SCREW IT

I’ve been thinking about how to do the last question on this assignment for over a day. It’s the last question of a really long assignment.

I’ve put some thought into, I have a few ideas, but it’s nothing concrete. In my early days, I’d probably be really bothered that I don’t know how to do it. As I grow older though, I’m able to see more of the big picture.

Did I put a reasonable enough effort into answering this question? Sure. Is it really worth my time to continue to bang my head against the wall, for one question out of many assignments during the term? No, of course not.

Sometimes, you’ve just got to say screw it, I’m running out of time and effort, and just put down what you think is the right answer. It may or may not be the right answer, but at this point there’s nothing more I can do about it. The damn thing is due tomorrow.

So, here’s to you question number five, I send thee to hell.

CORN BEEF PATE

Around midnight, I was really hungry. I was out of food and I didn’t want to go get some. I remembered I had a can of corned beef left, but no bread to make a sandwich. I had some crackers though.

After adding a hot frying pan and some butter into the mix, I had myself a nice spread. It wasn’t bad at all.

CROSS PROMOTION

I’m ass-deep in a sucky assignment, so I don’t have time for the usual Nobel-winning entries you’ve been accostomed to. As such, I direct you towards some of the sites I read for fun.

www.sarahkidd.com – Ok, maybe that isn’t the address, but it looks cool. Sarah is a visiting post-doc from Australia staying here at SJC. She’s also a pretty cool lady and the youngest Ph.D that I know.

www.carolynbee.com – Again, that’s not the real address, but just click on the link. Carolyn is also another SJC resident. Of all the people I know from Arizona, she’s been the most entertaining.

www.natebomb.com – Nate trained me for my first project at EA. We became good friends. He’s in Japan now. Follow his exploits there.

www.ryannordman.com – Ryan and I met at EA on NHL 2001 for PSX. We share a common love for pho.

Ok, back to sucky assignment.

HEY I’M UP LATE!

From about age 16 and on, I’ve always liked to stay up late. If you’re around me for any length of time, you’ll find that out very soon.

I used to go to bed at a reasonable hour, back when I was about 14 or younger, I remember some Friday nights I would have trouble staying awake for the entire Letterman show. Back then he was on at 12:30am. I was also in school much longer during the day. Perhaps that tired me out.

During the summers, I’d stay up really late. Each successive year, I’d stay up later and later. By the time I left high school, I’d be pushing the 2am or 3am barrier. I’ve never thought about why I liked to go to bed so late. I guess it’s partly biological and partly social. I’m pretty sure something in my brain is telling me not to feel tired late at night. From a social standpoint, I like being awake at these late hours. It almost feels like the entire world is in bed, but I’m awake and conscious, when everyone else is dreaming.

I’ve read that teenagers are more apt to staying up late because of biological reasons, but they outgrow that in their 20s. I’m not sure if that will ever happen to me.

I know that I can’t work it out of my system. For eleven months, I worked at this horrible place for my first engineering job out of undergrad. I woke up “early” every weekday and went into work around 9:30am. You’d think that after eleven months, my body would maybe become a little more prone to going to bed earlier. After my last day of work after quitting, I stayed up until 2am that night and woke up at 10am the next day. It was the same thing for weeks afterwards.

There’s sometimes a latent belief that people who sleep in are lazy. That’s because when most people are up in the mornings, they think anyone who is sleeping must not be pulling their weight. Of course, you rarely hear people chatising someone for going to bed early.

Being a night owl in society is very hard. Appointments, classes, meetings, you name it, no one thinks twice about scheduling these things at 7am, 8am, 9am. My neighbour down the hall had a physio appointment at 7am last week. No one would question the physio for doing that. He’s just an early riser, a go-getter who gets the worm. What if he had appointments at midnight though? Oh no, he can’t do that. That’s ridiculous, no one would go then, because everyone would be in bed. I’d go at midnight, but then I below to a very small segment of society.

I’ve been doing some surfing and I found an interesting site on the Web. It’s called the Nocturnal Society. It’s a cheezy Geocities site, but it has an interesting theory in their “manifesto“. They theorize that in the evolution of human beings, a small percentage of people are genetically prone to staying up late. Why? To tend the fires that humans used to sleep next to. I’m not sure how accurate this is, but they say that early man relied on fire throughout the night for warmth and to keep away predators. If the entire group of people all went to sleep it’s possible the fire could go out. Over some unknown length of time, evolution made sure that some people would be predisposed to staying up late.

It’s a good theory, but I’d like to see real proof, perhaps a “night owl gene” of some sort.

Well, I better go do some marking. It’s been only an ok day in terms of productivity. Here’s to the rest of the night and another log on the fire!

A QUESTION OF ETIQUETTE

A few of us here at SJC have decided to go to Victoria for reading break next month. We’ve decided to stay at cheap motel near the downtown core. Bryan and Sarah get their own room and I’ll be sharing a room with three other ladies. We plan on only being there for a weekend.

I mentioned our plans to a friend of mine. He immediately had some questions.

“So, um, have you ever shared a hotel room with three other females before?”

“Well, this one time I was daydreaming I was at this bikini convention and…”

“How well do you know these ladies?”

“I consider them good friends.”

“How comfortable do you feel around them?”

“Well, they’ve seen me in my PJs, most of SJC has too, so there’s a level of comfort there.”

“You’re a guy right?”

“It may not be used very often, but I have all the right equipment.”

“Erwin, have you ever burped, farted, or scratched yourself?”

“Um, why are you asking me this?”

“Do you think you could go all weekend without doing any of those things?”

“Well, I could I guess, but there’s a strong chance I’d blow up like the Hindenburg.”

“Dude, we’re guys, we like to fart, burp, and scratch ourselves whenever we please. If we can’t do it in public, we wait until the very first second we’re in private to do so… you won’t have a second of privacy the entire weekend.”

“I’m not a big scratcher myself, though I do get kinda itchy on the legs right before I go to sleep, it’s a weird thing I have.”

“Erwin, the second you scratch one of your legs in bed, your friends will be thinking you’re going for the meat and two veg.”

“Oh please… and I can just close my mouth when I burp. If I need to let one rip, I’ll just go to the bathroom.”

“You’re telling me if you need to de-pressurize the main cabin, you’ll go to the bathroom each time? What if you’re in bed? What if someone is in the bathroom already? What if you need to let a string of ’em go? You’ll go each time?”

“Excuse me, what finishing school did you say you went to?”

“Look, all I’m saying is that you’ll be enjoying the trip a lot less than you think you’ll be. You’re going to pay the price for being a guy.”

“Don’t women have to do those things too?”

“Probably not the ones you’re going to be rooming with.”

“I really don’t know.”

“Hey, isn’t your sister living in Victoria?”

“Yeah.”

“How comfortable do you feel around her?”

“It is not uncommon for us to discuss the nuances of farting and burping.”

“So there you go, you should probably just spend your nights there, so you won’t be persecuted for being a guy.”

“Hmmm… I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it.”

“Oh my God dude, I totally forgot! What if you have to go do number two while you’re there??!?!?!?!”

Well, it was right about there that I ended the conversation. Nevertheless, my friend did bring up some very important points. I don’t consider myself a pig or a slob, but hey, let’s face it, I’m not exactly an upper-class female socialite either.

I’m going to open up the floor for discussion, please feel free to comment.

NOT SLEEPY

I have to be up at 8am tomorrow. I wish I was sleepy right now. I wish I could be like Boo. Unfortunately, I’m wide awake and feel like doing some work. I’m going to be a mess tomorrow morning.

THE SHIRT THAT WILL NOT STAY CLEAN

There is this shirt that I like. I had it laundered last week. Somehow, some dirt got on the lapel before I had a chance to iron it. Back it went into the wash last night to get cleaned once again.

Minutes ago, I went to iron it. I noticed a small stain on the left front of the shirt. It looked like an oil stain. Tiny, but not so small to go unnoticeable. I said screw it, I’m ironing it and wearing it.

Why oh shirt of mine

Have you become dirt magnet?

Perhaps you be clean?

CONSUMABLES

I simultaneously ran out of toilet paper and laundry detergent this weekend. I saw it coming for weeks, but I didn’t do anything about it.

For some reason, my father prides himself on getting me 30 rolls of toilet paper at a time. I really appreciate it since it saves me the hassle of buying the stuff myself and I can’t easily lug around that much TP. I haven’t been home in a while, so I haven’t had a chance to stock up.

When I ran out on Friday night, I had an emergency plan in place whereby I secured myself a single, new roll of TP. It wasn’t the greatest in the world and I swear it could easily be used as sandpaper, but it did the trick. On Saturday night, Chris drove me to Safeway and I picked up a 20 roll pack. That was a much needed favour from him.

I did my laundry tonight and I had to borrow a scoop of detergent from my neighbours, Stephen and Nenagh. That I’ll probably need to buy a box of Tide real soon.

The weekend of missing these consumables made me think about how much money we spend on them. You have TP, laundry detergent, dish soap, shampoo, toothpaste, garbage bags… the list goes on. Back when I was working, I wouldn’t think twice about buying laundry detergent if I needed it. Now, as I get poorer and poorer (and hopefully more educated), I really think hard about where I can stuff for free.

I haven’t paid for a single garbage bag since I’ve moved into SJC. And no, I don’t use recycled Safeway bags for it. I use new, made-for-garbage-bins garbage bags. I won’t say how I get them, but it’s quite handy. All I will say is that I don’t steal them.

Lately, I’ve been getting free dishwashing soap as well. I ran out about a week ago and I really didn’t want to go out to get some more. My dishes were dirty and I just didn’t have the time. Again, I’m not stealing it either.

I think you can save a lot of money if you’re just resourceful around university residences. The key is to be resourceful. There’s a fine line between that and stealing. There’s no honour in that.