Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Life during the Winter 2012 Work Term

It's been quite a while since my last post. Not that I was totally busy or anything... just far too lazy to sit down and write something!

Last time, I mentioned that I would be starting work in the following week. Started off in Loblaw on January 3 (from what i remember). Honestly, in the beginning, I was unsure of the role I would be playing in the team I was part of. In the early days, I moved around quite bit. First week, frequently changed seats on the main floor, next few weeks in the basement, and then back up again. To most, this would be an annoyance, as it would require moving your stuff to a new place every other day. I kinda liked it, since it gave me the chance to meet different people on the project, and also kept my work from getting monotonous... Over time, things became clearer, and I was able to see how the stuff I worked on impacted others within and outside my team.

Working in such an environment felt quite new to me. No more fretting about course assignments or midterms on a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week basis. Sure, some tasks at work were more grilling than others. But the best part was being able to leave work at the workplace at the end of the day, and being free of anything to do with work until the next morning.

A Mug of Hot Chocolate © Osama Sidat
A significant part of my experience was that I was blessed with an awesome boss and a great team! They were able to challenge my skills, and help me improve upon them, each in their own way. I learned a lot! If they are reading this (they know who they are), this is for all of them: I really appreciate all you did :)

Whenever I was during a thinking process at work (or feeling a bit bored), I worked on this doodle. It grew over time...

My Epic Doodle! © Osama Sidat
Got a pretty decent place to live in Brampton. Nice house-mates, and by far, the cleanest place I've lived in, in my four terms here in Canada.

Since I had a greater arsenal of cooking utensils available at my disposal, I was able to experiment a bit...

Cutting Up a Green Pepper  © Osama Sidat

Penne Pasta with Meat Sauce © Osama Sidat 
Finally restarted gaming on my PC by getting myself Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Got through the single-player within 12 hours of buying the game... now just working my way through the multiplayer... (Though it seems that my gaming hours will be drastically cut short, now that I'm back in university.)

COD MW3 © Osama Sidat
Photography during the term was not as frequent. I did experiment with water splashing in a glass. This was made possible by using the glass table-top of my writing table, and borrowing a couple of glasses from the kitchen...

Glass in Water © Osama Sidat
Also got a chance to visit the Toronto AUTO Show. Really wanted to see a Porsche, which unfortunately wasn't there. Of the whole lot, my favorite was the concept showed off by BMW:

BMW Concept Car © Osama Sidat
Lately, I've been experimenting with low angle shots with my Panasonic FX-150...

Steeles Avenue, Near Shoppers World, Brampton © Osama Sidat
Returning from Work © Osama Sidat
Oh, and did I mention I was sharing the house with not one, but two cats? Never expected that to happen, I thought I had to bury my love of cats for a long time when I left the ones back home...

Am © Osama Sidat
Ludwig © Osama Sidat
Ludwig was lots of fun... Quite often, I'd find him curled up on my room's windowsill, soaking up the evening rays of sunlight.

Last night I was there, the cats held a meowing competition outside my door at 1.30 a.m., presumably to say goodbye or something...

All in all, it was a wonderful term... Can't wait to go back in September...

As of now, I'm back in Waterloo. Just moved in on Sunday. Had my first classes of the term today. So far, the weather has been a bit rainy and overcast. Will put up a post about my new place and classes and all in a couple of weeks... probably once I've taken some pictures of the room and house, and had a better feel of all my current courses...

I guess this is all for now. Hopefully, I'll have another post up here in a few days (or weeks, hopefully not months this time).

Good Night (or Day)



More of my cooking here
For more photos of the water in glass project, check this
To check out other shots from my low-perspective photo project, see this
Toronto AUTO Show pictures here


More pictures of Ludwig will be up as soon as I'm done with the processing. Keep an eye out on my Facebook photos (or my Twitter feed)


Update: Ludwig's photos have been uploaded! See them here or here.

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