Tonight we have a Super Blue Blood Moon to cap off January 2018. It's Super because it is at it's closest proximity to Earth, and thus appears larger. It is Blue because of a popular saying that refers to the phenomenon of having two full moons in one month, and it is Blood because of a lunar eclipse, which causes the sun's light to reflect through the moon and give it a reddish colour. Pretty freaky.
I don't know how I missed out on the symbolism of having the first of the year occur on the night of the full moon, which is what allowed today to be a blue moon. I'd like to say that it started on a blue moon, but I don't really think you can call the first of the "set" of full moons a blue moon, even if it's just as necessary for the phenomenon.
Yesterday I took a Social Psychology test that I don't have much confidence in, although I also recently took a Russian Studies test which I got 100% in. I've got an Art and Society project due next week where I have to find some piece of music and argue why it's a folk song.
I finally filled the spice jars my grandparents gave me. As a reminder, when I broke a spice bottle on my fancy spice rack, my grandparents attempted to replace the bottle. When they couldn't, they gave me their cool spice bottle set. The bottles didn't have default labels like my other set, so I got to choose what to fill them with. I went with ginger, cinnamon, cumin, garlic powder and onion powder. With the remaining bottles from my old set, I also have oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, and chili. I think I still have coriander in Guelph, too. I thought I broke coriander and tarragon, but I guess it was only tarragon, because my mom showed me a fully intact coriander bottle from my old set last I was there.
I need salt and pepper shakers, of all things...
Last time I was home, I got to make stirfry for my mother and brother. I don't usually get to take command in my mother's kitchen, so this was exciting.
My stirfry is probably the best thing I consistently make. I know I've said it before, but I reverse-engineered the technique by observing the Conestoga cafeteria chefs and the people at Mongolian Grill. Not very complicated technique. You pour boiling water over some rice noodles, you put some meat in a pan, fry it, add vegetables, add rice noodles, add sauce. For a long time I just had been using frozen vegetables but recently upgraded to fresh. I prefer to use vermicelli as my choice of noodles, then cauliflower, snap peas, carrot, mushrooms, bell pepper and onion for vegetables. I used ground turkey for the meat, and teriyaki and sriracha for the sauce.
Went over well. They spoke highly of it, but what else are you going to do when someone makes something for you? But I was encouraged the next day when they ate the leftovers, and encouraged again when my mother wanted to make a stirfry utilizing some of my techniques.
Flattering that she felt she could improve her recipe with some of my innovative techniques, but she wound up upstaging me. She used a homemade sauce, used sliced chicken breast instead of ground meat, and she used ginger.
I tried using ginger in a stirfry recently and completely overspiced it. Now I don't know if I should just throw it out or if I should force myself to eat it. I'll probably leave it in the fridge and pretend that I'll eat it because I don't want to waste the food, but put it off long enough that it goes bad and I have to throw it out.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Friday, January 26, 2018
Safe Management, Water Shut Off, and Family Traditions
This past Monday and Wednesday I co-facilitated some Safe Management sessions. Because of new policies regarding training requirements, we had to swap up the slideshow from one that was more Extend-a-Family specific to a more standard Safe Management one, albeit with a few EaF touches. I wasn't really informed ahead of time, so I kind of stumbled through the slides, but my co-facilitator was at a similar disadvantage, so we had to be a little candid in our presentation style. We got through it.
Just took my first online Russian Studies test. For the test, we needed to have read Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev. 201 pages. Test was on Wednesday, finishing an hour before I had to teach Safe Management. I'd been reading the novel on the bus casually, but when I checked how much I still needed to read, I realized that I was on page 80, and so had 121 pages to go.
Did it all in one shot. Pulled an all-nighter, although I took a nap in the morning, did my test, then taught a 6 hour Safe Management session.
I was kind of off-base with my Art and Society project. Apparently I was supposed to create links with social influences rather than historical ones. Sucks to take a loss after I put so much more effort than I thought I would, but whatever. Take your licks.
After I came back from class today, I found that none of the taps in the house worked, or the toilet. Turns out, a water pipe burst, and while the city worked to fix it, they needed to shut off our water.
So I bought eight litres of drinking water and used the bathroom at our local Tim Horton's, which was in high usage due to no one having an operational toilet.
It was estimated that it would take two days to solve the issue, but they managed to get our water flowing again by 8:00 PM tonight. Mad props to those construction workers, working late during the winter and listening to all the resident's complaints when they were the ones fixing the issue, not the ones creating it.
Last Thursday, my grandparents from Toronto visited. They took us out for both lunch and dinner. Since Ive been away from Guelph as long as I have, my family get-togethers have been kind of divided between myself-brother-mother in Guelph or myself-cousin-grandparents-aunt-and-uncle in Kitchener. Me, my brother, mkoher, and grandparents used to frequently visit in Guelph, but because of my complicated schedule in Kitchener, it has been hard to bring myself into the old formula.
Had to skip Social Psychology in fact. But it was worth it. My mother, brother and Grandparent's have developed traditions since I've been gone, and so I got to finally dine at their places of preference.
We first went to Buon Gusto for lunch, where I got the chicken panini and mushroom soup, and then we went to a place called Einstein's, where I got the red pepper quasadillas. It was all good stuff.
Just took my first online Russian Studies test. For the test, we needed to have read Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev. 201 pages. Test was on Wednesday, finishing an hour before I had to teach Safe Management. I'd been reading the novel on the bus casually, but when I checked how much I still needed to read, I realized that I was on page 80, and so had 121 pages to go.
Did it all in one shot. Pulled an all-nighter, although I took a nap in the morning, did my test, then taught a 6 hour Safe Management session.
I was kind of off-base with my Art and Society project. Apparently I was supposed to create links with social influences rather than historical ones. Sucks to take a loss after I put so much more effort than I thought I would, but whatever. Take your licks.
After I came back from class today, I found that none of the taps in the house worked, or the toilet. Turns out, a water pipe burst, and while the city worked to fix it, they needed to shut off our water.
So I bought eight litres of drinking water and used the bathroom at our local Tim Horton's, which was in high usage due to no one having an operational toilet.
It was estimated that it would take two days to solve the issue, but they managed to get our water flowing again by 8:00 PM tonight. Mad props to those construction workers, working late during the winter and listening to all the resident's complaints when they were the ones fixing the issue, not the ones creating it.
Last Thursday, my grandparents from Toronto visited. They took us out for both lunch and dinner. Since Ive been away from Guelph as long as I have, my family get-togethers have been kind of divided between myself-brother-mother in Guelph or myself-cousin-grandparents-aunt-and-uncle in Kitchener. Me, my brother, mkoher, and grandparents used to frequently visit in Guelph, but because of my complicated schedule in Kitchener, it has been hard to bring myself into the old formula.
Had to skip Social Psychology in fact. But it was worth it. My mother, brother and Grandparent's have developed traditions since I've been gone, and so I got to finally dine at their places of preference.
We first went to Buon Gusto for lunch, where I got the chicken panini and mushroom soup, and then we went to a place called Einstein's, where I got the red pepper quasadillas. It was all good stuff.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Bad Teacher Mostly
So seriously, if this blog post is a little dry, please skim to the segment covering my brother, as it is far more interesting.
Last week I finished that Art and Society project, where I needed to link two pieces of seemingly unrelated art between 200 years, with six historical point connecting them. My instructor said it took him fifteen minutes, so I thought it might take me thirty, but it actually took six hours. Just didn't know how to approach it. First I attempted to look up indirect influences between ancient and modern art, and found out that Pablo Picasso was deeply inspired by African masks, and this developed into him spearheading the Cubist art revolution, one of the largest shifts in artistic history.
So I thought this was amazing, as Picasso's inspiration gave me a starting point of 7000 BCE, well surpassing the 200 year requirement between only my first and second examples. Besides, I was greatly intrigued to learn that arguably history's greatest artist shared with me a fixation on African art.
From the man himself, in reference to his first experience with African art: "And then I understood what painting really meant. It's not an aesthetic process; it's a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the hostile universe, a means of seizing power by imposing a form on our terrors as well as on our desires. The day I understood that, I had found my path."
I feel you man.
His first cubist example, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon even featured three women donning African masks:
But from here I didn't know how to take things, so I researched cubist architecture, cubist literature, cubist photography, as well as an extensive list of cubist artists, just looking for a lead.
Eventually I got smart and just looked up current African artists and attempted to find someone with a style similar to cubism.
Wound up with Ibrahim el Salahi, who spearhead African Modernism, which evolved through Cubism-Dadaism-Surrealism, and he even shares an inspiration with Picsso.
Some examples of his work:
So hopefully that takes.
My brother had an interesting class recently.
He was attending an Anthropology lecture of about 600 students. The instructor (Edward Hedican) was a substitute, as the regular professor couldn't make it.
This instructor spent the first segment of class advertising his books on Amazon after absentmindedly leaving a student's personal email address on the projector behind him. As the class continued, he stated that he would not be able to cover all the course material, as he did not have enough time despite having spent the first half hour of class advertising his own work.
When he eventually progressed to the course material, a student raised his hand to ask a question. The professor replied that he did not appreciate this students "competitiveness".
Apparently this student sneezed partway though lecture and Mr. Hedican took it upon himself to pause his lesson and glare at this individual.
As class moved on, Hedican called out this same individual for chewing/playing with gum. At this time, the student explained that he suffered from anxiety and used chewing gum as a way of coping (probably for dealing with being accused of competing with the instructor, being glared at after sneezing, and being called out for an insignificant action in front of 600 students). Hedican then questioned if this student was even enrolled in the program. When the student began exhibiting signs of anxiety, his Educational Assistant stepped in to help him, and at this point Hedican addressed the EA as his "handler" and made a request to "control him".
At this point, the student and EA exited the room, as well I hear, another student who began crying.
In response to this, another student rose to exit the room. Hedican said, directing to her "I didn't realize class was over".
She said "It is to me" and continued to call him out on all his abusive behaviour toward his own students.
Supposedly her video was taken down. Here's an intact one I found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njaVTCyG76c
The video starts with some applause implying that she had already made the first segment of her speech. She continues to make two more, each receiving a round of applause. After this, approximately 550 out of 600 students left class.
Hedican has been placed on suspension while the situation is being investigated.
But it's a big deal. Hear are some major news outlets speaking on it
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/guelph-professor-edward-hedican-anxiety-student-anthropology-1.4492976
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/professor-suspended-after-allegedly-mocking-student-with-anxiety-1.3763119
http://www.lfpress.com/2018/01/17/university-of-guelph-suspends-professor-for-allegedly-insulting-student-with-severe-anxiety
Last week I finished that Art and Society project, where I needed to link two pieces of seemingly unrelated art between 200 years, with six historical point connecting them. My instructor said it took him fifteen minutes, so I thought it might take me thirty, but it actually took six hours. Just didn't know how to approach it. First I attempted to look up indirect influences between ancient and modern art, and found out that Pablo Picasso was deeply inspired by African masks, and this developed into him spearheading the Cubist art revolution, one of the largest shifts in artistic history.
So I thought this was amazing, as Picasso's inspiration gave me a starting point of 7000 BCE, well surpassing the 200 year requirement between only my first and second examples. Besides, I was greatly intrigued to learn that arguably history's greatest artist shared with me a fixation on African art.
From the man himself, in reference to his first experience with African art: "And then I understood what painting really meant. It's not an aesthetic process; it's a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the hostile universe, a means of seizing power by imposing a form on our terrors as well as on our desires. The day I understood that, I had found my path."
I feel you man.
His first cubist example, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon even featured three women donning African masks:
But from here I didn't know how to take things, so I researched cubist architecture, cubist literature, cubist photography, as well as an extensive list of cubist artists, just looking for a lead.
Eventually I got smart and just looked up current African artists and attempted to find someone with a style similar to cubism.
Wound up with Ibrahim el Salahi, who spearhead African Modernism, which evolved through Cubism-Dadaism-Surrealism, and he even shares an inspiration with Picsso.
Some examples of his work:
So hopefully that takes.
My brother had an interesting class recently.
He was attending an Anthropology lecture of about 600 students. The instructor (Edward Hedican) was a substitute, as the regular professor couldn't make it.
This instructor spent the first segment of class advertising his books on Amazon after absentmindedly leaving a student's personal email address on the projector behind him. As the class continued, he stated that he would not be able to cover all the course material, as he did not have enough time despite having spent the first half hour of class advertising his own work.
When he eventually progressed to the course material, a student raised his hand to ask a question. The professor replied that he did not appreciate this students "competitiveness".
Apparently this student sneezed partway though lecture and Mr. Hedican took it upon himself to pause his lesson and glare at this individual.
As class moved on, Hedican called out this same individual for chewing/playing with gum. At this time, the student explained that he suffered from anxiety and used chewing gum as a way of coping (probably for dealing with being accused of competing with the instructor, being glared at after sneezing, and being called out for an insignificant action in front of 600 students). Hedican then questioned if this student was even enrolled in the program. When the student began exhibiting signs of anxiety, his Educational Assistant stepped in to help him, and at this point Hedican addressed the EA as his "handler" and made a request to "control him".
At this point, the student and EA exited the room, as well I hear, another student who began crying.
In response to this, another student rose to exit the room. Hedican said, directing to her "I didn't realize class was over".
She said "It is to me" and continued to call him out on all his abusive behaviour toward his own students.
Supposedly her video was taken down. Here's an intact one I found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njaVTCyG76c
The video starts with some applause implying that she had already made the first segment of her speech. She continues to make two more, each receiving a round of applause. After this, approximately 550 out of 600 students left class.
Hedican has been placed on suspension while the situation is being investigated.
But it's a big deal. Hear are some major news outlets speaking on it
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/guelph-professor-edward-hedican-anxiety-student-anthropology-1.4492976
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/professor-suspended-after-allegedly-mocking-student-with-anxiety-1.3763119
http://www.lfpress.com/2018/01/17/university-of-guelph-suspends-professor-for-allegedly-insulting-student-with-severe-anxiety
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Art and Society
I took my first Art and Society session. Honestly, I don't really remember signing up for it. I was going to drop it before seeing that it was an SDS course and remembering that I had space for an SDS elective. I guess it fit my class schedule, met my breadth requirement, and was a 200-level course as well as fitting into my new artistic phase. It's art and how it reflects and develops society, kind of like my Media Arts class, which I took in high school and enjoyed.
No final exam, so I will have no exams during Finals week this semester. Whoo.
Grading is divided between an Observation Journal, 5 assignments, a review essay, and two tests. So again, more content but less intensity per assignment. We already got our first assignment, which is to take two pieces of art at least 200 years apart from one another with no obvious connection and connect them. Instructor says it took him 15 minutes on Google to come up with his sample assignment, but I don't know. Sounds kind of challenging.
Our Art and Society instructor says that his other class is teaching poetry to engineers. Probably a breadth requirement hosted in their main building. That sounds amazing. I'm almost jealous I can't be in the engineering poetry course. He did a thing where he asked us what art is and we listed off something like "Creativity, expression, subjective" etc. Then he pulled up two examples of definitions, one developed by his social work students, and one by his engineering students. The typical social work students reflected us fairly accurately, while the engineers listed "Paintings, theatre, music, poetry" and other more technical answers.
It's kind of interesting to see how this semester's courses connect with last semester's. In East Asia, there was some overlap with Russia, and now I'm studying Russia. Social Psychology is right on the edge between Psychology and Sociology and I took Sociology last semester. And then Art and Society is about the philosophy and history of art, and I studied the application of art last semester.
I went to get a calendar this year and found out that Calendar Club has shut down at my local mall. I had long speculated that a shop specializing in calendars could not survive, as its relevance was limited to only a month or two per year. They had other stuff, like board games, but I felt they needed to rebrand. But weirdly, Calendar Club chose calendar month to call it quits. So I was reduced to purchasing a Lang-brand calandar at some place called Bonkers. It's.... okay. I got something called Beyond the Woods, which is art depicting weather and wildlife in its respective state for each month of the year.
I've been getting calendars that have art depictions of the natural state of each month over the past few years. Last year I got Raffi's Toronto, which was monthly depictions of Toronto by some cool artist named Raffi. Before that, it was a seasonal conglomeration of the Group of Seven.
But this year, I have to settle for Lang's mediocre collection. There was another seasonal-focused calendar, but July depicted some guy in a speedo jumping into a lake and I'm not going to look at that for a full month. They did have one called Proud Rooster, that I was tempted by. It was just some rooster, and each month he's strutting with some seasonal colours and patterns in the background. It seemed a bit simplistic and I almost felt like I was missing out on an in-joke, so I didn't get it, but I kind of wish I did. Probably more memorable than this super basic seasonal wildlife calendar I got.
Over the past while, we have been caught in something called a Polar Vortex. Simply put, it means that we are getting incredibly cold weather even by Canadian standards during the coldest time of the year. It's not normal Canadian weather, it's like a cold-storm. Weirdly, we also got hit by some warm air crawl from the states, so we went from having record-breaking cold weather one day, to nearly summer weather the next, melting everything away, and then back to record-breaking cold. I watched the rain turn back to snow as the warm crawl left and the polar vortex overtook again. People around here are in near-disbelief over the strange weather.
They turned the basketball court near where I lived into a skating rink. Pretty innovative, I feel.
No final exam, so I will have no exams during Finals week this semester. Whoo.
Grading is divided between an Observation Journal, 5 assignments, a review essay, and two tests. So again, more content but less intensity per assignment. We already got our first assignment, which is to take two pieces of art at least 200 years apart from one another with no obvious connection and connect them. Instructor says it took him 15 minutes on Google to come up with his sample assignment, but I don't know. Sounds kind of challenging.
Our Art and Society instructor says that his other class is teaching poetry to engineers. Probably a breadth requirement hosted in their main building. That sounds amazing. I'm almost jealous I can't be in the engineering poetry course. He did a thing where he asked us what art is and we listed off something like "Creativity, expression, subjective" etc. Then he pulled up two examples of definitions, one developed by his social work students, and one by his engineering students. The typical social work students reflected us fairly accurately, while the engineers listed "Paintings, theatre, music, poetry" and other more technical answers.
It's kind of interesting to see how this semester's courses connect with last semester's. In East Asia, there was some overlap with Russia, and now I'm studying Russia. Social Psychology is right on the edge between Psychology and Sociology and I took Sociology last semester. And then Art and Society is about the philosophy and history of art, and I studied the application of art last semester.
I went to get a calendar this year and found out that Calendar Club has shut down at my local mall. I had long speculated that a shop specializing in calendars could not survive, as its relevance was limited to only a month or two per year. They had other stuff, like board games, but I felt they needed to rebrand. But weirdly, Calendar Club chose calendar month to call it quits. So I was reduced to purchasing a Lang-brand calandar at some place called Bonkers. It's.... okay. I got something called Beyond the Woods, which is art depicting weather and wildlife in its respective state for each month of the year.
I've been getting calendars that have art depictions of the natural state of each month over the past few years. Last year I got Raffi's Toronto, which was monthly depictions of Toronto by some cool artist named Raffi. Before that, it was a seasonal conglomeration of the Group of Seven.
But this year, I have to settle for Lang's mediocre collection. There was another seasonal-focused calendar, but July depicted some guy in a speedo jumping into a lake and I'm not going to look at that for a full month. They did have one called Proud Rooster, that I was tempted by. It was just some rooster, and each month he's strutting with some seasonal colours and patterns in the background. It seemed a bit simplistic and I almost felt like I was missing out on an in-joke, so I didn't get it, but I kind of wish I did. Probably more memorable than this super basic seasonal wildlife calendar I got.
Over the past while, we have been caught in something called a Polar Vortex. Simply put, it means that we are getting incredibly cold weather even by Canadian standards during the coldest time of the year. It's not normal Canadian weather, it's like a cold-storm. Weirdly, we also got hit by some warm air crawl from the states, so we went from having record-breaking cold weather one day, to nearly summer weather the next, melting everything away, and then back to record-breaking cold. I watched the rain turn back to snow as the warm crawl left and the polar vortex overtook again. People around here are in near-disbelief over the strange weather.
They turned the basketball court near where I lived into a skating rink. Pretty innovative, I feel.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Social Psychology
So I took my first Social Psychology class last Thursday. It was alright. Content seems a little more challenging than Russian Studies, simply because the instructor spoke to his passion for the field and didn't mention that the course was "hard to fail" like my Russian Studies instructor did. No final exam for this course, either, even though traditionally there is one. I actually think I might not have any final exams this semester.
On the other hand, in the first lesson we spoke to the Milgram experiment and that one study with the lady who was murdered in public and no one intervened or reported it. Feels like we'll be studying the Zimbardo effect, that experiment with the rhesus monkeys, Genie the Wild Child etc. All stuff that I've been taught about at least two times previously. So maybe more information-heavy but also closer to my comfort zone, so I'm not too intimidated.
Days where I only have Russian Studies or Social Psychology are going to be a bit annoying, as it takes me about an hour and a half to get to class from where I live, and these classes are an hour and a half long. Including the return trip, that's three hours travel for and hour and a half of education. I'm going to try and get in the habit of staying at the school and studying awhile, which might make me feel better about the time investment.
I am often the only person in class to bring a binder with paper and a pencil to take notes. Essentially everyone else will print off the class notes ahead of time or, more often, will open them up on their laptop during class, which are published by the professor on our online system, and simply read along during class. During exams which require a number 2 pencil, I am usually the only person to use standard pencil, while everyone else uses a mechanical one.
Have you guys heard of dabbing? It's a recent dance move where someone tucks their nose into their elbow bend, like so:
It's really brilliant in how upset it makes everyone when you do it. People act like it's a tragedy. You can dab in public, and people will scream "Oh no, he's dabbing!" (I've done it). One time, I was riding the bus, and some kid in a car riding next to us just started unloading mad dabs on everyone in the bus, and they couldn't do anything about it. I could only bust out laughing at the helpless bus patrons who were helpless to do anything but reel in outrage as they were subjected to a merciless onslaught of dabbing performed in a neighbouring vehicle.
Have you all heard of the recent waves that Szechuan sauce has been making? In the premiere episode of season 3 of an adult cartoon series called Rick and Morty, one of the main characters, Rick, states that his lead motivation is recovering a Szechuan sauce that was made by McDonald's to promote the Mulan Disney move back in the 1980s. Fans got out of hand an started to demand that the sauce be redistributed by McDonalds.
McDonald's first responded by gifting some old sauce to one of the Rick and Morty series creators. At this point, packets of the sauce were being discovered by random people and were getting sold for massively inflated prices. McDonald's then opened up some new sauce-focused chicken-nugget deal where you could choose one of ten sauces that would apparently determine your personality.
Now, while nine of these sauces would be readily available in bulk at each McDonald's location, Szechuan sauce would only be available at select branches, publicly advertised as "Szechuan available". And at each of these branches, only ten or so packets were made available.
So obviously the natural reaction is for fans to travel absurd distances to get their McDonald's sauce and to hold riots when they aren't given it. Szechuan sauce isn't any harder to make than any of the other sauces, by the way. The only reason they held out on this sauce is because they saw the demand, and thought they could get some media publicity via weird rioting.
The Szechuan Sauce put out by McDonald's stopped being advertised as Mulan-inspired or even Asia-inspired, and became Sci-Fi based and riddled with Rick and Morty references without crossing legal boundaries, as Rick and Morty creators expressed distaste for how McDonald's handled things.
Apparently Scechuan sace will be made available to the public in mass this winter. I don't know if I will fall to the consumerism.
You don't joke about McDonald's, yo. Both my East Asian Studies and Intro to Sociology textbooks last semester mentioned how McDonald's revolutionized the world. They haven't been doing well lately (and they shouldn't, they're overpriced and low quality), but they are still gurus in advertisement.
On the other hand, in the first lesson we spoke to the Milgram experiment and that one study with the lady who was murdered in public and no one intervened or reported it. Feels like we'll be studying the Zimbardo effect, that experiment with the rhesus monkeys, Genie the Wild Child etc. All stuff that I've been taught about at least two times previously. So maybe more information-heavy but also closer to my comfort zone, so I'm not too intimidated.
Days where I only have Russian Studies or Social Psychology are going to be a bit annoying, as it takes me about an hour and a half to get to class from where I live, and these classes are an hour and a half long. Including the return trip, that's three hours travel for and hour and a half of education. I'm going to try and get in the habit of staying at the school and studying awhile, which might make me feel better about the time investment.
I am often the only person in class to bring a binder with paper and a pencil to take notes. Essentially everyone else will print off the class notes ahead of time or, more often, will open them up on their laptop during class, which are published by the professor on our online system, and simply read along during class. During exams which require a number 2 pencil, I am usually the only person to use standard pencil, while everyone else uses a mechanical one.
Have you guys heard of dabbing? It's a recent dance move where someone tucks their nose into their elbow bend, like so:
It's really brilliant in how upset it makes everyone when you do it. People act like it's a tragedy. You can dab in public, and people will scream "Oh no, he's dabbing!" (I've done it). One time, I was riding the bus, and some kid in a car riding next to us just started unloading mad dabs on everyone in the bus, and they couldn't do anything about it. I could only bust out laughing at the helpless bus patrons who were helpless to do anything but reel in outrage as they were subjected to a merciless onslaught of dabbing performed in a neighbouring vehicle.
Have you all heard of the recent waves that Szechuan sauce has been making? In the premiere episode of season 3 of an adult cartoon series called Rick and Morty, one of the main characters, Rick, states that his lead motivation is recovering a Szechuan sauce that was made by McDonald's to promote the Mulan Disney move back in the 1980s. Fans got out of hand an started to demand that the sauce be redistributed by McDonalds.
McDonald's first responded by gifting some old sauce to one of the Rick and Morty series creators. At this point, packets of the sauce were being discovered by random people and were getting sold for massively inflated prices. McDonald's then opened up some new sauce-focused chicken-nugget deal where you could choose one of ten sauces that would apparently determine your personality.
Now, while nine of these sauces would be readily available in bulk at each McDonald's location, Szechuan sauce would only be available at select branches, publicly advertised as "Szechuan available". And at each of these branches, only ten or so packets were made available.
So obviously the natural reaction is for fans to travel absurd distances to get their McDonald's sauce and to hold riots when they aren't given it. Szechuan sauce isn't any harder to make than any of the other sauces, by the way. The only reason they held out on this sauce is because they saw the demand, and thought they could get some media publicity via weird rioting.
The Szechuan Sauce put out by McDonald's stopped being advertised as Mulan-inspired or even Asia-inspired, and became Sci-Fi based and riddled with Rick and Morty references without crossing legal boundaries, as Rick and Morty creators expressed distaste for how McDonald's handled things.
Apparently Scechuan sace will be made available to the public in mass this winter. I don't know if I will fall to the consumerism.
You don't joke about McDonald's, yo. Both my East Asian Studies and Intro to Sociology textbooks last semester mentioned how McDonald's revolutionized the world. They haven't been doing well lately (and they shouldn't, they're overpriced and low quality), but they are still gurus in advertisement.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Russian Studies
Today was my first day of class for the new semester. Starting things off with Russian Studies, which fulfills my second cultural course requirement, following East Asian Studies last semester. Class is in the Math and Computer building, for some reason, behind the Student Life Centre. Grading will be divided between class participation and discussion questions, four quizzes, a group project, a field trip report, an abstract and research question, an individual presentation, and a research project. So, more content than any of my courses last semester, but at least it doesn't put me in the position that Intro to Sociology did, where everything was divided between two grades, and it's less test-heavy in general, with four quizzes but no midterm or final exam, and I generally do better with projects than tests, so that's nice.
Already got placed into my team for the group assignment. Got a fellow SDS student in it. I always find it funny how people in different fields interpret the interactions of people in the social work field. Last semester, probably my closest friend was an engineer. We were in a group project together, and because our group didn't have enough members, we merged with another group that was also low. After our first group meeting, he told me "So I take it you and ____ are really close". I was like, "Not at all. Today was the second time I've ever talked to her. I went to school with her sister and we did the same prep program, but in different years. Turns out the other guy did as well." He was like, "Is that why you all chose to do a project together? Because of your shared background?" I was like "Nope. Just found out about it today. I met them the same day as you, we merged groups out of convenience. You realize our entire schtick is having a set of agreed-on social dynamics, right? Our entire skillset is based on seeming more familiar to each other than we are."
I thought I was done spending money for the holiday season. I just finished buying gifts, handling traveling fees, and paying the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers their annual fee, but I forgot about text books. Spent about $175 today, which, relatively speaking isn't too bad but it still stings. Got everything used except for a comic book, which was the only required text for Art and Society, which is a Social Development Studies elective. More of a historical look at how art and media has affected social development, rather than last semester's art course, which was about personal creative application. I felt like kind of a wimp, bringing up my comic book when everyone else had stacks of text books. Even the salesperson said that of everyone she'd sold to, it looked like I would have the "most fun".
Russian studies also has some more lighthearted reading. It had three required texts, but two of the three were at least relatively cheap. One is a book of short stories, another a novel, and another a text book. I've peaked at them, and I could almost see the novel and short stories as free-time reading, they're that enjoyable.
I gotta say, one thing I liked better about college than university was the sense of solidarity. I knew all my classmates, and was invested in developing good relationships with them because I knew I would be sharing the same journey as them for two years. In university, I have yet to have anyone share more than one class than me, so it makes me less motivated to get to know my peers or instructors, because our relationship will end after a few months.
On the other hand, one thing I like about university over college is that it gives me the opportunity to learn about topics that are less applicable to my subject. In college, I would never have had the opportunity to study art, or East Asia, or Russia, since those topics are less applicable to my program. University is more customizable and based on developing a rounded skillset, rather than a specific one. Also, less judgment. In college, I was very attached to my status as a "Social Service Worker" student and its associated reputations and stigmas, whereas in University, it's more accepted that anyone can study anything.
Another thing I like about university is that everyone seems young and assumes that I am also young. Conestoga had some of the highest percentages for mature students, whereas U of W seems to be a civilization locked in time, where everyone is a certain age. The fact that I may be older seems to be an impossible concept for most students, so they will assume I am 10 years younger than I am.I get asked questions like "So what Res unit do you live in?" (I felt old to live in the Conestoga Residence at 22, now am 28) then when I say I don't live in the Res, they say "So you still live at home?" This took me aback the first time I heard it, I was like "What do you mean? No, I'm not homeless" before I realized that the question meant "So you still live with your parents?". Typical for people who still view their home as primarily their parents home.
When I'm asked these questions, I rub my bald head and pat my swelling paunch and wonder what these kids are thinking.
It's time to relive my life and make all the same mistakes!
Already got placed into my team for the group assignment. Got a fellow SDS student in it. I always find it funny how people in different fields interpret the interactions of people in the social work field. Last semester, probably my closest friend was an engineer. We were in a group project together, and because our group didn't have enough members, we merged with another group that was also low. After our first group meeting, he told me "So I take it you and ____ are really close". I was like, "Not at all. Today was the second time I've ever talked to her. I went to school with her sister and we did the same prep program, but in different years. Turns out the other guy did as well." He was like, "Is that why you all chose to do a project together? Because of your shared background?" I was like "Nope. Just found out about it today. I met them the same day as you, we merged groups out of convenience. You realize our entire schtick is having a set of agreed-on social dynamics, right? Our entire skillset is based on seeming more familiar to each other than we are."
I thought I was done spending money for the holiday season. I just finished buying gifts, handling traveling fees, and paying the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers their annual fee, but I forgot about text books. Spent about $175 today, which, relatively speaking isn't too bad but it still stings. Got everything used except for a comic book, which was the only required text for Art and Society, which is a Social Development Studies elective. More of a historical look at how art and media has affected social development, rather than last semester's art course, which was about personal creative application. I felt like kind of a wimp, bringing up my comic book when everyone else had stacks of text books. Even the salesperson said that of everyone she'd sold to, it looked like I would have the "most fun".
Russian studies also has some more lighthearted reading. It had three required texts, but two of the three were at least relatively cheap. One is a book of short stories, another a novel, and another a text book. I've peaked at them, and I could almost see the novel and short stories as free-time reading, they're that enjoyable.
I gotta say, one thing I liked better about college than university was the sense of solidarity. I knew all my classmates, and was invested in developing good relationships with them because I knew I would be sharing the same journey as them for two years. In university, I have yet to have anyone share more than one class than me, so it makes me less motivated to get to know my peers or instructors, because our relationship will end after a few months.
On the other hand, one thing I like about university over college is that it gives me the opportunity to learn about topics that are less applicable to my subject. In college, I would never have had the opportunity to study art, or East Asia, or Russia, since those topics are less applicable to my program. University is more customizable and based on developing a rounded skillset, rather than a specific one. Also, less judgment. In college, I was very attached to my status as a "Social Service Worker" student and its associated reputations and stigmas, whereas in University, it's more accepted that anyone can study anything.
Another thing I like about university is that everyone seems young and assumes that I am also young. Conestoga had some of the highest percentages for mature students, whereas U of W seems to be a civilization locked in time, where everyone is a certain age. The fact that I may be older seems to be an impossible concept for most students, so they will assume I am 10 years younger than I am.I get asked questions like "So what Res unit do you live in?" (I felt old to live in the Conestoga Residence at 22, now am 28) then when I say I don't live in the Res, they say "So you still live at home?" This took me aback the first time I heard it, I was like "What do you mean? No, I'm not homeless" before I realized that the question meant "So you still live with your parents?". Typical for people who still view their home as primarily their parents home.
When I'm asked these questions, I rub my bald head and pat my swelling paunch and wonder what these kids are thinking.
It's time to relive my life and make all the same mistakes!
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