The Ultimate Venting Machine!

Yes sir, ma'am, this is the ultimate in self-congratulating, self-expression, self-exploration, and self-pleasing device, called Blogger. Get one for yourself, your friends, your brother, your sister, your mother and father, your uncles and aunts and cousins galore, and yes 'em, even your gammers and gaffers. It makes online forums look like a crude soliloquizing soliticizing mesmerizing desensitizing method of communication between you 'n your family and friends. It's fast and easy as it is to say "Look 'em, ma, no brains!"

Anyway, I wanted to mention that sometimes communicating with other people makes life look so taxing that you don't want to associate yourself with human beings ever again. My Numerical Analysis group is somewhere in limbo. I have four other random people in this group I was supposed to be working with since last week, but for some reason there was only one other person in the group who even attempted to contact anyone else in the group, through the miraculous instant communication method called WebCT.

Now, if anyone else out there knows about WebCT, you will know that it is a crappy form of communication. In fact, I think I would rather use the most spammarific email address I have (my Excite mail address) to email my group with than use WebCT. But alas, there is no way to email them from this program, or even through this class, unless they directly gave me their email addresses through WebCT. For you see, for some reason the remaining group members who haven't attempted any contact through WebCT is still in limbo and I don't even know if they even exist or if my professor is playing a cruel, cruel joke on us. Silly Nigam. ^_^

So for now, I have contact with three of these people. On the other hand, I don't even know what they look like or if they have a head attached or not. Hopefully they do.

And I haven't finished my first physics homework. But it's on its way tomorrow.

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I would like very much to continue with the Tuesday tradition with Ivo-san and Jesse-kun if they don't mind. It's a great practice for me to actually play the violin again, especially with my esteemed friends. I really missed playing violin, but I missed especially the playing with others, and all the silliness that happens during crazy practice sessions. Especially because being mathematicians, we can't count nor keep pace with each other.

Maybe by the end of the semester, we'll be able to perform for the others from SUMS and it'll become a mini-concert! :):):) I'll have to propose this to SUMS and maybe even enter us into SUS variety/talent show...!!!

Oh boy, this thought just occured to me. Oh boyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy...........

*Squirming in chair, happy*

More About School Stuff...

And now I have to mention the usual. The froshees.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a froshee. I was one myself, if you can believe it. Really. (Hey, I haven't been in school that long. Look at Jorgh!) There's nothing wrong with being so heartbreakingly new to a city and a school with no one to really turn to at times that you pain everyone around you who's a veteran to your type.

It's just that there's so many of them that do so many things that piss you off! "You" as in "me."

First off, I've never been in a real "bird course" yet at McGill until this year. Sure, there's education courses, but those don't really count since they're actual required courses. I mean, you could submit a pile of dung and it'd be given an A. Or an A-, depending on how well you argue your way to making people think that it symbolizes a student's strife. Really.

So at these bird courses, there lies the few-hundred froshees. And they all tend to show that they're froshes. Let me categorize in broad, general demeaning but TRUE statements:

1. The slut froshees: Females who wear tube tops, floppies, and not much else to class (especially in the winter), and put on tons of make-up and make their hair into little coiffes that look like they sprayed entire cans of laquer on their heads. Males who wear lots of cologne, brand-name shirts, pants, socks, underwear, tattoos. Like to talk a lot. Even when the professor tells you to shut up.


2. The keener froshees: Like to pretend they're still in high school and communicate with the professor in flowery language, ask unnecessary questions, quote from course packs that everyone buys but no one is supposed to read, present uninteresting assignments in expensive bindings and folders, like to talk a lot. Especially when the professor tells you to shut up.


3. The bastard froshees: Come to class one day out of a month (if they bother)... when they actually do attend, they sleep through it, eat loudly, talk loudly, ask bonehead questions, never write notes, and/or disturb other students in the class. Likes to be told to shut up, it seems.


4. The sweet-but-so-very-confused froshees: Basically so confused because they took all the wrong classes at the same time. Like six core courses or something. And really, really don't like to admit they made mistakes until it's too late. The professors don't even know they exist so they can't be told to shut up.

Seriously, how many of you feel like maiming some of these people sometimes? (Or all the time, in some cases?) I mean, you could probably see yourselves in the fourth category (I know I did), but I'm sure I pissed off a lot of people when I was a froshee. I'd have took me aside, pinned me up to the lockers, and give myself a wedgie for being such a damn piss-off. I mean, seriously, if I hear any person whine like that and never do anything about it but whine, then I'd definitely give them a stern talking-to. And a wedgie.

This is why they invented buddy programs. To prevent the seniors from killing too many froshees.

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Speaking of nerds... ah, no, that'd be too mean. Let's just say it has to do with SUMS and newbies.

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The U of M course is such a different experience. I haven't spoken to anyone yet other than the professor. When Jorgh and I went to U of M on the first day of class, we found his office but the door was closed. It was then that Jorghnassen noticed the sticker on the door I completely missed.

At that moment, I had a little fear (aptly named Jacques) that the fact a McGill (a Liberal-anglo-federalist supporting school) student would be taking his class would affect the way he may behave towards me.

Nevertheless, the professor is a fair and polite person, despite his slight attitude towards me and my ineptitude in French. Well, at least he won't be marking me off for having bad French. How lovely. :)

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Heh. I was looking for an image to link to that "sticker" above, and I don't know if you want to know what I found on the Google Image Search (GIS) under the word, "oui"...

More of School

History of Japan is actually Introduction to Japan Culture. Meaning that all we do is watch japanese movies (we just finished Princess Mononoke) and read articles about how weird the japanese are compared to western culture. And read mangas. :)

The Numerical Analysis class is actually pretty hard-assed. The professor already assigned the first problem set for TODAY AT 5:00 P.M.!!! Well, it was assigned a week ago. But still... All I need now is some sort of program to convert text files to pdf... or something that will create pdf files on Win2K. And Matlab or Maple. For free. But that ain't going to happen. *sigh*

Art of Listening consists of sitting and listening to classical music with a bunch of idiots who can't sit quiet long enough through the class to keep me from getting pissed off. It's a very large effort to get me pissed off if you're being noisy. So it's pretty noisy.

World of Chemistry is taught by three professors, in fact. My peer has actually told me that the multiple choice exams are in fact tricky, despite what the professors claim. So I may need to establish some ranting protocols for myself this semester. (Otherwise I won't be able to graduate in many cases!)

And finally... U of Montreal. I guess it's pretty much as I feared. I don't understand squat in the class, content-wise and vocabulary-wise in either language, the professor is one of those microscopic-scrunchy-writers-type, and I have an assignment due next week... requiring me to write longer sentences in French than I can probably manage without messing up. *Snif.* Jorgh, help me!!!

Why isn't the Architecture Café open anyway? And why the hell is the Bistro so damn expensive now??? And why don't they make cheaper food around campus? Is everyone a millionaire/millionaire's kid around here??? WTF HAPPENED TO MY MONEY??????

In other news, Datoo has resigned from presidency of SSMU. Everyone's pissed off because there won't be a by-election, according to the usurpers- oh sorry, I mean the rest of the executive and the acting president, nearly-acclaimed VP University Affairs. If I had been more of an activist, I'd be running around with those placards and stuff, but it's not much of a big deal anyway. What, will the acting president get both salaries then? Then maybe... No, but seriously, I think that there's too much going on behind the scenes to make anyone feel secure about the executive this year, as is. So whatchu gonna do?

Holy crap, I'm so dizzy and tired right now. Why did Jorgh tell me to wake up at 7??? I don't need to finish the Numerical Analysis assignment due on Friday this early in the morning!

Happy Birthday!

To me.
I'm 23.
Whoopee.
Party!
Later!
I'll talk about it then!

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I remember the first birthday I had in Montreal. It was a pretty pathetic day, actually, since it was my second(?) day at school and I was going to a field experience day with three hundred other froshees at an elementary school in the middle of Montreal North. I was an hour and a half late because I underestimated the time to get to the metro stop, and then I underestimated the time to take the bus from the metro to the school by an hour. In any case, it was a very pathetic day.

So I decided to head back to McGill and plop myself in SUMS, when I didn't know anyone yet anyway, except Vito. I sat on the couch and listened to a very complicated ("complicated" being a very wrong description, more like "$@!#ing nuts") conversation between Seb, Marco, and others. After an hour of listening as confusedly as I was, I felt like exploding. Something compelled me to finally speak up, after a week of being invisible in a city of a million, after having to be forced into a situation no one wanted, and after feeling lost and alone for too long. I blurted out, "It's my birthday today."

Seb finally turned towards me and started talking to me, as later I found he would be so sociable. The others resumed babbling, while I talked about my crummy day and that I was new to the city and I felt terrible that day. Happily, Seb decided to invite me out with a few others from SUMS for the evening, which made the day so much better.
So Seb, Marco, Marcus, Gabe, and I went to the Eaton Center (back when Eaton was still in business) for supper at the food court. During supper, Seb presented to me a box of Daskelida's chocolates which apparently came from all the guys. I was very touched. :)

Afterwards, Marcus left but Seb wanted to treat me to a movie. We went to see "The Sixth Sense," which Gabe promptly ruined the ending for me about a minute before the ending. So I won't talk about the ending and what shouting I inflicted upon him for this terrible crime.

In any case, this was probably the beginning of my wonderful and not-so-wonderful adventures in SUMS, as a cronie and as an exec, and then as a cronie again, and then as an exec again...

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An even more unforgettable event which I want to tell before I go to sleep (!) is what happened two weeks before that birthday. I have always felt guilty abou that day, and the events leading up to that day. I could only attribute such foolishness to my deeply rooted self-doubt and lack of any common sense.

My entire family left to Toronto the previous week before McGill Science Frosh, leaving me behind in Quebec, and they just returned to Quebec two days before Frosh began. I neglected to tell them that I needed to go to Montreal right away, before they left. As soon as they arrived, they were outraged at my terrible timing and my incompetence. And I had no one else to stay with in Montreal, except my sister, but she was reluctant to accept me at her place.

I packed quite hastily and my parents exhaustingly drove me to Montreal the next day. I was barely into the appartment when the entire shouting mess started. I vaguely remember my mother and my sister yelling at each other, about me, and how my mother started crying about how we sisters couldn't ever get along especially when we needed each other the most, and my sister crying about something else. Then I started crying and yelling and then it was just a big mess.

I will never forget the moment when my parents were about to leave. My father was standing there, silently witnessing the fight, not daring to contribute nor provoke another mess. As they were leaving, he pulled out from his pocket a red envelope, and calmly proclaimed, "Happy Birthday."

Then I started crying again, having completely forgotten my birthday and that I would not be with my family for the first time.

Needless to say, I can't think about that day without welling up in tears again and wishing things did not turn out that way. But if I had to sum up my father in one story, this would probably be it.

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By the way, the worst part about this story was that Science Frosh was a complete waste of time and money. I wish I had never went, and if I could, I would sue them for false advertising. "No need to drink to have fun at this Frosh" my ass.

This is also the beginning of my animosity towards SUS. Not so pronounced as with the entity called McGill, but it is still there.

Back to McGill

First day back in school... I really hope this is the last time I get to say this as a student. ^_^

I have Numerical Analysis with apparently ninety other students, most of them in engineering for some reason. Engineers at McGill are very strange, as they have a completely different studying mentality in general. Whereas McGill science students have a superiority complex towards the engineers and like to complain about the engineers in their classes. But for good reason, I suppose (then again, I'm biased).

I have Art of Listening with a professor who admitted that this is his first semester teaching at McGill. But the course content is completely the same as when Jorghnassen took the class back in 1998. In fact, I don't think that classical music changed at all during the last six years. So why the F@#$ING crap did the publishing company make another edition of the book in between for this class??? WTF is wrong with these capitalistic bastards? [Edited long string of swear words and threats to all capitalistic dogs.]

I have one of the World of Chemistry classes, taught by the infamous Professor Joe Schwarcz, of radio, television, and newspaper fame. Apparently, there are three other W of Chem classes - drugs, food, something else - and then this one. This one is the leftover stuff from the other three more theme-based ones that didn't fit in any of them, and they put it together in a class called "Diversity of Chemistry."

Tomorow (today) I will have a History of Japan class, and then I will have to shuttle myself to University of Montreal to take the freaking frightening physics class. *shiver*

I will let you, dear reader(s), know how that goes soon. Ta!

Welcome Home Us!

We came back from a week long trip in Chicoutimi and a day spent in Quebec yesterday night. With Total Blueberry Conquering Action Pose and Renovating Floor Furniture Moving Stance!

I have been watching Excel Saga, yes.

In short, school starts on Wednesday, and I have not yet even been done registering for all my classes yet. All the ones from McGill are done, but not the stupid inter-university transfer (IUT) to U of M. Why? Because this #$^@ing piece of @#$! I used two months ago sent my request to the @$^%ing math department at McGill instead of physics, and the @$%!ing math department decided not to tell me anything. For two months. So I got pissed off (it's not obvious, is it?) and have been trying to contact someone to work out the details before the first class on Thursday. It's exceptionally frustrating, I'm telling you.

I haven't sent my last form to get my student loans for this semester yet. I have these two things to sort out tomorrow.

In the meantime...

Happy Labour Day!