Episode 2: In Search of Coffee

*Yawn*

Olaf rubbed his eyes. He got out of bed, turned on the computer, and shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen. Must have coofffeeee… Olaf thought. Another late, late night kept awake by the thought of the end of the semester.

Coffee. He prepared the stove top espresso machine. His body went through the motions of the actions of opening up the machine. Dump the coffee grounds. Add some water in the bottom. Add new coffee. Olaf, eyes half-opened scanned the kitchen. Nothing on the countertop. Opening one cabinet, Olaf reached in to grab the coffe jar. His hand grabbed the air. He shuffled downstairs, into the basement. The same result. Olaf aggrivated and slightly more awake, walked back up to the kitchen. He then began a detailed cabinet to cabinet search.

Why, is the coffee always in the last place you look. Olaf sigh, and went back to his comatose state. Add new coffee. Set on stove. Wait. A few moments later, Olaf turned off the stove, steam whistling machine, and poured a bit of the thick, dark liquid into a small cup. He stirred in two teaspoons of sugar into the fresh espresso.

Nope. Drinking coffee not helping. He shuffled half-awake back upstairs. He sat down infront of the computer, and started his e-mail program. 12 Messages!!! Olaf snapped painfully into an awake state. 12 messages, and all about school work. Olaf started reading the litany of wishes and list of work in each of the e-mails.

Even Sunday feels like a Monday. Olaf sighed and braced for the onslaught of the day.

Originally posted: Sunday, December 3, 2006 @ 05:52

Author’s comment: Oh, those last days were hell for me. Nothing beats the hell out of me, like a stack of writing that needs to be done. And due dates… I like them. Especially, the sound of them whooshing by. And yes I am addicted to coffee. I later wrote about an interesting theory of the connection between the amount of caffeine in my body, and how smitten I would get. Interestingly, this story describes how I start my days. Oh, and before you ask. Yes, I did read your email… I just have not gotten around to answer it.

In Search of Sanity and Coffee

I slept in today. Yesterday turned out too crazy for even me. I started off the day with a single plan: catchup. So what did I do? I wrestled with Kontact to work with my Palm. I decided to fix things… by backing up and wiping out my old KDE settings. The wipe out worked, and the backup not so much. That is the way I started my day.

Next, I “chilled” out by blogging and trying not to freak out about the loss of all my emails, contacts, and pretty much everything else.

Audio Docs class followed, and a changing of groups. My group remained the same with Rob, Masha and Amanda (a totally unrelated new Amanda), and a new girl joined our group whose name I forgot. I got randomly picked to record a sound on campus. Fortunately my partner finished 3 years in radio, worked in the CBC and confidently recorded everything. I helped “assemble” the mini-Disc recorder. And I held the bag. And provided conversation. Yes, I am hopeless.

In my absence, my group decided upon on using my idea (my obsession with Ewa) for the documentary project. Apparently the prof used my story as an example, and my group understood it as good. Rob started writing up the script, Masha organizing the project, and Amanda helping Rob. Yes, I feel touched with their decision, but the whole thing just started so spontaneously. Anyways, I promised to contact everyone, as soon as I got my email back.

I asked Masha about meeting up after class, but she said she had work. I then bumped into Kat, and asked her for coffee after 4. She said maybe, as I should of expected. Next I ran off to my cryptograph7 class.

Professor Charles Rackoff had already begun explaining to the class, why Max’s idea of a project on quantum cryptography did not work for the class. Basically, he did not want us dealing with physics especially when the class dealt with “classical” cryptography. Max’s second idea of hard drive cryptography sounds better. I got assigned the task of looking up on it. Cute.

Charles then quizzed us on the “obvious” and beautiful definition of pseudorandom number generators. I am starting to comprehend it, and the rest of the course seems to follow suit. Now I understand the theory, but I can not see myself thinking in pure theoretical-mathematical terms. My cavemen mind can understand art, writing and programming. My learning of mathematics is similar to my learning of dating. Me thinks me thick-skulled.

After class I met up with Kat, who passed up my offer for coffee, free lunch and a pleasant chat with old soup. Yes that is right. She preferred to go home and eat old soup instead of my company. I passed by Masha again, and foolishly proposed coffee after she finished work. She works at one of part of the university. Proposal refused politely and with tact. And not over lame, old soup.

My day ended with Rudy and company working on the average run time of algorithms. Algorithms and statistics are even lower down my mental understanding than cryptographic theory. And I just passed the algorithms course (probably out of the kindness of my prof), and never ventured back into that neck of the woods. So I tried helping Rudy’s group, even going off to figure out combinatorics. I re-learned that part, but still was mostly useless. Eventually, Rudy decided to end my suffering, and go home.

Went home, eat dinner and crashed into bed. Depressing dreams of living in a dystopian universe followed. I ventured out of bed late morning. Watched some old BBC Narnia stuff, cleaned around the house, and now in the process of resurrecting Kontact. Next I must undertake the task, of catching up two lost days and tons of homework.

I guess this puts off my writing my first epic scifi novel, and my blockbuster game. Tomorrow promises to keep me busy, until late night today. Yummy.

Tea & Biscuits

Sunday evening I finally managed to meet up with Dmitri. After 2 weeks of an unsuccessful trip to the mall, I convinced Dima to scrap the whole mall trip. Malls are better for shopping and not meeting up for coffee.

I went over to Dima’s house and at Sarah’s insistence, we all had some tea and biscuits. I would of preferred coffee, but Sarah hates the taste of it so tea it was. Sounds old fashioned but I enjoy a talk with friends more than the most “exciting” game or movie. Dima attempted to get me to watch a preview of Jackass 2 and Dexter. As promised, I will watch the first episode of Dexter, but Jackass proved too crazy and silly for me. Sorry Dima, I know you tried.

Before the “tea” party, I helped Sarah and Dima work on Sarah’s assignment. Acting like a snobby writer, I commandeered the assignment. I still persist that most writing needs the golden touch of a good journalist, writer or editor. And I managed to finish up my previous blog. The next ones will be shorter.

Also I received confirmation of someone reading my attempt at journalism. Thank you Sarah for reading my work. You made my day.