to give two workshops last week on "enriching" students in the wily ways of mathematics and computers. I could have done absolutely anything I wanted, but having seen the things I did with the kids during the last two years, he wanted to have them build paper polyhedra, and also to play with the computer parts that I accumulated over the last two years.

Fortunately I didn't have to do much planning, except to make sure the parts and things were all there and allow some educational lecture time. And I got paid so it was all good.

In the first workshop on Monday, I gave a short lecture on fractals (the Sierpinski triangle), and then talked about making tetrahedra. Then I had them build a Sierpinski pyramid.

I had half hoped they'd finish the whole thing by the end of the first two hours, but they seemed to have gave up steam and totally fell short by about 10 of the 64 needed. To top it off, I had made sure there were 72 photocopies (18 times 4 different colours, I'm so thoughtful) so there should have been extras of each colour, but some went missing and I had to fish out some ruined ones from the garbage can to finish the damn thing myself.

Do I have any pictures of it? Nope. It didn't hold up properly because the kids (ranging from 8 to 16 probably) didn't have any experience making paper models and so some of the tetrahedra were completely messed up. When I returned on Friday to give the computer workshop, the whole pyramid had fallen apart and I had to stick it together. It makes me sad when things are broken for a long period of time with nobody to fix them... :(

The funny thing about Monday was that I was unaware until I got there that the afternoon writing workshop had been cancelled and they wanted me to keep going with the math workshop. So I had to improvise - they spent the second two hour session making origami cubes. By that point, most of them were running on empty and they basically nodded off like the kids that you'd expect, sitting indoors in nice weather and folding paper into stupid shapes.

But the amazing thing later on Friday I discovered, that made things all the better in my perspective, was that the kids had painted some little panels during that week after the pyramid was complete - and one of them whom I had pegged as kind of ambivalent to the whole deal (which he was, actually) had painted the pyramid. Some of them had very cute paintings of their trip to Toronto, houses, flags, or whatnot, but that one kid painted the pyramid. I was touched. :)

What did they do on Friday? Massacre system units. Then I had to spend another hour after their workshop putting them back together properly.

At least it was "enriching." TO MY WALLET! :O

"Wait, when did you make this tetrahedron 5-compound?"

Wow!
Originally uploaded by chowmaylay

Waaay back a few months ago when I was making all sorts of polyhedra for my classroom, I printed out the templates from korthalsaltes.com. This one was seriously awesome. :D

Tomorrow was two weeks ago.

And thus concluded the tenure at my school. It is unfortunate that the speech was not recorded. I mean fortunate. So here I present to you the text version of my keynote speech, which according to my colleagues was pretty good. I think it could have been shorter.

My fellow teachers, the administrative team, Mr Tokulah, and the parents, siblings, relatives of, most of all, my dear students.

I am most honored by the (fairly exceptional) request by Dr. Bohez, who asked me to speak many inspiring words to you. It’s not like me, actually. I’m not a person of many words. Unless I’m teaching. Or supposed to be teaching.

But I can understand why Dr. Bohez asked me to speak to you. Who better to be up here than the teacher, who witnessed your progression as students – from the point of you being newly enrolled CIC students entering through those front doors (or hitting the doorbell to enter), up to the point you became newly admitted university students about to leave our doors? Who better to speak to you?

Yes, of course, the math teacher. The dry, unexciting, critical math teacher.

So as the dry, unexciting, critical math teacher, I’ll start all over from the basics. But this time I won’t take two hours, I promise.

When you enter school, you’re not certain of the notion that is mathematics. "It’s a scary subject to be feared because it’s hard!" You have no concept of fractions. You have no idea what to do with exponents. You don’t know what the difference is between a derivative and a determinant. All these math-y words are terrifying you as I speak, aren’t they?

You know what? It doesn’t matter. Here, it's not the point. Mathematics is not "something that is practiced until it is done perfectly right." It’s not exercises, textbooks, quizzes, tests and projects. It’s not something done. Just like English is not a subject to be done. Or sciences. Or business, history, art, music... or any subject.

You enter school because you want to experience. Not just do. Or have done to you. It’s because you haven’t come across certain experiences before, so you made the decision, for most of you from far, far, far away, to enter this school. And then you came across us: Ms. Chow, the staff at CIC, and Mr. Tokulah.

Mathematics, English, Sciences, Business, Social Sciences, and so on, are not done, they’re discovered and experienced. They are not ends in themselves - they are just means to a deep understanding, means to reach a higher level of knowledge.

You’ve now experienced Ms. Chow’s math classes.

To you, families and relatives, my dear students will tell you that my classes are hard. It’s not because I find some terrible pleasure in your disappointments, or that I do not personally like you.

It is the complete opposite. I have the utmost respect for my students. You are my lifeblood and I would do anything to guide you towards your academic success. [For some inexplicable reason my kids all applauded right here.] You make me shed in anxiety. And judging by the pile of hair around my desk, it’s a lot of anxiety.

I let you experience one thing in particular in my class, which makes it so much harder than what you had to do before; you have the potential to reason the world around you, but it has been abstracted into almost meaningless symbols like plusses, minuses, division signs, integrals, and so on. You were doing those things to bits, without any real meaning to them. Then suddenly, Ms. Chow doesn’t ask you to give her the answer to 2 + 2, she asks you to explain it. (Oh, how philosophical!)

Mathematics is not the process of doing – it is how humans reason the world. The world holds many mysteries and such beauty. It is easy to superficially appreciate the world. But it is much more rewarding to discover anew different ways to contemplate its nature.

For instance, [Here I held up a tetrahedron 5-compound figure] this is indeed quite interesting. At a quick glance, I can appreciate it visually. I’m sure you can as well. It took a long time for me to make. I hope you appreciate it.

But if I told you it is a composition of five of these [Here I held up a tetrahedron], and has a particular rotational symmetry, and each point matches up with the faces of a dodecahedron (What’s that? It’s another figure I made.) and all sorts of other things mathematical, then you have just learned to appreciate it, mathematically.

If I told you that M.C. Escher, (the man who drew all sorts of amazing mathematical pictures) made wood carvings of this shape to explore it, you just learned to appreciate it deeper artistically. If I told you that these kinds of figures were studied to no end by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, you have learned to appreciate it historically.

So now you have just experienced, in a nutshell, this figure. You’ve now experienced (again) Ms. Chow’s math class. That wasn’t scary was it? (It only gets better...!)

The world is full of these experiences. You have the choice to get by this life superficially, without considering any of the meaning behind it, or to really try to live it, experience it, and make it make sense to you.

You are about to leave our school having experienced, not having done. And you are about to enter the "real world," now having learned to experience.

It has been an honour to be speaking to you, as I will also be leaving CIC – I hate long goodbyes, but I am choosing now to announce to you that with great reluctance, I will be moving to Ottawa this summer. So I will also be taking another step forward into the unknown with you.

Regardless of where you go, you have your own way to experience the world. Here at CIC, my colleagues and I showed you some of these ways to experience. We want you to go out there and experience. And we are most hopeful that your experiences will be the most meaningful to you.

To be truthful, some experiences will be difficult, and scary, and some will be painful; but I (and everyone here gathered today) hope that the majority of these will be exciting, fulfilling, fun, beautiful, numerous and wonderful.

And that, my dears, is what I hope to have taught you – in the words of Louis Armstrong in his famous song – that it is indeed, a Wonderful World.

[Ms. Chow jams.]

If you need to ask what I played at the end, it means you didn't read the last paragraph. YOU FAIL.

OH YEAH!!! :D:D:D:D

I finally finished marking everything in the gigantic backlog, and it only took ... uh... more time than it should have. But it's done!!!

Jorghnassen's coming back from Ottawa tomorrow evening. He's been on the search for a condo/house, and it seems there are a few choices he's about to make his grand decision upon. :o OK, not yet, because I haven't seen any of them. Personally, I have no idea what to look for except I don't want to be pressured into overpaying for something that isn't worth it. I mean it's not like a mediocre meal at a restaurant - I can't just grin and bear it while people are sucking the money from your wallet (and weird things are happening to your intestine). Anyway we'll see. It's a bit too early to say there's any decision there yet.

I'll have more to say tomorrow after giving the KEYNOTE SPEECH at the graduation tomorrow that nobody told me I was going to be giving until last Friday. Well, you'll have to wait and see if I manage to get anyone to film it. Then we'll all point and laugh at my mediocre speaking skills. Point and laugh. Point. And. Laugh.

Home Stretch

Here are my new tomatoes for this summer. Unfortunately, they will probably peak after we leave here, but I still can't resist!


Also, I decided only to have one plant this summer instead of two, because they take so long to harvest. Instead, what I decided one day on a whim was to toss a potato eye (from one of the potatoes in the sack that went awry) and let it grow. And boy has it grown - it literally grew three inches over a day!

Will there be potatoes? I doubt it.

Counting this day, I have only 9 days of work left. (For those of you who keep count of "work days" as M-F, in the teaching world it's M-Sun.) It's the home stretch! After the graduation ceremony on the 30th, I plan to jet (train) off to Quebec City for a week, after 6 months of not having visited. It's going to be the BIG BIRTHDAY BASH on the 3rd. I don't know what the celebrations have been like so far this year in QC, but I hope they'll be FREE.

So if anyone wants to come with me (which Jorghnassen can't do because he has to stay here and teach), I'd be so happy. :D:D:D

Then I have to return to Waterloo to get preparations going. And give two workshops for the summer camp at the school. >_<

So lonely :(

HAI POE-PLE!1!

If you have time to travel and would like to see... uh... a lot of horse farms and Mennonites... come visit us! The VIA Rail 59$ sale is on, between Montreal and Toronto, and Ottawa and Toronto. It's another 20 bucks or so to get to Waterloo from Toronto, and that can be done by train or bus probably just as easily.

Come tour the region famous for Blackberries that can't be eaten, pyjama and sweat pants, and a lot of sourdough blobs of flour. Marvel at hordes of altogether six cars during rush hour, farmer's markets with fresh crops from Mexico and South America, and Exciting Quilts!!!!!!

And come see Guelph. Yeah, THAT Guelph.

Wow, what am I going to do in Ottawa?

Finally, I think it is safe to announce, and it's about time. (I waited to let Jorghnassen announce it but he seems to not have wanted to do the official announcement.)

Jorghnassen has secured his tenure-track position with U.Ottawa, and we are going to be headed to Ottawa by the end of August. Exciting!

This means I will have to bid farewell my current students, and the school where I helped develop one of the most gut-wrenchingly depressing mathematics programs in all of Southwestern Ontario. (Depressing... for them, mwa ha ha ha...) Seriously, if they don't give me a good reference then I'm quitting teaching forever. :(

I will also have to go out there once again and find a job where I will not become blacklisted for being maddeningly under-trained by everyone in charge of such work that I have ever encountered. I've definitely had a butt-load of self realization, development, and reflection happen over the course of the last several years. As for becoming a better teacher? I have yet to understand if/how that can be achieved.

I spent the last weekend with Jorgh in Ottawa, but I had to come back today to work tomorrow. Jorgh has a stats conference in Ottawa that he is attempting to attend, but I suppose I'll let him talk about it.

What am I going to do in Ottawa? Well, that will have to wait. In the meantime I will probably blanket some CVs but one thing's for sure: I ain't workin' this summer.

Some :( and :) but more :(

Some time last week, my mum told me that the water spout leading to the outside of our apartment in Quebec exploded and flooded my room. Fortunately only the floor was flooded, but unfortunately it destroyed all the stuff that was paper and lying on the floor. Which was everything under the bed. She had to throw out all the things that were soaked. This soggy wet pile included artwork from high school, school notes, some other books, and other mementos from the 199X's.

However, I have come to a reluctant acceptance of how these things were by no means something I would miss terribly. They were items that did have some significant meaning at the time, and that is why I kept them. But if they had been of more meaning I would have probably put them somewhere not under the bed. (Kind of like the Clean Sweep philosophy.)

This holiday weekend has been rather unexciting. I have a pile of midterms yet to finish, but that is my own fault for being a procrastinator.

Next weekend however, we're heading to Ottawa to hang out with Donnah. :D Jorghnassen has a conference, and I'm going to be taking Monday off so I can stay a bit longer.

Yes, big news looms ahead...!

In the meantime, I have more work to look forward to. The kids want cookies...

I giiiiiive uuuuuuuppppppp :(

Another one of those tax-related worries. For part of the year last year, I mentioned that I was considered self-employed or I was supposed to get some business number otherwise. I didn't register a number and now my taxes are a million times more complicated, including filling out another separate form for a reason absolutely escaping me.

I spent the weekend with Jorgh ripping our hair out over these forms, and tomorrow we're heading to H&R Block and hope to GOD that someone out there will do this for us.

How many :(:(:(:(:('s ? LOTS.

I haven't posted in a while due to general lethargy and/or Puzzle Pirates addiction. Seriously, I think playing as a Playmobil character pretending to be a pirate is awesome, among a bunch of SA goons, to boot.

Anyway, I wanted to report on our most recent outings. Yesterday we went to the Daily Grill, a casual diner style restaurant that would probably more than satiate any person hungry for a plate bigger than their heads. We made the mistake of ordering too much; for some reason, wings as appetizers are a whole meal in itself and comes with fries and this odd cheese dipping sauce... why would you need a super thick dipping sauce for wings already drenched in the most powerful vinegary barbecue sauce ever? Jorghnassen managed to finish off the veal schnitzel, while I barely made a dent in the souvlaki meal. And then I had a hard time getting up.

Last Tuesday, I ordered Gordon Ramsay's new book, Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food, from Chapters/Indigo online. He was also going to be in Burlington today for a book signing from 3 pm to 5 pm, and then Toronto tomorrow at 7pm. Unfortunately, I didn't have the book by Friday, so we bought the book from the local Chapters as well. So I have two receipts of two exact copies of the book.

Being one who takes advantage of any travelling experience, I dragged Jorghnassen out to Burlington today at 1pm, taking a lot of scenic turns (thanks to our misguided GPS).

Scenic route through the outskirts of Hamilton (yes, Hamilton, the city we said we'd never visit again).

We pulled up next to the Indigo, and I let out a "OMFG!" A whole pile of people were wrapped around the building, lining up on the sidewalk.

The store said they had run out of bracelets about an hour after opening at 11 am. They also said we could wait in the outside line because there were three indoor lines already.

So we waited.

Waited.

Waited.

Waited.

Wai- WHAT it's 4:45 p.m. and he's GONE!?

:(

Tomorrow I'm returning both copies of the book I bought. (Yeah, that'll show him!)

Ms C is tired :(

It snowed during the weekend. (Yeah, no kidding.) The entire region is literally wheeling like mad to get out of the mess. However, I've had no problems with the Rav4. (Except for the door lock mess.) It's driven through piles and piles of snow and I am still in one piece.

The first priority a few weeks ago was to fix the giant meter-long potholes that the city is legally required to fill up. Now the first priority is to dig out everyone from their snow packed mess. Then the second priority should be to fill in the giant meter-long potholes the city now has to refill, along with all the new ones.

Thousands of giant potholes. I'm sure people from Montreal would love getting their 50$ times a thousand.

Jorghnassen and I have been making lots of different bread things with the breadmaker. Some have been ugly as hell, while others have come out relatively eye-pleasing. However, there still lacks a certain Montreal bakery charm that these delightful homemade loaves can't seem to recreate. Nevertheless, we've had a ton of stuff so far and now we've already reached the bottom of the 10kg of flour. @_@

Anyway, whoever wants to come visit can now be treated to pizza, boules, and other random things coming out of the dough setting, as well as the weird bread mixes that we create...!

Weekend in TO

Jorghnassen posed for a shot, dedicated to both Ms. Rachel, and my cousins at the same time. ;)

Jorgh also posed for another shot that is reminiscent of another one from England:

Contrast to this:


We also were treated to some Chinese New Year supper, courtesy of my cousins.


The trip could not be rounded off without a visit to get some asian provisions. This time Jorghnassen visited the infamous Chinese malls in Markham. This particular moment was pure *triumph.*

Notice that I didn't have to run over *anyone* to park that close to the building.