Assortments Post

Another post not consisting of much. A random assortment of things to discuss really of varying importance. First, my break has ended. I slept in, I relaxed, could have used more time, but I'll take what I can get. I have a midterm coming up and I'm sort of prepared.

Well, as prepared as a guy can get. I mean seriously, does the idea of spending your weekend learning about how little kids mispronounce words sound fun to you? Who knew there was a term for dropping the first syllable of a word or adding new sounds to make it easier to pronounce.

Seriously, this is what they sound like to me.

In other news, my echocardiogram went well. Well, I think it went well? Maybe I should have gone into medicine so I'd have at least some idea of what was happening on that screen. It was a bit disconcerting to see my heart beating in black and white. 

It was also uncomfortable as the technician pressed the scanner repeated into my ribs and the scar tissue of my past surgeries.

Seriously though, I could see the valves opening and closing and as neat as it was, I couldn't help be bothered as I watched a little flap of something swing wildly with every pump of my heart. Is this normal? Is this healthy? I have no idea, and I won't until my doctor takes a look at it.

Looks fine to me.

Last but not least, who remembers Patt? My awesome prof from last term who I went to the pub with for drinks every week? The guy I was also going to get a reference letter from? He's a interesting guy, really nice person.

Who has suddenly, and inexplicably gone insane.

Within the span of a month this man has lost his mind. We don't know what has happened, or why he's suddenly lashing out at students and peers but something in his head has snapped. This is very uncharacteristic behaviour because I've known him for years, fellow students have known him for years and he has never acted like this. Always calm, pleasant to be around, funny guy.

Not someone who goes into fits of rage over nothing.

His research students are actually making back-ups of everything in case he destroys everything.

So, looks like I'm going to need a reference letter from someone else now.

Enjoy your week guys, I'll relax when my midterm is done. See you on Wednesday.

End Midterms Round 1

I'm done my first set of midterms and I'm not happy. Well I haven't gotten anything conclusive back from the exams but I don't feel comfortable about anything. I've left both my Sociology and Linguistic's exams with that nasty feeling in your gut. Basically, I'm uncertain about way more stuff that I feel comfortable with.

Not fun.

Well I guess I'm somewhat to blame. Let's be honest here, I wasn't taking either class too, too seriously. Sociology has always been in my eyes soft Psychology so I don't respect it as much as I should. If there are any Sociologists reading my blog, I apologize. A little.

But asides from the assigned readings, notes in class I thought I'd be safe for it. I get the general idea of what the course is about.

NOPE. HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS ON RANDOM STATISTICS WE MENTIONED ONCE IN CLASS.

Oh, and here's some questions and specific things mentioned only once in this paper we didn't talk about in class.

Hoo boy.

Ok fine, Linguistics. Round 2. Maybe it'll go better. You know, especially since he has practice exams and exercises for us online to do. Also, he told us in class that the midterm would be like the practice stuff.

So I go about doing these. No problem for most. Basically fill-in-the-blank, some multiple choice, translate a few things. He said there'd be some short answer but not too much otherwise.

3/4 OF THE EXAM IS SHORT ANSWER. HALF OF THAT IS DEFINITIONS. FORMAT BARELY LIKE THE PRACTICE.

Luckily I can still redeem myself for these courses. What with papers and/or secondary midterms in the near future.

Still, that doesn't make me feel any better with regards to the midterms already done. I apologize for not visiting everyone this week but it's likely to happen again. And when it does, know that I'm actually working hard and not passed out in some corner.

Incoming Midterms

Ok, enough with the depressing posts. I'm good. I'm pretty much back to normal, as normal as a newly single guy can get. Thanks again for the kinds words but I'll be fine now. I mean, I technically did have the month before we official broke up to be miserable.

But if you don't include that month, I'm mostly recovered after about a week. For a relationship of that length should I have been in the grieving stage a bit longer? I don't know. Some people might call me cold, I'd prefer to call it being efficient. There's nothing I can do to change her mind, there's no point moping about, it's time to move on. I've watched enough people break up, read enough recovery techniques, so I can literally accelerate myself through this mess. Yay for putting Psychology to use.

Some people may also consider me cold because I'm already passively searching for a new girlfriend. But my social sphere has rapidly shrunk, I barely know any friends or friends of friends, and I'm really picky. I'm not the kind of guy who'll go to a bar and randomly pick up women. Seriously, all the people I've dated and considered dating have had long, thoughtful conversations with me over a period of time.

It'll likely be months before I can find someone else.

Better get used to being alone in my cold basement room until then.

Onto business. As usual, midterms have reared their ugly head. But the load is light, I'm taking like 3 courses this term so we'll be only faced with 2 next week, Sociology and Linguistics 101. There's another Linguistics exam later this month but that'll be later.

In the meantime, Sociology is soft. Like, really soft stuff. I'll just need to read through the papers we've been assigned, memorize all the definitions, good to go.

Linguistics 101 on the other hand is learning a new language. I really need to crack open this stuff and start learning it. Making weird noises and what not.

And this is what I'll sound like while reading my notes.

And along the way I've grabbed and started yet another project. Project Copy is underway and will last me until the end of the term. Again, maybe I'm taking on too many of these, but if these keep me occupied and busy, so be it.

I'll give an overview of my projects and updates on Sunday, see you then. I may temporarily switch to posting every 4 days but we'll see how things go.

Back to classes

Welp, the break could only last so long. And now we're back. Back to the school. Yay. No, really. I'm exploding with enthusiasm here. There's nothing I enjoy than pulling all-nighters and then falling asleep at the front of the class and then drooling on myself.

Not exactly my finest moment.

If you were Asian and male maybe you could be me.

I'm technically done. You know, now that I've got my degree and everything. Unfortunately, these days an undergraduate degree doesn't get you anywhere because nearly everyone has one. So that means we have to upgrade to a graduate degree.

And to do that, I need to do various per-requisite courses to even qualify for some of them. I need at least 4 more courses for Speech and Language Pathology. But taking into consideration what my prof said, maybe I should start looking into Marketing as well.

Which means taking some Economics courses.

This is my understanding of Economics.

I've also been looking into jumping provinces for grad school. But because my grades hover around the B level (as opposed to people with As who can go anywhere) I might have to go to Saskatchewan. For people who don't know the run-downs of the provinces of Canada, it's basically this:

British Columbia: Asians and the ocean.

Alberta: Oil and Canada's rednecks.

Saskatchewan: Flat lands and Native Americans.

Manitoba: Lakes or something?

Ontario: Capital of Canada and Niagra falls.

Quebec: Crazy French people.

Nova Scotia: Fish.

Prince Edward Island: Funny accents and potatoes.

Newfoundland: Fish and funny accents.

New Brunswick: More funny accents.

Yukon/Northwest Territories/Nunavut: Native Americans and cold.

Fellow Canadians may have deduced my home province based on these partially incorrect stereotypes.

In the meantime, I'll be taking Linguistics courses and a friend of mine looped me into a MWF Sociology course which killed my 4 day weekend. I don't even need this course, I really wanted a lax term but my parents kept hounding me claiming that unless my schedule was fuller I'd be wasting my time and my life. And so I caved in and added another course to my schedule.

Ian, this course better be the GPA booster you claim it is. I gave up my 4-day weekend for this.

Speech and Language Pathology

I've alluded to the Master's program that I've been eying for a while, and now that I've done a bit of looking into it, I think I can talk about it with a bit of confidence. I'm going to be trying to get into Speech and Language Pathology (as if the title of this post wasn't a dead giveaway).

It's a type of medical therapy and I basically help people with speaking problems. This can range from kids with mental or medical problems, or people who have suffered brain injuries in accidents.

I'm a type of doctor right?

To be honest, I'm really not too picky with what I do. As long as I'm helping someone and it's somehow related to Psychology. I originally got the suggestion from a fellow Psych classmate to enter the field and decided to go to a recent conference held by the department to get a better idea of what it was like.

First thing I notice, there is A LOT of women in Speech Pathology. I mean, there are a lot of women in Psychology to begin with, but it's even disproportionate there. Also, very few Asians. Though it could possibly be because maybe male/Asian speech pathologists don't like conferences? Either way, there was about 100 people there, a dozen males and a dozen Asians.

And only one Asian male, yours truly.

I was there mostly to figure out what I needed to have done in order to get into the program next Fall. First off, I need to do the GRE or Graduate Record Examination. It's a standard test for anyone wanting to get into Graduate studies in many English speaking areas. I'm only required to do the standard one but I've heard a lot of horror stories about the exam in general so not looking forward to that.

I'm also going to need to take Linguistics in the Winter, also haven't heard that many great stories about Linguistics. So fun times with that as well. I didn't think I'd have to keep taking courses after I had gotten my degree but what do I know?

Time to buy more of these.

That is assuming that I get in of course. There were a lot of people at that conference and it's hard to say how many were people trying to get into the program. I'd estimate maybe half of them? There are only 40 spots open a term and it's fairly competitive.

Apparently the minimum GPA requirement changes each year (depending on the students that apply and what not) but last year the minimum was 3.7. I'm sitting at a 3.3, maybe a 3.4? I'm hoping to use the grades from the next two terms to bump it up.

Or maybe they'll let me in because I'm technically a minority in this program. Yay for being the rare Asian male.

If anyone has any suggestions or helpful tips that be great. I think TriGirl is also a Speech Pathologist? And I am vaguely aware of other Bloggers off getting their Masters.

I hope I get in, it be nice having some form of direction once again.