Back on the antimalarials

But not for malaria-related stuff. Since I was still pretty sick, saw the doctor, got a perscription with a name familiar but unknown, filled it and found out it was doxycycline, and it made me laugh.

Oh and my dad's also on antimalarials (hydroxychloroquine), though he's never even been anywhere with malaria risk.

MBNA

Stupid U of C Mastercard. I applied a few years ago, but then destroyed and never activated the card after it arrived. They kept sending tons of mail swhich I shredded. Eventually, after a couple years, they stopped, and I thought they had forgotten about me. But no! Today a new U of C mastercard arrived! Fools, I will destroy them all!

The Best Part of Christmas

Has it been the few days of extreme sore throat, among the worst ever? Or the nausea and headache and throwing up christmas day? Or the occasionally mucoussy left eye? Yeah something sure decided to kick my ass this holiday season. Oh well, that's the way things go sometimes.

Ecological Solutions

Yesterday evening I was watching discovery channel, they were talking about black rhinos, how they are threatened and in some areas there are very small populations, and they're worried about inbreeding. Meanwhile it was showing them in a helicopter chasing down and tranquilizing a rhino. So, I was thinking maybe they were gonna do some artificial insemination or something. The narrator comes back on and says that the national parks and reserves often capture and exchange their balls.

Totally shocked for a moment. Did they actually just say that?! And did they actually mean it?! I briefly imagined them chopping them off two bulls and reattaching them to the other, so when they mate they'd be delivering another bull's sperm... But no, that doesn't make sense, it couldn't possibly work out, could it? And discovery channel wouldn't such informal terminology like "exchange their balls," would they?

A little later I realized they had said "Exchange their bulls." Which definitely eases my mind.

Bloodlust

I definitely someday have to have a pet named Bloodlust. It doesn't even matter what type of pet it is. I could have a guinea pig named Bloodlust. Oh, and if it was a pet that could be taught commands, like a dog, I'd totally remap all the commands, so that "sit" would cause him to bark, "roll over" would have him raise a paw, etc.

Stage 1 Complete

Got word from the JET program that my written application is good enough, and I'm up for the interviews in late february. Yay! Geoff and Evelyn also got positive notification, double yay!

Not fast enough

Been searching for a place to move out to for a few weeks now, found one that started being advertised about thursday that seemed good, looked at it saturday morning, thought a little, and decided I'd take it. Was very excited, was looking into all sorts of stuff relatede to the move. Called today to let them know, and learned that it's already taken. Pisses me off. Back to searching, maybe in another few weeks I'll find somewhere and take it right away before the few days it takes to go are up. Stupid high-demand calgary housing.

Stupid French Bastards, give me back my Question Mark!

I had a dream involving Montreal, so I decided to write my friend in montreal an email about it, and do it in French! Damn that was tough. I even switched my keyboard to French Canadian mode for inspiration, and I was shooting out "é" and "à" like crazy, but then when it came time for "?" I was screwed, cause that had been remapped to "É"! I had to search all over the place, finally found it at shift-6, aka "^". Crazy Frenchies. (oh yeah lots of other keys were also remapped but not quite as hard to find)

Flowers For Algernon

I was going to start a post about how life's changing, and how christmas exemplifies this. For virtually every year of my life (except a few years ago when my dad was grumpy and didn't feel like going out), we've spent Christmas Eve at Ray and Rene's place. It's a big gathering of some of my parents old friends from who knows when. Every year, we'd go out past Macleod and Heritage, look for the house with all the unique orange christmas lights, and everything would be warm and happy. It didn't really matter that there weren't any others around the same age as my brother and I, there were some people a bit younger who we could interact with, or we could just sit and listen to the adults being British. But apparently last year was the last one. A few years ago, Ray died, but the gathering went on. But Rene was developing alzheimers, and it's now at a point where our christmas eve gathering simply can't happen. A lifelong tradition is over, and it saddens me. I didn't really know these people well, saw them once a year (or twice back when there was also a summer barbequeue, that ended years ago though), but I will still miss them. Oh well, it's part of growing up.

I guess I almost knew it was over last year. At the end, saying goodbye to some people, shared some eye contact with Samantha, I don't know about her, but I felt like it was almost a recognition of the way life really is and the illusions we create... I really don't know how to explain. I know for quite some time afterwards I wanted to talk to her about it, but of course, that opportunity never came.

But now I'm thinking more and more about Rene and her alzheimers. I hate it, it's a terrible thing. Even last year she'd sometimes sound a little crazy and I wasn't sure how to react. And we'd all share understanding glances between each other. As time goes by, things only get worse. Some stuff almost seems humorous, like apparently she was telling her daughter that they should really sell one of their houses since she really doesn't need two. It's actually just one house, but she thinks it's a different place depending on if she come's in the back door or front door. Almost funny, but instead it almost makes me want to cry. Last year, she was aware that Ray was dead, but now she just thinks he's away on a course. Last year, she sometimes didn't even know one of her daughters was her daughter. It's so evil.

But I'm not sure how she feels. I can imagine she's still happy. That is, if she doesn't know any better. I really don't know how aware she is of her condition. I know first hand the feeling of being smart enough to know you're going stupid. To know how far you've fallen. Imagine (and I know the terminology's not quite right here) being sane enough to know your crazy. To be lost in your own home. To see your family and know that tomorrow you might not recognize them. I think that would be agony.

Alzheimer's n : a progressive form of presenile dementia that is similar to senile dementia except that it usually starts in the 40s or 50s; first symptoms are impaired memory which is followed by impaired thought and speech and finally complete helplessness.

Even if I would be ignorant of what was happening, happy in my own little world, I don't think I would want to live with alzheimers. The suffering loved ones would go through watching me deteriorate. Although they'd still love me and object to this, I think I might rather just be gone and set them free.

I don't know how to conclude this, so that's it.

Manly Scratch

I spent yesterday with a manly scratch on my face, below my left eye. (I know face-scratches are manly from watching asian movies/anime). I don't think it's any less manly that the scratch came from me running through a tree. I was about to miss the bus and it's kindof dark early in the morning! (I ended up still missing the bus)

Contract

Been working almost two weeks, they finally got a contract for me to sign, yay, I will get paid afterall!

Obscene waste of money

I'm still on the grad student email list. the other day, I got a request for people to staff the engineering drop in center. This is essentially a room for people to go and study and ask a tutor person questions about their course, kindof like a tutorial/lab session for everyone. I had a couple friends do it when I was in fourth year, and in general they just did their own homework since noone was coming by to ask questions, except for a few weeks around exam times. Anyways, this email described the position as being for 16 weeks, each person would be around for 4 hours per week. The pay for this position is $2365... Do some quick calculations, that works out to $37/hour!!! Holy crap! When I was in 4th year it was $25/hour and we thought it was a stupidly high amount of money. I mean, someone can sit around on their ass doing nothing for most of the time, and be earning 150% of what I'm making with my MSc in engineering working at a real job.

This is so stupid I'm even considering writing a letter about it! Dear Mr. Schulich, do you know where your $25 million donation is going? Dear Alumni Society, stop asking me for money, you clearly have money to burn.

I shower in the evening...

...it's an asian thing.

That's what Tim Seto told me about 9 years ago. As I was lying in bed the other day, I was thinking how it does seem to be true. But I have a theory about why. It's all about facial hair. Firstly, most people go hairless these days. Secondly, in general, facial hair grows faster on non-asians. Thirdly, shaving goes much better right after a shower. See where I'm going here? If you shower in the evening, shave right afterwards, whities will have grown more hair by the time they go out the next day, compared to asians. So, in order to look their best, whities will shave in the morning, and therefore shower in the morning, while asians can get by shaving the night before, showering the night before.

(lots of generalizations, lots of exceptions, but this is about the average, not the individual)

Anyways that's the sort of thing that goes through my mind as I lie in bed at night.

corn flakes

Anyone else find the giant Rooster running around on the recent corn flakes (with strawberries) commercials creepy?