Unacademic Accomplishments

At around 2:15 last night, I finished Pride and Prejudice. I really enjoyed it as a social commentary and character study. It does revert to more of a romance in the third act, though - not so much that I'm complaining, simply acknowledging those who can't see past that. Three days of reading and not *that* heavily.

I went bouldering again today. I was able to make a lot of progress the past couple of times I've gone on some moves I couldn't get before. I think I'm getting a lot stronger; though, I've heard research saying that guys habitually think they're getting bigger and stronger when they've not really improved much while women are the opposite (or at least are more truthful with their progress).

And now I really want to read something else but my sister has locked her door so I can't steal from her library :P

Excerpt

Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished forever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the dissapointment which his own imprudence had brought on in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.

Snap.

One more weekend to go.

School starts in a week, current work ends in a week. Maybe new work starts up. Good friends will be returning - by far the best part.

Restful weekend again. Elected to do basically nothing. Had some paper work to get done. My sister moved in. Wierd feeling since I've lived basically alone for the past year. I watched City of God. I started a novel: Pride and Prejudice of all things. And, despite picking it up primarily for literary purposes, am mostly thourougly enjoying it.

Quick thought of the day: Why do women have this propensity to believe that the wild and reckless man can be tamed? Why are there men who believe that women want a tamed man?

Editors and Siblings

I was asked by the engineering co-op office to write an article for their Hire Geer newsletter that details something interesting about Supermileage. They suggested that I summerize what I'd like to convey in once concise sentance and choose a subset of the audience who would read it. So, I decided to do a personal account and snippet of my time with the Supermileage Team with emphasis on exploring what I gained from the experience, in hopes that other students would join our team. Since it was a personal account, I decided to have some fun with it. In the end, I actually rather enjoyed the narrative exercise. In contrast to standard engineering texts and even newsprint, I used many compound sentences. Why? Because that's what I enjoy writing. I was also a little loose with the grammar.

I got an edited version back tonight. The editor mentioned that it had to be heavily modified to maintain the flow necessary for a newsletter. She wasn't kidding. I could not even recognize my voice in it. Were it published, I would be embarrased to have people read it, thinking I wrote it to describe my experience. I don't mean to offend her capabilities as she was simply doing her job, but it was akin to something produced by a gradeschooler. Heh... and when they asked for the article, they stated that they know engineers aren't the best for being able to write fluently and that they would tidy up any spelling and grammar mistakes we made. Sheesh.

In happier news, my sister came back from China today. She had a great time and it's good to know/feel that she's grown from the entire experience. That said, I'm absolutely green with envy of her and a good handful of friends who have been able to travel this summer. Hmm... I was going to describe some of her escapades but I don't feel right blogging vicariously through her. She did make this composite video of her and the people she met and it's actually really entertaining... but maybe that's more cause her and I have a similar sense of humour and we know each other (may not be exclusively one or the other cause my parents definitely didn't laugh). Anyway, the most shocking thing that happened was - and I hope my parents don't ever read my blog since my sis doesn't want them to know and get freaked - her drink got spiked with a date rape drug. Despite her cautiousness and warnings of this place that had a tad of a reputation for the roofie-coladas, she passed out part way through the night. It's really good she was out with friends O.o

An evening with Tool

We went to dinner before the concert at a random (for our age and background) place called Rosie's. It was basically an English Pub like diner. The food was what you could expect had you gone to a friend's place who has an English heritage. Think meatloaf, gravy and mashed potatoes. I found my meal wasn't bad despite not looking appetizing but my Ben, Kroll and Garreth disagreed. Serves them right for being apathetic.

We missed the opener - though none of us were particularly interested in seeing Isis (sp?). I think only Garreth had heard them before and they were described as bad grunge. We were also shooting the shit a lot about music that night and it reminds me that I should look up a band callec Muse. Supposedly they're Radiohead but with heavier overtones.

Tool was alright. It was good to see them but not worth the $80 to watch a 1:40 performance with no fucking encore. What a rip. They didn't even have an entire show which precluded any encore like NIN had or what I'd imagine The Wall to be. And of course, in Tool fashion, they played two masturbation songs straight and wasted 20 min of our time there. For any modern rock derivative act, if at any time 70-80%+ of your audience is sitting, you've fucking failed. It could've been worse though... they didn't play too much from 10,000 days and they played most of their old stuff I'd really like to hear. Didn't touch parabol(a) nor Eulogy but Lateralus was awesome. Speaking of Lateralus, on the way home, my friend pointed out that the lyrics in lateralus follow the fibonacci sequence (syllable-wise)... 1 1 2 3 5 8 5 3 2 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 8 5 3. Nerdy eh? I'd like to think it's more in the realization than the creation - Maynard was expressing beauty with it. Stinkfist should've been played later rather than the opener... I would've chosed Vicarious to open. Vicarious isn't easy to dance/mosh/headbang to but it still has a lot of energy.

I guess for the most part, I've grown beyond Tool. It just doesn't express enough emotion for me.

Aftermath

So, I woke up with the first true hangover in my life. I knew I would likely get one the night before but I really couldn't bear to try and put more liquid into my belly. It was ok though. Friend is half-way to halifax by now I'm sure. Fun night even though I didn't meet too many new people - I got to catch up with a lot of old friends though.

Saturday I attended Flugtag where the UBC Snowstar Team entered and embarrassed us all with their entry. It was fun though and they did put it together in 2 days. Paul completed a back-flip into the drink and I think I got a pic of it but I'll need to develop them. They also had skydivers and it really seemed they spend a shitload of cash on this event - with free admission.

Later on, we went to the Naam for veggie food. Then it was off to Paul's place for a party. Met some cool new people but I didn't stay long... hang-over + 5-6 hours in the sun was taking its toll. Went into work for a bit on Sunday then did some bouldering with Paul.

Yesterday was really productive. I met with my sub-group for this teaching committee I'm a part of and we actually really got a lot done. We could really change the face of education here in the Phys Department and maybe UBC as a whole.

Finished off the day with 2 hours of soccer. The Japanese kid we've stumbled across is a born midfielder. He, Amy and I embarrased Samson, Harrish and Sybil :)

Ok, I'm (almost) off to the Tool concert tonight.

Cheers.

Plastered

So, I've not been this drunk in a while... maybe since last I quit drinking.... 'quit'. Too many reasons to really say why but the main one is a friend leaving to halifax in a day... it was his farewell party. Anyway, maybe I'll be more coherent in the morning and add to this. You would have to see how hard I am trying to fight typos.

Personality Tests

For some amusement, I tried Ami's new found personality test that's getting under her skin. Mine was pretty dead on - even the stuff I'd less like to admit and for that part, doubt. However, I tend to disagree highly on the test's assessment that I'm introverted to the point where I don't go out and meet new people... etc. Yes, for the most part I prefer the company of one to the company of many but that doesn't mean I don't go out to parties or random social gatherings and meet new people.

It got me thinking though... first, the typical definition of introversion and extroversion. While this may not be diction, to me I look into the view of either persona and look into their motives. Every person who I would confidently say is truly extroverted is actually completely narcissistic - perhaps by necessity. I've always found it difficult to carry on polite BS conversations cause I don't care to prattle on about myself and I don't care to ask questions which allow me to turn the conversation back to prattling about myself. To be fair... maybe some of those extroverted people really are curious of others thoughts and have a knack for getting that out of them... I simply don't care to put the effort into it for strangers. Hmm, this may be biting into the point I was getting at in that the introverted person actually may care more about others than themselves when it comes to conversation and focuses maybe too much into who the other person is. Ok, revision, extroverted people have no qualms about being narcissistic (or maybe letting others indulge in their narcissism?) while introverts are very selective into who they let into their world or who's world they want to explore. Hmm, still doesn't seem to completely satisfy. I guess I keep looking to people I know who I'd call one or the other and try to attach some level of vanity to them - but I keep coming up with singularities that contradict my points. As far as my current theory goes, singularities on the extroverted side, I highly like... singularities on the introverted side, I highly dislike. I guess it just comes down to levels of vanity and narcissism.

My other point is a little more personal in my rationale behind a personality test pegging me as introverted. Basically, I need another person around whenever I do something new. Well, not need as in safety blanket need but my fun is multiplied if I have someone to share it with - exponentially if I connect with that person. When it comes down to it, while a lot of my personal philosophies value human life - I still dislike a lot of people on a personal level when I get to know them. It's always really nice when I can be with someone who I can turn to and look into each others eyes and mutually think "What the fuck?". Otherwise I just have to swallow my exasperation.

On the whole of personality tests... I was thinking if they're accurate, why do you need to take one? The rub: you aren't sure who you are.

A needed restful weekend

Had a very restful day where I did virtually nothing. I just came back from watching Clerks II with some friends and then played some pool at my spiffy newish place. I've decided that you should only ever play pool with 4 - maybe 3 - people around. No more, no less. With two, there's not enough social interaction; with more and you're just fighting to shoot.

If you've been into the Jersey... quintillogy up to now, then you should see Clerks II. I was very hesitant about seeing it and while it lacks a lot of the originality and some of the insight the first one did, it's still entertaining. It also has a much different theme... I just have to salute Randal's naivete and his attempt to take back porch monkey (4 life!).

Oh, and I finally figured out what was fucking wrong with my circuit... one of the inputs to an op amp wasn't grounded. Very frustrating to have an obsolete circuit diagram accompanying a PCB where you haven't designed either. You DMM is your best friend.

Also, having a house to yourself is awesome. Being able to crank the music at 1am rules.

Alright, time to get some shut eye...

And we now return to our regular programming...

So I've not posted for 2+ months. Any small subset of readers I have likely have stopped reading. Definitely have been too busy. Anyway, I'll have to update this more often and in likely small chunks. One bad habit is leaving this later and later thinking to myself that when I have time to update, I'll update it and do it justice by posting something gargantuan (eat it Elle). The problem of that is then you get intimidated by how much more you'll have to post and it just grows and grows. The ancillary problem is that people are less likely to read a gigantic post.

Ok, brief updates: Won Supermileage again... 4th consecutive year. 3145 MPG over last year's 1609 and the closest competitor at ~1800. Just finished a BBQ for student teams but it was primarily Supermileage. Oh well, their loss and now I've got a freezer overflowing with food. Anyone care to help me consume it?

Summer is winding down... courses over but now catching up on tons of other paperwork and stuff that I've been putting off. Seems I'm out of a job come September because David doesn't have enough work to give me. Not sure what I'll do but it's tempting to relax and put solid time into my courses this year. Some of the extracurricular stuff I've been doing has revolved around trying to improve the curriculum with both the physics department and apsc professional development.

Supermileage and I were planning on attending Japan's Eco-Marathon. Ironically, I decided I couldn't take the time off work and now I no longer am burdened by that. Oh well.

Ok, more updates later... perhaps nap now.