I tell you the worse currecy
that ever grew among mankind is money. This
sacks cities, this drives people from their homes,
this teaches and corrupts the minds of the loyal
to acts of shame.
- ANTIGONE, Sophocles

Written in 442 B.C., yet still applies every bit as much today.

Extreme Makeover: Website Edition

Ok maybe not "extreme" per se, but still, my website has been updated. It's bigger, a little faster, and now with even more hilarity, hidden easter eggs, surprises, and even prizes! Yes, real prizes. Take your time and check it out.

Christmas cheers everyone!

Merry Christmas !

Hope everyone has a fun holiday. While enjoying your fat, juicy, plump, turkey, I hope y'all remind yourselves what the meaning of Christmas is really about. Hint: contrary to popular belief, it's not centred around the Xbox360.

Oh, and happy Hanukkah too! (to all those who apply)

God bless.

Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia!

This has got to be the best pre-recorded piece on SNL ever. Big big props to Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg. Just watch and see, you'll be impressed.

Chris Parnell & Andy Samberg - Lazy Sunday

The stache and the goatee is coming off

Phew... finally got through another season of playoffs of university. This was the longest exam period I ever had, 2 and a half weeks! My facial hair is even of, dare I say, "respectable" length?

What of the exam results? I really have no high hopes for it this term. Doesn't matter how well I do on the exams, I lost enough marks during the semester to bring down the final grade significantly. And I don't expect much from the exams anyway.

This is the problem/side-effect of doing well last year. Now everyone expects for me to be on that same level; my parents, my friends, even myself. Oh well ... at least it's not like I'm gonna lose a scholarship, since I never had any to begin with.

The only thing on my mind now is a whole lot of relaxation and going out to enjoy the season.

Christmas spirit

Everywhere I look,
On the streets,
In my neighbour's yard,
In the newspapers,
On my computer screen,
Over the airwaves,
In the digital coaxial cables,
All my friends,
and their msn names,
My parents,
Everywhere I look,
There's Christmas spirit flowing.
But here I am,
Stuck in the exam phase,
Shackled to my desk,
Bounded like Prometheus.
Help me get through this.

Procrastination is the Devil

So here I am wasting time playing with Photoshop, in the middle of exam period. This was fun. I made a comic-fying version of a photograph (an old one at that).

BeforeAfter

Hehe, Aanchal has a stache.

*much thanks to the Attack of the Show for the know-hows.

Exams, exams, exams

Exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams, exams,

Goodbye teenager, hellooo 20s

First, happy birthday to moi! The number 20 hasn't quite sunk in yet, probably need a day or two more.

Turning 20 is a big step. This means my years as a teenager are gone. No more excuses for stupid things, no more close relation to teen movies, and teen jokes. I actually remember how glad I was when I turned thirteen and how I wanted to grow faster. Guess I got my wish now. Looking back, I can say my seven year stint as a teen was pretty damn good. Probably not the most exciting one of block, but certainly not dull. Had some really good times and used it wisely.

So the 20s are supposed to be the best times of your lfe, right? Now I gotta start thinking about, in a more serious manner, moving out, careers, relationships,... family. Wow. Exciting, but scary, scary words. I'm looking forward to it and I'm going to make sure to live this time of my life to all that it can be. (lol. sounds like the Army ad)

What a night!

Yesterday was the ECE Dinner Dance and it was hella fun! Although there were a few minor glitches here and there, overall it was a very successful night. The fact that I organized to make it happen made it that much more rewarding. Reaping the fruits of my labour so to speak.

Photos from my camera are now uploaded on my photo blog. I know there were others taking pics too. Here is Danny's site with pictures taken from his crappy 3.1 MP camera.

More importantly, I gotta give shout-outs to all those who helped me greatly. Kharthick, in giving me directions and Hotel contacts, Jeremy for selling tickets, quite persuasively might I add, and Danny for helping me with advertising.

I hope all 125 in attendance had a great time. There are many lessons I learned from this event, one of which is wine and pop do not mix very well.

ECE Dinner Dance

So as this year's Social Director of the ECE Club (that's Electrical and Computer Engineering, NOT Early Childhood Education), my main duty is to organize the annual ECE Dinner Dance.

It was supposed to be a partnership venture, along with my Comp counterpart Rob, but he ditched it. So basically I have to organize the entire thing by myself. I'm really diappointed at him, because he has done absolutely nothing towards this event. I'm a little bitter because I had to spend quite some time on this during that crazy 2 weeks with midterms. Now that I'm getting the results back, I'm ticked, because I know the time I spent on this could have gone to studying that would lead to better results. However, other execs of the ECE Club have been very helpful and supportive though. Organizing an event like this is a hell of a lot more involved than I thought. I have to think about and arrange everything, down to the smallest details which no one attending the event would even give a thought to. It's a lot of work that's for sure.

In any case, most of the organization has been done and tickets are on sale now. It will be on Saturday November 19th, at the fabulous Novotel Toronto. It is on The Esplanade, right on the waterfront, a 2 minute walk from Union Station. The night will include a 3 course meal, 2 bottles of wine per table, and unlimited soft drinks. The Skule Jazz Combo will also be gracing us with their performance. A DJ with lighting effects is in order. All this is only $35 per person. Tickets are on sale in the Atrium at lunch everyday. Last I heard, we're already 75% sold out.

I just have a few more things to finalize this week. I'm hoping for a sell out event of 130. Quite a lot of time has gone into this, so I pray everything will turn out great and everyone will have a blast.

In your face, midterms!

Boo-ya-ka-sha! In your face, midterms! for throwing me three of you in a matter of 35 hours. Do thy worst, for I have seen Hell itself.

Ok, maybe I shouldn't sounds so cocky. After all, I didn't do that well. But at this moment, it really doesn't matter, because I just finished 3 phuckin' midterms in a row.

It wasn't just those 35 hours that was intense, it was all of the last seven days leading up to the midterms. I never had to study for 3 different midterms at once. Coupled with things that I absolutely had to take care of from my extracurricular side, colliding right in the middle of all this,... it was stress and intensity at its best. In retrospect, I can now say good times, good times.

Facebook addiction

Argggh!! I'm hooked on the facebook again! This occured last year smack in the middle of the final exams, and now that I have 4 midterms coming up in the next 2 weeks, it's happening again. Gotta love my sense of timing. I'm spending around an hour a day surfing the facebook, also known as the "facebook trance". Sh**, why did I let it happen to me again?

A wise man (a friend from Cornell) once told me that the facebook is more than a site, it's a drug. And oh, how right he is. This has to be the biggest waste of time, ever! and yet, it's so addictive. Those of you who don't know what I'm talking about are probably thinking I'm on crack, but most of you do, and know how they hook you back again and again. Look, it's 2:20 right now, and I'm still up doing it. I got work to do, damnit!

Why do you mock me, computer? why?!

You know you're an engineer when . . .

This is a classic. I found this cut-out of an article I kept from first year. It's from the faculty student paper The Cannon (which I was a part of in the last 2 year).


In case you're wondering, yes I did post it on my door.

1000 Visits

Yaaayyyyyyyy!... Today marked the 1000th visit to my blog. Awesome!

It's good to know that I'm at least putting out content worth viewing, and that this isn't a total waste of time. It took exactly 3 months, since I started this blog back in July. Not too shabby, I think.

Word of the day

I came upon this word during my readings. I thought I should share the knowledge.

buttress (btrs) n.

1. A structure, usually brick or stone, built against a wall for support or reinforcement.

2. Something resembling a buttress, as:
a) The flared base of certain tree trunks.
b) A horny growth on the heel of a horse's hoof.

3. Something that serves to support, prop, or reinforce: “The law is by its very nature buttress of the status quo” (J. William Fulbright).

tr.v. but·tressed, but·tress·ing, but·tress·es

*courtesy of dictionary.com

Buried under a giant pile

It's only been 2 and a half weeks, and already SKULE ate away all my free time. This past weekend, I was busy doing nothing but my homework. Yet still, I have a giant pile of work lined up. It doesn't come as a surprise to me or anything, just that a part of my fantasizing brain was actually hoping it wouldn't come this soon. Haha... ya, that was real wishful thinkin' there. And, as I anticipated, I haven't been keeping up with this blog. I think there were 2 posts in all of September, yet so much was happening to blog about. =(

In other news, I finally decided on my one elective for the fall. It's gonna be..... drumroll, please! ..................... Intro to Classical Mythology. I heard from a few sources that Mythology is an easy, yet interesting class. My friends had good experiences with it, although I think the one I'm taking is actually different. Anyway, sure beats Philosophy of Science, where we wasted 50 min. arguing about one insignificant point some dude wrote in a paper somewhere. Argh!! that class was totally not how I imagined it to be.

Fall term timetable

For those who are curious, here's my 2005 Fall term timetable.

I'm still "shopping around" for my Arts elective. It's actually quite hard to chose an elective. I mean, I've been waiting for this for 2 years now, so I really want to put it to good use. Preferrably something with interesting topics, no essays, as little reading as possible, and the female sex occupying more than 10% of the class would be supremely nice for a change!

The courses that I'm considering are: Philosophy of Science, Ancient Greek History, and Cognitive Science. Currently I'm officially registered for Phil. Sci., but I have a feeling I'll be jumping around a lot for the next week.

Site feed

Who-hoo! This site now has the RSS feed working properly. Yep, that's right. Now, not only can you just visit my blog, you can subscribe to it as well. Oh ya, I see all you ladies jumpin' off your seats!

So, if your using Firefox (which all y'all should be doing), just click on the little satellite dish icon at the bottom-right corner of this window, and Subscribe. If your still using I.E. (shame on you!), syndicate to http://individual.utoronto.ca/william_s/lookatmeblog/atom.xml in you RSS client.

And the best part is, this subscription won't end in a year. Have fun!

F!rosh week 0T5

F!rosh week was hella tight this year!

For the second year in a row, I participated as a F!rosh leedur. Already exhausted prior to this week, but Frosh week brought my spirits right back up. Physically, I'm still tired, but mentally, very wired. I went too crazy last year, so I tried to be more reserved this year. For example, I didn't do full-body dyeing of purple, kept my voice for a little longer, and didn't attend EVERY single event.

Still though, I was fully into all the important/fun events, and all were well worth the energy and time. Again, I was a leader for Gamma group, and again, our group was awesome! In my opinion, the 0T9s seem more spirited than those of last year, and my year. It's just plain fun to hang out with old friends, meet new first years, act crazy, and cause havoc all at the same time.

Pictures of the madness should be coming soon. And I really should be getting some rest.