What's up everyone!

Fall 2011 has kicked off in full force. Classes have started, and it really feels like I'm entering the second year...

University of Waterloo - Uni Ave Entrance © Osama Sidat

This year, I've got MATH 237, ACTSC 231, STAT 231, AFM 101 & CS 136... I didn't want to have an excess of math courses, so limited them to three, and took the latter two as hopefully useful electives...

MATH 237: Calculus, something to do with multiple variables. Professor Kohandel seems to be okay, the first lecture was a bit fragmented, but subsequent lectures were better off. Time will tell how we fare in this course...

ACTSC 231: Mathematics of Finance, related to the SOA FM Exam (that is next up on my list of actuarial papers). I expected this course to be more exciting, but Professor Freeland just goes on and on and on... and the examples are rather bland. Oh well, I guess will have to turn to the text for this one...

STAT 231: Intro to Stats. Stats can be dry, but when a prof just reads of the slides, that are actually provided as course notes, it becomes really lame. Right now, there's kid stuff like pie charts and histograms, but there's bound to be some challenging stuff further down into the course...

STAT 231 © Osama Sidat

AFM 101: Financial Accounting. Prof Duane Kennedy is pretty good. So far, I'm enjoying the course. I rarely read up course material before class, but this class is one instance where I did, 'cuz it was interesting and pretty clear. Really hope to make this course count...

Professor Kennedy © Osama Sidat

CS 136: Elementary Algorithm Design & Data Abstraction. Am I crazy for taking this course since I'm not a CS major? Maybe! Despite that the assignment problems can induce strings of curse words, I find programming to be fun and challenging. Gordon Cormack teaches in a nice, slow kind of a way, which makes it easy to connect the dots...

Well, this is kinda it. My course rundown...

I've been accepted as a Teaching Assistant for Math. Gonna be marking first year quizzes/assignments!

Thursday Night: Turned up Larry Smith's ECON 101! As usual, it was awesome!

Cooked up my tuna & spaghetti dinner yesterday, this time included a few additions from here. Turned out pretty good!

Spaghetti with Tuna Sauce © Osama Sidat

Roamed around for a bit in the University today. Wanted to take photos of the new Mathematics building, the M3. It's pretty neat, and for a change, it has lots of windows and sunlight (unlike the MC, affectionately known to Mathies as the "jail-house").

Mathematics 3 - New Home of ActSci & Stats Depts © Osama Sidat

More photos from around UW (all shot today) can be found in my Facebook Album.

Looking forward to UWPC meetings... I just hope I can fit 'em around my schedule; might be easier this time, since no late evening classes...

So, that's it for this week. Lets see when the next post rolls around...

Until next time...

Good Night (or Day)

Hello there folks!

I had intended to update the blog as soon as I moved in, however, until Monday night, my dwelling was devoid of an Internet connection... Since classes started on Monday, I've been pretty busy ensuring a smooth start to the term...

So here I am, back in Waterloo. As some readers might recall, I was having a fair bit of difficulty in obtaining a place for residence (Getting to Canada). On my trip to Waterloo to search for housing, I passed by my old place, which I'd been told was to be closed for rental by August. Luckily, I found a couple of people who knew me as a previous tenant, and was informed that the place would be up for another four months, and they had quite a number of rooms available. Hooray! I was getting a good deal so I immediately signed up! As they say, "Don't look at a gift horse in the mouth"...

My Home for Fall 2011

Moved here with all my stuff on Friday... After dumping my bags, boxes, crates and what-not in the master bedroom... I had a monstrous task ahead of me... cleaning the kitchen...

And a rather dirty kitchen it was! Worse was the refrigerator! Had to hold my breath when clearing it out! Scrubbed and washed out every single shelf, every nook and cranny. The stink simply refused to go away... only to be cured a couple of days later by the utilization of some baking soda... And the microwave... it looked like someone had exploded something inside it!

Thankfully, an hour and a half later, the kitchen was totally cleaned out...

A View of the Kitchen

The next target was the bathroom... Which surprisingly did not take a very great effort...

The Sink Missing the Plug...

Decided to take a break from the cleaning... Set out for Zehrs to get necessary groceries...

Returned back home around sunset. Rearranged bedroom furniture, and dusted and scrubbed the wooden flooring. Unpacked the bags and boxes and arranged all the stuff. It took a while, but it was totally worth it...

My Room

My Closet

My Working/Eating Table

The only problem initially was no Internet. Two days without Net were crazily boring! Add to the fact that connecting via Fido through my BlackBerry gave a really crappy speed. Unable to bear much longer, I put in a few calls to SparkMatrix, the ISP who controls the Internet around here. Turns out that they can completely discontinued their services, and were starting from scratch... Took them a while to deliver... But on Monday night, finally got access...

So yeah, that was my moving-in story. For more pictures of my new place, see my Facebook album.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Stay tuned for "First Week of Fall 2011", which will probably be out sometime during the upcoming weekend...

Good Night/Day

I'm back in Canada now...

This time, I maintained a sort of a blog on my BlackBerry, where I kept a "blow-by-blow" account from the point I entered the lounge at the Karachi airport, up till the time I retrieved my baggage at Pearson. I thought it would be interesting to document the things I experienced as they happened on my way there...

So, without further ado, here it is... Happy Reading!

Note: Times are in the format "Karachi/Toronto".

6.39am/9.39pm: Sitting in the airport lounge now. Getting through all the airport procedures and stuff was, like always, a bit of a hassle. I should realize by now that it's all part of travel... Sunrise is looking beautiful from where I am sitting right now...

7.02am/10.02pm: Sudden change in departure gates... Yeah, thanks a lot PIA. From being at the forefront of the gate, to being pushed to near the back of the queue. Thankfully, was able to make my way to the front again, so I was one of the first few to board the plane... Now, seated in 24D, as comfortably as possible in an airplane...

7.09am/10.09pm: Just like last year, there seems to be quite a lot of people on the flight...

7.21am/10.21pm: The passengers are mainly students and hyper groups of kids with seemingly irritated moms...

7.43am/10.43pm: In-Flight Catalog = Can barely pass 5 minutes of your time... Oh yeah, the announcement just came, we are getting ready to depart!

7.53am/10.53pm: "... Umeed hai kay aap ka safar khushgawar rahay ga... " Plane taxiing now...

7.55am/10.55pm: Why is the background music on PIA so oriental, like something out of a Chinese restaurant???

8.00am/11.00pm: Fourteen and a half hours, 12250km to destination...

8.03am/11.03pm: Why are the innards of the plane creaking during take-off???

8.18am/11.18pm: Sooo... we are up in the air... And I'm already starting to get bored...

8.25am/11.25pm: Okay, so I thought I should check out if any movies or anything are available on the flight... Well, the entertainment system doesn't seem to be working yet... The pilot's going on and on about "how" we'll get there...

8.33am/11.33pm: Just got a pair of headphones and a smelly "blanket"... The latter is only suitable for use as an alternate cushion...

8.43am/11.43pm: In-Flight entertainment is on... A couple of movies are probably worth watching... Even if I might have seen 'em before... 

8.49am/11.49pm: Watching "The Mechanic"

9.00am/12.00am: Breakfast here... Let's check it out... Though this time, I brought my own sandwich, thanks to Mom, like Ron Weasley; difference is that I actually look forward to eating the sandwich instead of the airline food...

10.27am/1.27am: Breakfast was the usual omelette that didn't really appeal to me beyond a couple of bites. Ate a bit of the strange kebab they had provided with the omelette, along with a croissant with strawberry jam. Was still hungry, so turned to my real meal: homemade hunter-beef sandwiches... Thanks a lot, Mom! Now, movie's over, and on a full stomach, I'm feeling a tad bit sleepy. Might as well try to nap while I still can...

1.27pm/4.27am: Past 3 hours were spent fidgeting about in my seat, trying to make myself comfortable enough to sleep. I guess I might've gotten about an hour or two's worth of napping. Right now, wide awake again, will watch Russell Peters on my laptop, which will hopefully take care of another couple of hours, that is, if the laptop battery keeps up... Eight and a half hours, 7123km to destination...

4.10pm/7.10am: Had a good laugh with Russell Peters latest show. Didn't have any other movies on the laptop, so spent the remaining battery time on a few games of Minesweeper. It's strange how a game that I didn't get at all a year back can be so addicting. The ride over Northern Europe was rather bumpy... The seat belt sign hasn't switched off since. Will check out the In-Flight movies again, to pass some time. Six hours, 4900km to destination...

6.00pm/9.00am: Watching "Gladiator"... Felt hungry, so ate my second sandwich. Soon after, PIA served dinner/lunch. Didn't feel like eating much of it... I just hope the next few hours pass by quickly...

7.16pm/10.16am: Starting to get tired now. Tummy acting up. Plus, the air-conditioner seems to be down, starting to get warm. Still, three hours, 2200km to go...

9.12pm/12.12pm: Another hour still to go... I've had enough of the flight...

10.03pm/1.03pm: Descending, gonna land in 20 minutes...

10.24pm/1.24pm: Touchdown!

11.02pm/2.02pm: Waiting for baggage... This is gonna take a while...

I had intended to properly conclude the memo on my BlackBerry when I got my stuff... Unfortunately, by the time my bags came around, my patience had thinned out considerably... I rushed out like a maniac... And totally forgot about my writeup until later during the day...

Re-activated my phone, and begun and search for residence as soon as I had freshened up a bit... Unfortunately, still looking... most of the places I had listed earlier, before leaving home, are no longer available...

Gonna head to UW tomorrow... Especially looking forward to seeing the Mathematics M3 building, which now houses the ActSci and Stats Departments...

So, this culminates my blog post for today... I hope I can maintain the blog a bit more regularly... :P