It's that time of a year again... time for a summary of my life in 2013...

Doodles, 'cuz.. why not? © Osama Sidat

January: The start of the year was followed by a move to Cardill Crescent, about 15 minutes of a walk away from University. It was a fairly nice place, with some awesome house-mates!

I started the year with a full course load, consisting of three core Computer Science courses, an Applied Cryptography course and a business course at Wilfred Laurier.

Also, since I was aiming for a more Computer Science - related job for my next term, I started going through the nuisances (there's no other way to put it, UWaterloo folks understand this!) of JobMine!

February: We saw a massive amount of snow one Friday... caused a snow day (my first at UWaterloo... ) I remember the day especially because I had an interview scheduled that day, which got cancelled...

Snow on the Patio © Osama Sidat

Nevertheless, a few interviews (IBM, Zynga, Desire2Learn, BlackBerry, and Kaleidescape, as far as I can recall) happened in the following few weeks... some went well, some were okay...

Interview Season © Osama Sidat

Soon came Reading Week, a much needed break from the tough academic schedule... Since I stayed back in Waterloo, I participated in tubing and skiing, awesomely fun snow activities!

Me, with a friend's GoPro strapped to the head, ready to go downhill © Osama Sidat

Skis Strapped On © Osama Sidat

March: The JobMine round finally came to an end, and I was offered a role as Quality Assurance Analyst at Desire2Learn, a provider of learning solutions, head-quartered in downtown Kitchener! I was extremely thankful that I got a job in the first round!

Desire2Learn © Osama Sidat

Unfortunately, on the academic front, I wasn't faring very well with Crypto. Based on the prof's advice, I dropped the course, and I hope to get a shot at it again next year...

Random note: Paintball is an amazing sport!

Headshot! © Osama Sidat

April: The month brought with it...

Freezing Rain... © Osama Sidat

Studying... © Osama Sidat

... and exams at the PAC © Osama Sidat

Exams went okay, meaning I passed all of my courses... although if I were given another chance, I would not bother with BU111 at Laurier... I'd possibly look for an alternative...

May: Yet another move at the end of April and beginning of May... this time to Erb Street, 15-20 minutes south of campus...

I started work on May 6th. It was definitely a beginning of a different experience, compared to my past work terms... It was my first exposure to Agile software development. And boy, there was a whole lot of co-ops working for Desire2Learn in summer - lots of new friends and acquaintances!

Also started a Legal Studies 101 online course. To anyone planning on taking this course, it's fairly boring. I listened to the lectures while engrossed in other stuff, and didn't bother with most of the readings... I did, though, start watching Suits :P .

Since it was the work term, I found a lot more time for cooking and experimenting in the kitchen.. I even started a recipe section on the blog to make sure I could replicate my experiments in the future...

Tuna Sandwich © Osama Sidat

June: Work started becoming more interesting, especially since I understood more of what I was doing.

I got a chance to visit Victoria Park in Kitchener. Nice place, got some awesome shots, and I did discover that benches and bridges are two of my favourite subjects..

Bench in Victoria Park © Osama Sidat

My Project 365 finally came to an end... my HTC One S served me faithfully throughout the year...

July: Ramadan started. Also, I found a new place for Fall and forward...

August: Started wrapping up the work term. Found a part time Dev/Analyst role with my company for the Fall term, since my schedule for classes was constrained to Tuesday and Thursday...

The Legal Studies course exam was fun... I just prepared using the course notes in about 6-8 hours... It had been a while since I wrote an exam involving essays... given the effort I put in the course, the exam went fairly well...

Welcomed my brother to Waterloo (finally, I have another test subject, other than myself, to try out my cooking!)... and made another move, just down the street!

I also got an offer from my team to come back in Winter as a Developer, which I happily accepted.

September: Started the term, this time with Operating Systems, and Databases, with a couple of electives, Physics of How Things Work, and Public Speaking.

Yet more experimentation - Nutella-Cinnamon French Toast © Osama Sidat

Since my cellular contract with Fido was up for renewal, I called them up for a better plan combination, with the new iPhone 5S... Got a great promised plan, but... more on this later...

October: Started learning why Operating Systems is considered hard... Luckily, I had a good team to work with...

Went out on an astrophotography trip with the UW Photo Club, got my first "good" images of the Milky Way...

The Milky Way © Osama Sidat

So a week before my iPhone was to be delivered (right before the weekend before Thanksgiving), and I was on a phone call with a customer service rep, I was told that the plan that Fido agreed to give me a few weeks ago was no longer valid. For a moment, I was livid (I haven't needed to call KESC or Worldcall in a long time now!). Three CSRs later, Fido refused to budge - whatever they offered me was lesser in features and greater in price compared to my original offer...

At some point on the weekend, I got fed up, and took to social media to explain my problem... Fido's social media specialists reached out to me... a week of negotiation, twenty email exchanges, and some well-reasoned arguments later, my plan was set back to the original offer Fido made to me, my phone was shipped and the matter was resolved. The ordeal was certainly a little frustrating, but it taught me a fair bit about dealing with cellular companies in Canada...

By the way, if anyone's interested in some Pakistani Hunter Beef, I think I'm qualified to make some now...

November: Crazy busy week, full of late- and all-nighters. Along with my team, this cool dude helped one day:

Tofu © Osama Sidat

In any case, we made it at the end. Piece of advice to folks taking OS: start early, work on it continuously.

Also, SPCOM 223 and SCI 206 are extremely fun, highly recommended courses. If you're at UWaterloo, take 'em if you get the chance.

December: I finished up with exams pretty early this term (since my physics prof was kind enough to schedule an alternative final exam; the original exam was on the last slot of the last day of the exam period). Spent until the end of my contract working full-time in my part-time role... the last two weeks of work were definitely more fulfilling than the first three-ish months. There's this thing about part-time when part of an active team - you can rarely finish off what you start...

Just before the holiday week, we had an icestorm in Ontario... everything just froze...

Frozen Twigs © Osama Sidat

On Boxing Day, went to watch my first hockey game at Air Canada Centre...

Toronto Marlies vs Hamilton Bulldogs © Osama Sidat

All in all, an interesting year. Learned a great many things, met some awesome people and had a number of new experiences. Based on current calculations, I am now two work terms and three academic terms away from completing undergrad.

Next week, I'm back on co-op, this time as a Developer at Desire2Learn. I look forward to the challenge.

By the way, I've started posting photos on Instagram, if any of you peruse that platform...

Finally,