January 29, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 5:29 pm Comments 6
Last night we went to a Burn’s Supper. This is the second year in a row we have had a burns night with Craig and Judith. Both were fantastic events. For those of you back home who are unfamilar with a Burns Supper, here is scope.
Robbie Burns is a famous Scottish Poet. Jan 25 is Burn’s night and people gather together to honour Burns by cooking Haggis, neeps and tatties. It is usually my job to mash the neeps and tatties. Also, people recite Burns poems and sing songs he either wrote or collected. Neyir sang Ae Fond Kiss and I was in charge of writing the Toast to the Lassies. Here is how it went:
Here we stand, Here we praise
All the women around us, and in all our days,
Like Burns, before he said Adieu
Most of us have loved at least a few
They feed our minds bodies and souls
They complete us, and make us whole
They care for us, they keep and well
Yet here now is a warning bell,
Sometimes, they make it seem like…
They bear our children, a wonderful blessing
They don’t do it just for the maternity dressing,
Thank goodness the Lord has arranged it this way,
for we men would have died the very next day.
For our lassies we would walk to the ends of the earth,
Or at least drive a few hours to Perth,
Over highland mountains, and soggy glen,
we seek our lassies time and time again
Tonight we stand in Praise,
Join me Lads, let your voices raise,
Lift your glasses,
To our Bonnie Lasses
Over all it was a fantastic night. Lots of Haggis was eaten and whiskey was drunk my yours truely. What is even more fantastic is that I bought some Haggis on sale after Burns night and so we have lots in our freezer for later.
Mmmmmmm… whiskey and haggis
January 26, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 11:49 am Comments 5
Can you believe I got to University today at 7:30am.
Thursdays I usually have a meeting with my advisor at 9am. I usually get in at 8am on Thursdays to prepare for my meeting. Today I had a lot to prepare so I arrive extra early. When I checked my email I note that I received an email at 6:30pm yesterday from my advisor canceling our meeting!
I usually don’t mind when this happens as It gives me a day or two to prepare more maths. The problem with today is that since I arrived so early, I had to drink twice my usual dose of Tea (today it is Yorkshire Tea… thx to the Physics People). So now I am all hyped up on caffeine.
Also, I was in early enough that I was the first person to use the just cleaned toilets. This make it a much more pleasant experience.
Ah well, I have been spending the day so far by preparing for a colloquium I’m giving in two weeks. I have been putting off getting it done. Above is an animation I created today for it. I thought it worth sharing with all of you. It is 3 masses moving due to their mutual gravitational attraction. The one on the left is getting shot off to infinity by the other two. (I stop it before it gets to far away!).
January 23, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 12:07 pm Comments 5
For those Non-Canadian readers, note that today is federal election day in Canada. Will the questionable liberals beat out the suspicious Conservative Party and maintain a government? I thought I would be excited, but since I really don’t think any party will do a good job I have found it hard to appreciate this election campaign.
so, on to other things….
A few weeks ago I was reading Soibhan and was introduced to pandora.com. This is an on-line music service where you can input music that you like and it will play a selection of music which matches what you preference were and the music you originally entered. Since then I have been listening to it most of the time at school.
My “station” is mostly 80’s punk or alternative music with some newer music as well. You can check out my selection here. Check it out now and let me know what you think. You can also link to it from somewhere on the right hand side of this web page.
Enjoy
January 19, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — Neyir @ 4:25 pm Comments 11
Not that my being back is reason in and of itself for yikes-ness rather that on logging in to blogger I was shown that I am one calendar day away from not having blogged in a whole month - eeeek. My loyal readers, please come back, I will be much better about blogging I promise (well now I have done it, I have committed and I hate not delivering on things, so I will have to be better!)
So….there is so much to say and really not the attention span for it regardless how indulgent you are all feeling. As of today we have been home for 2 weeks. For me the time has been marked by many train journeys, auditions, coachings and lessons - all of which went well and the results of which (auditions) I do not yet know. I am taking this afternoon off to get caught up on the dregs of modern 21st century life - paying bills, organising taxes, clearing my inbox (email), filing (documents which arrived via postal mail) etc.
A few observations on Canada and being home. I LOVE CANADA - it rocks!! It is clean and beautiful and the people are so polite - though on one occasion at least it seemed a little forced (Winners store clerk). One of the many fantastic things about being in Canada is just how cheap everything is - I am or at least was shopped out. One of the other great things is the space. I know when I lived in Canada I took space for granted. Houses are bigger, roads wider, buildings more spread apart and alas cars are also bigger. Oh yeah and did I say how much I love being in a car on the 401 doing 14okm/h (yes Dad I know we are responsible for our own speeding tickets now :-)!)
Seriously though being home was an enormous blessing, everyone was kind and extraordinairly generous. The day we left, as we were packing up our Christmas presents it seemed family had been even more generous than ususal - thank you to all of you xoxoxoxoxo!!!!
Enough pfaffing about. Here, in no particular order are things I loved about being home;
1. Buying and wearing a red Olympic team Canada vest (as in stuffed but not with feathers)
2. Spending time with both of our parents - you are overly generous the lot of you!
3. The treat of seeing friends from the west coast; Dave, Sue, Chris and bump(that would be Sue’s not Dave or Chris’)
4. Meeting Joel’s girlfriend Sophie - if they invite you for dinner just go - yum.
5. Seeing all of my Hall family, some of whom I have not seen since our wedding - what a difference 3 years makes particularly in the now teenagers! So intelligent, so mature wow, I feel old.
6. Spending time with friends and their children, in specific having my girlfriend’s son sitting in my lap and reading (he is not two until March!) that is time I really cherish as it is so rare.
7. Hanging out with David - I don’t think he knew he could shop so much, but when Winners beckons…
8. Our anniversary dinner organised by my parents and executed by my gastronomically accomplished father - so fantastic to have that fellowship with family!
9. BASIL - we miss you terribly
10. Melissa and Alan’s wedding, pictures to follow -beautiful, moving, a great time was had by all.
AND
11. Urminsky magic - this is an unspoken or unnamed princple whereby David leaves dishes, laundry and/or various bits of paraphenalia around the house and they are magically transported to the right locale and if necessary cleaned and returned to their home. I seem less able to believe in or rely on Urminsky magic.
The last great thing is leaving Canada…but only because it means we get to go back!
January 18, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 11:35 am Comments 1
Yesterday, My advisor pulled me aside after a “lecture”, and asked if I could help him prove something. This is not an opportunity to pass up. Two things can happen as a result of taking the invitation:
1- You look like a moron ’cause either you cannot solve the problem, or you contribute nothing to the solution. But hey, at least you may learn something.
2- You contribute either significantly or insignificantly, but enough so that you put on an appearance of being smrt!
I was destined to option 1, until I suggested we look up the problem in Newton’s The Principia. Behold, the answer was staring at us from the pages of the book that changed the world. Thus bringing me out of the mire of option 1 planting my feet firmly on option 2’s firm soil.
Also, it made me realize three things,
1- I now know how to solve a new problem.
2- A three hundred year old book in mathematics can still be useful.
3- I need to obtain a copy of The Principia.
So, for those of you how love me dearly (or at least a little bit) and have and extra few quid, visit my Amazon Wish List and you can purchase this wonderful book for me!
In fact, this is a must have book for every bookshelf. So purchase a copy for yourself as well!
January 12, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 9:51 am Comments 11
My supervisor said something to me that kept me laught all the way back to my office.
I had mentioned to him how I am writing a talk for the PostGraduate Colloquium in a few weeks time and that I needed to get some animations done so that I can Wow them. Also, so they won’t fall asleep,
He responded: “Your Commanding Presence should be enough to put the fear of God into them!”
my humble response: “I wish”
I did not ask him to clearify his response, but now when I think of it, what could he have ment?
Possibilities include:
1 - Is it that my stature is impressive? ie: tall and broad with amazing good looks?
2 - Is it because my Canadian Accent is full of force and people are awed by it?
3 - Is he remembering my first year exam, and he has experience it first hand. If so, is it a good thing i made my supervisor fearful?
.
.
.
I think the list could be long. In any event, I have probably now left myself open to a flood of comments. So for those who know me: Is He right? If so, for what reasons?
January 8, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 6:24 pm Comments 8
I learned a new skill today.
I learned how to put the little plastic end on an Ethernet cable. It isn’t a very exciting skill… or all that useful most of the time ( you need the right tool which I don’t own myself, I had to borrow one).
Anyways, now we have two really long cables for us to use cause we are too cheap to get a wireless card and modem.
I am still missing Canada a lot and suffering a little jet lag still. I nearly fell asleep in church today. I’ll probably be over it by next weekend. I don’t understand how come it is affecting me so badly during this vacation. It didn’t used to be so bad. Maybe it cause I am getting older.
Other news….
I bought a thermos today. Woo Hoo. Now when we make soup or other liquid type things, I can bring it to school in my new thermos instead of a tupperware which leaks all over the place.
Also, our fridge is full again with food and I’m looking forward to eating it all (well… I’ll share some with Neyir). That in mind, one of my resolutions this year is to drop a min of 20 pounds. And keep it off. This would mean no trips to Canada as my parents and Neyir’s parents feed us way too much yummy food. Thanks again guys!!
By the way… note the new poll… and for those who remember the last poll… the military is the largest employer of musicians in the UK.
January 5, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 5:35 pm Comments 9
I am reminded of the John Candy movie, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” as I recall out voyage home. It probably was not as eventful or hilarious as the movie, but it was freek’n long.
The trip took about 24 hours starting from when we left my parents house in Toronto, till we arrived at our door here in Edinburgh. The first stop on our voyage was the Airport! Lets just say woo hoo for them not weighing our carry on luggage. After checking in, my parents took us to dinner at Swiss Chalet. It was fitting as my vacation started with a dinner at Swiss Chalet. After dinner we said au revoir to my parents and went to the duty free store. I like walking around the Duty Free store, I never buy anything but it is fun anyways. We finally got on the plane (it was 1.5 hours late taking off) and I was introduced yet again to how airplanes were built at a time when people had an average height of about 5 feet instead of whatever it is now. As my knees were unhappily pressed against the seat in front of me I was remembering that not 3 weeks before I had about 1.5 meters of leg room. But hey…. at least I wasn’t sitting beside a racist sexist pig like last time.
The plane took about 30 min longer than planned ( I don’t know why) and then got stuck taxiing to the gate. I mention this because we were both getting worried about missing our train from London to Edinburgh. Next was customs…. When we arrived we had a choice of two lines. We picked the one on the right. It turns out that for some unknown reason, this line takes 3 times as long as the other. Not only that, two more new lines start up as we are half way to the counter and cannot make a dash for them. Again, we were even more worried about time. I think that countries should just allow Canadians to run across borders waving their passports while singing our national anthem…. I would sing if I didn’t have to wait in a line.
Since we had to wait so long in customs, we naively thought that our luggage would be ready for us on the other side. How stupid of us. First we had to wait about 30 min for Gatwick Airport to decide which carousel the luggage is going to be put on. Then, we had to endure a stampede of people who all dashed to the carousel. Then we had to endure the exceedingly slow appearance of luggage. It was if they had one guy on a golf cart who would drive to the plane, pick up 4 pieces of luggage and drop them on the convater belt. And wouldn’t you know it, the were only about 10-15 people who were still waiting for their luggage by the time we got ours. For half the time we were waiting, I had a compition with the guy next to me as to whose luggage would arrive last. He won.
Next stop… Train station…
It turned out that the track that the train we could have took to get to Kings Cross directly was broken. Sigh, It ment taking a train somewhere else then taking the tube to Kings Cross. Normally, this isn’t a big deal (or so I would imagine). But when you have already been traveling for 14 hours and carrying suitcases and other such things, it is the last thing you want to do. We arrive at kings cross with an hour to spare so we had lunch. Lets just say, I SHOULD HAVE HAD THE BACON AND CHEESE SANDWICH INSTEAD.
Our train arrives 5 min before it was supposed to leave, and wouldn’t you know it… That is when they decide to tell everyone which platform the train leaves from. So we had to endure another stampede of people all of who are trying to get the best seat and the most room to store their luggage. It turn out there was something wrong with the train we were on and as a result a journey which should have taken only 5 hours or so… took about 8. The highlights of the trip included:
1- Me winning my first scrabble game ever (My Mom bought us a portable scrabble board for christmas.
2- Being finally able to catch so sleep as I am unable to sleep on planes (usually).
We finally arrived in Edinburgh, took a cab home and was pleased to see our flat was not broken into while we were gone.
It was good to be back in Canada and get spoiled by our families. Now we have to be grown up and again and fend for ourselves.
