Dunzo!

I'm finally finished the first book I've read for fun in like, 5 years! That's probably one of the lamest things I've ever said, but sadly, it's the truth. I've had this issue in university where I feel useless if I'm not constantly doing something productive. So, the only books I've attempted to read talk about good city-building and why our planet is going down the tubes. Surprisingly, these aren't the most entertaining topics. Whenever I let myself have any "me" time alone, I'm so tired of doing all this work that I always decide to watch reruns of Intervention or wine taste or do any sort of activity that gradually turns my brain into silly putty.

Since I started studying for my GRE, I kinda realized: how am I ever going to do well in grad school, or even enjoy it, when I hate reading? I decided I needed to started reading for fun again! It couldn't be that bad? Then, while at the U of A a few weeks ago, I was drawn to this Lionel Shriver novel on their clearance rack called We Need to Talk About Kevin. Without reading the book jacket, I impulsively decided to buy it.

It's probably the best decision I've made in a long time! The book is about this mother writing letters to her estranged husband about their son, who killed 10 people at his high school. It's pretty grim, but really says a lot about parenthood and how we treat our young people. In the last couple of days, I've put off my summer school assignment just so I could finish reading the final 100 pages, which were AMAZING!!! After celebrating this great accomplishment (yeah, I pretty much read at a grade 6 level...) I couldn't stop thinking about the book and Wiki'ed it during a lull at work. If things didn't get any better, they're turning it into a movie now! Finally, I get to be the one who relishes in telling people that "the book was just so much better than the movie." I can't wait!!

Like, ohmygosh?! I totally pictured Tilda Swinton as Eva Katchadourian....

Weekending

These past couple days have been busy, busy. I spent Thursday and Friday doing water quality testing at Camrose's landfill. Wow, was that an educational experience. The engineer I was working with told me, "I wish everyone could visit a landfill at least once." There's a lot of truth to that. I found old couches in amazing condition, recyclable electronics and water bottles, the environmentalist's new enemy du jour, littered all over the landfill's most recent cell, which is the engineer's euphemism for "pile of garbage."

On my way back home, I decided to make a detour through the city of Camrose (on company time) for one particular reason: I really needed to see Augustana Campus. You see, I have this weird bourgeois complex where I'm constantly second-guessing my choice of schools. Back in high school, I applied to Augustana, a tiny satellite campus of the University of Alberta. I actually got rejected by them, which is probably one of the only times I've been rejected from anything in my entire life. Anyways, I was pleased to discover that the campus was super dull, and super small. And Camrose is one of those cities that are great places to die: packed full of old people and businesses that cater to old people.

I got a much-needed break this weekend and skipped out of town this weekend to camp at Pembina River. I got to hike around and catch some sun, and hang out with my friend's Frat, which is half made up of people from my high school, so it was an awesome chance to do some serious catching up!

Pembina River <3

Late Registration

Ugh, its that time of year again....enrollment appointments. Am I that lame to make a huge deal over enrolling for classes?

Simply put, I haven't had the best of luck registering in classes: I've take twice as many first-year courses as I'm allowed to (meaning at least one extra term), I always fight to get into a 6th course only to drop it after the first week of classes and, most importantly, I have this obsession with scheduling days off. I actually haven't had a 5-day week of classes since high school. This awesome setup has come at a cost though. Rather than taking classes that I'm genuinely interested in or might benefit me in my career, I've taken exciting courses like The Fundamentals of Drawing (alright kids, lets draw some more naked 50-year olds), Freight Planning (trucks or trains?), Stormwater Management (there's too much shit in our water), and my personal favourite, Social Psychology in Everyday Life (too much for words...whoever said the Arts were easy never sat through one of these lectures).

My intense scheduling, along with my waffling over specializations, minors and other buzz-words to add to my diploma, I've managed to screw up all the hard work my advisor put into making me a simple plan to finish my degree in 3 years. On top of that, I'm going to Brisbane for school this year (ch'yeaaa)! Probably the only downside to Australia is that school there is really lax. They take 4-courses a term and mostly have 3-year degrees, meaning most of courses I'm taking only transfer over as first or second-year courses, which I definitely have more than enough of.

Yesterday, I was telling a project engineer about my colourful year at school and he asked me the question I absolutely loathe hearing: "When are you gonna be finished?" He then began to glare wildly when I told him that I wasn't really sure when I'd be graduating. Oh sorry, I didn't realize there was suddenly a stigma attached to enjoying my youth...

In reality, it makes me restless to not know when I'll be finished my undergrad, to not be able to make plans or try to envision where I'll be in two years. But I'm trying to keep it all in perspective. I have the rest of my life to slave away at a 9-to-5, what difference does one year make?

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P.S: Random pet peeve-- I hate when I decide to spend my lunch break lurking blogs and the only ones I come across are about Catholic families or new babies.