The Hallowe'en chocolate bar conspiracy

Anyone else notice those miniature chocolate bars (for Hallowe'en) keep getting smaller every year? Unfortunately, the price goes the other way. Remember when an Oh! Henry was about one-third the size of a full bar, now it's one-quarter, if that. You can now shake the bar inside the wrapper (which has stayed the same size) with lots of space in between. A conspiracy!

This year, our house is providing a (limited) number of gift certificates from McDonald's, along with lollipops and those "two-bite" (forty licks?) chocolate bars.

Did I use the extra hour of sleep? Nope. I woke up at 7:28 (uh, 6:28), giving me seven hours of sleep which was comparable to previous nights (4 hours, 6 hours, and 4 hours). Midterm week drove my sleep schedule south, although not as terrible as in years past.

Last midterm. Of the term. Yes. Of my degree? Perhaps. Ever? Possibly.
Let's just say that 50 minutes wasn't enough to write everything I wanted to. I forgot one important point in my resolution which would have propped my essay. But I guess it's not the end of the world.

I went to my computer lab after that class for the first time in two weeks. The TA wasn't there, but I figured out how to animate a blood cell through a heart in Authorware.

I am sleep-deprived, but satisfied with my performance this midterm week. I didn't stay up past midnight at any point (although I did become sleepless in the early hours a couple of times). My next school assignments are to (a) build a web page, and (b) design a computer-based lesson.

I have finally finished my term paper for EDU 250, six-and-a-half pages of useless research. I could have summed up the essay in one sentence: "Yes, teacher expectations do have an effect on student achievement."

I banged up my left ring finger earlier today in the washroom, which was perfect timing, since I was rushing to get to my midterm on time. Two short answer questions were ambiguous and four (of eight) multiple-choice questions were unrelated to class lectures. Overall, a rush from start to finish.

Midterm Week beckons. I had a presentation yesterday, which went reasonably well, given the work we put into it. By "reasonably well" I meant that I didn't flub up my part, and our group didn't put out any discussion or questions that the class couldn't participate in and/or understand.

I am getting over my cold, which affected the way my voice sounded. I don't know, is a nasal voice supposed to sound sexy?

Canada finally has its own synchrotron! The official grand opening was yesterday in Saskatoon, although scientists probably tried it out beforehand, to make sure it worked.

Google! shares. I knew I should have purchased a couple of hundred back then, and hold on to for a couple of months. On August 19th, the initial public offering was $85, to much fanfare. It closed yesterday @$172.43, after it released its quarterly earnings report. This is probably just a dot-com late bloomer, but still...

I didn't vote yesterday because it was 17:00 by the time I was headed home, it was dark, cold, and the polling station is a 10-minute walk from my home. I thought my vote might affect the mayoral race, but in the end, it didn't. Everyone I was going to vote for won their seats anyway.

Candidates that I was going to vote for:
Mayor: Stephen Mandel
Councillors (Ward 6): Dave Thiele and Terry Cavanagh
Public School Trustee (Ward I): Gerry Gibeault

Official results from Election 2004 available here.

Today I'm trying to write a six-page essay in one sitting. So far, I have a little over ten lines. Although it appears that this is not going too well, I still have six hours until the lab closes. One hour per page!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
If your telephone area code is 780, then there is a snowfall warning for you. It is really cold today. Good thing the Edmonton 2004 celebration was last weekend, and not today.

Have not feeling well for the past couple of days. I don't know what's worse, coughing and hacking, a runny nose, or a sore throat. Some people experience all three once they catch a cold.

The new Churchill Square becomes really slippery when there is precipitation. Did they not take this into account when they built it?

Today I got my EDPS 410 case study paper back. We handed it in on Wednesday. That means in just two days, my instructor managed to read and grade thirty-seven papers (four to six pages each). Not only that, she made a pretty hand-drawn bar graph of the mark distribution. M = 19/20, m = 10/20. She thought my paper was "unequivocally well thought out".

Anybody want to win an iPod? Pepsi is having a contest where they're giving away a free iPod every hour for the next 12 weeks (= 2 016 iPods). Two weeks have already passed. You can get your codes by purchasing specially marked 591 mL bottles, or register for a "no purchase necessary" code online (limited to one per hour) after filling in a survey. I have not won one, but I find this process too time consuming to pursue this any further. But for those of you who don't have midterms to study for and papers to write, this might be something to do.

P.S. I am not an employee or an authorized spokesperson for Pepsi, I prefer the taste of Coca-Cola anyway.

Success! I have finished a draft copy of my case study term paper for EDPS 410 and have emailed it to my teacher so she can take a look at it. Over six pages! And I've finished it ONE WEEK EARLY! :)

I went to meet my two study buddies at Avalon this morning for the first time. Their names are Stephanie and Matthew. I am helping both of them with Grade 9 Math. I wish I was an undergraduate math student ... I probably would have considered it, if they didn't make CMPUT 114 AND 115 part of their requirements!

If you're poor and cannot afford Adobe Photoshop, my EDIT 486 professor showed us this cool site called gifworks where you can upload your GIF image and do your editing online. Afterwards, you can right-click the final product and download it back to your computer.

"I can't get no respect." - Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004). A quote that teachers can certainly relate to.