Books + Coffee = Happiness

Thursday 24 January 2013

Let this week be over

Listening to: The Prince of Persia - Main Title OST by Harry Gregson-Williams
Feeling: Exhausted
This week has been an energy-drainer. I spent most of my weekend doing an incredibly long statistics assignment and ready to hand it in the day before it was due when I realized that the assignment was supposed to be single-sided only. The reason why I wanted to hand it in the day before it was due was because I wouldn't be at that particular campus the next day. It didn't help that my faculty was promoting a bunch of activities all week long and I had to help out. So copying 8 pages full of graphs and answers took 2 hours out of my time between volunteering sessions.

Originally, if everything went according to plan like I had planned out, I would have been able to submit my statistics assignment a day early and have the evening to do my English 2 page paper which was due the next day (same day as statistics). So it was pretty stressful.

Yesterday was one heck of a day. At my school, it was the week to promote the school's science program and unfortunately, yesterday was my faculty's turn to show off. So I had to help out with that in between a long day of classes (Wednesdays are my longest days). Once my classes ended, it was time to help out with lab tours to show undergraduate students what kinesiology professors and researchers did in their labs. Since not a lot of my team members were available during that time slot, I ended up being a lab tour guide. I spent the morning freaking out because I didn't know the room numbers and having just the name of the lab didn't help. But eventually, I sorted things out and thankfully, it was all right.

Then it was career night time. I was helping out with that too. Answering questions, signing people in, making sure everyone had paid and guarding stuff took up most of my night. So, in the end, I was at school for literally half a day since my classes started early that day (and everyday).

Annoyingly enough, there's a physics assignment due today and with the other stuff going on, there wasn't much time to get it done before the actual day it was due, but mercifully, it was simple enough and within a few hours with the help of some friends, I was able to finish it and submit it. And now, I'm really thankful that the week is nearly over and the chaos can die down.

Image credit: Google

Friday 18 January 2013

So tired

Listening to: Follow Your Heart - Gothic Storm
Feeling: Tired
Two weeks down, eleven more to go. It's only the second week but it's so tiring. 8:30 classes Monday-Friday really sucks when you don't live close to your school. That means getting up around 6ish. Luckily, I'm attending two campuses this semester, with one being a lot closer than the main campus. Another reason for my fatigue is that since it's a new semester, clubs and programs are trying to promote their activities and gain new members. I'm a member of my faculty's student association, so I'm out there whenever there's something like that going on. There was some of that this week and next week will be another busy one. More promotions, geek week and career night. Once that dies down, it'll be time for midterms! Fun stuff.

Well, this weekend will be a nice change from waking up super early every day, but it'll still be somewhat busy. I think it will mainly feature numbers as I'm taking physics, math, statistics and for a change of pace, English (drama). Probably not the smartest idea to take so many quantitative courses at once, but will careful planning and lots of study sessions every week (which I'm generally the planner for those).

I hope I can keep up with going to the gym twice a week. Now that my gym buddies are attending the same campus, it's a lot easier to be motivated into going. Also hoping to take hip hop and kung fu. It's going to be an active semester.

On the bright side, I sleep great every night because usually I'm so wiped out that I fall asleep not long after I hit the pillow.

 Image credit: Google

Saturday 12 January 2013

...And here we go again

Listening to: I Swear - Group S
Feeling: Resigned
Well, it's back to school again. Big sigh. My glorious 3 and a half week break is done. Although going back to school is tiring, I'm usually pretty excited about the first few days of a new semester. It's like getting a clean slate all over again. Meeting new people, taking new classes etc. So I guess I should enjoy the new-ness while it lasts because I'm definitely sure that I'll be singing a different tune in a few weeks... when the first batch of midterms come (speaking of which, I have 3 in a row within 3 days UGH).

Haven't posted what I've been doing for the last few days before school started, so I'll do that now. Mainly visited friends and going to last minute get togethers. Everyone seems to like cramming events in that last week before school. It's been tiring, but it's been fun.

Cute keychain felt plushies that I made for my high school friends during a gathering at a friend's house. Each took about ~2-3 hours depending on complexity.

Ticket to Ride Europe version! I love this game so much despite it being only my second time playing this game. We played it at my uni friend's birthday party with teams. Great chance to meet people that you don't know by being on a team with them. I was Team Red and you can see my and my partner's train path on the board.

So the first week has gone and passed. It's been pretty good so far since the first few days are a warmup for the course. I'm taking math, physics, statistics and english! Ugh, 3 number-filled classes, but I think english will be a nice change of pace. Especially since we're doing Classical Greek Tragedies! It's a drama class, but I think I'll like it. The prof is super cool (all of my profs for this semester seem to be pretty good) and the workload seems fairly decent. 2 pages on each of the six plays we'll be doing.
The other day, I found this english otome game called X-Note and it's been my obsession for the past three days. I finally completed it yesterday. It's a pretty interesting game involving mystery while being a visual novel and dating sim. Basically, it's about a girl with psychic powers who gets hired as a PI for a school. Wanting to find the truth about her deceased mother's X-Note file, she agrees to the job and finds a lot more than she signed on for.

This is probably the first visual novel game that I've played, since my other dating sim games involve more running around and finding stuff. But let's just say that my first end result in this game was pretty shocking considering I died. But once I got the hang of choosing the right answers, it's a pretty good game.



(Left to right: Yuon's Path, Anon's Path, Oure's Path and Miscellanous stuff)

First path? Obviously Yuon's. Mysterious, cool-calm-collected, prodigy... what more can you ask for? Next was Anon's. If he wasn't so perverted, he'd be a cool character to end up with, but he's surprisingly pretty sweet. And finally, Oure!! Oure's so adorable and innocent, but a little too dopey. I wish Rexus (the red-haired character) was available as one of the paths you can take, but he remains the mysterious saviour throughout the game. Each guy has some sort of dark secret, though they range in terms of seriousness. Some of their dark pasts are seriously screwed up and traumatic. Each guy is somehow connected with the other guys and it was pretty cool to find the truth.