Romeo And Juliet

UBC, go watch it. Now.

"You will lose money chasing women, but you will never lose women while chasing money"

Why

..the fuck is parliament suspended again?

Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground

Let's just stare

Poetry

I wish I understood Russian, so i could read Pushkin. I've been reading english translations, and although they are still beautiful, i bet they just don't compare to the actual poetry in russian. The russian literature class i took last term was really insightful and really opened up another world of literature outside of the common shakespeare and what not. Sure shakespeare was amazing, but there exists other poetry in the world. Currently I am reading a translation of Eugene Onegin, Pushkin's novel written in verse, so it basically reads as a giant poem with stanzas. Russian poetry is just different than other types of poetry because the emotions evoked by the russians are different. Just like in russian literature such as Crime and Punishment or Anna Karenina, both novels differ than the typical Jane Austen. Russian writers endure more pain and suffering, and it shows in their works. Although none of the writers were very prolific, the few Russian pieces produced are wonderful.

Since I don't want to reveal much about the novels or poems, I'd suggest you go and at least try them out. Just google up some pushkin poems, and try to listen to it in russian first, since hearing the words flow together sounds a lot different when its translated, but the poetry is still beautiful nonetheless.

Wet Lab

So I had my first accident at work. Sorta spilled a shitload of water all over the place, including on myself. It wasn't really that big of a deal or anything, but holy shit was there a lot of water. And now my phone doesn't really work anymore either, since it also got wet in my pocket. Currently it's sitting in rice, and I hope it works tomorrow morning.

Mo money

Darn hobbies are so expensive. I think in this past year, I have spent the most money on my hobbies, during this "recession" and all. My latest hobby has been photography, and I've been playing around with HDR photography most recently. One of the pictures in my previous post is a HDR image, poorly done mind you, but it's really fun to play with. With my coop job and all, I'm really tempted to spend a huge chunk of it on buying equipment in order to take better photos. Maybe i'm not good enough yet to require a new lens, but it would be really fun. From time to time I will post some of the better looking pictures up here, to add to the photoblog effect. Should've went for the 1 picture a day thing, would've been cool to see the result.So far here is a list of things that I want/need to buy for my DSLR set up:

1. 16gb class 6 (or maybe class 10) SDHC card
2. tripod
3. new lens, 70-200mm most likely

Those are the 3 things that I need/want, in that order. All of it together will probably cost me like a paycheque, which is like 2 weeks worth of work. So far the past 2 weeks of work involved 1 week of training, then 1 week of actually working while still learning more things. Time goes by really really quickly, so I have no complaints. I think i will delve into learning Visual Basic in order to write macros for Microsoft excel, which one of my supervisors asked me to do. I'm also pretty glad to be working under a professional engineer, meaning my coop term will count towards time for my P.Eng as well. I think it would be of interest for me to read up on some of the processes I am doing, and tests being done just to get a better grasp of what is really going on. Most of the things I do are just repetition, like a recipe.

The exciting thing to end the post is that during the first 2 weeks of February, I will be visiting Prince George to visit one of our companies paper mills up there. I hope its as exciting as I think it will be, since its gonna be a completely new experience for me. Plus i get my own room in the hotel, which is pretty dope.

Work updates

I've decided that daily updates are too tiring and boring, so instead i'll be doing weekly updates at the end of the week. I sorta missed out on last weekend cause i was up in whistler, getting some pow pow. So during the 1st two weeks of february, i will be going to prince george to visit one of the mills that our company owns. Pretty awesome since i'm getting paid to go there and learn stuff.

I hate it when i had a lot to blog about, but then i put it off and now i can't remember anything. So that's all for now.

Day 4. Custom

Work has gotten to the point where I almost feel comfortable doing whatever i've been taught so far. It's great. I feel confident working in the lab doing freeness tests, and making handsheets from various pulps. Can't believe that it is almost 1 week already, the working environment is great and i really enjoy it. Sure i think i would enjoy working in a materials lab doing mat lab and machining instead, or designing parts in solidworks. But the lab work i'm doing right now is eye opening, since it shows what chemical engineers can really do, instead of just doing stuff mainly with chemistry.

This blog post is really short cause i'm tired since i just got home from the bar after watching some canucks ownage. I've been to the bar more this month that I have since i've been legal, its quite strange.

Day 3. My eyes are tired.

You know it's not going to be a good way when you wake up and your eyes feel like they are bloodshot. Last time this happened was when i did math for like 10 hours straight, before my multivariable and vector final. Today when i woke up, my eyes felt very tired still, like they didn't want to be opened. I woke up early, so I arrived at work early, 30 minutes early to be exact. The paprican building is kinda spooky in the dark, especially since there aren't a lot of people there ever. Today work was less tiring, and I didn't really feel like talking that much, since my eyes were tired so i was more in an anti-social mode. The day consisted of testing the paper that we made the previous day, which took all morning, and a lil bit into the afternoon. Then it was just some data entry, which I am pro at, since it's just pressing numbers on the numberpad. Prepped pulp samples for more paper making tomorrow, which hopefully my eyes won't be as tired.

All in all, the day wasn't bad, I didn't ever feel like "OMG can work end already?!" And time passed fairly quickly, and before you know it, 4 months will be over.

Day 2. Paper

So here is a recap of day 2 at work. Arrive at 7:50, cause bus driver knew how to stop at the correct place. Put on lab coat, and rebelled against safety glasses. I honestly hate having to wear safety glasses ontop of my glasses, the one thing i don't like about labs. The day consisted of paper paper to test freeness or some shit, didn't really get what we were doing other than pouring lots of water and pulp around. Then making circles out of it, and drying them. That took about the entire morning, and the afternoon was making handsheets, which were paper circles that are used to test for different properties using cool machines. The entire day was spent on my feet, washing, pouring, cleaning. Repeat. I can't say it was a terrible thing to do, but it was pretty boring and sorta tiring, standing alllll day and pouring liquids around. But i've got nothing to complain about, since my co-workers are all pretty awesome. Working with al girls is a nice change from the all male environment in engineering. Standing all day made me quite tired, since I did yoga-pilates yesterday, keeping up with my new years resolution.

With work, I find that I don't really have the time to blog as much as i wanted to, mainly because I haven't had time to think about many things. Work is great though, I think i've made like $300 in 2 days? Wooot!

Day 1. Girls?!

So today was the first day of my coop work term at Canfor Pulp and Paper Limited. Their research lab is housed in the Paprican, near Triumf and the other research centres at UBC. It's a really nice building in itself, very quiet with not that many people. I think my boss, Patricia McBeath, told me that there are 9 full time employees in the company, and that's all. The day started off sorta lame, cause the bus driver decided that he would just skip all the stops along marine dr, meaning he didn't stop at wesbrook for me to get off. So I had to walk in the rain from hampton place all the way down to 3800 Wesbrook mall. The entire morning started off with filling out company forms such as waivers, non-disclousure agreements, tax forms, and it went on. It was during this time that I also met two of my other co-workers, Anika and Stephanie. Both are chemical engineers, and in their 3rd year, which made me the only male, and in 2nd year. Workplace safety videos and hazards videos were watched, learning about how not to be stupid and stick your hand into a machine that is still operating. The entire building itself doesn't have that many people, so it's unusually quiet and there isn't that many people around. In the afternoon, the real training began and I spent the afternoon learning how to use the different machines to test paper. Basically its sitting in a room with 8 or so machines that test the different properties of the paper. The tests are all pretty interesting, but i guess they are tiring, and it's just doing the same thing over and over again. Calibrate machine, insert test sample, press button, record, repeat. But it was a great day at work, and having all my co-workers be female is a sure change from all the males in engineering.

Canadian news is boring

It's much more fun to look at US economics, since it actually has stuff happening. Like the fact that the net job creation in the past decade in the US has been 0. 0% net job growth. That is quite scary, since the economy hasn't been that bad until the last 3 years or so. That means all the jobs created in the first half of the last decade were all lost, and then no more were created in the last 5 years. The recession did exist, and it may be over now, but the americans are going to have to suffer for quite awhile. The financial crisis with sub-primes is over, or so some say, but look at the debt amassed by the US. Are they still considered to be a superpower? The housing bubble completely destroyed the economy, leaving many americans without jobs and money. The major banks had a fallout and required a bailout. All this money needed, and none to be found.

Enough about economics, lets move on to the next big news topic in the US right now, health reform. Americans look at Canadians and our health insurance, and they become very jealous. Yet there are still out-spoken critics on getting universal healthcare in the US. Sarah Palin, for one, despises health care, and thinks Canada should get rid of it, so businesses can make money off saving lives. Harvard conducted a study with Cambridge Health alliance and the results were that 45,000 deaths occur every year, due to lack of health insurance. To put this into perspective, there are more deaths from lack of health coverage than there are deaths from kidney disease. There are 775 deaths due to terrorist attacks every year, which is still nothing compared to the 45,000. I could be cynical and say this is an adequate form of population control. Canadians have health care, so the statistic for us is 0. 0 deaths every year due to health care. Just looking at these stats alone should be enough reason to accept the health care reform. But is anything being done yet? Yes and no. Progress is being made, but there are still many lobbyist who do no want health care. Main reason is cause when healthcare is universal, where is the money to be made?

MRSA revisited.

So if you've been following my blog for awhile now, you might've read my MRSA post awhile back, if not you can go read it here.

The only progress against fighting the superbug seems to be in Norway, where their method of action is to fight by not prescribing antibiotics for everything. This is the main reason why I never take any antibiotics unless i'm deathly ill. Heck, I don't even take normal over the counter drugs unless i really need to. Tylenol? Nope, I don't get headaches. I just let my body do it's job and fight whatever I have, which is what Norway is doing. The superbug is continuously killing people in hospitals, due to the fact that it is now resistant to virtually all drugs known to mankind. There isn't much press on it lately, with H1N1 and the "pandemic" scare, and most of the time such things aren't showed to the media since it's not really that big of a deal right? The North American attitude to any disease or virus is to blast it to hell with antibiotics, sorta like their approach to getting the things they want. Obviously this method doesn't work, as more and more drug resistant bugs are appearing.

What Norwegians have done is simple: Stop taking so many drugs. With infections killing so many people every year, how hard can it be for doctors to stop prescribing useless meds? If you have a cough, there's no need for penicillin. Norway is a shining example that there is a way to combat superbugs, and it is damn effective. So next time you're sick, think about if you really do need to take those drugs, or if you can just wait and let your body do what it's made to do.

New Years Resolution

So I guess since it's a new year, I should make some sort of resolutions that I will think very hard about and try very hard for
about a month of so to remember these resolutions, then look back one year from now and realize none were accomplished.

1. Stay healthy and fit. Yoga every week during my coop work-term. (triathlon?)
2. Save money, and make smart investments.
3. Create a website.
4. Learn a new skill, and maybe a language.
5. Travel to somewhere new.
6. Learn how to drive standard.
7. Blog more.

Happy New Year!

So theres only 2 more years until the end of the world!!!!1!! jkjk haha

So for all your procrastinators, if you don't have a new years resolution yet, have no worry! The internets is here to save you! New Years Resolution generator!