Daily Offerings: July 2008 Archives

If just one thing goes as planned tonight, I will be happy. No, not happy. Not even satisfied. But I will go to sleep with the knowledge that the universe doesn't TOTALLY hate me.

ARGH. STATS. ARGH. I feel like that episode of Undergrads, Screw Week, where everyone loses it and screams.

I'm planning on getting new hard drives next week. This, is amazing. I've been using the same hard drives since I got my own computer in grade 10. In 2001. Yeah, not exactly a good thing. They make a really unpleasant whine now that gives me a terrible, terrible headache.

I went home for Thursday night. For this whole summer, I've only gotten one day off a week and it's Friday. So, when I don't have studying to do, or a party to go to, I'll go home and party there. I also had a bunch of errands I needed to run (like seeing Rob's girlfriend who was up from I don't know where in some polygon shaped state. Rob's dealing with all kinds of weird and crazy Unforgotten Realms related drama. Ice cream makes it better. Especially when I pay because he forgets his wallet.

I'm really starting to freak out about my midterms next week. I've been having dreams about them for a week now. Unpleasant, stressful dreams. People keep harassing me to go out with them to. I don't mean for that to make me sound more popular than I am, but seriously. I'm pretty vocal when it comes to complaining and then freaking out about my midterms. It's an established thing I do. So why bother me when you know the answer is going to be no? I'm supposed to make an appearance at some hotel party tonight, because that's the kind of bitch I am. When I arrive, and therefore how long I stay for depends on (1) how much studying I get done after I eat my chicken kiev, and (2) how well these Tylenol extra strength work.

I had a terrible, terrible day at work. It's turning into a running theme. People work on the weekend, but they go out on Friday and get plastered, wake up hungover, and call in sick. So instead of six people for our weekend rush, we have four. And that four? It feels like three sometimes. Or two, depending on who's taking a break. When I came back from my fifteen, my shift told me it felt like half an hour. His half felt like an hour. I'm pretty sure he didn't take all of it.

I've been spending a lot of time working on my Tau army. I have so many units now, I almost don't know what to do with them. I bought some paint, hopefully painting them will turn out well. But that will be the subject of another post.

I was followed a link to a Huffington Post article titled "Dubai Detains Foreigners Accused Of Being Gay" with the immediate thought that I really, really can't travel to Dubai. It wasn't long before I had my system trying to shut down the browser because of spyware that it considered to be extremely serious business. I mean, I can barely stand The Huffington Post because of how it articulates its position, but this is just funny.

I was reading an article on The Economist's website about how pirates are making the waters off of East Africa the most dangerous in the world.

I mean, it's well known that Somalia has been in a constant state of "fucked up" since the civil war, and I'm no expert on Somalia but the idea of a country run by warlords and pirates complaining that the world doesn't care enough about them bothers me.

In June a unanimously-backed UN Security Council resolution tabled by France and the United States made it legal for foreign navies to chase pirates into Somali waters and, if need be, sink them. But many Somalis are loth to co-operate. Their feeble government lacks the clout to tackle pirates in such places as Haradheere, in central Somalia, where many hail from. Somalis ask why the UN is so worried about the fate of foreigners at sea, while it does so little to help Somalis on land.

I had to stop there, take a break and finish it after a few minutes. I'm sorry. A place run by pirates doesn't get my sympathy, barely gets my empathy, and would have to fight really hard to get my support. Especially if the problem is that big, and there's nothing being doing about it. How could it?

This morning I took a trip to the friendly, neighbourhood cosmetic surgeon in Oakville. No, I was not there for anything serious. What I did get was a huge dose of stereotypes.

It ran the full gamut of Oakville ridiculousness. A Latina woman getting frustrated she had to wait so long despite free cappuccino and biscotti. A baby boomer aged Russian woman and her 30 something daughter. And of course we had to top of the Oakville social pyramid: a mother and late teenage daughter, matching attempts to make their black hair platinum blonde, fake tanned to a lovely orange colour, rocking obnoxious juicy belts and standard LV print bags and purses.

Of course, excluding all the damage they've done to their skin and hair the mother could use some serious cosmetic work. She looks like she either hasn't tried at all or tried way too hard - as if trying more is going to help. She talks about procedures like she's an info sheet. Clearly she's been here a lot. Of course I doubt she understands the actual science behind any of this, but hey, who am I to judge (any more than I already have)? [For the record, she's actually a lovely woman. I enjoyed the brief conversation I had with her as we waited. Eavesdropping when the "nurse" came over let me know they're both looking at the same procedure. Something about feet maybe?]

Now, this poor woman's daughter looks like she's seriously hating her life. I don't see any reason for her to be here. While she does have her mother's tanned skin and platinum-over-black hair she's actually pretty good looking. She hasn't had the same damage done to her skin. She has the same brilliant eyes her mother has. I can't imagine why she's so uncomfortable. [Actually maybe I can. I don't feel bad about judging them and wondering why they were here - I know the mother ripped me apart physically as I walked away. And I would expect nothing less.]

After 45 minutes of waiting in a common waiting room, I'm shuffled into exam room VII. I was originally going to get frustrated with the additional waiting, but I managed to entertain myself with spacing posts (this girl got ripped apart in the comments) and wondering how noticeable the smell of smoke is on my clothes. I don't even smoke, but riding around in my brother's car means the smell transfers to me. I don't understand the science behind that, but I doubt I would ever be bothered enough to really try.

The rest of it went like this: 2 minutes with the doctor in exam room VII, then 5 minutes in consult II before another bill and a follow up appointment.

As I mentioned earlier, I was ill. I went to Health Services last week to find out that I had some sort of extreme viral illness. I wound up with flu like symptoms. They started two weeks ago and go really bad because I was outside in the sun dehydrating myself. So I was handed a doctor's note saying I couldn't work, and went back to Oakville to be taken care of by my family. Unfortunately for me, Friday night was my sister's Super Sweet Sixteen birthday party, so not much taking care of happened. I did get some cool pictures and experienced what a huge birthday party would have actually been like.

I'd like to expand and half retract what I said here about Bombardier's streetcar. What I was aware of, but had managed to ignore/forget at the time of posting this was that the car's displayed were of the Flexity Swift model, which I think is hideous. To meet the 100% low-floor requirement, Bombardier has switched to the Flexity Outlook. Both the Eurotram and Cityrunner (presumably the model variant we would get) are really nice. They even have a website, The Streetcar Redefined promoting it. I owe everyone an apology for tying the image of the CLRVs and UTDC's history to Bombardier. The trams they have for European use seem to be really nice.

Finally, I'm not an Economics Specialist anymore. I'm in the Computer Science and Economics Joint Specialist program. Which is good and bad. I'm not a BSc candidate, not a BA candidate. I get more options for work after. Unfortunately, I have to take programming classes. Luckily not TOO many. The other downside is I might have to take another first year calculus. One that I need as a prereq for second year calculus that I was going to take this year. So I'm not sure what to do. My start time for course selection is next Monday. I think I'm going to enroll in both and hope I can just take the second year one. It's good to be back though.

My body temperature is completely out of whack. I'm either sweating when my room is super air conditioned, or wearing a sweater out in the sun.

My skin felt like it was burning yesterday and the day before. Today isn't so bad.

On and off I get throbbing headaches. Sometimes these are accompanied by the spins. They were so bad earlier I didn't know where I was (I was in my bed) and I couldn't up to figure it out for an hour. I went back to sleep (it was 3pm).

Sometimes, it makes me feel like I'm going to vomit everywhere.

141 years old, and we're still living the stereotype. Keep on keepin' on Canada.

My life has been a little crazy recently. I think I have some sort of mild sun stroke, or physical exhaustion. I went to bed with the spins last night. I was completely sober. Probably too much partying on the weekend during Pride. There's a bunch of albums that I've put up. They should be on Flickr soon enough too.

Last Wednesday, we had a "Joey is leaving soon" BBQ on the patio, which was pretty sweet. There are also pictures from that.

Monday I had Steve's Prom, which I tried not to puke through. I've been feeling really under the weather for the last two weeks, which wasn't helped by the partying on the weekend. Nor will it help my performance on tomorrow's statistics term test. Sigh.

Sunday I had movie night with Christine and Chris in Oakville. We watched Jumanji and got ridiculous. There are no pictures, because we didn't know what we were doing.

Saturday I was at Abby's for her grad formal. That was also ridiculous. There are so pictures from that, many of them showcasing Abby hammered.

Friday Paul was in town from Halifax. I was at Wonderland in the morning, and then went straight to Oakville to grab a car, drive back downtown to get Ali and head to the Green Room. There aren't many pictures, and the one REALLY good picture of Paul was accidentally deleted.

Looking back on me week, I now understand why I am so exhausted. Sigh. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here, buried under drinking and sun stroke. Not that I'll remember it in a week.

I also didn't finish updating the CSS for the new layout, so some stuff is buggy. My bad, yo.

Which brings me to another point. The auto-focus on my lens is broken. That sucks. I'm sending it back to Canon tomorrow to get it fixed. Thank goodness for warranties.