ALMOST THERE

I've been working hard the last couple of nights, reading from text books and such, in an effort to catch up. I still can't believe how fast my classes have been out of the gate. It was out of my control really, but had I been on the ball from week one, I'd be laughing right now. As it stands, I gotta go hard-core until probably Sunday before I'm where I need to be.

Until then, the rest of my life is somewhat on hold. My room is a mess and I need to vacuum. I want to go shopping for new dinner plates. There's a recipe I want to try from a cookbook. Jedi Academy is now out. My fridge is empty. The list goes on...

3am in the morning... I need to get some beauty sleep.

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NOTORIETY

Wow, who knew slacking off the first two weeks of school would cost me so much in terms of work now. The odd thing is that I don't even have any assignments to work on. I'm just doing reading.

Actually, it's all the damn marking I'm doing that's costing me. There are over sixty students in my tutorial and I haven't been given answer keys to their assignments. I have to make up the keys before I even mark a single question. I've talked to a few of my fellow grad students here at SJC and according to them, this is not normal nor fair to me. I learn a little bit more each time I teach and each time I mark, but I still have lots to learn. The good thing is that I'm pretty sure I'll be a kick-ass TA for this course next term. I just hope I can get through this term first.

So today, I had two odd run-ins with total (almost) strangers on campus. I decided today was the day I would get my U-Pass. All of this stuff is done at Koerner Library, which I like to avoid since it's so busy with undergrads. On the way there, I'm minding my own business when out of the blue someone says my name.

"Erwin!"

I stop and look and it's this young lady going by me the other way. I have no clue who it is. I gamble and make a split-second decision to bluff my way out of it.

"Oh hey, hi"

I guess I had a really bad poker face on because she saved me from further embarrassment.

"I'm Molly's younger sister, we met last Thursday."

Yes, in fact, we did meet. Molly was one of the bridesmaids from the wedding I went to on Friday. Molly drove me home from the rehearsal dinner, but she stopped off at her parents' home before that and I met her family.

Her sister was able to recognize me again from a five-minute meeting and this time in daylight instead of night. Weird. We talked a bit about the wedding, but it got progressively weirder. I made some mention about my U-Pass and left.

Once in the library I was met with some bureaucratic red tape, but luckily that resolved itself quite quickly. To get your U-Pass you have to hand your student card to any number of student workers manning workstations. Out of the many workstations, my turn in line directed me towards one where a young lady took my student card. Not five seconds after I handed her my card, she asked me a question which was most surprising.

"Hey, did you work at EA?"

I was surprised enough at her question that I didn't answer right away. I eventually did though.

"Now, why would you ask me a question like that?"

"My brother is Alex Murdoch, you played softball against him this summer. I was there too."

Too weird. Two separate run-ins. Both with sisters of people I know. Murdoch and I worked at EA togther. During the summer softball league, Murdoch played as a ringer for another team. I didn't know he had a sister, nor that she was on his team when I played him.

Since there was no one else lined up behind me, I decided to chat with Murdoch's sister. It turns out she's finished her degree at UBC in Theatre. She told me Alex is engaged. Of course, if you're an EA employee, you might already know this. After a few minutes of small talk I decided I to take my leave. I thanked her for my U-Pass and went on my way.

It's amazing how many people you can run into on campus on any given day.

Ok, sleep time!

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SEA-MONKEYS

Over the weekend, I was in Pacific Centre when I passed by one of those carts they have in the mall level. They were selling Sea-Monkey starter kits. I picked up the cheapest one they had.

It looks identical to the one I had as a kid, right down to the location of the magnifying bubbles on the plastic tank. I remember my Mom helped me clip an order form from the back of a comic book. We sent the form away and a few weeks later the kit came in the mail.

Even as a kid, I knew the elaborate illustrations of Sea-Monkeys in clothes and doing activities as a family were a bunch of crap. They're a special kind of brine shrimp. How special? Well, a few weeks after I had my kit up and running, as a typical kid is prone to do, I knocked the tank over. The whole thing emptied onto the carpet, much to the chagrin of my parents.

For some reason, I didn't clean out the tank and just left it to dry out. Weeks later, I put more water into the tank and pretty soon I had new Sea-Monkeys. That batch lasted much longer and they got to be quite large in size and complexity. In the end, I had to flush them down the toilet, because I swear my little Sea-Monkey society was mere days away from acquiring the ability to produce nuclear weapons.

So, I have a new tank now. I'm not allowed to have a cat or a dog and fish are too time consuming for me, so these brine shrimp should do the trick. I only need to feed them once a week, so that's something I can do. When they get bigger, I'm thinking about putting them on my webcam.

If all of this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because you might have seen RALLAN do something like this. I figure we're even because I've visited his damn "new" web site for months now and it stills says it's "mere days" before it launches.

Well, it's getting really late and I've done squat all weekend. I'm going to get my ass kicked by school work this week. Have a good one everybody!

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KICKSTART

I am glad the week has ended. I've been really stressed all week. Actually, I've been stressed since school started. Not only did I have to deal with school, I also had duties as one of the ushers for the wedding of two of my close friends, Nic and Marcia.

Their wedding was on Friday evening. My ride to the wedding was late and I nearly caused the whole production to be late as well. I spent most of the way to the wedding fretting in the back of a mini-van. If it weren't for the re-assurances from my friend Rhonda, I probably would have been much more nervous.

I arrived five minutes prior to the scheduled start of the wedding. What made it even more important for me to be on time was that the History Channel was on hand to tape the wedding ceremony. A relative of Marcia's was the last Canadian to win the Victory Cross.

About five minutes after I got there, I realized I hadn't caused that much strife and that things were going to be ok. It was a wonderful and quick ceremony. I've never been in a wedding party before and I didn't realize the importance and honour of such a position until I was actually at the wedding. It's a hell of a lot of work, but it can be worth it in the end.

With the wedding over, I thought today would be the day where I could get caught up with the rest of my life, namely concentrating on school again. I got off to a late start by waking up at 11am. I had to return my tux, but I dicked around to 3pm before leaving. I partly blame that on Arash, and you can ask him about that if you see him.

After returning from downtown, I had sushi for dinner at the Village. Blah, blah, blah... next thing I know it's 9pm and I still haven't done any work. By then I figure I'll start easy by marking an assignment for the tutorial I'm teaching.

Three hours later and I still haven't finished marking it. I realize I'm new to TAing, but I'm being really careful about marking, getting it right, and making helpful comments. I need to speed up my marking or else I'll be spending more time on it than I'm paid.

Unfortunately, I've done nothing for my own classes and I need to do that soon or else I'll be really behind.

Well, I gotta go and get some sleep for tomorrow.

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