Murphy's Law

You've got to be be fucking kidding me! I've mentioned in my previous post that I'm in the midst of a compacted final exam schedule, and time is an absolutely precious commodity. This would then mean that I've got to make the most of each moment I have.

I managed to get a solid 4 hours of sleep last night, make it to my 08:00 Anthropology final exam, which was 3 hours long, and rush home as quickly as possible to put the finishing touches on my take-home exam, which has to be handed in at 18:00 at the University. That gives me 5 hours to perfect my masterpiece, ensuring that I maintain my 4.0 GPA in that class.

Within moments, nay, seconds of sitting down at my computer, the car alarm on my asshole neighbor's car begins to go off! What makes this even worse, is that his car is parked directly beside my windows, a mere few feet away.

It's Murphy's Law - the moment I have something vitally important to do, all hell breaks loose.

It's that annoying alarm too, that changes tones every few seconds.

I guess the only solace I can take is that this asshole doesn't appear to be home, and his car battery will be long dead by the time I head back to the University. If it's not, then I'll personally heave a few bricks through his windshield.

Currently listening to: You guessed it...that damn car alarm!

Terrifying, In That "Good" Way

So, here I am again - final exam season. With the compacted schedule of Spring/Summer session, this season is a mere 2 days, but it's no less stressful and demanding.

I've got a take-home final exam due Friday evening at 18:00, and an in-class final Friday morning at 08:00. The sheer amount of time compartmentalization I'll be pulling off over the next 48 hours will be astounding:

Wednesday
21:00 to 21:05 - receive take-home final exam
22:00 to ??:?? - start working on take-home final

Thursday
??:?? to ??:?? - sleep for a few hours
??:?? to 14:00 - study for in-class final
15:00 to 22:00 - work
23:00 to ??:?? - sleep for a few hours

Friday
??:?? to 07:00 - study for in-class final
08:00 to 10:00 - write in-class final
11:00 to 14:00 - finish/touch up take home final
15:00 to 22:00 - work

Things get a bit more ugly if I try to juggle my work schedule. If I cancel my Thursday shift to study, then I need to work my Friday shift, meaning I won't have Friday afternoon to touch up my take-home final, and I'll have to hand it in almost 5 hours before the 18:00 due time. If I work on Thursday it gives me less time to study for my in-class final but more time on Friday to work on my take-home final...

...bah! This is hurting my brain already! I shouldn't be wasting my precious time doing this blog anyways! I'd better get cracking!

Currently listening to: Own heart palpitations during this time of perpetual, adrenaline-fuelled stress.

These Deadly Halls

Seriously, I think the University of Alberta is trying to kill me. I arrived this afternoon for my Physical Anthropology lab, which was located on the main floor of the Henry Marshall Tory Building. As I rounded the corner of the final hall, I was greeted by a half dozen people sporting bio-hazard safety suits, respirators and all.

"What the fu...!?"

Right next to the door to my lab, they had a sealed plastic working area, and hoses running up into the ceiling. Apparently, they were there to remove asbestos from the building. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but for all the money I pay in tuition, is it too much to ask that the classrooms I'm learning in won't case me bodily harm? Is that really such an unreasonable request?

Currently: Putting the final touches on my term paper extraordinaire!

Chicken Day

Despite knowing that this crap will ultimately shorten my life-span, despite the revealed horrors of fast food in films like Supersize Me and books like Fast Food Nation, I cannot, and will not give up Toonie Twosday at Kentucky Fried Chicken. For $2.22 you get to indulge in 2 pieces of the Colonel's finest artery clogging fowl and small fry. Amazing! You can hardly buy raw chicken that cheaply at the grocery store, even before people cowered in fear from the Avian Flu.

So, as I sit here, finishing up two meals, I am one contented person. Thank God this special only happens once a week, because it takes about that long before you can even think about doing it again. Blech...

Currently gorging myself on horribly delicious "food."

Midterm Double Deuce

You can always tell when a university student has a large load of urgent and pressing assignments to finish or exams to prepare for - their living quarters are decidedly cleaner than at any other point in time.

As I put the finishing touches on a take-home midterm exam and conclude studying for another midterm exam occurring in less than 12 hours, my apartment has become quite an inviting place indeed. Gone are the overflowing garbage cans and piles of dirty dishes which perfumed the air with the scents of bachelor living. Clean is the living room and kitchen and even bathroom. Hell, I went so far as to actually scrub the bathtub and rid it of 10 months of compounded grime!

Seeing as how the take-home midterm had to be typed, it took an enormous strength of will to actually concentrate on it and not browse laxly through websites, download music and movies, or whittle the hours away playing online games. Blogging, however, is exempt from the realm of "procrastinating" as it enables me to collect my thoughts, regain my sanity, and re-double my efforts on the task at hand...

...the task at hand being to locate tonight's episode of The Sopranos for downloading.

Currently listening to: Matthew Good - While We Were Hunting Rabbits

Anthropological Haiku

Young leaf, potent oak.
Her wild, fallen temple dives.
Swift tibia, blunt blossom.
~~~
Path thin and leaping,
Contending by the egret;
Mournful, gnarled vertebra.
~~~
Never free, but hard,
The man knows no sad spirits.
Gladdened, he studies.

Currently listening to: Saves The Day - Collision

These Old Bones

Ah, another precious long-weekend has come and gone, and if my next "holiday" is anything like this last one, I'll be in traction before I'm 25!

When Mom left me an urgent message on my answering machine to call her back right away I was actually naive enough to drop everything I was doing, as any good son should, to assuage her panicked state. Her tone was far different during my inquiring call, however, and I quickly discovered it was a clever (and successful) ploy to retain my services for a Saturday's worth of back-breaking labour back in Vegreville. Not wanting to suffer alone, I convinced Nicole to accompany me down Highway 16, to the heart of Pyrogy County, under the unassuming guise of a little landscaping - though she insists that she was recruited for a little gardening.

What ensued was an afternoon so labourious and intensive that a full-scale terra-forming of the lunar surface would have paled in comparison.

It was a back-yard-cobble-stone-sidewalk-project which would have killed inferior specimens of the human species, but Nicole and I persevered, though the pain and partial paralysis of today has probably made us both wish we hadn't. Who would have thought that hours upon hours of being hunched over and rubber-mallotting interlocking bricks with Tetris-like precision would have exacted such a toll on our young bodies!?

There were moments today when lying on the solid living room floor was pure Heaven, and the mere thought of sitting up was enough to send spasms of pain through the length of my bruised and abused body. I want to end the life of all those HGTV renovation show programmers who've corrupted my parent's minds with deceptively evil do-it-yourself projects.

On a more positive note, I did take an overflowing basket of laundry back home with me, so as I lay immobilized on my floor, counting and cataloging the speckles on my ceiling, it will be with the clear conscience of knowing that I'm at least wearing clean underwear.

Currently listening to: Sam Roberts - This Wreck of a Life

Break-neck Pace

I had a boss who used to joke that when he was younger he did go to school, "In the front door...then right out the back one." Ever attended Spring/Summer classes at University? It goes by so fast it's a marvel to behold. They essentially take a 4 month course and compress it into 6 weeks! Here's a sample of my calendar. Keep in mind that this is only for 2 courses:

May 26 - Project #1
May 27 - Lab Midterm Exam
May 31 - Midterm Exam
May 31 - Midterm Exam
June 02 - Abstract for Oral Presentation
June 07 - Oral Presentation
June 09 - Project #2
June 15 - Lab Final Exam
June 18 - Final Exam
June 18 - Final Exam

Whew...that's tiring just to type out! I'm then free for 16 whole days before the next semester fires up. So, if over the course of the next few weeks I don't return your calls or show up to your birthday, or whatever, know that it's probably because it's occurring before, during, or after one of the dates listed above.

Currently: Envisioning astonishing academic success at great personal/social sacrifice...

That Dairy Queen's A Bitch

I've been supremely mislead by the machinations of corporate advertising. I know, I know, you might be shocked to hear this as well, but the product I've seen advertised in no way lived up to my expectations.

It’s new. It’s hot. It’s spicy. It’s something different from Dairy Queen®.

It’s the FLAMETHROWER™ Burger on the Dairy Queen menu just in time for National Hamburger Month in May. The FlameThrower™ is made with two all-beef patties, whole leaf lettuce and sliced tomato, and topped with zesty Jalapeño bacon, spicy Pepper Jack cheese and tangy Tabasco Chipotle mayonnaise.

Though still a tasty burger, by no means should Tabasco be considered a flavouring of cataclysmic consequences. Are there really people out there who recoil at the extremeness of zesty Jalapeño bacon? And while we're at it, just what the fuck is "zesty" supposed to mean? It's kinda like "tangy," in that neither of the words means a damn thing. Do you know the difference between zesty and tangy? If I put pepper on a banana, does that make it zesty!? They're both fabrications of the food in dustry to facilitate selling mediocre products with exciting descriptions.

However, the bottom line is that I did not whimper in fear at the burger, did not torch my surroundings with an ultra cool napalm breath, and certainly did not think that I finally found a restaurant item which lived up to the claim of being insanely hot.

Currently listening to: The Weakerthans - Aside

Intersection of Hooker St. and Hobo Ave.

Ah, what a glorious section of the city I live in. The Avenue of Nations, it's called, and judging by the rent I pay, you'd think it was a gated community with servants and beach-front villas down in the tropics.

But no, the only people around who accept money for giving you a hand are gangly hookers, and that's not the sound of the ocean you're hearing, but stolen grocery carts being wheeled down the back alley at 6:00am.

What really gets me, though, is the no-holds-barred mobilization of the Police in this part of town. I pulled up to my apartment to run in and use the phone before heading back out...I couldn't have been on the phone for more than a minute. When I came back outside, a car had been pulled over near the end of my alley, swarmed by 5 squad cars and a paddy wagon! Either I hadn't been paying attention when I first pulled in, or this massive scene of Edmonton's finest simply materialized spontaneously out of errant atoms and kinetic energy.

They had one guy in cuffs and another two lined up along a building, but a dozen officers for 3 people seems a bit much. Meanwhile, the hookers watched on in patient professionalism, eager to reclaim their turf once the boys in blue vacated.

Currently listening to: Saves The Day - My Sweet Fracture