Well, this is it

My last day in at school until next tuesday. Note: I refrained from using the word work. For good reason. I'm hording tranpsortable work to take with me for the next week and have a solid 3 or so days of work ahead of me. I figure I'll be able to get in several hours tomorrow and Monday as I'll be travelling all day, and I'll take one day off of skiing and work in the evenings. Wow, what a glamourous "Vacation". Believe me, no relaxing around the campfire this time, I don't have time for that. On the Agenda, marking assignments for the course I'm TA-ing (10-15 hours), re-reading a thesis that has become more important than it was the first time I flipped through it (4-5 hours), Reading several more articles for my lit review that will have to be updated due to the changing focus of my research (5-10 hours), and rough draft preparation of UW grad conference presentation and Batelle Paper (~ 5 hours, really, as much time as I want to put into this). So yes, I'll be a busy non-vacationing girl.

As for what I have been up to. I spent most of the weekend stressing about my modelling, but took a break from about 7 on friday night to 6 on sunday night. I was literally stumped and spent a lot of time thinking about it, but not a whole lot of time doing actual works. Friday night we went out for dinner at Kelsey's... it is amazing how even dinner at a lower end restaurant can get expensive when it is for two people. No problem though. How many times in ones lifetime does one become eligible to become a canadian citizen? Skiing on Saturday was pretty good. By the end of the afternoon AF could comfortably ski down the second easiest run without falling and could make it down the hardest green run (with falling though). I think next time we go he'll be significantly better. I need to get him to just be more comfortable on skis and not so tense and it'll make a world of difference. Saturday night and Sunday morning we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I love that movie! I can honestly say that it is one of my favorites. I think he enjoyed it as well. He's into those indy-mind-game type of movies. Sunday I lazed around most of the day. Had a nap, read some and then got to work.

That is it, that is all. Hopefully I can get done some serious work this week while I'm away. Even though I won't get the modelling done, I'll have a bit of a break and that is usually a good thing. I can start in again with a fresh perspective :)

Another Busy Weekend Ahead!

So AF has been in Canada now for 3 years (as of Tuesday!) which means that he is now up for Canadian Citizenship. Mind you, he went back to Iran for 3 weeks a year and a half ago, so he is waiting another 3 weeks before he applies for his citizenship. Tonight I'm taking him out for a dinner as 3 years in canada celebration :) I'm such a good girlfriend :)

Tomorrow I'm teaching him how to ski. I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't been out this year and I'm heading to BC next week for a few days of skiing with my dad and I want to get a little practice in first. Also, my dream job would be a ski instructor, so it should be a pretty fun day.

Other than that I'll be running my model all weekend I think. I really want to be able to set it up to do all of my runs for the next stage when I'm away next week so that I can come home to analyzing data. Oh, what fun!

Okay, I should get back to looking at these graphs. I have an appointment with my supervisor at 2 that I need to get ready for.

Happy Birthday!

To Burger! 26! Closer to 30 than 20 ;)

Post number two for the day. I'm in shock.

I just got this e-mail from a friend from highschool...

Spreading the news of a very big event and experience of a lifetime for me, not to mention a great way to start off as a Vancouverite....

As some of you already know, I will be performing next weekend in the closing ceremonies of the Torino Winter Olympics as part of the Vancouver 2010 presentation as the Olympic flag is passed to its next host.

I will be flying to Italy tomorrow (Feb 20th) and spending about a week in Torino as the games come to a close. The ceremonies will be on Sunday, February 26th at 8pm local time in Torino, which would mean 2pm EST (11am PST, etc)

As for how you can find me personally during the broadcast, our section is tentatively scheduled to run approx 1 hour 15 minutes into the show, 9:15 local and will run about 9 minutes. This is a big introduction for Vancouver 2010, and the first opportunity to globally market our games, and show people around the world what Vancouver and Canada are all about. As you can imagine it is a huge thrill for me to get to represent my country and my new home on such a huge stage!!! In case you were wondering, it will be 35,000 live spectators and millions of television viewers worldwide.

Vancouver 2010 and the 50 performers including yours truly have put together what will be a really impressive production, and I hope that many of you get the chance to see it. I will be on inline skates as a hockey player and speed skater during our brief part of the ceremonies. Don't know as of yet how it will be broadcast, but just look for the tall one!!! (I'll have #6 on the back of my sweater during the hockey part as well)

I hope that I get a chance to catch up with you all personally in the near future, but if you get a chance to catch the show on Sunday, please do!!! I've been very blessed to have this opportunity, and would love to share it however possible with family and friends. We have been putting this show together over the last 3 months and very intensely over the past week this large cast of performers from mostly Vancouver and Montreal have come together and formed an amazing group, it really feels already like we've all known each other and worked together for years, very indicative of the Olympic spirit in itself.

Wish I could take everybody with me, but I will have lots of pictures and stories I'm sure, and will figure out some way to get everything online for you all to see as soon as possible.

All the best

Kevin

Busy Weekend

Seems to be the trend these days.

Friday night was off to brampton but before I got a chance to leave, AF called needing someone to talk to. His sister had an appointment with the eye doctor and Thursday and he noticed she had very little periferal vision. That combined with increasingly strong headaches has prompted them to run more tests. They think she either has glycoma or a tumor, but in suprising haste for our medical system, she's got the further test scheduled for this wednesday. Before ringing off (ooo, I feel so british!) I managed to convince him that there is no point worrying about the worst case outcome right now and that he should assume the best case scenario until he hears otherwise. Glycoma can be serious, but it is very easy to treat once it has been diagnosed.

Friday was the girly movie watching night, but I was exhausted from my week (why? not sure, really since I got a lot of sleep...) but I fell asleep around 11 when watching the first movie and didn't make it much into the second one before falling asleep again. Such good company i keep.

Saturday was shopping with the girls, and surprisingly I didn't buy one thing... well, except for lunch. At the end of the day (like 5 something) it was time to head back to waterloo. Went over to AFs for the night and watched a really great movie. Everything is Illuminated. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who likes indi movies. In fact I'm very surprised that it wasn't nominated for any oscars. We ordered dinner in and then settled down to watch princess bride. And it true laura fashion, I didn't make it past the iocane powder. Man. I love that movie, but nowadays I always fall asleep in it. it is like my comfort food in movie form.

Sunday we went to home sense (for AF to buy sheets) and to Best buy for me to get RAM. Didn't get it though since it was expensive. We went climbing. My first time in 4 years. Man, my upper body is sore today. I really need to start working on my upper body strength again. I want to be able to climb a rated climb. This is my new goal. On the way back home we stopped in at Computer XS where I got my RAM and Adventure Guide when AF got climbing chalk. I'll never go in that store again when I'm in a hurry with him. Man, it was like a kid in a candy store :). Then running with EK (9 km! furthest I've been a few months) and dinner and groceries. Long busy day to say the least. Didn't get much of a chance to sit down and relax after leaving his apartment in the morning.

Today is back at school trying to get my next phase of modelling sorted out. Stuff looks good so far, and if all goes well, I'll have a bunch more data to analyze tomorrow with full results and start of the next phase on Wednesday, yipee!

Snow day!

Makes Laura a happy girl. Especially when her boyfriend has taken the day off and slept over at her house :) I'll do a little work from home today, but I'm so not going to be going into school.

I'm going cross eyed

I've just spent the last 4.5 hours staring at numbers in excel. Fun stuff. I'm finally heading to school soon to print off the work i've done in the past week or so. Hopefully I will be able to see what I've got and compare results and decide what I think is best and if I want to get better results or if I'm happy with what I have.

It's been a busy few days. Friday night was date night with AF. I went over to his apartment. Saturday off to the market and running errands until I picked up Kel. Then it was to dinner at the Maharaja and Dancing at the Dog. Good times were (hopefully) had by all :). Saturday was visiting with the girls, we met Baily (well, I had met him before) and then lunch with EK. After J&C left, Kel and I both slept for 2 hours :O. We rented "Just like heaven" Sunday night and it was pretty good.

Monday we went into school in the morning (until 2:30 or so) and poked around downtown for a bit. I bought a pair of shoes that I shouldn't have got, but they were cute, and half off. Tuesday was a reciprocal of Monday. I did work at home in the morning and we went into school to work in the afternoon. We had dinner with Q, Burger, and EK, and then visited with J&G in the evening. Pretty busy time. I dropped Kel off at the train station this morning. She is headed off to Montreal to visit family there. It was wonderful getting to visit with that girl again!

Okay, I have to get myself organized to get into school. Happy Feb. 15th!

Happy birthday Nej!!!!!!!

the big 26. Man you're old ;)

I'll update more later, just wanted to say happy birthday and that Canada Rocks (4-1 right now :))

Not much to update on

Just wanted to let you all know I'm still alive. I have a bit of a cold that I'm fighting that has made me extremely lazy this week. Right now I'm so wiped out that I just want to go home and have a nap. After I get my program up and running again, I might just be able to do that. It is just as easy to run it from home as it is to run from here. At home, I also have a comfy bed and a book that I can read :) (while it is taking its several hours to run of course).

Didn't get up to much on Monday and Tuesday night. Mostly typical doing stuff around the apartment type stuff... well, I also marked on Tuesday (man, I feel like a mean TA, but some of these people are seriously not that smart.) Last night I went over to AFs we watched the movie Spun. Weird drug movie, but it makes you think a bit. Mind you people that are on drugs probably wouldn't think of the deeper message and the people who get the deeper message to begin with are not likely the ones to start doing drugs in the first place.

Okay, back to work. I must be effective since Kel is here next week! yay! I'm so very excited about her coming!

Laura's Gushy Post

I just wanted to announce to the world... well, my blogging world, that I adore AF :) I enjoy every minute we spend together.

I met his mother and his sister for the first time last night. They were both wonderful and really nice. His mum cooked a 4 course meal for us :O Including a traditional persian rice dish. It was very yummy and she sent us home with lots of leftovers. I have lunch and dinner for today all set :) I don't think they hated me which is good :) I brought flowers (a mixed bouquet of orange and pinky-orange flowers) which i hope she liked. The colours reminded me of the pictures I had seen of her... coincidentally they also matched the sweater she was wearing last night :)

The rest of the weekend went well. I painted with D on Saturday afternoon. The new baby's room is going to look really nice when it is done. Then had dinner with Pops on Saturday night. Then lunch and a few hours of visiting with S&W on Sunday. Lots of visiting this weekend and now I'm exhausted. I'm staying at home to mark this morning and then have to go in for my office hours this afternoon. If I don't wake up this afternoon is going to be hell. Hopefully I'll figure it out :)

Have a great monday everyone!

Not appropriate at work

Someone sent me this link, it is hilarious, but I wouldn't watch it at work since it is a movie clip about an inappropriate subject matter.

Oooo Baby, baby it's a wild world

It's hard to get by just upon a smile... The wise words of Cat Stevens (Now Yusuf Islam).

Since I started dating MCB, I've become more aware of politics on the world stage, I used to just follow canadian politics. Now I can honestly say, that the state of the world today saddens be to a great extent.

It seems like the drift between the Muslim world and the western world is growing larger everyday. With a terrorist group being elected to lead a democratic country; with western newspapers printing political cartoons against muslims (showing every sign of racism and hatred); with Iran insisting on creating enriched uranium; and with the US insisting on controlling the rest of the world, it is a sad state of affairs. What is of greater importance religious freedoms or freedom of expression?

Can't the world just get along? I've never noticed such a huge difference between the west and east before? is this something new? something growing every day? That is certainly how it would appear to me. Everyday the globe seems to have two or three more articles about the middle east (not including Afganistan, Palestine, or Iraq which have been in the news for a while). If it is growing, who's going to stop it? I wish I could.

Again, more wise words from good old Cat. I love that guy.

"I've been crying lately
Thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating?
Why can't we live in bliss?"

Happy Birthday AL

The big 2-6 eh? closer to 30 than 20, definitely old ;) Hope you're day today goes well!

Not much else going on in Laura Land. I updated my photoblog this mornig with a cute picture of Jenny. I'm in love with this picture, she's such a suck.

Oh, and Wiarton Willy didn't see his shadow today so that means an early spring... or does it? The next weeks forcast is the worst week we've had in a while so I'm not taking much condolence in the predictions of a rodent. It does however make me happy that 1) it is ~ 7 weeks until spring, 2) daylight is up to ~ 10 hours today!, and 3) Yoga is tonight! I'm really starting to love my yoga classes :)

Meet the Parents

Okay, so AF and I were talking last night. Looks like this Sunday I'll be meeting his mum (his dad passed away when he was a teenager). I'm dropping him off in Toronto on my way to belleville saturday morning and will be stopping in there for dinner on Sunday late afternoon/early evening. He first mentioned that she wanted to meet me last weekend (as in a week and a half ago), so I've been thinking a little bit about it since then. So I've never met a guys parents before... that would have been an interesting one... Mark's parents lived in Thunder Bay and Ian, well, I was just using him (bad laura. Rebounds aren't cool). So this will be the first time.

To be honest, I'm a little nervous. What if she doesn't like me? What do I wear? How do I act? I know, just be myself, right? Does anyone have any advice? Should I bring anything with me? A bottle of wine, flowers, maple syrup, desert, etc? Ack! I'm going to be thinking about this for a while I can see.