My job application to Genesis was just rejected yesterday. So was another classmate who worked there for as long as I did.
To which I say, “what the hell?”
I guess it’s not a good thing to play games and hedge bets when it comes to big business. I’m not really annoyed. I just find it intrguing. Overall, I’m glad, I guess.
I’m officially free.
I am highly annoyed at the moment.
Roommate was awake at 5 in the morning and using the kitchen noisily. At one point, he turned on the oven or left something unattended causing the fire alarms to go off in the whole apartment. It was only for 2 seconds, but it was enough to rouse me from my sleep and curse. I’m sure I heard the other roommates curse as well.
Now, fine, if you need to eat so early in the morning, at least choose something that has the least chance of disturbing others. I heard the microwave open and close repeatedly. I heard the whir of the exhaust fan. I heard him scrubbing my baking sheet to get it clean. (No doubt it’s not washed very well).
I’m freaking pissed.
There’s often this turn around point for course projects where they go from being chore-like to a great deal of fun. Usually this turning point is accompanied by some sort of lightbulb moment where there’s this huge revelation. It’s like someone has suddenly lifted the veil off of the core to reveal something that was once beyond any comprehension.
Keith, Henrick and I were in the computer labs since 10 this morning, working on a project for our Multivariable Control Systems course. There were numerous points where we’d just stare at the problems wondering what the hell they were asking for, and once we got past that, we wonder how in the world we were suppose to accomplish it. On one part, we were idle for a good three hours continually asking, “alright, what now?” Then, all of a sudden, answers came to us, as if the high tide was coming in to soothe the dry sands of our minds. From then on, we kept plugging formulas into Matlab, testing equations, and refining answers until they met our needs. Even though we were damn fatigued, by the time things got moving we slowly came back to life (well, it was either the answers or the donuts).
I love these magical moments. They don’t happen often enough. Although, if they did, I’d probably be doing a lot better in school. Like that’s going to happen. It’s all the more reason to enjoy the ones that do occur.
This past long weekend, I went home for the first time after three weeks of break-neck speed. It was great to let go of all responsibility for at least a few days. It was as if piles and piles of work was lifted off my shoulders, making me feel like I can walk upright and relaxed again. It felt great to sleep in my own bed again, and to not worry about food issues. My aunt came over from Brampton, so everyone there was enough social interaction to keep me sane. The fact that we spent most of Friday and Saturday cleaning up the house didn’t bother me at all. We had to clean up because we had guests coming over on Sunday.
On the Sunday, we had a prayer service at our house, followed by a big heap of karaoke. Hell, even I joined in (but only after a few beers). I sang “You Don’t Know Me” by Ray Charles. I was damn nervous singing in front of all our guests. The machine gave me a score of 100 on my performance, after which, I ducked out for another beer.
As much as vegging out for the weekend was great for the soul, I’m paying for it now that I’m back at school. I’m once again buried in mounds of work that needs to get done. It’s ridiculous. All I know is that I continue to move forward, knowing that the next time I’ll be free will be coming sooner than I expect.
Too many projects and meetings makes Jason go crazy.
Too many projects and meetings makes Jason go crazy.
Too many projects and meetings makes Jason go crazy.
Too many projects and meetings makes Jason go crazy.
Too many projects and meetings makes Jason go crazy.
With work piling up on top of me, I feel like I just want to make the world disappear for at least a day or two. With only four courses this term, it amazes me that somehow I’m busier now than at any point in the past. I’ve got obligations with the IEEE, Orientation Week DB, fourth year design project, among other things. And each thing is demanding a slice of my time.
At times, I wish that I could go back to being “anonymous Jason”. Right now, I could walk cross-campus to class, and end up running into several people I know and greet each one with a smile and a hello. Perhaps I know too many people. I can never go back to just another face in the crowd. I’m too far involved. There’s no escape.
So, here I am, feeling like I’m spread thin. I want to skip class today, but I know that it’s just not a wise idea. I have this nagging feeling that I’m forgetting some sort of appointment today. I have no clue. Could just be that I’m in dire need of an appointment with myself.
Oh, ever since I’ve moved back to Waterloo, my diet has been really uneven. On move-in day, my parents and I headed over to the local grocery store so that I could get some food supplies. I only got some minor items thinking that I’d have no problem going over to the grocery store. Well, for the first week, I went through that food at a good rate. That included a box of beef patties. Whenever I felt hungry, I defaulted to the beef patties. Those ran out quickly. I had bread and margarine, but bread and margarine does not make a meal. So, there were times when I’d just sleep the hunger away.
During the day, in between classes, I’d head out with some classmates to the plaza to get lunch. That kept me going for a while. I didn’t want to eat out again for dinner because that would just be too expensive. By mid-week, I was just so low on energy that I wasn’t thinking right, and found that I could barely get out of bed. I would find myself taking extended naps, only to follow up with another nap session because I felt too dead.
On Saturday, I got my roommate to go with me to the grocery store. I knew it was a 15-20 minute walk, so I didn’t think it was going to be that bad. When I got there, I went crazy and started getting anything that I thought would be remotely useful. In the end, I spent $74 on food. Oh, that was such a bad idea. I had three bags in my backpack, and four bags in hand. The walk home was unbelievably rough on my roommate and I. It was warm, and walking was very much stop and go because we constantly had to rearrange our bags in attempts to make travel easier. Going up the stairs was just terrible on my knees. About half an hour after leaving, we made it back to the apartment.
Ever since then, I’ve been eating better and cooking more often. I shocked myself today by not feeling the need to take a nap at all. Do you realize how out of the ordinary that is? The thing is, the variety in what I’ve been cooking has been lacking. Last night, I made spaghetti sauce. For lunch, I had an omlette with spaghetti sauce filling, rice, and chicken strips. For dinner, I had rice, chicken strips and two hot dogs. Somehow, I can imagine lunch tomorrow as being an omlette, and hot dogs. I need to vary it more.
Now, thinking of how I’ve cooked in the past, I realize that my cooking this past week was really not at all that difficult. You can say that I’ve been cooking more like a university student. I’m capable of doing more elaborate stuff, but really, I choose not to. I feel like keeping it simple. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ll survive for three months like this.
This day has been particularly rough to a lot of people in Engineering. This morning, there was a reported gas leak that occured in one of the buildings, forcing people to evacuate and cancel lectures. Luckily for me, I wasn’t there when that all happened. I came later at about noon for classes. I was dreading today’s schedule, which had me running around between classes, meetings, and event until 9 pm. By about 4, a few of us were in computer lab, ready to do some serious work, when the power goes out for much of Waterloo.
Having the power go out is shitty enough as it is, however, we also had a UW IEEE Student Branch kick off meeting planned. It was supposed to take place in a large room with a Powerpoint presentation, but obviously, without power, that wasn’t going to happen. The night before, I had ordered 240 Timbits for the event. Because of the power outage, we were kind of hoping that the order would be mysteriously cancelled. We dropped by Tim Hortons only to find that the order was complete and ready for us to pickup. Well, we were wondering what the hell to do. I mean, because of the power outage, surely not many people would show up. Not many people did. A few people did show for the resume critique session that we were supposed to run after the kickoff, so at least something got accomplished. However, the big question was really, how the hell were we supposed to take care of 240 Timbits?
The food eventually disappeared, but I was kind of disheartened to see whole 40-packs of timbits go off with people. “There goes my hard-earned money,” I thought, despite the fact that I’d surely be repaid for buying the stuff.
We stuck around discussing rescheduling until about 8, after which a few of us hung out in the DC building talking about geeky stuff.
Ah, so yeah, today was rough, but really, it’s just another average day in the life of a bitter ECE student.
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