So, apparently I'm a sociable person. I mean, I knew this before, it became quite apparent to me on Monday. I was transiting back to SFU Burnaby from Surrey, and I saw someone reading Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. That being a good book and a good author, I commented on it, and struck up a conversation with the person. We chatted for the rest of the Skytrain ride, and were both getting off at the same stop, so I invited him to join me on an errand, and then it turned out his mother works at SFU and he's a SFU Computer Science graduate, so he ended up following me back up the hill, and we hung out for the two hours until his mom got off work. I can't decide if it's totally weird, awesome, or both that I spent all afternoon hanging out with someone I met that afternoon!

In other news, I'm really enjoying Japanese. It takes up more time than the rest of my classes, probably because it's lots of memorizing. More to the point, I can study Japanese and feel productive while procrastinating for my other classes. And now, I can blog or post to the RP my friend and I moved to wiki.

And now I'm off to learn about data structures, and fix the segmentation fault error I managed to write into my (supposedly simple) program.

It's amazing how easily I forget about this. Just updated, and the only reason I remembered it, just two weeks later, is because I was showing it to my friend and realized stuff had happened that I hadn't posted about! (Thanks, koishii)

First thing that come to mind is school. Remember those two exams I wrote? Well, I ended up doing really well on them. I was worrying about failing physics (Mechanics and special relativity, if you want to know), since it was really hard, but apparently they scaled it pretty heavily, because I ended up with an A, and a mark somewhere in the 70s%. Eep! And then there's MACM (Discrete mathematics - things like Inclusion/Exclusion, generating functions, recurrence relations, graph theory and trees), which has been making me want to shoot myself ever since the class started, since it's all obtuse, confusing stuff, until it clicks and makes sense, sometime after the test. I ended up with an A- on that one! I can't really believe it. The rest were A (multimedia programming in Java), A- (low-level computer design with logic gates and stuff) and B+ (Calculus I). Overall, very happy about that stuff. I get to keep my scholarship!

Y'know what else is a good thing to do during finals? I think the best use of my time when I have an exam in a couple days or so is to finish my website. Don't you agree?

Actually, it's a terrible time to do that, but that's how my brain works, apparently. Yup, I finally finished my new layout and content revamp. Hwesta's Hideaway all new and shiny-like. Go looky! Comments rewarded with hugs. ^__^

Also, Christmas break! I'm very happy to be able to come home and be lazy. I'm busy catching up on a semester's worth of no sleep. And it'll be good to hang out with all my friends that live at home, instead of in Res.

Ohh, we have snow here! Greater Vancouver is pretty much the only part of Canada that gets almost no snow. And now we have snow, and the temperature has been below freezing all week. It's crazy!

Eee! I have lots of things to go "Eee!" about!

Eeep, I haven't updated this in forever. This semester has been pretty busy for me. I'm taking 5 courses, of which the names and numbers don't mean much unless you're also going to SFU. Calculus I (derivatives), Discrete Math II, computer hardware (logic gates and circuits FTW!), physics (mechanics and special relativity), and a terrible java multimedia programming course. That and all the silly social life things that go on in university. Hopefully next semester will be more fun and maybe even less work, with three computer science courses (Yay!), Japanese and psychology. I'm really excited about taking three CMPT courses, since that's my intended major.

Eee, I have two exams today! On a Saturday! That is a terrible thing to do to people. One at 8:30, which I just finished, and one at 3:30. (That's probably why I'm updating this - when better than when procrastinating last-minute studying?) At least my next exam isn't until Wed, and then two on the Sat after that. >__< Universities, I swear. They schedule things at the worst possible times. The day after the US election, I had two midterms - how can I study if I have to be paying attention to politics down south?!

Eee, it's my birthday! I'm 19! I can drink in BC now, yay? I've already gotten 6 messages from people who won't see me in person today. I feel so special! It's weird, last year I barely noticed my birthday until the day of, and then I got excited. This year, I've been looking forward to it for a month, at least. I have no idea what I want for my birthday, though. Hugs? Snuggles? Seeing friends? Not failing classes?

And lastly, the reason I've been going "Eee" instead of something that might have been more appropriate, that's what I've been writing on - an Eee! This Eee, specifically. The Asus Eee 1000 40GB SSD 1GB RAM black Linux. I heartses it. Installed Ubuntu Eee over the default Xandros almost immediately. I love having a lightweight laptop I can throw in my backpack that doesn't weigh much more than a textbook. I also love that it runs Linux - I've learned a fair bit more about the command line through necessity, and now obsessively read man pages and --help stuff. ^___^

Who knows, maybe I'll start updating this (and my DA, and my site) more often now that I can whip out my laptop and post something without having to remember to do it when I get home!

It's been a busy week! Also, it's hard to believe it's Thursday already.

Tuesday was probably the busiest. First thing in the morning, we headed down to the US for our Nexus interview. Nexus is this neato little program that lets people travel between the US and Canada without having to be interviewed every time. They do all the interviewing at once, and give you a card the lets you skip the lineups at the border. We were part of its predecessor, PACE, and joined Nexus as soon as it came out, and now we're renewing. Man, can we tell stories about their obsession with rules.

First, the cards last 5 years. There's no expiry date on the original ones, which we had, since we were among the first in the program. They didn't send a letter when they expired. We knew, because mom keeps track of these things, but we tried using them to cross the border a few months ago, and the guy's all "You know these are expired." "Uhhh, no? No letter, no date on the cards?" "Well, you should know. I'm taking them". So we weren't impressed with that.

Then, when we went down to get them renewed, we had to bring just about every piece of ID you can think of - birth certificate, passport, driver's license, citizenship card, everything. Aren't most places satisfied with two pieces of ID? Dad hadn't had his card confiscated, and we didn't think to bring it. Well, they want you to have your old ones. We had to come back later that day with his old card before they'd give us his new one. Also, I don't appreciate feeling like an idiot when you explain the rules to me, besides most of them being pretty out there. Can't have anything that doesn't belong to you in the car if you cross using Nexus. Sounds reasonable - except you can't have your husband's golf clubs, or kid's gym bags, unless they're in the car. Le sigh.

Anyway, the rest of the day was much more fun. The Rotary Club has a booksale every year of used books, and we stopped by. I was quite excited to pick up Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks (I already owned the sequel, Earth Logic), Sun in Glory edited by Mercedes Lackey, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and two Darkover novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley (MZB). Today, I went back to the booksale and hit the motherload - there were a ton of MZB books there. I've been sorta collecting Darkover novels, since many are out of print and hard to find, so I bought all the ones I could get my hands on. Not the anthologies, but all the ones by her. Actually ended up with three duplicates, because I already owned the ominbus edition that had them, but they were $2 each, so I'm okay with that.

I'm afraid the next two items are venturing into the realms of girly. The first is that I picked up an awesome pair of boots. I already own a plain black leather (no laces or zipper) pair, and love them. Well, to be fair, I love most boots. They're clearly the best footwear, by appearance. (Sneakers win out for comfort.) These are by Naot, their Allure style, in the Granite leather.  (Granite leather?  It's neither granite colored, nor leather [they're suede], but whatever.  That's the color.)  They look better in reality than in the picture.  And, since I have very little to wear with boots, we ended up going by the fabric store and buying a pattern for a skirt, with accompanying fabric and notions.  I have fabric for two skirts: an aqua suede to go with the boots, and a lightweight linen blend, white with black embroidery.  I'll try for pictures once I have something more interesting to show.  I'm really excited about actually making myself some skirts.

Wednesday, I wrote my last exam, so I'm done with school for the semester, and I'm taking summer off to work.  Freedom!  Marks should be in around the 23rd.

And today, I bought more books at the booksale (see above), and started the process of getting my wisdom teeth pulled.  Very exciting, I assure you.  You may end up with some drugged up posts in a couple weeks, as I'm recovering.  At least i have lots of books to read!