Friday, December 31, 2004

An update

Okay, I have been slacking off a bit lately on the blogging front, I'll do a super quick update...

Dec. 17 - Went for breakfast for Quinn's Birthday and home for the holidays
Dec. 18 - Went to shopping and to family friends for afternoon and had compay (very late company for dinner)
Dec. 19 - Danielle and Madison came over for breakfast and I made Dad and Sis. 2's christmas presents
Dec. 20 - Up to O-town (VERY cold - day time HIGHS of -20C, didn't have the clothes to wear running in the temperature!)
Dec. 21 - Skiing at Tremblant (crashed pretty bad, and had whiplash for week - still recovering)
Dec. 22 - Ikea
Dec. 23 - Supposed to ski, but Raining
Dec. 24 - Guests at Granny's (Jenny meets Elly - They are okay together)
Dec. 25 - Stockings at Granny's, brunch and Elf (hilarious!) at Uncle M's, afternoon at Granny's and Dinner at Uncle M's/
Dec. 26 - Back to B-ville
Dec. 27 - Running around - a lot!
Dec. 28 - Skiing at Calabogie
Dec. 29 - To W/loo for family get together
Dec. 30 - Back at home!
Dec. 31 - First of 10 personal training sessions and the cleaning begins.

Not too exciting!

Oh yeah, forgot, my abstract for CSCE conference was accepted. Ack!

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Avril Livigne

So, when I work from home, I always have my TV on and playing when I'm doing work. Anyways, Live with Regis and Kelly is on, and Avril was just on singing. She used to be horrible live, I remember cringing when I heard her, but WOW, she is really good now. I guess she has really been working on her live performances.

Oh, and note, my links are back up :) google re-cataloged :)

Work Work Work

(I like the triple word titles - from the last week we have "practice practice practice", "complain, complain, complain", and todays "Work, Work, Work". What can I say, I'm Laura Three-Three-Three. (Does anyone get that?)

Okay, so yesterday was crazy busy. I was up to 12:30 doing work last night/this morning. And for me, that is saying something. Up again at the crack of dawn, and I've been working about an hour and a half already today. Last night at around 10 or 11 I realized I made a MAJOR error in my file set up, so I had to start my visual modflow all over again. I got it all set up last night before going to bed. Luckily, like burger said, after it is set up, everything else is easy shmeazy. I have all 5 runs done now, and I just have to get the results into a file and quickly write up about it. And then finish writing up Assignment 5, and I'm done. I hope I'll be done by 12 or 12:30. then I can run in and get it printed off. if not, no big deal, I could just print it off when I go into school for the hydrolab christmas party tonight. Actually, I think I will do that. (Hopefully it will be done by then!!!)

So nothing else really. Dad is coming to pick me up tomorrow so hopefully I'll have everything done in time!!!!!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Complain Complain complain...

That is all burger does ;) Well, in all honesty, all I do, and KW as well. Dr. Smarter-than-you gave us a horrible assignment where he didn't explain a thing then went off to some unknown american city for the week so he isn't here for us to ask questions too. Grrr.

Nothing else to report, just chillaxing in the computer, working dilegently on this assignment, hoping to be done all my stuff before I leave on Friday (withouth having to pull an all nighter on Thursday. As long as this assignment is done tonight, I should be okay.

Thanks for letting me vent!

Monday, December 13, 2004

Weekend update

And for once I'm actually at school in the morning. I know, shocking! Actually, there was something I meant to do from home, that I forgot to do, so maybe I'll go home a little early today. oops!

So now the week from hell starts. I have to finish to 676 assignments. (each usually takes a few days) and then finish up some stuff for my 657 class - a compilation of chemical parameters for two chemicals. Then I have to find a bunch of articles to take with me over christmas. Hopefully I'll have time to do it all! (and I want my apartment to be somewhat clean when I leave for a couple of weeks.

Friday night we did baking, as Burger's blog says. I agree, it did go on kind of long. Next year, I think I will do it on my own, one recipe a night for a week, and then I will a) have a lot more to give away and b) not be up till 1:30 baking!!! Saturday I went to Burlington to hang out with my cousins for a potluck get together. It was nice to catch up with everyone. Sunday I went for a long run and then slept for a couple of hours. I typed up a lot of my recipes, and cleaned my apartment. I got a lot done this weekend, but I'm thinking I should have been doing more school work!!!

Later kids. lj

Friday, December 10, 2004

Odd...

I was just working on this spreadsheet (I'm still not at school!!! :O) and this just struck me as being odd.

When we were doing our presentations this week for 657, everyone kept on talking about the drinking water standard. Yes, the drinking water standard is important, but seriously, that is what drinking water treatment plants are for. To ensure safe drinking water. I think in the whole 4 presentations, I was the only one to mention the "Guidelines for use at contaminated sites in ontario". This just struck me as being odd since all the other people are in earth science. I guess they probably don't go into the law side as much as we do ????

Presentation over!

now I just have to get the rest of my work done!!! some research on chemicals for 657 and two assignments for 676. I'll hopefully get a few hours of work done today, and then take the rest of the day off. The past three days have been pretty stressfull long days because of my presentation (not nearly as bad as burgers though!!!).

So it is 9:30 and again I'm not at school, but today, I don't have the excuse of working diligently from home since 8:00 like I have had the past could of days!!!

Oh well, I deserve a little time off. I think I'll try to get to school around 10:30 :) I have to make up a quick spreadsheet on the computer for the presentation/project of yesterday, something additional that barker said that he wanted. Should take just half an hour or so. I volunteered to do it (again, why do I do this?) since I am probably more computer literate (well, I am pretty sure I am) than the others in my group.

Okay, thats it! Tonight is the christmas baking extravaganza! I'm getting excited :)

Thursday, December 09, 2004

practice practice practice

My presentation that is. I'm working from home (surprise surprise!) and practicing my 657 presentation which is this afternoon. Class starts at 2:30, but the group is meeting at 1:15 so that we can run over it one more time together. Hopefully when I get the revisions from the slacker guy they are all in the right format and I don't have to do any more reformating. (He got me his part of the presentation at 1:40 and it took me 2.5-3 hours to get it into the right format to match the other slides.

Oh well, no more complaining about that!

nothing else new. Christmas baking starts tonight when I make the gingerbread cookie dough since it has to be chilled before the cookies are made. yay! I <3 christmas baking!!!

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Getting seriously mad

Does this last guy in my 657 group have NO respect for anyone elses workload? I've worked on this presentation 2 hours last night and close to 3 this morning, just formatting 2 other peoples stuff, and I still don't have his. Meanwhile, our group is meeting in 3 hours, and I'm supposed to have the presentation done and with me printed off so that we can practice. I am so freaking annoyed right now!

For what its worth, when we met 2.5 weeks ago and I volunteered to put the presentation together, I specified that I would need the slides by monday night, since I knew I would be busy at this time. I was done mine on sunday, person 2 got them to me at 1:30 am on tuesday, person 2 was about 10:30 yesterday morning. does this guy do this to all of his groups????????????????? GRRRR!

Working from home... again

Becoming a bit of a habit. I like my home computer better than the ones at school. So on the table this morning is this stupid 657 presentation. Oh my goodness, it is like the people in Earth sciences have never done presentations before!!! I spent almost two hours formatting other peoples slides last night, and I still have to get the last persons slides! Now I have to make sure slides are a) not wordy, and b) have consistant formatting of references. I loathe wordiness.

Okay, so this will be a fun morning.

nothing else to report, other than that I am happy last night was a non-elimination road on the amazing race!!!!!

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Wow, stupid blogger

It took me FOREVER to be able to get into m blog to make the changes I wanted. You may have noticed that I changed the name of my blog. I noticed this weekend that when I search "First name last name" & City I live in on google, I was like the second hit. Not that I don't want people to know who I am, I could care less about that, but I'd prefer that it weren't that easy to find on google!!! (especially when the first link in the hydro lab with my picture on it!). So I went through this morning and changed all the city names to be abreviated and I have temporarily deleted all my links from the side bar, to protect all your links from prying eyes should people find my blog. Hopefully google will recatalog websites soon and pick up my changes and make me "safe" again. I feel like I have an STD or something!!! I think I am now being paranoid.

Okay, so news? nothing much. I talked to Bob yesterday about 583, and I feel a lot better about it. He is cutting down the size of the "technical memos" a bunch and it should be pretty easy to mark. He said that if I am spending a lot more than 5 hours a week then we will re-evaluate the workload. I'm heading into school this morning to work on modflow. I finally started doing my assignment yesterday just to find out my version is corrupt and that I have to use the computers at school :( hopefully they will still be available, slacker me for staying home so late!

That is it for now, I'm still reading all of your blogs even if the links are temporarily gone!

Monday, December 06, 2004

Why Laura Hates being put on the spot

I just got a call from Wei Xao asking is I would be willing to CA 583 (note, this is NOT one of the 5 I put on my TA application form). I told him that I was concerned that the amount of work involved would be more than the 75 hours per term (since it took us like 20 hours a week!) He said he had talked to Bob and that bob thought it would be about 4 hours a week, so I said yes. Why oh Why????? At least I have a CA I guess, but why 583????????? (I'm thinking I'm the only one that applied for a TA/CA that had taken 583)

Working from home monday

I have to get this presentation done, and I doubt that would happen at school... oh yeah, and modflow at some point in time.

Just a reminder for everyone who might not have seen the news this morning. Today is the 15th aniversary of the montreal massacre. As women in engineering (well, almost everyone reading this is), I think we should all take a minute to think about the implications of what happened 15 years ago today.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Weekend Update...

So, I know you are all wondering... "Did She? Didn't She?" well, that is going to have to wait since I am chronologically minded.

On Friday Night, I did nothing. I was trying to focus and get stuff done, but alas, my mind kept on going back to K and I kept thinking about it. I had pretty much convinced myself that I was going to call/e-mail on Sunday and confess my feelings, well, maybe not go that far, but at least ask him to coffee or something similar.

Saturday I slept in and did my christmas cards and got them sent out. I made peanut butter nanimo bars in the afternoon (thanks again burger! you rock!). In the evening I went to my aunts and uncles for dinner, it was nice to see family again :)

Sunday was running, sleeping and reading (gotta love those journal articles). Oh yeah, and the $50,000 episode of What not to wear (my fav. show). I was a little disappointed, the chick on the show didn't have my sense of style (not at all), so none of the stuff she picked out would be stuff that I like.

So that brings us up to the did she bit. I did not. I decided that the timing isn't good. We will be leaving town in a week and a half and I personally will be gone for 2.5 weeks. I just don't think that it really makes sense to be starting something right now. If I continue to see him in social settings in the new year, then I will reconsider then. If not, yeah, I like him, but it has only been about a month and a half, so really, I don't have that much invested.

Friday, December 03, 2004

Weird Dreams... and Disrupted sleep

My cold kept on waking me up last night, so I had a very disturbed night sleep. I dreamed about just about everything, two stand out, one I was getting a major windfall from the lab work burger and I did in October (that we still haven't gotten paid for!) We are supposed to get ~$400, but in my dream we got $625 wahoo! and in another I was explaining to K how I felt... in the dream though, there was some sort of distance issue, which there isn't actually in real life... Maybe I'm starting to get the itch to move, who knows. I can guarantee you that at least conciously, I have absolutely no desire to move.

The cold is no better, but no worse this morning. I think that if it hasn't at all improved by tomorrow that I will go to the walk in clinic. This is the fourth cold I have had in 3 months, I just want to be better already!!!

As for suggestions that I have gotten about making a move on K. The thing is a) I don't want to be hurt b) I don't want to feel like a fool. When I liked R last year, I liked him a whole lot more (maybe since the timeline was longer, who knows), and R was definitely flirtatious back which made me feel like he may have felt the same way, and well, we all know how that one turned out. Mind you, as burger has pointed out this morning, I have less emotional investment than I did with R last year, so I don't really have as much to lose. I have some serious thinking and decision making to do over the weekend. And for C-dub... I don't have his number, so that is kind of out of the picture, any move would have to be via e-mail.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

feeling a little better...

I ventured out of my little apartment to go to the b-ball doo-ha at the gradhouse today. It was nice, the food was tres greasy, but it was as I expected. No beer was consumed (at least not by me and my sick self!)

Now the bad news, I was sitting at complete opposite ends of the table from K, (no faults there) and didn't get the chance to say anything to him, not even a shy "hi" or "see ya round". Thats right, I missed my chance. I guess I could have moved myself to the complete opposite end of the table, but I think that would have been a little on the obvious side. Hmmm... thinking about it, I should have "gone to the bathroom" and sat elsewhere when I came back, but why is it always 20/20 hindsight? why not 20/20 forsight. That would be good.

So that is it. nothing said, no flirting done, I guess I'm just going to have to get over my little crush and move on with my life... does anyone know any cute single guys???

Milk Rant, Today is the day and illness...

So I got a 4L bag of milk at the grocery store last week. one of the bags sprung a leak on tuesday so I hd to throw it out and cleanout my fridge... then what do I notice this morning? another of the bags in now leaking :( Now, I don't mind spending money on milk, I think it is one of the most important things for people to make sure they get. But I do mind when I pay 4.15 for one litre!!! GRRRRRR!!!

So today is the day that I may see K for the last time. and My illness progressed significantly last night to the point that I am going to work from home today so as to isolate myself from possibly infecting more people. (I'm thinking it must have been someone at the bar on friday night, it is just too much of a coincidence that we are all sick now). So the question on everyones mind? will I be going out tonight? not sure, a good possibility not and that saddens me SOOOO much! I just have to do what is right for my body. Maybe I'll go out for a bit and drink OJ or an herbal tea and come home early and go to bed. Why me? Why Now?

Oh and my thoughts are with Burger and her GP1, I know how much she loves her, so I hope they get sorted out.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Yay for the exagerator!

I <3 my hot chocolate. YUM!!!

Nothing new to report... since last night!

I think my cold is getting worse again, that is what I get for getting the flu shot when I wasn't 100%!!!

So the real reason why I'm posting is to update my blog. Notice a) the new picture on the side and b) the new joke at the top.

Happy Christmas month all!