October 2005 Archives

All of my first round midterms are now completed. I haven't had an ass kicking like that since first year. A warning for you all? Don't underestimate what seems like the easiest course. Those that are conceptually easy will be made tricky by time constraints or ridiculous wording. I am going to have to adjust my schedule for the rest of the year to accomodate for a first period shut out (for all you hockey fans out there). I now need to implement plan B. When I run into or am offered something that sounds fun, I run in the opposite direction for the remainder of the term. Sure sounds appealing, doesn't it? It really doesn't get any easier than that, unfortunately.

Remembrance Day weekend is next week up here in Canuckistan, and most people will be heading off for fun activities elsewhere. Not me. I will be wheedling the hours away in between a mountain of books and scrap paper. It'll be silent, except for the faint sound of the occassional curse. Oh yes, it will be a dry, dusty place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In my first real trip to the library since the semester started, I realized that Cameron has a bank of Sun thin clients hidden away in the basement. They are are running an old copy of Solaris (9), but if they upgraded to 10, I think they'd be quite nice. They are a very pleasant replacement for Windows. I am almost tempted to see if I connect my desktop back in the appartment into the terminal server... Oh, what' s that? Never mind, my chem book is calling me.

Well, amazingly enough, Florida is going to see its eighth major hurrican in a just 14 months. Wilma looks to be getting stronger as it gets to Florida too, though it's no where near the Category 5 monster it was at one point. I imagine that those who live in the Carribean are getting pretty storm weary by this point. Luckily, I am about as removed from that as you can possibly get. The Carribean is at least 1500 miles south of me and to the West I have the Rockies. To the East, there is a thousand mile buffer and then the harmless Hudson's Bay. I also don't live near any major faults. The price for this amazing security? An absolutely nasty winter. But with global warming, I may have the last laugh yet.

Every night before I drift off to sleep, I have typically been reading CS Lewis' apolgetic masterpiece, Mere Christianity. I have actually already went through it once, but I find it a fantastic resource, and I get something different out of it everytime I go through it. Additionally, I find it a handy authoritative source to quote in discussions. It may be old material in some ways, but it's always good to have a refresher. I kind of go through that with the classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The principles are all fairly basic, but again, a reminder never hurts.

I have been staying exceptionally busy with classes and affiliated activities. Of course, if you want a reference for that, my calendar is linked on the bottom right of this page. Of course, the coursework is getting more difficult the deeper I get into the semester. I deeply underestimated my Biology 201 exam earlier this week, and it hurt me badly. I am determined not to make the same mistake with the exams I have next week. I am positive that both will be challenging.

I am still extremely broke, and still trying to fix that problem. I found a small source of cash recently, and though it is nothing that will satisfy my budgetary needs, we're getting closer. Now I have to brush up on my math teaching skills...

This is actually a rather plain picture of my bed. Tomorrow I plan to post a pic with the bed in the upright position so you get a better appreciation of how exactly this works. The bed also looks like it needs more pillows: I'm working on that. Maybe by March I'll have enough money for one.

This is actually the two hundredth post since I began doing this a few years ago. To those of you that have been my faithful readers all this time, here's to many more years of posting while I am off in exile! This log has allowed me to communicate my thoughts to a wide audience from numerous locations, sadly all on the North American continent. Whether or not ever make it off of this particular tectonic plate, I hope that all of you have appreciated my efforts in this regard.

To celebrate, I have posted a video of a tour I did through my apartment in addition to today's photo. Those of you without broadband will be able to download this, though I don't recommend it. The video is simply too large and most of you fill find it an exercise in frustration. To view it, you will most likely need a copy of VLC. You may have luck with something else, depending on exactly how your computer is configured. However, I can guarantee that VLC will play it, and VLC is free software and runs on Mac, Linux, and Windows. The link to download it is here. Many thanks go to blueboy for mirroring this file.