A Little Good News Goes a Long Way

Right in the middle of my most stressful time at school, I received a really nice letter from Concordia University. In short, it congratulated me for a successful 2004-2005 academic year and advised me that due to my high annual GPA (apparently I earned a 3.88) from the last year I had earned myself a spot on the Dean's List! HOORAY!

So everyone look for my name in the Montreal Gazette next Saturday, November5th!

Ah, what a morale booster! It just helped me to reaffirm why I'm so difficult on myself when it comes to my school work. In the end, hard work really pays off, because I'm feeling pretty good right about now! Maybe it'll help me get through the 7 assignments I have to do for next week...!

Don't You Know He is Some Kind of Wonderful

Ah, what a classic song! I'll never tire of it! But I digress...

Today is our two year anniversary (mine and Mike's)! Yay us! And even after two years, I can still say he's "Some kind of wonderful"!

So we've got a nice dinner planned for tonight. And next Saturday we're off to a Habs game at the Bell Centre! We'll be in the Desjardins section eating all of the free food included with our tickets. Yummy!

I'm so excited!

What are the Chances?

Most of you probably already know that I regularly read Wil Wheaton's Blog . A few days ago he posted a link for a quiz that helps you identify which sci-fi/fantasy character you are. My result, oddly enough:

I'm Wesley Crusher! Hee hee!

Look Up, Way Up, and I'll Call Rusty

Another week gone and I feel like I'm clinging on for dear life! Time goes by so quickly, I haven't yet figured out how I've been managing to keep up. But, so far so good, I haven't screwed up yet and I hope to keep it that way. Oh wait, I was talking about school... did you catch on to that?

Well, the new department is shaping up. We've finally got room numbers up by the doors. It looks so much nicer without the big pieces of paper taped up on all of the doors. It's nice up on the 12th floor, but it's not perfect. I'm hoping that in the next few weeks some of these problems will be ironed out:

• The elevators are always packed full of people so it takes forever to either get to the 12th floor or to leave it. Oh, and then there are all the people who are too lazy to take the escalators to the 5th and 6th floors... come on!
• There is still an alarming lack of garbage cans throughout the department.
• There is still construction everywhere so it's noisy in the hallways and sometimes it smells like burning.
• The Political Science department just moved up here with us. They're taking up the second half of the floor and I spend my days sitting at the desk in reception redirecting Poli-Sci students that are incapable of reading directional signs.
• The lights in all of the rooms are controlled by motion-sensors. Hence, the lights always go out in the middle of class and someone always has to get up and either run around the class or wave their arms in a ridiculous fashion.

So what's good about the new department?

• It's huge.
• There is much more space set aside for students and there are three rooms reserved for grad students. And I even got my own locker!
• It's modern and aesthetically pleasing... and there's a great view of Montreal!
• We now have six labs instead of two. One of them was just renamed in memory of Dr. Frost, a memorable and well-respected professor who passed away very suddenly in May. Good on the department!

Okay, it looks like the cons outweigh the pros, but they really don't. Most of the cons are just temporary. Overall, I'm enjoying the 12th floor!

Props to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! Peace out!

Here's an anecdotal story that I've been meaning to write about. I just haven't gotten around to until now.

A while back I went downtown to a bar with Mike and his younger brother. On our bus ride home that night, there was a young-ish guy sitting next to us that did the sign of the cross. At the time we just assumed the guy thought we were evil and we thought nothing else of it. Of course, I don't know why he would think we were evil, I believe the three of us had the lowest level of degeneracy of all of the people on that entire middle-of-the-night bus. Anyway, said event was forgotton. Until a few days later when I saw a young skater guy do the sign of the cross while I was riding on the bus. Different guy, though. Anyway, he did the sign of the cross, made a prayer and topped it off with another criss-cross (Christ Cross??).

So what's the deal? Why have I been seeing these young skater guys praying on the bus? Is this a new trend? Is religion cool again, all of a sudden? Anyway, seems to me you've got nothing to lose if you start praying. It can't hurt, after all. Maybe it's good for these young people to have faith in something.

I'm So Out of Practice, I Can't Even Come Up With a Title!

Guess who's back?! Uh, it's me if you haven't already guessed.

It's not for lack of exciting events that I haven't written in so long. It's just that I haven't had the time! Things have been crazy busy what with school, work and all of the other things in between. Anyway, let's see if I can come up with a sort-of concise run-down of what I've been up to since the tail-end of September.

• The assignments have been piling up and I've been continually preparing for class presentations, mid-terms, project proposals and whatnot.
• Started working for the Geography, Planning and Environment department. The whole department moved to another building acros the street so my whole first week on the job was spent unpacking boxes and moving stuff from one place to another. Oh yeah, and we tested out the department's new "rolly-chairs" and raced them down our new super-wide hallways!
• Went to a funeral last week. Although it was not someone from my own family that passed away, it was still really difficult. Funerals are never easy. My heart goes out to the grieving family and I send them my best wishes.
• Thanksgiving was fun: had three thanksgiving dinners! And just to stick with tradition, I got sick. Or, not so much sick as just really nauseous. I always get sick at Turkey Time!

So that's my super-quick update. I'm gonna try to be more timely with my posts. Now that I'm back at a job where I'm sitting in front of a computer, maybe that'll make things easier!