October 1, 2001

23:20

I shouldn't curse myself because every time I say this it stops working, but, Ardant.net is working again. :)

October 3, 2001

13:31

It's time for the electric circuits lab -- where's the TA? Blah!

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14:56

My circuits lab is over, so I'm sitting here in my tutorial. And guess what, my TA isn't here. Go figure.

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23:47

By popular demand, I'm putting pictures of my stuffed penguin on my blog. I'll be making a tribute page to him, but hey, Calculus comes first. :(

Speak of Calculus, we've got nasty assignments due every week on Friday. Thus the me staying up late on Thursday night. And we've got nasty TAs in Electric Circus, err, circuits, ones who show up late for tutorials and labs, or don't even show up at all.

All and all, 2A has been an enjoyable experience. Not as much work as, say, 1A or 1B, but more other stuff -- going to the gym, or trying to, cooking, cleaning, or watching my stuffed penguin surf on my mouse on my window sill. In some way this term is a relief from what became ordinary in 1B (studying, studying, studying) -- atleast we now have time for ourselves!

Anyway, I do realize that this post is useless. I'm pretty sure no one has read it, all you wanted to see was pictures of my stuffed penguin. Isn't he cute? ^_^

More from the penguin front on some other day.

23:59

Oh yeah, before I forget, check out this spiffy Amnuts Mousepad I got. If you're a user of the amnuts talker code (which my talker is based on) do check out the Amnuts Store and consider buying one -- it's great!

Mouse not included.

October 5, 2001

03:52

It's 4 AM. And I'm still doing my bloody Calculus. We're all here, sitting and doing calculus.

It's bloody 4 AM.

That's all.

07:11

... is now over. I've got lecture in about 2 hours so I better sleep.

6 straight hours of classes, and then a Thanksgiving weekend. Ironic, isn't it?

October 10, 2001

10:15

Well, I went home and came back. Thanksgiving is over and much too short (it's taken me 2 days to write about it).

They've finally installed the lights above the bed, in where I'm living. Now I can study in my natural position (read: lying on my bed). Yay.

I've got class in 2 minutes. But I wanted to share my newest production: www.stuffedpenguins.com.

Cheers!

October 12, 2001

12:17

I'm awfully tired -- I couldn't sleep last night, so I tossed and turned until I fell asleep. Eventually.

Done my Java assignment now. (Yay!). It's Friday. ^A.

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October 15, 2001

13:06

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October 16, 2001

21:58

Yesterday at 20:30, the two weeks of hell began.

Two weeks from yesterday at 20:30, midterms will be over, and hopefully I'll find myself doing something crazy and fun with the other 100 or so people in my class, to celebrate that fact. [Ed Note: I'm not that dull -- just that my parents read this blog. ]

But sorry -- midterms are first, and two projects, and assignments, and the same as usual.

I was going to write a "20 ways to study for a midterm" but I noticed Terri beat me to it so I'll just send you to her blog.

Almost done my java assignment and circuits lab. Will finish soon. Spending too much time working on StuffedPenguins.

Now, back to work.

October 17, 2001

05:32

Ugh. I think it's time to sleep.

22:00

Off to the lab at 10 PM to make sure everything's ok in preparation for tomorrow's presentation.

First midterm is on Friday. It's a presentation for once (it's not a standard engineering course). Organizational Behaviour. We got to watch Apollo 13 and then get to comment about the organizational behaviour aspects of it.

Anyway. Off to the lab.

October 18, 2001

00:08

This post isn't about my calculus or java or acm practices or circuits labs. It's about something else, but it belongs under the topic of hell. Spam.

Yeah, seems as though ardant@ardant.net has finally succumbed to the spammers (left and right, those emails come). I'll have to do something about this.

I noticed a lot of "ethical spammers" using services like removeyou.com to "manage" their mailing lists. Apparently the concept is simple, you add your e-mail to this list, and you won't get spam from their members anymore, as your e-mails are removed from their list.

One of their stipulations is that members msut -always- send out the removeyou.com instructions at the bottom of each e-mail. And they say your e-mail is never shown to the spammer, just that your e-mails are removed from their list. The spammer uploads their list, removeyou.com filters, and sends the spammer the new list.

Ooops, slight problem there.

Now, what if said spammer takes the difference between their old and new list? Now they have a better list with all valid e-mail addresses.

As a result, after I put my address in with removeyou.com (which I wouldn't have done if I hadn't read all the supporting arguments for it from legit sources), and then most of the spamming stopped. Except for 4 or 5 spammers who proceeded to remove the contract from their messages and continue to send me emails.

Alright, I'm done ranting for tonight. On to java and to call it a night. And hopefully when these people are done shouting aimless untargeted messages to millions of people around the world, they can call it a night too.

09:22

I went to sleep quite late last night, and woke up in time for my ECE 223 lab this morning. 8:30 AM, sheesh.

Now, here's how the lab went:

8:25 AM. Wake up. Ooops.

8:33 AM. Arrive at the lab. Take out speedwire board. Take out Stuffed Penguin.

8:40 AM. Ask TA to check board. TA checks board. Ask TA to check schematics. TA checks schematics.

And that's it.

Now, why do we have to wake up at 8:30 for this?

October 19, 2001

04:21

Well, my 13 page lab report is now done, printed, and bound.

Here's an approximate rendition of the next, oh, 46 hours or so.

• 04:15 to 08:30: Sleep.
• 08:30 to 09:30: eat, get ready, and other stuff.
• 09:30 to 16:30: Lectures, non-stop.
• 16:30 to 18:30: Prepare for MSci 211 presentation/midterm.
• 18:30 to 20:00: last minute group meeting and rehearsal for said presentation.
• 20:15 to 21:00: presentation.
• 21:15 to 21:45: eat.
• 22:00 to 01:00: study for Calculus midterm Monday.
• 02:00 to 11:00: sleep.
• 13:00 to 18:00: ACM practice.
• 18:30 to 19:30: eat.
• 20:00 to 01:00: study for ECE 209 midterm (Wednesday).
• 02:00 to 11:00: sleep.
• 13:00 to 18:00: ACM practice.
• 20:00 to 01:00: study for Calculus.

Etc. Two weeks of hell continues.

October 23, 2001

12:00

Calculus done. MSCi 211 done.

Working on ECE 209 which is, in my words, "A quantum mechanics mix, topped with differential equations, served with a hearty portion of chemistry.".

Eww.

October 27, 2001

04:31

Special guest this week is Blitz, from Shad.

I'm sitting here in Ardant's room, desperate to sleep. But sleep is for the weak, says Ardant. So he forces me to sit at the keyboard, slaving away at this blog. He's too lazy to write them himself, so here I am. [Ed Note: Blitz now cracks his knuckles omniously. I'm now afraid to think about what he's going to write about next. ]

I came up here to see the University, to make sure it's a place I want to spend the next five pages of my life. (Ardant just brought in a garbage bag, dripping some form of liquid from his soaked clothing. More on that later.) I first encountered Ardant's roommates/friends parading into the room, obviously happy to be finished their mid-term. Waterloo observation #1: Alcholol is transmitted by osmosis. Apparently just staring at a bottle is enough to excite an engineer.

After much discussion about Ardant's stuffed penguin, some rather "interesting" pictures were taken. I'll let Ardant post them later. We then made plans to meet some of my friends from high school, now in first year Computer Science here. As we were about ready to leave, some coffee managed to transpire from the mug on the table onto Ardant's pants. Ten minutes and a new pair of pants later, we were off.

I was quite impressed with the campus so far, although I've only seen it in the dark. Ardant managed to get lost in the Eng 3 building (haven't you been living there for two years?), and I had a quick tour of some of the residences. Waterloo observation #2: Residence food is much worse than the stuff they serve at open day. I was hungry, but not for that stuff. So we went across the street to Mel's Diner, and had an early/late breakfast at midnight for $2.99. I'll probably be eating there quite often next year.

Back to Ardant's apartment for a game of Scrabble with his roommates. Ardant won, thanks to his unusual vocabulary (he seems to have memorized the entire list of two- and three-letter words in the Scrabble Dictionary). Waterloo observation #3: Nobody sleeps around here! It's been two hours since the game, everyone is still awake, and one of Ardant's roommates is talking about doing some math homework. I don't know how I'm going to survive this place!

Ardant: "Alright, I'm going to start thinking about where we're going to sleep tonight."

Argh! I want to sleep now! Enough!

This has been brought to you by Blitz.

October 28, 2001

01:30

Less than 48 hours left in the two weeks of hell. Yes, it's almost over. Although these two weeks have consisted of 325 hours instead of the usual 324.

Yes, daylight savings time.

My computer buzzed at me less than 26 minutes ago. It's now 1 AM. Your time settings have been changed to adjust for daylight savings time.

And the saddest thing of all is the first thought that went through my mind was: "Hey, I can study for another hour."

Yep, less than 48 hours left.

October 29, 2001

01:46

Two weeks of hell are winding down. Less than 16 hours before my last midterm.

Study, study, study. Whirr, whirr, whirr.

And guess what, it just gets worse from here on in. Labs, and Projects, and trips to go programming (ACM).

University life for you. I'll update SP later.

October 30, 2001

02:21

... so I stayed up and worked on SP. I installed MySQL, and converted over the entire darn SP site. Next is Ardant.net. That's going to take a while.