creative box-usage I've been trying to clean up my place a little bit today. The limited space combined with a lack of furniture means I have a lot of visible clutter (as evidenced by the pic below) - it's frustrating not to be able to put stuff away. So I was looking in my storage room to see if I had a cardboard box approximately the right size to serve as a book holder. Presently my books just get stood up one behind another against the leg of my table. I need book-ends or something to prop them up on my actual workspace, I think.

It occurred to me that I already use three cardboard boxes as furniture in this place. One is my sock drawer, since I purchased only a three-drawer dresser when I got to L'ville - doesn't quite have enough space. Another box serves as my nighttable. And a third is under my table holding extra school supplies. I should head over to Korvette and see what they've got for tupperware-ish holders-of-stuff.  | ¶ 5:38 p.m.

  Java-genius-in-training Go ahead - ask me what a mutator method is. Or an accessor method. I'm ALL over it.  | ¶ 9:39 a.m.

  End of October status report I’m struggling a bit lately, I find. Because my life is so school-focussed, and I feel like ALL I’m supposed to do in my free time is read, read, read, I’m not having such an easy time staying motivated. Three of my classes have really BORING readings (all my psychology classes – imagine that), so it’s super-hard to get psyched up for reading more about what constitutes a “revolution” in scientific paradigms (for history) or the tricks the brain uses to perceive depth in the visual scene (for perception) or what size correlation coefficient is acceptable in psychological research (for testing).

And all of a sudden my politics paper is due in TWO WEEKS. I was a keener in late September and did some preliminary research, saving numerous articles on the European Union to my computer, but since then they’ve kinda just sat there, and I haven’t made any progress in the actual doing of the paper.

This week I have three midterms. Perception (in two parts), worth another 25% of my final mark; Testing, worth 12.5%, and Computer, worth 10%. I also have to hand in my data for our class project in Testing (we each tested eight people and have to score the questionnaires after a follow-up session).

So today I’m going to Scott’s place again for more Java practice. Since we got a sneak peek at the midterm last week, we are able to predict what will likely be on the next version, and well, it’s probably going to be harder, and cover some topics I haven’t quite mastered yet. I have so much other reading to do I’m having a hard time deciding which of my other subjects to bring with me to tackle as well.

A side benefit of going to Scott's for homework help is just being able to get out of town. As mentioned previously, he has a place in North Hatley in the middle of the beautiful country, and it is a huge change from where I usually do my work:

(click pic for larger image) (this picture was taken THIS morning by Scott, when he came to pick me up for my Java lessons - cool, huh?)

I’ve started thinking about next semester already. They posted the new timetable, so I can begin to plan the classes I want to take. I only need to take one psychology course, so I’m free to take five electives of my choosing on top of that. I’m looking at taking a couple more politics courses, a history class, and a philosophy class. I haven’t determined what my sixth class should be.

I better get to work now.  | ¶ 9:21 a.m.

  electrical outlet Everybody in Calgary says "plug-ins". That never sounded right to me; I was sure that we had called them simply "plugs" where I came from, but then started to wonder if it was just my family that had it wrong, and really the whole world was calling them plug-ins.

Then I moved back to Qwee-bec. And discovered everybody is still calling them PLUGS down here.

Of France!!!! (that's a Dooce reference in case you don't know.)  | ¶ 8:25 a.m.

  this made me laugh The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

presents

Election Night 2004: Prelude to a Recount  | ¶ 2:16 p.m.

  he likes me! he likes me! Heheh.

Bill gave me more marks on my Politics midterm. Instead of 71.5, I got a 74. Not a huge jump, but better.  | ¶ 4:06 p.m.

  getting ripped off by my library Some things really infuriate me. Paying fifty cents per day in overdue fines PER ITEM is one of them. Items at the library can only be checked out for two weeks (not very long, in my view), and they can only be renewed by lugging them BACK to the library and re-checking them out, assuming nobody has placed a hold on them. Coming from Calgary, where I was a frequent user of the public library, maybe I've been spoiled by being able to renew items ONLINE, being able to check items out for THREE weeks, and the nominal overdue fines (they're so insignificant that I don't even remember the amount).

Why is it that Bishop's University, who is already taking a bazillion of my dollars in tuition fees AND student fees, feels that it can further GOUGE me on overdue fines? Fifty cents is completely unreasonable. I'm a STUDENT, for God's sake. That equals BROKE, in case you forgot. So give me a break.  | ¶ 1:28 p.m.

  yay Something fortuitous has happened.

Our school computer network failed.

So the midterm is postponed to next week.

Funny, since we had already started working on it. Now we know what to expect. Woot.  | ¶ 2:21 p.m.

  I'm hungry I just spent another long evening learning more Java with Scott. It's good that he's so patient - I think I've just about had it with learning to program this stuff. After the midterm tomorrow afternoon, I'm easing off the intense computer sessions. I'm a little scared looking at all the work I have to do for November. Two papers to write. Two projects to complete (one major one). Three midterms (next week!). And then pretty much straight into finals.

I gave my politics midterm back to Bill to review today. I thought I maybe deserved a couple extra marks on one question. They (the profs) always say, "if you ask me to review your midterm, I could choose to take away marks as well...". So that better not happen! W/e, eh.

I bought scallops today.

Anyway, yeah. Pretty boring over here...  | ¶ 12:08 a.m.

  2005 graduate I had my grad pics taken. That was... surreal in a way - to see myself in one of those fancy gowns (with the white furry fuzz and everything).

It was stressful, too. Hell, everything is stressful to me these days. I was running around ironing my shirt, blow-drying my hair, oh-so-carefully applying make-up, debating just how much make-up I should wear, contemplating which jewellery to wear, deciding whether I should wear my glasses, how to part my hair, whether my hair should be pulled back or hanging loose in front of my shoulder (and how big do I smile?!). So many decisions. Yeesh.

But it was fun. I think the symbolism of the gown, diploma and cap help crystallize the ultimate goal: to graduate (in case you forgot). If anyone wants to see my proofs, they'll be online in a couple weeks, so I can let you know how to access them if you like. Plus, family members, you can let me know if you want to order any.  | ¶ 12:29 p.m.

  midterm report, part 3 It only took Bill two-and-a-half weeks to get our midterms back to us. Sheesh.

I got a 71.5%. So 18 out of 25 towards my final mark. Not bad, although I was hoping for an 80. You just never know how hard these guys are going to mark, though.

p.s. I eat a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches.  | ¶ 10:18 a.m.

  rustic and charming I had fun in N. Hatley yesterday. Scott has a cozy house on a big piece of land on the hill above the town (at least, that's how it seemed to me - I'm new in that town, of course). The place has nice big West-facing windows, so it was quite pretty to look out at the fall colours with the sun setting behind the trees and over the distant hills. Very peaceful.

So we did more Java, as planned. Some fancy two-dimensional array stuff, just to give my brain a workout. I've got 'til Wednesday to master everything (that's the day of the practical part of the midterm).

Then Scott got to work preparing lasagnas for his evening guests. The guests arrived. We ate. We played poker. We drank. It was fun.

When we were leaving around 2-ish to bring me back to L'ville, we took a minute to do some stargazing while the car warmed up (and de-frosted - brr... chilly night). I haven't seen that many stars in a long time. And when you're seeing them in the middle of the un-light-polluted countryside, not only do you see more, but they seem to twinkle a lot more. Again, fabulous. I was reminded of this time last year, when I was doing some stargazing on a beach in northern California. This is the time last year when me and Pammy P. took our trip to San Francisco.

Speaking of Miss Pammy - today is her birthday. Let's all sing the song...
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Miss Pamela..
Happy Birthday to you!
  | ¶ 8:43 p.m.

  saturday If anyone's looking for me, I'm in North Hatley for the day. My personal tutor (that would be Scott) is teaching me more Java. And then he is hosting poker night, which I will be participating in. Oh, didn't I tell you about my new gambling habit...?  | ¶ 1:35 p.m.

  man oh man oh man They posted our exam schedule today. I will be having some stress that week of December.


Now I gotta get to bed. Studying starts tomorrow!  | ¶ 1:01 a.m.

  travel flashback I took the bus back to L'ville from Moncton after Thanksgiving. It was a long night with many stops. My seat-mate and her boyfriend were smokers, so they got off at every stop to inhale as much as they could. I got off each stop, too, just to break the monotony and give my butt a break from sitting.

In Riviere du Loup we had a 50-minute stop. At some dinky little hotel. It had a restaurant. And it had a bar. But, for whatever reason, the woman working at the bar informed anyone who would ask that she couldn't serve bus passengers. That's an odd rule, sorta. I mean, I see the reasoning behind it (you don't want drunk people on your overnight bus ride), but I kinda wonder how they'd enforce it if you just lied and said you were actually a motel guest (since she was asking people if they were from the bus). I didn't have my heart set on a drink or anything, so I just joined the woman as she watched Wife Swap (or something).

There was a pool table in the adjoining room. So I played a game of pool. By myself. I won!  | ¶ 4:37 p.m.

  tally First, the bad:

Computer midterm was today. I've made a lot of progress on Java; I really have. But I basically started from square one with Scott only last Friday. I had a long way to go.

I learned loops. Lots of loops.

And then methods. I can pretty much do methods.

Last night we did arrays. And I kinda have a handle on them, except when they get to be two-dimensional, I'm not so sure how to proceed. Unfortunately, Dimitri chose topics for the most-points-questions on the midterm in precisely the subjects I have not yet mastered. Two-dimensional arrays. And recursion.

Man.

---

The good:

Yay - my mailman didn't quit. I got mail! It was a package with various goodies in it. My foamy-thing for my mattress (I had mentioned to frou frou that my new bed was rather firm), some Calgary mail (good: a $25 refund cheque from my insurance company; bad: a $174 bill from Alberta Health - ouch), a cute Strawberry Shortcake pencil-case-thing with stickers in it. And cash (sweet!). Thanks Mom and frou frou.
  | ¶ 3:23 p.m.

  the never-ending midterms I'm beat.

Wednesday is already a long class day for me (see Schedule over there -->). But since I've got that computer midterm tomorrow, Scott was kind enough to devote another several hours to teaching me tonight.

So I learned arrays. Kinda.

And a little bit about two-dimensional arrays. I hope my poor brain can regurgitate this stuff tomorrow morning.

The thing about this class is that it's actually NOT about regurgitation. You either understand stuff and can work with it, or you just don't. Maybe that's why I'm not feeling super-stressed. I've made a lot of progress this past week, but it remains to be seen how I perform on Dimitri's midterm (I get the impression he tries to be fairly tricky).

Here's another request for your good vibes.  | ¶ 11:26 p.m.

  Today: Today is one of those byoo-ti-ful indian summer days. Some of the trees have lost their leaves, but many are still displaying a gorgeous spectrum of yellows, oranges and reds. On my walk home from school, I look up over the church steeple to the hillside above and take in the breathtaking view.

Today I wish I had a car so I could go for a nice drive through the countryside.

The cat just went out to enjoy it too. She likes to roll around on the hot cement of my entryway, and get as dusty as possible. Then she climbs under the porch of the apartment next door and explores the trash and muck. Oh yeah, we love this weather.  | ¶ 12:04 p.m.

  mother tongue My profs:

(a) have interesting accents that makes for the occasional interesting pronunciation of words, and

(b) use interesting words sometimes.

For instance, Professor McKelvie (my Testing prof) is Scottish. He's been in Canada a long time, so he's not super-accented, but he still rolls his Rs a lot. The other day, I was noticing his pronunciation of "criterion". It sounded like CRRY-TEERR-EE-ON. He also has very long Es.

Professor Bacon (for Perception) is French (likely Quebecois, I think). He just makes interesting translation errors. Like SUBSTRACTION instead of subtraction (because in French it's soustraction). He actually makes a lot of errors simply in syllable emphasis.

Bill, well, he's Canadian, and has perfect English. But one day I made a note because he was pronouncing "profitable" as pro-FIT-able. And I thought that was strange. What's up with that, Professor Hogg?

What can I say about Dimitri? He likes to pick on me. He knows I don't know what's going on in that class, but he has this thing about picking "someone who has never talked in class before". That would be me. Professor Voulioris is actually a pretty entertaining teacher, and doesn't talk funny.

Yesterday, in THE MOST BORING HISTORY CLASS EVER, Professor Stout was rambling on and on about the Greeks and Homer, then he moved on to Plato. He mentioned a discussion from his "Plato Group" (huh?). But I thought it was funnier to think of it as his "play-doh group". Heh.   | ¶ 11:45 p.m.

  tidbits "You'll be holding your degree in your right hand, so if you want to paint your nails..."

I made an appointment to have my grad pictures taken. Woot - I'm going to be a graduate!

In my politics class just now, Bill was discussing bureaucracies. He gave the example of how in the U.S. after elections, the White House staff completely changes over - no "continuity". And he mentioned how the Clinton people removed the Ws from the keyboards when the moron came to power (we won't call it being "elected") in 2000. The kids must have looked kinda blank when he said that, so he explained a bit further, and they all laughed at this "new" joke. And then I remembered - oh yeah, of course they didn't hear that. They would have been FOURTEEN YEARS OLD four years ago. Yeesh.  | ¶ 12:54 p.m.

  FRUS.
TRA.
TION. The problem (okay, one of the many I'm having) with Java is that as soon as you think you have a grasp on a particular concept, say, a "variable", you find out that it can actually be used for purposes that you thought were reserved for other concepts, like "methods". I can't keep any of this stuff straight. I swear practically every word, or category of words, is a mini-program in itself, with its own set of commands.

I have a midterm Thursday and there's a strong possibility I'm not going perform very well. Unless it consists of the following instructions:

Write a program that will display your name on the screen.

Here you go:

public class computermidterm
{
public static void main (String[] args} throws Exception
{
System.out.println("Stacey");
System.in.read();
}
}

That program really works. But you need a compiler to run it for you. This is what happens - exciting.

Sheesh.  | ¶ 9:16 p.m.

  b-r-r-r... It's chilly here today. High of six degrees...

But I guess I can't complain - at least we're not having a blizzard like you folks in Calgary.

I don't want to hear any of you using the weather conditions as an excuse for not getting out and voting in them there municipal elections. I'm all up to speed on the clowns running for mayor (one of them challenged Dave Bronconnier to a wrestling match??), so get out there and vote, wouldya. Break in those snow tires!  | ¶ 12:31 p.m.

  Sunday report Ugh. I don't know why I'm so tired today.

Maybe the 4-hour Java tutorial did me in - I thought my brain had melted by the end of it. But I'm making progress. I just might do well on the midterm after all (and by well, I mean, NOT fail...). Scott is totally saving my life in that course.

I'm trying to get motivated for some studying before I permit myself some TV-watching. Tonight's a good TV night: Law & Order, CI, and Desperate Housewives (Barb got me hooked last weekend - it's good!).

dilly, can you upload a current pop song to some webspace for me? I need something new to pep me up.

Oh - good news. My dad is going to give me his old car. So I just need to investigate the cost of insurance and arrange with Jamie (little bro) to get the car from Moncton to L'ville. Woot - transportation!  | ¶ 5:52 p.m.

  yo Kate: send cookies When I was preparing to leave Moncton last weekend, Barb suggested that Kate (she's my little sister) bake some chocolate chip cookies for me to take on the road. She did, and they were dee-lish.

I want some more...  | ¶ 10:21 p.m.

  monastic life Ahh... my weekend is mine..

So today I got up at a decent time (8-ish), had some breakfast, got my internet fix (Dooce is hilarious today) and did some reading for Perception.

I decided to do some Pilates. And today, for only about the third time, I made it all the way through Mari Windsor's "Accelerated Body Sculpting" routine (woot). It runs 54 minutes, and I usually only make it to the 45-minute mark, and then my "powerhouse" gets a little too worn out after the Teaser to keep going. This is the Teaser:


I'm telling you, with all this "clean-livin'" I'm doing, I'm fit as a fiddle (heh) these days.

Now I'm trying to practice my Java if you don't mind...!  | ¶ 3:56 p.m.

  Can you make it to our party? he says...

Sniff, sniff.

My friends are having their housewarming on November 20th. I don't have plans for that day, but I'm afraid I won't be able to make it, guys.

I would like to request a personal housewarming reception just for MOI in late December. Tee hee.
  | ¶ 10:23 p.m.

  Huckleberry Pie: no mail today It's my first weekend of un-employment (this time around), so I'm relaxing for once on a Friday night. I should be doing some homework, but I don't feel like it just yet. I had a power-learning session with Scott today, and my brain's a little burnt out. We've got that Java midterm Thursday, though, so over the next few days I will be devoting a lot of my time to mastering the basics.

Scott came well-prepared for today's session: a bunch of small programming exercises to help me get a feel for things. I had kinda thought that type of approach might be useful. I didn't exactly power my way through, but I think I learned enough for one day. It's good to have someone to help me; I get pretty frustrated when I don't understand this stuff right away.

I handed in my History paper today. On time! That's new for me.

A girl just came to my door to borrow my corkscrew. That made me think I should drink wine too. So I am.

In other school news, we started learning about colour vision in Perception today. I learned that if you combine coloured lights, you get white light. If you combine coloured paints, however, you'll eventually get black. Puzzling...?

In Testing we're learning about "norms". That is, in standardized testing, there is always a standardized sample of the population that has been tested already, providing you with supposedly representative scores which you then compare your obtained test results to. Also, a review of basic stats: in a normal distribution, ninety-five percent of scores are contained within plus or minus two standard deviations of the mean. Got it?

There are only seven more weeks of classes, people. Tick, tick, tick...

Also, I feel good about the quitting decision. It's a huge weight off my shoulders already to have this weekend free to study for my next midterm. Thanks for everybody's support on that. So when I call you begging for a couple boxes of Kraft Dinner, could you help me out?! or maybe some toilet paper...? Heh.  | ¶ 9:42 p.m.

  Are you wearing your PJs? Kids dress very casually at school. There's a lot of stuff that's fashionable but not very flattering. Sometimes I do a double-take, because the pants some people wear look very much like pyjama pants. They're flannel, with odd patterns, and these people look like they should be stumbling to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice, not roaming the halls on their way to class.  | ¶ 1:21 p.m.

  take this job and shove it... Yup, I quit.

Of course, I'm still working this weekend. And maybe the next.

Actually, I think ONE weekend is all they get. But he asked for more. Sheesh. Cash-strapped as I will be without income, it's hard to say no, but then I remember that I FAILED A MIDTERM and this job is VERY HARD WORK, and I know I must re-claim my weekends for myself.

We didn't get our politics midterms back today. I'm SO impatient to find out if I did well, since that one was my best one, I thought. I did stop and chat with Bill (our cute instructor) after class. It's funny, because most of the people in the class are first-year, so he was talking to me a little bit like I was some stupid kid (I was asking questions about our research papers). I was tempted to say, "I'm not in first year! I'm NOT eighteen; I'm thirty, damnit!". But I didn't. What is it about being older that you feel like you need to talk down to people you perceive as younger...?

Tomorrow our paper is due in the History of Psychology. So I'm finishing it up this afternoon. Tomorrow I'm also having a hard-core tutorial session with Scott, our Java-genius T.A. We have a midterm next week, and I'm NOT so good with the Java yet.  | ¶ 2:42 p.m.

  midterm report, part 2 Thumbs down to Psychometrics. Not an impressive result at all. As in, I failed it. 42%. He did preface it by saying that as a class we did not perform very well. I'm not sure what the class average was.

To put things in perspective, though, this mark is only worth 12.5% of my final grade, whereas the Perception one was worth 25%. Also, I knew I hadn't prepared adequately for this exam, so this isn't too shocking. Just disappointing.

I'm thinking more and more that I should quit my job. It's just too taxing, both physically and mentally, leaving me insufficient energy to devote to my schoolwork. Maybe I'll just have to sell my car at Christmas to finance the rest of my year. Maybe I should start asking around about other options for part-time income.

GRR. This is an angry monkey:

  | ¶ 12:10 p.m.

  midterm report, part 1 Good news, everyone. We got back midterms in Perception today. I thought maybe this one had not gone my way, but I got a 76%. The class average was 71. He was very generous with his marks on the essay part - I got 29 out of 30...! One of my answers was total fluff, too.

Is perception an indirect process? Why?

Me: Umm, yeah, totally. We totally have evidence of that. You know, like lateral inhibition.

(At least, that's the gist of it. Guess I'm a better bullshitter than I thought.)

What killed me was the multiple choice. So at least I'll be better prepared for that on the next midterm, which is in THREE WEEKS. Ouch, man. No time to rest in this here student life.

In other news, I feel crappy. My friendly bus neighbour the other night had a cold, and I seem to have picked it up. My head hurts A LOT. And I'm all sniffly. I stopped on the way to class and picked up some drugs from the Familiprix. I'm all drugged up, so my symptoms are tolerable.

Now I'm off to Psychometrics. I don't know if he's giving back midterms too, but I'm stressing about it already. Cross your fingers for me.  | ¶ 10:10 a.m.

  home sweet l'ville I just spent the night on a bus. Our driver didn't take all the extended stops that were indicated on the schedule, so we arrived in Montreal at 5:30-ish instead of 6:40. I was able to catch the 7:00 "express bus" to Sherbrooke, which actually comes all the way to Lennoxville, and doesn't stop in a bazillion towns on the way. Home at 9:00 A.M. That's only about 13 hours, as opposed to the 18 I was planning for. Not bad.

But not great either. From Moncton to Fredericton, there was almost nobody on the bus. Then we hit Fredericton, and every kid in town is heading West back to school. Most people were going to Ottawa. Some to Montreal. But we all had to share our seats, so sleeping was extremely uncomfortable. The girl sitting next to me was nice, though, and fairly chatty. Good to have some conversation to make the trip pass by a little faster.

If classes weren't cancelled today, I could actually make it to mine. But alas, I have the day off. Guess I'll just have to sleep or something...

  | ¶ 9:16 a.m.

  shark attack I was talking to dArt today. He's working as a commercial diver over in Digby, Nova Scotia, doing some urchin fishing. I don't know much about the demand for urchins, but apparently it's a delicacy, and the Japanese pay well for them. dArt mentioned that working in the Bay of Fundy is pretty hard work, due to the 100-foot tides and strong currents. They have to wear about a hundred pounds in weights around their legs just to stay in place on the bottom, where they pick up these urchins.

Last week dArt was in the process of re-surfacing when he felt a nudge on his foot. He said sometimes divers sneak up on each other and try to scare each other, so he glanced down, only to discover that a mako shark had his foot in its mouth!



So he's thinking, "you've got to be f@#$'in' kidding me!". But he was terrified and panicking, trying to remember his training for such a scenario.

The mako has been known to attack boats on occasion but most of these attacks are usually linked to being hooked by game fishers and are considered abnormal behavior.

Suffice it to say that he did manage to get away unharmed - and without dropping his bag of urchins! And he's now something of a local celebrity, with his name in the paper and everything.

This article has a very similar story to dArt's. Scary.  | ¶ 1:28 p.m.

  stuck in the Maritimes? I've been trying to make some arrangements for getting back to Lennoxville on Monday or Tuesday and have found it to be rather frustrating. There are different bus companies covering different territories, and their websites are confusing and misleading.

See this page?

Does it not appear that Greyhound offers service all the way from Moncton to Lennoxville, if not directly, then through a partner bus line of some kind...? That's how I read it.

So I call the toll-free number. And they say, "no, actually, we don't offer that service. You'll need to call these three other bus companies to make your arrangements" (!!).

WHY have this whole schedule, complete with LAYOVER times and TRANSFER information, if you don't offer the ride...? Sheesh.

So I'm going to show up at the bus station and hopefully buy a ticket (from "Acadian Bus / SMT Eastern") all the way to Montréal (or to Riviere du Loup?), and cross my fingers that from the bus station in Montréal, it's pretty straightforward to then get a ticket to Sherbrooke. A quick taxi ride from Sherbrooke (after an eighteen-hour bus trip!), and I'll be back in L'ville.

Hopefully.  | ¶ 9:30 p.m.

  a Ryan weekend That was a l-o-n-g day of driving yesterday. Dad picked me up in Fredericton shortly after 7:00, and I had departed from Lennoxville at 8:30 a.m. Long drive. Getting on the highway in Fredericton, we had to slow down to let a deer cross the on-ramp. Silly deer; he's lucky we saw him.

So when we arrived in Moncton (around 9:00 p.m.), Barb had prepared a light dinner, the beer mugs were chilled, and the backyard was lit up like a little wonderland. It was a nice warm night, so we sat outside on the deck enjoying the quiet evening and the warm breeze.

My dad and his wife have done a lot of work on their backyard, so it's a very cozy place to hang out when the weather's right. There's a nice comfy swing, little twinkle lights on a couple of the gates, a spotlight on the trees and candles adding a little extra light. My dad is also in the process of building a little "garden house", with three windows (he's quite the amateur handyman!).

We had a nice visit and got caught up before hitting the hay. Dad was under strict orders to not start the hammering, etc. until I had woken up. Since my schedule has not permitted a lot of sleep in the past while, sleeping in was definitely a possibility.

I woke up around 9:00 feeling pretty good, though. We were blessed with yet another warm and sunny day, and made plans to go apple-picking this afternoon. The fall apple-picking excursion is pretty much family tradition. We drive out the Irishtown Road to the Scotch Settlement Road, hit the U-Pik orchard and spend an hour scoping out the best trees.

It was fun today. After we filled our baskets, Barb and I sat down to soak up some sun and enjoy our apples. There is nothing like the taste of an apple straight off the tree. It is juicier and crunchier than any you've ever had from a grocery store. Dee-lish.  | ¶ 8:50 p.m.

  I made it. Long day.

A beautiful drive through beautiful Québec. Have I mentioned the beauty of Eastern Canada lately?

Time for bed!

  | ¶ 11:21 p.m.

  I'm leaving soon Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Moncton. Some kind girl saw my sign and called to offer me a ride as far as Fredericton. Well, she's charging me $50, so that kinda works out for her. My dad is picking me up in Fredericton. And I'm planning to take the bus back to Sherbrooke on Monday/Tuesday (I think it's an overnight ride - eighteen hours...!).

Now that I don't have any midterms to stress about I'm a little restless. I hate packing, so even though I'm only going for the weekend, I'm struggling with what to bring. The other issue is that it all has to be packed small enough that I can walk to school with my two backpacks, since that's where she's meeting us (another girl is coming too).

I dropped off my house key to Derek, my co-worker at Sebby's, so he can check in on Salsa this weekend. My dishes are done. My house is neat. My bags are out. Now... what to put in them...?

I was going to bring some homework with me too. I got another Java book from the library, but it's BIG, so now I'm re-thinking that plan. I'm bringing my readings from the History of Psychology, since I'm behind on the "Readings Diary" we're supposed to keep for this class. I'm bringing a book about the European Union - some background material for my paper due in November. And I'll probably work on my History paper while I'm away too. So much for taking a "break"!

To put things in perspective, though ('cause I'm all about maintaining perspective), there are ONLY eight more weeks of class after Thanksgiving. Then exams, and first semester is over and done with. Yikes. I better hurry up and learn.

Also, I have an urge to play the piano. Only, you know, I don't have one. And Dad doesn't have his anymore. I tried getting into the music building on campus the other day but didn't have any luck. You need a security code to get to the "practice rooms" and nobody official was around to help me out with that. I *am* still officially a music major too, so I might be allowed to get the top secret code.

GRR. I don't feel like packing.  | ¶ 9:28 p.m.

  ending on a good note Something cool happened when I got my politics midterm today. I read through it once and thought, "hey, I know all this stuff".

So although I didn't totally kick butt (I think I should have chosen a different essay question than I did), I did well. Woot!  | ¶ 1:01 p.m.

  little tricks I'm studying for tomorrow's midterm in Introduction to European Politics. We've just started touching on the European Union, so we've covered its evolution from one treaty to another. There were six countries that signed the original treaty to become the ECSC (European Coal & Steel Community) in 1958. They were "F-BLING": France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Netherlands and Germany. In the 70s, there was a DUI, when Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland joined. I don't think he wants us to know all the details of each successive expansion, so that's all I've made a point of remembering for now. It's probably more important to know the various treaties they signed. So yeah, I'm getting on that right now...!  | ¶ 11:34 p.m.

  brain report I slept for around five hours last night. Surprisingly, getting up at 5:22 wasn't even that difficult, since that's my wake-up time on weekends these days. And those midterms were a bit of a reality check. I would label my performance as "mediocre". I was surprised at how much I knew in Testing, actually, since I didn't focus all that much on that subject. But yeah, I gotta work a little harder.

dilly d is off to an exciting conference this morning. Something put on by the ISO, relating to... yeah, I don't know. At least it's out of the office, so she can breathe some cleaner air than that provided by her new and improved office space on 17th Avenue these days. She and numerous other co-workers have been suffering from various ailments which have been making their working lives pretty miserable. dilly has had a throat infection (accompanied by brutal, sleep-stopping coughing fits). Others have headaches. Shitty. But don't worry, she's all fixed up with some good drugs now (i.e. antibiotics) and she's feeling better.

Now, do I nap? or dive straight into the next subject...? (Politics tomorrow.) I'll eat my KD and think about it.  | ¶ 12:40 p.m.

  too much to know A device, such as a formula or rhyme, used as an aid in remembering.

The other day when studying for Perception, I came up with the following mnemonic:

DIP VAT

The vowels don't actually stand for anything. The D is for Dorsal Pathway, and the P is for Parietal Lobe. Also, since dip is a verb, this pathway is the "action" pathway. The V is for Ventral Pathway, and the T is for Temporal Lobe. And since vat is a noun, this is the "what" pathway.

In higher-level visual processing, visual stimuli are sent to different areas of the brain for processing in different ways.   | ¶ 2:51 p.m.

  a dox what? I'm doing some reading for my Psychometrics midterm on Wednesday. This class has THE most boring readings, EVER.

"It is therefore not surprising that the traditional history of psychology is largly a doxography of theoretical systems, and to a lesser extent a description of theoretical controversies."

A doxography? I gotta get out my dictionary.

I do these readings OUT LOUD, so I don't fall asleep.  | ¶ 8:36 p.m.

  distinct society In Québec there is an expiry date stamped on each individual egg in a carton.  | ¶ 6:30 p.m.

  ugh That midterm, the multiple choice one, was HARD. He knows how to write tough questions. I've got a LOT of work to do for my next three tests. And I'm SO tired today. I need a good night's sleep tonight so I can hit the books hard tomorrow.  | ¶ 1:40 p.m.

  midnight in Louisiana Last night I fell asleep at a decent hour. Only to be awoken just after midnight by my neighbours and their young friends, who were listening to Garth Brooks (?), cranked WAY up (with lots of bass, rattling me from my dreams). They were out on the lawn, belting out Callin' Baton Rouge. Delightful. Thankfully it didn't last long.

Work was a little better this weekend. I'm kinda sorta getting the hang of things, so my stress level is gradually decreasing. Working with Derek (the dude who cooks with me and has taught me everything) is good, too. He doesn't let much get to him. And we have some periods where the bills just keep coming and coming. You get to hate the sound of that printer, chugging out the orders. Today Derek said, "If they wanted fast food, they would have gone to McDonald's," which I thought was an excellent point. The kitchen is truly the emergency room of the restaurant business. It's all about the current crisis: a table of eight, running out of stuff and having to improvise, trying to remember to breathe. Trying not to fall on that slippery floor.

People are nice there too. When we start, there's always a bit (okay, a lot) of complaining about the ungodly hour of the morning and how we all would have liked to sleep in this day... Derek is even going to check in on Salsa for me this weekend when I go to Moncton for Thanksgiving. Yay, I don't have to work next weekend.

So I realized recently that I didn't bring enough of my CDs with me. Living this student life, I tend to be home studying / working more, and I find myself wishing for a slightly better selection. I also don't have enough "study music". I downloaded an Enya album tonight, since that was my preferred study accompaniment last time I was a student.

I also don't watch much TV. I'm not letting myself get involved in any of my usual favourite shows. Not even The Apprentice. Not even Survivor. I watch Oprah, if I'm home at that time. And I tape a couple things, like Law & Order: C.I. and Charmed. Oh, and I watched the U.S. presidential debate. I found out that George Bush is still a moron.

Baton Rouge translates to "red stick". I had that damn song in my head all day.

First midterm tomorrow (yay, it's multiple choice). Wish me luck.  | ¶ 8:30 p.m.

  when it's over... After I work I feel better. Very very wired. But better. With a sore back. I hope this whole ordeal gets easier to do - I don't want to be hating the going to work so much. Getting up so early is just particularly brutal.

Now I will unwind for a while before tackling the books. Perception test Monday. And Wednesday. Testing Wednesday too. Politics Thursday.   | ¶ 3:40 p.m.

  this sucks I don't know if I can keep this job. Getting up at 5 AM is torture; I hate it. I woke up a couple hours ago with the sounds of the drunken kids coming home from the bars. Then at 4. Then at 4:44. And now I'm sitting here in the dark eating my Cheerios, dreading going to work. This sucks.  | ¶ 5:04 a.m.

  one down, seven to go Yay. It's October.

Too many midterms to think about right now. Yikes.  | ¶ 1:50 p.m.