The drive home from UBC to Port Moody took 36 minutes tonight, delivering me back shortly before midnight. It's a new record, besting my old one of 40 minutes. Here's to light traffic and a tiny bit of speeding.

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I've taken the bus to work from Port Moody three straight days in a row now. It's not bad in the mornings when it takes me about 60 minutes to get to work. That's not bad considering where I live and where Backbone is.

The crappy part is going home. I've yet to go home on time all this week, so I don't know what the commute is like around 6pm. For the last three days, I've been heading out of the office around 8:10pm and arriving home at about 9:25pm. It's harder to make connections in the evenings when the buses run less frequently.

I'm going to drive for the rest of the week. Tonight was a prime example of why sometimes, it's a lot better to have your own car. I get on the #160 downtown for the ride back out to suburban hell. I make my way to the back of the bus where I take my seat. A few seats away, some dude sits down. His friend, some girl, sits down across the aisle from him where they face each other.

For the next 35 minutes or so, he starts talking to her at an obnoxiously loud level. Unfortunately, this guy isn't the most gifted orator in the world. So not only can most of the bus hear him babble on about crap, he proceeds to dish out nearly every detail of his life. From one conversation here's what I now know about this guy:

- 23 years old
- works in construction
- makes $29/hr. apparently (mentioned several times)
- father owns some wrecking yards in Abbotsford
- father is involved with the Hell's Angels in illegal activities that makes him lots of money
- got a girl pregnant after meeting her two weeks previously in a bar
- once owned a house valued at $500 000 in Surrey
- had the courts take away said house to give to the pregnant girl
- his baby is now four months old
- it's a girl
- apparently a big fan of Penticton
- once did cocaine in jail
- once knew some Chinese guy that went to UBC
- once spent $700 in a weekend on alcohol
- is a big fan of the expletives

There's more but I don't want to think about it just in case it gets burned into my long term memory. I'm horrified that some of this crap will stay in my brain and push out some critical piece of information that I might have gleaned in grad school.

All my life, I've tried not to stereotype construction workers, but I think this was the last straw. I've observed enough of them now that yes, you can shine a turd all you want, but all you'll get is a shit stained cloth with which you decided to use to shine that construction worker.

Enough of this, tomorrow, I'm driving to work.

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I wish I could say that I've found a new place to live but that would be lying. No, I'm being moved at work. Since day one, I've been sitting the designers/scripters area. The rest of the software engineers are in the cubicles by the windows. There just wasn't enough room for me there when I started.

Last week, they hired another scripter for the team. Our office so cramped because we've grown so fast, they can't accomodate the new guy without moving me. I'm being moved into Karen's old space. She left about two months ago to work at Microsoft.

The move will be bittersweet. All summer I complained about facing a wall when the other engineers had a window to the hot girls walking along W. Broadway. I also didn't like how I had much less lighting being away from the windows. On the other hand, where my desk is right now isn't too bad. Despite the open air concept, not a single person faces my desk directly, meaning no one can see me goof off out the corner of their eye. Also, I sit next to Dave which is a real treat. When he found out I was moving, he said he was sad and that he was going to miss me. He's already decided the new guy won't even be half as cool as I am... his words, not mine. I'll miss Dave too. It'll be tough to walk the 15 feet to visit Dave, but damn, I'm going to make the time.

One more thing, I'm actually going to be sharing a cubicle with another engineer, Greg. In a normal office, the cubicle would probably be for one person but since we've so tight on space, we're cramming two in. When I stand up now, my desk chair can barely roll back 6 inches before it hits the wall.

Well, at least I have window now... after the summer has ended.

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My three year adventure as a grad student ended Sunday when I handed in the keys to my apartment on campus. I was in that apartment 9 days short of a full calendar year. A year is a long time but it felt like I moved into that place just yesterday.

Overall, it's still very weird to think that I'm no longer a student. For the last three years, I was a grad student every day of my life. For me, I wasn't just a grad student when I was in class or doing schoolwork, it was a lifestyle. I enjoyed nearly every minute of it.

I vaguely remember when I made the decision to go back to school sometime in the summer of 2001. I was working as a tester at EA making $12.50 an hour. I was thinking that I could do better than this. After making up my mind, I set out to accomplish three broad goals for grad school: get a Master's degree, allow my education to get me a job as a software engineer making games, and have fun the entire time. In a rare display of things lining up in my life, I managed to somehow tick off every single one of those goals.

Though the having fun part might seem pretty superflous as a goal, I was pretty serious about that one. I kinda missed out on a lot of undergrad fun. You know how a lot of people use undergrad to goof off? I barely did any of that unfortunately. A few years after I graduated, I told a friend once that I felt like I perhaps had missed out on all of that. I was feeling some regret and wondered if that chance was forever gone. She told me that I there was no going back.

I am happy to say, sometimes, you can certainly go back, I did. During the last three years, I've had more fun and adventures than I could have ever anticipated. I've met a lot of quality people and suprisingly only a few not so quality people. Living a fulfilling life leads to contented soul. Someone wrote that once, I think it was me, like in the last sentence. Anyways, my point is I wiped away whatever regret I had about lost opportunities.

One thing that I do feel especially lucky about is the fact that I blogged the entire time I was in grad school. I had a four month warm-up period before September of 2002 in which I wrote about 10 posts that 2 people read. Good posts or bad, it's all there though on the right-hand side of this page. The archives are for me as much as they are for you. A few days ago, I was reading the first couple of posts just after I moved into SJC. I instantly remembered what my room looked like then, who I knew, who I didn't know, and what I was thinking at the time. If I ever need to know what I was doing during a certain week of grad school, I'll be able to find it. For me at least, it's interesting reading things like when I sliced my thumb open, had major oral surgery, had food poisoining for a week, went on a cruise with my family, got drunk in New Orleans with a fur salesman, and list goes on. I know for sure there were things I didn't blog. Perhaps, I should retro blog those events. I have one evening in mind that thanks to the passage of time, might be suitable for public consumption now.

In any event, I'm not sure how one post or my literary skills could sum up the last years of my life. It was the best time of my life. I accomplished everything I wanted to do. I had the pleasure of meeting so many good people from around the world. No matter how old I get, I will always think that being a university student is one of the greatest things you can be.

I'll close up with some thanks. I'd like to thank everyone I've met for making my life better. SJC residents make up the bulk of these people but there are others. My academic supervisor Dr. Croft was a kind and understanding soul the entire three years I muddled around in her lab. I have to thank every single one of my classmates who aided me in my studies. Good luck to them in their own academic pursuits. And last but not least (just like in an Oscar speech), I'd like to thank my family for putting up with me for the last three years while I basically I took a hiatus from being a "real world adult". Their generous financial support was the only reason why I could continue being a student for so long.

So ends this wonderful chapter of my life and I'm hoping the next few will be even half as fun as the last.

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