Hooray! The Noodles are back! At least for now... they may be going down again very soon as we revamp the proxy to prepare for our mega-killer Operating Systems course.

The New Year went well. We had a nice little party up here, with six televisions watching all the countdowns. 'Twas a good time.

I've settled back into Waterloo, and I'm happy to be here. Aside from the assignments and exams, university is a blast. It's good to be back in a room with four walls, with my coolio roommates.

It's constantly snowing, though. I think it's been a couple of weeks since we've had a day without snow. It's starting to get annoying.

Quote of the day, heard as I walked past someone on my way to class:
"Whatever happened to the good old days when all we had were bomb threats?"
Not one of your everyday phrases....

Trying to get into the class-attending routine. I have my worst schedule ever: 8:30 classes everyday, with many breaks during which there is not enough time to go home and do something productive. Ick.

I had the exam for my distance course on Saturday. I was a little brain dead, but it was still OK.

Every term, we have a little start-of-term party at our house. We didn't think it would be very big, since we didn't tell many people about it. Actually, most of the people I informed were the ones that asked me "So, are you having your party again this term?" It seems it's become a bit of an expected tradition now. It turned out that there were so many people we could barely fit them over two storeys of the house.

Some drunk people can be quite obnoxious; next time we're hiding the broom sticks.

We made snowmen last night. A guy snowman, and a lady snowwoman. They're holding hands. How cute...

It took a bit of work, but I finally got the website and the pubtool running on the new Linux box. The first successful port of the pubtool between operating systems. Hooray!

Once I'm convinced it's all stable, SCoN updates will resume as normal.

Two assignments down, less one question on each. We're getting back into the classic school term routine. The main difference this time, is that the assignments in two of the courses are going to be quite nasty. One of them has three assignments, all of which are infamous for the inordinate amount of work involved. The first of the three is due at the beginning of next month, but to get a head start, we had our first group meeting today. It's going to be one heck of a term.

But, until the pressure really sets in, we're trying to get as much relaxing in as we can.
<strrrretch!>

Yes, it is a small world after all. Today, I realized that I have already met the ringmaster of the UW Web Bloggers Webring, Tracyspike. She sent me an email today regarding an upcoming party, and she mentioned that a friend of mine - Anne - might be there. I sat wondering how they knew each other when it finally clicked: she and Anne were rommates back in summer '99. A bunch of us came up to visit on the Summerfests and stayed at their place. As well, she attended a party at my house at the beginning of the following term.

I went to Tracyspike's webpage to confirm the suspicion and found that she had just made the same realization (in reverse, of course) only two days ago.

Now, it may not seem too peculiar that two people who go to the same school have met previously, but we're off-stream from each other, so it is quite the unlikelihood after all. Another odd coincidence is that each time she's met me I've gotten severely drunk; I hope that doesn't give the wrong impression... :)

I now remember why I have bad memories about the co-op process. Wow, is that tedious. The last time I did this was back in my very first term. I've forgotten most of the stuff I have to do.

The main difference this time around is that, being a senior, I can actually apply to the really cool jobs and have a reasonable chance at getting an offer. This opens up many opportunities, but also creates a lot more stress.

I've never lived away from home on a work term, but the possibility exists now. I don't want to work in the U.S., but there are plenty of other places to go. There's a dream-job creating video games available, but that's on the other side of the country. Can I live on my own in a place I've never seen with no one I know, a thousand kilometres away from home for four months? Will I survive? Will I go bankrupt? Will I go crazy with no sense of familiarity?

Perhaps I'm afraid I'll end up in an Ipswich-like locale, and spend the four months in a room for which I'm paying through the nose, alone and going stir crazy, craving the Mississaugans/Torontonians/Waterlooish people of whom I am so fond.

There is also an opportunity in Australia. I have less than 9 hours now to decide if I want to pursue something that major.

Part of me is afraid of such a huge change. Part of me is screaming that I'll never have an opportunity like this ever again.

SPU, stressed.

Some of yesterday's stress turned out to be somewhat futile. Upon further examination of the Australia opportunity, I found that it tends to take a term or two just to set up a job, and many of them involve commitments longer than four months. Since this is my last work term coming up, that really isn't an option for me.

BC is still a possibility. Keep your fingers crossed.

I went to a kegger at Tracy's house last night. Good times, good people, fun was had by all. Nick is considered to be quite the celebrity over there. I am very impressed by Louise's Rubix-cube solving abilities, and Terry's excellent beer-serving dedication.

Those infamous comp sci courses are starting to throw their workloads on us. The week of Feb 5 will involve the due dates of two very large, one medium-sized, and one or two small assignments, as well as co-op interviews, Eng Scunt, and a hockey game. Wow, is that going to hurt.

Speaking of hockey, our campus rec team - the MathEng Mavericks - played their first B-league game last night after two previous C-league championships. I was a little rusty to start, but our opponents put on the pressure to get me back into shape nice and quick. An all-around well-played game gave us an 8-3 victory.

I am going to be very sore tomorrow, though.

Quickly:

• We had our first hardcore work session on O/S. Hopefully, we'll be OK.
• One of my ball hockey teammates broke his leg during our first game. A salute to our fallen comrade!
• Can anyone please explain to me why a bunch of hippies were placing sliced watermelon along the railway crossing, and videotaping people walking over it? I have no idea what the point of that was. All that's left now is a frozen filthy mess.
• I'm tired of cold

This is going to be a busy week. Assignments in OS, Soft Eng, and algorithms are all due next week. OS is sort of coming along, but we're totally lost on Soft Eng. Lack of direction, lack of motivation, lack of waking hours during class. Plus, I have three ball hockey games this week, two of which are on Thursday. One was last night, which was totally dominated by my great teammates, and led to a 7-2 victory.

On CWD, there is a small discussion about people's favourite "bums" - homeless people found on the street. Some of them are quiet moving:

"Seattle....sitting on a park bench all afternoon with a runaway just enjoying the sun. At the end of the day, leaned over, gave me a little kiss on the cheek and said 'thank you for making me feel like a regular person for the day' and left. I wanted to cry."

It's good to see there are still plenty of decent people in the world.

Happy Birthday Nick!

Yeah, it's a day late, but I've been busy.

I got notice of my first co-op interview today. As luck would have it, it's on the day before and the day of a pair of big assignment due dates. Naturally.