in scarborough right now. came here this morning. i picked up my new glasses and contacts today so that is good. no longer am i sporting the grade 12 styles! nothing wrong with that at all. i have been really tired all day long today...perhaps the last 3 weeks of crap sleep is catching up with me. i was falling asleep at agincourt library today when i was reading my harley davidson case for advertising. i also also falling asleep after dinner tonight while my cousin yogi, his wife marilyn and her parents were still here.

once again, my mom made a fantastic dinner. i can only pray that i will be half as good a cook as she is when i get older. she makes the best everything in the whole world. damn, what would i do without my mom's cooking???

i found out some more good stuff for my trip. got some good books and maps about india, bali, thailand, singapore and japan. also, yogi's good friend is a travel agent in india and he'll be able to help me with my bangkok - bombay return flight and my internal travel within india.

the final four is set - monday night at 9:00 pm EST - (5) Indiana Hoosiers vs. (1) Maryland Terrapins.
should be a really good game.
i am definitely looking forward to this game.

i saw angela's ashes last night. really touching movie about an irish immigrant family and their problems in the united states and back home in ireland. speaking of irish, bioprocessing class on thursday night was hilarious. after class, Dr. Ward (who is irish - that is for those of you who didn't clue in to my brilliant segway a sentence ago) took us all out for drinks at the bomber. take a look at the fun that was had by all....

it's beautiful outside. since that last snow storm, the weather has been stellar. bright blue skies. nice calm breeze. great crisp air. can't complain at all. i made the prediction yesterday that the bad weather was behind us...smooth sailing from here on in! gonna be 15 degrees this weekend so i think that we're on our way.

yesterday was the grad reception so that was pretty fun. hard to believe that we are that old now. seems like just yesterday that we were running around to dragonboat practice or sci 123 class. check out karen's page for some pics from the grad reception. sorry, i'll have to do it this way until i have the time to make my own page with images! after the grad reception, me, tchao, malloy and mittel went to see bob mcdonald, the host of Quirks and Quarks give a talk. it was pretty interesting cause he is such an animated speaker. he was talking about flying and space and i have always been fascinated in that stuff so i really enjoyed it.

found out that i got shafted today. i paid $132 for my immunization needles on Monday. today, ingrid told the Back to Roots gang that she found a place here in Waterloo that only charges you $21 for a consultation fee and then the vaccines are free. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT!!! when i called that clinic last week, she didn't say anything like that. in fact, she quoted me something like $50 or $60 per needle + consultation. that's why when i was in toronto, i just got the $132 deal. i've submitted the receipt to my mom's insurance company so hopefully, i will get reimbursed.

last bioprocessing class tonight. rumour has it that ward is singing us a song and then, taking us to the grad house for drinks. can't wait for that.

just gave my travel agent my visa number. the ticket is being booked!
wanna see it? here it is:

Tuesday 23 APR 02 Depart Toronto 9:15 am
Tuesday 23 APR 02 Arrive Chicago 9:59 am
AIR CANADA FLIGHT AC 815

Tuesday 23 APR 02 Depart Chicago 12:00 noon
Wednesday 24 APR 02 Arrive Tokyo 2:55 pm
JAPAN AIRL FLIGHT JL 9

Wednesday 24 APR 02 Depart Tokyo 4:20 pm
Wednesday 24 APR 02 Arrive Denpasar 10:20 pm
JAPAN AIRL FLIGHT JL 729

Stay in Bali

Stay in Singapore

Stay in Malaysia

Stay in Thailand

Make my own way from Thailand to India (FLY)

Stay in India
Travel within India

Make my own way from India to Thailand (FLY)

Saturday 08 JUN 02 Depart Bangkok 8:40 am
Saturday 08 JUN 02 Arrive Tokyo 4:35 pm
JAPAN AIRL FLIGHT JL 708

Stay in Tokyo

Wednesday 12 JUN 02 Depart Tokyo 11:05 am
Wednesday 12 JUN 02 Arrive Chicago 8:20 am
JAPAN AIRL FLIGHT JL 10

Wednesday 12 JUN 02 Depart Chicago 11:45 am
Wednesday 12 JUN 02 Arrive Toronto 2:21 pm
AIR CANADA FLIGHT AC 812

wow.
i can't believe that it is already happening.

also, i got my shots last night. typhoid and hepatitis a. my left arm is kinda sore but it should be okay. the nurse who gave me the shots (andrea) was really cute. very tall. that's probably why i didn't wimp out when i saw the needles. it was that whole macho image that i had to portray. pretty amusing actually.

going to my first stats class in 4 weeks tonight!? that was kinda stupid on my part considering that is the worst class for me and the one that i am most worried about.
oh well, c'est la vie.

au revoir.

it's monday
i'm still in scarborough
just got my passport taken care of
faxing in my approval for my plane tickets
got a haircut
ordered my new glasses
went grocery shopping
picked up photos
going to get my needles now
all in all...a very productive weekend.

did you notice that in there, there was absolutely NO WORK done.
sweet!

here i am ladies and gentleman. back in scarborough chillin' with my parents -

just maxin's and relaxin'. shootin' some b-ball outside of the school. when a couple of guys, who were up to no good, started makin' trouble in my neighbourhood. i got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said "you're moving with your auntie and uncle in _____".

ok, couldn't think of a good enough ending to that so i just decided to end it. today, i got up at 7:00 am!!! i was back in scarborough by about 8:30. i dropped off 4 rolls of film for developing this morning, got a haircut (i look pretty damn good now, if i do say so myself), had some yummy upama for lunch with ma and pa. this afternoon - i got my passport photos taken, bought an india and a thailand travel book, bought new glasses frames and now tonight, dinner with suhas and watching some basketball.

tomorrow - homework. I PROMISE!!!

back from weaver's. feeling a little loopy. actually, this is a really good feeling. cause i am not drunk. but i am feeling very good. actually, quite light headed but feeling kinda funny actually. tonight at weaver's it was tchao, marty, karen, dallas, shannon and i. good times were had. we were reminicsing (spelling?). i gotta get up in 5.5 hours so that sucks.

tonight the winners were....maryland, kansas, oregon and uconn.
tomorrow's games will be good. here is the call - KENT ST. will beat Indiana

good night.

Good Evening all,

How's everyone doing out there tonight? I'm going home tomorrow morning, bright and early at 7:00 am. Can't wait to wake up for that. Tonight, all I've done is watch basketball. The UConn - SIU game was pretty crappy. Not much excitement and my cinderella Saluki's are no more. The other game, Texas - Oregon went down to the last play of the game and that was really exciting...the Ducks pulled it out. BUT MAN - did you see that Duke - Indiana game last night??? NOW THAT WAS NCAA TOURNY BASKETBALL!!! that was a huge game. very enjoyable to watch and although Duke lost, it was a great sporting event.

Yesterday, I saw one of the most beautiful girls that I've ever laid eyes on in real person. She is part of the Israeli Student's Association here on campus and was dancing with her group to some Jewish Folk songs at the Cultural Caravan. She was absolutely breathtaking. I hope that I see her again. Shoulder length brown hair, olive shaped eyes, perfect body, hardly any makeup, knew how to move her body, everything was awesome. I was way to shy and scared to go and say anything though.

Yesterday, my dad told me some bad news. A family friend of ours...Mr. Borwankar passed away. He was in his 60's and died of heart problems. We haven't been that close with that family in a while but still, any time you hear news like that...it ain't good and you really take a step back and value everything around you.

I got rejected for a UW bursary. BUNX to those chumps! I really could have used that money instead of dipping into the old Line of Credit for my trip. Oh well, gotta do what you gotta do.

Off to Weaver's...
Good Night.

hey everyone. I AM DONE!!! for now anyway. wow, what a good feeling. i can't believe how much i actually got done over the past two days. i guess when the pressure is on, you take things into your own hands. i've seen the sunrise the last two mornings. THERE WON'T BE ANYMORE OF THAT!!! that is for sure. it is 3:07 pm right now and i am going to sleep for a little while. (or a long while...only time will tell).

i might as well give you all my chicago update. to start...it was a fantastic trip and NCAA basketball is definitely an exciting event. we left waterloo around 12:30 am on Friday morning and drove all night. along the way, we stopped for gas in some small broken down place outside Detroit...kinda sketchy. when I was inside paying for a bottle of water, the guy asked me where we were going so i said that we on our way to the tournament in Chicago. he then asked where we had come from so I told him that we had driven all night from Toronto. His reply was "Toronto, wow, isn't that like 20 hours from here?" All I have to say about that is...what a fool. We arrived in Chicago on Friday morning around 9:00 am. Next came the whole hotel fiasco but the short version of that story is that we ended up staying in Skokie, Illinois which is the equivalent of the relationship between Scarborough and Toronto. Needless to say, Skokie worked out well and we got all that we wanted...

Now, it was on to the NCAA games. We left Skokie and arrived at the United Centre for game 1. We missed the first 5 minutes of the Creighton - Florida game. Very poorly played game but very excited. It went into double overtime and the 12th seeded Creighton Bluejays upset the 5th seeded Florida Gators on a three pointer at the buzzer to end the game! It was very exciting. Game 2 was garbage. Illinois killed San Diego State and we were all falling asleep during that one although there were thousands of Fighting Illini fans in the stadium. We then had a 2 hour break so the 6 of us piled into the minivan and we all slept for a while in the parking lot. Next came the night session...game one - Bobby Knight and the Texas Tech Red Raiders vs. the Southern Illinois Saluki's. The game started out pretty good. The Saluki's won for the upset which was sweet. The best part though was when Marty, Jimmy, Tchao and I managed to scam seats in the lower section of the stadium. We were sitting about 15 rows from the action and it was so good. For the final game of the night, me and Jimmy moved over to the other side of the stadium and were joined by Marty shortly there after. The three of us watched the 3rd seeded Georgia Bulldogs take on the 14th seed Murray State Racers. What a wicked time! We were sitting in the 2nd row behind the Murray State bench for the entire second half of the game. We even got on CBS a bunch of times cause we were sitting pretty much directly behind the coach. There was one scene when they were zooming in on him and there was Gokhale's melon right above his shoulder. It was so much fun.

I am getting tired so I should go but I will finish the tales of Chicago later.

Before I leave - this is what the hotel gave us (some info about the United Centre) -
"NOTE: This is not a good area, arrive and dpeart with other fans. Do not walk around nearby streets."

Pretty interesting, eh?

I would like to sincerely apologize for not updating in over a week. This past week has been completely hectic and it has gone by in such a blur. The school work is killing me and I am almost done. Another 24 hours and I'll be home free. Right now, it is 5:58 am on Tuesday March 19, 2002. I am up because I am finishing my B2B paper that is due at 2:30 pm TODAY. Then, I get to START my stats assignment that is due at 7:00 pm TODAY. Then, I get to START my advertising assignment that is due at 8:30 am TOMORROW. Geez, I am gonna be pooped tomorrow.

Enough about crappy school though!

MARCH MADNESS WAS FANTASTIC. I promise that I will get into more details soon (I've got plenty of stuff to write about).

Also, tonight - my basketball team won one of the B Division Championships. The final score was 44 - 30. It was pretty sweet. I finished with a stellar 0 points BUT I did have 8 assists. Almost had a single double!!!

I also wanted to Congratulate Amisha, Bobby, Kris, Sanj, Bob, Rahim, Ravin and the rest of the crew for their awesome performance at the WICSA Culture Show on Saturday. First play in the Competition and Spirit. You's dun good!

time for bed (probably only for an hour or two though)
good night, i mean good morning --- the sun is coming up :(

I would like to sincerely apologize for not updating in over a week. This past week has been completely hectic and it has gone by in such a blur. The school work is killing me and I am almost done. Another 24 hours and I'll be home free. Right now, it is 5:58 am on Tuesday March 19, 2002. I am up because I am finishing my B2B paper that is due at 2:30 pm TODAY. Then, I get to START my stats assignment that is due at 7:00 pm TODAY. Then, I get to START my advertising assignment that is due at 8:30 am TOMORROW. Geez, I am gonna be pooped tomorrow.

Enough about crappy school though!

MARCH MADNESS WAS FANTASTIC. I promise that I will get into more details soon (I've got plenty of stuff to write about).

Also, tonight - my basketball team won one of the B Division Championships. The final score was 44 - 30. It was pretty sweet. I finished with a stellar 0 points BUT I did have 8 assists. Almost had a single double!!!

I also wanted to Congratulate No comments:

first of all...6 months since september 11. i can't believe that it's been that long. so, what is the state of the world 6 months later? better off? worse off? i'm not quite sure. there is so much hatred and fear today. so many people are fighting to end that but their fighting just instills more of it. i really don't know the answer but i hope the big decision makers know what is going on. there are times that i really love living in this little bubble universe that we have here at university. our entire life is here within a 10 minute radius. no huge outside pressures directly affecting us on a day to day basis. it can feel a little closed off at times but it is pretty comforting.

my thoughts and prayers are with all those that have lost loved ones over the past 6 months...

it's late. quick update and then off to bed. tonight has been an interesting evening. i've been home since about 4:00 pm and since then...i've done much of nothing but a whole lot of something. make sense? i thought so. well, i read some articles online for my B2B presentation for awhile. then, i fell asleep for about 10 minutes at my desk cause i was tired from my workout at the gym today. so, i decided to take an ice cold shower to wake myself up. damn, that worked like a charm! and it was pretty refreshing actually...could actually feel my heart pumping faster (kinda weird actually). then, worked on travel plans for my trip. e-mailed my travel agent who i had pretty much finalized everything with this morning...but now, i've got new info and realize that my rates are a lot higher than any of my comrades who are going on this trip. my travel agent is gonna hate me now but i don't care cause if i can save 500 bones, you damn right, i'm gonna do that! after that, i started and finished my portion of the accounting assignment that is due on friday. then, i started my advertising assignment but didn't get really far cause i started looking at NCAA stuff. i can't get enough of this tournament and i am so excited for friday when i am watching 4 games!!! then, it was dinner time. our kitchen is bare to say the least. two whole levels of our fridge are absolutely empty. i don't think that i've ever seen it like that before. for dinner i had a slice of toast, a glass of water, some fried rice, an orange and a granola bar. sound good? it wasn't. after that, back to NCAA stuff but then tchao and smith came home. then, me and tchao went on our much needed grocery trip and i was to buy some items for smith and malloy as well. we got to Zehrs. were actually there till 10:30 (30 minutes after it closed!). we were the last two in there. tchao forgot his wallet so i paid for my groceries, his and a bit of smith's so that turned out to be an expensive night for the VISA (that won't last long though). after coming back, made a quick snack...watched some lettermen and then guess what, more NCAA stuff. then, me, tchao and smith went to McGinnis' for wings and drinks. kris was supposed to meet us there but didn't end up coming. anyway, it was fun but damn, that was pretty expensive and right now my tummy hurts so that ain't good.

off to bed now.
damn, i've got a lot of work to do tomorrow!

(and wednesday)
(and thursday)

i have been in this house TOO long. in fact, since i came home after road hockey on friday evening at around 5:30 - i have only gone outside for a total of about 15 minutes (last night to go to the convenience store to buy some ice cream). that is quite crazy actually. i am sick of my room. gotta get out and get some fresh air. actually, i am even more sick of soybeans. i am finally done (well, actually...still gotta do my conclusion but pretty much done) my bioprocessing paper. i did it pretty quickly actually. rather surprised. i pretty much started and finished it in about 3.5 days. ended up with almost 5500 words so that was pretty crazy.

now, it's on to B2B and Advertising. Oh yes, Accounting and Spanish as well.

MARCH MADNESS IS HERE!!!!

The games that we are going to see are:

Texas Tech. (6) v. Southern Illinois (11)
Georgia (3) v. Murray St. (14)
Creighton (12) v. Florida (5)
Illinois (4) v. San Diego St. (13)

I am really excited and gotta fill out my bracket soon too. Before that happens though...I've gotta set up a pool on the web so I can defend my title from last year. This tournament is the best sporting event every year. So many awesome games. Such heart. The do or die format is wicked. The only thing better is Canadian Olympic Hockey!

This week (only 4 days) is gonna fly by. Before I know it, I will be in a van on my way to Chicago...gonna miss the Grad Ball so that sucks but Chicago will be great. This is one of those times that I wish I could be in two places at once.

Tchao just showed off his voice recognition software on his iPac. Damn, i hate that devious. Not because it's crappy or anything. Only because it is better than mine and I am damn envious. Why did I buy a Handspring Visor? No one knows the answer to that mystery.

Bioprocessing is going well so far. I'm at about 750 out of 5000 words. Will get to 1000 tonight and then from tomorrow onwards, the sky's the limit. Should be done by Sunday night. Ask me then and I'll let you know if I was successful. In case you were wondering, I am writing about Soy and it's effectiveness as a Dairy Substitute.

Are my priorities in the right place these days? All I've done over the last few weeks is trip stuff. I've been planning my grad trip like crazy...there is so much to be done and planned properly and I just wanna make sure that it all runs so smoothly. So far, the plan is looking really good. I'm getting what I want and going where I want so you can't really ask for anything more, eh? Here's the stripped down version:

indonesia:
- bali

singapore
malaysia

thailand:
- phuket
- surat thani
- ko samui
- bangkok

india:
- bombay
- pune
- ratnagiri
- ganpathipule
- vijaydurg (my dad's village when he was a kid)
- goa
- bangalore (the real silicon valley)
- mysore
- cochin
- kerala
- kovalum beach
- kanyakumari (the point where the arabian sea, the bay of bengal and the indian ocean meet)
- chennai
- madras

japan:
- tokyo

all that from april 23 - june 12. seems like a lot but i think that i am alloting enough time in each place. and, i am only going to certain areas of the countries that i am interested in so all is good. in total, 5 countries. gonna be a blast!

before i leave...one other fine thing has happened this evening. actually two. 1) we played a great road hockey game tonight and 2) the raptors ENDED the losing streak. let's see what happens now...dare i say it. playoffs?

Last night's Larry Smith talk was fantastic. He was such a captivating and engaging speaker. I learned and laughed. I just wish that I had the chance to hear him earlier than now. Man, I've been here four and a half years and I had to wait till 4B! The good profs are definitely hiding at this school. His passion and articulation were well received. Rarely do we have profs anymore that stand behind and believe in what they say. I have even more respect for Dr. Smith because he actually did what he preached in his past. He realized that his degree wasn't going to take him where he wanted to go and he made it happen. On a side though, he is clearly a genious and it's a lot easier for someone with his smarts to go far and find opportunities. That being said...it's still great motivation for us all.

Quote of the day:

So, what do you do?
I'm an Engineer! How about you?
I'm I Scientist. I define the boundaries within which you work.

beautiful.

some crazy news yesterday. apparently a body was found in the basement of B1 which is our biology building. there were a bunch of police cars and a forensic van parked outside for the morning. anyway, i don't know much else...heard some things but it might be speculation so i'm gonna leave it at that.

on another note, 8 days until chicago!!! wow, i can't wait. that is gonna be an awesome trip. and, this sunday is selection sunday so everyone, get your pics and pools ready. it's gonna be good times.

school work is going okay so far. gonna go and hear larry smith tonight talking about "How to use your Science degree more aggresively". luen, you missed the rest of advertising class. it was real good man. he talked about the top 10 technologies and it was a really good presentation. most of them were obvious (like internet, e-commerce but he had some other real cool things that he focused on and had really good examples of like GPS, voice recognition, PVR.TiVo, etc.). last night, me and tchao were going over interview questions...let's see how you all do:

1) Estimate how many gas stations there are in Canada?
2) Estimate how many pennies there are in Square One shopping Centre on a Saturday afternoon
3) Why are manhole covers round?
4) What could you do to figure out if the light in the refrigerator is still on after you've closed the door?

this evening has been funny. i am at DC library right now doing some research for my bioprocessing project (a comparison of soy and dairy processing). so, i've been on TRELLIS, lexus-nexus, and a bunch of other sites. i found a bunch of books with titles like "Modern Soybean Production". so, i'm looking through these books and look at the copyright dates. some of them are 1970, others are from the 60's but my favourite is (c) 1952. i guess that some of the processes probably haven't changed but really...

M.BET presentation was pretty informative today. $20,000 for one year with someokay sounding courses...i don't know about that. also, i would not want to be one of the first or second graduating classes with that degree because new programs always have kinks in them.

good luck natalie on your crazy exams this week. and, good luck sachin and sangita on finding out your residency ranking results next week.

i'm going home now, i've had enough of the library for tonight.

Congratulations Christine on being accepted into USC Graduate School. That is so great and you are going to be great.

Just got back from the Pocketdwellers show. They were the headliners tonight and put on another 2 hour epic performance. Most of the solos were awesome. Both guitars...sounded great. Drums...very slick. And the DJ...very chillin' Moses Mayes orchestra opened and I liked their sound...wanna here more of them. Damn, the Pocketdwellers are a really awesome band and I hope that they succeed. Everyone that I know...please support these guys and go watch them when they're in your area. They are fantastic. Totally musically gifted and damn FUN!!! Jen - happy birthday once again today. Pretty wicked party you had there..there were 25 of us in all at that shindig this evening. The Revival was a really nice venue so if you're ever going to a show there, check it out...pretty slick. Cristine/Dave - especially good to see you tonight.

Yeah, we got funding today for uwscibus.net so me and Ruth can get this thing out of archives and back online. Stay tuned all ya'll sci-busers...it'll be here shortly.

Further planning for my trip was done today. Some travel agents got back to me with quotes on flights etc. I need to haggle those prices a bit but it's definitely a good start.

All in all, a fantastic day and a wonderful start to the weekend.
It's now 5:00 am and I've gotta go to bed. DAMN, this was not supposed to be this late a night.