Another Year, More Blog

Like in 2005, I thought I’d once again inflict the equivalent to a Dear Everyone Christmas Letter—it was an interesting exercise to look at the entire year, in toto. More importantly, I’m on suburban Long Island, and I can’t motivate myself to do thesis writing right now. [Ed. note: this was mostly written during the days before Christmas; I am now back in Canada.]

School: In the winter semester, I took the final class I needed for my Master’s degree: my former boss/mentor’s academic advisor’s case studies class, at the University of Toronto. It went very well—the class was really great, and the professor lamented, “I have to grade you BEG guys on a separate curve, don’t I?”

At the same time, I was the teaching assistant for my advisor’s undergraduate building science course. It was mostly grading and administration; I only taught one tutorial. The grading was a bit of a grind, but doable. I definitely learned the course material in much more detail from this experience--very useful, given that it is the basic science for my field.

During the fall semester, I started writing my thesis, and it came to dominate my life. It turned into an utterly horrible siege-of-Stalingrad-like slog. Shit… it seems like all I did this fall was write thesis, try to find ways to avoid writing it, and bitch about the whole process. It ended up undergoing severe page creep, to the point that several people pointed out, "geez, this looks a lot like a PhD thesis." Originally I thought I would be done by December, but that didn’t happen. I was still working away on it over the holidays; it looks like it might be getting done around February, from Boston (see below).

Social Life: Over the summer, I blew off a whole lot and traveled all over the country, both for work and for fun (Boston, New York, Chicago, Denver, Boston again, San Francisco)--see Q3 below. It was wonderful to see folks in all of these places.

Half of the graduate group finished up at the end of the winter semester; they worked at the University over the summer and then left, which changed the social atmosphere a lot. Chief grad student and I started mostly worked from home in the fall, and my advisor was on sabbatical, so the place really emptied out. Three new students started this past semester; I haven’t worked much with two of them. I worked closely with the third one though; I’m handing off a bunch of projects to her, and we’ve hung out socially a lot.

As a result of going into Toronto once a week for class, I developed some familiarity with the city. I really enjoyed spending time there, during my wandering around town. I gained enough familiarity to be a tour guide for folks who came to visit.

I went out biking every so often, and built a bicycle trailer as a way to avoid thesing. I continued to download a remote experimental site by biking to collect data.

My social life (when not traveling) has mostly been hanging out with other members of grad group, and Dan and Daniel. I also caught plenty of movies at the local art house cinema.

Other: I continued to indulge my fascination with ISO shipping containers, both working with them, and reading about them on the web.

I engaged in food geekery of all sorts--just search for either “food” or “food geekery,” and you’ll get a pile of hits: everything from spatchcocked chicken to roast garlic to silkworm pupae.

Returning to Boston: The Plan: Here is my plan after the holidays: I’m back in Waterloo for January, and I need to write a conference paper (for the first two weeks), and then pack (for the second two weeks). My moving truck shows up on January 29th, and then I’m moving in with JMD (into her spare bedroom) and her four cats in Arlington. I have earmarked February for completing my thesis; I’ll be doing it long distance, sending drafts to my advisor. I’m hoping to be done (or done enough) by the end of that month, and then return to being gainfully employed in March, working for the company that I left. Better yet, they have moved their offices to Somerville (near Porter Square), so I’ll be trading in that stupid 45-minutes-in-a-car-each-way commute to taking the bus, biking, or walking. Woo hoo!

In the longer term, I’ve been thinking of buying a place in Somerville; I’ll keep looking around the neighborhood in my free time, as the market hopefully cools during 2007.

Incidentally, I’m debating whether I will be continuing my blog in this form after my return to Boston—after all, the title will no longer be correct or relevant. I’ll probably just switch to straight LiveJournal, assuming that their photo posting features are acceptable.

And now, the summary by quarter. I am not bothering to edit in any more goddamn hyperlinks; you can search for the post if you're interested.

2006 Q1

• Went to the Body World Exhibition when it came to Toronto.
  
• Jofish’s birthday/Robbie Burns party in Ithaca; did the road trip with Daniel and Rover.
  
• I got to be a tour guide to a bunch of Japanese visitors to the University, and demonstrate my lack of Japanese speaking skills
  
• Stressed out a lot about a conference paper that I was writing, but got it submitted, although revisions stressed me out as well.
  

2006 Q2

• A presentation by Romeo Dallaire (Canadian General in charge of the UN Mission to Rwanda)
  
• Group of Lantzes (and one DeRoo) came up to Toronto, and I got to hang out with them and play tour guide.
  
• Shipping container job both in town, and the installation down in Florida.
  
• A road trip to the east coast: the first leg was the Boston trip, including U5 and Rebecca’s wedding, and a variety of other social activities
  
• Continued down to New York
  
• Had some adventures on the way back from New York to Waterloo—feeling white and nerdy in Newark, NJ, and sleeping overnight in my car due to the flooding in Upstate NY.
  

2006 Q3

• A four-day work trip to Chicago, including a stop in Buffalo NY on the way home.
  
• A few days in Denver for work, and visiting Beemer and Julee
  
• Boston, for my former company’s summer seminar (Summer Camp); also got to hang out in town for a few days
  
• San Francisco, to give the presentation at a conference in Monterey, and see a bunch of folks
  
• I hit the two-year mark of living in Canada
  

2006 Q4

• Agony of thesis started to be felt for real, got writing, dominated this quarter.
  
• Parents came up to visit
  
• A weeklong trip to Georgia for my advisor’s consulting company
  
• Canadian Thanksgiving with Dan and Daniel
  
• Boston visit for a work meeting (work portion), followed by seeing folks fun portion.
  
• To Boston, Minneapolis, and New York for the holidays.