Happy Singles Awareness Day

And I'm still single. Hurray. For all of you fortunate to have dates and significant others, congrats. You are all very lucky and I am very jealous. Me? I'm going to celebrate that midterms are done. They (hopefully) went better than expected but seeing as I only need to pass the courses I don't need to be all that concerned with my grades. They'd be just for bragging points.

So tonight, I'm probably sit back with a few drinks and contemplate life and video games.

Yay for Valentine's day sales.

We do have a week long break next week. Which is great, I could use the break to catch up on a few things, get back into the gym. Midterms have a way of messing up one's schedule. I'm off to take it easy.

Take care everyone.

Happy (Belated) Chinese New Years

For those unaware Chinese New Years was last week. And it just so happens that it's my year, the year of the horse. I would have made a post sooner except that my family takes Chinese New Years kind of seriously. So that means that if I'm not in class, I'm at a dinner somewhere. And if I'm not at work, I'm at a dinner somewhere.

Lots of good food. Lots of Red Pockets full of money. I can always use more money so I won't complain. I'll put it to good use.

For helping pay off my debt.

But not just that. The instant celebrating Chinese New Years ended, I had midterms to study for. Economics hasn't been hard per se. One class has been stupid, and I'm just studying from the textbook and skipping classes. The other? Very, very nitpicky. Prepare to spend most of your time trying to decipher what the prof is asking for.

Which is exactly what I did on his exam. I can't remember the last time I spent more time wondering what was going on in the question as opposed to answering them. It wasn't terrible, but you can never be certain whether not you actually answered correctly.

Oh well, looks like most of the rest of the class struggled too. So I'm ok with that.

I may look calm on the outside, but those questions, wow.

In the meantime, I have one more midterm to study for but it's next week. It's sad, when I finally have things to talk about on my blog, I don't have to write about them. Let's see if I can change that.

Status Report

The last of my midterms are done. Round 2 is finished. I have maybe 2 papers left to do and then the term is done. Which is good, I can breathe easy for a little bit now, maybe try and relax. Work on some other things that aren't academically related for the time being.

You know, until finals rear their ugly head.

I was reading through comments and I think it was Dezzy who mentioned that I tend to have really negative and depressing posts. I really apologize for that, I assure you that writing those posts are just as painful as reading them.

And it's probably worse considering that Grumpster recently gave me a shout-out and anyone coming to my blog for the first time is just going to be overwhelmed by this mass of recent negativity from me.

Um, here's something more positive:

But yeah, I apologize again. I'd like to say everything is going fine right now, but it isn't. And I'm not about to delude myself into thinking so. That's even more unhealthy and kind of stupid.

Speaking of health, the appointment with the specialist is looming closer and closer. So it'll be time to confirm whether or not I have Marfan's. Also I'm really, really tired. Daylight saving's is still affecting me I think and the studying has not been helping.

Maybe I'll go to bed early, I'll see you guys on Friday.

Round 2 of Midterms

I really can't be complaining, I only have one midterm this week and one more next week before finals start. I have a way better deal than my sister who has 3 this week and all my friends in medicine who are being bombarded with labs and tests.

I really have no motivation left to study though.

I mean I'll still do it but the energy and the drive that I used to have it just gone. I get distracted way too easily, I don't feel like I care anymore. I just want this to be done with so I can get back to doing something else.

But there really isn't anything else for me besides studying. I don't have a job lined up like some other people and in this economy, it's unlikely I can find one without going for more school. And if I want to continue studying, I need to keep my grades up.

It's kind of sad, studying is all I've known and I'm just sick of it.

Ughh....

So it's back to forcing myself to my textbooks and papers. I don't know how many more years of school I'd need to do, I'm really not looking forward to this.

It's slightly ironic because we were looking at this exact phenomenon in the class I'm studying for. I'm not the only one stuck in this loop of trying to get more education in hopes of grabbing ANY job once we're done.

I mean I have a friend who graduated with an honors degree and is struggling to grab a job as a sales associate.

And I only have a specialization degree.

So back to studying I guess. I haven't been feeling mentally well lately and I guess it shows.

I am Alive

Sometimes I don't know how I manage to survive. During exam weeks I've been known to eat one meal a day and sleep 5 hours (at most) a night. It's by no means a healthy lifestyle, and I do not recommend it to anyone who wants to live past the age of 40. But it's just this habit I've fallen into and I'm too stupid engrained in it to stop.

That being said, I can return back to normal now that all my midterms have been completed.

Hahahaha, not really.

What was really bad was that I didn't start seriously studying for my Cognitive psychology midterm until 2 days beforehand. That's never a good thing to do. It adds additional stress and the chances of you remembering anything are greatly reduced.

And yet somehow I felt that that exam was the easiest midterm I've written so far. I could have very well been delusional, maybe just cocky. Sleep deprivation does strange things to a person's mind. And not eating. Ok, being unhealthy in general does bad things to your brain.

And while we're on the topic of health, something is wrong with my lung or lungs. I don't know what, but it refuses to fully recover. I'm still feeling spasms of pain, random bouts of breathlessness. I mean, it's certainly less frequent than it was 2 weeks ago but it should be back to normal by now.

I really do hope it's just due to me not taking care of myself for the last little while. And I'm only admitting this on the blog because I know Theresa has exams herself and can't take the time to read any of my posts. Otherwise she'd drag me to the nearest emergency room. By the time you read this Dear everything will be all better.

Or I'll be dead. Either or.

Good timing. It's almost Halloween.

With exams out of the way I can actually start focusing a bit on my Slenderman costume for Halloween. I ordered some stuff but it still hasn't arrived yet so I'm a bit anxious.

Ok, end of blog post. I need some sleep before I pass out in my chair again. See everyone on Monday.

Status Report

Hello hello. Again, I apologize because I think this is the longest I've gone without commenting on another blog. And at this rate I'm going to continue breaking records until midterms are done. Actually, because of one midterm but we'll get to that in a moment.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me so far. Much appreciated.

Online friends are the best. I love you all.

In good news, my lung has (mostly) recovered I think. Just a brief case of things being worse than normal. I honestly can't tell if poor sleeping causes my lung to collapse or the collapsing of my lung taxes my body so much that I'm more tired than usual. Or maybe it's sudden waves of stress. That can causes both so let's just blame University.

Speaking of University. Midterms are slowly being written. Social Influences and Aging psychology has been done. I'm not sure if it's me but the midterms feel harder. I'm doing alright in them but I really want to be hitting A's and A-'s to increase my chances of getting into Speech Pathology. Conservation psychology DOES NOT have a midterm which I am so grateful for.

And then.

And then we have Cognitive psychology.

Yeah... I really, really, really wish I could have crammed a different Science course into my schedule because I am getting torn apart in this class. It's not that the prof is bad, he's enthusiastic, knows the material, he even wrote the textbook and gave it to us free online. Anyone who saves me a few hundred dollars is a friend of mine.

That being said, the material is still very dense, very hard to get through, and the weekly quizzes are kicking my butt. Let alone what the midterm will do to it. It's all written, no multiple choice. The last time I was required to write anything for an exam was years ago. All that training from High School is gone. I am not looking forward to writing a short essay on comparing the theories of how the brain may comprehend and understand the world.

I guess I shouldn't have assumed that a higher level Cognitive psychology course would be similar to the lower level ones. Or maybe I've been studying for this class all wrong. I know a girl in my class who is getting by quite well just by reading the notes. I've been doing the equivalent of slamming the textbook PDFs into my eyes until something breaks.

I still have a day to try and save myself. Wish me luck, I'll see everyone Friday.

Generic Midterm Post

I really do wish my life would be more interesting during midterm weeks. Would give me more to talk about and more time to do my blogging round.

I seriously have just sat on my butt and stared at a computer screen and various notes for the weekend so far.

If something worth talking about happens by Tuesday, I'll do a post about that until then.

Don't worry, the thing most likely to kill me is sleep deprivation.

Well that went Downhill Quickly

It's not usual for me to have upbeat posts about myself on my blog. I try to remain realistic and skeptical about things in life, keeps me levelheaded. So while it was nice to have a semi-optimistic post last time, it's funny how fast things can change.

To start, I have a decent amount of school work in the upcoming weeks. Nothing too big, nothing too serious. Just some nicely spread out assignments and midterms. There's going to be some stress but it's nothing I can't handle, I'm used to this stuff.

But generally I find that it's not one big thing that kills us, it's many little things that constantly eat at us that eventually wear us down.

Where we are the potato chip and ants represent problems.

Such as my Mom getting in a car accident the other day.

Thankfully, she's fine. The passenger side of her car however, is not. Long story short, some idiot jaywalker caused my Mom to make a turn and an oncoming car collide into her car.

Unfortunately, this is still my Mom's fault.

This means that I no longer can use the spare car to drive to school and work. A 10 minute drive now becomes an hour and a half long bus ride so that means no more sleeping in for me. Also, this is Canada and that means it's already started snowing around these parts. But that's ok, I'm used to being sleep deprived and being cold. I'm a veteran student, I'm still young, nothing I can't handle.

CANADA.

If I wasn't sick already.

Yeah, I'm not sure how, but I think I've caught something. Which again, not too bad. On it's own, all I usually need is a good night's sleep to recover. Except I can't really sleep in anymore (no car) until the weekend and being out in the cold waiting for the bus is just going to make things worse. But this isn't even the worst part.

I think my lung has collapsed again.

I've been in denial for a while now but then again I've also been having trouble breathing for a while too. Like all the previous occurrences I was just sitting around when suddenly BAM, mild trouble breathing. The best way I can describe it is imagine having a lump in your throat, except now it's a lump in your chest. Thankfully it (usually) doesn't hurt but it's true that you never notice your lungs until something is wrong with them.

Easy for you to say.

Individually, these issues would be fine on their own. Together, they become problematic. I can't drive to go see a doctor at the moment, not without arousing worry from my parents. It's not like I have time to bus to see one either thanks to my school work. And busing would compromise my immune system even further, I really hope I'm just feeling cold and achy and not catching something.

And even if they found something wrong, I can't take time off anyways. I know the only thing they can do for me is more surgery. It took me 6 weeks to recover the last time I went, I can't do that if I want to have a chance at Speech and Language Pathology next year. The earliest I could possibly go is in May.

I can only power through this and hope my lung fixes itself like it usually does. It's a bit worse than usual so fingers crossed.

Midterms Round #2

You'd think that having all your courses crammed on two days would also mean a lot of overlapping exams and assignments. So imagine my surprise when everything is nicely spread out for me to do. It's pretty great, I really wasn't expecting this.

It means that this term is a lot of relaxing than the last one. And for all my regular readers who remember, it was kind of a nightmare near the end.

This term should hopefully be a piece of cake in comparison.

My assignments for Conservation and Social Influences psychology have been done in advance so no need to worry about those. There are papers for both of them however and I really should start working on them as soon as possible. They don't seem hard at all which is great, I'll just need to take a weekend off and power through them.

Social Influences is even nicer in that that paper is basically the final. And I am more than happy with writing one less final in December. The midterm for this class is this Thursday though, and I haven't touched my notes yet.

I'll read them later.

In the meantime, another Aging Psychology midterm is next week as well as a Cognitive Psychology one. I still haven't got the hang of the Cognitive Psych quizzes yet, but I think I'm finally noticing a trend. Hopefully I can start doing well on these things.

I also opted to do volunteer service for my Aging psych course instead of writing a paper. Investing 20 hours in community service seemed a lot better than writing. I ended up getting placed with a caregiver's society and what they want to do is expand their online influence. So I'll basically be helping them with blog posts.

Blogging as school work, who would have expected that?

I'm working, I promise.

Lastly, I've finally registered for the GRE. I'll be taking it at the end of November and it's a 4.5 hour long exam broken into multiple segments. It's just the general one which is good, I really don't want to relearn Physics, Chemistry, Biology, or Calculus. I'll begin hunting for study guides and what not after this last wave of midterms are done.

Oh, and some people were interested in where I got the My Little Pony figurines for Theresa. I originally wasn't going to share it (because I don't want her knowing how much they cost) but then I remembered she's too busy to read my blog anymore.

The person is called Krowzivitch and she does some very nice work. She has exploded in popularity however and if you don't grab a commission slot within the minute it opens you won't get in. Here's a sample of her work:

Alright, back to work. See you guys on Wednesday.

Well this isn't good.

I thought I'd be more on top of things but maybe I got a bit overconfident. This post is a day late, I haven't been doing my rounds and I need to get back to studying.

This is what I looked like yesterday before I passed out.

And no, I'm not kidding. My head tilted back and I was out cold in a chair with a textbook in my lap, laptop with blogger to my left, and my desktop with more work in front. Clearly I wasn't going to get much more work done so when I woke up I dragged my sorry butt to bed.

I might be getting sick. It also might be Theresa's fault but you didn't hear that from me.

Even when you're full of germs.

I have a midterm, an assignment, and another quiz due for Thursday. I need to get back to studying so proper post Friday and I'll hopefully visit everyone else's blogs by then.

Yay, University.

Resolutions Update 3

I still can't believe I'm following through with this. People generally stop trying or forget by this point but here I am trudging on. I deserve a gold star, a cookie, or something.

Even though I've been kind of too busy since the last update to have made much progress.

I'm giving myself a high-five anyways...

Goal #1:

Yeah... It's not easy to do push-ups when you're sleep deprived. I would know, I've tried. I'm still stuck on week 4 of the 100 push-ups challenge. I'm finding that my wrists are getting sore and that a way to get around this is to use fists instead of open palms.

The problem with this is that now the push-ups are significantly harder and my nails are digging into my palms. I guess I can alternate between the two methods until I find something better.

Oh, and I've joined up with a site called Fitocracy. Basically, you do various exercises, you get points for doing them, achievements, and level up. It works based on an honor system as no one can really prove that you've done the exercises but lying about it only hurts yourself. I find it's a good way to keep track of what you're doing and even though all I do is sporadic push-ups, it's still something.

You can follow me if you want. Just search for DWei and we can encourage each other in our bid to become more healthy.

Could be worse I guess.

Goal #2:

The job hunt has not gone well. There is virtually nothing for Psychology students. Nothing. I have looked all over and in my city, all they want are Engineers. You know it's bad when you search for "Psychology Internship" and the top results come back as "Engineer Internships".

Right now, this is the only kind of Engineer I want to see.

I've extended my search to neighboring cities and I'm even considering the Canadian Army. Apparently, if you have a degree that matters more to them and you start off better. So I've heard. I'll give more details into this as I look into it, my courses have been eating up a lot of my time.

A fellow Psychology student suggested that I look into Speech Pathology or a similar career route. All I'd be required to do is take a few more years of courses in Linguistics. I've never even considered this but I'll certainly look into it when time permits.

Also, has anyone else been getting paid significantly less from advertising? My traffic has gone up but my earnings have dwindled. Seeing as this blog is major part of my current income I'm a bit concerned.

Oh and current debt to parents is currently $5200 Canadian.

Goal #3:

Looks like I'm just really bad for finishing things. I have a project on hiatus with my friend Jean, my hollow book is almost done however, just need to make a few more cuts and I'll post pictures of the finished thing.

I've also decided to finally get my full driving license. I've had my probational one for long enough so I can take the test but I want to get more practice first. Getting the full driver's license counts for this goal as it is something I've wanted to do for a while.

And Theresa has been hinting that I should get it so I can drive her around. So yay, more encouragement. Though I won't take the test until after finals most likely.

And let's hope this doesn't happen.

Goal #4:

This is probably my worst goal so far. I've only done one book review so far and I haven't had time to finish other books or games thanks to my workload exploding. I'll probably make up for it in the future by doing two a month or something. Same applies to Goal #3.

And now I need to run off and continue studying for a midterm. I'll see you guys on Friday. A lot of people asked questions for my last post and I'll try and answer them as soon as I have a chance to properly read them all.

Belated Valentine's Gifts

Valentine's day was last week. Also happening last week were the crapload of exams, group projects, presentations, and meetings that Theresa and I had to endure.

Needless to say, we barely saw each other let alone had time to do anything.

Oh yeah, so romantic.

Fortunately, we have a week long break right now to catch up and relax. Also due to time constraints and being a poor student I wasn't able to get her much this year.

I managed to grab her a charm that resembles her favorite Team Fortress 2 hat from Fossil. As well as a new computer mouse because her current one is absolute garbage. Now we can properly work together in whatever computer game we chose.

Probably more Team Fortress 2.

I also got her a copy of Bridesmaids because it's the kind of movie I think she'd enjoy. She loves watching movies together and now that I think of it, we have a massive backlog that we still need to get over...

And if you've been paying attention that's only 3 gifts. And if you know anything about me, I love the number 4.

I need a 4th gift.

I however, will.

Usually I like having a food related theme as one of the gifts. I know a lot of you asked why I baked brownies if I don't like them, and if no one in my family likes them. Theresa likes them, that's why I tried to learn how to bake these. I'm considering trying another brownie recipe sometime this week, expand my repertoire.

Taking her out to eat isn't really an option because she considers finer dining to be "overpriced" IF I'm paying. When she's paying, then it's suddenly ok to be eating there. Yeah I know she's looking out for my wallet but a gentleman doesn't let a lady pay, simple as that.

Lastly, I could try and cook for her. Not sure what I'd cook and how I'd be able to do it. Be slightly odd to burst into her house one day unannounced and go "HI DARLING, I'M HERE TO GIVE YOU FOOD POISONING COOK YOU A DELICIOUS MEAL."

Looks legit.

Anyways, I still have time. I'll figure something out. I'll see you guys on Wednesday.

Midterm Post #2

I'm finally nearing the end of my midterms, it's been a long and fairly uncomfortable week but I'm getting by. I'm certain the rest of you are having a better time than me, if not, feel free to trade. Who else wants to learn about memory techniques and infant development theories.

Both my midterms can be condensed to this.

Japan is home to a lot of neat stuff. I was there once but didn't see this unfortunately:

One day, this will be my Halloween costume:

And lately I've been playing A LOT of Starcraft 2. I think Asians are just naturally drawn to this game. My last video will only appeal to fellow players who enjoy commentaries. When Cheese Fails is easily some of the dumbest (and funniest stuff) I've seen in a long time:

And that's all for now, I'll have a normal post by Sunday.

Hopefully.

Midterm Post #1

It's midterm week. Yep. Tons of exams and stuff to do. As usual, I'm just going to dump a ton of videos and then head back to studying.

Hard at work.

First video shows exactly why I want a corgi. They seem to have a tendency to do things like this:

Portal 2 has been out for about a year now but some of the promotional videos still make me laugh. And this one is relevant to current holidays:

Lots of talk of The Hobbit movie coming out. And the first thing that came to my mind was this video:

And now if you'll excuse me, I have a ton of Psychology to be reviewing.

Courses Update

Before we begin I'm going to apologize for not getting around to everyone's blogs this week. I've been busy and really stressed as I run around trying to fix things up. If you're not sure what I'm talking about just hop over to this post and skim it over.

Actually, can we pretend that that incident never happened?

Shoo!

So its been a hectic week to say the least. I've been running talking around to several coordinators, getting documents filled out and signed and of course, attending my new courses. I'm helping a psychology experiment with the lab I just joined and I've been reading papers for the other. Like really dense papers that are anywhere from 20 to 60 pages long.

I still need to prepare for 2 presentations and 2 midterms for next week though. Not looking forward to that.

Let's get started.

A big thank you to the head of the Undergraduate Psychology department. She wrote a letter to the Science department on my behalf explaining my situation and this probably went a long ways in getting me into these two courses.

In the meantime, this means my internship application can finally proceed seeing as I am still part of the Specialization program. I'm not completely safe yet. If for some reason I start failing my courses I could fail to meet the minimum GPA requirement. It's unlikely but who knows? I've never joined two courses half way through a term before.

Either way, this term got a lot more interesting, and a lot more difficult.

Let's hope I can stay conscious.

Midterm Week Post 4

We're in the final stretch of things here! One last exam and I'm free to goof and be a useless waste of space again.

Computer games all day long here I come.

Only three videos again today but the last one is another song so I think that it'll make up for it. First up we have something almost as derpy as me.

A hurr durr.

I used to have a better video showing this but crows and ravens are crazy. I'll never get over how human this guy sounds.

. . . .

For those unaware, I'm really picky with my music selection. I add maybe 1 song to my library every other month. What I do like are instrumentals and especially piano. Those who were unfortunate enough to see my Homestuck rant know that I'm a fan of the comic but I also really enjoy the music too.

This is a percussion cover that another fan did and I love it. Have a listen.

Normal posting resumes Saturday! See you then!

Midterm Week Post 3

Yep. Here's another automated post. Developmental psychology may be done but that still leaves us with Abnormal psychology to study for.

And by study I mean listen.

As usual, I'm dumping Youtube videos for you guys to watch. If you have preferences let me know or if you want something else. I haven't made a post for Wednesday yet so I'm still flexible in what I can do.

Cats have been known to boost page views...

Insert obligatory Episode 3 comment here.

And instead of 4 videos today, let's have 3 and add the extra time to the last one. I'm not sure what to classify it under but I think D4 would be a better person to ask.

I never get tired of watching this.

Back to studying for me. I still have a few hours of audio to listen to and several dozen powerpoint slides to review.

Don't worry, after these midterms are done you can hear all about my life again, such as the brownies I tried to make or what the doctor has told me.

Midterm Week Post 2

If you're reading this it means I made this post in advance in anticipation for a midterm. Yay.

I think this is being posted up on a Thursday which is when I have my Developmental psychology midterm. Did you know for the first midterm I almost ended up studying with the wrong textbook? Well, not so much wrong textbook as wrong edition of the stupid thing.

Damian doesn't know how to read textbook lists properly either.

So like the first midterm post here are some Youtube videos that I enjoyed. I have a third midterm week post being prepared for when my Abnormal psychology midterms are happening but I assure you that once they are done I'll resume normal posting.

Getting in the mood for Movember

I hear he's still single for any interested ladies out there.

Still not too late to join the TF2 Halloween Event.

And for anyone still watching, here's something from the Onion. For those unaware, they're a satirical news group and while none of their news reports are real, they look quite convincing. I have no idea how they do this with a straight face, they're that good.

And sometimes, you wish they were true.

I'll see you guys on Sunday. Thanks for supporting my blog even as I cram my face into a textbook.

Midterm Week Post

It's midterm week and by midterm week I mean all my midterms have been crammed into one week. Thus I haven't been getting around to as many blogs as I would have liked so I apologize for that. Don't worry, I'll still be posting every third day.

And with that, here's a short post with 4 short Youtube videos that I've personally enjoyed. I know you're all busy people so I try and keep them to a minute long. Now if you'll excuse me, Abnormal and Developmental Psychology aren't going to study themselves.

Wonder what else he can imitate

Omnomnom

Clever

You're still watching? Fine, here's a video that's double the length of the others.

Wish my profs were like this...

And with that, I'll see you guys Friday.