Engineering Ingenuity

To my friend, who knows who he is:

I mean this in the nicest most sincere way possible.

You are a good friend, but really you are осел.

That is all.

This is a story of boy meets girl.  But you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

I went on a date a week ago.

Well what I thought was a date.

But it wasn’t a date.

To understand this fully I’ll give you some background.  I have made a lot of good friends here in Edmonton, one of them being J, a second year electrical engineer.  We have the same mutual group of friends that gets together quite regularly.  One night we all decided that we would go to a fancy dinner and get suited up.  I ended up meeting J’s cousin (and roommate) N, and I thought we sort of hit it off that night.

Flash forward two weeks later.  I somehow muster up the courage to ask N out.  Unfortunately it lead to one of the most awkward conversations of my life.  Regardless we made plans to go to dinner on Friday night and she mentioned “something to explain to me”.  I picked her up shortly before six and we made our way downtown for dinner and to see the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.  At dinner she explained that she wasn’t quite ready for a relationship and needed to get to know me better and if things changed she’d let me know, which I thought was fair enough.  It ended up being, what I thought, was a fairly decent night.

Ever since then things have felt awkward.  I don’t know if it is her or me, but when we talk, it feels forced.  On both parts.

I was having a conversation with two of my really good friends, K and L, today.  We talked about the movie ‘500 Days of Summer’ ,which I had watched recently (and is quoted above).  I don’t want to ruin it but it is a really good movie, sometimes even painful and frustrating to watch.

After we our brief conversation about the movie we began talking about the ‘date’ I went on, and how N was expecting a friendship first.  L said something that really resonated with me (and L, I apologize if I misquote you here, feel free to add or subtract in the comments), saying,

You deserve someone who isn’t going to make you wait, and says to herself,  ’I want to be around Mike all the time’.  I believe that you when you meet that person it’s just going to work, there is will be none of this waiting stuff.

And she’s right.  K and I were at J’s tonight and N came home while we were hanging out in the dining room.  It just felt awkward. After that I realized that I can’t keep trying to woo someone who has shown no interest in the first place.

Sometimes I feel like giving up on this dating game.  Becuase it is just a game.  Except no one plays fair.  And you can bet the guys finishing last are most likely nice.  But deep down I know I can’t, because I like to believe that somewhere out there, there is a girl for me.  She just doesn’t know it yet.

I don’t really know what kind of point I was trying to get at but I feel like it will be part of another post somewhere.  I will make sure to mention the connection.

Until then.

Being bored in class sometimes leads to interesting things.  I came across this infographic on the internet while I was perusing Digg.

Two things caught my interest.

1.  It’s doesn’t mention porn. I thought anything talking about the internet had to mention porn.

2. The average broadband speed in Japan is 61 MBPS.  That means it would take only 30 seconds to download a 2 Gb movie.  Compare that to the average of 30 minutes here in Canada.  Holy fast internet Batman.

So I just noticed today that I have had over 1000 views, 1077 to be exact.

I thought this was cool, so I thought I would pass it on to you.

That is all!

Besides my last, rather insignificant post, I haven’t exactly been keeping up with my writing.

I am sitting in class today. It’s that 8 am class that I never really want to get up for. The teacher isn’t that great. It’s his first time teaching a class, a virgin professor if you will. I have heard your first time can hurt, but I don’t think I could find the words to describe how painful this class is. Also, he is from somewhere in Asia and doesn’t seem to have a full grasp of the english language. Oh and it’s stats. I have heard lots of bad things about stats, and often get the line “Your in stats? That sucks.”, when I mention the class. So today I feigned paying attention and applied for jobs instead.

Applying for jobs is always a fun process. All applications seem to require a resume and cover letter. The resume I am fine with, it’s the same for any application I send in. The cover letter on the other hand is a pain. I won’t get into the details because it will sound whiney, but lets just say the ammount of effort I put into the cover letter doesn’t seem worth it. The other thing I hate about job applications is the ridiculous questions they ask. On the Nexen application I was filling out today one questions was, ‘How will the things you have learned affect your performance at your job and why do you want to work for Nexen?’ I mean sure this is a valid question but does it honestly reflect who the applicant is? Anyone could spend hours crafting the perfect answer to that question, but in the end could be the worst candidate for the job.

Another thing I have come to notice about applying for jobs/job interviews is that honesty doesn’t seem to matter anymore. It’s all about the ‘right’ answer. One of my CivE friends has a job interview tomorrow and a few of us were talking about the common interview question, ‘What is your greatest weakness?’. One friend said that she would answer ‘I am too much of a perfectionist and would take on other’s work if it wasn’t being done properly’, while my other friend said that she ’spent to much time making sure everything was correct’. I mean those sound like great answers to me but it really doesn’t sound like a weakness. I would love to have someone on my team capable of doing the work of two people. Or having someone who takes an extra two days to get a project done that is flawless. But honestly is that a weakness? I don’t think so. If I were an employer I would much rather know that a candidate sends over 4000 texts in a month or has a facebook addiction but who is going to ever say that? I once said in an interview that I can be a bit condescending sometimes, which I still feel was the most honest and correct answer, but I know it wasn’t the ‘right’ one.

Anyway in other news I spent this past weekend in Panorama on a snowboard trip. Besides the two 7-hour busrides I had a really awesome time. We were put up in condos right on the hill which meant we could ski right out to the lifts. Panorama is a great hill with 2 lifts at the base that take you about a third of the way up the hill. 2 more consecutive chairs take you another third each, to the top of the hill if you want. There were lots of long flowing runs that allowed for a lot of speed, which is the only thing I can really do well on a snowboard.  Most of the runs were groomed in the morning and had enough snow not to be icy by the end of the day.  On Saturday night the Backside people (the group who hosted our trip) threw a party for us at the main lodge.  It wasn’t anything special and the only real interesting part of the night seemed to be a girl in a life jacket who was being an all around slut.  It was pretty entertaining to watch her run around the dance floor to different random guys dance with them for 30 seconds and run off to the next.  Sunday we got 4 hours in on the hill before packing into the busses and heading back to Edmonton.

So I think that’s all for now.  If I find myself  bored in class again, which is almost inevitable, I will probably start writing again.  I will leave you with a ‘Pearls Before Swine’ comic.  Click on it to zoom!

I haven’t posted in a while.

School sucks.

Professors who can’t speak english suck.

Flames suck.

But.

I am going snowboarding this weekend, so things are looking up.

That is all.

I am on the bus back to Calgary.

The woman behind me just made a phone call to what I can only assume is the person picking her up.

It’s a woman with one of those high pitched voices, and she’s using it in the manner that one might when talking to a small dog.

I can come to only one of two conclusions.

Either, she has trained her dog to talk on the phone and drive a car, in which case she should be awarded a Nobel Prize.

Or, she treats people like small animals, and should be a ring masters in the circus.

I have a feeling it is the former.

Dear lady talking on her phone to her dog, please stop. The whole bus can hear you.

Boeing unveiled a brand new plane yesterday.  The 787 is a new jet that is boasting one of the most unique fuselages in all of aerospace.  What makes it so different is that it is made out of 50% carbon fiber, which is basically plastic.  It’s pretty sick, video after the jump.

Today I wrote my second last exam.

It’s a great feeling to be almost done exams.  Thus far I feel like I have done enough to pass my courses, which is all I hope to do this semester.  It depresses me a little that all I am aiming for is C’s, but apparently they get degrees.

To celebrate exams almost being finished I present to you a song by ‘Flight of the Conchords’.  I am not a regular viewer of this show, but apparently it is hilarious.

PS – The singer sort of reminds me of my brother, don’t know why….

I think someone broke the thermostat in my apartment.  Either that or my place teleported itself to Dubai.  Based on the snow outside and lack of camels walking around I am going to go with the former.  Regardless it is above 25º in here and I am sweating even with my shorts and t-shirt on.  On the other side of things it is freezing outside.  Up here in Edmonton we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather thus far.  Until the first week of December the mercury had yet to find the negative side of the thermometer. Now we face temperatures below -20º and a windchill that is 10º colder.  I am already missing the chinooks.

This is exactly what happens when I go outside.

In other news I am currently on a self imposed Facebook hiatus.  I had the brilliant idea of allowing my brother to change my password so that I can’t log in until exams are finished.  It’s been just over a week now and it’s surprising how disconnected from the world I feel.  And by the world, I mean Calgary.  You see, my high school friends and I have somewhat of a super thread on Facebook, which has amassed over 20,000 messages.  It’s a great way to keep in touch and keep up with all that is going on back at home.  Also there are a few odd people who don’t have MSN but show up on Facebook chat now and again.  It’s really quite unfortunate how attached I am to a website.

I find it funny how little my love of sports comes across on this blog.  I love playing almost any sport and will watch everything on tv, including golf.  This week I feel like it is my duty to bring you some of the odder plays in this past week of sports.

On Saturday night my roommate and I went out for dinner and I saw this stunning play on Sportscenter.  Apparently it had been in the news for a week, but since I am an engineer I tend to miss out on a lot.  At first I thought the defencemen had intentionally slashed the goalie in the head, but it turns out he was swinging to break his stick on the post, a point the commentators made very clear.  Unfortunately being the bar there was no sound, and my roommate managed to have a good laugh at my expense.

This hilarious play was featured on ‘C’mon Man’, a monday night Football pregame feature.  I cannot believe that all of the Bulls stood around and watched the Raptor with the ball tie his shoe.  And from the voice of the color commentator, this is the first time he has ever seen a play such as this.

Lastly, this was the best play from the entire weekend.  I have become quite a fan of the New Orleans Saints ever since the year after Katrina.  The Saints became a bit of a feel good story, going to the playoffs for the first time in 6 years.  Well this year they are undefeated and came close to losing yesterday.  Luckily Drew Brees put together a last minute drive to send the game to overtime, and the Saints were able to get the game winning field goal to move them to 12-0 this year!

Anyway I managed to procrastinate away another day, I am slowly realizing how screwed I am for math and have a very high possibility of failing the course.  Hopefully I will feel better about the course soon!  That’s all for tonight, until next time.