Category: happy

i suppose generally happy posts

first mac

after loving the shuffle; after becoming entirely attached-at-the-hip to the ipod touch; i have received/gotten the quad core 27 inch imac for my birthday. (Eg instead of paying off mortgage i got myself a fancy toy. This is me being a 26 year old adult. Clearly I’m learning something over the years…!)

I have never owned an apple machine before. I remember the first time I used one – it was when we came to Canada and I went to grade 8. They had the old macs and the new ones – the all in one, brightly colored ones? I don’t think I really had much real exposure after that – in high school the machines were PCs. At home, they were PCs. At university, they were PCs (by large, anyway, I can’t recall otherwise).

But despite the rarity of the Apple I always had a deep dedication, fondness and a hidden desire to own one.

So as we are DINKs (Double Income No Kids) and I have worked my  butt off in form of many late nights, 11pm emails, 7am calls and 8am meetings, I feel (and kinda have) earned myself the ultimate. present. of. all. time. A new, TOP OF THE FSCKING LINE, 27 inch widescreen QUAD FSCKING CORE iMac. I wouldn’t swear but I CANT.

The entire reason for this entry is the overwhelming disbelief and joy that I have went and gotten myself the most top end thing of anything. I’m not whining – its just, I’ve always been very reasonable in my demands. iPod touch – not iPhone. Built PC – not a laptop. Nikon D70 – even if its falling apart quite literally after 5 (5!!!!) years.

But I went and gotten the computer of my dreams.

The funny thing is I didn’t even know how much I’d enjoy using it. My motivations were based in (a) esthetics – we live in a nice place, my computer is highly visible, and I wanted something that would look good – and (b) function – I sure as heck wasn’t going to get a Sony all in one or something silly like that. After the fairly recent announcements of the 21 and 27 inch macs I decided that – fsck yeah! – I’ll treat myself to top of the line.

The smell of new computer is makes me ecstatic. The hugeness of the screen …. is unbelievalbe. But every time that I look down and see THE DASHBOARD. Or everytime that I do ANYTHING AT ALL EVEN SORTING PHOTOS – I am blown away by HOW GOOD IT LOOKS. And I’m not being biased – my crazy dual core 64 bit 2gb ram 500GB raid + dedicated swap PC + 21 inch dell monitor (same manufacturer as one for apple monitors) is right by side. THEY CANNOT BE COMPARED.

2010 is the year I switched. I do not think I will ever, ever switch back. It pains me it took so long. But now – I cannot imagine it.

milestones: 13 years in canada, masters certificate

today, june 6th 2009, is the 13th year of our time in canada. that feels very strange. i remember landing, and seeing the airport, and missing the palms. i remember our friends driving me first to our house (their car couldn’t fit me, them, our suitcases, and my parents, so i went first with the suitcases), and pointing out the mosque near 400 & 401. i remember being in their house with 2 dogs – they told me not to come out from the bedroom, and didn’t put my lego set with me, so i ended up falling asleep.

the next day, at 3 am, i woke up and was very disoriented, and confused. those first days are overlayed by the strange memory of the first days in israel. so different, and yet so the same – both moves are in a strange, jet lagged, foreign haze.

how weird is it that i’m here, married to an american, and have changed so much of my personality that was affected by these moves. i was shy, not outspoken, and i took shit from people. in the past few years that changed so much. 13 years!

in other news. today i finished my masters in project management program. our group came in 1st (we split the spot, our final evaluation was same to the decimal!), met so many fantastic people who are fun, smart, kind, and i can’t wait to hang out with in general. and now i can put some alphabet soup after my name! but i won’t.

the course was fun, but i am happy that i have no longer the pressure of homework or 8am saturday classes.

flowers make me happy

realization of the day: i am very happy when i have fresh flowers that i can cut and arrange. i had my G test this morning (passed, from the first time! wooo!), and then worked until 7, so i was pretty stressed out and tired. upon coming home to a clean apartment i decided that instead of vegetating in front of the computer/the tv/the book i should do something that would take my stress away.

turns out pruning flowers is one of the many things that work very well to make me feel calmer, happier and relieve my stress. after spending around an hour cutting and trying to arrange all the various flowers that my mom gave me (it was her birthday, and she basically gave me some she didn’t really care for, plus some pretty ones – like the sunflowers) into the vases that i had on hand. after that i decided to take photographs, and turns out that i took like 38 photographs that i liked. so, there you go! diny, enjoy the chairs.

here are my favourite ones, you can see all of them here. (i culled the vignettes into this set)

kitchen

kitchen close up

vignette - roses and a tiny carnation

vignette kinda

vignette - bathroom basket

vignette - more carnation

vignette - roses

vignette - more sunflowers

coffee table

couch

now about my g test.

well, let me tell you, i was worried. most people (as in 20 except for 2) that i asked didn’t pass it from the first time. i don’t take failure well, despite knowing that its stupid to stress out about a test that DOESNT EVEN AFFECT YOUR GPA OMG. (and you can retake endlessly for just some small amounts of money). and yet, there was, sitting in the parking lot and trying really hard to calm down. i borrowed the russian translation of dale carnegie’s book (compilation of all 3 of his most famous ones) from my parents, so i tried to read it.

the guy who was testing me (i think his name is randy – thank you, randy!) was a friendly looking young guy, unlike the person who did my g2 test. he asked me how i am, and i honestly replied “nervous as usual”. i think this confused him, as he asked “this IS the first time you’re taking this test, right?” (it already said this on my form). i replied in the affirmative.

the test itself went nicely, with some awesome happenings. i pulled out of the parking lot with no problems (went really slow as there was a young kid who i saw running around before, so i informed the guy that the reason i’m going this slowly is because there’s a kid behind us, and i’m worried about him). fast forward to driving on the highway, and no problems. (i did apparently make some errors on the way there, but all minor things). so we’re going on the highway, and he says “please change lanes left and then right whenever its safe to do so”. i check stuff, see that its safe, and change lanes. obviously i’m going 100km/hr on the dot, so is the person in front of me. and then i see in my rear view mirror a pick up truck with a flat bed trailer (like the small one) speeding toward me. my first though – “ok, change lanes to the right so that you get out of his way”. except, the crazy pick up truck swerves to the lane to the right of me, without dropping speed. at this point i’m thinking “shit, he’s gonna pass me on the right and i’m very screwed, especially if he honks or breaks badly”. what he did was worse (or better? since i passed?). he passed on me on the right alright, but he did it without dropping speed, signaling lane change, and with his flat bed trailer SWINGING WILDLY, missing my car by maybe a meter. i actually said “holy shit” outloud, because that was some horrible driving there. randy didn’t say anything, so we continued on our merry way, while i’m kinda going “oh shit did i just fail?” inside.

what was remarkable is that he didn’t ask me to do any kind of parking. at least now i’m a pro at this parallel stuff, thanks to our wonderful street. anyway, we park and right away he goes “congratulations, you’ve passed!” (let me remark, this is BAJILLIONS YEARS OF LIGHT BETTER than my g2 test, where the guy just sat there for like a minute silent and writing stuff on his paper, until i couldn’t stand the pressure and asked with a shaking voice “so did i fail?” and he was like “oh no”. turns out i had 2 mistakes out of 15. but that was g2). i’m not sure how many “points” i lost on this test – i still have the paper, but it doesn’t say which errors are more crucial.

anyway, randy, wherever he is, i’m hoping he’s having a good one, because turns out that exams/tests still make me crazy. great! :P