my grandma was going through things and found this book that my grandpa got when he was in the US Navy for WWII: Survival on Land and Sea. here is the cover, and the section about learning where you are from the stars. such a cool book! it tells you what sort of plants you can eat in the tropics, tells you how you can swim away from a ship that is surrounded by a burning oil slick, how to rig fishing lures, even gives a breakdown of edible arctic plantlife. if i had more patience, i would scan the whole thing.

my brothers just teamed up against me to defeat me in settlers of cataan, as should rightfully happen. jon became 'lord of cataan' and we all paid him his due homage as was formally required of us on page twelve of the official rules. i wish all kingdoms came with a nice little rule book that told you what was what. heck, i bet a lot of serfs did (do?) too. are there still serfs? serf is such a much cooler title than peasant. what is the difference between serfs and peasants? see, this is where i feel that engineering didn't adequately prepare me for the real world. what really matters to me this very second is why serfs and peasants are different (are serfs russian peasants?), and no amount of differential equation solving is gonna give me the answer. i bet all of my jobless history degree carrying friends know this answer. jobless history degree carrying friends: TELL ME.

this is the holidays. incessant troublemaking and mocking of/with the brothers, watching movies mostly made for girls to humour your mom, visiting those crazy cousins, and having coffee (er, warm drinks) with old friends. i wish there was some better euphemism for having a good talk with a friend than 'having coffee', 'cuz i really am not too found of the black death, or, as graeme likes to put it, the devil's breastmilk.

although not all talks with old friends go the way that you would like. today i had a long conversation with my old friend d, whom i have known since i don't even remember when. he and i are now travelling quite different paths through this universe. this saddens me. i sometimes wish that those people were right and that you could argue people into believing what you believe, or in hoping what you hope for, or in loving what you love. but you cannot. words (especially argumentative ones) can be pretty empty sometimes.

fare well.

tuesday morning i packed all of my earthly belongings into the trunk of my parents' dodge intrepid and left ottawa for a good long while. i only had a trunkfull [minus the stacks of overpriced and under-used textbooks i left behind]. i am not sure whether to be proud that i only have a trunkfull of belongings or slightly disappointed that everything i own can be crammed into the luggage compartment of a mid-sized automobile.

the thought that i don't have to go back to school has not quite settled into my mind yet. i think it might take a bit before it does. the thought of not having to study anymore, however, is firmly entrenched. : - ). i am so glad to be done those exams. well, glad to be done studying for them. truth be told, engineering exams are often a lot of fun. they are like several hours of puzzles. not so fun when you forget the formulas that help you figure out the puzzles, but when you have studied enough they are a good time.

i can't remember the last time that i made such a big change. going to belgium, perhaps. but that was a fixed (and short) amount of time and i knew that i was coming back.

yesterday i was talking to my friend m about feeling like an adult. coming home for christmas will do that to you. maybe because you are put back into all of the people and places and sounds and shapes of growing up. well, most, anyway. i don't think i will ever get my own room in this house again. being the eldest of four brothers i sort of lost my room by default the second that i got into that van to drive to alberta (that seems like so long ago!). so, it is strange to come back to this place in a way. i never have to listen to another university lecture or pay another semester's worth of tuition. i need never live in another student house (though i will miss parts of that very much). the world is somewhat different. my life is open. i find myself wavering between that being really exciting and really unnerving.

it is good to be home, though, even despite sleeping on the pull-out couch with the really bad springs (i never used to notice sleeping on bad mattresses, but i have started to in the last few months - i think this might mean i am getting old). last night was the first night that all of my family has been home since, since, hrm, since i am not sure when. oh, since my cousin's wedding. i enjoy my brothers a lot more now than i ever did when i was growing up. i am glad that has changed. i am not sure if it's because i'm less selfish and singleminded or because they are just different now, and it's much easier for me to see them as themselves, individuals. they are such good kids. and by kids i mean people. interesting and fun, knowing how to have a good time, not being stupid and killing my mother with worry. i think it is safe to say that i appreciate my family more now than i ever did before. i am glad for it.

there are friends to see so i am going to leave this now.

In celebration of numerous events in need of celebration (the city flooding the rink behind our house, the completion of one particular undergraduate engineering degree, and dan leaving ottawa for a good long while to name a few) there will be a party at our house tomorrow night (tuesday december twentieth). It starts at 9 o'clock (Post Meridiem). You should bring skates, a hockey stick (if you have one), and clothes warm enough that you won't complain if you find yourself pushed into a snowbank. Fireplace enjoyment, warm drinks, food, board/card games, an old movie, and general merriment to follow.

Our house can be found at 1270 Cheverton Ave and is within easy walking distance of the Billings Bridge transit station. [Map] .

If you want to bring a snack to share you are most welcome to.
Invite whomever you wish.

official food of the 2005 fall exam season: baba ghannouj and pitas
a close second: blueberry pancakes

i just came back from the christmas concert at my church. little kids are so hilarious. it seems that the first thing that any kid does when they get to the front of the stage is wave at the people they know in the audience. and what can you do then? you have to get them to stop waving, right? so that the play can continue. but how can you do that? wave at them to stop waving? no. that doesn't work. it just encourages them to wave more vehemently. there is no hand gesture that means 'stop waving'. i guess you could try and give them a stern look. but that's sort of dangerous too as it could (in their high-tension emotional state) start them crying our something (which would be far worse. yes, this problem would result in neverending christmas pageants except for one very wise addition to the christmas play framework: prompters. prompters are the adults who try to crouch in inconspicuous places on the stage so that they can shout instructions (or forgotten lines) to children. i am thankful for them because although the waving is cute, i am pretty sure it would become tiresome after a few minutes.

i am half done my exams. three more. arguably the three hardest. in less than seven days i will be free free free. hrm. this reminds me that i need to call my parents. i have run out of things to say anyway.

one day (if i make it there) my skin will be translucent and wrinkled and my hair will be wild every day. i will wear jogging pants and ugly cardigans and will sit in the mall food court doing logic puzzles and mumbling to myself in a happy, contented, and slightly befuddled manner. i will wear comfortable brown dress socks and grey running shoes that have velcro instead of laces and no one will smirk at them when they walk by, because i will be old. and i won't have to wear ear plugs to block out the world because i will be so deaf that even if the kids listening to metallica on their headphones real real loud sit down right beside me i will not notice. and i will never ever think about parallel processors or scalable architectures or interconnect networks or shared memory systems, because after my exam tomorrow i am going to forget them so well that they will never enter my mind again. and if (perchance) sometime someone says to me "hey dan, what do you think about those new vector processors with their fantastic multiple instruction multiple data bus system?" i will give them a bewildered look and a slight shrug.

tomorrow takes so long to get here some days.

actually, that is not what i want to do when i become old (i was going to say 'old and wise' but i am not sure that i will get to that point. i think i have a better shot at old). i once read (or heard once) someone write that when they get to be old they want to have a goodbye party with their family, buy a plane ticket with their remaining, cash and fly to a poor country and just live at an orphanage until they die - loving children who need it. that sounds a lot better than logic puzzles in the mall. i guess we'll see. hopefully i will get the velcro shoes either way.

today, while studying for my geology exam this afternoon, i came upon this very disturbing piece of information: kaolinite is used in McDonalds' milkshakes. kaolite's other major use is brick pottery.

i went on a trip out east a few weekends ago with some friends, and one afternoon we went to peggy's cove. peggy's cove is a very scenic spot with a lighthouse and lots of grey rocks and crazily coloured sea-plantlife and is about a half an hour's drive from halifax. to the detriment of the cove's reputation i did not meet any girls named peggy but i did take a picture for some americans and did manage to almost kill myself on some slippery rocks (well, not quite, but it could easily have gone that way had i not been at the very peak of my rock balancing game that afternoon). on the lighthouse there was this old plaque and it said something like this " SAVOUR THE SEA FROM A DISTANCE - many a careless sightseer has been rewarded with death and serious harm by underestimating the power and danger of the sea." which, you know, seemed sort of harsh. not wanting death or serious harm, i (mostly) kept my distance from the water from that point on (i, of course, read this sign after i had about killed myself on the aforementioned slippery rocks).

the ocean has got to be my one of my favourite things. on that trip we also went to lawrencetown beach. not really to sightsee, though, as we went there at night. you could only see the dark outline of the huge waves as they came crashing in. and when we got close to the edge (every time i get near the ocean i find it impossible to not put my hand in and taste the salt in the water - it is a compulsion!) you could feel the power and turbulence in the waves transmitted through the air, and you could hear the movement of hundreds of medium sized rocks scraping against each other as the crashing surf jostled them about. it made you want to experience the power of the water, not just look or feel it from a distance. unfortunately it was the middle of the night in late november, and those factors combined with that whole 'the ocean is dangerous' thing sort of quashed that adverturesome notion before it could really get started. there is a part of it being dangerous that makes it so good, though i can't quite sort it out in my head enough to express it well.

today i went to the last undergraduate class of my computer engineering degree. it was about computer security and it was very boring (surprise!). i also handed in my last assignment (an admittedly dull 6600 word, 45 page report on this robotic arm that my lab partner and i have been fooling with for the last three months). after we were finished writing the report my plan was to study for my geology exam on wednesday (rocks for jocks it is not) but i couldn't concentrate. so i came home and slept. naps are wonderful. i wish i lived in that place where they have siestas every afternoon. where is that? spain? mexico? i wonder if i can start a grassroots movement for that sort of thing in ottawa. we're going to need a parade and placards and catchy slogans. if you have any ideas for those, let me know. but until my dream of the siestanization of our northern land comes to fruition, i take comfort in the fact that i am only six relatively troubling tests away from freedom. riotous celebration to follow. details to come. buy your sparklers now.