A Morbid Anniversary

That's what Mike called it. Francis said it gave him nightmares. That was the beginning of a whole series of events, including the development of a number of friendships, particularly the ones formed with Grant and A.

It's been a full year. A rather busy and stressful one, the opposite of what it 'should' have been.

Most people didn't notice that I changed my birth date on Facebook, which is reasonable because I wouldn't have known if someone else had done that. I wasn't conscious yet at this time last year, in either time zone.

Around May/June 2006, a lot of people had already changed their school/network on Facebook to the university they were going to attend in the fall. I thought that was somewhat...I don't know how to describe it - shameless? bold? I just didn't think that it was 'correct' that people were claiming to be in university when they hadn't graduated from high school yet. Who knows if they would? Either way, that's how I felt about it, so I decided against doing that as I wanted to be precise about my status information. Sometimes I wonder if I had quickly entered 'University of Waterloo' as my school, that's where I would be right now by some twist of fate.

On the other hand, I still haven't changed it this year because I don't believe anything is 'certain' anymore. If someone had asked me where I would be right now and how sure I was of my answer, I would have said UW with about 99% certainty (1% reserved for some freak accident). It would be an understatement to say that a lot has changed since then.

Last year, I had planned on being 4-stream, meaning at school for the Fall 2006 term (the four months from September to December), at work for Winter 2007 (January to April) and back at school from May through August. That way, I would be on-stream with everyone I knew. I had also wanted to be living at Mackenzie King Village, in an apartment-style suite with three or four other girls. This year, I had wanted to be in 8-stream, but I still got 4-stream and I'll be off-stream with all my friends, so I'll never meet them regularly at school. I don't think I know anyone with this streaming.

I'm told that there were more students who accepted UW's offer of admission than they had anticipated, so there's a bit of a shortage in residences. I'm glad I submitted a request for a single room instead of waiting and hoping that I'll get my choice through their "random lottery." I picked Village 1, because it's the only residence with completely single rooms. No, I don't want to live in a suite with a "single room" but still have to live with other people. I hate to say it, but I don't think I can deal with that right now.

I went to UW's Student Life 101 on Saturday and had a hard time concentrating to their presentations, so I don't remember much of anything that was said. I bought my textbooks, but I think there might be a problem with the Calculus one. On the sheet, MATH 135 is supposed to require a 6th edition textbook and it warned not to look in the used bookstore because it's a new edition, but they had stacks upon stacks of 5th editions even in their new bookstore. I wasn't paying very close attention, because I didn't realize that it wasn't a 6th edition one until I got home. I thought it looked strangely like the one Puiyan used at UWO and gave me because she heard that it was going to be out of date. I don't think it's my fault, because those were the ones they had set out for this very common course, so a lot of people must have purchased it. I am certainly not going to take this problem up with the department, because I'd like to continue using Puiyan's textbook, study guide and solutions manual. The new package I bought, which costs about $108, has what appears to be the same textbook split into two volumes, in addition to a solutions manual for a non-existent study guide. Very strange. I'm going to keep it for now and hope that it's too late for them to correct their mistake, then refund my package by September 28th.

Aside from picking up all of the textbooks except the one for BUS111W because WLU wasn't open on Saturday, I visited my residence. My particular room wasn't open, but they did have a sample one that would be pretty much identical to mine. I took photos, but they weren't very good, so here's the illustration:

Single room – 3.0 m x 2.9 m

• 1 single bed and mattress
• 1 closet with built-in dresser and mirror
• 1 desk, desk lamp, and chair
• 1 bookshelf
• 1 wastebasket
• 1 active telephone line
• 1 ResNet high-speed Internet connection

The room is quite nice, much better than my brother's at McGill. Of course, his school is much older, but his room is at the top of a large hill and quite a distance away from where he was taking his classes. My dad made a lot of comments about how all of the non-single rooms would be really nice - if you were living with good friends. Sure, but not the case for me.

A lot of people were surprised that I got this room and said I was very lucky. I've heard many times that "There's no such thing as luck unless it's the lottery. When it comes to your life, luck is when preparation meets opportunity." That's especially true in this case. I wasn't in the lottery with everyone else ;)