So, when I started this thing, I started it knowing that the Man Upstairs (TM, R, etc. etc.) was going to cut me off at some point, because he did the same thing to the guy who did it before me (and before him and him, etc.). But, y’know what? He hasn’t cut me off yet, and it’s already December, so I figure what the heck, I may as well start up again. So, until I am forcibly removed kicking and screaming, I’m going to keep this blog up, cause, y’know what, it’s really fun. And fie on you, Man Upstairs, you’ve had 3 months to lock it, so now I’m taking it back! Huzzah and all that.
So a bit of an update on what’s happened the past 3 months: Well, as it turned out, I did in fact fail MTE120. I don’t quite know how, but apparently I got 35% on the final exam. I spoke to one of the TAs who marked it, and he said that roughly half the class failed, and nobody got above 80% on that exam. Unfair exam, or lazy class? You decide. Anyway, so I’m going back to Prof. El-Saadany in January to complain, because if I can get a pass in the course, it’s one less course I have to take later (I’ll get to that in a bit).
I’m currently working at RIM (ZOMG RIM!!!) doing QA. QA sucks. Let’s get that out of the way quickly. When I applied for this job and got it I was like “hey, I get to break people’s programs all day cool!” Unfortunately, not so much. A closer representation is “Hey, this program is broken, and here’s a button that proves it. Hey, Lyle, c’mere and press the button!” Yeah. Not so fun. I’m totally not taking another QA job after this. Also, RIM has this thing where they give you a pay bonus, but you get no days off, and no, you can’t option out of it. So if you’re sick for any reason or have to go somewhere, you’re slightly SoL. Yeah. It’s pretty lame. But oh well, it’s RIM, and I can put it on my resume and be like “HAY GIES I WARKD AT RIM!!!” and they’ll be like “HAY LYLE UR HAIRD!!!” and it’ll be good times.
RIM’s not all bad though. The main RIM campus is located at Phillip and Columbia, which is basically the northeast corner of UW campus, a 5-minute walk from the Davis Centre (and of course those of you who haven’t been to UW are like “I have no idea what you’re talking about”, but that’s just another reason to come here!). That makes it really convenient to do on-campus stuff after work. Even though I’m not a student this term (technically speaking), I was in 3 clubs (until about 2 weeks ago when I quit UWGamers over a dispute with a member…long story). It was great fun. I was in UWGamers, where I prepared a Halo 3 release event (yay more resume!), CTRL-A (again), and (finally!) KonJa (Konnichiwa Japan). I spoke enough about UWGamers and CTRL-A already (except that CTRL-A is organizing a trip to next year’s Anime North, and I’m going out with them tonight to play Laser Quest against WatsFic), so I’ll talk a bit about KonJa:
KonJa is basically UW’s equivalent of the Japanese Student Association. Basically, anyone who’s interested in Japanese language, culture, or anything else can join this club (regardless of prior knowledge/experience in things Japanese). Many Japanese foreign and exchange students from both UW and WLU go to this club, so you can meet a lot of interesting people you wouldn’t meet otherwise. Once a week, they have a session where they teach a bit of Japanese language, and, while I don’t recommend doing KonJa over or instead of Japan 101, you can definitely get a good feel for the language by going to these lessons. Also, if you’re interested in that, the Japanese students are very friendly and more than willing to teach you if you don’t understand something. They also have quite good English (much better than my Japanese!) so they’re easy to understand (and, unlike a lot of other foreign students, tend to speak to each other in English a lot so as to not appear exclusionary). They also have other events like Laser Quest and a Japanese food cooking day. It’s really great, and I’m going to be doing it again next term.
Since RIM is so close to UW, I’ve also decided to take an on-campus course this term. I don’t remember if I wrote about it before, but I took Japan 201 this term. They say that Japan 102 and 202 are the two hardest classes, and I can definitely see why. 201 was really easy, I found. Kanji is a bit hard to learn since there are a lot of pronunciations, but once you get used to it it’s really not that difficult. What I liked about 201 is that you learn a lot of really useful stuff in it, like the “want” form (as in “I want [something]“) and the conditional form (“if…then…”), and also there isn’t nearly as much new vocabulary as in 101 and 102, so studying for tests is mostly about grammar, which I find easy. The hard part is listening to Maruoka-sensei for 3 hours. She’s not a particularly bad lecturer, but, as I mentioned in 101 and 102, she tends to switch randomly between English and Japanese while lecturing. It’s not as bad in 201 since you get used to it, but sometimes she’ll say something and it’s like “what did she just say?” I suppose it’s good because I’ve learned a little more vocabulary by listening to her, but it’s something worthy of note. Also, I got one of the TAs into ProfQuotes this term. Now my goal is to get Misato-sensei into ProfQuotes again next term, after she said she’d “be more careful from now on”.
So anyway, that’s about it. Until next time,
Lyle Waldman
