Monday, January 28, 2013

SSW Info Session Acceptance

Well, I've been accepted into the Conestoga program up to the information session stage. I'll need to go in and write a personal statement and provide them with a list of credentials that they have requested, including a letter of recommendation from someone in the social services that I've volunteered for, and an autobiographical statement,  which is kind of like a resume, but a little bit more flexible.

Massive competition for this spot. My session is on the 27th of next month. Right after Reading Week.

Went into the First Nations office today. Met a guy who graduated Social Service Worker. Had a good good long talk.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

First Two Assignments Back

I  played badminton at the college gym today. Doesn't seem like something I'd do, eh? Yeah, well, I did.

I want to go back to the First Nations office. I meant to do it today, because they have free lunches on Wednesdays, and I mooched off them every Wednesday last semester since I learned they did that. Thought I'd better reestablish my relationship with them before I started taking  their food. But some people wanted to hang out at lunch, and then I played badminton after class. Only got one class on Wednesdays, and it ends right around lunch time...

Got my first two assignments back. Want to know what my average for this semester is right now? 100%.  The prof told us to read a certain amount of the textbook, and it turned out to be quite difficult. Lot of people just answered the questions without reading the text. He asked us if we'd heard of the concept of SOLER (Solid, Open, Lean, Eye contact, Relax. A counseling stance) and I was the only one who raised my hand. I felt like a tool. But then, tons of people only scraped passes and I got 100%. So whatever.

The other assignment was a Personal Statement. For a lot of people, we have to write an essay on-the-spot which will determine who gets in and who doesn't, so this was a practice version of that. We also had to peer-edit five other students, but it was randomly selected who edited who, and we weren't allowed to know who we were editing. We then had to rate them from best to worst, so basically, we had to eliminate some of our peers.

I got back a bunch of really good reviews, but we weren't graded based on that. We were graded based on participation. Still kind of an intimidating assignment.

Now I'm working on a 12-dimensions cultural reflection paper, where I talk about my culture from 12 different perspectives. I've  got a an essay to write on maladaptive eating disorders. I've got to write a critical situation report, and I got some more textbook questions

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Sandwich Central

We have a sandwich station at my school's cafeteria and I sometimes eat there.  You go up to the counter and someone will build a sandwich to your specification with the ingredients they have handy. One lady always stereotypes me and tries to guess what I want. She always guesses roast beef, tomato, lettuce, cheddar, and pickles with mayo on multigrain. Isn't that strangely specific? It's wrong, too. I usually get sliced turkey breast, lettuce, tomato, cheddar, green olives and red onion with hummus on multigrain.

I made my Twitter private. So many people were reading it! Like, way more than this blog. It was kind of disturbing me, to be honest. But now I don't have the ambition to Tweet at all because only my accepted followers will see them, and that's not a large enough audience to  motivate me.

I was adding volunteer experience on my Ontario Colleges account and I was surprised to see that under available locations, they had Kenabeek as an option, which is, of course, the township where my grandparents live.

Here are two similar images to compare photo quality between my new and old camera:

Old camera:


And new camera:


Eh? You can see the difference in quality, right?

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Meyers Briggs Personality Test

We did the Myers Briggs Personality Test in school. Last time I did it I was in grade 9. At that time, I got INTJ, AKA "The Scientist". A super rare personality for super geniuses. Here's the description of INTJ as given on my more recent test:

"INTJ have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals.Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance for themselves and others."

We were asked to predict what we would get. Despite wishing otherwise, I guessed that I would get INTP. I thought I changed from "Judging"  to "Perceiving".

"INTP seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical."

What I actually got? INFP. Whaaaaat?

"INFP are idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened."

I guess that's not too bad.

Hey, you know that vacuum that wouldn't work? I was on the verge of scrapping it, but one night, I turned over in my sleep and kicked it. It started blasting away. I scrambled for it and fumbled around in the dark, trying to turn it off before it woke up my roommate. Then I realized how ridiculous it was that I was having trouble turning the  non-functioning vacuum OFF. It's worked like a charm since then.

In worse news, I accidentally turned the keypad on my computer off again.  A friend of mine came over and fixed the keypad. Same guy that managed to connect the Wireless. Just like with the Wireless, he refused to tell me how he did it. This time I have an idea that I turned it off by pressing the wrong section of the area where a space bar should be (my computer's space bar fell off). I aim to hit a little round button in the centre of where I used to have my bar when I want to make a space. I pressed somewhere on the far left of this area when my keypad turned off. I haven't been able to reverse it with the same method. Good thing I kept that little mouse handy.

Did I ever mention there's a guy that walks by the Residence, playing  bagpipes, every once in awhile? I'd really like to know what's up with that guy.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Shea Butter

Got my doors fixed today, and I'm not getting charged. Pretty sweet. All of the doors in the apartment turned out to be broken, and they were beyond repair, so we actually had to get them replaced. This whole thing is so shady. I  don't feel as violated as I would have thought, though. I mean, if I really did get broken into, then it was obviously done over the holidays because they didn't want to do it while we were around. Whoever it was was obviously scared of me, so whatever.

The girls were talking about beauty products again today, and as usual, I had no clue what to say, so I was kind of sitting on the sidelines. Then one of them said something about "Shear butter". The other girl was like "You mean like shee-ah butter." I was like "Shea butter? S-H-E-A butter?"

"Makes your skin as smooth as silk and strong as steal. Put it on your food to make it taste better. Put it on your clothes to change them to a more appetizing colour. Put it on wounds to speed up the healing process. Waterproofs houses. Put it on anything and whatever it is will become better in it's respective category. Only found in the West African nation of Mali. The women use it, and the men use it too. I've got a small bottle on me right here, as a matter of fact. Hand made in the village of Siby. Raw, like it should be. Mix shea butter with anything and it only serves to dilute it's effects. When I use shea soap, I'm clean enough to perform surgery. Anything I touch will become cleaner."

Haha, I had no idea that shea butter was such a thing. When me and my mom were shopping near Christmas, we were walking down the beauty isle, and all of a sudden I'm like  "WHAT! Shea butter! Look! There's a shampoo, conditioner, leave-in conditioner, hand soap, and body wash! WOW!"

Mom thought it was so hilarious to see me get worked up over a girly product, she bought me shea shampoo, conditioner and soap. I've put 'em out on display near the shower. Usually I buy dirt cheap products. I haven't bothered to explain this to my roommate, and he hasn't asked about it.

Eh... The stuff isn't pure, though, and you can tell. If you read the ingredients, it says that they put like, yogurt and weird stuff in it. Still a step over my usual stuff, but it really  isn't comparable to a hard block of shea soap.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Printer's Working

Well, the problem with the printer was the USB cable. I got one today and now my printer works perfectly. Just in time to print out my  two assignments that are due tomorrow. Just a week in and I'm already too busy to blog.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

First Residence Meet of the Semester

Had our first Residence meeting of the semester today. They said that, "If your room has been damaged, please alert front desk and it will be fixed in a few weeks" so I guess I'm not the only one. Did I ever say on this blog that at these monthly meetings, the concept of mental health issues is always coming up? They're like "Mental health is becoming an issue, so if you detect symptoms in your roommate or see them in yourself, please notify an RA." They treat it like some spreading disease. Kinda weird.

Gotta say, the inside of my door isn't as sturdy-looking as I'd hoped. Just a bunch of wood.

Apparently, I'm going to receive some fees at the end of the year for general damage done to the public areas of my floor. Everyone gets charged when they can't figure out who is responsible. That... doesn't seem like justice.

Some positive things about living in Residence is the big, comfortable bed, the shower that doesn't change temperature sporadically, and the reliable toilet. Why is it that apartments are cheaper, but the plumbing is usually more reliable? The overall benefits of living in a house are probably greater, but it seems kind of weird that in this area, apartments seem to have a pretty consistent lead.

Tried to install my printer. It's working, and I've got the softwear installed, but I need to "connect" the printer to the computer with a USB cable. I was using my camera's USB cable and it looked right and fit fine, but it says the printer isn't connected. Maybe my camera's cable isn't a proper cable?

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Three Assignments

The semester's already off at a pretty  good run. Already have three assignments, two due next Monday and one due in about a month. We've also been put into groups for a course-long assignment. After first semester, there are 72 out of the original 90 remaining.

Unlike first semester, we aren't divided into three even sections. Now, every Monday we spend it all together (like last semester) and the other courses are either split into diploma or degree stream, or they're just randomly put together. Honestly, the randomization was what I was expecting last semester, since that's what high school is like.

A lot of my friends are in degree stream, so I'm not spending as much time with them, which is kinda sad.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Starting a New Semester

Well, I moved back into Residence. The bottom of my room's door is smashed apart and I'm missing my Ethernet cable. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, I guess. I can still close and lock the door, so it doesn't seem like a robbery attempt. And I guess I can imagine that someone accidentally knocked some equipment against my door while they were installing the heating unit or whatever they said they were going to do while I was gone. But it's still kind of hard not to connect the two events of having your door smashed and having something disappear when they happen back-to-back like this.

Too bad for them that the most precious item I left behind was my Ethernet cable. I got another one today for $17. I can see them rummaging through what I'd left behind and being like "This guys doesn't have anything! This cable looks electronic. Maybe it's worth something." And then they smash my door out of frustration when they leave.

You're not even supposed to need an Ethernet cable around here, but I can't find anything on Wireless. One of my friends came over and used my laptop to get Wireless, but he won't tell me the secret. This is also the guy who fixed my keypad. Another one of my friends said the Wireless  is really spotty oif you get on, and he has a laptop but uses Wireless.

Just you wait. Residence is going to bill me for breaking the door. I'll file a complaint as soon as possible and hopefully we can avoid this.

Remember that hand-vacuum I bought? Don't remember if I went into this, but it doesn't work. Before putting it to use, I'd tried it out, but the problem is that it takes a ridiculous amount of time to charge and then works stellar for a short span of time before dying and needing to recharge. I wound up buying a broom and trying to sweep my carpet before leaving Res.

Had to buy the dust pan separately, and they didn't have any normal ones, so I had to buy a "Utility dustpan" for like, $3 (okay, doesn't sound as bad in writing, but I was annoyed at the time). It has a handle, which I don't even want, much less get put with additional charges for.

Bought my books today. Pretty "Not horrible". Last semester, I expected to pay about $600, which my Mom said wasn't bad considering that she was willing to pay up to $1000 a semester in her course. I managed to catch a break and get some used last semester, too, which maybe knocked the total price to something around $400. I tried to sell my books last semester, and one of them was not in demand, one I never got, one I damaged so they couldn't take it, one I need for next semester, and one I managed to sell for $40. The one that stopped being in demand, I know other people sold for $80. Just like buying, you've got to be quick qith selling.

Theoretically, if you buy a used book for a cut price and then sell it at end of semester, you can come out of it almost as if you didn't spend any money, but it doesn't usually work like that. The book I damaged was considered as such because the edge of a few pages were kind of yellowed. Maybe I walked through the rain with them.