This is my 4th blog entry in 4 days, and while it is probably due to a combination of having things to say and procrastination (always during midterms period), I feel like I've sold my soul to the internet. Chatting for hours on MSN, visiting message boards, downloading various multimedia, that's alright. But blogging everyday is foreign to me...and most people I know don't do that.
My friend's take on this: "Sell your soul to the internet - Brought to you by the Devil's internet provider".
In anycase, today's procrasinatory tidbit has to do with a discovery I made today:
I was reading demonbaby's latest post about poop to my mom earlier this evening (it's quite funny), when the telephone rang. So I started fiddling around with my laptop keyboard...which in the past has caused me much grief (but I accepted it as part of life and just dealt with it).
Here is, what I thought was the cause of my keyboard woe:
About 1.5 years ago, at the beginning of March 2005, was the funeral of a friend of mine. Sad day, as can be expected. After coming home from the service, I decided to turn on my laptop and then make myself a cup of tea. I'm walking into the living room with my cup and then I trip. Naturally the tea spilled all over my laptop. What followed after was "AHHHH...SHIT, damnit, freaking...fuckin, blarghy, mrar" and so on. I turned off the computer, flipped it over, and lay it on paper towels in an attempt to save its life.
After I tried turning it on hours later, there was a black screen...a few hours later, some error messages. Things that I don't like to see. I forgot what exactly I did after, but it somehow started working again. hoorah. all is well in the world...until about 1 month later, my keyboard started doing funky things when I typed.
For example, if I typed gmail, it would come up as g0a53.c60.
I thought that maybe this was a delayed response to the tea incident. I didn't know what to do. The only thing that seemed to work was plugging an external keyboard to the back of my laptop, and then somehow, all the keys worked perfectly. I sent it to a computer fixer dude who my family knows. He had no solution. Karate teachers husband..."well, i guess the external keyboard overwrites any signal your shortcircuited keyboard sends to your computer" (not his exact words, but something like that). Someone upstairs who got himself a new laptop, donated his old laptop keyboard to me (which was of the same make). We installed it...still the same problem.
So for 1.5 years, I've been plugging this large, old, external keyboard into my laptop to be able to type properly. During that time, my mom even offered to get me a new laptop. But I figured I could survive like this for a while.
So here's the discovery. I only found out today (after 4 years of owning this thing), that laptop keyboards have numlock. I figured that the keyboard area is so small, that numlock just didn't exist, and there was no real reason to have it anyways.
I noticed that the little green light was on where the numlock thing is, which indicated that numlock has been on all this time. I turn it off...lo and behold, I can type.
On the one hand, I'm really happy that my keyboard is fine after all and my laptop doesn't need changing. But I also feel really, really, really stupid. All this time I had been blaming the tea incident for my keyboard problems, when it was just numlock, that for some reason had been turned on for 1.5 years. I'm only comforted by the fact that I wasn't the only one that missed it. Still. You may all laugh now.
-signing off...and feeling slightly sheepish.
And I like lists.
I was blog browsing and found a post about "Musical horoscopes". I don't see how it's a horoscope at all (doesn't even correspond to the number of signs in the zodiac...in anycase). All you do is shuffle your music list and write down the first 10 that show up. So now you can all see some of the music I listen to. yayishnest.
Behold, my "Musical Horoscope" for today:
I'm rather pleased with the outcome...I enjoyed listening to all of them. Haven't listened to Radiohead, Death Cab, Coldplay, YYY or AF in a while. Good stuff.
Anyways, on the topic of music lists. There's this thing I did on a message board (ts.net :D) in 2004, called "The Soundtrack to your life". I've done it 3 times (keeping a record of each to compare). Here's the most recent (April 22, 2006) , with what intended to be a few song modifications...whee
I was blog browsing and found a post about "Musical horoscopes". I don't see how it's a horoscope at all (doesn't even correspond to the number of signs in the zodiac...in anycase). All you do is shuffle your music list and write down the first 10 that show up. So now you can all see some of the music I listen to. yayishnest.
Behold, my "Musical Horoscope" for today:
1) Type O Negative – White Slavery
2) Placebo – Spite and Malice
3) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion
4) Radiohead – Anyone can play guitar
5) The Tiger Lillies – Snip Snip
6) The Arcade Fire – In the backseat
7) Coldplay – Proof
8) U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday (Rattle and Hum live)
9) Death Cab for Cutie – Brothers on a Hotel Bed
10) Radiohead - Permanent Daylight
and an extra - Mindless Self Indulgence - Shut Me UpI'm rather pleased with the outcome...I enjoyed listening to all of them. Haven't listened to Radiohead, Death Cab, Coldplay, YYY or AF in a while. Good stuff.
Anyways, on the topic of music lists. There's this thing I did on a message board (ts.net :D) in 2004, called "The Soundtrack to your life". I've done it 3 times (keeping a record of each to compare). Here's the most recent (April 22, 2006) , with what intended to be a few song modifications...whee
*Opening Credits: Mum – Green Grass of Tunnel
*Waking Up Scene: Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla
*Average Day Scene: Modest Mouse – The World at large
*One Night Stand Scene: Silverchair - Steam will Rise
*First Date Scene: The Crystals - Then he kissed me
*Falling In Love Scene: Pete Townshend - Let my love Open the door (e.cola mix)
*Sex Scene: Massive Attack – Risingson
*Fight with Friend Scene: Thom Yorke - Analyze
*Break Up Scene: Devotchka – How it Ends
*Get Back Together Scene: Sondre Lerche – You know so well
*Life's Okay Scene: The Beatles – Obladi Oblada
*Heartbreak Scene: Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek
*Mental Breakdown Scene: Ladytron - Cracked LCD (live in Sofia)
*Driving Scene: The Cure - Disintegration
*Lesson Learned Scene: Malcolm Middleton – Crappo the Clown
*Deep Thought Scene: VNV Nation – Endless Skies
*Flashback Scene: Les Tetes Raides – Ginette
*Party Scene: Party Monster OST - Money, Success, Fame, Glamour/Le Rock 01
*Summer music: Kaoma - Lambada/Daddy Yankee - Gasolina
*Back to School: Final Fantasy – The CN Tower Belongs to the dead
*Happy Dance Scene: T-Rex - Children of the Revolution
*Regret Scene: New Order - Ceremony
*Long Night Alone Scene: Michael Andrews - Mad World
*Saying Goodbye: Bajaga - Moji Drugovi (means "my friends" in serbian)
*Closing Credits: The Pixies – This monkey’s gone to heaven
I am the worst breed of Canadian born Nigerian (of the ngwa sector). I can pronounce various words (mostly numbers) in about 10 other languges...count like a CBC (canadian born chinese - told to me be a few chinese people, not my own evaluation), sing in Russian, but cannot say dad properly in Igbo (the languge in south eastern nigeria, which my dad speaks). I don't blame him for being slightly depressed.
In my 21 years of existence, I learned how to count, say hello, greetings and thank you - all with horrible pronunciation. Whenever people ask me to teach them something, I refuse...just because I suck. I end up mumbling...It's pretty embarassing.
My dad suggested that while learning russian, I send him some of the words they give us to learn by email and he'll translate it to Igbo. Cool! Instead of emailing him, I just wrote it down and discussed with him on Friday night.
I discovered a trend, woohoo...adding various suffixes to words changes its meaning (like in possessive terms).
my - mo
yours - nkege (short form - ge)
theirs - nkha (sf - ha)
ours - anye
hers/his - nkya
so if I wanted to say my mom, you would do mom + my -> nne + mo = nnemo. Our mom would be nneanye. Not to be confused with anya which means eyes.
What's also great is, like russian there are no articles.
So what's the problem? Tone Difficulties.
During my study break (which has now lasted for 1 hour - far too long), I decided to look up Igbo on the internet. It led me to an article on wikipedia:
Igbo (also known, less commonly, as Ibo; asụsụ Ndi Igbo in Igbo) is a language spoken in Nigeria by around 18 million speakers (the Igbo), especially in the southeastern region once identified as Biafra. It is written in the Roman script. Igbo is a tonal language, like Yoruba and Chinese.
note - Yoruba is a language spoken in Western nigeria.
YAY, tones. Wonderful tones. I already screw up some words in Russian because of stresses (or just misread words completely. Example: thursday I read bad city and somehow made city feminine instead of saying bad weather. City is gorod and Weather is pagoda. I dunno how I did that).
Instead of saying King ( eze - with a kind of low tone at the end - also used as a name) I say tooth (high tone), just because of these doomful tones. (When I learned Eze was tooth, intially I'd asked my dad..."why would someone name their child tooth?")
Apparently in Mandarin (I dunno how true this is, I got it from a website) -
Just by saying "ma" in different tones, you can ask, "Did mother scold the horse?" - (mā mà mă ma?)
So, I shall make the Igbo equivalent Tooth King...or alternatively King Tooth. Whichever you like best.
(The Tooth King could be the ruler of the tooth fairy kingdom and set up dispatching schedules for all the shaky teeth around the world. I'd imagine that the King Tooth would be one of the molars though... Not wisdom teeth, they're kinda like the wise old village men.)
In anycase, these tone difficulties only encourage me to eventually master (or at least know enough to come across knowing something without sounding stupid) these languages. Mandarin and Cantonese were already on my list of future languages to learn (probably mandarin first), and Igbo because it's 1/2 of me. (the other half - french has been studied many times as part of the curriculum at school :P).
I figure once I do these harder languages, ones slightly related to them will be a lot easier to learn.
This is what I know and what I'd like to learn - ambitious list and I doubt I'll get to know most of them...but it'd be fun.
Legend:
Yes! = I know it, mostly
IP = In Progress/Counting rocks
N = Nothing
Yes!
English
French
IP (hoping to do most of these...the one that'll probably suffer is tagalog.)
German (#1-10)
Spanish (#1-10/hello/goodnight)
Mandarin (#1-10/hello)
Cantonese (#1-10/hello)
Japanese (#1-10/tidbits/karate terminology + singing along to songs)
Tagalog (#1-5/ 6-10 always escape me)
Igbo (you know the story)
Russian (learning that right now at school)
Nothing (* priority over others)
*Dutch (recently added - shall be difficult)
*Italian (slightly related to french or so mommy says...hoping that when I tackle it, it won't be so bad)
Portuguese (toughest of latin languages, god help me)
Vietnamese (this is gonna be really hard)
Korean ( a friend of mine wants to learn it one day, I said I wouldn't mind joining in)
*Icelandic (the spy machine is pretty much what I know)
*Arabic ( I could've put this in IP, but I can't even count, I just know hurry, I love you, sweety and it's enough)
Hindi/Punjabi/Tamil - one of the three and I'll be happy.
Classical Tibetan (my friend is learning that now and it looks so cool. I'm interested :P)
If any of you are interested in learning more about Igbo Language, I found this site today: http://uwandiigbo.com/wb/pages/lessons.php
It has 12 lessons, some of which are accompanied by an mp3 to show you how to pronounce sounds. There are some words that my dad uses which are not included in the lessons (like in the greetings), but it's a lot more than I've found in the past about this language.
And since I don't even know how to say "Bye", here's how to say Greetings - "Ndewo".
In my 21 years of existence, I learned how to count, say hello, greetings and thank you - all with horrible pronunciation. Whenever people ask me to teach them something, I refuse...just because I suck. I end up mumbling...It's pretty embarassing.
My dad suggested that while learning russian, I send him some of the words they give us to learn by email and he'll translate it to Igbo. Cool! Instead of emailing him, I just wrote it down and discussed with him on Friday night.
I discovered a trend, woohoo...adding various suffixes to words changes its meaning (like in possessive terms).
my - mo
yours - nkege (short form - ge)
theirs - nkha (sf - ha)
ours - anye
hers/his - nkya
so if I wanted to say my mom, you would do mom + my -> nne + mo = nnemo. Our mom would be nneanye. Not to be confused with anya which means eyes.
What's also great is, like russian there are no articles.
So what's the problem? Tone Difficulties.
During my study break (which has now lasted for 1 hour - far too long), I decided to look up Igbo on the internet. It led me to an article on wikipedia:
Igbo (also known, less commonly, as Ibo; asụsụ Ndi Igbo in Igbo) is a language spoken in Nigeria by around 18 million speakers (the Igbo), especially in the southeastern region once identified as Biafra. It is written in the Roman script. Igbo is a tonal language, like Yoruba and Chinese.
note - Yoruba is a language spoken in Western nigeria.
YAY, tones. Wonderful tones. I already screw up some words in Russian because of stresses (or just misread words completely. Example: thursday I read bad city and somehow made city feminine instead of saying bad weather. City is gorod and Weather is pagoda. I dunno how I did that).
Instead of saying King ( eze - with a kind of low tone at the end - also used as a name) I say tooth (high tone), just because of these doomful tones. (When I learned Eze was tooth, intially I'd asked my dad..."why would someone name their child tooth?")
Apparently in Mandarin (I dunno how true this is, I got it from a website) -
Just by saying "ma" in different tones, you can ask, "Did mother scold the horse?" - (mā mà mă ma?)
So, I shall make the Igbo equivalent Tooth King...or alternatively King Tooth. Whichever you like best.
(The Tooth King could be the ruler of the tooth fairy kingdom and set up dispatching schedules for all the shaky teeth around the world. I'd imagine that the King Tooth would be one of the molars though... Not wisdom teeth, they're kinda like the wise old village men.)
In anycase, these tone difficulties only encourage me to eventually master (or at least know enough to come across knowing something without sounding stupid) these languages. Mandarin and Cantonese were already on my list of future languages to learn (probably mandarin first), and Igbo because it's 1/2 of me. (the other half - french has been studied many times as part of the curriculum at school :P).
I figure once I do these harder languages, ones slightly related to them will be a lot easier to learn.
This is what I know and what I'd like to learn - ambitious list and I doubt I'll get to know most of them...but it'd be fun.
Legend:
Yes! = I know it, mostly
IP = In Progress/Counting rocks
N = Nothing
Yes!
English
French
IP (hoping to do most of these...the one that'll probably suffer is tagalog.)
German (#1-10)
Spanish (#1-10/hello/goodnight)
Mandarin (#1-10/hello)
Cantonese (#1-10/hello)
Japanese (#1-10/tidbits/karate terminology + singing along to songs)
Tagalog (#1-5/ 6-10 always escape me)
Igbo (you know the story)
Russian (learning that right now at school)
Nothing (* priority over others)
*Dutch (recently added - shall be difficult)
*Italian (slightly related to french or so mommy says...hoping that when I tackle it, it won't be so bad)
Portuguese (toughest of latin languages, god help me)
Vietnamese (this is gonna be really hard)
Korean ( a friend of mine wants to learn it one day, I said I wouldn't mind joining in)
*Icelandic (the spy machine is pretty much what I know)
*Arabic ( I could've put this in IP, but I can't even count, I just know hurry, I love you, sweety and it's enough)
Hindi/Punjabi/Tamil - one of the three and I'll be happy.
Classical Tibetan (my friend is learning that now and it looks so cool. I'm interested :P)
If any of you are interested in learning more about Igbo Language, I found this site today: http://uwandiigbo.com/wb/pages/lessons.php
It has 12 lessons, some of which are accompanied by an mp3 to show you how to pronounce sounds. There are some words that my dad uses which are not included in the lessons (like in the greetings), but it's a lot more than I've found in the past about this language.
And since I don't even know how to say "Bye", here's how to say Greetings - "Ndewo".
Firstly, I'd like to inform you all, that on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at about 7:45pm, a bag of Ginger Green Tea that had been in my bag since August 12, 2006 (a gift from a fellow counsellor), was consumed. Here's the play by play:
1) water was boiled in a pot
2) after the water was boiled, the tea bag was placed inside the pot...and it steeped. (we huddled around the pot waiting for our tea)
3) poured it into 2 cups...and went back to the couch to continue viewing "Goodbye Lenin!" (excellent movie by the way).
This is what fall is all about. Sitting in front of a fire, drinking tea and watching movies.
After the movie, we ate foodies with his parents. It was boiled carrots and turnips (butter optional - but was nice and melty), some kinda pickled onions, and bread (not just any bread, it was baguette).
Tea friend mentioned that the bread was pretty good. Sir Tea said well "It's just from IGA, didn't make it to premiere moisson in time. But better than industrial bread".
Mrs. Tea says "le pain industriel, ce n'est pas du pain, c'est du "Blegh"". Basically, industrial bread is not bread, it is yucky. It's too soft, doesn't have much flavor, etc.
"Tu sais, le pain POM...un si bon nom, pour un pain si "bleh"."
I found out that night that POM means "Pride of Montreal". Mrs Tea then said that she understands why people like montreal bagel, because it's real bread baked in those nice wood ovens. Ah yes...wonderful fresh bagels. yum. (His dad also mentioned in passing that cockroaches give bagels their real flavor. Then his mom said that that's how Raisin danishes were created. She's joking of course... :P)
Anyways, after thinking about the state of bread for a little bit, it's pretty true. However, there are presliced industrial breads that are not as bad as others. I don't remember all of them, but I shall make an attempt to rank the bread that I know. Feel free to add any breads you know...if you feel so inclined to comment.
1)POM - everyone knows pom. It comes presliced in white and whole wheat flour varieties. It's soft and squishy, very square. I'd say it's decent and convenient. 6/10
2)Country Harvest - they've got a whole selection of breads...the 12 grain, 7 grain, stone ground, flax seed. I'd say I'm pretty satisfied with this one, just because of the selection, some of them are organic and there's little to no white flour in most of them. My only complaint is that I've found some moldy ones sometimes. That's the supermarket's fault, not theirs though. Stone ground for the win. 8/10
3)Zellers sandwich bread (probably not the exact name, but whatever) - it's cheap...something like 1$. It's nasty. My mom says it sticks to your palette (like most long loaf, thin square sandwich bread. Good for toast, but lacks personality). Not my style. D: 2/10
4)D'italiano - white and whole wheat varieties. Before crossing over to the country harvest side, this was my family's bread of choice. Soft, tastier than most and not thin/lacking substance. They used to have one style of white bread that had sesame seeds on the crust...don't see that anymore though. Only on their hamburger buns. saddness. 7/10
5)Bread from La Vielle Europe - this store owns. So anything from this store owns. I don't get to go often, only because I have to travel on the orange line for about 20 mins, then walk for 10. I won't do that only for bread (for wild cherry tea on the other hand...- I'll have to make a tea post one day). In anycase, their bread is nice, tasty, and not thin. There is real substance there. 9/10
6) Premiere Moisson - Apart from homemade bread (by people that know how to bake), this is probably one of the best. This is the bread that occupies Mr. Tea's house 90% of the time. They have sooo many different kinds, and you can have them sliced. All tasty. 9.5/10
7) This organic bread you find at health food stores...I forgot the name. It's nice and crunchy...tasty too. But not for those with weak teeth. My mom thinks it's like eating concrete...but it's really good for toast. 8/10
So, I'm going to challenge myself...just for fun. I'm going to try and avoid Industrial/Supermarket bread. My family needn't participate - they probably won't, they think my tastes are strange enough as it is. De toute facon, I got some round whole wheat bread from Exofruits today.
Oh, and another thing I got - Spaghetti Squash. For those of you who've never tried it before, it's awesome. I had it for the first time on thursday night at my karate teachers' house. All she did was steam it and when she scooped it out, it was all noodly. It blended in well with the buckwheat soba noodles. I shall attempt to recreate it tonight or tomorrow.
Alright,
Until next time
1) water was boiled in a pot
2) after the water was boiled, the tea bag was placed inside the pot...and it steeped. (we huddled around the pot waiting for our tea)
3) poured it into 2 cups...and went back to the couch to continue viewing "Goodbye Lenin!" (excellent movie by the way).
This is what fall is all about. Sitting in front of a fire, drinking tea and watching movies.
After the movie, we ate foodies with his parents. It was boiled carrots and turnips (butter optional - but was nice and melty), some kinda pickled onions, and bread (not just any bread, it was baguette).
Tea friend mentioned that the bread was pretty good. Sir Tea said well "It's just from IGA, didn't make it to premiere moisson in time. But better than industrial bread".
Mrs. Tea says "le pain industriel, ce n'est pas du pain, c'est du "Blegh"". Basically, industrial bread is not bread, it is yucky. It's too soft, doesn't have much flavor, etc.
"Tu sais, le pain POM...un si bon nom, pour un pain si "bleh"."
I found out that night that POM means "Pride of Montreal". Mrs Tea then said that she understands why people like montreal bagel, because it's real bread baked in those nice wood ovens. Ah yes...wonderful fresh bagels. yum. (His dad also mentioned in passing that cockroaches give bagels their real flavor. Then his mom said that that's how Raisin danishes were created. She's joking of course... :P)
Anyways, after thinking about the state of bread for a little bit, it's pretty true. However, there are presliced industrial breads that are not as bad as others. I don't remember all of them, but I shall make an attempt to rank the bread that I know. Feel free to add any breads you know...if you feel so inclined to comment.
1)POM - everyone knows pom. It comes presliced in white and whole wheat flour varieties. It's soft and squishy, very square. I'd say it's decent and convenient. 6/10
2)Country Harvest - they've got a whole selection of breads...the 12 grain, 7 grain, stone ground, flax seed. I'd say I'm pretty satisfied with this one, just because of the selection, some of them are organic and there's little to no white flour in most of them. My only complaint is that I've found some moldy ones sometimes. That's the supermarket's fault, not theirs though. Stone ground for the win. 8/10
3)Zellers sandwich bread (probably not the exact name, but whatever) - it's cheap...something like 1$. It's nasty. My mom says it sticks to your palette (like most long loaf, thin square sandwich bread. Good for toast, but lacks personality). Not my style. D: 2/10
4)D'italiano - white and whole wheat varieties. Before crossing over to the country harvest side, this was my family's bread of choice. Soft, tastier than most and not thin/lacking substance. They used to have one style of white bread that had sesame seeds on the crust...don't see that anymore though. Only on their hamburger buns. saddness. 7/10
5)Bread from La Vielle Europe - this store owns. So anything from this store owns. I don't get to go often, only because I have to travel on the orange line for about 20 mins, then walk for 10. I won't do that only for bread (for wild cherry tea on the other hand...- I'll have to make a tea post one day). In anycase, their bread is nice, tasty, and not thin. There is real substance there. 9/10
6) Premiere Moisson - Apart from homemade bread (by people that know how to bake), this is probably one of the best. This is the bread that occupies Mr. Tea's house 90% of the time. They have sooo many different kinds, and you can have them sliced. All tasty. 9.5/10
7) This organic bread you find at health food stores...I forgot the name. It's nice and crunchy...tasty too. But not for those with weak teeth. My mom thinks it's like eating concrete...but it's really good for toast. 8/10
So, I'm going to challenge myself...just for fun. I'm going to try and avoid Industrial/Supermarket bread. My family needn't participate - they probably won't, they think my tastes are strange enough as it is. De toute facon, I got some round whole wheat bread from Exofruits today.
Oh, and another thing I got - Spaghetti Squash. For those of you who've never tried it before, it's awesome. I had it for the first time on thursday night at my karate teachers' house. All she did was steam it and when she scooped it out, it was all noodly. It blended in well with the buckwheat soba noodles. I shall attempt to recreate it tonight or tomorrow.
Alright,
Until next time
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day while trying to decide what picture I should put up on the csme site. I showed him 4 pics, all varying in degress of rockingness.
1) I had my tongue sticking out going \m/ - total webcam fuzziness. Suiting for a VP Academic n'est pas? Seems not.
2) Halloween 2003 picture. I was supposed to be Twiggy Ramirez. According to a different friend that was in the picture too (dressed as a checkers board), I looked like someone from the band emperor...if only emperor had a female bandmate.
3) + 4) both pics from the same night at checkerface house. I was pretending to play electric guitar. I cannot play, I plonk, it sounds like crap. But that's okay. Air guitar, baby...air guitar is all you need.
So friend I'm talkin with evaluates these photos.
He sees the halloween one: "SO KISS FEEL D: - KISS feel will own all noobs "
Then guitar picture: "if that guitar look combined with halloween make up --> 200% KISS ownage"
At that moment, I had never heard such genius. I laughed...for a while. And told many people...but now I'm making sure everyone knows about 200% Kiss Ownage...as it will become part of my regular vocabulary. So when I say it, don't be shocked, alarmed, or confused...just nod in agreement.
Finally, one of the guitar pics was chosen.
Now onto other tidbits:
TA's in a slight funk:
Numerical Methods:
My general approach is to write the procedure on the board in a clear/more or less concise way, then show how to use it with the given examples. That part's good. yeah. The booboo comes when I explain. It's like when they ask a question, my answer comes out all wrong and confusing at first (I try to use the "mathematical notation as given in their notes). Then, I decide, HOLD ON MY PEOPLE, I will do this question first, and then if you are still confused ask me. Then it's all good...I'm somehow able to explain it ("yeah, dude, just...never do that for these kinda questions"). Is this normal? Or am I just a bad TA? :P
Tidbit 2:
Saw a friend on friday. Good times. Nearing the end of our encounter...she told me about this Talent Night her department is hosting in april. Her friend was thinking of doing something for it...but they weren't sure what. She thought maybe sing, but sing what? So I suggested, why not change the lyrics of a song to make it suit your field of study? Eureka! So that's what we did!
We ended up choosing the song "I still haven't found what i'm looking for"...and this was the result. (some of the stuff in there is Physical Therapy lingo...like OSCE's, rom's, mmt's. Dr. Penfield is a steep street, and osmer house is one of the mcgill PT buildings. (?) near the physio because it sounds kinda strange)
After showing this to a fellow mech. eng. friend of mine, he suggested I write one for mech eng. It sounds kinda depressing. There's no way you can modify a Nine Inch Nails song without keeping the general mood. It's slightly embarassing...for some reason. I'll post it, and then end this long ass blog post (it's to make up for my lack of activity for these passed few weeks. take intermissions if need be)
I used the song "Reptile" because it sounds so mechanical haha. Now, this song doesn't express my exact feelings about the program (there are times where I've been frustrated, but overall it's been alright. I'm not that doom)
AHHH, okay. Stop reading.
Now.
1) I had my tongue sticking out going \m/ - total webcam fuzziness. Suiting for a VP Academic n'est pas? Seems not.
2) Halloween 2003 picture. I was supposed to be Twiggy Ramirez. According to a different friend that was in the picture too (dressed as a checkers board), I looked like someone from the band emperor...if only emperor had a female bandmate.
3) + 4) both pics from the same night at checkerface house. I was pretending to play electric guitar. I cannot play, I plonk, it sounds like crap. But that's okay. Air guitar, baby...air guitar is all you need.
So friend I'm talkin with evaluates these photos.
He sees the halloween one: "SO KISS FEEL D: - KISS feel will own all noobs "
Then guitar picture: "if that guitar look combined with halloween make up --> 200% KISS ownage"
At that moment, I had never heard such genius. I laughed...for a while. And told many people...but now I'm making sure everyone knows about 200% Kiss Ownage...as it will become part of my regular vocabulary. So when I say it, don't be shocked, alarmed, or confused...just nod in agreement.
Finally, one of the guitar pics was chosen.
Now onto other tidbits:
TA's in a slight funk:
Numerical Methods:
My general approach is to write the procedure on the board in a clear/more or less concise way, then show how to use it with the given examples. That part's good. yeah. The booboo comes when I explain. It's like when they ask a question, my answer comes out all wrong and confusing at first (I try to use the "mathematical notation as given in their notes). Then, I decide, HOLD ON MY PEOPLE, I will do this question first, and then if you are still confused ask me. Then it's all good...I'm somehow able to explain it ("yeah, dude, just...never do that for these kinda questions"). Is this normal? Or am I just a bad TA? :P
Tidbit 2:
Saw a friend on friday. Good times. Nearing the end of our encounter...she told me about this Talent Night her department is hosting in april. Her friend was thinking of doing something for it...but they weren't sure what. She thought maybe sing, but sing what? So I suggested, why not change the lyrics of a song to make it suit your field of study? Eureka! So that's what we did!
We ended up choosing the song "I still haven't found what i'm looking for"...and this was the result. (some of the stuff in there is Physical Therapy lingo...like OSCE's, rom's, mmt's. Dr. Penfield is a steep street, and osmer house is one of the mcgill PT buildings. (?) near the physio because it sounds kinda strange)
I have climbed Doctor Penfield
I have run to Osmer house
To learn how to treat you
Learn how to treat you
I’ve endured many OSCE’s.
Many OSCE’s,
Only to treat you
I have touched many backs
Used my healing finger tips
That sooth while healing
Massage like no other
I’ve held the hands of the injured
To help them to walk
They won’t face this alone
Mmhmm
I assess the wounded ones
r-o-m’s and m-m-t’s
m-m-t’s…
Yes I’m still working
We’ve come this far and we’ve worked our brains
Carried the books
With so much pain
So much pain
And now I’ll be leaving
And Now I can see what I’m working for
But I still deserve more than this salary
After showing this to a fellow mech. eng. friend of mine, he suggested I write one for mech eng. It sounds kinda depressing. There's no way you can modify a Nine Inch Nails song without keeping the general mood. It's slightly embarassing...for some reason. I'll post it, and then end this long ass blog post (it's to make up for my lack of activity for these passed few weeks. take intermissions if need be)
I used the song "Reptile" because it sounds so mechanical haha. Now, this song doesn't express my exact feelings about the program (there are times where I've been frustrated, but overall it's been alright. I'm not that doom)
Books on my desk wide open to let the knowledge in
Sheets leave a trail of mistakes to show me what I've missed
Solving large equations to show where flow begins
Results from experiments produce these giant lists
Oh mech engineering
With your large course load
My desire or pain infliction
I am so unsure
Oh…
Drill it…
My head leaves from the droning sound of this torment
Give me something concrete to alleviate my bewilderment
Tell me, what is bending moment and shear stress?
Epoxy resins galore
Lathes, milling and grinding
I can take no more
Oh mech engineering
Forced convective flow
Differential Equations
What else is in store?
One more year to go
Leaving all this behind
To learn something more
AHHH, okay. Stop reading.
Now.
Well, I saw Ladytron on Sunday. I really only knew two songs (International Dateline, Playgirl). But le dude, it was tres awesome...really fun. I could always go into detail about that actual, but my friend Paw the music connaisseur has done that already. So click her blog :P.
I will however show you the setlist:
(yes twas signed by the band - this is not my copy of the setlist...it's this girl we met there, who's an uberfan. We did meet the band though and take photos with them. They're really cool and laidback people. During the show they said come with us to Cafe Cleopatra, right across from Club Soda. So of course, we go...though my friend remembered it's a nudie bar....We went anyways. There were lots of confused people outside when we got there though..thinking maybe they meant cafe cleo somewhere else. So we went back to Metropolis, saw one of the band mems, and he's like yeah, follow me, it's all good. So this was indeed the place they wanted to go to, but the room they wanted was closed - The Transvestite room. He said last time they were here, well the room was completely empty except for some trannies singing, and it was marvelous, absolutely beautiful. Not to mention it was free. Saddness, so we went with them to a club across the street and hung out a bit. The opening band was there too. Their name is CSS - I can only think of Cascaded Style Sheets...though it's spose to stand for CanSeiderSexy.
In anycase, Reuben - another band member is the one we met after Danny. He's also super laid back...though could've been the alcohol or tired neither, possibly both, either way, cool. He'd be dancing around every now and then, then taking pics with people...had a leather coat, made him look badass. Helen left early, so our uberfan friend was quite sad. Then we met Mira...kinda shy girl. I read later that she has a PhD in I think...Molecular Genetics. She's also bulgarian. Awesome! Dr. Mira sometimes sings songs in bulgarian (like true math, fighting in built up areas, discotraxxx) - It gives the song a very industrial feel. In anycase, after taking photos Paw and I left with slightly blocked and ringing ears...but a fantastic night. )
Well, I'm gonna listen to more Ladytron and do some heat transfer...good day.
PS. Entirely unrelated, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qvDzvVwVtE It's from summer when I was working at camp. We all decided to scream randomly...and it was filmed. Look at the attacked counsellor! aye, I'm too easily amused.
you should look at this too: http://www.keepersoflists.org/index.php?lid=1906
pants pants paaaants wheeeee
I will however show you the setlist:
(yes twas signed by the band - this is not my copy of the setlist...it's this girl we met there, who's an uberfan. We did meet the band though and take photos with them. They're really cool and laidback people. During the show they said come with us to Cafe Cleopatra, right across from Club Soda. So of course, we go...though my friend remembered it's a nudie bar....We went anyways. There were lots of confused people outside when we got there though..thinking maybe they meant cafe cleo somewhere else. So we went back to Metropolis, saw one of the band mems, and he's like yeah, follow me, it's all good. So this was indeed the place they wanted to go to, but the room they wanted was closed - The Transvestite room. He said last time they were here, well the room was completely empty except for some trannies singing, and it was marvelous, absolutely beautiful. Not to mention it was free. Saddness, so we went with them to a club across the street and hung out a bit. The opening band was there too. Their name is CSS - I can only think of Cascaded Style Sheets...though it's spose to stand for CanSeiderSexy. In anycase, Reuben - another band member is the one we met after Danny. He's also super laid back...though could've been the alcohol or tired neither, possibly both, either way, cool. He'd be dancing around every now and then, then taking pics with people...had a leather coat, made him look badass. Helen left early, so our uberfan friend was quite sad. Then we met Mira...kinda shy girl. I read later that she has a PhD in I think...Molecular Genetics. She's also bulgarian. Awesome! Dr. Mira sometimes sings songs in bulgarian (like true math, fighting in built up areas, discotraxxx) - It gives the song a very industrial feel. In anycase, after taking photos Paw and I left with slightly blocked and ringing ears...but a fantastic night. )
Well, I'm gonna listen to more Ladytron and do some heat transfer...good day.
PS. Entirely unrelated, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qvDzvVwVtE It's from summer when I was working at camp. We all decided to scream randomly...and it was filmed. Look at the attacked counsellor! aye, I'm too easily amused.
you should look at this too: http://www.keepersoflists.org/index.php?lid=1906
pants pants paaaants wheeeee
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