This weekend was pretty cool. Kim came to visit and we just did a bunch of stuff without having any real purposes or goals for the weekend.

She came in on the bus at 4:40 and I picked her up at the bus station, but I wasn't quite done work for the week so I then had to go back to work for an hour after dropping her off at my house. When I got home we had frozen pizza for supper and just hung out a bit. On Saturday we went to the Eatons Centre to look around (which can last quite a long time) and we also went to BMV where I got six books. We then went to the St. Lawrence Market and got some really good strawberries which we ate later that evening. After all the shopping we saw Million Dollar Baby which we both really enjoyed.

Today I took Kim to the bus station for the 10:30am bus and now I plan on doing a whole bunch of nothing for the rest of the day.

Tonight I went to see Apocalyptica in concert at the Opera House way out on Queen East near Broadview. It was freaking amazing!!

In case you haven't heard of them, Apocalyptica is a hard-core cello group that plays metal-inspired music with a classical bent. The members all have prestigious classical training but are also metal-heads. The music is really quite amazing, very very powerful but also quite musically valid (it's not just a bunch of noise). To watch them play cellos like they did was incredible, I didn't really think someone could play a cello over their head while head-banging with the music -- cellos are kinda big, you know.

They played a bunch of their old stuff (including covers of some Metallica, their own version of Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King and a whole bunch of their original works) and they also played some of their new album which just came out in January. Unfortunately they weren't selling it at the concert or I definitely would have picked up a copy. The encore was really good too, amazing cover of Enter Sandman by Metallica.

I'm really tired now though so I think I'll go to sleep. Still have to work tomorrow.

This weekend a whole bunch of people (including myself) helped Chris move into his new place in Toronto. It only took half an hour due to the number of people so we got to spend a lot of time sitting around, drinking beer and playing board games. It was fun! And the new apartment is sweet.

I also went out for supper with Matt and Adrienne and we walked past the Ferrari dealership in Toronto on the way. So sweet. We also saw the Rolls Royce dealership which was alright, but I prefer to drive nice cars rather than just be a passenger in one. We had supper at Crepes a GoGo which is this tiny little French place near the ROM. It was very very small and very yummy. And the staff was super nice, the one lady gave hugs!

Someone showed me a cool site today about the service tunnels at the University of Waterloo. I liked it because I enjoy finding ways around campus through tunnels and things. If only I could get service access!

I did my taxes online for the first time on Monday...and I get money back! This is completely unexpected because I did contract work last year which meant that I didn't pay any taxes. I still get $292 so I am quite pleased. Unless of course I made a mistake, and then things will be fairly interesting.

Tonight was *wing* night, and I went with Brad, Jeff, Chris and Jen to some Irish pub near my house. It was pretty good.

I'm a March entry to get rid of the thinger that says "No entries for March, 2005"

Woohoo! Summer and Seth! The OC is such a good show! I know, I'm a girl, but whatever, you'd like it too if you watched it. I know you would! Everyone does. I've even hooked my roommate this term just by watching it myself!

Hahaha, so amused. I just wish I could watch it with all the cool Waterloo people like last term. You rock cool Waterloo people! :)

Two amusing "Internet Thingers" today.

First, although Microsoft isn't good for much, they occasionally make me laugh. This page made me laugh really really hard. Like really hard. Oh man.

Second, somewhere in the world something bad happened with ice. The pictures are really cool so I have three of them here.

Ice 1

Ice 2

Ice 3

This weekend was pretty cool. I was basically on my own for the entire time, which can get lonely but is also rather pleasant at times.

On Saturday I went shopping and got Kim a Valentine's present although I won't be seeing her until next weekend, stupid midterm season. I also got myself some pants that I could theoretically wear while working out...were I to do such a thing. I figure that by having them I have one less excuse to not use the facilities in the building I'm living in. Soooo lazy. I also got some more books (Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Salem's Lot by Stephen King, Trainspotting/The Acid House/Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh) at the BMV downtown, not the one at Eglinton. I like the Eglinton one better, but I would have to ride a subway to get to it and that costs money and stuff. I also almost bought a whole bunch of DVDs. HMV has a 2 for $30 sale on (like usual), except that both Kill Bill movies are part of it this time, so tempting! Must hold out until the inevitable box set/director's cut edition comes out.....ahhh! Also, Coupling season 4 was at HMV, which was tempting because I've watched all the others and really want to see the last season. So does Kim because she loves it too. Bah, too many things to buy. I'm still trying to get the last Futurama box set as well, and I have a Futureshop gift card, but I can't use it online and everytime I go to an actual store they never have the last set.

No Frill's is having some sort of massive sale where lots of stuff is only $1, so I thought I would go there to get groceries this week. Unfortunately there are no locations downtown. I live near King and Spadina, which is pretty much right in downtown Toronto (the Skydome is a one minute walk from my place), and there is a No Frill's at King and Jameson (which is over 1000 numbers from here and apparently 2.6 miles according to Mapquest). So I decided to walk it since I didn't really have anything else planned today. It wasn't bad, it's not cold out or anything so that was fine. But I don't think I would do the walk at night, there was the occasional sketchy section on the way there. It's funny, because I think the average person who hasn't been in Toronto that much would be worried about being downtown at night. I'm not saying that isn't scary sometimes, but it's way worse just outside of the downtown core. There is always stuff happening downtown at night, there are always places you can go to be safe, and there is always public transit. But once you leave the core, the transit is a bit irregular and sparse and stuff is often closed so you can't go anywhere if there is trouble. So yeah, it was a nice walk in the daytime, and I got lots of cheap groceries. I took a streetcar back since the walk loaded with food would definitly have sucked.

I also watched the movie Garden State today, and I quite liked it.

Do you ever wish you could transmit your current knowledge back in time to yourself in the past?

The co-op program made me realize what it takes to get good jobs in my chosen field. Unfortunately it didn't convey this information in a timely or useful manner; it was conveyed through failure and frustration...learning from your mistakes and all that.

I have an amazing job this term at Alias. I put a lot of effort into getting the job, and I put a lot of effort into the other jobs I applied for in the same term. I wrote custom cover letters and did research and all that stuff. Enthusiasm plus effort can get you almost any job you want in co-op as long as you are even remotely competent. If Alias didn't hire me there were 7 other companies who gave me offers and 3 or 4 of them would have been pretty good. All it took to get these jobs was confidence and enthusiasm and reasonable effort. It was so simple.

I didn't know this information when I started out. Perhaps that is my fault but I am grateful that I learned it eventually, even if it had to be the hard way. However, I can't help partially blaming the Co-op department and the general attitudes of those around me for the length of time it took to come to this realization. First year co-op students are told to apply to the crappier jobs to be sure that they get something. Personally I was told some variation of this line quite a few times. I think that I started believing that I couldn't get jobs that I might like so I often didn't even apply to those that I found most interesting.

But that is not the case. Sure, nVidia isn't likely to ship a first year down to California to help write device drivers for their latest graphics cards, but if you put together an impressive package and show that you care, they might bring you down to do some testing or some other job that can get your foot in the door. You can't knock the experience of working at nVidia, regardless of the position. Even if you don't go back for that "better" job, the contribution to your resume is considerable.

Also, there are many good companies (like Alias) that actively hire first year students for co-op positions because they acknowledge that the co-op program is more than an oppourtunity for cheap labour.

Although every individual is ultimately responsible for his/her own life, I can't help but think that if I had received more encouraging and useful information in my first year, I might have applied to "riskier" jobs and made that extra effort. But the goal of the co-op department is high employment rates and the "conservative" advice works out better overall I imagine.

I regret the lost opportunities, and wish I could change the past. It's not that I haven't enjoyed some of my other placements, but the type of work I get to do at Alias feels like a privilege whereas my other jobs just felt like responsibilities. Even if I get nothing else out of my current work term (which is impossible because I already have), I am glad that I got the chance to realize what it is like to really enjoy your work.

So I have 50 Gmail invites now, that is a really large number considering that I think I've given one to everyone I know who wants one. If anyone at all wants one, make a comment indicating so and I will send you one. Here is proof:

Lots of invites

Maybe I will just start registering variants of my name so that people can't take them from me, haha, that'll show 'em.

Today is Pancake Tuesday, the day where everyone not in New Orleans celebrates the day that God invented not only the pancake, but also maple syrup (of course everyone in New Orleans instead takes their shirt off and gets really drunk; probably not in that order though - goooooo Mardi Gras).

Since it is a Tuesday we had our "wing" night at the Golden Griddle so that we could have pancakes. It was alright, but I think I ate too much.

I think I want to buy the Ryan DVD. I should remember to do that when I get my credit card back.