tuesday photos

date: 1111649271

mood: superb. a+++++++ would buy from again!
listening to:voodoo & serano – overload (n trance radio edit)

no wednesday photos as it sucked. but expect montreal photos! hehe.

splotches from life:
shady was taken for the weekend, starting today, by mom’s friend. house is empty, i miss her.

i did laundry. like, wow…

parents leaving tomorrow. empty house AND i got car for the weekend and then some!

and i’m up beyond my hours.

i have a 3000 word essay to write tomorrow (not FOR tomorrow but i will not have time otherwise).

if there is anything i can do to make your life better, tell me. for such pure joy of living must be shared.

remarkably sick.

date: 1108832815

mood: i can’t feel my brain
listening to:dj shadow – stem/long stem (2004 In Tune and On Time)

wow.

okay.

last saturday i woke up with a sore throat, headache, and generally a cold.

a week later, i woke up, and i think i have the flu.

-nothing- changed, and if anything things became worse.

nice reading week, eh?

study update:
nn: ~40-50% done
cog lin: prof said he’ll consider my final exam to weigh more if i do significantly better on it, he’s sure i’ll do well anyway. prepared however: 90%
data structures, algorithms, analysis: 5% or so. i’m freaking out. i can’t think.
programming languags: 30% or so. i need to review scheme thoroughly and i cannot concentrate.

today i’ll be heading for the clinic, to wait in the likely 2 hour line up to get antibiotics.

the good days when i was not sick… *sigh*

tidbits of life

date: 1105560501

mood: running to class.
listening to:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts…
Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

almost 50% of people watching a basketball game and counting ball basses would NOT notice a human in a gorrila suit passing through the game. our attention span is *that* narrow.

i have 30 emails in my inbox that i gotta reply to. latest one is from november.

if i spend 2 minutes per email that’s still an hour.

i have no time: second week of school and i am *swamped* with classes, readings, meetings with profs and other students, things to read, to do, to think. it is insane, how great this is. my brain is getting quite the stretch, but i am also very happy. so much intellectual stimulation!

tracking of new year’s goals:
i was 10 minutes late to today’s class. otherwise i wasn’t late anywhere this year (not that i can remember, but i’m pretty sure that no… or almost no, but it wasn’t bad, i’m improving).
my goal of leading a healthier lifestyle is working out famously. i even packed salad and wholewheatrye bread with me, and oranges/nuts for snack. superb.
goal of spending time with my dog is semi working out. i’m walking her more often, especially when i have time, such as weekend, and days when i return earlier. however this week, for the past 2 days i came back at 10, and today and tomorrow looks to be the same… which means i am *exhauhsted* and just want to relax, sleep.
sleep: i’m stupid! despite my efforts of falling asleep earlier and waking up earlier i falter. the “another 5 minutes” is the bane of my existence, i cannot beat it no matter ho hard i try. argh.

since everyone are writing about their classes, i’ll go over mine:
http://www.olya.org/schedule.html schedule and descriptions
my summary/thoughts:
neural networks: most difficult of them all, also most current/interseting in a certain aspect. i might drop this, depending on how well i do in it. the professor is very good, i must sit closer to strain to hear him less. he has a fantastic british accent, and is generally a great explainer. office hours were fun, good, helpful. subject is neural networks, and all about them,

principles of programming languages: a grad student is teaching this, however he is also pretty damn good. the class looks to be like a lot of fun, we’ll be learning 3 languages which are purely theoretical, with little real life applications (except in AI). however, theoretically, they should give me a nice base off which to study other languages further, and generally this course should provide a better insight into programming.

data structures and analysis: shortened to data structures and anal. in the u of t calendar. pretty fair too – this is going to be a hard, logic heavy class, requiring a lot of rigourous proofs, math, logic (as i said), almost no programming beyond psuedo code, and generally will be fairly difficult. thanks to last year’s precursor to this class (i took an advanced version with a more difficlt prof), this is going to be not as hard, as i’m well prepared.

cognitive linguistics: the class which i have in 10 minutes! uhm, this class is fantastic. the only drawback is that we still didn’t get any readings or h/w assigned – i am too freaking eager to get started. this seems to be like a class about all my favourite parts of programming, intellegence, cognition, linguistics, psychology, with some philosophy mixed in. the prof is great, funny, i love him. <3 superb class. higher cognitive processes: aka the class with that prof that i wanted to study with for the past 3 years. yes, indeed, the same prof who i was going to get in my first year but unix axed him (idiots), is teaching this. i have no words, except that the prof is god. i want to listen to him forever. he explains in the most brilliant way, in a way that is both funny AND educational. this class competes with cognitive linguistics for my favourite time of the week - i cannot wait to sit in on this prof's lecture tonight, as he is *amazing*. alright, i am late to cog lin. now you know! (family guy: the more you know!) oh, cool links: http://www.apple.com/macmini
http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle
http://www.wireless….toronto.ca/maps.html

my first allnighter that is not going out

date: 1099011930

mood:
listening to:chicane – saltwater

… is not yet finished.

paper in philosophy due tomorrow (no final exam, just a paper, 5 questions, each worth 2 points).

and a final exam in psychology.

my paper about condom use got a 9. (thats 90% – but they never give 10). i was the only one in class to get 10/10 on my proposed intervention!

i’ll tell you about it more when i’m not trying to read these dense philosophers. argh, so difficult.

everyone else are in a bar, with the exception of sandra and francesca who also have an exam tomorrow. so does simon, but he is out anyway.

everyone else had their last exam today, and david had his on tuesday, so they are rightfully slacking off.

*yawn*

tired.

i’m sorry for no updates; i have no excuse. rest assured, i will write if anything exciting happens, and i will update on the merely a little exciting stuff when i’m not cramming/writing.

travel, rain, aka sept 14, 15

date: 1095326537

mood: hungry
listening to:

“So you have a partner in crime. I just booked my flight. X”

Woohoo!

Okay, a bit pre history.

I have booked a flight to Rome, on November 19-22. it cost me a grand sum of 40 euros, (about 35 of them in fees – and 5 euros for the actual flight!). Plus the train to the airport (it is in Brussels), it will be 70 euros. That’s the return price. Yup.

anyway, i was happy with it and all, however i was going alone, as when i was booking, i couldn’t find anyone to join me. today, i was speaking with a friend of david (he is scottish, his friend is scottish as well, her name is jennifer), and lamenting that it is so difficult to find people to on trips, and that i booked my trip to rome, because i want to travel.

we spoke for a while (before that as well – talking about politics and psychology, sounds smart but seriously, its just dinner table talk ;)), she’s a very nice girl, and after complaining about rome, i said that i’d gladly not go alone, but i’d rather go alone than not go at all, and offered her (well, anyone else in the room as well) to join me. she said yeah, sure, give me the information.

i wrote down the time and the airpots (brussels to rome), and the dates, and explained to her how to figure out the screwed up website of ryan air.

anyway, before she left the floor, we exchanged numbers (weee, second person in my cellphone – first person is francesca, of course). and some time later, after i returned from dinner, i got the above message.

so, double w00t:

1. first sms message! yay! i can get sms!
2. yay i’m not going alone woohooo!!

okay, now more.

this weekend i am going to amsterdam! simon and myself organized the idea, jerome and thomas have agreed to go. both of them (thomas and jerome) came here by car, so chances are (well, basically, it is true), that we will go to amsterdam by car. we are leaving on saturday morning, around 7 am. oh, and fabio is joining us as well. there’s a chance that mirjam and her friend will join us there (i have no clue whats happening, it is difficult to organize everyone), but regardless, it is fantastic!

there have been talks of going to copenhagen. simon wants to go there, and chris has expressed “not minding” view as well. possibly we will rent a car (share the price) and drive up there. fun fun fun!!

okay.

now, in more mundane news (whatever you can call mundane here).

last i have written was tuesday afternoon. tuesday evening, after coming home and eating (i stole some of david’s food, and then had some more tomatoes. mmm…. im known as the tomato freak around here.), we have decided to go out. around 10 we have left, on bikes, to highlander (aka the bar with the female stripteseur, aka the bar that had a happy hour last night – 1 euro beer), and afterwards to shamrock, aka the bar NEXT to the male striptease bar AKA the bar with the footsball table where chris and i have beaten julien and francesca.

i’m sure in about a month all of you will know this city as well as me ;)

anyway, after coming to highlander, we got some beer, and for about an hour just drank beer and hung out. nothing special, just relaxing. it was fairly loud (duh, happy hour), and fairly crowded, but we all just kinda stuck together in our “cool” group. hah.

after abt 30-40 minutes, francesca joined us, and we have biked to downtown area, where for the next 3 hours, we proceeded trying to find a place that will NOT be SO crowded that it is impossible to walk in. shamrock was okay, but a bit boring. after walking from it towards another bar (can’t remember the name, been there before with peter and francesca, didn’t like it that much), we realized that it is SO crowded that it is impossible to walk in.

therefore, a bunch of us (chris, a new guy in our group, gere? or something like that, simon, francesca, myself, thomas) hung out outside. with about 30 other people. inside the bar, which has the square footage of … 2 of my rooms in canada, had about 80 people. TRYING TO DANCE. i stuck my nose in there once, trying to dig out simon (who went to dig out francesca who went to dig out jerome). it was NUTS!

anyway, after that, chris, simon, gere, francesca, myself, thomas, tried to find a better place. after walking around what seemed like the whole city (well, most of the downtown, which is tiny, but you get used to the size quickly), we gave up, met jerome and fabio, left simon with them, and the rest of us went home.

at home, watched tv, had a late night snack (seriously, its like a never ending food fest here, especially with nutella… it is crazy, even francesca who is allergic to wheat puts nutella on her glutten-free crackers. and no, its not the munchies, cause it applies to everyone – i guess its from all the walking), and fell asleep, around … geez, i dont know. 3 am is my best guess.

wednesday, blissful day, no classes. woke up twice, once at 9:30 (from a phonecall, at least it was from canada!), and once at 3. at 3 i decided that maybe i should get up afterall, woke up, walked around, had tea and lotsa jam (i’m finishing my second jar – well, i have 2 non finished jars, one with apricot and one with strawberry. i’ll probably finish strawberry this week. jam is my candy, with all the colds around this place, it soothes my throat.)

around 5, i realized i need to get reading. i decided to go outside, and apparently, weather decided that it should prevent me from doing so. (see left. i have a series for a fantastic panorama – it is bright blue on the right and dark grey on the left, but at the moment no software to create a panorama, and i am too lazy to do it for you atm, so a bit later) nevertheless, i go downstairs, look for my bike…

and not find it.

hmmmm.

i go upstairs. last night, julien has taken it, however we all came back together, so it should be in the shed.

i look for julien. instead i find thomas, i explain that i have to go to school to download ereaders to tomorrows 8:30am class. thomas volunteers to drive me (considering at this point outside is pouring down, and even after 4 minutes my coat is soaking wet – at least i’m dry). i say okay, wait for him, watch julien come in the elevator.

turns out he borrowed my bike this morning. grrrrr. anyway, i took my spare key from him, and explained what i thought had happened. regardless, thomas still agrees to drive me, so we drive to the campus, park outside, i quickly download ereaders, and fire off a fast email to mom + co (eliciting a question “who are you typing to?!” from him, rightfully so, considering he is waiting for me to finish!), and we went back.

anyway, i’m glad i got driven. tiny car, very european, fun fun fun.

after coming home, i watched some tv, studied for a while (read my psych book + notes + made notes for tomorrow, read some chinese pages i saved on monday regarding writing of characters). afterwards, i made mushroom soup, from a packet plus some fresh mushrooms. came out good… like, not bad, just good. i used too much water, but since it was actually …. good (can you feel how surprised and shocked i am at it being good? of course thomas and jerome – people who ate it – said it was good, but like… i cooked, duh. btw, i’m not the only one who cooks… for julien and simon, francesca cooked, and david, mirjam and aphrodita usually cook just for themselves. sandra either leaves to eat with other people, or cooks here for herself and her friends, but she always welcomes other to eat – even though i never did). err, that was a long digression. anyway, i will make it again, it was fine.

afterwards i was planning to make zhaki (which is apparently the french name for oladushki, a thing my mom makes and that i can make, except none of the french guys know the name), but it was kinda late, so i just decided to make them tomorrow after my class (since most people will wake up around 11, when i come back).

i use brackets, a lot. weird.

after that, i read some more (cause i had 35 pages of e readers), and wrote this entry, and watched miss italia with about half the floor (surprisingly enough not only guys, but girls were interested as well). funny, francesca – italian – was protesting the whole way about how stupid it is and how no one watches the show in italy. well, duh, not like you need italian to watch it.

anyway, it is 12:45, i believe my entry for tonight is complete, i have finished all of my reading, and since i have an early class tomorrow, i shall finish by replying to the saved emails that i have, and go to sleep, if i can.

to be continued!

monday, september 06, 2004

date: 1094545165

mood:
listening to:

Monday (posted from archives)

I woke up at 1pm, because last night we went out and only went to sleep at 4am (dear god, I can’t believe that I’m actually living this life, this must be a story of someone else!).
I woke up, and made breakfast for Julien and Francesca. I made eggs with bacon, tomatoes and red onion, and toast with milk and sugar (like my mom made for me in canada). They loved it! It was fun. They finished their plates, asked for more, and later I caught Julien eating off the tiny leftover pieces on the pan. Felt great!

Afterwards, we kinda cleaned up (shit, I still should wash some plates). I made Francesca some tea, she is sick (sore throat, I think she got a cold). Julien went to do laundry, so I threw in one of my white shirts (same as Francesca). I should do laundry one of these days.

Then Jerome woke up, had his breakfast/lunch, I was typing Paris/these notes.

I shall run to wash dishes, dress, bike to UCM, get internet, go to class, nownow.

12:47am.
well, i wasn’t plannning to be up at this hour. but i was copying music from home harddrive to laptop, to have it with me tomorrow, and i found the triplets of belleville, so i copied and watched that too. shouldn’t have, it has a most adorable dog and made me depressed and missing shady.

its weird, i mean, don’t get me wrong, i miss people. but i can update blog, write emails, call people. but shady, she is just depressed without knowing that i will come back. if one of you thought i left forever and wouldn’t be able to know otherwise i’d be depressed about that too, but i just miss shady like hell.

anyway… i went to class today. 10 people, professor sitting with us at the same table.

we’re going to have no lectures. only tutorials.

i got internet on my laptop after the tutorial, so my previous entry fills in this blank.

… blank …

after i biked home (yay for improving my breaks all on my own! biking back was nice, the sun was setting and making the pavement bright yellow).

came home, talked to people, made pasta for myself (some people ate before, and others ate after, but i didn’t know if they will). spoke to people, again. its fun, to just hang out, everyone are very nice. i went and cleaned my room (its neat now, yay, but i still want container boxes cause i still have wires and papers to keep organized). we have a little dining room type of thing, with a tv, table, and 4 chairs (people brought more from their rooms). i put my photography book, girly journal, and the free guide to maastricht that i got when i came here there. i caught many people flipping through all these today! hehehe. french guys seemed to be particularly interested in the instyle journal. :P

then we ate rissotto (i think that’s the spelling), which was cool, but not as good as my eggs ;). afterwards, we all decided on a system (okay, so it was my idea, but who am i to brag ;)) to make sure that we all know where our own food is.

i washed the dishes (i usually do, but i dont mind, it makes me feel like i’m preventing aggrevation by doing that).

people then went to a beer tasting thing, but i just felt like being alone for a while.

i copied music, watched triplets of belleville, installed palm software on my computer, so that now i can hotsync (palm is indespensebale for tracking their weird schedule system). now i’m going to do some reading and go to sleep. i’ll also write up some paris notes, if i have the energy. i will have a 2 hour break between classes tomorrow, so i will likely do some updating then as well. :)

music is nice. everyone always plays their music very loud in here, and its good that i dont mind rock, pop, or reggae, cause thats what is usually played (bob marley or u2, was the latest type of music that is heard on the floor).

i feel like i’m home, but its also painful in an odd way to think that this is home.

good night.

the weekend!

date: 1090122873

mood: exceeAdingly pleased with the proposal
listening to:

http://www.mcsweeney…sts/30scenarios.html

this week felt like it lasted forever. only 5 weeks of work left. exactly. and then… a week off. and then… europe. maastricht. new things.

i can’t imagine that i have 5 weeks… okay, 6 weeks, left here.

i am happy now. its scary, to be happy.

for a long time i wasn’t happy, and i wished i could be, and i had no idea how to … be. and now, that i feel … okay, with me and things which are around me, i don’t know how i got here. is it chance? is it coincidence? is it the people who are now around me (or not around me)?

i am lucky. i was lucky in many regards, especially with my family. i never had to worry about the basic necessities, and that makes me lucky when juxtaposed with the rest of the world.

but luck has nothing to do with the way our lives turn out. i wish it was more about what we are…

brazensix, i am sorry for your multiple losses, both financial as well as the emotional weight that comes with losing personal things.

when life throws you lemons, make lemonade.

where does one get the sugar though?

early morning

date: 1082296990

mood: nervous
listening to:radio 104.5 chum fm

woke up at 9am. prep for exam at 9am tomorrow.

dog scared.

me too for totally other reasons.

lack of time

date: 1080623613

mood: tired
listening to:whitney houston – my love is your love

If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.

i cleaned my room (big yay, it was waaay overdue)
i really really tried to finish linguistics assignment but i couldn’t.

my throat hurts for some reason (i aired out the room, maybe too much cold air)

i want avocado. what is your favourite vegetable?