maverick's truth

Bouncy carpet! The new carpet is all in now, tho everything is still everywhere -- J and I are going to move the stuff either this evening or tomorrow. So I *finally* have had some time truly off, without having to worry about exams, carpets, or any other such. Well, except for one minor thing ... *sigh* Humidity and photos isn't a good thing. I had a stack of about 100 pictures -- including some of my favorites -- that because of the humidity got all stuck together. I was able to steam most of them apart (electric kettle to the rescue!), but some of them didn't make out so well. In fact, most of the pictures have some minor damage on them, though not all that noticable unless you are looking for it. So my new carpet is now covered in photos which are drying out. What a mess. If any of the really good ones are ruined, at least I have the negatives, but we'll see. I think the good ones are still okay. Before that, though, I actually took some time to relax ... found some paints and painted myself a picture. I actually quite like how it turned out. Other than that, not much to report.

I am getting extraordinarly fed up with the entire system here where I'm living. If you'll recall, way back when this whole mess started, they told me that they would work with me to find a time for the carpet replacement that would work for me. Fast forward to this past weekend, when I received a note slid under my door saying that the contractor would measure on Friday (I got this either late Saturday or maybe even Sunday) for the replacement which would be done by this Wednesday. No contractor had come on Friday, however, so I wasn't sure what was going on -- at the very least, I figured they were a couple of days behind. Since the office is closed over the weekends, I had to wait until this week to find out what was going on. With my exam yesterday, I spent my time studying and didn't get in touch with the office; I figured I'd wait until today (Tuesday) to figure out what's going on. Fast forward again to this morning when I was awakened (again!) by a knock at the door. The contractor, wanting to measure. *Grumble* Keep in mind I still had not heard a word from anyone about what was going on, or when, and certainly had not been consulted on finding a time that would work for me. As the contractor was leaving he said, "Okay, well we'll see you tomorrow." I managed to recover from my shock quickly enough to call out after him, "When?" "Sometime in the afternoon, probably." So apparently, the carpet replacement is happening tomorrow... at least, that's what the contractor told me. Someone want to let me know why I haven't heard anything from the people who run this joint?!? It's just a good thing that I don't have an exam on Wed, and that I'm not working.

What a headache. Going to take some ibuprofen now...

... except I don't know how to do a jig. On TV, it always just looks like a lot of jumping and bouncing around. Regardless, I *feel* like doing a jig or something, because my exams (okay, singular: exam) are (is) over. And without any pulling of hair, etc. Actually, it was fairly straight-forward. The translation, which was the part I was most worried about, fell out relatively smoothly, and everything else was exactly what I expected.

Now, for the next few days, it's all about relaxation... and if anyone tries to ask me anything difficult, I have my response all planned out...

Depending on the question, either "Non sequitor" (It doesn't follow) or "Non sequor" (I don't follow) ... probably the latter.

Spring is here, and so is a new look for the blog. Definitely more springy, I think.

Still haven't heard anything from the apartment people yet about when the carpet will be replaced... *sigh*. Why do I get the feeling this might take a while? On the plus side, I have picked up another shift at work... May 6, for 8-ish hours. At least I'm starting to get some hours; it definately helps the whole bill-payment-thing.

Hm... time for a lunch break, then maybe more Latin studying. Should be back in my apartment to stay tonight... barring unforseen circumstances, of course.

Word to the wise: don't try to do an after-degree in a department that is relatively small, and only offers one section of a given course in a year -- if that often.

How does it work that no matter what you're trying to take, it's always scheduled at the same time as something else you were going to take? Case in point: next year, I either take Greek (which I need, to get into grad school), or I take the research courses (which I should take this coming year, so that I can get an honors degree, which also is used for grad school admission). Not that I'll decide that now... I am going to wait until I'm actually admitted (ie. until my transcript gets here, in like June), and then it's off to meet with the undergrad advisor. Again. *Sigh*. They just can't make it easy.

In other news, I have another shift at work in May (the 18th). Only 4 hours, but every bit helps. Still waiting to hear on that other job I applied for, but nothing yet. Okay, I'm going to do some Latin....

Oy. What a day. At about 10:30 this morning, there's a knock on the door... the laundry room next door has flooded. Seven hours, my living room has been dismantled, moving the computer desk to where the couch used to be, and the couch is now wedged into the storage room. The TV, table, and my bedroom dresser have also been moved from their places, onto drier floors. For those of you that have been to my apartment, the laundry room, as you will recall, is on the other side of the wall where my TV was. The water soaked pretty well to the middle of the room, all the way along the outside wall, into by bedroom by about 2 feet, and all along the dining room walls. Outside, in the hallway, the entire hall was flooded, across to the apartment on the other side, and it reached around to my front door, and came in under the door a bit, too. Needless to say, it's a total mess. It *is* clean water, but that's about all the good news. I called J to come and help me move my stuff, and when we were moving my desk, I was in my sandals, and the water was literally over my sandals, onto my feet. I tried putting a towel in the corner by where my bookshelves were, to try to stop the water from running into the bedroom, and by the time I got back from Tim Hortons (had to use the bathroom -- they had to cut the water), the towel was so soaked, it was dripping. So much for that. Apparently, it wasn't bad enough that the laundry room flooded, but when they were trying to fix whatever it was, they needed to flush the lines, and it didn't work so well. So when they tried turning the water back on, things started backing up through the pipes -- so much so that I later learned that they were very lucky that the pipes didn't burst into the underground parking lot... that's how much pressure there was. Anyways, so I'm staying over at J's for the next couple of days at least, because tonight they are going to be running fans/heaters to try to dry everything up, and then the carpet is going to be completely replaced (not just the underlay, but the entire carpet). That and if I were to stay there, I'd have nowhere to sit... no computer, no TV, can't even really get to my bookshelf, and besides, my bed is under piles of stuff moved from everywhere. So it's been quite the day... honestly, it seems like the day just kinda "wasn't there". But none of my stuff has been damaged, and everything should be fixed up in the next couple of days... we're hoping.

Well, maybe not literally, but my computer sure runs a whole lot faster these days. I got my RAM upgrade... I've now trippled my memory from a lowly 256 to 768MB. Doesn't seem to make that much of a difference on linux, but I booted into Windows just to see and it's "smokin'"! And why exactly did I boot into Windows, you might ask? Well, as a end-of-semester present to myself, I picked up a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon at Winners. Actually, it's Roller Coaster Tycoon I and II, and all the expansion packs, and it was less than $15. Can't beat that.

Speaking of end of the semester, I can't believe it's basically here already. My Friday classes have been cancelled (the profs are too smart to try to hold class on the last day of classes!), and I may or may not have class on Thursday. That means that I have at least 3 classes left, and at most 4. Tomorrow involves handing in my Religious Studies term paper, reviewing Latin, and writing my last exam in my computer science class (exam, quiz, whatever you want to call it). My term paper is done, minus putting in and formatting all the footnotes and some last-minute editing, and I think it's pretty good. At the very least, I found it very interesting, both to research and to write. If any of you want to read it, let me know, and I will email you a copy to read (since it looks like I will not be coming back down until probably May some time).

Well, finishing touches on that paper, and then study for my CS test tomorrow. I found a good website that goes over everything in detail, and explains it all very well, so I think I'll peruse that for a while.

... 2 days and counting ...