Phew. I survived. it was pretty crazy and I nearly got pulled under by the current but I survived. Sometime after Wednesday night's class (after an unexpected kick in the teeth from my mid-term) I started to put things right. I figure that there is nothing like a crappy exam result to focus the mind. With a bout 4 weeks of regular classes remaining, I am confident that everything will be OK. I have prioritized what needs to be done and have set about doing it.
Though the weather is a pleasant 13 degrees celsius, it's grey. The kind of weather to go with my end-of-term energy level I guess. As is par for the course in the last few weeks, I am having a hard time staying focussed on school.
As I write this, I am watching Fist of Fury III, a Bruce Lee-free (sniff!) sequel to Bruce's big screen adult debut. I took the day off to relax.
This past week has been hellish with three nights of 4 hours sleep at most.
Though the first two were from stress, last night's insomnia was courtesy of my Portuguese neighbors... a husband-and-wife team that specializes in chewing each other out (or their children) at all hours of the day. The usual highlight is Saturday morning but last night was definitely Fight Night. The hollering started at 11PM and kept on solid until 12PM with various sounds of furniture (or bodies?) hitting our common wall. My banging on the wall was met with a F-U in broken English... My call to the police for "disturbing the peace" was mysteriously cut off and so I went to bed.
Getting up at 4AM to drive my wife to the airport, we were amazed to find that they were still yelling at each other!!!
From 1983 to 1988, I lived in Fredericton, NB, probably the most snobbish city I have ever visited, though one wonders why ... Even today, I still have a love-hate relationship with the Maritimes (with the exception of Moncton) - more on this some other time...
One of the things that made by sojourn there less painful during the first two friend-free years was watching cheesy Kung Fu movies on the local CBC affiliate. These ran around midnight on Friday night. I particularly liked the ones where people would fly through the air and jump up 2-3 stories. One of my favorite movies was one where a guy takes a sword and slits another one straight down the middle, splitting the fellow in half. Hehe.
In the intervening 15 years since I moved away from New Brunswick, my exposure to Kung Fu movies has been sporadic at best. Upon moving to Montreal, I worked at a place where a colleague hooked me up with almost a dozen copies of various kung fu movies, including the most excellent Once Upon A Time In China series with Jet Li. That was five years ago now.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Iron Monkey aside, I have not seen enough fight flicks in the intervening years. Hence my excitement when Videotron finally provided us with Drive-In Classics, a specialty channel dedicated to B-movies and about the only thing that Moses Znaimer has done in the last few years that doesn't leave me wanting... (I hate that new VR, CityTV wobbly camera interview look ... aarrgghh!!!!) The free preview is running out in a few weeks so I had better find a job so I can pay for it. :)
BTW, though likely to be cheese, I'll probably go see it anyway.
(PS: Fist of Fury III ends with Bruce Li (not Lee) sticking tooth picks in the baddie's eyes but leaving him alive. Oh well. What else to do but seppeku.)
PPS: Now starting: Fists of Vengeance. Be still my beating heart. Kung Bun and Bruce Le (not Lee or Li). Oh joy. ;-)
As the first WWDOW* in a while, I am trying to get caught up on a lot of the stuff I haven't done in the last few months, MBA and conjugal life oblige. With exams in a couple of weeks, this is actually going to be my only relaxing night of the weekend...
So I am spending my time getting my Mac set up just right again (it crashed on Tuesday and I spent most of Wednesday putting it back together again...), getting caught up on a whole of other blogs that I read, watching TV (Adam 12 with its nice white-bread police officers), thinking about finishing up La Presse for today and last Saturday (?) and watching some cool videos from The Matrix, one of my favorite movies- actually it's a series of shorts called The Animatrix).
I'm holed up on 8 year-old dead futon (it makes my arse hurt) with my laptop. Surfing the web wirelessly. Before me sit the dead remnants of a pizza ... oh shit, I just remembered that I forgot to turn the stove off... back in a second... OK. Phew.
Time flies when I do this but it's not necessarily relaxing, in fact I may actually be a case of WWWOD** instead. The last time I had a WWDOW was back in February and it actually occurred for two weekends in a row. Both of them featured Friday nights full of Shiraz red wine and two wonderful cheeses: Etorky and Morbier. I was jonesing for the same deal tonight but I resisted- I have to be in shape for studies tomorrow. Oh well.
(The original Dragnet (not the 2003 version) is on right now. Kind of a middle ground between the spanking cleanliness of Adam 12 and the Los Angeles brought to life by Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy - did LA even exist before TV?)
* Weekend Without Dog Or Wife
** World Wide Web Over Dose
Less than 24 hours after working with some of my MBA colleagues to put on an event dedicated to the subject of intellectual property and featuring a lawyer from BMG Canada, I find myself playing Nintendo and Atari video games on my Mac while listening to music freely downloaded off the Net. Is there no honour in this world ? Earlier this afternoon, I summarily kicked Koopa's ass at Mario Cart for Super Nintendo, just one of the 55 (!) games I found on the Internet. Damn.
And so goes Day 2 of WWDOW (more properly known as a week without, rather than weekend). School work, cheesy movies, lots of songs. As is par for the course, I haven't taken a shower yet, nor brushed my teeth, and don't plan to until I have to... don't worry, I have a class meeting tomorrow, so get out the Colgate ! I also better get my hynie (not to be confused with hymie as spaketh Jesse) in gear and start working. This is the last week of class and then we're into the home stretch for exams. The discipline that comes from having your wife look over your shoulder is sorely lacking right now.
One of the questions that is nagging me is as follows: Can one have a blog and still aspire to be prime minister some day?
Speaking of the aforementioned lawyer, she gave me a Gino Vanelli (yes, he's still around sans all the big hair) CD to play during the show. The evil side of me considered burning it (ie: making a copy of it) before giving it back (the ultimate irony!), but was spared this little bit nastiness when she gave it to me.
As I write this, I am listening to Zorba The Greek by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. Consequently, I am typing a hell of a lot faster... Yippee! I still have memories (some would say fantasies) about that chick covered in Whipped Cream on one of their albums. How's that for memory?
Irony seems to be one of those things that are a little too developed chez moi—take cynicsm for example. I like to say that's a natural consequence of studying political science. In reality, I think it's more a question of refusing to put up with a lot of the wink-wink bullshit that goes on in daily life—the double standards as people condemn others while grabbing for themselves. I still have memories of being smacked with a canoe paddle by one of my dad's chunky friends for speaking my mind during a canoe trip—I must have been 10 or so. One of my guiding principles is to be, as we say in French, conséquent. That principle started early.
My new fetish—of which my wife does not approve—is violently chewing out—in French to boot!—people who smoke in non-smoking areas or who run stop signs. The next step after is to begin throwing bricks at cars that run red lights. (See what I mean about whether one can still be prime minister...). One of these days, I'll write my thoughts about altruism including some links to interesting studies—including the need for punishers—that have been mentioned by The Economist recently. We'll also have to devote a column to the idea of being serious in life, something I may not be enough. :-)
'Nuff said.
Having cleaned out all of the Pepsi, chocolate milk, McCains chocolate cake, and half a tin of BBQ Pringles yesterday, I am now forced to scrounge for something to eat for breakfast this morning. I don't feel like changing out of the pyjama-like clothes I have had on for 36+ hours just yet just in order to buy some croissants at the bakery across the street - I am saving that for when I take a shower. Fishing around in the fridge, I found some eggs, butter and some milk ... therefore scrambled eggs it is ... just need to make sure we still have some ketchup... we do !!!
Right now I am trying to balance the needs of typing this while making sure the eggs don't stick to the frying pan ... To push the eggs around, I am using the spatula that I used to cut the pizza (a great trick for cutting pizza I must say) - it still has some pizza sauce and cheese on it but that's OK. ... I just turned the heat down so i could type some more... my mujer (or is that novia), anyways my Hot Chick Wife™ would not be pleased at this spectacle.
For me, it feels like good old days from University. I still remember a big yellow bowl that I bought at Ikea with my parents when we went up to my university in Quebec City to drop me off for my first term... I used to use the Microwave to heat pasta in it, then dump in some pasta sauce and microwave it some more until there was a thick red crust starting from the top of the bowl, which would work its way progressively down the side of the bowl towards the center. This happens naturally when you don't wash the bowl between uses... hey, microwaving kills the bacteria, so where's the problem ? Needless to say HCW™ tossed that one when we started living together.
Got a call from HCW™'s friend in Calgary a couple of minutes ago while I was listening to Ramble On by Led Zeppelin. Great music to wake one up. I was up until 2:00PM not watching porn on The Movie Network if you know what I mean ... :o Damn, I am tired. HCW™ said I needed to get some sleep and had better do so or else. BTW, HCW™'s prognosis for getting the hell out of Dodge (ie: out of Toronto) where she has been snowed in for two days and on her merry way looks good so far. It won't be the weather that stops her but Air Canada... (And BTW, they have no idea where her luggage is...) I hope she makes it there as she has threatened to come back early instead, which would definitely put a stop to WWDOW pretty damn soon. That would suck but at least she could do the grocery shopping. Sweet.
Yahoo unveiled its new improved search engine today. So I figured that I would do a search on my name to see what other stuff I could discover.
Funnily enough, this site now comes out as the first result. (Imagine some companies pay people to do that !!!!) I also found a lot of old stuff.
I got on to the Internet for real back in 1995 when I was part of a pilot project for broadband Internet access in the dorms at Laval University in Quebec City. Back then, you could visit the Mosaic site at NCSA to see all the new web sites coming out every day (this was just a wee bit before Netscape 0.94 came out.) I set up a web server on my machine, hosting The Trueman Files) in my dorm room and registered it (follow the link and then search for the Word Trueman on the page (Command-F or Control-F) ... pretty funny.
I also used to play a great first person shooter (Marathon) by the same folks who made the ultra Cool Halo for Xbox. I registered my machine and player name at this site (again click on the link and do a find on my last name; check out the way cool description!) My friend Stephane lived on the floor below me and Patrick worked for the University on the other side of campus (Traffic from playng the game was slowing performance across the campus!). This was before cool headsets and in-game audio, so we would jam a phone between our head and our neck and play for hours until our necks were perma-kinked. Towards the end of our playing sessions (that whole summer!), I would wrap a wool winter scarf (in the middle of summer !) around my head so as to attach the phone to my head.) The better to frag (slaughter) the others with hands free... hehe. Great memories.
You can even find sites where my Quickdraw GX Fan Club was listed as one of the top sites for the Macintosh. The good old days.
'Nuff said. (this expression is in honour of the great Stan Lee of Marvel Comics fame...)
Halfway through WWDOW and I finally did the groceries.
In the old days, the HCW™ would give me a list of what to buy and ordered in such a way that it followed the aisles in the store. That way I couldn't make any mistakes. (I didn't have that to fall back on this time around, as she has been doing the groceries ever since we got to Montreal.) So this time around, I just winged it. I figured—correctly I believe—that if it can go in a microwave, it must be good for me. That strategy paid off in spades. I was able to buy a whole bunch of microwaveable pizza, with a nod to health with microwaveable chicken breasts stuffed with cheese and ham. With just enough money left over to buy a spanking new 2L bottle of Pepsi. And I didn't buy any junk food (cuz we still have some left at home...) Yahoo!
But seriously, I also bought a nice baguette and two small wheels (OKA and Les Coutances) of cheese to go with it. HCW™ would approve. Since it's a weeknight, I left out the bottle of Shiraz wine to round the whole thing off. Might do that on Friday. ;)
All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself. And on top of that, I got to the gym for the first time in almost 2 weeks. That felt good and will definitely help me get through the next few weeks. My only other challenge is dealing with the backlog of magazines that keep showing up on my door. Ouch. Not enough hours in a day.
La Presse had an article today about my neighborhood, Rosemont-Petite Patrie. Apparently, it's the new cool place to be in Montreal. With the ultra-hip Plateau district overflowing, with apartments near impossible to find, and parking almost impossible, there has been a shift in people towards my part of town. Highlighted were the laundry mat I go to (Mousse Café, described by The Gazette as the coolest laundromat in the city), the movie theatre a couple of doors down from us (Cinéma Beaubien - the last walk-up cinema on the Island ... the kind where you buy your ticket from the sidewalk), and the De Froment et De Sève, the great bakery where we buy croissants and baguettes. They also make wonderful fougasses, made with dried tomatoes or olives. There is also a great breakfast restaurant across Iberville Street?it's called La mère poule and my Mom likes it alot. Last but not least, is the wonderful Molson Park, just across the street.
When we moved here five years ago, the area was down but on the way up. Our rent was a mere $465, incredibly cheap for a city the size of Montreal. Even today, it's just under $500. It's getting harder to get in here though, and rents are going up by a chunk as soon as people move out. As any economist worth his salt can tell you, once you put rent control in place, nobody wants to build new apartments. Consequently, the vacancy rate for the Island is less than 2%... and places like ours, grubby and old as the may be, are in high demand.
We will be hard pressed to match the neighborhood, no matter where we move. It's a nice mixing of families and working people. But most of all, it's being able to cross the street and get a Fresh sandwich, or pick-up a newspaper and sit in the park and read...
PS; Some great old pictures of MOntreal are available here. Look in Collections then the Notman Photographic Archives.
Julian Dibbel has an interesting article called Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Man. It talks about how blogs like these are changing the way we use the Internet and much more. He is the same fellow who wrote an article in Wired about the virtual economy of Everquest.
If you are interested in issues relating to intellectual property, then you might like to check out this blog called Copyfight: intellectual property politics and issues. In a previous posting they discuss one of my previous entries relating to Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMPOG) and how they have become such a part of our lives. The article in question relates the experience of Black Snow Interactive which had a business model of paying Mexicans to play video games, then selling the virtual assets (experience, property, virtual currency) for real money in the real world.
The other day I mentioned some good cheeses that go well with Shiraz red wine. They were Etorki and Morbier. Interestingly enough, the other day I misspelt the word Etorki. That mistake (Etorky cheese) is the only one of its kind on Google. My site comes up at the very top of the page. I make a spelling mistake and I am part of history. :)
Lastly, a character from one of my favorite shows from the 1990s will be making a comeback soon. Not Pee Wee Herman though—that was the 1980s. This time around it's Homey D. Clown from In Living Colour. He's everyone's favorite, brassed-off, cynical, anti-white-devil clown. We love you Homie. Dark Horizons had the story.
Today was the first beautiful day of Spring here in Montreal. It was definitely plus-something-or-other... I was out with only a t-shirt and light wool sweater bought during our honeymoon. Went for a walk around the park in front and read The Economist while I was at it. (Reading while walking, and not running into telephone poles or street signs is one of my specialties. I am one of those weird sights in the neighborhood.) Later I studied out front for my microeconomics exam.
This was the kind of day where the bars in Place-Jacques-Cartier in Old Montreal would put out their chairs and tables. I worked down there for three summers and it was the surest sign that spring was close by, Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie notwithstanding, when the tables came out. A few weeks after that, they would start building the terraces out. One visitor to our offices at the time remarked that Montreal was the only place he knew of where people would sit outside in their winter coats just to drink beer!
I am writing and posting this from my porch which opens on to the cosmopolitan Beaubien Street using my laptop and my wireless connection. A first time for me.
I love hanging out my porch, or as I like to call it, my stoop in the summer. My favorite thing is practicing balcon de ville, the time tested activity of sitting on your porch and watching people and dogs go by and smiling and waving. My usual partner for balcon de ville is my hound-dog, Boy. He couldn't be with me today as he is getting his usual dose of tough love from his big black girlfriend. Those of you who grew up in a big old city, like say Winnipeg, know how much fun this can be. I like hanging out and reading and watching the sun go down. Marie-Claude often comes and joins me after her evening walk with Boy. Sometimes she'll head inside and work or relax, coming back every once and a while to watch me and Boy on the stoop.
Having a hound dog like Boy around means that old ladies and mothers with babies tend to stop a lot. They all take a moment to say how handsome he is or ask if they can give him a pat.
Time seems to slow down during those moments of balcon de ville and I love it.
* * *
PS: Boy isn't a hound-dog for real; he's a handsome pure-bred Golden Retriever of American lineage with nice square features. His mom loves him very much and misses him a lot right now. Those two were meant to be together for ever.
PPS: About.com has a site with a long list of world famous groundhogs, or marmottes as we say in French. Ma belle petite marmotte is one of my other nicknames for M-C.
PPS: When saying hound dog, you have to do like you're from the South. Like houndog... slur the words together with a nice drawl...
Apparently my wife, Marie-Claude, has been on her best behaviour. I have received news from my Aunt in Calgary to the effect that not only is M-C welcome back, but that she is "wonderful" and that "delightful" time was spent with her. How nice.
And I thought it was only when pigs could fly. What with all the trouble she causes back here, sloppy, bad mood, and all. She's just pure evil. Kind of like that harmless little bunny in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Cute but deadly. Oh well, lucky me I guess. Hehe. Let's just say that I'm not planning to let my guard down. She hasn't got me with that cute smile and irresistible mannerisms. No sirree.
Sadly (?!?), WWDOW comes to an end tomorrow when Marie-Claude (the infamous HCW™) gets back to MTL. Tomorrow morning will be dedicated to cleaning up the kitchen, doing the dishes, etc. You know, the usual stuff just before one's wife gets back. ;-)
Well not exactly. But there are a number of things that one is not supposed to do with one's girlfriend (or wife) just out of principle (i.e.: one must remain manly at all time.) One of these things is to watch a good chick-flick, which I am watching right now. Of course, if any of you tries to tell Marie-Claude, I will deny it.
I used this last night off to eat a lot of cheese (though they were out of Etorki) and polish off a bottle of shiraz by myself. Yum. (I will also deny this when pressed.)
'Nuff said.
Heading into the last weekend before exams now. With the exception of microeconomics, I am having a hard time getting in to the beat. Too much time to prepare is sometimes worse than not enough. Oh well.
Had a job interview on Tuesday. Not sure if it went well - are we ever ? Will find out soon. Weird thing, I ran into my former boss yesterday while walking to the gym. I hadn't seen him or talked to him for a good 6 months. Is that a bad omen or not (not that I have any interest in EVER working with him again)? Oh well.
In January, I won a laptop computer (after having bought one in December). One of my MBA friends from Beijing (Yuehan to be precise) explained to me that to have had luck so early in the year means that I should have a lucky year in general (I'm paraphrasing as I am exhausted.) Let's hope she's right. :)
Happy Easter everyone !
The New York Sunday magazine has a good article on the recent daily charge imposed on traffic into the city centre as well as the perspective of it ever crossing the ocean to Gotham.
The article mentions an incident during the middle of the last century surrounding a proposed highway through a park in Manhattan. "At the time, photographed defiantly on the City Hall steps with a giant prop key to lock traffic out of the park, a Tammany Hall leader framed a question that was only then starting to be asked in earnest. Would we, he asked, ''plan and develop our cities in accordance with the needs and wishes of the people who live in them or for the convenience of the vehicles which pass through them?''". Hear, hear.
Everyday I take the bus and the metro to school, and before that to go to work. What a joy! I have never read so much and so often as I do since I have been taking mass transit. Never was I so aware of how polluting a car was as when I worked for a big oil company and had to travel from station to station. (Shudder!) Speaking of mass transit, the Times also has an article on the temporary closing of a secret subway entrance-much loved by those who use it-in Times Square.
If I did have to have a car, I would like it to be the new 2004 Mustang. What a sweet ride.
Another wild and crazy day at the library, full of macroeconomics, finance and microeconomics. Juicy goodness. First exam is up this Thursday. My energy level, as ever, continues to be low. On top of that, I have been hit with a cold. So I sniffle and wheeze and try to plug as much info into my frozen brain and it's not going as to plan. Need to knock back some serious vitamin C and echinacea and start going to be at reasonable hours... Maybe then I'll be able to concentrate. Need to find some way was the real crunch happens the Mon-Tue-Wed of the following week with back-to-back exams. Yikes.
But happy-happy-joy-joy there are reasons to rejoice today. For today is our 6 month wedding anniversary! And I'm the one who remembered ! This means that there is definitely hope that I will remember the first official one (and hopefully the other ones as well.) For the occasion, I bought Marie-Claude a nice anniversary card and an easter card as well and a nice little present, kind of for both. Chicks dig that stuff. If I ever get home from the library at a reasonable hour, we'll spend some quality time together. Chicks dig that stuff too.
Happy Easter !
As I mentioned yesterday, I was struggling to deal with a pretty intense cold while also trying to study for my 4 upcoming exams. No matter how much I read or what I studied, nothing was sinking in at all.
I had used up all of my sinus medication during the day on Saturday. Heading into the evening, with the pharmacy closed, I had no choice-if I wanted to sleep-but to take the sinus medicine that had expired 6 months ago. Uggh. The kind of thing I'll do once. (But I'm still here to talk about it so maybe it wasn't too bad.)
Yesterday, I decided that I didn't want to do that again, and headed off to the pharmacy. I also wanted to find a way to deal with my lack of concentration and memory. (This for a guy who usually has better memory than most elephants. Obviously, the exhaustion from the term has worn down my memory.)
The first solution was to buy some new sinus medication. Natch.
The second solution was a bit more complicated. For the first time in my life, I actually found myself looking for caffeine pills! And just my luck, I couldn't find any. Oh well. One more thing I will have never done.
Moving right along, I went to the herbal products section. I found some French stuff and decided not to buy it. Not because of any conscious effort to boycott the French per se (though William Safire can think of new reasons why), but because the product only promised changes in 3 months- and I need enhanced memory right now. Eventually, I came upon some Chinese Gingko stuff which is supposed to enhance alertness and memory right away. Ka-ching!
Once home, I assembled my drug cocktail. One Gingko pill, one Sinus pill, two echinacea pills, two Motrin pain relievers, and one horse-pill full of anti-stress vitamins. Within two gulps, it all went down the hatch. Followed by a couple of shots of ventolin for my wheezing and I was on my way to being pretty hopped up !
Within about an hour, I started getting a pretty crazy fever, and Marie-Claude put me to bed for a nap. Over the next 3 hours I alternated between shivering and sweating while Marie-Claude left me at home with the dog. Round about 4:30, I dragged myself out of bed. Slowly, the shivers and the sweat went a way. I watched a movie. I tried studying a bit but that didn't work either. So I got dressed and went to the convenience store where I bought a 1L bottle of Pepsi, 2 bottles of iced tea and two chocolate bars.
Good food in hand, I managed to study a bit. I was actually so wired for sound that I couldn't get to bed until midnight. I played video games for almost 4 hours last night.
Today, I feel free much better. Brain lesions, stomach and mouth ulcers, acute tunnel vision, strep throat aside, I feel pretty good. I have studied for one exam, am currently studying for another, with a third to follow this evening, proving that my solution worked. Who says guys don't know how to take care of themselves?
'Nuff said.
PS: this is the kind of story that gives my mom (and my aunt) fits. Oh, and my wife too. Hehe.
Another day full of studying. After barely sleeping at all last night, I think I have learned not to take that Gingko shit before going to bed. I was wired all night long ! Damn!
Slept in a little late today. Got up at nine instead of seven because of aforementioned inability to sleep. First thing, I threw on some good old 80s rock and heavy metal. The Cult, Van Halen ... got me up to speed (not that I needed it according to aforementioned hoppedupedness on That Gingko Shit™). I drew the line at playing some 80s hair metal music, though I did download Round and Round by Ratt. I still remember the episode of Miami Vice when that song played - part of a two-part one in which Larry gets kibotzed in the showers at the end.
It's now half-time in the Microeconomics studying and the referee has blown the whistle. For lunch today, I am having some pizza-like bagel bites. For the first time, I noticed that they were meant to be cooked at 50% power. Writing this while yon bagel bites rotate in their artificial sun. Got to go. Will let you know if they taste any better. Worse comes to worse, I have an O'Henry which I forgot to eat yesterday. Oh, and btw, I took another Gingko after taking the shower. Shazam!
'Nuff said.
PS: Idea for a Gingko ad campaign. "When I take Gingko, my brain goes pachinko!"
News.com reports on the difficulty that refugees of the new economy and others are having finding jobs in today's economy. I'm glad to hear that I am not alone. I was beginning to think that maybe I was a snapperhead.
While that's apparently not the case, I am worrying about what the hell I have to do get noticed and get some respect. Short of embellishing my resume and showing my pearly whites, what does a fella gotta to do get a job around here ? Yo!
My latest plan was to head downtown (once exams are over) and plant myself in front of the big office towers. Wearing my pink rabbit suit and a sandwich board saying 'MBA Student - Will Schlep for Carrots" or was that some other unit of measurement ...
Though not overly concerned at the moment - after all, the cash only runs out in 2 weeks time - what with my exams and all, I am trying to keep up on any opportunities that come down the pipeline... Yesterday, I sent one resume without a cover letter (like a good old pump and dump!) and answered another job offer with a certain flippant attitude. In both cases, my career counsellor would have been horrified.
Things aren't so bad. I had a job interview last week. I now have a second follow-up job interview this Friday. I get to meet the dev team. Maybe there will be beer... (the timeless equation being: developers + friday PM = beer). Yippee.
Back on the home front, I'm still kicking back That Gingko Shit™ like they were chiclets and laughing at my own jokes as usual. Finance is out of the way and I am on to Macroeconomics to cap off the soirée. Could be a 10 hour study day if this keeps up. Roger and out.
* * *
PS: 'Ich bin nicht ein Snapperhead.' is actually an excerpt from a fictitious conversation in my head with some of the nice German fellows at the MBA Case Comp last January. The complete conversation will be available soon. Needless to say, my complete response is 'Ich bin nicht ein Snapperhead. Ich bin ein Kartoffelkopf und ein rosafarbenes Kaninchen.' (Babelfish translates this as :'I am not a Snapperhead. I am a potato head and a rosafarbenes rabbit.') I think that last part is German for pink. hehe.
PPS: I like peppering my speech with the occasional sprinkle of yiddish in honour of the great Mordechai Richler and his wonderful books. I am waiting for my friend Dan-O to say, "This you call a web log?" ... ah, in my dreams.
Just made it out of my economics exam about an hour ago. Still trying to come down from that. First things first, I thought the exam was at 6PM, so I went out for lunch, figuring I could keep studying after. Knowing me (since I am me), I thought I would check the exam schedule one last time, just in case. Lo and behold (not to be confused with Ho and Reload... hehe), the exam was at 2PM; it was now 1PM. Now before you start freaking out dear reader, know this. I was well prepared for this exam. Hell, I didn't even break a sweat in the intervening hour.
Arriving at school 5 minutes before the exam started, I went to the can. I was greeted with stories of some evil exam supervisor who was refusing to let us use the washroom during the exam. No problem, I'll just make sure I go to the can right the first time.
Entering the classroom I was assailed by an older-type fat chick. Shades of one of the lunchroom supervisors at my elementary school over 20 years ago ! And since I have been taking That Gingko Shit™ in the last couple of days, my memory has perked up through the roof and I can tell you that that heathen's name was Mrs. Angevine (which happened to rhyme with bovine). The same one who confiscated my red licorice once (when I was 9 or 10) because the other kids didn't have any. WTF !?! Viva la revolucion ! Socialismo o muerto!...
Not only was this supervisor not allowing us to use the john during the exam, but she had also banned calculators (in an economics exam !!!) and drinks. Now I was frazzled. But the worst was yet to come.
Upon receiving the exam, I noticed that the first question was a sucker punch from hell ! I was freaking out big time. This one evil question - which NO ONE had ever seen before - was worth a full 20% of the mark. Which means that one didn't have room to screw up ANYWHERE else. Especially, if like many others you were counting on this exam to pass... I was freaking out (did I say that already ?) After the exam, many of my classmates remarked that I had seemed quite stressed indeed.
Anyhoo, long story short, I was able to do the other 80% of the exam pretty well - did I say that I knew the material - and took a decent crack at the question from hell as well. My prof actually joined us during the exam, we were allowed to use calculators, and I was able to go to the can as well which also helped.
Time will tell, but I think everything will be OK. However, it's not the kind of thing you want to happen to you when you are tripping on That Gingko Shit™ and haven't been able to sleep for 3 nights running ... Be still my beating heart. :)
One down. Three to go. Many of my other classmates are already depressed about this upcoming exam or that. Gotta keep focussed and gotta keep popping the Gingko. Is three times a day-the instruction on the bottle-a hard number or an average over time ? :)
'Nuff said.
With the successful completion of my MIS final today, my exams are now over and I can relax. I would be knee-deep in Shiraz by now if I didn't have to do my taxes before the end of the night. Maybe I'll do that (Shiraz) tomorrow. Oh well. No rest for the wicked.
I'll report on the last week's events in a little while. Let's just say for now the plan is relax, relax, relax. I survived though and that's the important thing. At least whatever is left of me survived. :)
When we last left off, your roving reporter had almost got his ass handed to him in the Micro exam from Hell. It probably took a good 12-24 hours for the stress to come down. Right smack in the middle of my flu as well.
Must have been around Friday when I read a BusinessWeek article that questioned the effects of herbal supplements. That knocked the wind out of any efforts to leverage That Ginkgo Shit™ to glorious effect. Must have been the placebo effect until then (though I was so tired I actually talked about having felt the placenta effect). From then on no matter how much of the TGS I took, I still felt lethargic. My weekend was dominated by 10-12 hour days at the library as I prepared for my remaining three exams. Overall, studying went well, though I was worried I might not have had enough time. I also managed to finally finish WarCraft III to the relief of Hot Chick Wife™ after having put about 60 hours into it.
On to Monday. That evening I had my Finance exam. I felt confident going into it, though that confidence would prove extremely short-lived. Exam starts, and truth be told, I choke. I draw a complete blank. I didn't remember a thing and had no idea where to start. I didn't know where to start and became quite anxious-in my mind, this was a make-or-break situation. My face became redder than my friend Duc Huy when he drinks beer (he is allergic to alcohol) and my neck and back were sore from all of the tension-causing stress coursing through my body.
In truth, my experience during the Micro exam the previous week had freaked me out. That exam actually served to compound a worry that had carried over from the mid-terms. Then I had received very poor results in 3 courses-in spite of heavy studying-and was beginning to question my abilities. The fact that those three mid-terms occurred in less 24 hours didn't help, but I digress. Thus I found myself heading in to the finals with a great deal of apprehension and pressure to make it through 3 'make or break' exam situations. The Micro final frazzled me, though I was able to recover and do OK. Finance was a different matter.
The key to surviving tough exams is being able to change the momentum in your favour. Memory blank in hand, I started with the multiple choice and definition questions. This allowed me to start to build some confidence. Then I moved on to the meat of the exam. A closer look revealed a number of fairly obscure questions having to deal with ratios (The Dupont System). Funny thing, I actually knew how to do them as I had memorized them all before going off to school that day. I got those out of the way and began to troll for other low hanging fruit and found some other doable ones. Throw in a bathroom break for good measure (allows me to collect myself) and I was on my way; I had the momentum in my favour. In the end, things worked out pretty well. I was able to answer 85% of the tough stuff and all of the easy stuff. I think I will do OK.
Tuesday. Macro exam on the menu for the evening. Another course where my mid-term had sucked. Actually sucked is a harsh word. My prof is a notoriously hard marker and macroeconomics is all about being precise in your words; he also doesn't give partial marks very easily. This was the third part of the gauntlet (the three exams that could sink me) I had to run during exams. This worked out pretty well. Turns out that i studied just right. I was able to complete the whole exam and never once drew a blank or panicked. I had vowed not to repeat the experience of the night before and so I did not. Seems easy, hunh?
Wednesday. Last exam. Thank goodness. Running out of gas and no discernible effect from my Ginkgo popping. Limping to the finish line. It all ends here. My 6-course term, my odyssey of fun and fatigue. I went into the exam tied with the highest mark in the class. It was mine to lose. This exam was more about management theory than good old fashioned hardware and software, so I had to study a bit harder. Still found time to walk the dog and play some video games. And then it was on to doing my taxes.
And now it's over. My return to school full-time. I knew it would be tough and it would hurt at times. In some ways it was worse than I thought, and in some ways not. I haven't seen the last 4 months go by at all. On the other hand, I have exorcised some demons that have haunted me since my undergrad, and that's definitely a good thing.
If you enjoy the written word like I do (and hey, the spoken word while we are at it), you might enjoy these various style guides from The Times in London, The Guardian, and The Economist. This last one is also available as a book as is the New York Times' style guide.
The Economist guide just happens to be on my Amazon wishlist. A handy bit of information for you considering that my birthday is just around the corner. Hehe. If you have some time to spare, you can also do an Economist style guide quiz. You are presented with number of sentences and have to choose how the Economist would say it. What fun. I just scored 8 out of 12, which according to The Economist means that there is "Room for a fair bit of improvement." :-/ Maybe I'll move on to some other diversions.
The software I use to edit my weblog had recently become broken due to an update. It was making it difficult to embed links to other pages as well as use accents (like in French) and other advanced characters. This has now been fixed.
This means three things. The first is that I will be able to start putting more links to info on the 'Net again.
Second, I will be able to use better looking type characters again. Like the en-dash (–) and the em-dash(—) as well as the occasional ligature or two (æ).
Third, with accents available again, I can start working on the Swedish version of HappyHappyDonut. Or rather HåppyHåppyDønüt. Hëhë.
Day 6 of the post-exam period continues and I have finally started to relax a bit. The first couple of days were hard. Did my taxes, did my finances. Too stressed to relax. Motoring through as many copies of magazines as I could until the new ones arrive. Oops, one just did. Darn.
Reading can be too stimulating, so I am trying to do other things. Like watch movies. I have watched a whole host of teen movies including Sorority Boys, Get Over It, and others. Right now, I am watching the great Joe Dirt with stand-put performances by David Spade and Dennis Miller. Quick question. Does this move have one of the best rock and roll soundtracks ever or what? Ranks right up there with Detroit Rock City, a definite stoner extravaganza! And the t-shirts rock as well: "I choked Linda Lovelace" hehe. Videotron's Video-On-Demand service is supposed to be available in my neighborhood. That could get me into trouble too.
Have to get washed up soon. Heading off to pick up a job offer. If it all works out, I start next Monday. Same day as the summer term starts as well. I have to figure out what kind of present I buy for myself to congratulate myself on getting a job. Do I go for a 10GB iPod, a PVR, a new cell phone, or do I go long-term and contribute to my RSP? Hmm. Difficult decision. Depends on whether I listen to HCW™ or not. (PS: Whatever I don't buy is available to be offered to me as part of my upcoming birthday ... :)
My plans for the rest of the week include going to see X2:X-Men United and watching the great Pootie Tang once again. I also plan to watch Donnie Darko, which deals with an evil space rabbit. I have also been working on an editorial regarding the development of cities and discussions about breaking up the recently amalgamated city of Montreal. Also, need to finish a video/picture deal thingie as a present for my dog's Mother-In-Law. Sounds promising my main damies. Capatown.
My career as a full-time student comes to an end tomorrow. What a ride, but I survived. I pushed myself harder than I have ever done so before. (Unfortunately, when I was younger, I learned that you get by in school by doing the minimum—though I always enjoyed learning.) As it stands, I have marks for 5 courses out of 6 and have passed them all. My overall average got dented a wee bit but that is to be expected when you overload yourself. From here on out, it's part-time studies. I still have a year to go, though I am over half-way done. My first summer class starts tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I also go back to the real world. I will start my new job, managing sales and marketing for a company that develops artificial intelligence software, working in the same industry I was in before. I look forward to getting back into the groove of work; this will be a good mix of comfort and challenge; though the company is a little over 2 years old, there is so much still left to do. This is going to be a lot of fun—I'm joining a great team—and I expect I will learn a lot about myself in the process. I will spend one day on the job before flying off to Los Angeles for a week to attend a trade show to meet clients and customers.
The past week has been good in that I was able to relax and clear my head. I was able to watch a number of films and get caught up on some reading, though not any books as I would have liked. (They will likely have to wait until after I finish my MBA.) I watched some movies and TV as well. There was some running around with appointments scattered here and there—breakfasts, job offer, etc.. I also ended up buying myself some pretty cool toys, including one mentioned in my last post and one that I didn't mention. I also bought some stuff to make them all work together. Suffice to say that my first couple of paychecks will be destined for paying off credit card bills. ;-)
The main challenge for me now is that of finding balance between my job, school work and my personal life, and each one of these requires balance in itself as well. However, I am not worried about finding that balance. I fact, I feel better equipped now than ever before. 'Nuff said.
And with that comes to an end my second week on the job. And my first one actually in the office. The thing I have been hankering after most in the last two week sis some sort of routine, some sort of rhythm. I went from full time school (and relative un-busy-ness for almost a year), to part-time summer school and a full time job. That's quite a lot of change in the span of a few weeks.
A good first step was getting my first paycheck. This will be put to good paying for, among other things, rent, food, bus pass, as well as all of the cool stuff I have bought for myself over the last few weeks in an incredible blast of unbridled consumerism. Though I needed to get that out of my system, it's getting to the point where I need to clam down and pay some bills.
I am starting to get into the beat of work as well. It's always a little weird to take the place of someone else and have to sort through their things, etc. That odd neutron bomb feeling (walls still standing while the people were vaporized). I am used to being one starting things rather than picking up where others left off. This is going to be a great opportunity to build a marketing program pretty much from scratch—this should be fun.
After work, I went to the bike store to pick up my bike which was getting a tune-up. My favorite Italian bicycle shopkeeper, Signore Elio, was as friendly as ever, though a little by the 13 stage of the Giro. I like going to his store, Le Centre du vélo, about 50 blocks east of our place. Can;t go on a Sunday though as the store is closed so that he and his employees can go riding.
Starting Monday, I will begin biking to work and school everyday. That will help my waistline which has been affected by the nasty habit of eating 2-3 packs of Rolos and drinking a couple of cans of Pepsi each afternoon. Must stop.
Coming back to the question of routine, I look forward to getting back into the beat of going to the gym on a regular basis, studying on a regular basis, writing my weblog on a regular basis, paying bills on a regular basis, etc. I think you get the picture.
As for today, the plans is to go see The Matrix Reloaded, with a little bit of errands on the side for Marie-Claude. Yesterday, I finally went shopping for clothes for the first time in a long time. Bought a couple of pairs of shorts to replace all the pairs I have worn through. Mother would be proud. Have good day.
Birthday is next week and the jury is still out on what HCW™ is going to buy me. Lord knows, I gave her enough suggestions. The Xbox looks like a long shot so I won't get my hopes up. She still remembers what happened the last time she bought me a video game (about 10 years ago) and how I spent more time with it than her. Hehe.
I also suggested an Arsenal fitba jersey. I think I have settled my choice on them. Though I could be tempted to switch for Man U. With so many teams in the premiership (and the Champions League) and so little time to research this stuff, I might just have to take the quick way out. Either shirt would go well with my new cargo shorts.
I also recommended a SD memory card to put in my palm and transform it into a kick-ass bluetoothin' MP3 player. Though I would prefer an iPod.
In the old days, I could usually guess what my presents were. Which would driver HCW™ nuts. Nowadays, I don't seem to be able to guess any more. Oh well.
Half an hour into my class and absolutely nothing has happened yet. I am bored out of my skull. If this keeps up, I'll be able to report on the events of my birthday direct from class without missing a beat.
This is the second class with the actual class professor. It has taken a decidedly Amway-like turn of events. In return for pimping our employers, we can get extra marks. Hmm. Let me think about that.
I'm wearing my new kick-ass Arsenal jersey—a nice present from HCW™—and definitely stylin'.
We haven't got our final marks back for finance yet, so I decided to write a song (sung to the tune of "where oh where has my little dog gone" . Here it is:
Oh where, oh where,
has my finance mark gone
oh where, oh where can it be ?
though it wasn't an A,
it was more than a C,
oh where, oh where can it be ?
'Nuff said.
End of my third week on the job and third week of school. Wow. I can't believe how much stuff I have to do... especially at work. Last term was crazy enough with everything piling on and me struggling to keep up. I thought things would only get easier from there on in. Boy was I wrong. HCW™ and I don't have a house and we don't have kids yet and yet we are already running around like chickens with our heads cut off. When I get home from a day's work, I am exhausted. School days are worse. This is frankly incredible. I am to the point of contemplating some pretty radical changes.
First, I may have to cut into my sacrosanct principle of finishing every magazine and book that I buy. (The book rule is a little looser than the magazine one. I have either purchased or received as Xmas gifts some lemons in the past couple of years.) One of the ways I have gotten around the problem is to buy less magazines and newspapers. Pre-MBA, I was reading La Presse and the National Post everyday as well as a number of magazines. Now I am down to La Presse and the magazines to which I subscribe (HBR (I get high-quality junk mail from this one), BusinessWeek, The Economist, Maclean's, MacWorld, Dwell and The Atlantic Monthly). And to boot, I was doing some serious browsing of the NY Times, BBC site, CNN, La Times, Guardian Online and others in the last couple of months... (Let me pause a moment to sing the praises of the good old monthly magazines ... the pace of reading weeklies is killing me.) I have pretty much sworn off buying other magazines (again because I feel I have to finish them). A recent exception is a huge issue of Architectural Record which I just bought because I liked some pictures of some beautiful wineries. I am having to learn the new skill of skimming effectively. I am practicing it on this one. (I am also worried that may NEVER get a chance to read any of the books currently on my night stand, let alone the 40-50 currently on my Amazon wishlist...)
A further complication comes from the fact that I have now began biking to work. While this is great for my waistline and stamina (with its positive effects on the baby–making process...), it means almost an hour less of reading time. Two possible responses: either I drink more milk and eat more cheese (so as to tie up my system and consequently spend more time on the bowl) or I cram more reading into the weekend.
I had wanted to participate in this year's Economist Business Challenge competition, either as a contestant or as a helper to the coach. Even that now seems to be beyond my reach.
The keen observer of this weblog and the little calendar on the home page will note that I have written very little this month. My contributions have gone way down. This is due to two things. Lack of time and lack of inspiration (which is likely impacted by lack of time.)
All of this leads me to the following question: is the dumbing down that one apparently experiences (based on my observations of others) when one buys a house and has kids and solidly joins the middle class inevitable ? How does one stay connected to the world while giving one's all to the job, family (wife and children), home, and others ? How do you pay attention to your own needs let alone continue developing your own interests and skills ?
On another note, HCW™—who supports me in my current studies—freaked out a little earlier in the week when I mentioned that I would be interested in doing further studies, including possibly in law. Beyond the fact that she cannot comprehend my continued desire to study—she burned herself out after her M.Sc—she finds the hardship of me being away at school so often difficult enough already. Throw in some eventual kids and the burden looks worse. My current strategy of suggesting how cute it would be for the kids and their father to all do homework together at the kitchen table has not paid off... I might need to think of a new one and run it by a focus group first.
Oh well. Have to go to bed now and get some shuteye. Tomorrow is another day. 'Nuff said.
Got a haircut today. It was getting to be about that time. As usual, HCW™ weighed in with her opinion that it shouldn't be too short, and that it was always too short, and that it didn't look good when it was too short. And that if it was too short, I shouldn't expect to be getting any good lovin'—though what that has to do with baby-making efforts is beyond me—until it was back to being a decent length.
Turning the big 33—everyone here in La Belle Province reminds me that that was the age of Christ when he died—aside, I have noticed that my hair has begun to thin out considerably. From being completely unwieldy as my junior high school mop–head pictures can attest to thinning out in the span of less than 20 years is somewhat disconcerting. For that I can thank my mother, or at least her father—if popular theories are to be believed. That would make two things I owe to her—beyond giving birth to me. The other one being my knees which tend to crack a lot when I kneel down. Yes, I have my mother's knees.
Looking at myself in the mirror after my haircut, my hair tended to have that wavy look reminiscent of a hairpiece. Visions of me lifting myself up from a pool with my hair intact, showing the quality construction of my hairpiece and how it sticks to my head—is it glue or staples?—enough to allow me to go swimming... kind of like in one of those hair treatment ads for hair replacement systems. Big shiver. The alternative of course is to lead the return of the comb-over to cool hep cat status.
Yes indeed, I will have to come to grips—maybe with the help of a support group—with the fact that my hair will eventually move on. Like the Nordiques and the Jets but with the local economy and civic pride intact. 'Nuff said.
PS: HCW™ said the length was OK. Talk about a tempest in a teapot. :)
You may have noticed faithful reader that I have not updated this site for two weeks. This was caused by ongoing computer problems and a general fatigue voir burnout... it didn't help that I spent at least two days during the last two weekends just to rebuild my Mac.
It's also due to the fact that I still haven't hit my stride in terms of routine. Though I am getting much closer. I still haven't figured out a way to integrate my blogging and working out into my routine. These are the last pieces in the puzzle. Hopefully should be in my routine by the end of this week.
In other news, I killed one of my two remaining summer courses—which would have meant school 4 nights a week—so as to enjoy the summer more. I'll end up taking three courses this fall. Ugh. Still aiming for blast off in June 2004.