Figure Skating and Essays

Hey y'all, it's been a while, eh?

Lots of things have happened since I last posted. For one, the Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, we weren't able to post anything about it this year, due to just work and school getting the way. However, can I just say that Yazuru Hanyu is like the most effortless skater I've seen in a while? AND THAT TESSA AND SCOTT SHOULD'VE GOTTEN GOLD /justsaying. Unlike the US team, Canada had emotions.

So. Perfect. -faints-

What I hope most for Yazuru is to win the World Championship. Patrick isn't there this year to beat him, so hopefully his long program will be kickass tonight.

HE WON ~ Probably the BEST year of his life - Olympic Gold Medalist and now World Champion *A* !

(And he's so cute with his Winnie the Pooh ! -flails-)

-awkward transition-

This term is going really well. I'm on my first work term, and I'm really enjoying it. While I wish the job itself had a little more variance, I can't complain. The tasks have been more steady than some of my co-worker's employment, so I guess it's help me remain sane.

I love the students I work with. Their enthusiasm all around has been great and I enjoy helping them with what they need. I haven't gotten rave reviews all around. I'm not all powerful or all knowing, and I can only teach things a certain way, and that may not be the way people would rather. However, overall I feel like this work term has really taught me a lot about myself and about the working world in general.

This term, I also learned that I really hate dress pants. And winter.

-rolls into another topic-

There are so many things I want to talk about so I'm going to go lightning round on them:

The World's Biggest Book Store is closing down in downtown Toronto. If you have a love for books, check it out before the place closes and is replaced by condos. At the moment, I believe everything's about 50% off, though that was two weeks ago that that discount is subject to change. The closing date is March 30, 2014. That's like TOMORROW, so GO NOW.

An airplane went missing a week or two ago, and still has yet to be found. While I do hope that they find it, and that everyone is safe, it seems like that chance is getting lower and lower. 15 or so countries, a world of technology, and we can't find a PLANE. Like c'mon guys. My sympathy goes out to all the families affected and all those who knew someone on that flight.

LA had an earthquake yesterday, while I don't know the details, I hope everyone's okay out there!

I got contacts, but I'm not loving them. Then again I really don't like the style of glasses frames these days, so I'm trying them out and hoping for the best.

Game of Thrones is coming back in a week. That should be exciting.

I have a work report due on Tuesday, and it is not fun.

Divergent came out, but I heard that it wasn't great, which kind of sucks.

I did hear that Vampire Academy's movie was good. As well as the LEGO movie.

Canada seems to be having an eternal winter. I've learned to hate snow, rain - precipitation in general. I miss the sun.

The YRT/VIVA is expensive. Then again, it's a lot prettier than the TTC.

I really like Super Junior M's new album, SWINGS. If you haven't heard it yet, check it out!

I'm currently reading an ARC of Kelley Armstrong's new book, Sea of Shadows, and I'm really enjoying it.

I will try to post more in the future.

-Alikiya.

140 Job Applications Later...

I'M FINALLY EMPLOYED.

Honestly, job hunting is not fun at all. Especially when all your friends managed to find jobs in 50 applications or less, and you're just sitting there, hoping that someone would at least interview you.

I applied to about 70 jobs before I got even one interview. Talk about being undesirable, eh? Unfortunately, the job interviews that I went for ended up either cancelling that job opening, or just didn't hire me. Aside from my school's co-op job search website, I also tried applying to some on Kijiji. Some showed interest, but were turned off by the fact that I'd only be working for 4 months. There were also some creepy people too.

Thankfully, I finally found a good government job. It sounds fancy, no? The building itself intimidates me at times. It's so beautiful, and nicely polished, and all you hear is the click-clack from business women in their heels.

Because I thought I wouldn't find a job, I actually signed up for an online course this co-op semester. With my luck, the course ends up having a fair amount of readings, and now that I found a job... I don't know if I can handle it. Plus, I can be such a lazy ass that I don't know if I'm up for reading after a long day at work. I say "long day" not because I'm worried about the actual work load I'll get, but because of coming home during rush-hour. I'll be working downtown, and coming back up on the subway around 5:30-6:00PM is not going to be fun.

Yesterday, I was saying that I'll miss being unemployed. As much as it sucked not working, I had the "freedom" to do nothing productive all day. I mean, as much as I love being productive, the feeling of lazing around and watching dramas just seems so much more appealing on cold Winter days.

Today though, my father has really pushed me to my limit. The entire month and a half I was home, he's been grumpier than before, and constantly yelling at me for the stupidest things. I don't want to be that disrespectful child that's constantly testing him, and I don't have the balls to ever talk back, so I've been holding it in. Honestly, it's the last straw, and I'm just to be able to go to work on Monday.

ANYWAYS...

Job search and that aside, I've just been lazing around at home. Not much to really say, so here's some songs I've been really into recently:

I actually think "Missing You" is one of their best songs; easily my second favourite after "Ugly". The MV is so beautiful, and I really like CL and Minzy's singing in this!

Decide to give this song a try! A while back, I saw a ton of Jinyoung .gifs on Tumblr, so I decided to check out his drama "She is Wow". I started a month ago, and have yet to finish it. Not that it's bad, but I'm so easily distracted, that I have distractions for my distractions. He's so pretty, and so is this song!

I won't lie, and say that I came for Ailee. As much as I like her songs, I watched this MV for Lee Joon! Obviously though, I stayed for Ailee. The song's as beautiful as all her other ones!

I think it was B1A4 that performed this on one of the Gayo Daejuns or award ceremonies, but I heard this song being covered and had to find the original! It sounds so nice ;v;

A Vietnamese song! I don't think V-pop is as popular as any other pop music from Asian countries, and I've never really paid much attention to it. However, I really really love St. 319's dance covers, and so I listened to this song and dfhdsjfkds it did not disappoint! This song has been on replay for me for the longest time. If only I could sing along though;;

I have a lot of other songs I wanna talk about to, but I think this post is gonna get a bit too long!



HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEARS! 恭喜發財! 龍馬精神!


...
利是逗來 hehe

- Dee

End of 2A

I never did come back with a post about my profs, so I'm going to do it now~

ENGL 200A (Survey of British Lit I)
I had Rebecca Tierney-Hynes as my prof for this course. She honestly made this course a lot of fun. She was extremely enthusiastic about British Lit, the authors, the works, and the history. My favourite class this term. While there was a lot of reading, this course was interesting. Every class kept my attention, and I was interested throughout the term. With Rebecca, there are mandatory tutorials as well, and I had Tommy Mayberry as my TA. Loved him too. Both of them provided interesting perspectives on British Lit, as well as literature analysis. Looked forward to the classes and tutorials throughout the year, and the evaluations were really straight-forward and it wasn't too hard to get a good mark. Because this is a required course for all English majors at UWaterloo, I'd definitely recommend that you try to get into Rebecca's class.

ENGL 251 (Critism I)
I had Paul Kreller again as my prof. Alike to his ENGL101A class, it was pretty straight forward, kind of bland, but fairly easy to do well. We had some group work for this course, but work mainly centered around 4 essays (all fairly short in length, save for the last one), plus attendance, and the exam. As always, he was a fun prof to have. I enjoy his classes, usually, though they can sometimes be a tad bit boring. I do hope to have him again, because I quite like him as a prof, but also in general, he's just genuinely kind. It's always a pleasure to have him as a prof.

PSYCH 230 (Psychology & Law)
I had John Rempel for this course. While it wasn't bad, it also wasn't great. There was A LOT of reading (this is coming from an English major, like honestly), and his classes just couldn't keep my attention. Definitely was not my favorite class. His multiple choice is pretty tricky, and he words things with double negatives and makes you just spin in a circle. His lectures were also just bland. He would have a vague powerpoint, which I'm generally cool with, but then he'd say a point, then repeat 4 or 5 times, with words that are vaguely different but not really, just so you could get bored really really fast. His voice also wasn't the most interesting or enthusiastic voice either, but that's besides the point. There are a lot of people who loved him, but I just couldn't.

ENGL 292 (Contemporary Issues in Language, Writing, and Rhetoric)
I had Nadine Gingrich for this class. I can honestly say, I didn't enjoy it that much. Maybe I'm bitter 'cause I didn't do that well throughout the term, but I just couldn't love this class. She was a very opinionated prof, and while that's not a bad thing, per say, she often didn't appreciate opinions that opposed her own, which I thouht was pretty closed minded, but moving on. Her tests and assignments are extremely vague, and she doesn't really give you any expectations. For the first test, we were told to analyze a quote using things we learned in class. She didn't tell us how she wanted us to analyze it, or how much she wanted us to go into it (it was an hour and twenty minute class). When I got the test back, she told me that I didn't meet the expectations she had for the midterm. But she didn't give us any. And then with the next midterm, she had us mark up an article beforehand, and then she was going to give us questions about the article and we had to use our notes and such to answer them. Instead of asking about the larger concepts, though, she touched ones that we barely talked about in class, and that the textbook touches on for maybe a paragraph. Everyone walked out of the room not really knowing what on earth we were asked. All in all, definitely not my favourite prof. While I didn't do bad in her class, I just wasn't happy with her method of teaching, nor her methods of evaluation.

CS 100 (Intro to Computer Applications)
I had Janice Brown (?) for this class, I think. Don't hurt me! I didn't skip! It was an online course and it was extremely simple when it came down to it. I actually did surprisingly well in it, and I enjoyed learning about HTML coding, Wikis, and Excel. A fairly elementary course, and I would recommend it to people who don't know much about the aforementioned programs, or even computers in general. The course also teaches you how to navigate through the computer (not that I needed that part, I mean I live on here, I definitely know how to open My Documents and make a folder). Interesting, not too labour intensive, and definitely applicable in the working world.

Those were all my courses for last term. Well, I had PD1 too, but that was boring, mandatory, and online. If you do co-op at UWaterloo, then you'll be forced to do PD1, and nothing I say or do will save you from that monotony. Anyways, choose your courses (and your profs) wisely, that's all I can say.

I shall post again soon about my first work term ~

-Alikiya