End of Yet Another Busy Week...

This week was HECTIC. Two BIG assignments, one lab, and three midterms in three consecutive days!! The assignments were alright, and the lab went smoothly...but the midterms were a bit rough.

First midterm was on Circuits. I prepared extremely well for this one - this guy was reputed to give hard midterms - but even then he beat me! There was this confoundingly confusing question that bogged me down...and though I still wrote some gibberish, I'm pretty sure I lost 20 points right there!

Second midterm: Java Programming. I expected this to be the hardest, because I've heard from senior students that her exams are intense. But no, this was a piece of cake - 1 hr. 20 mins. for the midterm, and I'm done in half an hour!

Third midterm: Simulation and Engineering Analysis. This one was supposed to be the easiest, but once again there was an upset! Most questions I could do, but out of the blue jumped out these two completely unknown definitions which I had to wing...and basically, I don't think I did too great on this one either.

But on the whole, today was a pretty good day. I caught an hour nap immediately after class (missed my afternoon class!). After that, I got up and cleaned up my room thoroughly...the only thing left to fix up are my papers (all stuffed in my drawer!). Having spruced up the room, I got down to "sprucing myself" up - long hot shower, clipped nails, lots of deodorant, decent clothes, and to top it off, strong cologne. I was all ready for our pit-and-first trip to Boston Pizza!! At Boston Pizza, I had a sirloin steak to break my fast, but unfortunately that was pretty small in size to fill a full-day starved young man!! So I split Dave's (not my roommate - another Dave) chicken wings...mmm...those were even better than my steak! But my day didn't end at Boston Pizza - after that, I walked down to Mall, where I caught a movie with Hazlyn (Malaysian friend of mine over here). We watched "The Legend of Zorro" - which I found wasn't as bad as the reviews made it out to be. I agree that the drama/action theme was mixed with a bit of 'family-sitcom'ness, but on the whole, it's entertaining.

Tomorrow should be yet another interesting day...afternoon, french class...and after that, we all go to Mehwish's place to break our fasts (Mehwish - Pakistani friend over here). At 8 tomorrow night, I work at the Student Union Building - and it's the Social Club's big Halloween Party, so that should be fun! (*sarcasm!!*)

Anyway...that's yet another boring update to my currently boring blog...I promise you people to put in some interesting reading in soon!!! Till later!

"Irregular"/"Chaotic"...

You get on top of your "snowboard"...it's just your second time...take a deep breath, and push off with your left foot. The descent begins smoothly, so a little smile creeps up on you. As you speed up down the white slope, everything blurs...soon the exhliration is so overwhelming, you let your focus on the board slip. And that's when things begin to go..."irregular"/"chaotic". There's a bump on the left...you veer off a bit to the right...you've lost your flow...you can't get it under the control anymore...no longer do you go downhill in a smooth path...it's all sharp and zig zagged...your nervous and jittery...teeth clenched, you make it through the bumps and finally land in a sprawl at the bottom of the hill. You look up at the bright, bright clear blue sky...the sun looks like so very bright...your cold and wet and shaky...yet you grin like an idiot...it was fun.

I started off that way just so that most of my readers think I just went snowboarding or something...but it's not snowing here...yet! That was just a metaphor what life is like for me right now...irregular, rough...yet that's half the fun of everything at the moment. My bioclock's messed up, I do work at the most random times, I have no clue when I eat (but I do eat), I sleep when I should be awake, I am awake when I should be asleep, I'm bold when I'm usually not...I'll elaborate now...so read on if you're interested...

Word of the Week: NOCTURNAL
I ran "nocturnal" through google...one of the definitions was: "active during the night", and another was "Sleeps during the day, and wakes and moves about at night". Currently, I'm most definitely nocturnal...but the first definition applies, while the second doesn't quite. For the past week, I've slept at 3 a.m. in the morning for the first half of the week, and then at 5 a.m. for the second half. What did I do into the wee hours of the night? First half it's been either assignments or working up at the Student Union Building. Second half, it's been programming away...I'm finally convinced that Computer Engineering IS my thing...or else which sad, sad sould labours right upto dawn working on making a calculator and a memory game? Anyway, the second definition doesn't apply because I've not quite been sleeping during the day time. It's usually either some lab till 5 in the evening, tutoring somebody, or hanging out with friends, right up until night time. Good times, good times...


Interesting and/or Significant Events of the Week:

1. Melissa's Birthday - Happy Birthday again Melissa! 21st October, 2005, Melissa officially turned 19, thus a complete adult (i.e., she can drink legally now!). We surprised her in her room in the evening, all nicely decorated by Lauren (one of her best friends and roommate) and others. We had AWESOME chocolate cake and a kiddie-sized pink cone party hats. After blowing the candles (and frantically brushing away the smoke before the smoke alarms went off!), Melissa received her birthday gift (bought by a lot of us as a group): A fish tank! For now, it doesn't have fish...but we have to wait for the water to run for a while before we get them for her. After that, we went down to Boston Pizza for dinner...and I ate a FULL 13-inch pizza by myself, followed by some pasta (or something of the sort!) that Sarah couldn't finish. Then we came back down to Bridges (our residence) and sat around in Melissa's room for a while...people came by wishing Melissa and everyone had a pretty good time, even if things were a bit mellow (everybody was recovering from Midterm Week - except me...mine start next week). But my sleep debt soon kicked in...Sarah, Dave and I came down at like 11:30 (we carried Sarah down!)...I was in bed by 12...but I think because my bioclock's messed up, I couldn't sleep till 4!

2. Sarah's Adventures in the Hospital: What dampened the week was Sarah's hospitalization...midweek, she suddenly has trouble moving her legs. It's not that she can't feel them, she has to consciously THINK to make them move. They (being Lauren, Melissa and Dave - sorry, Sarah...my schedule was just too friggin' busy to make it!) took her to the hospital, where she stayed overnight for two (or was it three?) days...her mother even drove up for a day. She came back on Friday, for Melissa' birthday, but she's going back tomorrow (Sunday) to get her MRI...and then they'll be able to diagnose her. Good luck Sarah! Praying for you...

Does that look like a sick person to you??

3. Got Paid! I got paid! I finally have a decent amount of cash in my bank account...normally, I'd probably go and finish half that money on new books and movies at the cinema...but I'm gonna let it accumulate a bit (plus, I've had so little time to read lately, I have quite a few books "in line" to be read!).

4. Ma's Birthday! Last, (but nowhere near the least!), it was Ma's birthday today (22nd October). Before I left for college in Malaysia in August 2003, I think I've spent every year of my life with her...and most of those years, it's been only her and me. Needless to say, I miss her terribly, and it feels so funny not being there with her on her birthday...but I guess that's just life...things change...even the most "unchangeable" bits about it. Anyway, I wish her another gazillion decades of joy and fulfillment...and thank her for being the best mother I could ever ask for!

That's about it people...the end of another "irregular"/"chaotic" week in "Sabeer's College Days". Till later, keep grinning like a madman...coz honestly, madmen know how darn funny everything is!

In Sickness and In Health...

Monday morning, last day of Thanksgiving Weekend...everyone's finally coming back into Residence...and abiding by one of the many facets of Murphy's Law, I wake up with a fever and slightly sore throat. Fasting that day, so I'm in a bit of dilemma - is the fever mild enough to postpone dealing with until after sunset, or deal with it immediately? Then I decide to deal with both at once - sleep...deal with it after that.

So I slept throughout the afternoon up until around 4:30p.m. Wake up, have a shower - that made me feel much better, so I thought I'd last it out for another two hours before I could break my fast. Bad decision. By sundown, I could feel the lining of stomach aching intensely...it didn't help that my recently-acquired cutlery had such impossibly sticky wrapping that I struggled with it for a full 10 mins. before I had it ready!

There I was...in the mixture of waning daylight and the room's dim yellow light...sitting on the carpet with a plate of a one-and-a-half-day old turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy in front of me. I started ingesting...after about 7 spoons, I couldn't take it anymore...the pain of eating such heavy food after not eating all day WHILE you have fever was just too much. Instead, I had a little muffin and an apple.

Before this however, Dave came back from home, alongwith his mother. I was so embarassed that my side of the room was in such a horrifying mess, I think I apologized like three times within moments of meeting her! Nevertheless, she was sweet enough not to show any sentiments of "What kind of a freak is my son living with?!!" You've got to love mothers for things like that! ;)

Immediately after breaking my fast, I downed 2 Tylenols. It didn't help until later in the night, when I sweated it off in my sleep. Two days later, I visited the doc, not because of my fever (which had gone away by then), but because of worsening pain in my throat. She gave me penicillin for 10 days, just in case it was strepthroat (bacterial infection of the throat). I've had some horrible nights since then...for some sadistic reason, the coughing always gets real bad at night, just before bedtime. I think there was one fit where I coughed for 15 mins. almost without stopping! Not to mention the one where I almost blacked out!

Anyway, I'll stop freaking out my mother (who I'm sure is going to call me shortly after reading this!) by continuing on the horrors of my cough...but you'll be happy to know (I hope you'll be happy!) that it's gotten much better. The pain's gone, and now there's only this irritating itch in my throat that bugs me from time to time.

Guess I'm going to stop around here...I haven't mentioned a lot of the things that went on within the past week (got sick on this last Monday 10th October)...but it's been all good...not too busy, not too boring...got all assignments done in time, went to the mall twice, took pictures (check out my MSN space, if you know my MSN address!), did laundry twice (one was bedsheets), worked one shift at the Student Union Building, etc.

I apologize for this rather uninteresting update...but such trivial tragedies like fevers and colds tend to be pretty uninteresting...it's sad isn't it...if I had something like Typhoid (God Forbid!), I'm sure most of us would be more interested in this post right now! Ah well...that's why we're here and not in Heaven...(any atheists out there - I hope my presumption of God and Heaven doesn't offend)

Thanksgiving Weekend...

Friday, October 7th 2005: It's the end of yet another nerve-wracking, gruelling, "Engineering Student's Week"...and the beginning of the 3-day Thanksgiving Weekend. All people in my residence, including my roommate and good friends (namely: Dave, Sarah, Melissa, Lauren) are packing up to leave for home. I say goodbye to all...and prepare for three lazy days of very little to do. Oh, before that "very little to do" bit starts...I do my 7 hour shift of work till 2a.m. in the morning at the Student Union Building.

Saturday, October 8th 2005: I laze in bed all day watching movies downloaded off the college network, or simply sleeping. I have a convenient excuse for my idleness though - it's raining outside, and the wind here is biting cold when it rains. I saw: Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Fantastic Four. I write those in descending order of "goodness" - in my opinion, Fantastic Four sucked.

Sunday, October 9th 2005: Repeat of Saturday...except that I did my laundry. And in the evening, I babysitted Shawn's kids while he took Jenny out for a movie. All of them are adorable. The cutest line I heard was from Virginia (the youngest - her picture's somewhere in this blog), referring to the stuffed Turkey I had, she said "You ate that chicken with the gross stuff in it". You gotta love children's honesty, eh?!

Monday, October 10th 2005: That's actually right now, and it's 4:12 a.m at the moment. After getting back from Shawn's, I watched "The 40 Year Old Virgin" - hilarious, and I love the song at the end of that movie! Anyway, after that, I updated my other blog, Sane In An Insane World , and now I'm writing this. I have a very strong hunch that it's time I went to sleep ... so ... umm ... g'night.

In case you didn't notice: I updated the other blog,Sane In An Insane World ...with a piece about Epiphanies.

Work and Play...Play and Work...

Well, college academia finally caught up and your favourite blogger was out of commission for a while! Under pressure of the immense guilt of leaving you people out there so curious about my banal life, I decided to quickly bring everyone upto speed.

The theme for the past few days/weeks has been: Work and Play

WORK:

1. The Student Union Building: I didn't mention it yet in the blog, but I didn't get any of the Work Study positions I applied for, despite getting two interviews. Anyway, I still have my job as security at the Student Union Building (SUB)...currently I'm a "spare", that is, an on-call guy, but I've been lucky enough to get a lot of shifts at once. Since I always say yes whenever someone calls me for a shift, till now they always call me first! Working hours are pretty nocturnal (which suits me just fine) - from 8p.m. till 2:30/3:00 a.m. the next morning. It's perfect right now, considering that I'm going to be fasting for a whole month (Ramadan), and the only time I get to eat IS in that time frame! Oh - guess what I'm doing for Thanksgiving Weekend? Friday and Saturday nights - burning the midnight oil at the SUB!

2. "House Tutor": I've always told people I love teaching...and I really mean it. I don't know what it is - the sense of "power", the ability to help, the attention, the authority or simply a way to feel special - but I simply love it. So, despite being an Engineering major, I teach all the people I can. I can count at least 5 people in my residence who come to me for help on a regular basis (almost everyday!), and Shawn is my constant student.

3. Assignments/Tests: By the fact that I'm mentioning this third and list on my list of Work, you can just imagine how much priority this one gets! Anyhow, at the beginning of the sem, I was slacking off with my assignments, leaving them to the last minute...but the Nerd in me has been Unleashed, and I'm doing my work way ahead of time. But I've noticed that this doesn't seem to work - there always seems to be some work or the other to do later on! It's weird, but true!

PLAY:

1. Ultimate Frisbee: I consider this sport a great compromise between American Football and real Football (I refuse to call it Soccer! At least you play this with your "feet"!). You have to pass around a frisbee between team members across the field, and score by having your teammate catch the frisbee on the other side of their goal line. We played a house game recently, against a kickass team (hence you already know the result!), and boy was it fun! I sucked ass...but I had a couple of golden moments. I intercepted two awesome throws, and blocked a pass by glancing it off my teeth! Good times...

2. Softball: Never saw the game before, never played before. But lotsa fun. It's basically just baseball played with a larger, softer ball and in a smaller playing area. It's rather mellow though - most of the players don't do much...only the pitcher, batsman and the players guarding the bases do something. But it was still a fun time - first time I got upto bat, I struck out. Second time, I hit it twice...first was a foul hit, second was caught!!! But I hit the ball dammit!

3. Dancing: This is not a sport technically, yet its just as physical and skill-oriented. I don't mean to boast, but most people say I'm a decent dancer. In fact, that's probably the only thing I do when I go to a nightclub - considering my zero-alcohol consumption. I went over the last weekend to the Social Club here on campus with a couple of my friends, and "grooved" out on stage. I discovered two things:
a) Most guys don't move their hips. It seems that that's considered the girls' job. I don't care - a friend told me I dance better than some girls! ;)
b) The Horseshoe Crotch. This is my roommate's (Dave Carter) specialty. It's real simple, unique, and...umm...quite "eye-catching"! All you do is spread your legs into a horseshoe shape, and move from the crotch! The upper body moves altogether - that means that the arms, chest and neck don't move independently but all together. Lower body movement - the knees bend and unbend. Even picturing it hilarious! But the thing is, Dave doesn't gives a rat's ass...he's out there having a good time, and that's all that matters (had to say that to console him!)

That's about it...everything else I've been doing is even more banal and insignificant than these! I'll see you all some time later...meanwhile, take care...and remember (corny cliche punchline coming up)...

"All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy!"