Christmas Vacation So Far

Okay, it's been a while.

First of all, the cold snap I mentioned in the last post really escalated. It turned into an ice "storm" that knocked down telephone lines and ripped out tree branches. There were streets barricaded with rubble and danger tape. The power kept coming on and off. Funny, because I didn't notice it while I was inside. I just walked out one day and saw destruction everywhere. Guelph didn't get it as bad as Toronto, though. Some people there had to have a Christmas without electricity.

A friend of mine has come down with Wegener's Disease, a super-rare disease that strikes seemingly at random. She had to be put in a medically induced coma. It was expected to last up to a couple weeks, but she has regained the ability to speak and has been admitted to a less critical room on this day, her tenth since being admitted. The disease is severe, may have long-term consequences, there's a high risk of relapse, and until recent development, the mortality rate was not good.

However, our new medical approaches are far more successful and she has been doing almost as good as anyone could have hoped for, although she's had a few minor relapses.

My closest friend from last year is pregnant and ready to give birth at any time. In fact, she is one week overdue today. I'm told that I will be an honourary uncle.

Christmas was good. It was kind of a quiet thing. I stayed at home in Guelph, exchanged presents with my immediate family and had a big Christmas dinner. Then I went and stayed with my grandfather in Toronto for three days and had the opportunity to visit my aunt and her side of the family. I got to watch a couple of movies, including a new one, Gravity, which is a survival story in outer space, and an older one, Before the Rain, which is a kind of trippy Macedonian film about concepts surrounding war and violence.

I got my criminal record check into the processing stage. Now I just need to get my driver's license and health card renewed. I also have to do  my info desk training on January 3rd.

I also caught up with my old Big Brother Couple. We went to an Indian restaurant called Diana's Downtown, which was pretty cool.

Cold Snap and New Store Owners

Hey, check this comic out. I didn't make it.

You can check out the rest of his comics at calmblueoceans.com, but when I went there and gave it a once-over, it seemed like this one was just a stand-out. His other works weren't all that special, in my opinion.

There's been a real cold snap in our area. It feels like a real Canadian winter for once. But the weather forecast says that might change before Christmas. Oh well.

The store owners of the convenience store down the road changed hands a third time. This time it's a Hasty Market, which I'm pretty sure is a chain, since I've seen several in Kitchener. These owners haven't shocked me in any way, which is a first.

Some Grades Back and New Timetable

I tried to eat all my perishable food items before leaving for Guelph. I ate nearly a whole head of lettuce and all my fruit except one orange. Finished my milk and pepperoni. I made coleslaw for a potluck get-together, so I had two half-heads of cabbage and some carrots.Spent a day eating almost exclusively salads and coleslaw.

Got two of my grades back. Finished with an 83 for Developmental Psych and a 78 or something like that for Systems. It's not on the portal but the teacher I did my culminating interview let me know how I did in his class.

I like how my test results for Psych reflect my improvement throughout the year.

Test 1: 64%
Test 2: 86%
Test 3: 100%

And even though my first test and assignment were beneath the class average, I wound up beating it by the end of the year (average was 78%). Adapt and survive, yeah! I'm the comeback kid.

The review went fine. I was told I was a joy to have in class, and I had it confirmed that I didn't fail any classes so I don't have to take a supplemental.

My schedule for next year is horrid. I guess it's to make up for the dream of a schedule I had last semester. Three 8 AM classes and no days off.

I wound up deciding to not take an additional course.

I'm hoping to renew my health card, renew my driver's license and get a criminal record check done while I'm in Guelph. I also need to do some training for my position at the info desk at school.

Parking

I finished my last exam! I should have this in the bag at this point. Not only was the exam low-risk and felt like it went fairly smoothly, but I forgot that we get a 10% attendance grade, which I'll have earned with a perfect.

Reading my college newspaper, it says that Mango King and Pino's Pizza have had difficulty with students parking in their parking lots because it's cheaper than at the school. How they responded? They are now renting parking permits to students at cheaper rates than the school does.

The school paper even went so far as to take note that our Security and Parking Services could not be reached for comment.

Why would a school newspaper be writing such things about it's own services?!

Red Friday

I always wear red on Fridays. I noticed back when I was doing the AV tapings. On the second Friday, I was watching myself from the previous Friday. I noticed I was wearing the same shirt as I was the week previous. On the third Friday, I noticed that, even though I was wearing a different shirt, it was still red. I have three red shirts.

I thought maybe it's because my laundry day is Thursday and I subconsciously like red more than I thought, so it's my first choice when I get a batch of clean clothes. But I've noticed that, even if I do my laundry on a different day, I will consistently choose red for Fridays.

Sometimes I notice that I'm wearing red right before I leave, or even just after I get dressed, but I don't bother to change what I'm wearing. If it's what my subconscious wants to do, let it. Why not.

I know studies have shown that people wearing red take the initiative more and people believe them to be more assertive. Conversely, the colour blue gives you a more calming presence. I also know that red in advertisements for food give the impression of being good-tasting, whereas blue gives the impression of being healthy.

So I guess that's something to think about.

I have only one more exam, which is tomorrow, and then I only have a culminating review. My review was on Thursday, but I recently got a notification that peoples' schedules needed to be changed. I thought they would be changed to Tuesday or Wednesday, because the sign-up paper was put on a door next to a different student adviser's sign-up paper. I thought they'd realized they can't do multiple interviews in the same room at once and had to change so they were interviewing at different times.

But no. They are the same day, but different times. And there are still overlapping times between the two of them. This time around I didn't get lucky and get in early, so I have to do it on Friday.

Now I've got my interview on Friday the 13th, and I have to wait a full schoolweek before going home, despite finishing my last final at the beginning of the week. That bad luck is already getting to me...

Electives

I get to choose an elective for next semester. I've already taken one of the courses that I'm being offered, and so if I take it, I can be exempted from it and have one less class than everyone else. But there some of these classes look... tempting.... For example

Evil and Humanity:

This course provides an introduction to the theme of evil and humanity. Course participants will evaluate and compare perspectives on, and responses to, the existence and symbols of evil in our society. Students will have the opportunity to engage in debate and compare ideas in a range of international religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions. In this course, we explore the question of evil through texts, film, and Internet sources ranging from biblical to modern times. Exploring the dark side of life, crime, transgression, and nightmarish systems through the lens of a number of theoretical perspectives, we engage with questions essential to humanity, including the nature of human beings, the basis for moral conventions, individual and collective responsibility, and goodness versus happiness. Students will reflect on how contemporary human-made atrocities challenge us to craft adequate moral, political, and juridical responses. 

Quest for Wisdom
 
This course gives students the opportunity to study philosophical anthropology by examining what it means to be human and what it means to be wise. Through discussion, reading, writing and the viewing of films we will focus on the answers given to us by science, philosophy, spirituality and technology. We will attempt to understand the meaning of our existence as we quest and weave through the roads established by death, emotion, pleasure, disease, hostility, hospitality, spirituality and love, rationality, art and tragedy, community and conflict.

These two come across as quite theatrical. I could also study Spanish or Meteorology.

But I'll probably just take the exemption.