Merry Belated Christmas to everybody! It's been a while since I have babbled here, and there are millions of reasons why that happened. Let's try to recap my previous week's activities..

December 23rd - Shopping! Went to Square One and met up with Kenneth. Walked around the entire mall trying to buy everybody's presents. Realized that buying presents is harder than I thought.

December 24th - Christmas eve. The most uneventful day of the holidays thus far. Nothing happened today other than some last minute Christmas shopping with Adrian. Spent most of the day at Markville roaming from store to store. Didn't even have a chance to hit Best Buy. Bleh.

December 25th - Christmas day. Kenric and friends had a Christmas party, felt a bit weird at first but quickly got into the spirit of things. I haven't had this much fun in ages - a group of young adults playing children games. Pictionary was good. Killer was even better. The food was simply awesome - especially when I didn't have to cook. Really grateful these people put all this effort into making the evening a blast. Dessert took the night though - saw the incredible crepe maker. Gotta get myself one of those.

December 26th - Boxing day. AKA shopping madness. Went to Yorkdale at 11:30am - bad idea. Should have either gone at 8:00am or not gone at all. The lineup to get INTO the mall was 20 minutes, followed by a 30 minutes quest to secure a parking spot 15 miles away from the nearest entrance. Not to mention that the mall was packed like canned goods, and the stuff wasn't really that cheap. Every year I keep telling myself that it's pointless to go because (a) I'm not a girl, and guy's stuff never goes on sale and (b) I don't think my sanity is worth the savings I will gain from shopping on boxing day. Of course, much like choosing courses in school, I fail to acknowledge previously painful experiences and proceed to act on my own stuipidity.
Met with Michelle and Wendy, visitors from the United States for a couple of days. Had dinner, shot some pool and played some rather interesting photo hunt games. I need to wash my eyes.

December 27th - Dragged my guests to watch me get a haircut. Wasn't entirely my fault - Adrian had to get his roadkill off his head too. After which we had dinner at Commerce Gate. Arcades was excellent. YukYuks was really funny - although I think I was the only one who found it REALLY funny. What can I say, I laugh at everything. More like I try to laugh at everything. After spending months in the lab, anything ordinary can make me laugh.

December 28th - Attempted to eat at Market Village. Spent half an hour trying to locate a parking space, got annoyed and went to a nearby mall for similar food. Congee was very satisfying. Karaoke followed. 4.75 hours of singing = $10CDN. Not a bad deal at all. Surprised how horribly I sound with a mic - decided to cross out being a singer from my list of potential careers. Had dinner at Chinese Hut and ordered Peking duck. After which we went to Dave and Busters to play some silly arcades and skee ball. Adrian tried his hands at the Storm Stopper game and hit the bonus with one try. 500 tickets. Exchanged for a Tweety and a set of paddle ball. I suspect he might regret doing that, as those became weapons to hit him with during the ride back home. Also had some good ol' chinese dessert - although mine wasn't exactly good.

December 29th - More shopping. Had brief lunch at Chiu Chow Lo in 'sauga, then proceeded to Square One. Bought myself an orange fleece from Old Navy. Met with a friend of Adrian's, had Krispy Kreme and babbled. Gone to Chapters to look at more travel guides, bought a couple of books. Playdium in Mississuga is now a disappointment. No wonder the one downtown was closed after only a few months of operation. Last stop - bubble tea with 11 other people.

December 30th - Couldn't sleep. Slept for about two hours and then woke up unexpectedly. Blogging. Quite annoyed that I cannot fall asleep. I feel that the anxiety attack is starting to kick in.

Before you comment on how funny I talk, perhaps you would like to be reminded that I'm running on two hours sleep and it is 6:30am.

Spent an uneventful evening at home. Cleaned up my room a little more now - you can finally see some floor space!

Went back into Waterloo today to finish off cleaning up the place and give the keys back to the landlord. Kinda hectic since I had to wake up relatively early today and just got back. Actually, I just rushed back to have dinner with my brother, only to find that he already made plans with his friends. Oh well.

Really need to get some shopping done. I haven't done anything since I came back and it's already the 22nd. Three more days until Christmas. Come to think of it, I have about two weeks left before I start my next work semester. Kinda scary!

Finally moved out of Waterloo, and enjoying some well-deserved time at home. Haven't really done much - my room is a mess again, thanks for moving all the junk I had from Waterloo. Time to get moving and just throw everything out! Haha..

Today I think I'll just roam around the mall to do some last minute Christmas shopping. There are a few people I haven't bought stuff for yet, and it would be a really good time to do it (seeing that Christmas is only 4 days away). Funny, ever since entering university, I don't feel the whole Christmas/festive season. Maybe it's because I'm too tuned out from exams, or maybe I have grown much older now. I just don't see a point. It sure gives me a good excuse to call up old friends and catch up with them though!

My goal for the Christmas holidays :

1. Clean up my room
2. Re-connect with people that I have lost touch with
3. Prepare for my next work term
4. Enjoy myself
5. Sleep

Notice sleep is at the lowest priority compared to the rest. Seeing that I barely get any rest during my school semesters, I don't see a reason why it should be given a higher priority than all the other pending tasks. Cleaning up my room has been on the list for quite some time (uh, since I moved, which was about 5 years ago), and I feel that it's time that actually goes into action. My idea of cleaning up though, is to reduce the amount of clutter in my room. It has gotten progressively worse since I entered university (I blame it on the lack of time).

Off to pick up my brother from the mechanic. Be back later to babble some more. :)

Lack of updates here.. anyway, DONE DO DA DAY! (tm)

Finally, this semester is over. In a way I am glad it's over, but some part of me wished that it went on so I could improve on it. Argh. Hate being a perfectionist.

I have been enjoying myself and taking it easy. I'm even taking three days just to move out. Now that's really relaxed. Hopefully I can get this over with too and really start enjoying my holiday.

Speaking of sadistic nature, my professors are sadistic. I got two of my marks back already - let's just say this is by far the worst term I have performed since the beginning of my university career. What's so laughable, is the fact that I really studied. People who know me should know how hard I study, how I give everything up for four months just to devote to school. This is what I get in return.

One more, and I'll be back to the mundane routine of work-school-work-school-work.. at least I get two weeks in between. Otherwise I think I would really go crazy.

I have this sadistic nature of torturing myself sometimes, and the masochistic side of me accepts it willingly. That's what I do to myself every semester of school.

Whenever I study for midterms or final exams, I get really annoyed and vow to never take such a course ever again. When it comes time to register for my courses next semester, every semester in retrospect is 'easy' and 'not as tough as it seemed to be'. Voices in my head tell me, �If I could get through that, the next one won�t be too bad.�

Sometimes I wish I could take those voices out to the back alley and beat the shit out of them.

Yes I'm slacking off in the library again. Just came on to blog and explain to you why I have been so bitter for the past little while. I do realize that my blogs are becoming more synical and depressing, to say the very least. This has become my ranting ground, my escape from reality, my safehaven from the harsh truth. This has been truly, truly a crappy year. Things are going my way - sort of. Everything in my life comes with a little twist, a little 'zip', and a whole bunch of shit. Nothing ever really goes 'as planned'.

For example, consider my work term report. It is true that at the end I finally passed, but not without hours of torture and barely not making the resubmission deadline. Of course, along the way I sacraficed studying time and all. So the whole flow of the work report was: start thinking of a topic in july -> no topic in august -> panic early september -> finishing at 4pm on the day its due (due at 4:30pm) -> failed miserably -> put aside because of too much work during school -> panic a week before resubmission deadline -> work on it till wee hours in the morning -> barely making the resubmission deadline -> pass.

Take another example, my school work. Yes I'm not absolutely failing, but not without a lot of disappointment and stress. Midterms, I stressed. Projects, I stressed. Assignments and labs, I stressed. Even my fourth year project, I stressed (and failed the design proposal). Nothing comes without "blood, sweat and tears". Haha. Remind me to tell you a story about my "blood, sweat and tears".

So this is why I'm bitter. Byte me.

Strike three! Thank goodness this is not baseball. Sometimes I think professors are these mad scientists that are really nice to you in front of you, but behind your back they have all these crazy things in their lab and they plot to take over the world. All of them. Either that or they are really sadistic and like to see us suffer. Why on earth would you have an examination where the basis of knowledge is how much you can stuff in your head? I mean, come on, a table of equations is hardly 'knowledge' that a university student should possess, especially when those equations are empirically calculated anyway! They don't mean anything.

Sometimes I just wish life was fair, and that the professors will have to sit in front of us and write the freakin' final exam without any aids, just like the 200 of us. I mean, sure, they wrote the final so they have an advantage. Somehow I don't think these professors can write their own exam in three hours either, and get even a 90 on it. They say a good gauge of the length of the exam is for the professor to sit down, write the exam as if they were the student, then double the time they took. I hope more professors follow that rule in the future.

Alright, enough bitching for the day. Back to studying control systems..

Sorry Adrian :P I had to get up this morning, but I didn't realize that the phone could ring for a minute and I'll still be dead asleep. This is exactly the reason why my already-loud alarm clock has no effect on me at all. Hahaha.. but at least you get to sleep in. I'm heading to the freakin' LIBRARY right now. Library is my second home.. if I want to do well on the next three final exams, I think I need to make it my permanent home.

Yay, failed another one! Two down.. Luck is just not on my side today..

The good thing is, five more days and I'm free! FREE!!!!!!!!!!! :)

So tired.. but can't sleep.. need to study. Why does this have to be so hard? It's like a constant struggle between good and evil.

Good = Study study study
Evil = Go sleep

Somehow I think evil is winning.

One down, four more to go.. I have another exam tomorrow. Not that it matters anymore - I already screwed up my first one. I really did. Poorly. Like we're talking about really crapped out.

Need to pick up self-motivation again.. bah, this has just been a really bad term.

Evelyn finally left for HK.. which leaves me here in Canada for another month before I head off to my next work destination.. I'm not going to see her for about three months - which sucks a lot. I guess it's something I'll just have to get used to :(

At least that's all done.. no more assignments, no more projects, no more freakin' reports to write. Just pure cramming stylez for the next two weeks.. wait, just 10 days. Oh crap.

Let the party begin! Davis Centre Library, here I come!

Coffee Count for the Week = 0
Sleepless Hours for the Week = Too many

I didn't drink ANY coffee this week, mainly because I have been working from home and it's too cold outside for me to get coffee. Yes I know I have a coffee machine, but I am too lazy to do that. Pulled three all-nighters in a row - I now look like 'a piece of shit', according to various people. At least work term report is over. I have another report due in approximately 8 hours. Last one. Then the fun begins.

What fun, you may ask. Studying for finals in courses that I have not been attending class for a month, THAT is fun.