| winter holiday & 2007 |
[Tue.1.Jan.08_4.11.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 good |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl (in my head) |
] |
for the first time in a very long time (ever?), my christmas holiday has involved more than just sitting around on my ass playing video games. granted, that's still been (and will be) a very big part of it, but i also had a great time with some friends.
i invited Adam, Anneka, Liz and Hingman to my family's house in Bridgenorth (just outside Peterborough) for a few days. we had a great time watching movies (~7 in total) and playing board games (risk & clue). there was some snow-related fun too. movies we watched: Stardust, LotR: Fellowship of the Ring, LotR: The Two Towers, Willy Wonka, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Fido, Howl's Moving Castle. I took some pictures, i'll put them up later.
i then followed hingman back to her parents' place in toronto where we celebrated the new year with Liz. by celebrated, i mean we sat around talking and just.. hung out. watched I Am Legend, too. it was my first time being away from my family for new year's eve, and by that i mean not being forced to go anywhere with them. it was liberating, relaxing, and much more enjoyable than those shitty banquet halls with crappy music playing so loud that you can't talk to the person next to you (like last year). i must say the start of this year is looking good.
i had to leave early the next morning since hingman's family had to go on a day trip. we left her place around 8:15 and got to the nearest subway entrance around 8:30. except it was closed. we assumed it would open at 9am and she dropped me off at the next nearest subway stop with some kind of enclosure above it (a small mall). in this small circular mall, there is a loblaws on the bottom floor and the balconies on all the floors look out on it. i stood on the ground floor (1 above loblaws) and stared in wonder at the well-lit still life below me. no people. just shelves and tables and baskets of food. the music i was listening to was very fitting, almost frighteningly so, and i stood there for 20 minutes just taking it in. then i had to poo, and off to the subway i went.
Downtown Toronto was a ghost town. 9:15am on a very snowy new years day. people have been up late and will not be getting up early, and the weather is shitty so even if they were up, why would they go downtown when all the stores are closed? there were 3 or 4 sets of footprints on the sidewalk other than mine, and i saw one car and two streetcars. and this is the corner of dundas and yonge, where the eaton center is. this place is normally crowded to shit. street performers, tourists, school kids. and it was dead. it was very reminiscent of the movie i watched last night. heh heh.
when my dad was pulling into our driveway after picking me up at the bus station, he didnt go fast enough - it's beyond me as to why - and the car got stuck. and not just on the driveway, oh no. he also managed to back into the snow bank. thankfully our neighbour noticed me pushing at the back of the car and drove over with his SUV and a sturdy rope. so after i cleared out all the snow under the car (we were literally stuck ON the bank. go dad), he pulled us out to the side.
so this has been an exciting first half of my winter break, perhaps my best ever from a social standpoint. plans worked out, people had fun, and new friends were made.
in retrospect, 2007 was a good year. overall, i mean. like any year, it had ups and downs, but it was far from monotonous (hell, i moved 3 times!). i dont think any other year has seen nearly this much social activity wanking peanut butter excitement or self-improvement from me.
happy new year. here's to hoping this one's better than the last, if not just as good. thank you to those who made it a pleasurable experience. ;D
oh. my boxing day purchases: God of War II ($30), BFG GeForce8 8800GT OC ($250), Archos 605 80gb touchscreen MP3 player ($270). I bought the latter two items online on the 24th at 10pm. it took them 3 days to ship them out (27th) and it isn't here yet because apparently canada post doesnt run over the new year, so i'm expecting them tomorrow. and that's half my "try it before you buy it!" time gone already. doh.
and now back to our regular programming: PS2 (God of War II kicks sooooo much ass), movies, and the generic doing of nothing. :D take care & drive safe if you have to drive at all!
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| an entirely guitar-related post |
[Wed.19.Dec.07_9.01.am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 excited |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Dark Moor - Bells of Notre Dame |
] |
i'm currently in the process of trying to learn the intro to this song. there are a few chunks in there that i probably won't be able to play for a while. I'm mostly focussing on the part that starts around 12 seconds in and ends at around 40 seconds.
i was going to show up to work "early" today. i picked up the guitar instead, and now i'm going to be "on time". or, well, half an hour earlier than usual. see, we're going out for lunch today. we being the co-op students that have been eatingl unch together all term, since friday is our last day of work.
i'll have more of an update later, i'm planning to be at work in 10 minutes.
oh and i wanted to order this guitar yesterday, but the guy never called me back and i'm going to try again today:
ESP Standard Horizon NT II
been looking for a guitar since March.
I think i finally found it.
weee!
|
|
| crashy crashy |
[Thu.29.Nov.07_9.22.am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 determined |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Arab Strap - (If There's) No Hope For Us |
] |
yesterday morning, as i was getting ready to get ready for work, i got a BSOD. i wrote the code down and rebooted, ready to google it.
computer starts and requests a disk scan. i skip it.
then windows greets me with a sound.
with a sound.
interesting. i have all sounds disabled. why did it play a sound?
and on that thought, where did my background go? and all my desktop icons?
well whatever, maybe it's a bug,i'll reboot and try again.
this time i let the disk scan run, and it found a loooooooot of lost fragments and some corrupted files it couldnt do anything about in my windows user profile (ie: documents and settings).
i boot in to see if i can salvage anything and, tada, nothing in my profile. except those corrupted files i mentioned. all 3 of them. and then windows froze with my drive light on.
hooooooooboy.
here are my biggest losses: Notes file i've been keeping since ~1999, it's both sentimental and important. MSN message history starting from whenever i used it, documenting my latter years of highschool and all of my university. firefox saved passwords & bookmarks. any saved games that get thrown into My Documents (why the hell woudl you design a game to do that? seriously?).
i kept all the chkdsk file fragments and did some quick work on them in linux yesterday. some of it is still salvageable. there's bits and pieces of different conversations and i've devised a plan for how i could recombine them, despite the fact that there are random areas of corruption throughout.
so what happened?
i'm not sure to be honest. At first i thought my hard drive was ready to kick it (it IS something like 6 or 7 years old, after all. .. and it's a maxtor). but i was able to run linux from it just fine, although the file browser was freezing up every now and then while i browsed around my FAT partitions.
after i decided to try booting into windows again, i got another disk check prompt and i let it run, but it froze at 28% with the drive light on.
reboot.
light still on.
not good, but maybe it just isnt plugged in right (still getting picked up by the BIOS mind you)
i have two theories.
1 - part of my drive really is corrupted.
2 - my southbridge is pissed off at me for not addressing its stopped fan and the dust buildup clogged its heatsink
re #1 - i ran a bad cluster scan through WD's diagnostic tools and it found nothing.
re #2 - i dusted it off, and it wasnt that dusty to begin with. the other drives haven't failed (yet?!).
while dusting it off, i checked the drive connections and everything was still snug.
so right now, i dont know what to do.
i don't knwo if i should bother reinstalling windows on a potentially shaky drive, and i COULD grab a new hard drive (mmm drool raptor) but what if it's my motherboard that's fucking things up? then the new drive dies too.
or i could grab a new motherboard / cpu / ram, as i like to do every 2 years or so (been ~2.25 since the last time), but if the hard drive is still faulty i'll end up needing a new one anyway.
stunz? stinkz? any input? any other drive diagnostics i'm forgetting about?
forgot to mention: i'm in windows and it's working fine for now, but i'm afraid to do anything
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|
| Gears of War for PC |
[Sun.25.Nov.07_2.39.am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 annoyed |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Into Eternity - Severe Emotional Distress |
] |
[1:45:11am] <Exor> fucking hell. gays of war has been installing for over half an hour
[1:49:05am] <Exor> OMG I THINK ITS DONE! hurray! another game installed tha ti probbly wont play!
[2:00:10am] <Exor> To run Gears of War with your current hardware setup, you must install the following software update or updates:
[2:00:10am] <Exor> + NVIDIA ForceWare 163.44 Driver
[2:00:10am] <Exor> + AMD Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 version (x86 and x64 exe) 1.3.2.16
[2:00:10am] <Exor> If you do not install this software, at some point the game will stop and your progress will be lost.
[2:00:17am] <Exor> go microsoft go. "at some point" -- > fuck you.
[2:34:22am] <Exor> well i'm glad i didnt update my shit and i'm pissed that it took me half an hour to install
[2:34:38am] <Exor> game feels really rigid. they didnt even TRY to make it not look like a port
[2:34:57am] <Exor> hell, xbox360 controller buttons show up in some spots
[2:35:10am] <Exor> and btw, that's the only kind of controller it'll let you use
[2:35:26am] <Exor> whcih is retarded, because if i had a fucking 360 i wouldn't be playing the game on my goddamned computer
[2:36:35am] <Exor> oh. and the graphics? really not that great. had everything maxed out and it ran just fine on my 6800GT, but you know, that's without antialiasing because microsoft is passively trying to make jocks who don't know any better move to vista (the AA option is listed as DirectX 10/Anti Aliasing and is greyed out for obvious reasons)
[2:36:45am] <Exor> texture quality is crap
[2:37:01am] <Exor> the only things that make that game look good are motion blur when you move your mouse and bloom effects.
[2:37:17am] <Exor> otherwise it looks just like the chronicles of riddick from 2.5yrs ago
[2:37:20am] <Exor> (3yrs? whatever)
[2:39:08am] <Exor> sooooo first impression? severely disappointed but i dont know what i was expecting, metacritic's user score doesn't exactly disagree with me
what a waste of an hour and a half. i still can't believe that piece of shit took half an hour to install. incredible. and btw, the "obvious" reasons i mentioned above are because DirectX10 will only run on Windows Vista. what's different? nobody's quite sure yet. it's supposed to be faster (it isn't .. yet?) and look better (it doesn't .. yet?), and is Microsoft's attempt at getting PC gamers to "upgrade" to their shitty new operating system.
And now to spend another half hour uninstalling it.
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| A Pleasant Evening Walk |
[Sat.24.Nov.07_6.59.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 contemplative |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Conjure One ft. Poe - Extraordinary Ways |
] |
My day started with a bit of guitar, followed by loading up Final Fantasy XII for the first time since the summer (and that was only once; Sarnia was the last time I really played before that).
After sitting around for a bit, I elected to go out for a walk this evening. I'm only here for another month and I figured I should try to take in the city as much as I can. I also wanted some kind of latte or coffee in my mouth. My path was up Yonge to Bloor, then from there I turned east and went down Church back to my place (~3km total).
My original intention was to listen to Jerk (wp, 1). stinkz was kind enough to rip their album and EP for me last night. I intended to listen to The Gathering afterwards, specifically their album Souvenirs which I recently acquired but had not yet listened to. Due to a mistake I made in loading the albums into my mp3 player's playlist, however, I ended up listening to The Gathering first instead (wp,1,2,a - note: not the album i was listening to). A good thing, too. It fit perfectly with everything, down to the air I was breathing.
It's also a good thing that there's a Starbucks on every goddamned corner or I might never have gotten my drink. The one across the street from my apt was packed, as was the one on the next major corner. The next next one, just before Bloor st, was sort of hidden. No giant sign or anything, just a little green awning with "STARBUCKS" written on it. It was small and cozy. I ordered a Caramel Macchiato, something i've never had before. And it was exactly the taste I was craving.
For some reason, people were looking at me a lot when I walked past them. In my limited Toronto experience, people generally avoid looking at other people. But maybe that's because the people I normally pass are going to and from work (and dreading every waking moment of it).
Every time the buildings were low enough to catch a view of the full moon in the eastern sky, I made a point of doing so. As my walk continued so too did the thickening of haze-inducing light cloud cover. At one point, there was a black cloud below [and outlined by] the moon; the view was surreal, especially enclosed by the modern apartment buildings with their curves and tall glass window panes. I would have loved to take a picture but alas my camera was not with me, nor do I have a tripod. And even if I did, it would be difficult to capture such a scene without demolishing all that gives it its beauty especially in lacking an appropriate camera lens.
Souvenirs' final track finished playing as I stepped back into my bedroom.
The relaxed pace of my walk, the right music, the delicious drink and the crisp atmosphere surrounding me made for a very reflective experience. To have shared it with a close friend would have made it a perfect experience; a dark hole is left in lieu of this presence. Substitutions must be made to close it up before it expands to consume my insides, so I'm going to play some more video games. TF2, here I come. Hopefully it does the trick.
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| Nippy Mornings in Peterborough |
[Sun.18.Nov.07_12.13.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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nostalgic |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Theatre of Tragedy - A Rose for the Dead |
] |
I came home for the weekend. I went out to Farmer's Market with my mom yesterday (Saturday). Then there was this little community dinner thingy I had to go to. The food wasn't too bad. I had cravings for guitar-play but, lacking a guitar in Peterborough, took it out on the piano instead. As a result, I now have a song idea that I'd like to experiment with when I get back to Toronto.
I woke up around 9am today. I had my alarm set for 7:30 because me and my dad wanted to get up early and enjoy the morning out. We used to do that on Sundays long ago. i completely forgot about that. We would be the only ones awake early in the morning and he didn't work on Sunday. This is when I was around 10 years old, mind you: we'd head out to McDonalds for breakfast (egg sandwich of some sort) and then we'd go to the flea market and look at all the neat stuff there. I'd occasionally buy some hockey cards or a toy or an SNES game or something. But mostly we'd just go to look at all the stuff.
In the years before that, he'd cook up something fun in the kitchen. Always creative, my father.
Today I got up at 9am and realized that I had slept in. Immediately I worried that he had woken up and was waiting for me, so I forced myself up and headed downstairs to find my grandma on the couch, eating breakfast after having come back from a really nice walk outside. She likes to go out walking early in the morning before there's cars or other people out; the serenity of our area really appeals to her, especially when it's all covered in frost early in the morning, when the Sun is just starting to peek behind the treeline, when everything is still and waiting for her. We seem to have similar ideas of "pleasant".
Shortly after heading down and listening to my grandmother recount her early morning walk (making me wish I was there, mind you) my dad came down; we had woken up around the same time. We had about 45 minutes to go out and come back, since an electrician was supposed to show up around 10am. So I drove us to the grocery store via the backroads, where the hilly paths provided a nice view of farmlands and their bordering houses off in the distance with field after field of yellow-orange partially-frozen grass. It was nice. Short and a little late into the morning, but still frosty and nice.
And the world is like a shining diamond, the way it glitters if you polish it right
Upon returning home, i took some pictures in the front yard, which I may or may not post later. I also nabbed some shots of Pedro playing with his new toy: a weighted ball with a group of feathers attached by velcro. I was originally going to return by bus to Toronto, but my parents have someone they need to visit and are giving me a ride back. I hope i can get a refund from Greyhound with minimal fuss.
Oh yeah. I was playing some Vagrant Story on my good ol' trusty and still functioning PlayStation 1 last night. I reached a boss fight during the summer and stopped playing. A god damned Wyvern (ie: dragon) kept one-hit-killing me with some crazyass fire breath move. I eventually figured out how to beat her. And then I beat her again. And then again, one more time. Man, it felt good to conquer her ass over and over. And then i saved and stopped playing. :P
And now, I must poop.
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| Life in Toronto |
[Sat.10.Nov.07_2.40.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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contemplative |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Ensiferum - Wanderer |
] |
Hello mirror, so glad to see you my friend. Its been a while...
I last updated this thing on the 27th of May, 2007. I also posted a song a month and a half later. Since then? Much has occurred. Whether it's worth the trouble to mention every event and cerebral nuance is a point up for debate. We'll see how this goes, and I'll try not to bore you on this journey through the last 5 months.
Acutally, make that 2 months. We all know I had school in the summer semester. That was rough. It ended, thankfully, and so began my co-op term with September after a fun camping trip with some friends from my program.
This work term has me working for Nuclear Safety Solutions in Toronto (a small shanty town in Southern Ontario that you might've heard of). My workplace is a 20-floor building with a concave glass face. While the building is owned by Ontario Power Generation, the company I work for is not. There is not much else to be said about my job. The work is brainless and unchallenging and I can't say it truly holds my interest. But my wallet is a little fatter and the people are nice.
I live in an apartment that's a ten minute walk from work. That puts me right in the heart of downtown Toronto. Rent is prohibitively high. Luckily, one of my aforementioned school friends has a job in the same place. Surprise surprise: we're roommates. Truth be told I much prefer living alone, but this arrangement isn't all that bad.
We spent the first 2 weeks hanging out. A lot. and what usually happens in that type of situation, well, happened: we got on eachother's nerves and a small fight ensued. The following week saw only some minor you-piss-me-off-when-you-do-that discussions and since then its been [mostly] good.
My time in Toronto is usually spent playing video games and guitar. Sound familiar? Make no mistake, anywhere is better than Sarnia and I am not complaining. Toronto is actually a great place for a co-op term and I'd recommend it if you have the chance. Everything is here. And I live near almost all of it. Hell, there's a 24hr grocery store on the ground floor of the building I live in and I've got plenty of places to go out to if I feel the urge for a walk.
Being in Toronto also means people can get here easily. Every weekend since I've moved in we've had friends visit (and stay), except for those weekends where I went home (like Thanksgiving). My friend Hingman's family is in Toronto, so I get to see her often. Remi and Michele are slated to come down on November 30th. Roomate (Dom) had some friends over last weekend, and Adam's been over twice. My brother's stayed here, and Taylor was going to but plans ended up changing. It keeps things interesting.
There's also the added bonus of being in a concert town. Thusfar I have seen Scar Symmetry and Porcupine Tree, and tonight I'm going to see Ensiferum. I've got some songs online if you're curious and know where to find them. I've missed out on a lot of concerts too but there's usually a reason (Nightwish and Finntroll come to mind). Amon Amarth is coming up in December and I am very excited about that. Who knows what else might pop up.
I mentioned above that I've been playing videogames. Team Fortress 2 kicks some major ass. Portal was excellent too, and I've still got the challenge maps to do there. Me and Dom spent our first couple of weeks playing StarCraft every night and then we kind of just... stopped. On the PS2 I've been playing more Dragon Quest VIII (nope, still haven't beat it) and I bought another game from DQ8's makers called Rogue Galaxy. Towards the end of the summer I picked up Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ace Combat 5: The Silent War and Jak X: Combat Racing. I still haven't tried the latter, but those first two games are excellent.
I went through the trouble of acquiring Clive Barker's Jericho but put it down before even starting because it wouldn't let me bind my controls how I wanted. You'd think that after all these years they'd understand the concept of letting people play the game how they want to. sheesh. I had the same problem with Hitman many years ago. I never thought I'd run into it again.
Not to stroke my own ego, but my guitar playing has improved. I'm still looking for a new guitar. I have been since March. I still haven't found one. I'm quite certain I know exactly what I'm looking for now. It's just a matter of finding it. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find a 24-fret fixed bridge guitar over $800. They all have floating bridges, something I do not want. I may cave though, because i REALLY need a new one and it's all I seem to find. But I would prefer not to.
I have been trying to make a new song for the past little while. In fact, I was planning on my next LJ post to be a song. it hasn't come to fruition yet, but i'm getting much closer. I've acquired a copy of Toontrack's Drumkit From Hell and with it faces shall be melted! har har.
I've mostly been working on arpeggios (aka sweeps) lately. I'm getting better at them but still nowhere near as good as I want to be. It didn't take me too long to learn the the arpeggio solo in this song (fast forward to around 2:40 in), but it's still not perfect. My playing has mostly been improv lately, as no specific songs have really stood out and said "LEARN ME!!" -- I still learn random parts from certain songs though if I feel they'll help me improve.
I really want to make music. Does anyone want to make music? Don't say "sure" unless you mean it.
I'm pretty sure that's all I had to say. Maybe I'll go back to updating this. And if i get off my lazy ass, expect some pictures soon too..
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| new song: h |
[Sun.15.Jul.07_7.51.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 busy |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Annihilator - Haunted |
] |
Started this a couple of nights ago as a birthday present to a friend (ask and ye shall receive!), finished it up last night. Was on a tight schedule so not every little detail is perfect. that being said, i'm mostly pleased with how it turned out. and so is she! happy birthday~
Download: Exor - h
Screenshot:
Those of you paying attention (and who know what i'm talking about) will notice that I cheated on the harmonic. The reason is simple... I had to record that part at least 6 times because every time i would screw up something minor. by the end of it i had a perfect run... and then i forgot to do the harmonic. so i tacked it onto the end. i really can play it like that though! really!
the tapping section was hard to play without completely screwing up the timing. i had a couple of bars after it where i played it double time, but i took them out as they didnt... really fit well with what was supposed to be the end of the song.
anyway, enjoy.
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| a soundtrack and a decision |
[Sun.27.May.07_2.02.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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contemplative |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts (Cowboy Bebop OST) - Ave Maria |
] |
Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST 3: Blue
the perfect thing for a rainy sunday afternoon.
that's the soundtrack with Call Me, Call Me on it. the rest is all very jazzy. jazz mixes well with this weather, and i am feeling [almost] content in this moment due purely to the atmosphere i've created in my apartment with this music and the outside affecting what's in.
I have decided that I no longer need around those who make me miserable or question my worth as a human being. I consider myself weak to have taken so long to come to such a decision and/or realization. this doesn't mean i never want to see you again or know you no longer; it just means i will no longer expect anything, at all, from you. not even a "hello" or acknowledgment of my existence, which actually fits nicely into the way things already are.
I shall, in return, act accordingly.
Now everyone can be happy.
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| and so it begins (co-op woes) |
[Fri.25.May.07_11.05.am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
annoyed |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Sentenced - Despair-Ridden Hearts |
] |
I found this in my inbox this morning:
> Hello,
>
> We have noticed that, although you have indicated your intention to
> participate in the placement process, you may not have applied, so far, to
> a sufficient number of jobs related to your discipline. At this point,
> we’re concerned that you may already have missed out on many
> opportunities.
>
> Remember that jobs are posted daily in the COOP Navigator. Since you’re
> taking part in the placement process, you need to be accessing the system
> every day to view and apply to these jobs.
>
> If you’d like to discuss this further, do feel free to contact me at ###-###-####
>
> [name removed]
> Placement Officer
my reply:
Good morning,
I tried to call you but I got your voicemail and, well, since I'm never home to receive returned calls (I pretty much live in the CBY computer lab) I've elected to email you. I hope that is alright :)
The reason for me applying to so few jobs is that there really haven't been that many jobs posted that match my discipline and that I've been trying to apply to only relevant jobs for my program this semester.
In the past two work terms, I have applied to every job I am qualified for. I am in Chemical Engineering, but I was applying to jobs for Information Technology, Computer Science and Chemistry.
But now that I've got relevant experience in the industry (I worked for Imperial Oil Esso last term), I've only applied to jobs that are:
A) not with the government (already worked for Environment Canada, never working there again. ever. government work is VERY not engineering-related, what have I got to gain?)
B) not in a chemistry laboratory (no engineering there, already have a lab job under my belt)
C) are relevant to my program (unless you want me applying to comp sci/IT jobs again and turning them down)
D) that i am qualified for.
Using Excel, I came up with the following numbers. Of the 35 jobs posted for Chemical Engineering,
12 were government jobs (NRCan, Environment Canada, Transport)
6 were laboratory jobs
5 had no relevance to the program whatsoever
2 were jobs that I was unqualified for (8mo. terms or biochem/biopharm)
3 were postings that didn't have any jobs ("go to our website to apply" and nothing actually there)
This is a total of 28 jobs that would give me nothing, leaving 7 listed for my program. I've applied to 5 of these and one of these has already been matched.
So what am I supposed to do, start applying for web page development jobs again? I've been waiting patiently for more jobs to be posted, and nothing has come up. As a soon-to-be 4th year Chemical Engineering student with a decently high CGPA, I think I should be allowed to get a job that would actually give me a taste of the future. Isn't that the point to co-op?
Thanks for your time, looking forward to your reply.
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| homework is fun homework is fun homework is fun homework is fun homework is fun homework is fun |
[Thu.24.May.07_1.13.am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 exhausted |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Rasputina - Things I'm Gonna Do |
] |
i have 2 midterms tomorrow.
i also suddenly have a craving for starburst and doritos. together.
i've been living in a computer lab for over the past 2 weeks (almost 3 weeks now).
i'm just glad the computers dont suck too much.
i only have two classes + lab course.
i have to hand one lab in tomorrow so that i can start working on the next one after my midterms.
we had 3 assignments for the same class all within the same week, at the same time. one was due yesterday, 2 tomorrow. i handed all 3 in early.
an assignment for the other class (including the aforementioned 3 makes 4 total) was due today. the solutions were put in the printroom after the assignment's due time.
the solutions were incomplete.
i have a midterm on this material tomorrow and i dont know if any of this shit is right or wrong. i believe myself to be rather screwed as it were.
must add gantt charts to cheatsheet then do the sleepydance.
you all suck.
goodnight.
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[Sat.12.May.07_1.07.am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 energetic |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench (in my head) |
] |
i just bought $18 worth of bulk candy at Sugar Mountain.
.. oops
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| Dream Theater - Constant Motion |
[Mon.7.May.07_11.09.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 mischievous |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Dream Theater - Constant Motion |
] |
The new Dream Theater song, Constant Motion, is really quite good.
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| Star Ocean 3 and Playstation2 games i havn't beat |
[Mon.7.May.07_9.35.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 bored |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Spice Girls - Something Kinda Funny |
] |
i finally got around to beating Star Ocean: Till The End of Time (PS2).
as it turns out, i was pretty much at the very end of the game. or rather, i was at that point before "the final dungeon", you know, where you're supposed to go around doing all the sidequests and getting all the best items and whatnot. that's the point where i always get stuck for a while in games.
i hadn't touched Star Ocean since last summer, so i decided to give it a shot today due to my aforementioned boredom. i can now add it to my little list of RPGs that i've beaten for PS2.
My status for RPGs on PS2 that i own is as follows.
beaten
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
Dark Cloud 2
Final Fantasy X
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
not beaten yet
Dark Cloud
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
Final Fantasy XII
Xenosaga
i'm probably never going to beat the first Dark Cloud game. it was the first game i ever bought for PS2 and the second one i rented. at last, i think so.. i know Zone of the Enders was definitely the first rental.
as for Xenosaga, i need to get cracking on that. I just have so much trouble sitting down to play the game because there isn't a soundtrack. Music only comes along during fights or really exciting cutscenes. it's very easy to get bored of a game when the only sound you hear is your footsteps echoing the empty hallways of a spaceship, with the occasional beep when your little blaster thingy locks onto a box that can be exploded. the majority of the game involves watching extrmely long drawn out cutscenes. it's more of an interactive movie and the story has yet to rope me in. i'm unsure if it ever will.
i also still have the first two jak & daxter games and devil may cry 3 to beat. there's other games i own that i havn't beaten yet like viewtiful joe, devil may cry (first one) and gta3 but i've pretty much given up on those ones. well, i may come back to viewtiful joe on day. as for DMC and GTA3, i got to the very very very end of both games and just.. kinda .. stopped.
DMC[1&3] is more of an october series for me, and jak & daxter comes out when i get REALLY bored.
i dont know why i started that huge ramble on games i havn't beat, but all this to say: yay, i beat another one.
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|
|
[Mon.7.May.07_5.21.pm] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Marilyn Manson - Little Horn |
] |
i am stupidly effing bored.
|
|
| spider-man 3 |
[Sat.5.May.07_3.07.am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
tired |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
New Order - Dracula's Castle |
] |
DO NOT SEE SPIDER-MAN 3
that movie was terrible. i think ti's the worst movie i have ever had the misfortune of seeing in theatres.
that being said, i went in in a rather pissy and bad mood and came out laughing and i feel fine now. so if you need a good chuckle, well, check it out i guess.
for those of you wondering what was wrong with it, well, to start it could've been about 45 minutes shorter. there were scenes that were completely unnecessary or way too drawn out. at one point i could've sworn i was watching a Saturday Night Live skit. honestly, they spent 3/4 of the movie hammering into my mind that spider-man had become an egomaniac. okay. we get the fucking point. move on and do something.
this movie did not take itself seriously at all. they were cracking jokes in the final battle, right when you think the movie might somehow manage to redeem itself.
take all that and add plot inconsistencies/loose ends, clichés and horrible acting and you have spider-man 3.
for what i think may be the first time, i'm gonna have to strongly recommend you do your best not to pay money to see this pile of crap. and even if you do get it for free, perhaps you should re-evaluate what your time is worth.
edit: i forgot to mention that the things that made me laugh the hardest during the movie involved other people commenting during the film. such as a part where an old man says "i loved your father". all it took was 5 guys giggling at the front to set the whole theatre into laughter.
|
|
| more fun |
[Wed.2.May.07_7.23.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
good + tired = blah |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
A Perfect Circle - Judith |
] |
yesterday was my first day of class. suddenly the semester doenst look like it's going to be as easy as i thought it would be, but it's still going to be alright.
i came straight home after class yesterday so that the guy who had this apartment could move his shit out. turns out he got an extension on his final paper and said he'll do it the next day (today) instead.
me and adam wanted to go for tea after class, so i msg'd him and told him we should go in half an hour (that would have been 5:30). I then called Liz to see if she wanted to come along and, long story short, we finally went for tea at 7.
high tea is yummy. so is vanilla flavoured tea. adam introduced us to a simple little game of cards called 31. we actually spent almost an hour and a half sitting at the tea place. we left just after 8:30 and wandered around downtown for just under 3 hours, which is when it was suggested we watch a movie.
the next thing i knew, liz and adam were packing pyjamas from their respective places, we were buying junkfood, and before i knew it everyone was in PJs and "watching" The Thing. that got cut not even half way because nobody was paying attention, and we moved on to Scary Movie 3. that was followed by a tiny bit of TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze and some Dave Attel.
by then it was 3:30am and everyone was pretty beat.
i got woken up at 7am, when some jerkwads decided to start doing construction outside. they interrupted my fucked up dream, and everyone was sleeping so i couldn't do anything but lay there and try to sleep again. i think i eventually managed to until 10am, when others awoke and we all had tea and pretended to watch some monty python while people got changed back into normal clothes.
Michele eventually called and I got picked up to go for my first jam session ever with her, elliot and dom.
this was my first time ever playing with anyone else (other than my sister that one time, but that doesnt count). as it turns out, i am supposedly good at the guitar. i also broke my first string. the strings i've been using haven't been changed in 3 or 4 years (since my sister was in highschool i think?). right when we started out and everyone got everything set up, i was fooling around and my A string suddenly went very loose, but without actually snapping off like i've always seen. I actually thought my tuning knob had gone loose or something, but it turns out that the inner thread of metal had broken at the bridge and the wound up thread of metal around it was holding it together.
i'm kind of torn as to whether i should go through the trouble of getting new strings for it ($6) or just buy a new guitar like i've been planning to for a month ($300~$500+). the reason this is a dilemma is partially due to the fact that i'm not sure if my interest in the instrument is waning or not. this has happened to me about 4 times already before, where i sit and wonder what the point of it all is. why am i doing this? yes, it's fun. but is it rewarding?> is there any favourable outcome to be had from my time spent playing/practicing? i'm not dexterous enough to play much better than i already can, although the guitar i borrowed from dom for the rest of the jam session did actually feel kinda easier to play.
hm...
hm.
i called the guy who needs to move his shit out of my apartment again when i got back around 4pm or so. he showed up around 6:15 or so, pakced some stuff, and i helped him put it in his car. he needs to do at least 2 trips (im thinking 3) and im currently sitting here waiting for him to come back. i almost ended up going with him to help him unpack stuff from his car because there's a REALLY fucking heavy box in there and his friend isnt off work yet, but i changed my mind shortly before we went anywhere. he was going to give me a wooden chair in return, one that nobody has really sat on yet and that i dont think would really be worth potential kidnapping or discomfort on my part. so fuck that.
i told adam i'd hang out with him after his class (8:30ish), but that's looking less likely if this guy doesnt come back soon. note, it's currently 7:45 and his new place is roughly 15 mins away. and the big heavy box was supposed to just stay in the car until someone could help him. he also has to dismantle this big bookshelf unit and get the rest of his stuff into his car.
good luck, pal.
i may be overdosing on being social. after 4 months of doing nothing, i have suddenly found myself have fun for every day/night since i've come back to ottawa (Sunday). Only being back here do i realize how much i've missed my beloved Liz and, only through seeing her do i realize how absent anneka's presence (or lack thereof) is.
<3 lizekka
|
|
| FUCK |
[Tue.1.May.07_12.50.am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
annoyed |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Strapping Young Lad - Zen |
] |
this place might have a fucking mini-roach infestation
there's all there very tiny little specs crawlinga round in my bathroom
FUCKING WONDERFUL!
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|
|
[Tue.1.May.07_12.02.am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
good |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Spice Girls - Something Kinda Funny |
] |
what a stark contrast to the past 4 (or even 20) months:
i just had 5 other people in my apartment (liz, adam, elliot, john and tanya if you must know).
although all we did was sit around watching youtube videos, it was nice. i guess this is one of the plus sides of having an apartment within walking distance of the uni that's right on a main bus stop too ^_^ now i dont have to be as alone as i was before! weee! i think
my day started with a 2-episode dose of monty python (is there any better way?) while waiting for cable guy to show up.
then i got to go on an adventure with liz, after which we waited twenty fucking minutes (count em) for hamburgers at the stand outside the residence complex. i then left her to write her final exam.
after wandering around campus for a bit, i went home for an hour or so before wandering out again to meet up with people at 5. and from there we meandered around downtown (did i even use that word right?) before everyone that was still present followed me back to my new apartment where we all sat around watching youtube videos for 2 hours.
thusfar, this semester is starting out differenter than usual, and i mean that in a good way. i hope the rest of this summer can be fun, despite classes.
speaking of classes, i've got one bright'n'early tomorrow morning. *ninja vanish*
|
|
| whew |
[Sun.29.Apr.07_11.43.pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
good |
] |
alright.
hi.
i have not updated in long, but i'll do my best not to dwell on the small details. i'm in the CBY computer lab right now, having no interwebs at my new place yet.
my job in sarnia ended, and on the very last day my boss ended up showing me who he really is. 2 hours before the end of my day, he changed his mind (while not admitting that he changed it) and something i had shown him 2 weeks ago, that he told me to do, was suddenly "completely wrong and useless". the man got where he is on hot air alone and everyone knows it. i hopei never end up that way. especially since he often told me i reminded him of himself. overall, however, it was an enjoyable experience and i think i've come away with much more knowledge than i thought i could gain from a co-op term.
between moving back to ottawa (see below) and moving out of sarnia, i was home for a day or so. i got to see some old highschool friends and eat some bitchin pancakes. it was good.
i've spent all day today moving back to ottawa. i'm now in a quite nice apartment, and we moved a shit ton of furniture because my sister is starting at uottawa in september. as a side-effect, my body is going to hurt like a motherfucker tomorrow. i got to take over the apartment a couple of days before the end of the month, and the guy who WAS there has his very last term paper ever due tomorrow. so all his stuff is still there and he's sleeping in a hotel tonight. I feel kinda bad about that, but he forgot about the paper when he agreed to let me in a day early. we ended up buying his bed/mattress, table, and microwave to make everyone's life easier. so now i've got 3 matresses (one which i'm using), which means i can have SLUMBER PARTIES!!! .. with myself :(
i forgot my co-op work term report evaluation form at home (HUGE fuckup on my part) and now it needs to be mailed to me. canada post betetr not fuck up this time.
Rogers is coming to hook me up with some interweb lovin tomorrow morning, and then i'm just going to wander around until about 5pm, which is the time i told a bunch of people to show up someplace so that we could get together before the term starts; some of the people who just finished their's would be celebrating the end of it as well. I think i'm supposed to go on an adventure with liz, so if she calls me then i get to have super fun time instead of wandering around. wee!
having no computer monitor, i decided to steal my parents' old one under the impression that it still works. guess what? it doesnt. so now i'm using the TV [that i almost decided not to bring] until I can find a suitable replacement.
so... anyone have a 17" CRT they want to get rid of? anyone?.. hmm. i wonder if i can find a new Trinitron anywhere anymore..
oh. ps. i've got a facebook account now.. look for "Sim Sim" (it wouldn't let me just use Sim... waiting on a name change) in the uottawa network. i guess. or something. how are you supposed to tell people to add you again? hmm. well. whatever.
good day!
edit: i just noticed i wrote this in the rich text editor (first time ever using it, didnt even notice). stupid bold tags...
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