Another great weekend

Didn't do much at all but it was good nonetheless.

Friday night I went over to AFs for dinner and we watched a movie, school of rock. I was pretty impressed. I normally don't find Jack black that funny, but he was good in this movie. While I was there, his mum messaged him in english (apparently that is really odd) and said that she was happy I was there, to say hi to me and that she wants to meet me soon :O I have a feeling that will be happening next weekend.

Saturday for most of the day we lazed around his apartment and then went to pick up some quick groceries and make curry for the curry hotluck at J&Gs house. It was a pretty fun night, with J&P and Burger&C. AF had a good time and thought C was pretty hilarious and loved B&Cs dog.

Yesterday was more lazing around. We watched 21 grams which was a pretty good movie. Kind of confusing for the first little bit trying to figure out what was going on, but I'd say I liked the movie, a story of forgiveness and learning to move forward in life after something horrible happens.

And that brings us to today. I'm tired this morning - why the heck can't Greys Anatomy be on earlier? I think I'm going to have to start taping it and watching it on monday night instead. Running with the tri club later. And where the heck is winter? I want to go skiing dammit! I like the milder weather, but the rain has got to go. If I wanted a rainy January, I'd live in Vancouver.

:(

I'm totally having a computer out the window moment.

My model is so incredibly messed up right now, and I have no clue why. In order to make my curves look like they should, I have to use a reaction rate coefficient 9 orders of magnitude higher than it is supposed to be. Even then, it only mildly resembles the observed curve. Can I go curl up in a ball now?

EDIT: I'm an idiot... problem solved. its called observed for a reason.

Fun new blogs

I was poking around on the web and found these new blogs of interest

1) Rick Mercer... Do you think it is really him? If you scroll down to the Tory cabinet post, you'll see mention of Stockwell Day as Foreign Affairs Minister, I saw Rick Mercer on CBC on Monday night and he was joking about that. Could be...

2) The Torontoist, Seems to be pretty witty and funny.

Both were nominated for Canadian Blog of the year.

Anything else going on? Nope, not at all. Have a great Wednesday!

EDIT - Another really cool thing. This article was written by one of QCs friends that started engineering with us back in 1999... he ended up switching to poli sci though. I'm impressed. Go EW!

I've been debating posting all morning

But I've decided this is my blog, and I can post what I want to post.

To say that I'm upset about the outcome of this election would be an understatement. For me, the last government was the best possible outcome. Liberal minority with the NDP being the king makers keeping the liberals on a left leaning path that promoted good policy towards the people in the country that need help the most. The results of this election are shaky at best. The conservatives could topple on the first opposition day since none of the opposition parties are likely to work with a right winged agenda. (I don't think they will though since all parties resources will be depleted and there would be a backlash from the public if we went right back into another election).

I'm sad for Canada today. Not because I support a corrupt party, or any other such nonsense. This isn't about corruption, it is about what you believe is best for the canadian people. I believe in a strong, united, Canada. I believe in sharing the wealth, that the rich should help the poor in times of trouble. Ontario is the most populous province in the country and certainly is one of the richest. We as a province lose out more than any other province on federal transfer payments, yet I, like most Ontarians, am okay with this. Federal transfer payments are there to help the poorer provinces get through times of trouble like the cod fishing ban in Newfoundland. I care about my fellow Canadians, not just what is best for myself.

I believe in a womans right to chose what is best for her life, not being dictated by a 2000 year old book. I believe in equal rights for all canadians, irregardless of faith, sexual orientation, colour of skin, sex, position in life, or how long they have been in our wonderful country. I believe in helping others before you help yourself. I believe in peace in the world. I believe in protecting the earth for future generations instead of depleting our non-renewable resources for greed and wealth.

I did something this morning that I didn't think I'd ever do. I've been a long time liberal supporter at the provincial level (since I was 16 years old), but never at the federal level. This morning I signed up to join the Liberal Party of Canada. It will be going through some major changes now with Paul Martin stepping down, and I want to be involved in these changes. I encourage everyone else who isn't happy with the results of yesterdays election to do the same. Not necessarily joining the liberals, but to get involved in the party that you support. If you want change, make it happen, don't just sit back and wait for it to happen.

On the same note, I made a comment in the Star this morning. I hope it gets published!

Proof Positive

That I'm a nerd

Even more nerdy is the fact that I think this is really cool :)

My weekend was really good. I enjoyed myself. Friday night I went over to AFs (I'm using his initials now, but its still MCB) and we just hung out, didn't do anything special or anything, but I didn't get back to my apartment until late on Saturday. Jenny was supper happy to see me :)

Yesterday was another pretty relaxing day that consisted of grocery shopping, assignment marking and running with EK. I also talked to my dad yesterday for the first time in a long time. I told him about AF, and he sounded pretty happy. He also sounded a little worried when I said that he was from Iran, and asked if he was a shiite, but I put his mind at rest a little when I said that he wasn't a muslim. Not that my dad is racist against muslims or anything, just that they don't tend to give women many rights and he was probably a little worried about that.

One down two to go

So I tried calling my sister that is in the country and my dad last night to tell them about MCB, I got a hold of the sis, but not pops. I'll try again tonight. I'll also have to call my sister in Africa, but that one poses more of a challenge since I have to co-ordinate times and what not.

My cousin in BC now knows apparently. I didn't think she read my blog, so I'm wondering if news is spreading through my sis or her sis (who does read my blog I believe... ZW, I'm talking about you :)). If anyone saw the deleted comment on my photoblog, it was from her :), EW that is, now ZW. Okay, this is getting confusing. I apologize.

Not much else going on here in gradstudent land. I stayed at home this morning marking memos. Lots of fun there, I can see that marking this term is going to take up a lot of time! there are 18 groups who's stuff I have to mark, last term each memo took around an hour, so that is like 100 hours of just marking. ack!

Peace.

Happy Birthday!

To the Keelmeister. The big 2-5. Now you're old like the rest of us :)

Nothing else new going on in my life. I still have to call my dad and tell him about MCB, I just feel awkward doing it especially since I know he's going to make a big deal out of it. Meh, I'll get up the courage tonight. "Oh, dad, by the way, I've been dating this guy for the past month and we decided that we were going to see each other exclusively, so I thought I should tell you." "Why didn't you mention him earlier?" "You didn't ask." I wish I could just e-mail this one, but my sister would never stop making fun of me.

*hem* *hem*

I have an announcement to make.

I have a boyfriend :)

Now I have to figure out how I'm going to tell my family :O

EDIT: In slightly more disturbing news for the second time in about a week I passed none other than Roommate From Hell in the halls. He should have graduated last year which would mean he's either a grad student or he failed fourth year, Nej, do you know which one? He actually acknowledged me in the hall. All I could do was shudder. Does anyone remember the sighing? or the horrible smell from his bedroom. Ew.

I voted

Last night QC and I went to vote in the advanced polls. For the first time in my life I voted for the party who's policy I believe in the most instead of voting strategically based on who I didn't want to win. I'm happy with my decision for now, but who knows. If the conservatives win in my riding by one vote, I'll be more than a little upset! I urge everyone out there to vote next monday and to make an informed decision. Read the platforms, research the parties. Don't just vote for a party because that is the way your family votes or based on one or two moot points. Really think about which party represents YOUR interests and what you believe in life. If anyone out there isn't sure which way they naturally lean, I found this quiz which could help indicate if a party is not for you. I'd recommend still reading the platforms to get a better idea though.

Other stuff... the banff mountain film festival is tonight. yipee! I'm excited :)

A most excellent weekend

So I had a wonderful weekend. Quite busy, no real downtime which I usually enjoy, but great nonetheless.

On friday night after my regular spinning class I went over to MCBs to have dinner and watch a movie. Eyes wide shut. What a weird messed up movie. But definitely one you have to think about. I ended up spending the night and lazing around his apartment for saturday morning. Got back to my apartment in time to do a thorough clean before kbum came up for the weekend. It was back to MCBs to pick him up for dinner and then to pick up kbum and EK. Had dinner with QC&RL and drinks with a bunch more, and then off to party it up (for like an hour) with some of the old classmates from undergrad.

Sunday morning was breakfast with even more people, (burger, j&g, j&p, kbum) and then shopping and a movie with EK. Quite a busy weekend all in all. I was a little late getting in this morning. Kbum was getting a ride to Toronto with EK (who was going shopping) where she'll be picking her boyf up at the airport. I'm so excited for her, she seems so happy with this guy, I hope everything works out for her :)

Oh, and another interesting occurance that the party on saturday night. One of the geo boys is apparently dating a persian gal who came up to introduce herself to arash wondering where she was from and what not. Then she turns to me "Is this your girlfriend?". Hmmm... Awkward. My response was "Not yet" as in we hadn't talked about it yet, but I hope it didn't come across the wrong way! ack! Maybe it'll help to force the discussion anyways.

And, brrrrr. I'm cold. Came in this morning and my heater wasn't working. Note, it is -12 outside. I'm cold! I hope my office heats up soon (it has been fixed now).

And now for something completely different

Following Burger's lead, I decided to start a photoblog as well. I'll be posting a combination of pictures that I take now with ones I've taken from the past. Here is a link to it and I'm adding it to my blogs section

Friday the 13th!

So kbum beat me to the punch with the main thing I was going to blog about... the Conservatives vowing to renig on Kyoto (not sure why he's coming out and admitting to this). I'm incredibly disappointed. yes, it may be an unrealistic goal, but in order to accomplish something truly great, you have to set your sights high! Man, that pisses me off, and now more than ever I'm scared of what a conservative government would bring. please don't let them win a majority!!!

The exciting news I recieved yesterday and it totally slipped my mind while I was blogging is... drum role please. From the 11th of February to the 15th of february, I will be having a house guest in Waterloo. None other than the fabulous UBC chick! I'm soooooo excited to see dear KB. I miss her so much! Now I just have to plan the fabulous thing we shall do together. I know where I'm going to be on the morning of the 11th getting ready for my house guest. The market. Picking up yummy cinnamon buns!

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I had my training in the morning as I mentioned. we did a body composition thing done, not really any change from the last time we did it last april. Still weigh too much and have a high Body fat percentage, but it is something I'm trying to work on. Must not gorge on candy.

Got home last night around 6 ate some dinner and laid down on the couch to "rest my eyes" as I was tired. Around 7:30 MCB messaged me and said he would call when he had got himself organized (he had just gotten home)... he ended up calling around 8:15, and we talked for two hours :O. It is weird, time just flies when I'm talking to him on the phone :) I'll be going over to his place again tonight for dinner and a movie.

Okay, have to go do some work. I promised my supervisor I'd have results to show him today!

*yawn*

Still dead on my feet today. Almost didn't come into school this morning. I woke up with a cold this morning (I guess that is what happens when I get two sleepless nights in a week). I have a personal training session this morning though so I dragged my butt out of bed and actually made it to school much much earlier than normal (been here for more than half an hour now :O). (I would feel bad cancelling the training since you're supposed to give 24 hours notice, and I'm not throwing up or anything and then I couldn't go to that and not come into school.)

Last night we went to see memoirs of a geisha for QCs belated birthday. It was really good. I'm impressed at how true they were to the book. most movie adaptations leave out one big thing that I'm disappointed about. Not this one. Even EK liked it and she hadn't read the book.

Okay, I have to set up my computer to do some work while I skip out to the gym for a couple of hours. I'm such a rebel :O. I hope she doesn't work my shoulders too much cause they HURT from Yoga on Tuesday.

Red Herring

My horoscope that is. So nope, MCB and I have not decided to have a child together, or for that matter, anything to "bring our relationship to the next level". Fine by me. I'm okay with how things are right now.

His night class ended up going late last night so he didn't get home until 9:00 which meant I didn't get over there until 9:30. We decided to get take out and go back to my place to watch finding nemo. All was good. He ended up staying the night... again option three... staying over and not having sex. I got up with him bright (well, not so bright) and early to walk him to the bus stop, but then came home and slept on my couch for another couple of hours. Now I'm dead tired at school and am considering my old friend dt. coke, however it isn't even noon yet. I feel at this point in time that tea would just make me more sleepy. Must. Wake. Up.

Enjoy wednesday everyone! Hump day :) oh, and another thing, I'm getting fitted for contacts this afternoon. first time I'm getting new contacts in over two years. yipee!

Interesting

My horoscope for today (don't really believe them, but it can be fun)...

If you are currently romantically involved, Laura, you can expect your relationship to move to the next level of commitment. You and your partner could agree to be monogamous, become engaged, or actually set a date for the wedding. If you're already married, you might decide to have a child. If you're not currently involved, expect to attract someone soon. You're ready, and your availability signals are definitely being picked up by eligible partners!

So MCB and I were talking on the phone last night. As usually happens when I'm talking with him the time just flew by. We are going to dinner tonight. A late dinner since he's taking a couple of "night" courses at Conestoga college (note, not so much night as evening there). His parting remarks were that we had lots to talk about. Thought that was interesting paired with my horoscope for the day.

Man, I'm tired today :( Not sure how I'm going to make it through the day. My guess is before too long, I'll be borrowing Burger's kettle.

well

found another way to make country bars tolerable ;)

Weekend? please?!?

So, truth is it's been a while since I've worked on a friday afternoon. A very long while. I usually go home, but yesterday I went to see the supervisor to see if I could talk to him this afternoon (hoping for an early afternoon appointment). No luck. 3:30 it is :( Hope burgers meeting is short so that I can get in quicker, but I'm not holding my breath.

In other news, not much. This weekend is shaping up nicely, tonight I plan on doing a bit of baking and then cuddling up on my couch with my book. I told my sister I'd try to have it done by sunday to give to her (more details on sunday to follow). Saturday afternoon looks like I'm going to be taking a free yoga class with EK, QC and possibly WJ. Should be fun. Saturday is also MCBs birthday so he's invited me to go out with his friends to the stampede corral (yuck country!) but I said yes anyways. Ended up getting the tickets for the banff film festival - in Guelph though since waterloo was sold out. Sunday is a baby shower for my cousin. I thought they were naming him ethan, my aunt thinks Evan, so I'm leaving the name plates (on the books I got) empty for now!! It'll be nice to see the fam again (even if it is only the women!)

Now back to the topic of Saturday night. I'm a little nervous and confused about what is happening. He suggested that I drive over to his place and we cab to the bar so that I can drink... now for the confusion, if I'm drinking how am I to get home, or is he subtly hinting that I don't go home? I'm thinking that I could bus over to his place, cab to the bar with him and then just cab home. Would now be a good time to let it be known that I'm a virgin? honestly, I think it is still a little early for that conversation (afterall, we've only been on 4 dates and haven't even kissed yet). Man, some things about new relationships suck. This is one of them. (Note: I'm by no means against sex, just haven't done it myself yet, so want it to be "special").

More G-rated fun

So as I said yesterday MCB and I went to see goodnight and goodluck last night. Not really what I was expecting, but it was pretty good nonetheless. As AL would call it, there was lots of "Accidental touching"/body contact... an hour and a half into the movie he finally worked up the courage to hold my hand (note: the movie was only 1:40 long!) Finished off the night with a hug goodbye. Like I said, one of us is going to have to get over the shyness. He did however invite me to go out for his birthday with his friends, so now I have to figure out what to get him... what do you get someone that you've only just started dating??? I'm considering tickets to the Banff Mountain Film Festival. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Okay, so back to reading "Chemical Reaction Engineering"... what an exciting life I lead.

Nose back to the gindstone

Ah back to school... so quickly this year too. I can honestly say that the vacation was not long enough this year. I think mostly because as per usual, I tried to force too much into too short of a time span meaning that even though we had a full week and a half off, I only really had one day to "relax" but even then, I ran around doing errands and cleaning most of the day yesterday (my day of relaxation). I'm planning on taking off early this afternoon, so hopefully that'll help out a bit :)

So today it is reading a wonderful book called "Chemical reaction engineering" sounds enthralling right? Meh, it'll keep me busy and will hopefully save me a few hours from manually trying to fit my data.

Tonight is date #4 with MCB. We are going to see Goodnight and Goodluck at the princess. It is supposed to be good. On sunday evening we were chatting on MSN and the "past relationships" discussion came up. He didn't run as fast as he could in the opposite direction when he found out I hadn't dated someone in a very long time, but neither did I when I found out that he used to be engaged. I guess we'll see what happens.

Hope everyone elses return to work is going well!!!

2005 a year in review

2005 was a great year for me. At the beginning of the year I made three resolutions...

#1 Run a marathon before Nov. 25th (my 25th birthday) - hopefully New York, but may not get it in the lottery
check - not new york, but I did do niagara

#2 Keep a food diary and try not to eat as much crap
kind of check - did this on and off throughout the year

#3 Love my body. I think I'll have to lose a bit of weight to really be able to do this, but if a) I'm running a marathon and b) keeping a food diary to keep my food in check, this one shouldn't be too hard (fingers crossed!)
Getting better, we'll call this one a work in progress

So January and February were a whir of work induced stress. I was working hard on my school work trying to get my paper done for my first conference. I got it done at the beginning of march only 2 weeks late ;) In february I went out west and had a wonderful (albeit short) visit with NC, KB, AL and the Vancouver family.

March was much of the same working hard on my school work, my TA, and running lots. April, more of the same. It saw me run my first half marathon in 3 years with an 8 minute personal best to boot :) End of April and beginning of may were what I like to refer to as the three weeks of Hell. AKA Feild school. Busy Busy Busy. Definitely not the most fun I've had in University.

After feild school it was a bit of a catch up game getting on top of my duties for my TA and preparing for the confence in Toronto. I ran my second half on the hottest day of the year to that point and still beat my ottawa time from a few years ago. June was the Toronto Conference, my fastest 5K time (25:45, a little under 2 minutes off) and trying to finish up my school work.

By the end of the July I was one sprint triathlon faster, All my grad courses complete and preparing to do my first adventure race which I completed in August before a) seeing Green day live (wow!) b) being the Maid of Honour in D's wedding and c) heading off for a trip of a lifetime to visit biggest sis in Africa and rafting on the nile. So much fun, I think it is fair to say I got bit by the travelling bug.

The fall was busy trying to start writting my thesis and of course modelling for my conference in chicago. The beginning of October saw my peak mileage week for my marathon (48.5 miles :O) and after that it was the taper from hell as I got sick and stressed out from my conference preparation. Luckily I still managed to complete my marathon and only 9 minutes off of my number 1 goal. Next time I know I'll get it.

November was time to relax after the conference and I was able to take it pretty easily. I had my 25th birthday, visited with biggest sis as she was home for the month and decided to give Online dating a try. In December I went on my first date in well over 5 years and realized that the whole dating thing is kind of fun. Skiboy ended up being a dead end, but we'll have to wait and see with MCB. I'm pretty sure he's as interested as I am, but he's said that he can be shy so one of us will have to get over that if anything is going to happen. Oh yes, and lets not forget my even faster 5K time... 24:4x... almost 3 minutes off my time from last year :)

So my 2005 accomplishments
1) Return to my physical fitness. It's been a long road to recovery since my knee surgery 3 years ago, but I can honestly say now that I've surpassed where I used to be. I got personal bests in every distance I ran this year, and actually every race save one. I also completed two new things that I've never done before, an adventure race and a marathon.
2) Presented at my first two conferences and got excepted to a third (where all the bigwigs will be)
3) Returned succesfully to the dating scene
4) Finished the first two chapters of my thesis in rough draft. Wahoo, a whole 20 pages :O

New years resolutions for 2006. Well, I'm going to call them more of goals.
1) Fitness wise - < 1:20 in peterborough sprint, < 2 hours in a half marathon, finish an olympic tri
2) Go to Batelle in May and completely redeem myself after being unprepared for ORTs.
3) Finish writting my thesis in rough draft by the end of July leaving August for revisions.
4) Travel a bit before fall convocation and finish school for good!
5) Get a job that I love in a city that I adore (aka not the loo!)

Happy new year world!