2005: That Was the Year That Was

School: As of the end of the 2005, I just need to finish one more class (winter 2006 term) and my thesis to get my Master's degree. This year, I took my advisor's advanced building modeling class, and a concrete durability class in the fall. I have a thesis topic picked out (interior basement insulation systems); it will use data that I am currently collecting from a project from my old job. I will hopefully be done at the end of this calendar year.

For a while, I was considering going for a PhD, instead of a Master's, but ultimately, I fear my motivation for it is in fact diminishing. I have been very cautious about the ratio between motivation and required work due to my unpleasant undergrad experiences. Also, I stress far more than appropriate about academic classes, even though I have done consistently well.

Life in Waterloo: I have a not-bad life in this town, if a little solitary; I have enough free time that I do leisure activities like catching movies at local art house cinema and on DVD. However, throughout the year, I traveled to visit friends in Boston, San Francisco, Ithaca, and New York.

I go out for walks daily, either to school (~20 minutes each way) or "must-get-out-of-the-house" wandering down to a café or lunch place. I have been doing a fair amount of bike riding around town--nothing hard core, mostly puttering and exploring. Between walking and biking, I'm keep my car use low--I have gone months at a time between filling up. I need to figure out if I can find a way to continue this lifestyle when I return to Boston. If is definitely colder up in Waterloo than back in Boston; it doesn’t help that I keep my apartment way too cold.

Personal: I socialize with the other members of my graduate group (including my advisor, who I have almost more of a collegial than mentor-student relationship with). I started hanging out with Dan and his sweetie Daniel: Dan is a fellow survivor of the 'tute who is now a professor here. Hanging out with them gave me a very nice feeling to know that there are great people out there to meet, and I have not lost the ability to be socially functional and make new friends.

As for my romantic life, well, it's mostly pathetic. I have not gone out on any dates in Canada, but then again, that's not much different from my patterns back in Boston. I am working on reverse-engineering why I am how I am.

Dental: I had a series of miserable experiences with my rear molar, including a failed filling, a root canal, a gum boil, treatment with antibiotics, failure of the root canal, extraction of the tooth, installation of a dental implant, the dental implant crown falling off, and replacement of that crown. But it works fine now.

If you're still reading, here are other events from this year (by calendar quarter), with the appropriate links to my blog:

2005 Q1

• My pet catfish Ugly Fishie died. Poor fishie.
  
  
• Went to Jofish's Annual Robbie Burns/birthday party.
  
  
• In three stages (one, two, three), I made my kitchen functional enough that it did not anger me every time I saw it.
  
  
• A trip to Atlanta with my advisor's consulting company.
  

2005 Q2:

• A week vacationing in San Francisco seeing friends, followed by a few days in Boston celebrating my former boss's 50th birthday.
  
  
• A road trip with my high school friend psycho security guard from Waterloo to Boston, via Montreal, to go do our friend Air Force Guy's wedding, followed by Crusher (a Tep) & Cat's wedding.
  
  
• Hiking, a conference, and a fishing trip in Seward, Alaska, with people from my graduate group.
  
  
• Man… based on this quarter, I do nothing in grad school but take vacations. Well, I'll own up that I'm a slackbutt loser who would rather go fishing in Alaska, road trip to Montreal, or see museums than get cracking on my thesis.
  

2005 Q3:

• Another trip to Boston, for my former company's annual conference, and of course, to see the folks in town
  
  
• Got back to work, finished installation of graduate group research projects; included fun like using jackhammers on reinforced concrete and knocking down walls with a front-end loader.
  
  
• A trip to Chicago for my former company, during which my coworker had an epileptic seizure due to a previously undiagnosed arterio-venous malformation. He's ok now, but it was a pretty scary experience for all of us.
  
  
• A weekend camping and canoeing trip in Ontario.
  

2005 Q4:

• Jofish came up to visit for Canadian Thanksgiving. Remember, if you're planning on visiting me up here, you only have a year left!
  
  
• A trip to Vancouver for advisor's consulting company, followed by four days on the ground (including a midterm exam), and a consulting trip to Virginia.
  
  
• The death of Frostbyte; I went to Boston for the memorial service.
  
  
• After finishing the semester, I took a very long break over the holidays (about three weeks), going to Ithaca, New Hampshire, Boston, and several activities around New York. I saw lots of friends and did plenty of fun things.