**Fall 2003**
I returned to the old company because my boss wanted me to return. In truth, no one else knew how to do the things I was doing. So, I really had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, you know? The boss was absolutely clueless, so I felt valuable to an extent. That’s why I had no problem wth returning.

The group of us co-ops was reduced from 4 people to 3 people. Harlan and I stuck around from the last time. The new addition was Alex, whom I still talk to. I would venture to say that we became kind of close. Thing is, it’s not too hard to be friends with the guy. He’s a very gregarious type of person; it’s almost hard not to dislike him. Anyway, since the four jobs were being reduced to three, tasks were reshuffled. I still had the task of creating scripts to help people, but I was also saddled with more traditional technical writing tasks. This is the term where I got ridiculously familiar with Microsoft Word. It’s not a bad thing, but…ick. The tasks were really unbalanced on the three of us. That’s entirely because our boss did not do a very good job managing the jobs. The other two were absolutely weighed down with too many jobs. They became horribly bitter. The boss didn’t do any of the jobs himself. He concerned himself with emails and implementing ridiculous levels of bureaucracy that no one enjoyed. Other departments really did not like dealing with him. It was so weird. We did our jobs and worked hard so that he couldn’t complain to us. Thing is, we resented him wholly for how hard we were worked. We took long lunches often. We’d often head out to the sushi buffets or korean barbecue just because we didn’t want to be in our cubicles. Of course, when we returned, we were so full that we became stupid and mentally useless for a little while.

We knew what we were capable of, and we knew what we wouldn’t stand for. It got to the point where if there was any excessive stupidness on the part of my boss, we told him flat out what we were thinking. The boss was powerless. It was absolutely messed up. The three of us were solid as a team: we needed to be in order to perform.

Socially, I think this is the term when I started gaining the strenth to “not take it” anymore. I was going through a bit of mental depression because of my social life. It wasn’t pretty. I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but many tears were shed about how screwed up it all was. It was from this work term that I started to realize that I was fully capable of making social contact outside of the so-called safe ones. As I stated many times, a fire was lit. The revolution was started. Strength was building. I still had a long way to go though; there was much I had to do in terms of realizing how I was valuable despite what anyone else thought.

Ooh…what else…
AH! This was the time when I found out about FOC. I was considering applying to be on the organizing committee for Engineering frosh week. However, I didn’t really follow through with the application because I didn’t think I had a chance. The deadline came and went, and I thought that that was the end of it all. Through a bit of coincidence, I ran into James, one of the organizers for the previous frosh week, on the bus. We got to talking and eventually he told me that even though the deadline had passed, they were still looking for more candidates. He encouraged me to drop an app in. So, on a whim I put one in. A few days later, they gave me a phone interview, which I conducted from the warmth of my bed. A day or two later, they announced the results: I was chosen to be part of EngFOC! Well, holy crap. When I read the results, I got all light headed and it honestly felt like a whole bunch of weight suddenly got dropped on top of my shoulders. This term was the start of a long journey that became a heavy part of my life in the 2003-2004 period.