Life of a UW Math Student

Sin City DVD: Round 1

2005-08-16T19:10:00.000-04:00

Ever since I saw Sin City around four months ago , I couldn't get it out of my head. Its basic stories which outline the primative needs of men (aggression, breasts, and violence) along with its stunning visuals make it one of my favourite movies of all time.

I've been looking forward to the DVD ever since I left the theatre. When I heard it would be released August 16th, I marked that day in my calendar. All fucking summer I've been looking forward to this day.

Head down to HMV after work and what do I see? A barebones DVD package for 25 bucks. What the fuck is that shit?!?!?! There is a like one small featurette. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed... on top of which it was expensive as hell.

I went home and researched a bit on prices since I really want a copy and found out that they pulled a LOTR on this shit. There is a huge featured-packed set being released in December. It's a good thing I didn't buy the movie since I would've regretted it with the whole Special Edition coming out later.

What the fuck are the studios thinking? How much are they gonna extort from customers? Dimension Films has lost my DVD business for at least the next year, well not counting Sin City SE. They should've at least let it be know that the SE is coming out later this year so the people that didn't know wouldn't get fucked and they would've at least had a choice on whether to buy or wait.

Sucks to be me

2005-08-07T19:20:00.000-04:00

So there was this Ericsson boat cruise today... I couldn't make it down as I had to attend a funeral of sorts, so I'm at home listening to Big Wreck.

I was actually looking forward to this for a while! I even bought this freaking pimped shirt for the occassion, but alas... it's now hanging in my closet looking good. Oh well, that's life.

2005-08-04T10:31:00.000-04:00

I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next sportswriter who brings up the time Jason Giambi said sorry over and over without mention what he's apolgizing for.

Thanks guys, we get it. He used to use steriods. Fucking idiots.

/"Hey Farva! What's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy stuff on the wall and the mozzarella sticks?"
//"You mean Shenanigans?"
///"ooooooooooooooooooooooooo" *offers pistol*

Edit (08/04/2005 @ 8:39PM):
After making this post, I couldn't get Super Troopers out of my head. I just had to go down to Best Buy and pick up the DVD. I got a pretty decent deal: 2 movies (Super Troopers and Office Space) for 30 bucks. Score!

Plane crash

2005-08-02T21:09:00.000-04:00

Aside from being in LA during the riots, I don't think I've ever been so close to a disaster as I was to the plane crash today. Ericsson's located less than a kilometer from where the crash occured and right when it happened, our power went off and then back on again. I didn't know that a plane crashed until one of my buddies told me about it.

As we started going home, we saw black smoke rising from the wreckage. Not wanting to miss out on a historical event, we got to the spot direct across the highway from the crash. We climbed a fence and stood on the 401 railing to try to get a better view of what was going on. All we could see was smoke. I sorta wish I had a camera; would've taking a picture of me holding a cigarette and blowing out all that black smoke. Hey, at least my ticket to hell is first class!

BTW, I threw up my fall schedule. The class in white, CM 352, is a class I'm surveying. I was actually supposed to take it this term, but I decided to do Intro to ODE before doing Computational ODEs.

2 months to the day...

2005-07-31T21:05:00.000-04:00

...since my last post. I have no idea why I neglect you guys so much, but I know that you love it; been checking my visitor logs periodically and y'all keep coming back. I'm like the abusive husband you think you can change, but baby, it's not gonna happen anytime soon.

I think this has been my longest delay, which is sorta shocking since I wrote a reasonable amount last summer. It's not like I'm busy, so maybe that's why... just a lack of material, but that hasn't stopped me before. What to talk about, what to about?

DE Class
As I mentioned in my Nazi Google post, I'm took Financial Accounting distance ed through Laurier. Stupidest move I ever made. For one thing, I'm lazy as hell and have like no motivation to study, espeically for something as boring as accounting. Secondly, WLU screwed up my registration, which (along with my laziness) caused me to access the course website a good month after the class had started.

Since my prof had set things up so that we read a chapter a week, I was four chapters behind the rest of my class with the midterm a week and a half away. I somehow got out of writing the midterm and got myself a 100% weighted final, thinking that my ability to thrive in pressure would get me working. So another month passes without me doing any sort of work, just procrastinating as much as one could.

Finally, I realized that it was crunch time and polished off my textbook in 3 weeks and killed myself to learn the material as best as I could. Considering the material was accounting, which is one of those things that you really can't do too much of in a day, I thought it was pretty good. I spent the last week mostly procrastinating and learning how to do the main types of questions.

My exam was Friday and I think I did pretty good. I guess all that hard work did pay off. If it doesn't, I'll be very pissed as it's Laurier, and I should be ruining that shit. All I know is that I won't be doing stupid stuff like taking course during coop anymore, well at least until next winter. BRING IT ON MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING!!!

Work
Work sucks, so what else is new? I just wished I had something interesting to do so I could actually look forward to coming into work everyday. I'm so gonna find my own job for the winter, or be picky as I was in first year... Only have 3 more terms, can't be stuck with stuff I hate. I really need to narrow my choices to find a backup career.

Only good thing about work, I've gotten good at pool by playing during lunch and we have a boat cruise next Sunday. Woo woo!

School
I heard that the Math Faculty is now giving 5 freebie credits; basically, you can drop 5 marks from your transcript. The catch? It's only for classes taken after September 2004. This was brought as a result of all the frosh last year that either failed or were on probation after 1A; I've heard that the number was close to 40% of last year's incoming class. I brought this up before, but I overestimated these people; I said they might be capable, but obviously I was proven wrong.

Anyways, it's not really fair to us upper year students as we had to learn from our mistakes and bring up our marks from first year. These frosh are lucky enough to learn from their mistakes and have their marks discarded. Idiots shouldn't get a break for being idiots, it's not fair to the rest of us. Either make the discarding of marks retroactive, or don't do it at all and raise the admission standards. I'm gonna be doing something about this once I get back to campus. FIGHT THE POWER!

I picked my classes for next term a little while ago (view schedule). I'm going to be taking:
- ACTSC 371: Corporate Finace I
- AMATH 250: Intro to Differential Equations
- CHEM 120: Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter
- CM 361: Computational Statistics and Data Analysis
- MATH 239: Introduction to Combinatorics

Since I'm living close to campus and have no classes 2 days a week, I'm gonna hopefully get my act together and study. Well, at least for all the 300-level classes as the Grad school I want to go to only looks at 3rd and 4th year.

Concerts
Being in Mississauga, I can really hit too much up as there is no way to get back home until the next morning, but I'm doing what I can.

I went to Live 8 in Barrie on July 2nd. It was awesome, even though I totally disagree with the whole end poverty now business, well not the idea, but the way they are doing it. I rather not give my money to corrupt leaders, but I digress. The experience was incredible and something I'll never forget...

We got to Barrie and as soon as we got out of the car, we heard Tom Cochrane starting the show. By the time we got inside, we only missed Cochrane, Sam Roberts, and a bit of Bryan Adams. As the day wore on, we inched our way closer to the front... and then Motley Crue came on and people started going crazy. I was pushed from like wherever the hell I was to basically 5 rows back in like a song and a half. From there it was incredible, but it sorta sucked since the view wasn't as good! I have pictures which I might throw up later on.

I have tickets to Green Day next Friday and the Foo Fighters (floor seats!!) the day after that. I'm so pumped to see Jimmy Eat World (opening for Green Day) and the Dave Grohl (who I've loved since I heard Everlong done acoustically on the Howard Stern show). I can't wait!!!

Waterloo Life
As I'm pretty insocial and don't like to make friends, I've gone back to Waterloo like 6 times during this term. Wow, I sound pathetic! Oh well, it was good times. I'm gonna miss everybody that's gonna be going away on coop next term, but you know what that means? ROAD TRIP!!!

My Mission to Get into Shape
In the past 2-3 weeks, I've gotten up a bit earlier than usual and started running 3-4 times a week. I've started to feel great about myself and now that my exam is done, I'm gonna try to even hit up the gym. I want to run a marathon next Spring and am gonna train my ass off for it.

Book Reading
I really wanted to read a lot this summer to sorta extend beyond my horizon. I've tried to accomplish that, but haven't really done too much. So far I've finished off...
- Financial Accounting: A User's Perspective. Very well written thriller, but the plot isn't very interesting.
- The World According to Garp - Really has no plot, but it's hilarious
- The Restuarant at the End of the Universe - Funny, but not as good as the first part of the series
- Contact - VERY dry, but explores some interesting themes like Science vs Religion
- The Vegas Book - I dunno how many times I've read it, but I can't get enough
- Moneyball - I actually picked this up yesterday and polished it off in a day. It's a hell of a read and interesting as hell.
- Phil Helmuth's Texas Hold'em - I'm actually in the middle of this book. It's horribly written, but I really wasn't expecting a lot.

It's nowhere near as much as I'd like, but it's a good start. I still have a month to add to this total, to add to the total I will. Barbarians at the Gate & Bringing down the House are next on my to read list

Wannabe Intellectual

2005-05-31T19:42:00.000-04:00

I've been reading a lot this coop term, well by reading a lot I mean I read on the bus and at the end it turns out to be a fair amount.

Deep Throat was Mark Felt... who would've thunk it? Now, who actually cares? I'm just disappointed that it wasn't Jimmy James from TV's NewsRadio. This is turning into that episode where everybody thought Mr. James was DB Cooper, but were mistaken when Adam West revealed he was the legendary skyjacker.

Off to watch NewsRadio on DVD, I go.

Working Life

2005-05-12T18:57:00.000-04:00

Almost done my first month of co-op at Ericsson and I still haven't posted an updated. Am I busy? Hell no. Am I lazy? You got it!

So working at Ericsson is great, well except for the actual work part. The people, environment, and perks make my mundane job seem a lot better.

Since I'm not from Mississauga, I'm living with friends of relatives. I get room and board for a pretty decent price so it's pretty good. I'm in a pimped out condo (there is a freaking bowling alley in the lobby), but I'm living with 70 year-old people so it's not as great as it could be.

Let's see, what else is new?
- I've gone back to Waterloo once, it was ok. I'm gonna go back this weekend for a friend's brithday and then I'm gonna go home on Sunday to relax.
- I haven't started my DE class, been very lazy. I'm regretting it though since this Financial Accounting stuff seems sorta hard. I'll start this weekend for sure, psh, yeah right!
- I can't find the shoes I want anywhere. I think I might just settle for some Nike Shox I saw on sale... but I don't wanna! Go, go Reebok Pumps 2.0.
- I bought the Scrubs Season One dvd this week, been watching it. I can't believe I forgot how funny Season 1 was.

I gotta get a more exciting life. Meh, back to Scrubs.

Oh shit, I forgot the most important thing. I finally found out what works for my hair. I gotta wet it down, throw some wax in there, style it however I want, blow dry it in place (the key step imo), towel dry and we're good to go.

Off to hell one step at a time

2005-04-21T16:45:00.000-04:00

In the spirt of Google's holiday logos and being disappointed they didn't do something for Hitler's birthday (which was yesterday), I made a picture to commerate the day...

So another year of school done. Thank god for that. All my exams went ok, none went really bad or really good. My last exam, Comp Math, was fucking deadly. It required extensive knowledge of 2D Fast Fourier Transforms, a topic we spent no time on in class... damn not having Calculus 4 knowledge!

So I finally got my contract from Ericsson. I'm making $560/week. I'm thinking about asking for more, but I don't know how I can bring it up.

I went clothes shopping today. I found this incredible dark, but not too dark, blue Perry Ellis shirt at the Bay for only 40 bucks. It caught my eye as I entered the store, and I was all over it. I need more pants. Best part of coop: buying new clothes!

I found a place to stay in Mississauga. I'm living with an old couple, I gets a room and board for $500/month. This, along with my $20 weekly bus pass are like my only expenses. I plan on saving at least 2 weeks salary every month.

Speaking of the bus, I think I'm gonna get either a PSP, personal video player, or a Game Boy advance (just for Mario Kart Super Circuit!!) to make the half an hour go faster. Hopefully I can find a Game Boy SP NES edition, if not... I'll settle for something else.

I got into BUS 227W: Financial Accounting over Distance Ed at Laurier. Should be good since well, I dunno... I'll be bored and will have something to do. I hear there are online quizzes/tests. Thank god for knowing a bunch of Math/Accounting folk.

Random info... my BT Azureus stats - Upload: 331.12GB. Download: 99.00GB. Ratio: 3.34. DAMN!

I love the new MSN Messenger what you're listen to feature. If only they could stream music... oh well! At least I know what people listen to... no surprising revelations so far.

I set up my schedule for next term... so far it looks like I'll have Tuesday and Thursday off. This will be great!

My ass is just about ready to be dry fucked

2005-04-16T03:42:00.000-04:00

I really underestimated my CS class and I'm gonna pay for it in 5 hours. I can't seem to memorize all this shit, it's like somehow all the skills I picked up in high school science (aka memorizing everything) have disappeared. Hopefully I can get over a 72 on the final to guarantee my 80 in the course.

The DC Club. Hilarious account of people of the Davis Centre Library... Hair Girl is so well done that I'm speechless. Props.

It's not like DC has all the fun... Those stories about the Dana Porter library are actually turning out to be true.

I was in DP today sitting at the single cubicles with some asian guy ahead of me and my buddy behind me. The guy in front of me blew this nasty fart, 'twas silent yet deadly; it got so bad that I had to get up and walk away from the area for a while to let the fart dissipate. I signalled to my friend to come with me and told him to just go back to his desk and say: "'Jim', damn that's nasty!" Right after he said that and I replied that it wasn't me, the guy in front of us packed up his stuff and left. JOKES!

I'm so fucked for my Stats exam on Tuesday and my CM exam on Wednesday that it's not even funny.

Back to work I go. ~~Tomorrow~~ Today will be a very LONG day.

In the midst of it all

2005-04-12T22:56:00.000-04:00

In the past 2 days I've written the Calculus III final and the Act Sci final. I did very good on both, well except for a couple of questions on each which I fucked up. I guess that should downgrade my status to just okay.

My mom is starting a new habit of calling me after my exams and asking how they went. Awwwwwwwww! Coincidently, my mom paid my tuition for this term. Guess I better pull off a decent average, lest she asks for her money back. I keed, I keed. She doesn't care how I do, just that I give it my best and either become an MD or marry a nice brown girl that is an MD.

I've gotten no work done today. I'm gonna regret this come next week. I'm gonna get my ass back on track starting tomorrow. Hell hath no fury like Jim Steele scorned. If I do decent-to-good on my next 3 finals, I might be able to swing a Comp Stats job through my mom. How sweet would that be?

During this term I went through journey to find what I wanted to do. I changed programs, reseached different areas, talked to a bunch of people, and tried some things (mostly writing, I've had a couple of decent ideas rattling around in the back of my mind that I'm trying to flesh out and maybe get published). I never thought I would stumble onto what I wanted to do while I was studying for Calculus. During my affair with Newton's bastard child last week, I finally decided that I'm gonna stop fighting what I am and just learn to accept it.

The way I see it is: how many people can look at notes from a multivariable Calculus class made for Mathematicans and actually understand what's going on? Ok, there are quite a bit, but how many can say they sorta enjoyed it? Exactly. Being able to do math is a skill and I can't seem to find anything else I'm good at, so why fight it?

Finals week is upon me

2005-04-10T03:21:00.000-04:00

I've got the Calculus III final in less than 30 hours. I'm still not anywhere close to being done studying. Good news, I understand Calc for the first time in my life; I can see applications: so much so, that I'm thinking about taking Calculus IV. Bad news, I am going way too slow!!

I called Ericsson last week and I was told that I start work on the 25th. That leaves like 4-5 days for me to chill after exams. I still haven't found a place to live!!! I better get on that.

I need new shoes or sandals. I'm thinking about getting the Reebok 3D Roddick Trainers, but I can't find any online stores in Canada that have them. Guess I'll have to be gouged by whatever retail store I can find them at. If I can't find any, I'm thinking about spurgling on either the Reebok Pump 2.0 (in black) or the Jordan XX Trainer (also in black). If anything, I'll get me a nice pair of Docs...

Shit, it's almost 3:30... off to bed. G'nite.

The week before finals week

2005-04-05T10:03:00.000-04:00

Last week I picked up the Hunter S Thompson memorial issue of Rolling Stone. All the editorials were insightful, except for Johnny Depp's, which was a bit disappointing. You would think after living in Hunter's basement, something would've rubbed off on him.

I can't wait until finals are over so I can finally sit down and work my way through the Good Doctor's anthology, starting and ending with "the Vegas book", which is possibly my favourite book after Catch-22 and Fight Club. Wait, that doesn't sound right, it sounds like I'm gonna read only 1 book. What I'm gonna do is read "the Vegas book" and then read anything else I can get my hands on and then read "the Vegas book" once more before coming back for school.

The Tar Heels won the NCAA Championship last night. Bastards! Duke fucked up my bracket and prevented me from winning the pool. UCLA's taking it in 2 years. Mark my words.

Final exams are around the corner:
- Calculus next Monday
- Act Sci next Tuesday
- CS that Saturday
- Stats the Tuesday after next
- CM the day after that

I'm trying to focus all my efforts during the next 6 days towards Calc, but I haven't started yet. =/ From the looks of it, I'll have one day to study for Act Sci, but I'm not too worried. We are allowed a formula sheet and everything else is just intuition, which I think I've developed really well this term. It helps to have a good prof and also to read a book that isn't horrible.

I'm least worried about my CS final since its a class for CS minors and that just means that the final will be easy. Stats isn't looking too bad, I'm only like 6 chapters behind in my readings, but I haven't done any questions yet. I know what I'll be doing for a week. CM has got me freaked out. It's gonna be my hardest exam bar none and there's like no way to study for it. We'll be given 7-9 proofs with 3 hours to figure them out; its gonna get messy.

Google Maps has had Satellite images. Very, very cool. I'd throw up a link to the Math building's satellite shot, but the satellite image is not available. Singular Value Decomposition, represent!!!

I downloaded the Kaiser Chiefs' CD, Employment. I'm loving it. It's very catchy, especially I Predict a Riot. I have no idea of how popular these guys are since I only listen to Q107, The Hawk, and Power 97, but I haven't heard anybody talking about them so I think I'm a bit ahead of the curve. I think I might have to go buy this CD...

I got my place subletted yesterday. I didn't really try to find a person since I don't want my friends to live with a jackass, like I have to this term, but some guy contacted me... Seems like a very cool guy. On top of which, I'm only losing a hundred bucks each month. I'm happy now.

Sin City

2005-04-02T03:09:00.000-05:00

I saw Sin City today and WOW... just WOW!!!

I can't wait until the summer so I can afford to buy the graphic novels.

Peak Oil

2005-03-31T23:05:00.000-05:00

I was on Fark trying to get my daily dose of 'It's not news, it's Fark' and I saw a story about Goldman Sachs forcasting oil could sell at a high of of $105/barrel.

I checked out the comments on Fark and everybody's talking about this peak oil stuff. Curious, I decide to get to the bottom of it and damn, I wish I hadn't. It's very alarming shit.

Googling lead me to here and here.

Basically, Peak Oil is saying that the World's Oil Production follows a bell curve shape and we are currently at the peak (or have past it) and production will start to decrease (or it already has). This is scary since everything in the world is very dependent on oil production.

You know all those people touting alternative forms of energy? Well, according to the peakists, those alternatives aren't very practical (either not transportable or they produce less energy than what they take to make). Some of these alternative solutions also have a Hubbert Peak on a key requirement, therefore using an alternative form of energy would only delay the inevitable: society's collapse. It sounds like a long term Project Mayhem mission: the complete and utter destruction of society, sooner or later.

I don't really know what to make of it. I use to just ignore this problem because I didn't think it was very serious, but now that I know it's the real thing, I've moved from not caring to being on the fence between caring or not. For one thing, if all these alternatives will not work, why would researchers keep spending their time on these solutions. Wouldn't it be more productive to try and find a solution whose energy they could actually harness instead of working with a faulty medium?!?!

What the hell do I know anyways. I just know that human ingeniuty is a remarkable thing and also that it's more of a problem for my kids than me. BOOYA! Oh yeah, and it appears a lot of Chemical Engineers will be screwed.

One of the worst days ever...

2005-03-31T20:38:00.000-05:00

I was in the computer lab today minding my own business and some guy who saw my Thornley shirt came up to me and asked, "Did you go to the Thornley show at Laurier last night?!?!" I fucking flipped when I heard that. I guess I should check the forums more often.

I rode my bike to class for the first time since like January. Damn, I'm a hurting unit. I'm so freaking sore and my ass hurts because somebody stole my gel seat... fuckers!

In my CS 230 class, we talked about processors and how they are programmed with their circuitry, microprograms, and other various shit. It sounded really cool, top that with the fact that I'm a great assembly programmer and I could've been a great Computer Engineer... I only wish I had researched what I wanted to do more in high school.

Only good thing about today was that I wrote an assembly program (in DLX; it's like MIPS, but easier) that worked perfectly the first time I ran it. BOOYA! It wasn't that hard, just had to convert a decimal number to hex and then print it... but assembly is so fucked up that even the simpliest programs need to be debugged for a while.

I will now cry myself to sleep because I missed Thornley last nite.

2005-03-30T17:59:00.000-05:00

Did ya know that Terri Schiavo had a blog? Yeah I know, I'm going to hell...

My Favourite Links (or how to waste time during co-op)

2005-03-27T01:45:00.000-05:00

I should've done this a long time ago, but better late than never. I'm leaving out blogs since I just am.

Every Video Game - play old school video games through IE without downloading ROMs or Emulators. Perfect for work/university.

Bartlet 4 America - West Wing fansite. The Character Guide is pretty cool... well for West Wing-ies.

IMDb - Entertainment industry database. Everybody knows about it, but that doesn't stop it from being great.

All Music - IMDb for music.

Bash.org - IRC quotes. I wouldn't have gotten through my first co-op term without it.

ESPN Page 2 - Got me through lunch at work.

MSN Gossip - I'm a gossip whore.

MSN Web Messenger - great layout, almost as good as the real thing.

TWoP - Miss your favourite TV show last nite? Get the recap from here.

Tucker Max - Very entertaining stories. Might not be safe to view at job workplaces.

If you are really bored, I'm sure you can Google something interesting. If you need help to narrow your search, check out Google Features which will help you find exactly what you are looking for.

Bored

2005-03-26T15:43:00.000-05:00

I'm so freaking bored right now.

The new Audioslave single, Be Yourself, has finally grown on me after a couple of weeks and around 15 listens. Can't wait until the new CD gets leaked online so I can download it. Don't worry, I'll buy it the day it comes out as well.

I made an Excel sheet that computes my marks going into the final exams. Wow, I'm like failing Stat 231. Oh well... 80% weighted final what!?!?!

I know that I should be doing Stats right now, but I hate it so much! Most. Boring. Class. Ever.

During this year's professor evaluations, my comments have included "lose your accent", "buy another shirt", and "make your tests harder" (this is because our final will rape the class as our average is like 80 going into the final). Only class I haven't commented in is the one where the professor would know who I am since there are like only 3 students in that course. Stupid CM 271.

Meh, back to watching the West Wing. I think I'm gonna start at Season 1 and try to finish all the episodes upto the season finale of the current season (#6) before April 6th, when the season finale airs. Should be a fun couple of weeks.

Youth Communist League

2005-03-24T21:05:00.000-05:00

I've been seeing flyers advertising a Youth Communist League all over campus. You can't miss them: they are printed on very eye catching red (SHOCKED?!?!!?) paper.

The flyers are everywhere, I know because I spent a few minutes ripping quite a few of them down. Fucking commies.

I wish I had kept one to throw up here, but whatever. I might go looking for one sometimes later. So yeah, these posters advertise a Youth Communist League that is democratically selected. Like WTF?!?!

I thought all positive communist sediment died. I think I'm gonna go to the meeting and heckle those fucking hacks. Communism? What the fuck are they thinking?!!?

In other news, the American version of The Office premiered today. I'm liking what I'm seeing.

The Ring Part III

2005-03-23T22:52:00.000-05:00

My good buddy (aka the only person I know in Waterloo after this whole stream change fiasco) lives with this crazy 44 year old guy (who is subletting from his old roommate).

From what I've heard, the guy used to be very involved in drugs and booze... well he's still involved in booze since he carries beer around in a water bottle, but I digress.

So this guy gives my buddy a video that he made. Right when he got it, he came to my place. We threw it in the VCR and lo and behold... it was fucking insane. Coupled with the fact that my boy lives with the guy, it fucking scared the shit out of us.

It's a video of him at a park just filming stuff interspliced with footage from Fire Birds. I don't really know how to describe it, it's creepy as hell. Like he kept zooming in on people and then zooming out to the scenary. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but I do know that I will be sleeping with the lights on.

flips head up a bit What up?

2005-03-22T18:19:00.000-05:00

Say this is you.

Say this is your friend.

Suppose you see each other in a situation like above.

If you acknowledge your friend first, you'd move your head up and after seeing this, he'd move his head down (like in the diagrama below).

Say the situation was reversed and your friend saw you first, he'd give a 'wut up nod' going up and you'd acknowledge it with a nod going down(as shown in diagram below).

I brought this topic up a couple of weeks ago talking to a friend and it was weird how we couldn't explain why we did it, we just did.

So for the past two weeks I've been watching people on campus and off (not in the creepy I'm in your bushes touching myself while watching you through your bedroom/bathroom window... well unless your name is ****** *****, I haven't been watching you like that) and it seems like most guys follow a format as shown above.

I tried to mix it up and created a blocked plan with me as the greeter. I initiated with a nod down and shockingly enough, I got a nod up in response, 5 out of 6 times with a 95% confidence interval.

What the fuck is going on!?!?! Even when I mix it up, why do they not follow in kind? Somebody should research this imo.

2005-03-19T13:32:00.000-05:00

Damnit, now I want a Duck Tape wallet so I can be all hipster like.

*Looks at wallet* Damn nigga, you be all fat and shit. I gots to get a thin wallet...

Twice in one week, WTF?!?!?!?

2005-03-18T18:11:00.000-05:00

Let's see how long I can go before I run out of material.

I started reading Liar's Poker this week. It's a very informative book about the bond market in the 80s. I wish I started reading books about what I wanted to do in high school, it could've helped me avoid math like the plague.

Sen has taken my idea of doing a breakdown of the people in Math (the page which I have since taken down) and run with it. I think I'm most like a Skeptical Mathie, but there is no category that I really fit into. Maybe I'll think of what I am and send Sen some shit to update his page...

This term is really fucked up. I'm doing great in half my classes and horrible in the other half. I really wish I become more consistent like I was last term.

I hate Waterloo. I want to do something tonite and there's nothing going on!

Title?

2005-03-15T18:40:00.000-05:00

I've been having a lot of fibre lately so my posting will become more regular. BOOYA!

So, this whole being in Math/Biz thing is sorta cool...
- I don't sound like a nerd when people ask me what program I'm in [well nobody's asked me yet, but I've played the scenario out in my head a few dozen times]
- I get to take Laurier classes [trying to get into BUS 227W (Financial Accounting) over DE in the summer
- I'm lined up for artsie CS classes like CS 330, CS 338, and CS 432 which will hook me up with a CS minor. BOOYA!

On the school front, I've been busy as beaver trying to catchup, study for midterms, do assignments, and start studying for the Calc 3 final.

My CM 271 class is really getting to me since we are doing shit that is covered in Calc 4 with computational methods. I have no actually background so I'm fucked, but I should get used to this since I'll be taking Computational Ordinary Differential Equations before Ordinary Differential Equations. Best thing about CM 271, my prof gave me and my bud an extra day to finish the assignment since we've been so busy for the past week.

I still haven't got my contract from Ericsson. I wonder how much I'm gonna make... Right now I'm contemplating negotiating my salary after I see it no matter how much it is. I should be paid like it's my 3rd coop term.

Random thought... my cell phone has no good features, I hope Ericsson can cut me a deal on kickass phone.

Changed programs... gasp

2005-03-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

I was feeling a little bored today so I got out and changed my program from Computational Mathematics to Math/Business - Finance Option.

Don't get too excited now... I fully intend to switch back; I only changed to save money on tuition. Hell, I don't even plan on taking any of my new program requirements (well, I might squeeze in a WLU class if I have time); I'll be continuing with my Comp Math classes.

When I applied to Comp Math out of high school, I was presented with information that said how it was a first year entry program only. Well, that turned out to be total bullshit. You can change into any program (well, just about; few exceptions) until before 3A, as long as you have met all the requirements.

My advice to everybody, get into Honours Math, save money, do good enough to get into what you want to do. Since I didn't know this before, I threw 4 grand down the fucking drain...