Emily came to visit last weekend (she scored herself a job interview here in Vancouver). The day she arrived, it was nice, clear weather. We hadn't had any really cold weather yet this winter. Then, out of nowhere, it snowed for 2 days straight.
Immediately after she left, Vancouver received a tropical weather system from Hawaii (yes, really) that lifted temperatures about 15c. We have to assume the weather was just trying to make her feel at home. Weird. :)
I'm hoping as many people as possible read this. Emily and I have finalised our travel plans for visiting Australia. I know people are going to be busy around this time of year, and we're not staying too long, but if anyone is around and wants to meet up, let me know! :) Our travel plans are:
| 20th December | Arrive in Sydney (morning flight) |
|---|---|
| 20th to 27th or 28th | Muswellbrook (parent's house) |
| 27th or 28th to 31st | Wollongong (Farzad's place) |
| New Years Eve | Sydney Harbour (stay awake all night) |
| 1st to 3rd | Katoomba (youth hostel) |
| 3rd to 9th | Urunga (camping with parents) |
| 9th to 13th | Sydney (youth hostel) |
| 13th January | Leave from Sydney (mid-afternoon flight) |
I might be able to use my old mobile SIM, so will be available on 0407 133 683. If that doesn't work, then I'll be available on my Canadian number +1 778 858 5480.
In the past month we've seen some long delays in arrival of parcels. My thesis has gone completely MIA. A parcel from Australia is somewhere in transit. Various products ordered online have been taking there time...
After much grumbling, we found an article online telling of month-long delays on Canadian imports! Oh no! Now, while the article made sense, Dad (gleefully) pointed out the article was from 2004 and so hardly relevant to the current situation. :P
Regardless, our grumbling seems to have paid off, as in the last 12 hours:
I need to grumble to the aether more often.
A brave or stupid person will take actions that are likely to end badly for them. You can only tell between "bravery" and "stupidity" by asking: were they aware of the risks to themselves?
I think this guy falls in the "brave" camp.
Police are investigating the discovery of an explosive device in Benalla, in central Victoria, yesterday. They say a council worker spotted the device on the spare wheel of his car when he left work. Worried it could harm others if it exploded, the man then drove his car to a more isolated area. Police bomb technicians were sent to the scene from Melbourne and confirmed it was an explosive device with potential to harm the driver of the vehicle.
Though perhaps a little stupid for not calling the police first...
From the New York Times:
The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”Interesting.
What is E8? E8 is an algebraic construct recently used by someone to produce a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. You can look it up if you want. Search for "surfer dude has a gut" to read all about it. It's a pity that it's wrong, but these things have to be tried.
For curiosities sake, I looked up what E8 really is, and wanted to share this tidbit of information:
This lattice, sometimes called the "8-dimensional diamond lattice", has a number of remarkable properties. It gives most efficient sphere-packing in 8 dimensions, and is also the unique even, unimodular lattice in 8 dimensions.
I'll assume that your eyes didn't glaze over too much, and you noticed the same thing I did. E8 gives most efficient sphere-packing in 8 dimensions. I have to admit, efficient sphere-packing in 8 dimensions is kind of impressive, but it is also incredibly useless. Such is the world of mathematics.
Yeah, things have been stressful here. So, when I visited Emily this last weekend, we did the only thing appropriate: wall climbing.
It was awesome. Emily and I got to practice our teamwork (initially learned in Splinter Cell), as one had to hold the rope and operate a ratcheting mechanism while the other one climbed. I was lucky she was there - by the end of the day my arms were so tired I just fell off the wall twice.
All the climbs were about 4m straight up, though the variation in knobs and handholds made some walls much more difficult to climb than others. On some you had to practically leap from your current position and hope you caught the next handhold before falling. It was kind of cool really.
Only one problem: my arms didn't function properly for 2 days afterwards. :) I was unable to squeeze or grip anything. I couldn't even squeeze a water spray bottle, my fingers and arms were that tired.
Still great fun though. :D
I kinda dropped off the online map in the last month. No blogs, avoided Facebook, minimal email, etc. That's because the last month went something like this:
Stress. Stress. Stress. Stress. Rain. Stress. Stress. Stress. Stress. Visit Emily. Stress. Stress. Stress. Stress. Stress. Arm pain. More rain. Week-long headache. Stress. Stress. Stress. Sun.
I'm starting to wind back up, getting in contact with people, etc. I'll see if I can raise enough emotional energy to post the Australia tour plans soon. Someone remind me to book a physio appointment tomorrow. :|
P.S. Things aren't all that bad. I'm just tired, stressed, and bits of me hurt. Haven't really felt like communicating much at all.
I have recurring dreams of crashing planes. They're generally big jumbo jets, and I'm standing on the ground, watching it pass overhead. I realise it's too low and too slow, and then I watch it hit the ground in a big fireball a few hundred metres away. I have to dodge the debris that is thrown away from the crash, and I try to look out for the people near me. Kind of disturbing.
One dream interpretation site suggests this:
To dream that a plane crashes suggests that you have set overly high and unrealistic goals for yourself. Your goals may be too high and are impossible to realize. You are in danger of having it come crashing down. Alternatively, your lack of confidence, self-defeating attitude and self-doubt toward the goals you have set for yourself is represented by the crashing airplane; you do not believe in your ability to attain those goals. Loss of power and uncertainty in achieving your goals are also signified.
Fair enough. I guess the part about me dodging and looking out for others is simply my concern for what's going to happen after these goals come crashing down. But now, what does it mean when a pair of blue planes crash simultaneously? That's what I dreamed last night. :|
So far, travel plans for the upcoming Australia trip go something like this:
I just watched Open Season. It's a decent movie, on par with Ice Age or Madagascar. At one point, one of the animals is asked to sing "The Teddy Bear's Picnic". He knows the tune but doesn't know the words...
Once there was a magical elf who lived in a rainbow tree
He lived downstairs from a flatulent dwarf
Who was constantly having to pee
One day the elf could take no more
So he went and banged on the rude dwarf's door
And what do you know, they suddenly both were ma-rried.
I didn't get to tell the story of how Emily and I scored cheap flights to Australia. So here goes.
It wasn't a dark and stormy night. I think. Emily and I had been looking at flight prices, and to fly both of us from Edmonton/Vancouver to Sydney was going to cost $5400. Not cheap. We checked and checked, but there were no cheap flights. Then, all of a sudden, a bunch of "A" class tickets were released. $1750 to fly from Edmonton to Sydney! That was a saving of $1000! Crazy!
But not everything was right. Sure, the flight would take Emily from Edmonton to Vancouver, and then from Vancouver to Sydney. But, for some bizarre reason, booking the same flight from Vancouver to Sydney would cost me $2500!
We quickly booked Emily's flight, and then umm-ed and ahh-ed about how I could get to Australia for the same fare. We hit upon an idea: I would simply purchase an Edmonton to Sydney flight, and then board at Vancouver! I would save $750, and just "miss" my Edmonton connections! So we tried to book the same flight but, alas, they were sold out!
We were minutes too late. We were defeated. We went to play some games. Knocking out guards and stealing national secrets is a good way to vent some frustrations (more on that later).
Later that not-so-stormy night, I decided to check the Air Canada website again. Would the cheap fares be back? Yes! Someone had released their hold (literally) on a cheap fare! I quickly called Air Canada to ask a stupid question: "Can I board this flight at Vancouver?" Much umm-ing and ahh-ing followed, and the call centre operator doubted his computer: "How can it be so cheap?" I don't care! We had been undone before by umm-ing and ahh-ing! I hung up on the call centre operator and we booked my flight from Edmonton to Vancouver online.
And that is the story of how we got two tickets to Sydney from Edmonton via Vancouver for $3500. As it turns out, I now have to fly from Vancouver to Edmonton so that I can start my journey to Sydney via Vancouver...
Coincidentally, the total savings are $1750. We could bring another person for that!
P.S. This story is very badly written. I would claim that I wrote it badly on purpose, but to be honest, I just can't write well. :)
I've been taking a bit of a break from blogging. I've been spending more time out kite flying or playing games. I'll post more about that later.
Right now, I want to link to Spread the Net. It's a UNICEF program to purchase bed nets for children in Africa, and so reduce the incidence of malaria. This is the kind of focused assistance project I like to see, and I'm happy that UNICEF is doing it.
Or rather, lost my helmet. I had been leaving my bicycle helmet on my bicycle after riding it to work. Finally, it was stolen. Silly me. Of course, that means I had to go buy a new and better one from MEC. ;)
Yesterday I received a parcel from a special friend in Australia. It was a set of his and her Australian woollen feet warmers, some uniquely Australian stationery, and funny signs to hang over doorknobs at work. We'll have to get some doors at work now. :)
All the presents are awesome, but I have to show you this photo of the doorknobs, and it's for a very special reason. It is a common practice for people to remove price tags before giving them as gifts, but look closely and you can see instead her pride at finding such a bargain gift. Yes, that's right, she wrote "Bargin!" on the price sticker, and a smiley face. I love it.
I have to admit, I do enjoy bargain shopping. It's not a standard male trait, but I do. Take the 500gb external hard disk drive that I bought; I have no use for it right now, but it was $200 off! Final price was $135! I can't go past that!
And I take my hat off to Emily. She scored herself a high quality 1680x150 22" LCD screen, with 3 years back-to-store warranty and a DVI cable included, for $260. I still can't believe that. It would've been decent value at $350. Just awe inspiring. :)
I'm off to Edmonton this weekend. The next 3 long weekends will be spent visiting Emily and her family there. Now that I've rediscovered kites, I figured it would be good to bring my new kite there. They have nice winds this weekend...
Unfortunately, the kite is around 90cm long when packed. That's too large for all of my suitcases. At the same time, the kite can't travel alone as checked baggage - it's too fragile for that.
So, time to disassemble part of my desk, and use the metal beams as strengthening struts of my kite bag. I pity the luggage that tries to wrestle with my kite now, protected by rigid metal poles... and a few pair of socks. :)
Last weekend I went down to Vanier Park to fly my kite. It's a popular kite-flying site, getting great westerly winds off the ocean. Looking around I was suffering a bit of kite-envy, and so asked around for recommendations on a new kite. Eventually, I went and bought myself a brand new Prism Quantum stunt kite identical to that shown below.
It's an amazing kite to fly - incredibly stable, smooth and responsive. I can land it on the ground like the lunar module on the Moon. It has a wider turning circle than I'm used to, but that can be adjusted. It can fly in low wind or high wind depending on various bridle settings. It's a real step up from what I had.
But what I'm really enjoying is being able to get out and meet other people. There's a wide variety of people at Vanier Park who fly kites:
Then there's the couples, all around my age and trying out their first stunt kite. And even more people walking past who are interested in your kite. I love giving them a go of my kite.
In the end, any time there's wind, there's a bunch of people turning up on bicycles to fly their kites. They're a great group of individuals, and I'm enjoying just make contact with them. I'm hoping to spend more time down there after work. I just have to keep watching the Jericho Wind page... :)
Not long after showing the photos I took of the eclipse, I received more photos from people in Australia. Both sets of photos put me to shame. The first set was sent by a special friend of mine in Australia, whose brother and sister took photos from her balcony. The time lapse sequence in particular looked awesome. They're the kind of photos to make you howl at the moon.
The second set of photos was from my Dad. One of his photos was taken after he "pointed his camera in the general direction of the moon", and was much better than anything I took. Show-off. :P :) But yeah, this is the best single photo of the eclipse I've seen.
Yep, I got up at 2am and walked down to English Bay to see the red moon. I was actually surprised at how few other people were out to see it. I guess a lot of people in the city could actually see it from their balconies. Or were just too warm and cosy in bed. :) In any case, I got to see it clearly from the beach, and snapped some photos as it happened.
Shooting a lunar eclipse gives you plenty of practise in low-light photography. The middle one is a 4 second exposure, maximum zoom, f8.0 aperture, ISO50 film. Those settings were chosen to maximise image quality (the moon was a tiny little blurred speck even when at maximum zoom).
This is my 250th blog, and I'll commemorate this with a story about that greatest human achievement: fire.
As I mentioned, Emily and I went camping recently. We arrived at the campsite around 10pm, not long after it had rained. With a firepit in our campsite, it seemed only logical that we light a campfire. Since we're not made of very stern stuff, we opted to buy firewood from the campground manager for $5.
Having the firewood was not enough though. You have two Computer Science students, in a damp campsite, trying to light a fire. I mean, we're both perfectly capable of setting off fire alarms just by trying to cook. But intentionally starting a controlled fire?
First, we realise that we need paper. Let's hear three cheers for tourist brochures and magazines! They burn a little funny, perhaps because they're glossy paper, but otherwise they work just fine.
Next, we need the optimal fire structure. Something that will protect the fire, focus the heat, etc. A pyramid or tee-pee structure perhaps? We tried, and tried, and failed. In the end, just throwing the logs one over the other, with tinder underneath and paper jammed between was our solution. This "lazy" approach seemed suitably Australian to me. :)
We got to watch that fire burn itself out as we lay in the tent. In the morning, Emily arose first (surprise!), and got the fire going again. She was very proud of her handiwork, as you can see in this picture.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. Emily's fire was actually burning more fiercely than the previous night's, and we needed to put it out quickly. Plastic shopping bags filled with water served in place of the usual buckets. We managed to fill the air with smoke and steam before we drove out. Very nice. :)
In Australia, I used to frequently carry things on the back of my bicycle. Carrying 36 cans of soft drink was common, as we needed to restock the fridge in our lab at university. I haven't carried large amounts of stuff on my bike here before.
But now, the local chain grocery store has closed down. The next nearest (cheap) grocery is a few blocks away, so I ride there now to do my shopping. As a bonus, the ride takes me close to other shops, like London Drugs (which is like a miniature Big W).
Of course, this leads me into temptation. Today I bought two large archival boxes, and two cushions. All were on special at London Drugs. Getting them home was the tricky part (see photo). I'm lucky I always have straps on hand when cycling, though sitting on the bicycle was difficult after this. And I did manage to put a indentation and lose some skin from my thumb when one of the straps released prematurely.
At the end of our vacation, Emily and I went camping for one night in Elk Falls. I've uploaded photos already, but I need to describe just how different it is from Australian camping.
In Australia, the average campground is:
I do miss the beaches and heat of Australia. That's why I'm coming home in December. But if you want a cool, relaxing camping experience, Canada has it.
I was playing Unreal Tournament last night, using the "Capture the Flag" rules. In this game, the players are split into two teams. The teams start on opposing sides of the field as in any regular sport - though to gamers it is called the "map" and players are said to "spawn" on opposing sides. From their starting positions, each team must try to steal a coloured "flag" located somewhere on the other team's side. It is a game of simultaneous attacking and defending, as you try to find the other team's flag, but prevent them from finding your own.
The human players were myself, Emily, and Jordan (a friend of hers from work), with five computer players added to fill up the teams. Emily and I were both on Blue team, while Jordan chose to be on Red team, opposing us.
Halfway through the game, I managed to find the Red flag. However, in front of it was Jordan (who is a very skilled player). I had to defeat Jordan before I could safely steal their flag.
Now, unknown to me, Emily had followed me throughout my attack and was preparing to steal the flag herself! While I fought with Jordan, I was treated to the amazing sight of a waddling two-legged cow flanking him to steal their flag! It was a brilliant and sneaky play, made absurd by her squat and furry choice of character. It was, for me, truly a sight to behold.
Unfortunately, I then lost the duel with Jordan, and Emily was shot in the rump as she tried to waddle away with the flag. Still, that sight of Emily, as a two-legged cow, flanking the defense and stealing the flag was the highlight of the game. :)
Wow! I just got back from a great Disneyland holiday with Emily. I forgot to mention it before we left. We had basically no net access, so I couldn't update this blog. Oops. :)
I have to say, it was an awesome way to spend a week. It's two whole parks really, Disneyland and California Adventure, sitting right next to each other. There's no 'extreme' rides - the biggest rollercoaster does just one loop - but there's a lot of very fun rides, parades, stageshows, water rides, a nightly fireworks show, Disney characters walking about...
They also have a cool "fastpass" system that allows you to bypass long queues that normally plague these places. You insert your park entrance ticket into a machine near one of the popular rides, and you'll be allocated a time. If you come back to the ride at that time, then you get to use an express "fastpass" line! This lets you run off and try less popular rides (like the Winnie the Pooh ride) rather than waiting in line. Sweet!
I mention the Winnie the Pooh ride because it was the key to our second day at Disneyland. In the morning, just after riding Splash Mountain, we needed a warm place to be. Winnie the Pooh is one of those cute little indoor story-telling rides that kids would love. But mainly, it was warm. On exiting the ride, we're approached by two staff members saying "Congratulations! You're winners as part of our Year of a Million Dreams!" and gives both of us "Dream Fastpass" tickets! These let us use all of the express lines for each of the rides, just once, at any time we choose during the day. A Dream Fastpass overcomes the main limitation of regular fastpasses (that you can only hold one fastpass ticket at any one time). On that day, we did every major ride in every park. :)
I've uploaded a bunch of photos from both of our cameras:
We also have this awesome photo of us in the Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters ride. We both have such incredibly serious faces as we shoot the little aliens stuck on the walls. You can see why we play Unreal Tournament together. :)
I went out to dinner with a workmate and a visiting professor. Sitting there in an open-air pub, nice atmosphere, and then a bird shat on me. My initial reaction was "someone just threw orange juice on me". I don't know what that bird ate, but it was some nasty stuff. The guys I was with loved it.
So I went to the washroom to clean it off and no less than 4 strangers told me it was good luck. Not only was I the recipient of the nastiest bird poo I've seen, but everyone saw it. I just don't know what to say.
I got to try my first unisex washroom though. It was a good night out. :)
So I had a cyst on my back that recently became infected. After the infection passed, I had to go back to the doctor and have it cut out. A minor surgical operation. The following is approximately what the doctor said during the surgery:
Hello. Yes, so this is it here? In the middle of your back? Oh yes, I can see it leaking there. Ok, lie down on your stomach. I'm going to put some freezone in, and you shouldn't feel anything in that area anymore. Ok, there we go, freezone in. Yep, that was 3 jabs. We just have to wait a bit until that takes effect.
Ok, now let me know if you can feel any of this. Nope? Good. Can you feel this? Nope? Ok, good. [feel tugging on my back that lets me know he's cutting]
Hmm, you know how you sometimes look at something, and don't realise how big it is? This is one of those situations. The cyst is about the size of a grape. It's a bit bigger than I was expecting. [scraping noises]
You can feel that? Are you ok? Would you like some more freezone? No, no, this shouldn't take much longer. Ok, we'll keep going. [squishing noises that sound like a plumber with a plunger...]
Hmm, ok, there's half of it. I'll put it on the table here. You can see how big it is. Have to get the rest of it now. You doing ok there? You can feel the cutting? Yeah, we're probably not using enough anaesthetic for the size of the cyst. Not too long until we're done though.
Ok, that's done. Now, this has left a cavity about the size of a grape, of course. I'll start stitching it up now, but some of these have to be deep to try and close the cavity. Yeah, the anaesthetic isn't really deep enough. Let me know if you want to stop.
Ok, the rest of these stitches you shouldn't feel as they're on the surface. Oh, you can feel those? Yeah, they're just outside the area of the anaesthetic. Ok, those are done. Almost finished.
All done! Now, if you ever see those stitches - guess you won't with them on your back eh? - well, if you do, you might notice they're a bit erratic. I wasn't quite expecting the cyst to be so large. Anyway, come back in a week and we'll take them out.
I have to admit, he was a good doctor. I can't see his handiwork for myself, but he was friendly, and he did offer more anaesthetic. Was my choice to stick it out. But boy was that painful. :|
Now I've just got to take care of it, have sponge baths, etc for a week.
It's this odd time of day where noone I know, anywhere in the world, is awake and online. Early Sunday morning in Canada, and the smart Canadians are still in bed. At the same time, it's late Sunday night in Australia, and everyone is tucking themselves in and preparing for work on Monday morning.
There still are times of the day when my little part of the Internet shuts down. I'm not overrun with instant messaging just yet. :)
I just bought a Kill A Watt power monitor to measure the power usage of the appliances in my house. I have a very low electricity bill, and I was interested in seeing just why it was so low. I'm also planning to leave the device at work for other people (with higher bills) to borrow and use, and presumably get more value from.
Initial wattage results for personal devices that are left on but idle:
So, leaving my computers and stuff on when I sleep and when I'm not at home is about 70 watts. When I'm home and using them, it's about 120 watts. The main lights in my place are flourescents and so I'll add about 30 watts for those. I'm not sure how much the fridge uses, and I'm not going to check. But that covers pretty much all the appliances in my apartment. Not bad really.
Not long after I arrived, many of the trees in Stanley Park were blown down. This was really unfortunate, because the park itself is a beautiful woodlands/forest, and the downed trees made it impossible to access many areas. Now, almost a year later, they still haven't restored all paths around Stanley Park.
However, some of the new detours they created are more interesting than the original paths. They are well marked, and take you places that the average tourist would never have gone. It seems a more pleasant trip now that you are forced through the heart of Stanley Park.
I'm planning to start riding around and through Stanley Park every afternoon, if I rode my bike to work that day. In a couple of weeks, I'll probably be fit enough to ride the trails to Prospect Point again - something I haven't been able to do since last summer.
Feels nice to get outdoors again.
I started this blog around 1.5 years ago. It was a way to record my moving and settling to Canada, and as a way to keep some information flowing to friends. Moving to Canada was a new chapter of my life, and a fresh start.
But now I'm settled in Canada, and I'm finding less and less material. Do you really what to hear that my lunchbox is chipped and I wonder if I ate it? Or that my futon is comfy enough to sleep on without unfolding? Or that the sun is coming up earlier and staying until late in the evening? I'm not sure you do.
This chapter, "Moving to Canada", is almost over. I've had friends and family visit from Australia, and my parents are staying in my apartment right now. My thesis is almost finished, and I should graduate in December. And I'm deeply in love with a girl called Emily, and we're hoping to be together soon.
I know that I'm entering a new chapter now. But where is it going? What is the title of this next chapter? I have no idea. What do you want to know? How many people still want to read how I am? Perhaps I'll start blogging more of my personal life. Post a comment and let me know what you want to see.
I do want to say thanks to everyone who kept reading throughout. It was comforting to know you were there, and was good to know that people still laughed at my lame jokes. Love you guys very much.
Someone started up a lawnmower outside, and I thought the postman was coming.
An Australian will understand that. :) Our postman ride little motorbikes along the footpath, delivering mail into all of the mailboxes located at the end of our driveways. It's different here in Canada. The postman walks around, and my mailbox is actually the front door of my apartment.
Anyway, just thought I'd share one more of those things that I notice as an Australian in Canada. Off to work now (running late).
If I eventually choose to settle here in Canada, then I would eventually need to make a choice about citizenship. One thing I decided a long time ago is to never release my Australian citizenship. At least, until Australia decides it no longer wants me.
But it is tempting to get dual-citizenship for Canada as well. If only to be able to vote here, and have some small influence on what direction this country goes. It is too close to the US to be apathetic; what happens there will eventually come here, unless we choose to stop it. It's a sad, messed up country that one. :(
Just discovered a new artist that, of course, everyone else already knows about. If you're like me, and had heard the songs, but didn't know the name, well, now you do. It's John Mayer. :)
This is the kind of computer science paper that you'd see in horror movies. You know, the kind that makes you want to scream "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!".
Yes, a reader is expected to understand all of that. Shudder.
Judging by the hushed awe, the crowd of 20,000 expected a profound utterance from the Dalai Lama. Instead, the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader of Tibet tweaked his nipples.
Those were the opening sentences of an article by Michael Lallo, June 10, 2007 in The Age. They were also the only lines to show up on Google News for that topic. If that doesn't grab your attention, nothing will.
Recently I've been finding that I begin one task, only to leave it uncompleted as another task grabs my attention. This can happen within seconds.
For example, I feel like a drink so I get the Coke out of the fridge. I realise I need a glass, so I move to my desk to get the glass I used earlier. I see unpaid bills sitting next to the glass, so I start to open the bills. I start to open the bills, and notice that there is a pile of paid bills that I should file first. I file the paid bills, and then continue to clean my desk. I take the cup from my desk to the kitchen to wash it, only to discover a bottle of warm Coke on the counter...
This is bad enough, but one week later I find a literally half-opened bill sitting on my desk!
So, to any lady readers out there, take this as a warning. Men do not multitask. :)
My work is having an "open house" day tomorrow, where "open" means "open to those who are investing in us". That means I have to wear actual pants and a tucked-in shirt, and be at work earlier in the morning. Damn.
Back of my right hand starts tingling if I type for about half an hour without the wrist brace. Back of my left hand takes about three hours to reach the same state, though I don't have a brace for it to use anyway. I sometimes get pain around the actual right wrist, and up the forearm, regardless of whether I use the brace or not. I also get pain inside both left and right shoulders.
A friend at work gave me some pain relief cream to rub on my hands from time to time. Seems to work on the back of the hands, but everything else seems too internal. Sometimes I can feel the tendons dragging back and forth inside my wrist. I've started taking anti-inflammatory pills (Naproxen, 500mg, twice daily) that were originally prescribed for my back. That seems to have calmed things down a bit. I'll see how I go this week.
A few days ago I submitted my first complete thesis draft to my supervisor. You can download a slightly updated version from the link on the right. I reviewed some of the requirements for my University and found that the first two chapters, which I thought needed more work, could be conflated into one chapter with no more work required! This means that my thesis is now 136 pages, plus 11 pages of tables of figures/notations/contents/etc, and 3 pages for title and certification.
Now I just need to communicate with my supervisor more frequently, and start getting this thing evaluated.
The environment here almost feels like home at the moment. It's not quite there, but very very close. Today was warm and sunny, and this evening started with a quick hard rain shower and then a light cool breeze. There was even a spider building a web in my flowering plants on the balcony; one of nature's little blessings that I haven't seen in a long time. For too long this place has felt almost lifeless. It's good to see things living again.
Title kind of says it all. Looking forward to meeting parents and rellies for lunch. :)
I recently transferred some money from my Canadian account to my Australian account. I was curious to see how long it would take, what the exchange rate penalties would be, etc. I was told by the bank that there would be a $30 fee for the transfer, which seemed not bad.
What was unexpectedly painful though was the 2% skimmed off the my transfer due to exchange rates. The current market price for 1AUD is 0.884CAD, but they used a rate of 0.902CAD! I understand this skimming is necessary due to market fluctuations, but 2% seems a bit high. Imagine that someone transferred $10000 from Canada to Australia and then back to Canada. After losing money to fees and margins they would have less than $9550 left!
When my parents come to visit, I'll be giving them access to my Canadian dollars, and they can transfer equivalent money to my Australian account after they get home. That will let me pay off my University debts, and save them a little money on their trip. A much better solution.
My thesis is extremely close to completion. I've just completed a quick survey of current literature in my field... and my field has almost died. Woohoo! There's little chance of me being scooped, because noone cares! Seriously, this is a good thing, for me. :)
On the down side, my hands haven't been given a break. I'm getting quite used to my splint, but it doesn't help when I can feel ligaments sliding/grating inside my wrist and forearm. I think I can take a break in a couple of weeks.
It's been a while since I last blogged. Well, long time for me anyway. Some people barely blog once a month, or worse, don't blog at all! :)
Nothing particularly dramatic has been happening. I just mopped my floor for the first time since I landed here. My parents are flying in on Tuesday, so it's a special occasion. :) They've chosen a good time too, as the weather is improving. Everyone here is happy to see the sun shining again.
All in all, this is a "long time no see" point in my life. Sun, parents, and a clean floor.
Stress levels have gone back down. The weather has been amazing here too, which I think helps. No more cold and rain (until the weekend, at least)!
But I think the biggest help was the support from people who know me... and one certain person who had to weather my miserable mood whenever I wasn't working.
Thank you.
I've been trying to contain it, but my stress levels are way up at the moment. The wrist splint has been bothering me much more than most people know. There is new pressure at work as we attempt to alter our work practices. Other things in life are draining me every day. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.
All this means that, at the times when I should be working on my thesis, I am completely unable to think. I make no progress.
My body reacts to stress by making me feel sleepy. I feel very sleepy right now. :(
This is a post for all you Facebook users out there...
At one time or another, you've probably heard of the so-called birthday paradox. Roughly put, if you grab 23 random strangers off the street, there's a 50% chance that 2 of them will have exactly the same birthday. It's an interesting property about the world. You can observe it yourself by looking through the birthdays of your friends on social networking sites like Facebook.
Perhaps more interesting is a cute theorem I read about today, similar to the birthday paradox. I found it after trawling a mathematics webcomic (yes, they exist), then linking to a page on Ackermann's function, then linking to Graham's number, then linking to Ramsey theory, and finally linking to the theorem on friends and strangers. This theorem says that "if you take 6 random people off the street, you can guarantee that either 3 are mutual acquaintances, or 3 are mutual strangers". Think of that next time you do a triple-date organised by a friend. No matter who else attends, you are guaranteed that 3 people there have never seen each other before, or that 3 people already know each other. Or both.
I will now return to my regular schedule of self-inflicted thesis pains...
P.S. You may have noticed the six-degrees of connection in the above text. I swear that was completely unintentional. ;)
I have to say, this wrist brace is kind of cool. It feels soft, fits well, looks very funky. But I also have to say:
For !@#$% sake! When is my wrist going to stop hurting? :(
I've adjusted the keyboards at work and home to improve the angle of my wrist and elbows while typing. Right now I'm sitting very upright so that my shoulders are back. I probably look like I have another one of these aluminium rods stuck elsewhere. Still doesn't seem quite right, as I get some pain in the wrist and right elbow, but it's getting there.
I went to see the physio again today. Her opening line was: "Hi Peter! So is this a tune up? Or something more serious?". Luckily it was just a tune-up. My back was slightly out of alignment, as was a bone in my right arm. Nothing worse than I've had, but was a good idea to go the physio. She was rather impressed that I hadn't been in since February - the exercises seem to be working. Though she and I both predict that I'll be back in to see her in a few months.
I mentioned that the because of the pain in my right wrist I had tried immobilising it overnight by wrapping in a towel, a drink coaster, and a one-size-fits-all knee brace. She suggested that I get an actual wrist brace instead and use it while typing and sleeping, which is damn close to 24 hours... As it costs me $65 to go to the physio, and my wrists affect my long-term employment prospects, I figure that getting a good wrist brace is worthwhile. I bought one for $45 and am typing with it now. It certainly immobilises quite nicely the wrist. Now I just need to see if I end up with elbow problems. ;)
I have a related story with a more Canadian aspect. I bought the wrist brace from was a relatively young and chatty female pharmacist. We were talking and started comparing the concept of wrist braces to shoes, in that you should try them on and you don't want to get something that won't do the job. She then commented on how bizarre it is to see some people wearing some shoes like thongs all the way through the winter. Her choice of words sent off alarm bells in my head, so I asked "Are you actually from Canada?". She immediately knew why I asked: "Haha, yeah. We always used to call them thongs when we were kids, but then people started wearing the other type of thong, and suddenly we kids were told to call the things on our feet flip-flops." That explains some things.
Anyway, I'm likely to go back and get another wrist brace for my left hand if this one works out.
We never ever get thunderstorms in Vancouver. Really. Well, except for today. I was so happy to see a flash of light and a big roll of thunder. I remember being told the thunder was the sound of the gods playing pool/billiards/snooker. I miss those times, sitting back and imagining Thor sinking the white ball or something.
When I started my thesis, it wasn't on distributed constraint satisfaction. At least, not to the degree it is now. It was originally focused on parallelised constraint satisfaction. As part of my research into parallelised constraint satisfaction I did some work on hypertree decomposition. I've recently decided to include that back in my thesis. It's quite the trip back down memory lane to look at the program I wrote so many years ago. It was only ever used by me, yet had an interactive mode with online help.
$ ./red-decomp
Interactive mode. Type 'help' for a list of available commands
--------------------------------------------------------------
decomp> help
Commands can be given as arguments to this program, prefixed by a '-'.
Alternatively, interactive mode is used by supplying no arguments.
Available commands are:
build <s> <v> [ <c2> <c3> ... <cn> ]
Generates a problem with random seed s, v variables,
c2 extra binary constraints, c3 extra ternary
constraints, etc.
generate [ <v> [ <c> [ <s> ] ] ]
Generates a problem with v variables, c extra
constraints, and random seed s.
write [ <filename> ]
Writes a problem description to a file.
If no filename is given then stdout is used.
read [ <filename> ]
Reads a problem description from a file.
If no filename is given then stdin is used.
decompose [ <w> [ <v> ] ]
Constructs a hypertree decomposition graph for
the current problem, with maximum width w.
If v is supplied it sets the verbosity level.
extract [ <filename> [ <filename> ] ]
Extracts a hypertree decomposition from the
above graph, and writes it in dot format to
the first filename. If two filenames are given
all hypertree decompositions (as a directed graph)
is written to the second file.
print [ <filename> ]
Prints the decomposition graph. If a filename is
given the graph is written to the file.
statistics [ <filename> ]
Writes statistics about the decomposition, like
problem sizes, CPU times, etc. If a filename is
given then the information is written to the file.
test [ <filename> ]
Writes the statistics in a really brief form
useful for when conducintg experiment.
Pity that I forgot to document which version of the program actually worked...
No, no, not mine. Someone elses. Someone I know was given a corrupt database file and told to retrieve as much data as possible from it. If she tried to use the database file with its usual application (called Exist), then it would refuse to read much of the data as the file was corrupt.
Thankfully the software is open source. She downloaded the code to her personal machine, used a debugger to find the lines that were detecting file corruption, changed them so that they silently failed (permitting the application to continue reading from the file), and suddenly she was able to read all the data!
Very proud of her for what she achieved. :) First, she saved some people a lot of work to regenerate that data. Second, she used sophisticated debuggers to locate and create a solution. Third, this method of handling corrupt files in Exist is now one of her contributions to other developers like herself.
The following are the basic steps for conducting thesis experiments:
Hmm, something isn't right.
One of these steps is not like the other.
One of these steps is way out of sequence.
Can you tell me which should be done earlier?
Do you think I'll ever finish this thesis?
:P
Most computer science or mathematics theses are written in a language called LaTeX. This isn't a regular "markup" language like HTML. It is actually a horrible programming language based on TeX that, when executed, normally is used to output DVI, PostScript, or PDF files. It can also output other bits of information which it will then reuse on subsequent runs to generate bibliographies, table of contents, etc.
Most Linux users are acquainted with the shell. This is normally seen as a text environment to execute programs. It is actually a horrible programming language called "sh" that, when executed, can do pretty much anything, including generate files, run LaTeX, or prompt the user.
Most people are not acquainted with sed. This is normally seen as a utility program to manipulate strings. It pretty much is just that. Technically, it too is a programming language. Noone ever uses it like that.
All the experiment results for my thesis are stored in SQLite databases, which provides me a simple but fast relational storage. SQLite has a command line interface and can produce simple text tables. I can then take those tables and run them through sed, which produces LaTeX tables. I can then copy-paste those generated tables into my thesis. The shell code to automate most of this looks like:
echo '\\begin{tabular}{|c|ccc|ccc|c|}'
echo '\\hline'
echo '& \\multicolumn{3}{c|}{\\textbf{SBDS}} & \\multicolumn{3}{c|}{{\\textbf{AWCS}}} & \\\\'
echo '& Nogoods & Isgoods & Values & Nogoods & Nogoods\\footnotemark[1] & Values&$f$\\\\'
echo '\\hline'
for w in "instance>0" "constraints=420" "constraints=460" "constraints=500"
do
sqlite3 -separator '&' results.sqlite "select '$w',round(avg(a.nogoodssent)), round(avg(a.isgoodssent)), round(avg(a.valuessent)), round(avg(b.nogoodssent)), round(avg(b.nogoodsmade)), round(avg(b.valuessent)), round(avg(a.violations=0)*100)||'\\\\' from results as a,results as b where a.algorithm='coop' and b.algorithm='awcs' and a.instance=b.instance and a.$w";
done | sed -e 's/\.0//g' -e 's/violations=0/Feasible/' -e 's/violations>0/Infeasible/' -e 's/instance>0/Average/' -e 's/constraints=\([^\&]*\)/$|\\constraints|=\1$/' -e 's/tightness=\([^\&]*\)/$|t|=\1$/' -e "s/'values'=\([^\&]*\)/$|\domain|=\1$/"
echo '\\hline'
echo '\\end{tabular}'
So: I've written a program (in shell) that dynamically executes a query (in SQLite) that is piped through a dynamically created program (in sed) that generates another program (in TeX) to be executed. The execution of this TeX can produce another program (in PostScript) that can be executed to display my thesis.
Be afraid.
Start of spring, Sunday morning, lots of clapping... Must by the Vancouver Sun Run again! Near identical to last year. Sometime I should join in.
what is missing from Baraka?
I've heard Baraka described by another fan as "a movie that tries to capture everything" or "what God would see if he was looking at Creation". Lofty statements, I admit. But I put down the challenge: what does Beraka fail to show? What does it show?
space, creation, heat, cold, evolution, contemplation, introspection, time, worship, god, rituals, heritage, passing information between generations, the body used for expression, reenactment, our acknowledgement of nature's power, our belief in a higher power, industry, scale, individuality, ...
And that's all before the first strange man in white paint screams!
After that comes death, massacres, war, childhood, play, ... The list goes on. So far it seems to be missing things like love, passion, and nurturing which, for rating reasons, can never be shown in full detail anyway. :)
Watch it closely. What else is missing from Baraka? The challenge is there.
At work we have a little IRC (chat) channel that we use to quietly communicate amongst ouselves. Our working environment is a large, open office, so this provides a practical means to notify others of your actions without bothering too many people. As we are technology workers, it also serves as a common area for dumping text fragments (website addresses, pieces of code, etc) and is extremely useful.
Sometimes we want to capture a conversation or conclusion that we reach, and the IRC channel is perfect for that. We have our own (ro)bot that listens to our IRC messages, logging everything that we say. This bot is called the "WickedWitch", and we are her code monkeys. What is most fun about the WickedWitch, is what she thinks of us:
WickedWitch says: You are nothing but an elf-skinned mound of imp-bladdereddle-headed rat.
Yes, our bot throws random insults at us, or, more accurately, our work. It is programmed to insult our current project once every hour. Every day, we are given a fresh serving:
WickedWitch says: You are nothing but a bootless ooze of spongy spit. You are nothing but a lumpish puddle of goatish craptacular. You are nothing but a yeasty petrification of low-quality cold.
Now, some of us leave our computers on overnight, and get to watch the Witch overnight. And a curious thing was noticed. She would only insult us with squirrels when we weren't watching. This led to the "squirrel conspiracy".
Developer: a watched witch never insults squirrels
For example, at midnight: "You are nothing but a sausage-snorfling petrification of clapper-clawed squirrel" and four hours later: "You are nothing but a villainous petrification of full-gorged squirrel". So we did some quick statistical analysis; midnight and 4am are quite popular for squirrel insults, with 3 times more squirrel insults in those hours than the average! She would insult squirrels in the day time, but mostly on the weekends, when noone was looking. It was as if she was trying to trick us...
The Squirrel Conspiracy continues now, if only in our minds. Though we took a second to reprogram the Witch. She doesn't insult us anymore. Now she always insults squirrels.
WickedWitch says: Squirrels! You are nothing but a weedy half-mouthful of contemptible number-9.
My laptop is grinding away on experiments, so I'm taking some time out here and blogging about that holiday in Hawaii. I'll try to get it all written down before it's a distant memory...
Second day was fairly busy. We visited the Honolulu Zoo, primarily because it was within walking distance and it has been a long, long time since I went to a zoo. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if the animals were often in hiding and parts of the zoo were under construction. There was a particular group of monkeys that were extremely loud and active - it was a hoot! (Pun partially intended). I found it fun just to watch them casually swing around their "play pen".
After the zoo was lunch, and then time at the beach. As always, the water at the beach is a little bit cooler than you expect (we spoil ourselves in Canada with really warm showers and baths), but the sun and pleasant air temperature helps warm you while swimming. Waikiki Beach has a large area protected by a wall that is great for just paddling around in; even if you can't swim you can still enjoy yourself as much of it is only waist deep.
Dinner was a bit of a mess. If you find a place that you like the look of, then I recommend lining up and waiting for it. We found a few places that were decent, and tried each of them in turn (looking for the shortest line). By the time we'd finished doing all that, we could gotten into our first pick. After dinner it was a quick walk back to the Royal Grove to sleep.
Note that, for the entire day, we didn't cover more than about 8 blocks. Finding a hotel near Waikiki Beach means that you won't have to walk very far. Many of the regular hotels are a fair walk from the beach; I'd recommend trying to get something cheap and as close to the beach as possible.
P.S. In those 8 blocks we found about 9 ABC stores... One of which was advertising the opening of a new store nearby...
P.P.S. Sore throat evolves into a small cough on this day.
Looks like I missed a few birthdays in the last couple of months. Sorry everyone! I'll probably miss a few more soon. Sorry about that too! I'm hoping to squeeze out this thesis in the next month. After that my life should be back to normal.
I've been having weird dreams in the last few weeks. Just a few are:
Seems like there's a new dream each few days. Haven't found any pattern yet, except the occasional focus on "stress".
I've been finding myself tired a lot recently. Hence the utter failure to actually blog about the holiday I had some 2-3 weeks ago. Instead, I need to say that "Sobe Arush (Sugar Free)" energy drink actually isn't that bad. Unlike other "sugar free" drinks they didn't replace the sugar with aspartame either - it almost tastes like they removed all the sweetness. In reality, they used sucralose (aka Splenda), but I can't taste it.
Speaking of sweeteners, you might be interested in this fruit that, for about an hour after eating it, makes all other sour foods taste sweet.
Time to start summarising the trip! First day was spent travelling to Honolulu via San Francisco. I almost got to watch an attempted simultaneous landing at SFO again, but the other plane was too high and aborted at the last moment. I wonder what it was like on that plane when the captain says "sorry guys, I messed up, let me have another go". I also managed to grab some photos of the Golden Gate Bridge (by the way, whoever made the artwork for SimCity must have lived in San Francisco, as it looks almost identical to what you see in the game).
Honolulu Airport itself was hot, humid, and a generally unappealing lump of concrete. It hasn't changed since the last time I passed through. Trying to catch a taxi from the airport in the late afternoon, you begin to notice the laid-back "just relax, no rush, keep it casual" attitude of the locals. Things felt disorganised, with little communication, but they were friendly. We arrived at the hotel (very cheap, with air conditioning, would recommend) and then walked all of 2 blocks to Waikiki Beach.
The first thing you notice on your walk to Waikiki Beach is the ABC store on the corner. It's selling tourist and general goods, and you note it as a landmark and a place to go later for supplies. The second thing you notice is the other ABC store on the next corner. When you arrive at Waikiki Beach you might notice the beach itself, but the fourth thing you'll notice is the other ABC store on the corner to your left. The fifth thing you notice is the ABC store on the corner to your right. There's a lot of ABC stores at Waikiki Beach.
Rest of the day was spent scouting out places to go tomorrow (beach, zoo, Cheeseburgers in Paradise, that hula dancing show you just missed, etc).
P.S. First hint of a sore throat is the only medical problem.
So, I got back from Hawaii about 5 days ago. I think I need another vacation. :)
First I want to say how amazingly beautiful Hawaii is. That's saying something coming from an Australian (we tend to be unimpressed by the world's beaches and such when we have so many of our own). I was travelling with some Canadians, and we had the most perfect and stable weather we've ever seen. 27c was the high, every day, guaranteed. It was only on our last day that we had some rain, and even that passed over quickly, never interrupting travel plans.
I'll spend the next week or so posting little summaries of each island. Right now I can't remember how many we visited, but it was about 5. I'll post slowly.
P.S. I had a few medical problems in Hawaii. No doubt my parents are nodding their heads saying "yeah, sounds like Peter, spending 5 days in traction during our Queensland holiday", etc. I'll keep myself amused by recalling what new problems I had on each island. :)
How're things here in Vancouver? The weather is getting nicer; less rain, and clearer air. The mountains look like beautifully detailed paintings on a huge canvas. We even had some sunny days, that would make you look up and ask "where's all that light coming from?". Seriously, things are feeling better here.
In other news, there's apparently a big tunneling machine rampaging its way down Granville St. Construction crews spent the last month or more digging a huge hole in the middle of downtown so that they could install it, and now they'll dig the new subway (aka SkyTrain) tunnel heading south. I'll try to take some photos sometime.
Finally, I'm going on a cruise in Hawaii. Leaving in about 2 hours. Kind of forgot to mention it before. Anyway should be good. My wrists need the holiday at least. See yas in 10 days! :)
I started wearing this bright red shirt that was sent over from Australia. Very nice shirt. The problem was that it was so red, and was likely to run in the wash. I was advised to wash it, with detergent, in the handbasin first. Since I didn't want to screw things up (don't ask how, I'm sure I could've managed it), I figured I'd try washing a pair of dark blue jeans first.
The jeans are still running, after 3 hand washes and a rinse. My sink looks like I recently murdered a smurf. At least now I know why my socks and the tail of my rain jacket recently turned blue.
As for the shirt, yeah it ran; the sink temporarily looked like I was making tomato juice. But the jeans are amazing. They're still dripping blue.
I just found a collection of photo essays on the UNICEF website. They even have an RSS feed for subscribing for updates. I came across it after listening to a UNICEF podcast describing how, in one project, a camera was provided to the children of Beslan as a means for them to document, communicate, and deal with what is important to them.
I have to admit, I can't look at any of the photo essays for long before I have to turn away. The rest of the world faces challenges we never know about. Unless we go looking for it.
What are you people doing down there? Every week there seems to be a whole new variety of way to be killed by nature in Australia. Let's compare:
So remember kids, when in Australia, watch out for those drop bears. They're probably the only thing you have a chance of fending off.
I've been given time off work (thanks boss! I know you're reading this!) to try and make some progress on my thesis. It's helped a lot, and I feel like I'm on target to finish sometime around April. Now it's a race between me and a colleague from Ireland. Who will finish their thesis first? Stay tuned for the answer. :)
Well, not really. But the physio said that my pelvis was the in the best shape she'd ever seen it. Seems that stretching my leg muscles every hour at work has helped a lot (my computer kicks me off for 4 minutes every hour). Only one side-affect so far - my knees are wobbly and sublux a lot more than they used to. I have to build up the knee muscles know, to compensate for the loss of tension in the thigh muscles.
In related news, I went to put on my jacket on Monday morning. That hurt. I can't pick up heavy objects with my left arm now, and expect it to be that way for about a week. Physio says I need to ice it the shoulder for 10 minutes every day.
I've been getting into a lot of discussions/arguments at work recently. Right there's least three 'fronts':
In all these arguments I'm finding that I'm too aggressive. I have an excuse: I've been writing code for most of my life, and I'm never satisfied with poor designs. I know I sound patronising, up-myself, etc, but it's true - I struggle to accept code that's not right. But is this acceptable for a work environment?
I've been struggling to balance this desire for "perfection" with the need for good working relationships. In recent days, I said something to the two people I work closest with, something that applies to everyone:
If I become too much of a pain-in-the-arse to work with, let me know.
It doesn't seem to be all bad though. I said to one workmate, "I know I'm too arrogant"; he replied "No, you're not arrogant, because you're happy to hear criticism of your own work". That is true - I leap at chances to have people criticise my work because I'm never sure that I've been critical enough. I worry that others don't see that at times...
I'm making an effort now to be more 'measured' and 'considered' in my arguing. I'm trying to be more constructive. I'm reflecting on my criticisms, looking for weaknesses in my arguments, and discussing them with less passion. Hope it works.
It's been a while since I posted. There's a few reasons for that. Foremost is that I've been very stressed recently; working at home I'm like Happy Feet, except that I'm not happy and the shoe-tapping is just to relieve stress. Second is that there's not a whole lot to report. I was hoping to make it to the end of my first blogging year with one blog per day, but I'll have to go for one blog per two days.
I'll try to post positive news this week, but nowadays it's just a cold boring grind in many ways. Let's see what I can come up with.
Here's looking forward to when I get to see Australians again.
A few nights ago I was cleaning up my bedroom. Clean laundry had been piled on one side of the bed (I don't have a use for most of my bed) for about a month. I figured that a month was long enough and was putting it away... and noticed it was still warm. First thought:
It's retained heat from the dryer awfully well!Second thought:
It's slowly catching fire from the nearby power point!I then noticed that a certain spot on my bedroom wall was awfully warm. It seems that something is very hot in the neighbour's bedroom. So hot that it's heating my wall!
Whatever the source of their bedroom heat is, it's quiet and not bothering me. Unlike the neighbours on the other side of the apartment, whose bedroom gets very hot... and very audible...
I probably shouldn't be allowed out of adult supervision. I went to cook soup on the stove, and did the following:
Later that night I had some soup, with toast. Don't ask about the toast.
I woke up this morning to find snow on the ground and snow in the air. It's snowing! Again!
I have to admit, it's fun to walk to work when you're bundled up like the Michelin Man. For a start, it won't hurt so much if you fall over (nb. this has not been tested). Your clothes are so thick you can't feel much at all.
I don't recommend playing in the snow with fabric gloves though, as it melts and then refreezes with consequences for your hands (nb. this has been tested). But blowing snow into little spirals as it falls is good fun, as is watching the snow bounce off your clothes. Snow is much more fun than rain.
Walking to work today has to be one of my coolest experiences so far. :)
In the last few months I haven't got much done on my thesis. I've been putting in hours where I can, trying to fix up my algorithm so that it works and (importantly) I can explain it. It's been a struggle to stay motivated, but I had a chat tonight with someone that went something like this:
Me: I've finished changing it. Hopefully it runs faster now.
Them: Yep, hopefully; that is why you changed it.
It's interesting to be reminded that I'm doing all this for a reason. Not to get my PhD - that's just a side effect. It's because I want to be the one to develop this algorithm. It's nice to be able to look at your work and say again "I want to be working on this; it's my effort and I will get results". It helps to think that.
I bought some Christmas lights for my apartment, but I wasn't actually here over Christmas. I set them up on the front window, and then had to pull them down without getting as much use as I wanted. On the bright side (no pun intended) I can now have a multicoloured apartment, and get good use from all that glass-top furniture. It's a geeky version of a candlelit dinner. The computer desk might be next. :)
I know I complain enough about Canadian weather, but it's mainly because I miss summer. It should be made clear, the weather here is just as livable as Australia. Consider life in the Australian summer:
Now consider life in the Canadian winter:
Dashing from one heated building to the next in Canada is no different than dashing from one cooled building to the next in Australia. In neither country would you subject yourself to the elements for very long. You wear appropriate clothing, you find shelter, and it's otherwise much the same.
I woke up this morning to another light snowfall. What you can't see in the photo is that it has stopped snowing, and has started raining. Snow, rain, and really low temperatures; by the time I got to work I had ice in my toque from the rain. By the time I got home the pavement had patches of ice and slush. Lovely.
PS. For those unfamiliar with the term "toque", it is not pronounced "toke", but is pronounced "took" like "Peregrin Took, hobbit of the Shire", and is otherwise known in Australia as a "beanie".
PPS. Yes, I am aware there is a rug and a girl's thong on my balcony. It has been windy recently. That is the only explanation I will offer.
Caught a cold, starting Christmas Day. Still have the remnants of it. Combined with other stresses and I'm just feeling tired. So no blogs for the past week. Will start forming full sentences next week. ;)
