Now what?

January 31st, 2010 | Posted by Andrew in personal understanding - (2 Comments)

Only six posts ago I wrote about how I’d already been in grad school for a month and hadn’t written anything about the experience. Well it’s almost two-and-a-half years later, I’ve finished my Master’s degree, and I haven’t written anything about the experience.

My time as a Master’s candidate has gone by quickly, and the feeling that has characterized this period in my life is exemplified by the time immediately before and after my thesis defence. In the days leading up to the defence, I wanted nothing more than to fast-forward to when it was over. Then the day arrived, I did my twenty-minute presentation, answered questions for an hour-and-a-half, shook hands with my committee, and was back home, at the exact point in time that I would have given anything to be at just a few hours earlier. I then asked myself, “Now what?”

I had wanted that post-defence moment so badly not because of anticipation of what was to come, but because I was so dreading the defence and the possibility of being asked questions by my committee that I hadn’t accounted for. When you focus all of your mental energy on wishing for an event to be over not because of the resulting outcome, but because of dread, all that you have afterwards is relief that lasts only a short while, dissipating as quickly as the air you let out with the sigh that you allow yourself when that event is over. And this is how my time as a Master’s student went. One event after the other that I was relieved to have completed, but that was quickly replaced by another, all leading to the final event and final sigh.

I officially completed all of my degree requirements just three days ago, and now that the shadow of my thesis is and will forever be behind me, I’m breathing easier. After over two years of groping in an academic darkness, never 100% confident about what I was doing and having no one around to guide me, there are things that I am looking forward to: a job that I’m fully qualified for in a domain that I’m passionate about, disposable income, saving towards a first home. Not only that but, among other things, I received a Tassimo coffee machine and an electric razor for Christmas, both of which I’ve been enjoying immensely for the past month.

Podcasts

May 7th, 2008 | Posted by Andrew in rehashing the past | reviews - (0 Comments)

I’d wanted an iPod Touch for a few months, but I decided to wait till January 2008 for Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote to see if they would announce a 32GB model. Although the keynote was as unexciting as everyone said it would be leading up to it, and even though there was no mention of a 32GB model, they did make the Touch slightly less crippled in its pre-jailbreak form, and that, along with the Canadian price drop, was enough to convince me to finally get one. Naturally, like a swift kick to the crotch, they released the 32GB Touch two weeks later, but that was months ago, so I’ve gotten over that short painful period in my life, and I’ve been buying technology long enough to have gotten as used to new-models-being-annouced-at-exactly-the worst-times as I’ll ever be.

Aside from the “ooooo-pretty” factor, I mainly wanted a Touch because of podcasts and iTunes U, and how easily they integrate with iTunes and the iPod. It’s taken a few months, but I think that I’ve finally managed to settle on my regular podcast rotation. I suggest checking them all out.

BBC: Documentaries
ESPN: Pardon the Interruption – The podcast of the best sports show on television (as long as J.A. Adande isn’t guest hosting).
ESPN: NBA Dish – A few times a week Chad Ford talks with one of the ESPN NBA guys or a high-up NBA insider.
BBC: In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg – Each week consists of a discussion with experts on a historical figure or event, a piece of art, a philisophical work, etc.
The National: At Issue Panel – Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hebert, and a few others discuss Canadian politics.
BBC: Thinking Allowed – Laurie Taylor discusses current social and cultural issues with experts on the subjects.
This American Life – Each episode consists of a number of stories that all relate to a central topic. A very funny and interesting radio show.
Radio Lab – A podcast that discusses a different scientific and/or cultural topic each week with experts. Features fantastic sound editing. Probably my favourite of the bunch.
60-Second Science – A daily minute-long podcast that keeps me updated on interesting things that are happening in the world of science.

Whew. I didn’t realize that I listened to so many, but they’re all so interesting. The main problem that I have with these is that they take up so much of my time. Add these to the magazines that I read: Monocle, Harper’s, Good, Queen’s Quarterly, and whatever else catches my eye at the news stand that month (The Believer, Scientific American Mind, Uncut), and you’ll understand why I currently have 80 unlistened to podcasts taunting me on iTunes and a stack of about a dozen unread magazines on my shelf. I can’t contend with the monstrous amount of interesting information available to me.

There’s actually one final podcast that I just started listening to and that’s I’ve probably spent about 20-hours or so over the past week listening to:

GeeksOn

Many of you may be shocked to hear that I am a geek. My geek shone most strongly when I was young: In 1994, I started playing Magic: the Gathering. In 1995, I watched Star Wars every single day when I came home from school and saw each of the original episodes at least fifty times (I’m going to approximate 60 for A New Hope, 55 for Jedi, and 50 for Empire because at the time, I was young enough to not be completely put off by Wicket and co.). I also started my first website around this time (a Star Wars information page in GeoCities’ Enchanted Forest). In 1996, I spent most of my money on Star Wars action figures and I spent most of my time playing “The Realm”, a graphical MUD that was killed by Ultima Online and (at least for me) a character wipe that reset everyone back to 0. In 1997, I read a lot of Tolkien, including The Silmarillion and all of those thick LotR appendices. The mid-to-late nineties also had me: dabbling in Warhammer, buying a few D&D books, loving a number of other computer games, like Red Alert (Tesla rush!) and Lords of the Realm II, playing the SNES Final Fantasy games, and buying almost every single Magic: the Gathering comic book.

In short, my youth was filled with geek, but I was also totally and completely alone in my interests. You’d think that a kid going to a private French school wouldn’t have all that much trouble finding fellow geeks, but that’s the way it happened. Because of this, my high school years were totally devoid of geek. Aside from the occasional computer game, Pokemon, and Star Wars paperbacks, my time in high school was very much lacking geek: basketball, girls (real ones), and music were what took up all of my time. In fact, I think that all of my geek urges were channeled into my CD collection. I spent hours downloading new music, extensively researching music history, and cataloging and organizing my collection. My geek OCD shone proudly whenever I’d buy a CD that came in one of those cardboard flip cases: I would put the CD in a slim crystal case, and store the cardboard case in my closet so that it would not be harmed with constant handling. It was in this way that I managed to find an outlet for my geek tendencies even though I was surrounded by music-lovers (who were baffled whenever they’d come over to my place and witness the OCD I exhibited towards my books and CDs).

These geekless years continued throughout my undergrad, where I spent all of my free time reading, listening to music, and working on this blog. It wasn’t until two years ago, with the purchase of my Xbox 360, my first console since the SNES, that my geek started making a comeback. Now I’m big into board games, tried both Magic: the Gathering Online and WoW for a few weeks each (although those didn’t last), have recently bought a whole bunch of zombie comics, and am starting to read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.

GeeksOn found me at the perfect time. I may still not have any geek friends, but GeeksOn lets me feel like I’m part of a geek discussion a few times a month, and that’s more than I’ve ever had.

Rambo 4: Reaction

January 29th, 2008 | Posted by Andrew in reviews - (0 Comments)

I saw Rambo this weekend with Adam, and it did not dissapoint. Some highlights:

  • Aside from Sly and the angry bad guy south east asians (I need to learn a language that sounds that good when being screamed in anger), the acting was atrocious. Absolutely horrible. Although they did have a guy who sorta reminded me of Bennett (the big bad in Commando), which was a plus.
  • Rambo ripped a guy’s throat open with his bare hands. The crazy part is that he didn’t even have to because he had an extremely large machete. He just did it for kicks.
  • Fortunately, he did make use of his machete later on when he guts a guy with prejudice. After having his stomach shredded, the guy rolls down a slight hill as his guts leak out everywhere. The best part? As Rambo stands and watches the guy rolling away, you can see guts hanging from the hilt of his machete.
  • The picture quality of the film would completely change from scene to scene. It was wierd, as if they ran out of budget at some point before doing the reshoots and so had go with lesser quality film. I’m guessing that Sly blew most of the budget on HGH by that point and had to improvise at the end.
  • For whatever reason they felt the need to let us know that the bad boss was gay by showing us a boy being brought to his room at night and leaving in the morning. It’s as if they were saying “Not ONLY does this guy slaughter hundreds of innocent villagers without mercy and feeds his victims alive to very hungry pigs, BUT HE ALSO LIKES TO HAVE SEX WITH OTHER MEN!!! As if that was the icing on his bad guy cake.
  • My prediction about how the film would go down was just about spot on. The end asbolutely blew Commando out of the water. I could barely take it at some points. It was the best action scene that I’ve ever seen.
  • I’m still unclear on what the moral of the movie was. I think it may have been “don’t bother trying to help people who are suffering under oppressive military rule because you can’t make a difference”… unless you’re going in with guns and the ability to rip a man’s throat open with your bare hands.

    • This movie was the best action movie I’ve seen in ages. It goes back to basics and shows up all of those newfangled stylized action/drama movies (that started with Braveheart and Gladiator and that live on with movies like 300) how to do action: Spend only the bare minimum amount of time on character development and blow the rest of the budget on fake limbs and HGH. Make it bloody and make it short. Amen.

    Rambo 4: A lot more blood

    January 23rd, 2008 | Posted by Andrew in reviews - (0 Comments)

    I’m not a big movie person. I like the occasional mindless action or comedy, but I avoid the big Oscar contenders because I don’t generally have a good time watching them. Two of the movies that I’ve seen relatively recently that I did enjoy though, were the newest installments of two classic series, Rocky Balboa and Live Free or Die Hard, and that’s why the upcoming Rambo 4 has gotten me more excited for a movie than I’ve been for a while. Kieran sent me a link yesterday and brought that simmering excitment to a boil:

    Rambo 4: kill-per-minute ratio

    2.59 kills per minute? As Kieran mentioned in his message to me, that’s gotta have Commando beat. And thinking back on all of the movies I’ve seen, excluding all WWII beach landings, natural disaster movies, insect deaths in Starship Troopers, and however many private contractors were on the secomd Death Star when the Wedge and Lando blew it up, I don’t think that I’ve come even close to seeing a movie with this many kills. The really great thing about it is that we know for sure the movie’s going to have at least a 30-minute opening that sets up Rambo as old and troubled recluse and that tries to create some sort of feelings in the audience for the characters that he’s going to spend the rest of the movie saving. So assuming that it’s a 90-minute movie, and the first 30 minutes have no kills, the ratio in the last hour will increase to 3.89.

    If we take this a step further and assume that the second half-hour will involve more stealth than balls-out killing as we build up to some big showdown (a la Commando), we could assume a 1 kill-per-minute in the second 30 minutes of the film. That would bring the last 30 minutes up to 6.77 kills-per-minute, and that’s being conservative, because 1 kill-per minute isn’t exactly stealthy. Even including grenades and the blowing up of ammunition stores, 6.77 is an impressive number. Lets just hope that circular saw blades and huge machetes are involved.






    Better late than never

    December 30th, 2007 | Posted by Andrew in everyday happenings - (0 Comments)

    Before we get started, you should know that the majority of this post was written in October, so in my defence, the last joke was slightly more topical when it was first written.

    Another advantage about grad school that I didn’t mention in the previous post is that, with only one course this semester, my schedule is wide open. Tuesday 2-5 is the only time that I’m in class, and so that means that resisting the urge to sleep in and waste every weekday morning is a battle that I have to fight every single day. So remember that the next time you’re going through particularly hard times—you’re not alone.

    Steph’s schedule is relatively open in the mornings too, and because of that, I sometimes catch some early mid-morning TV. Maury Povich used to be a staple of my summer mornings, but the show stopped being interesting to me a long time ago. In fact, my interest in all shock talk shows died at exactly the same time: during an episode of Jerry Springer.

    The episode was one of his standard infidelity shows, but in it was one segment that I’ll never forget (and that my memory has likely embellished over the years since I saw it):

    The story started with a man who had a hunch his girlfriend was cheating on him. Being white trash, it occured to him that his life might just be right for Springer. So he called a Springer camera crew and went hunting for the seedy motel where his girlfriend was practicing her infidelity. Everything was going great: her car was in the parking lot, they somehow found the room that she was in, they busted down the door, and they caught her the the arms of her lover. Sounds pretty run-of-the-mill, doesn’t it? It was, until the camera focused inside the room and we all saw that she was cheating on her man with a guy without legs (let’s call him Jumpy from now on). The rest of the segment consisted of Jumpy chasing the boyfriend around the motel and yelling at him. It was fantastic. At one point, Jumpy had the boyfriend cornered. The guy juked left and right, but Jumpy was always one hop ahead. The boyfriend did eventually make it past him, but as he was running by, Jumpy grabbed his leg and held on as he was dragged through the front entrance of the motel. As a grande finale to the whole thing, once outside, Jumpy chased the guy to his car and jumped from the ground onto its hood.

    Ever since then, I’ve never looked at any of these shows in the same way. No matter how fat the baby, no matter how many paternity tests a woman has gone through without successfully finding her baby daddy, no matter how many of his wife’s relatives a man has slept with, nothing will ever match the sheer entertainment value of Jumpy.

    Nevertheless, I still sometimes get sucked into watching some Maury with Steph in the morning. One thing that I’ve have noticed with him is how his solution to almost every problem is having a big black man yell at it. Duane “D” West: Black man, motivational speaker, deliverer of the “D-West Punch”. It doesn’t matter what the problem is. Troubled children? Have the big black man yell at them. Abusive husbands? Have the big black man yell at them. Fat toddlers? Have the big black man yell at them. In Maury’s defense, it does make sense when you look at it in context: He grew up in D.C. and went to UPenn. What’s more frightening to a rich white man living in D.C. than a big angry black man (except for maybe the thought of the guy in the stall next to you being a cop)?