It is almost April, and that means that summer is fast approaching. That also means finals. Lectures at school will be finished April 12. After that, I my schedule of finals is as follows:
April 17 (Easter Monday) – Chinese 100
April 19 – CS340
April 20 – CS290AF
April 24 – CS306
April 26 – Econ202
Other than the first week there appears to be reasonable amounts of spacing for studying. I can’t wait for summer, working at a coop job will be a good change of pace.
I was at the Computer Science Grad Banquet, Thursday March 23, 2006. I had a really great time at the event. Many of the guests were from the IT industry in Regina. Larry Symes was the guest of honour for the event. I first met Larry when I was working at CVIC in China. During Larry’s address to the guests he got me to stand up and he mentioned how he got to know me from the visit to China. Again, almost 6 months after I finished working in China, I am still being reminded of what a great opportunity it was for me to work their.
The food at the Queensbury Center was really good. My favourite was all the deserts. I had a piece of lemon marange pie, and a piece of cherry pie. The main course was turkey, which was cooked just right.
Pictures:Larry Symes – Matthew Demyen, far
Larry Symes – Matthew Demyen, near
I am a really big Trailer Park Boys fan. Last week I went to the Mr Lahey and Randy show. It was a great time with lots of jokes of great interaction with the crowd. They really act superbly and in character. Definetly well worth the $10 admission. Today, I noticed that episodes 1 and 2 from Season 6 are being spread around the on the internet. This is amazing. . . the show doesn’t premiere till later in April so this is a major leak. The episodes are really good and have plenty of laughs. The quality of the show seems to be higher for some reason, possibly larger budget or maybe they all got better since they are doing that movie. That’ll be the next thing up, this summer is going to be awesome with the Trailer Park Boys movie. I can’t wait.
I am starting up a new side project for myself. This web project will be in wiki style. I have wanted to do a homework/exercise site for a while now so this is going to be my vision of that. The main idea of the site will be a place where the users can work together to solve and discuss exercises in textbooks. Since it is a wiki, the textbooks are not going to be limited and the users have the power to add to their own desires. I am also a fan of this idea since it will allow other users to add their own changes, possibly providing alternative methods to accomplish the same ideas. I forsee a couple of problems in my head. I want this to be a tool to assist in learning and not some kind of answer key. That’s why I am trying to limit it to textbooks exercises. Also, I don’t want to infringe upon any copyrights so I am going to have to try to enforce that the solutions are user created. I have high hopes for the site and think I should have the opportunity to see them come to fruition.
In other news, Congradulations goes out again to the Selzer rink for their fine work in representing the country on their way to winning the Silver in the World Junior Curling Championship. I watched the live results on the internet and their final game looked very close. I also investigated a little, it looks like Team Russia is skipped by the same person who was just in the Olympics. So in a way, Team Selzer lost to Olympic caliber athletes, and I’m sure if they played them again they would come away with the win. Go Canada!
The past week has gone by without much of anything interesting happening. I have been keeping a close tab on the World Junior Curling championships in Jeonju Korea. Go Team Canada!! The official webpage for the championship hasn’t been that great and I seemed to have better luck with live results at another webpage. I sure hope they are having fun on the other side of the world.
In school news, I have a CS306 assignment due on Monday. That brings up another interesting fact; I raised the mark of my midterm by 10% by argueing with the prof about bits and bytes. . . He had given me 0 marks out of 10 on a question about the data rate of a T1 line. He told us about how there are 24 – 8 bit characters with 1 additional bit for framing. I did the calculation by using bytes not bits. I even made sure to point out that 8 bits = 1 byte. My final answer was 193KBps. So when I get it back with a zero I wasn’t sure what I did wrong. He even wrote a line “I don’t follow”. Needless to say, I argued this and explained it to him. In the end I got 8/10 , since he said my units were wrong. Don’t ask me how it was wrong since he didn’t specify he wanted it in bits. So since the test was out of 75, the arguement paid off.
8 bits = 1 byte
The Formula 1 season kicked off this weekend. I have always been a huge F1 fan. In the past I used to really like Jacques Villeneuve, since he was Canadian but in recent years he has been driving unreliable, uncompetitive rides. I think I sort of will always cheer for Villeneuve but about 3 years ago I really started to enjoy the driving of Fernando Alonso. He is from Spain but he drives really really well. He drives for Renault. Villeneuve this year will be driving for BMW Sauber. . I think this will be a competitive ride with Jacques having a lot more success.
The Bahrain Grand Prix was very exciting and this season sure started off good. Villeneuve’s race came to an end with a firey blown engine. It was a pity since he was doing well and was looking to finish in the top 6 for sure. The main part of the race though was a battle between Shumacher and Alonso. It wasn’t until close to the end that Alonso pulled off a couple of fast laps and got a really nice pit stop to get ahead. . He won the race and started off a new season out in front of the Constructers Championship. Shumacher finished second. Raikonen who started in 20th place (crashed in qualifying) finished 3rd. I can’t wait for the next race!
With almost another week gone bye, I have finished another midterm CS306. On Friday I will have another quiz in Chinese 100. I am really enjoying that class due to the fact that I already know so much of what we are learning and just how easy it is to pick up all the new stuff. In not as good news, I had a CS340 assignment on Tuesday. I don’t think I will be getting a good mark on it seeing as how the second programming question didn’t work. Oh well, better luck on the next one I suppose. There can’t be many more days left in school since it is already into March. I believe I am done classes in the beginning of April. So that means about one month left then summer. Although my summer will consist of full time employment, I am awaiting the change of pace.
Last Friday, I made it out to the Owl for Arthur’s Birthday. I had a really good time. I would have liked to stay longer and have more to drink but I had to drive home and get to work by 8 the next morning. Maybe we could all do it again sometime since I had a lot of fun.
The break was good while it lasted. Having returned to school, I have had to get back to studying. The midterms this week are CS340, and Econ202. Both of which require a great deal of memorization and understanding. Econ202 shouldn’t be too dificult but for some reason this semester I am finding it to be more difficult. I think this might have to do with the prof. Dar seems to write incredible amounts of notes and this seems to overcomplicate rather simple ideas. I prefer that simple ideas have simple explanations. Oh well what can I do.
In other news, Ben is back from college in Alberta now. Arthur is having a birthday upcoming, and I will attempt to make it to the Owl on Friday night. . although I work till 9 and then again the next morning at 8. This seems like plenty of time but I shall see.
So far, with only 4 days down on the break, I’ve been having a good time. It feels good not having to worry about finishing anything or having to do anything. That of course shouldn’t be the case but I’ve been lazy. I’ve actually been busy so far working on Friday, Sunday, and now Tuesday. This has kept me busy for the most part. I’ve also been enjoying watching some movies and generally just killing time. The Olympics have kept me interested.
A good movie for everyone to check out is Waiting. It is a comedy that is based in a restaraunt called Shenanigans. I think that this has to be a good representation of what working in a restaraunt must be like. I found myself laughing quite a bit throughout, especially scenes with Dane Cook. That guy is hilarious. You can get it from Amazon with the following link, Waiting DVD
Well it’s that time of year again; Reading Week. I don’t think that I will actually spend much time reading or even going over school work but that is the name it has been given. My goal for the week is to try to relax and goto work. I also plan on watching more Olympics and cheering for Canada. They need all the cheering they can get it seems. The mens hockey team lost again; a 2-0 loss to Finland. I think we should be able to pull it together for the playoffs. We seem to be doing really well at getting medals though, much better than our Summer Olympics results.
