It’s amazing how a person can psych himself out. After having not posted for a while I feel like the next post I make should be good, and of course no idea I have ever passes the filter in my head. So I wait and it just gets harder to make myself write. That’s the worst part of this whole blogging thing, the feeling of expectation. Why would someone read this if it isn’t witty or otherwise entertaining? So since I last posted. . .
My marks are awesome as usual. It seems to just get easier to get good grades. It has been suggested to me that this commonly occurs because the upper years of university involve classes that are more interesting. While this has been the case for some subjects it’s certainly not true for me in general. I think it has more to do with the nature of the instruction and improvements in my own abilities.
I worked at the Sarcan processing plant for the first two weeks of summer and then got a job working at the university. It’s a part-time (25 hours/week) research position for a professor in the department of mechanical engineering studying control systems. For the non-technically inclined, your thermostat is a simple example of a control system. The autopilot of a commercial aircraft is another (obviously not so simple). The good part: the job is incredibly flexible (I meet my boss once a week) and there’s not much work to do. The bad part: it’s boring (I realize I say this about every job I have), it’s generally frustrating, and I don’t have an office (I’m working out of a locker).
Outside of work I’ve been watching a lot of TV (Ghost in the Shell, Gundam Seed, Babylon 5, Lois & Clark, Doctor Who, etc.) and reading comic books (generally traditional stuff from the DC universe). It’s interesting because I never really read comic books as a kid but right now I’m fascinated with superhero stuff.
I’ve just started planning for my trip to Germany next year. My cousins (Luke and Danny for those who know them) and I are planning on spending July and August there, both to visit some family we have there and to see the sights. It looks like finding accommodations and travel arrangements will be fairly easy. The hardest part will be deciding what to see. I really have no idea what’s over there, so if anyone has suggestions on places to visit or just plain travel tips they would be greatly appreciated. We’re planning on going around the Rhineland and probably into Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg.
My weekends lately have been absorbed in traveling. On the Canada Day long weekend I helped my aunt move from Cranbrook to Canmore (and into a townhouse with three flights of stairs). My uncle (my aunt’s brother) manages a brewpub there so I think that she’ll have a pretty easy time adjusting. Last weekend was my Grandparents fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration so all of my Dad’s family (save one cousin) got together at Cypress Hills. Apparently, I now have two weddings to go to next May (two cousins). This weekend I'm going to Calgary to see the stampede and more relatives (I love relatives, they're friends by blood, I always feel terribly sorry for people who don't like their relatives). I'm going with my little sister and aunt to see the Phantom of the Opera (so cool).
I guess that’s it for now. Perhaps later I’ll rant about conventionalism, as it’s been annoying me again lately.
