AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111

No. No. NoooooO!!!

Well, today was a futile exercise. I spent every waking hour furiously working on a databases assignment. And I just lost the whole fucking thing. Belgium man. Belgium. I had made so much progress. I had allocated this day for it and was determined to get it in. I had to get it in. There is so much else to do. Since it was databases it was mostly huge amounts of data massaging and number crunching and rearranging. I had created and modified twenty or so text files, set up perfectly with all the information I needed to work with. I had written myself help files and compiled command lists. Everything was going so well. During a break, I had even written what I thought was a pretty good Xanga post that was very different in tone than this sucky baby rant. dfgoai;jdgaoi;gjasr;ligjair;ljibv;ojd

So you’re probably saying to yourself, “Well serves him right for not saving,”, right? Well I did save. Repeatedly, compulsively, like crazy, a non stop gangsta party of data backup, an orgy fest of saving. The problem is that since I was in a computer lab on campus, I’m only allocated a certain amount of profile space for working on that computer. Since I was over my profile allocation when the machine spazzed, when it started back up it just deleted everything.

I trudged despondently up to the third floor computer science department help desk which they cutely call the Input/Output counter to see if I could recover my output. I brought the on duty Chinese grad student down with me to check out my blank frozen blue screen. He was most unhelpful but I think he was genuinely concerned. That made me feel a little better so I tried to elicit even more sympathy by saying things like, “That was about ten hours of work I lost.”, “It was due today and now I have nothing.”, “I’m so tired.”, “Hold me.”

I think I actually did make him feel terrible, he kept running his hands through his hair, and touching his face while he stammered and tried to throw out helpful information to console me. He said he felt very badly that he couldn’t solve my problem. He stuck around while I packed up and put my jacket on. He stood frozen in the hallway staring at me as I left. I have a feeling he’ll be thinking about it for the rest of his shift tonight anyway. I don’t feel guilty though. He’s not going to be the one staying up all night redoing something he just spent all day working on. It’s one thing to loaf around and procrastinate but it’s a whole other realm of dejection when you kill yourself all day for nothing.

It’s now the last 31 days of my 22 year scholastic career. April 15th at 5:00pm, mark it on the calendar, I’m done like dough. Today after I did some frightened progress assessment to see where
I’m at, I’ve decided things actually aren’t that bad. I just passed the halfway point on my thesis and I have nine more days to finish it up. Other assignments and obligations are going ok too. I’m going to make it!

Now that I’m starting to actually believe that I’ll make it through, the relief I’m getting a taste of is heavily tainted with melancholy. It’s stemming from the realization that I’ll finally be moving on. I haven’t been feeling great lately. Another cold, quiet Sunday evening spent mostly alone has amplified the effect. I talked with a friend for a while but it was empty, unfulfilling conversation.

On Saturday, I finished an anime series I’ve been gradually watching over the past few months, Kino’s Travels. I highly recommend it, it was beautiful and introspective, one of my favorites.

Eating soup in a computer lab on campus. It’s very delicious. Today’s Grad club special, carrot something. It looks like orangish-yellow porridge. Actually it looks like cat vomit. Not so delicious now. I bought it along with red Powerade and a stale donut. Brain dead and sluggish. Last night’s half-of-a-sleeping pill lingers. I’m eating in here and not in the bar because I feel and look like shit today. I’m wearing a big ugly, grey and beige sweater, my hair is a total haphazard mess and my stubble is at a very unflattering phase. Been eating terrible lately. I should fix that. It will fix my mood too I bet. Why do I feel like such a slug when I should be in a frenzy to meet deadlines? So far this post is sufficiently hum drum, matching my mood quite well. Maybe the cure to my funk is as simple as some caffeine and music. Curtis Mayfield wasn’t getting the job done earlier. I need something more upbeat. All right. Yawn yawn yawn. Twenty more minutes left on my self-allocated break. Let’s see. A Procrastination exercise, My top five movie moments that come to mind right now:

(1) Return Of The Living Dead. About 5 minutes in. Frank and Freddie are down in the basement of the medical supply warehouse and checking out the military canisters. Freddie says, “Hey Frank these don’t leak do they?” Frank retorts, “Hell no! These were made by the US army!” Then he slaps one, it starts leaking and that cool as hell 80s techno punk music comes on as the display case on the canister cracks and the zombie face starts melting and goes all liquidy and the scene follows the smoke and shit as it cycles through the building.

(2) The treetop scene from The Sword in the Stone where Merlin and the boy are chipmunks and are being harassed by the females. Or the moat scene where they’re fish and learning how to swim and there’s that huge pike. Or the wizard battle. That was a good movie.

(3) The conclusion of Seven.

(4) Another pretty obscure one from an 80s horror movie, House, a scene that has Norm from Cheers playing a fat neighbor of this writer who’s living in a haunted house while trying to write a book. The writer knows that at the same time every night this monster comes down his chimney to do bad stuff. So he invites Norm over for beers and aid under the guise of catching and killing a rabid raccoon that comes out of his chimney every night. So he sets a mildly drunk and skeptical Norm up with this giant harpoon and gives him safety glasses and they camp out in front of the chimney watching the clock tick down to monster time. Just take my word for it, it’s a good one. An excellent mix of suspense and comedy.

(5) High Fidelity. When the Zen guru played by Tim Robbins comes into the record store to tell John Cusak’s character to stop stalking him and his estranged girlfriend and the sequence of possible courses of action that are subsequently cycled through in his mind. Especially the last one where he’s helped out by Jack Black and the passivist, mellow employee to team up to beat the shit out of the guru. When the skinny guy rips the air conditioner out of the wall I totally lose it.

In the most exciting news I have, my rental office has a fancy new system for accepting payments!

The two rent ladies and one rent man know me well since I’ve been seeing them monthly for most of the last five years. (Before that, in a failed experiment, I lived off-campus. There was also a dorm year. If you’re doing math, I’ll confirm that yes, I’ve been in undergraduate for seven years.)

So, anyway, I paid with my debit card and rent man, let’s call him Ralph, brought out a stamp. This was a radical new departure from the old name/apartment number pen based system. So, accordingly, I let out an enthusiastic, impressed, “Oooooooh! A stamp!!” Ralph chuckled a little and then used my debit receipt to deftly dispense with some hardcore stamping action. He then asked my student number. My student number? This caused my world to started spinning, so many changes, so quickly! I told him. He asked again. And I told him again.

“That can’t be right”, said Ralph. “Oh, it’s right”, said me. “Student numbers can’t start with that combination of digits.” said Ralph.

So, with devilish glee, I whipped out my student card and plunked it down in front of a seriously skeptical Ralph. Now, the thing with my student card is that it is truly old school. I got it way back in 1998. That year was the very last time the University used a 7 digit student number system. It went to 9, the next year. The picture is black and white, fuzzy and grainy, the colours are old and faded. Well, basically it just looks like a piece of shit. Especially when compared to the new fancy holographic, laser, 3-D deals they have now.

So, I threw that bad boy down on the desk, and Ralph was truly amazed. He picked up that card and it was like he had rediscovered an old lover, long since departed. His eyes widened as he fondled and examined it.  He laughed deeply and genuinely, he seemingly couldn’t believe it. He told me they had made those type of cards for only one year before changing everything and informed me that if I stopped by the registrars office they would give me a brand new fancy card, free of charge. He advised against it though. As he put it, “That one’s a rare classic.” And thus concludes my exciting rent story!

The conference room at my workplace is formal and spacious. The walls are covered with dark paneled wood. There is a chandelier and an enclosed bar area. The back is completely windowed and looks out into a neat, enclosed gated courtyard in a quiet residential neighborhood. It’s in this room that I am located four out of seven nights a week at approximately 4:00am. Usually, slouching down in a soft decadent burgundy chair with my legs up on another, shrouded dimly by the courtyard lamps that sparsely light the room. Tonight I put on earmuff headphones and listened to music. I loosened my black tie and played 38 Special. Then The Evens. Then Built Like Alaska. Then Elliot Smith. Then I felt thoroughly tranquilized and nostalgic. I miss the friends I’ve left back home. I miss the friends that have left me here. I am awake at 4:19am way too often. I spend too much time at computer screens.

When my dad was a little younger than myself he had a job that I’ve been fantasizing about often. Male Gigolo! He loved it. And man, how I would love to be paid to…, and of course I am joking. He was a boat captain in the Northwest Territories for chartered fishing trips. I always picture Great Bear lake when I think about it but it was probably elsewhere. He did it in the summer straight out of high school and I picture him young with big curly late seventies hair and appropriate stylin’ retro clothes. The boat would be a comfortable twenty footer maybe. He would have a smoke or cigar protruding out his mouth (cigars work really well to keep mosquitoes away, next time I go fishing I’m bringing some sweet smelling ones.). Maybe he would have his feet up while he trolled, with a warm summer wind gently blowing. He would say to the Americans fishing from his boat, “You know, those plastic toy lures are great and all, but why don’t you give a spinner and a minnow a try.” And then the image of him is replaced by me and I smugly chuckle as they start catching big fat walleye like crazy after changing lures. I would point out a moose swimming through the reeds and eagles scanning the water from high up on evergreens… And then I snap back to reality where I am shackled to my thesis and assignments and exams and crummy job and tiny student apartment.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic Don’t panic. I wish I could behave as rationally as I tell myself I should. The challenges I have to deal with until the end of March at the moment seem insurmountable. I am attempting to keep moving forward and hoping for the best. Right now though, I feel like I have to reach the summit of Everest in a couple of hours. The magnitude of my thesis project that is due in a scant 19 days is PhD worthy. I don’t know why I chose it for my lousy undergrad project. Breathe.

Everyone probably feels similar to some extent about something I suppose. Even after March there will still be challenges. I need to continue taking time to pause, break and do something enjoyable.

As a consequence of this advice, I have been reading a lot more lately. Breaks where I just ruminate over how much trouble I’m in are not groovy. Reading works well to take me out of the whole general mish mash for a while and then I can start relatively fresh. I’ve done less reading during my University years, telling myself that I didn’t have time for it. This is a fallacy, I’m working harder now than ever.

Anyway, I am almost finished Mostly Harmless, the fifth and final book of the Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. It’s a series I started way back in my first year of University at the recommendation of my roommate. I’ve held back on finishing it off though because of what he told me back in firs-year when we shared a little tiny room together, “Yeah, the books are great, funny, etc, etc. But don’t bother reading the final one in the series.” “Why not?” “Because Douglas Adams never intended there to be five books. He was pressured into it and intentionally wrote the fifth one so badly to discourage any one bugging him to do any more.”

And since my roommate was just about the coolest person I knew, I took the advice to heart. Until last week. Now, I’m finding out that book five actually might be my favorite of the series (although it has been a few years since I’ve read the first three and don’t remember them too well.). I’ve laughed out loud probably a dozen times, something I don’t remember doing at all while reading book four, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish. I guess he probably perceived the book differently because he usually only read while stoned.

The first book is being released as a movie next month, it should be fun. So much of the humor comes from the ridiculous and colourful language Adams uses to describe settings and character action though. It’s definitely worth a read.

The movie trailer.

I’m getting acclimated to living alone again now that my devil angel has left. I flipped my National Geographic calendar over tonight and deeply connected with the March monkey. He has a massive frown and big heavy lidded tired eyes. A perfect choice for this month because he looks cold and tired and knows it’s going to be a miserable 31 days. He has a look that says, “I’m so tired of this shit, I just want it to be over, for better or worse.” An old grey Japanese Macaque hot tub monkey. I would trade places with him.

I just woke up a little while ago after sleeping all afternoon due to my night job and early classes. Still in pajamas, bluish polka dot pants and a big oversized sweater that I’m comfortably swimming in. I’m cooking my puffy pancake breakfast. I’m going to smother it in syrup and it will be tasty. I won’t feel like doing anything after eating it.

And I ate it. I think I need a coffee. So stuffed (like a plushy). I enjoyed the reaction I got when I wrote that a half dozen posts or so ago. Maybe you gleaned some unintended perverted meaning from it, possibly involving stuffed animal masturbation. I complicated matters with the image of Superman and Lois as a centaur. That must have stirred the id a little.

I was a zombie after work on campus this morning. In lecture, every three minutes my head would sink, then jerk back up to mindlessly copy the formulas and scribbles on the whiteboard. Then the head bobbing cycle repeated for two hours.
I vaguely recollect stopping at the Pit Stop store to buy a Jones blueberry soda. It wasn’t in my bag when I checked tonight, apparently I did buy the new Adbusters though. I slowly flipped through it and it made me angry-depressed as usual. There’s not much fire in the belly today.

Saturday February 19:
1/2 progress report + 3 pages

Sunday February 20:
1/2 progress report + 3 pages

Monday February 21:
 -Thesis Progress report.
+3 pages

Tuesday February 22:
xxx

Wednesday February 23:
xxx

Thursday February 24:
xxx

Friday February 25:
xxx

Saturday February 26:
+3 pages

Sunday February 27:
+3 pages

Monday February 28:
progress report

Tuesday March 1:
1/2 Foundations Ass#2 + 1/2 DNA computing Summary

Wednesday March 2:
1/2 Foundations Ass #2 + 1/2 DNA computing Summary

Thursday March 3:

-Thesis Progress report #3

-Foundations Assignment #2

-DNA computing Ass#3 summary
+ 3 pages

Friday March 4:
Databases Ass#2

Saturday March 5:
Bioinormatics Tools Ass#2

Sunday March 6:
+3 pages

Monday March 7:

-Bioinformatics Tools Assn #2
+3 pages

Tuesday March 8:
-Databases Assn #2
+3 pages

Wednesday March 9:
+3 pages

Thursday March 10:
+3 pages

Friday March 11:
+3 pages

Saturday March 12:
+3 pages

Sunday March 13:
+ 3 pages

Monday March 14:
Code on Bio Tool, GUI
.

Tuesday March 15:
DNA computing Ass #4

Wednesday March 16:
Databases Test Study

Thursday March 17:
-DNA computing Assn #4 (probable)

-Databases TEST 2
Code on tool

Friday March 18:
Code on tool

Saturday March 19:
code on tool

Sunday March 20:
code on tool

Monday March 21:
code on tool

Tuesday March 22:
code on tool, finish tool

Wednesday March 23:
Total Thesis Wrap up.

Thursday March 24:
THESIS DUE
Presentation work on

Friday March 25:
Presentation work on

Saturday March 26:
Databases Ass #3

Sunday March 27:
Databases Ass #3

Monday March 28:

-Earliest possible Thesis present date 
Bioinformatics Tool presentation

Tuesday March 29:

-Bioinformatics Tool and presentation (probable)

-Databases Ass #3
Foundations Ass#3

Wednesday March 30:
Foundations Ass#3

Thursday March 31:
 -Foundations Ass #3  

********************************************************

Bioinormatics 
Thesis 460z:
OVERDUE: progress report #2
Thurs.  Mar. 3 – Progress report 3    
Thurs. Mar. 24 – Final report
Mar. 28 – April 8 – Presentation

Bioinformatics Tools 461b:
Assignment #2: March 7th
Protein secondary structure display (1 person): Project and Presentation: Late March
Exam –  Exam period.

DNA computing 462b:
Assignment #3: March 3rdth
Assignment #4: March 17th
Exam – Final Exam period.

Foundation 432s:
Assignment #2 – March 3rdth
Assignment #3 – March 24th
Exam – Early April

Databases 319b:
Assignment #2 – March 8th
Assignmnet #3 – March 29th
Test Two – March 17th
Final Exam – Exam period.

A tooth of mine has been hurting me. Extreme head throbbing agony. Unable to function type pain. So, despite having spent over two grand at my dentist during the past six months, I decided to get some more dental care. Due to financial constraints, I switched from the experienced, competent Dr. Spagnuola to the cheap and bumbling dentistry students on campus.

So I went, it’s only a five minute walk from my building, I was just expecting a preliminary examination and some X-Rays to be taken. I had doubts as soon as I got inside, the medical science building really is old and falling apart. The dentistry student I was assigned to was upbeat and relaxed though. I think her name was Lisa. There was a fun moment during the medical history checklist, when she asked me about recreational drug use. The serious poker face she gave me when she said it was priceless. After she tapped all my teeth for pain (I couldn’t localize it), the hygienist/assistant (another student) was instructed to blow compressed air on my teeth. She had the nozzle turned the wrong way and instead blasted me in the eyes and nose. I survived. While Lisa chatted with her instructor, I had to endure a really painful X-Ray. All the equipment is so damn old. More modern equipment would have been more palette friendly. So, Lisa got the X-Ray back and showed me the big decayed area on my upper left wisdom tooth and after more instructor consulting, recommended pulling it. I didn’t think this was the trouble tooth but I consented since the decay was apparently massive.

They sent me over to surgery where they agreed to do it right away. I met dentistry students number two and three. Shen, an Asian guy with braces, who would be dong the actual extraction. He shook my hand and I noticed “Dentistry 2008” on his name tag. Must be a “firs’-year”, as Hagrid would say. Lucky me. Number three was supervising and was a jovial, laughing twerp who’s name I forgot but he told me the gauze was edible and I just wanted him to be serious because I’ve never had surgery before even if this was really minor. Shen agreed my wisdom tooth cavity was mammoth and did his best to anesthetize me. This was by far the worst part of the procedure. The needle on the outward face of my gums wasn’t bad at all, but the one on the inside was horrible. It had to go right at the back of my hard palette and Shen wasn’t smooth at all and I couldn’t help but twitch and my gag reflex kicked in and Shen twitched too and it was gross and horrible and took a whole minute and I hated it. The new assistant hygienist/assistant was doing a crummy job with suction too. I was gagging on what must have been blood at the back of my throat while she wondered, “Why, isn’t it sucking?” as she had the device jammed into my cheek and not the back of my fluid filled throat.

The extraction was god awful too. Shen was not good at it. It seemed like he was working really hard with the forceps or whatever it was he was using but after a few minutes he left to get the instructor. I had my eyes shut but I heard a deep commanding voice, “turn your head to the right!” and I then felt competent hands working my tooth loose with a smooth wrenching that Shen seemed incapable of. “You work it free like this, back and forth. See how it’s coming loose?” Shen took over again and it was nothing like that. More fumbling. By some miracle it finally came free and I was left sitting in the chair chewing on gauze while I listened to Shen get criticized in the Hallway. A little poetic justice for me. So yeah, that was my day at the dentist. The pain is mostly gone now. I think it might have been the wisdom tooth after all. The visit was super cheap, forty dollars or so after my student discount.

My girlfriend Merle came and spent the week with me. I just sent her home on a Greyhound a few hours ago. I wasn’t happy she came but I embraced the excuse not to write and study. I forgot as best as I could my looming deadlines. Since I hadn’t planned on her coming I hadn’t planned any special activities to do with her. Instead we spent the week going to theaters, my favorite arcade and comic book store, new and old places to eat, coffee shops and diners, book store, pet store, wherever. I would have liked to have gone out and listened to music or maybe even a club but the timing wasn’t quite right. I had a dentist checkup at which, my wisdom tooth was extracted, so after that drinking and dancing never seemed to suit my mood. When I perceive something wrong with my body I tend to move very slowly and just want to spread out on a nice cushy armrest, close my eyes, relax and sleep. That didn’t stop her from getting drunk, pestering a friend of mine on the phone, then a friend of hers and dragging me downtown though. So that’s a little of what we did. She spent today crying because she didn’t want to go and miss me. This is good for my ego but also reminds me of how rotten and cowardly I am. I like Merle. I don’t think we are right for each other though. I think we got along well this week only because we are sexually compatible and I knew she was leaving at the end of it. She looks at me with stars in her eyes and tells me how deep and true her love is for me. How she wants to marry me. To be with me forever. She wanted to go to city hall this week for a marriage license. I resisted as always. Sometimes I wish she would just cheat on me so I could break out in a righteous escape. Instead I will be forced to crush her innocent heart in my cold evil hands. Yet, even though I know I should, I still don’t break up with her. I am indifferent but I keep her because she is mine and I don’t want any other male to put his dirty paws on her. I also am scared of being a failure and alone. Hmmm, that was the most honest sentence I’ve written in awhile. I guess I’m a bad guy with a good girl. It is hard to discard a bond with someone who looks at you like you are the world. Merle’s a problem I’ll be forced to deal with, like everything else, after March along with the possible aftermath of academic collapse. I have a feeling I’ll be back home in T Bay some time this summer, single, unemployed and licking my wounds. Big dreams pathetically shrunken. On a related note, I saw the movie Closer this week end. (Also Million Dollar Baby, In Good Company and I Heart Huckabees.)  Closer was my favorite of the four. It won’t be anyone’s favorite movie but much of it rung true with sharp and vicious insight.