little things that matter

Friday, September 08, 2006

isn't it lovveeelllyy?

me now officially an MSc :o)

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

the end...?

i think this will unofficially be the last post on this blog. i've had this blog for 13 months, and finally have come to a point where i don't want to write in a blog anymore. it'll still be here at the same address, and in case something big happens, for example if i get married, then i may post an entry. if you've read anything of the blog so far then you'll know that that event will not happen anytime soon! ;)

bye bye all and thanks for visiting! :D

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

oh i wish i wish i wish..

...that i had straight hair! :( so i cut my hair again yesterday after like 5/6 months, and the hairstylist made it so beautiful and straight! but as soon as i came out of the air conditioned salon, i could feel the ends starting to turn. and by the time i walked home (simply cuz i didn't want to wait 25 mins for the bus), it had all gone wavy again :( made me sad. and after showering etc., I tried to recreate the straight head of hair, in vain. i just can't do it as well as the hairstylist. by the time i've finished with one side, the other side that was already done starts turning up. so disappointing. it's a cut that works with the curl as well, but i want it straight-straight. no fair :(

in the last 2 1/2 weeks, i've been to the gym once. very sadly, i can see myself not going anymore. i even packed my bag to go today, but my stupid data's been giving me trouble and not computing with the stats software that i'm using. the dangers of using a small data set is slowly but surely becoming apparent. i was supposed to get my analyses done this week, and write up chapter 5 next week. at least chapter 4 finally got the thumbs up from both profs!

my money situation is going downhill everyday. i don't know how i end up spending almost all my monthly earnings before i even earn it! well, my rent is almost one bi-weekly paycheque, but i've been consistently eating into my savings, whatever meagre amount there is of that. not a good thing. i really need a job that pays better than my research assitantship, and soon.

why can't we have salon-beautiful hair all day, everyday?

Thursday, July 06, 2006

5 outta 10 :)

i'm getting lazy, so my update will be an excerpt from an email to my dad. it might be a bit out of context since my dad already knew abt my trip, but my blog readers didn't. it's better than no update at all.

"Came back yesterday [Tuesday] from a trip which took us to New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. So now I've seen 5 of the 10 provinces! It was a pretty exciting trip, but most of the time it rained, which was a bit disappointing. We didn't go to any of the cities, and in Nova Scotia we were up north, so nowhere close to Halifax. [This reference is there because my dad wanted me to visit someone in Halifax.]

In New Brunswick, we went to the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tide in the world. 50-foot tides come into the bay, twice a day. When we were there, we went all the way to the water, and saw the tide actually creeping in. It was a really cool feeling, but kind of hard to explain! [Insert is the bay at the village of Alma, which is where we saw the tide come in.]

Other than that, we saw the Cabot Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands of Nova Scotia, which is a beautiful mountainous/coastal drive in the north of Nova Scotia. If you Google (Images) Cabot Trail, then you can see some pictures of the road. It was absolutely stunning, but it was raining and cloudy most of the drive, so it was a bit sad. There's also places along this route from where you can go whale watching, and I really wanted to do it, but since the weather was bad, and we didn't have a lot of time, it wasn't possible this time. Maybe next time when I go to Nova Scotia or somewhere else on the Atlantic (or Pacific for that matter), I'll try to go whale watching.

The last interesting, yet scary thing, is that we saw a moose in the middle of the road on the drive back. Because it was at night, we didn't see it until we were about 5 feet close to it, and then had to swerve to avoid hitting it. The moose is one of the largest animals I have ever seen! It was at least about 10 feet high and was standing smack in the middle of the road, and didn't even move when the car braked and we went by it! It's extremely lucky and thanks to Allah, we are all still alive to talk about it. However, this is not for you to worry about because it was really something unpredictable, but only letting you know of this huge part of the adventure. All in all, it was an awesome trip!"

i guess the email mentions nothing about accomodation...talked to my dad about that on the phone today, actually...but basically we camped at night wherever we could find a campsite when it came time to call it a day. we spent a night in each province, and two nights were spent driving from and back to toronto. the night in PEI, we got totally soaked in torrential rains, and the night in nova scotia, we stayed in the tent in a thunderstorm! the first night at the fundy national park, we barely made it before they closed registration. it was basically a driving trip, but lots of fun. sad thing is, upon my return from the trip, i learnt about some seriously unnecessary drama going on in dhaka re: cousin's wedding. probably not worth mentioning on the blog because it has nothing to do with me, but i'm just kind of upset by the whole fiasco. just have to really wonder what ppl are thinking.

finding it terribly hard to concentrate on work, but that's not new!

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

of all things...

...my bus stop sign got stolen! well, it's technically not mine in the first place, it's the city's, but it's where i get off the bus when i cheat after gym and don't walk home! it's gone. it's been gone for two days. i called the guelph transit folks today and they said that that stop's still on the map and there hasn't been any re-routing, so somebody probably stole it! what's wrong with people...?! now i have to walk an extra five minutes even if i take the long route of the bus home...what's the point? i might as well walk the 20 mins from school. i'm pissed.

i don't know if i talked of this before, but i have an assortment of sizes of clothes in my closet. just in jeans alone, i have pairs that range from a size 6 to a size 11. and in other clothes, i have from size 6 to a size 12. i even have a pair of black dress pants which are a size 3, which i will never be able to wear again, but was able to wear quite comfortably abt 4 years ago. i should really donate that one, if nothing else...

i promise not to break the sacred one-line rule from here on. :D

Monday, June 26, 2006

chores and more chores

i just vacuumed the apartment after something like a month. well, the vacuum was broken for 2 weeks in that month anyway. the house is clean, but the stairs outside still have a whole lot of leaf litter....from fall! i guess i should clean that too, but just haven't gotten around to it. maybe later on today since i have very little to do today.

speaking of leaf litter, it's interesting how bad leaf litter can smell. to start with, the crap that's accumulated outside on my stairs rot and emit a nasty smell when it's wet and rainy for a few days. maple trees shed some form of buds or something in the spring when the leaves are starting to come out, and because there are sooo many lovely maple trees along the route which i use to walk to school, i have to be party to the smell these buds (or whatever they are) give off as they sit for a day or two. it smells like pee. and recently these other trees around the neighbourhood and also allllllll over campus have started shedding something else, and that smells like dog breath right away. a day or two in, they start to smell like cow manure. i don't know what these trees are, but they're everywhere. really, everywhere. very hard to avoid this dog breath/cow manure craziness.

i didn't get a call back after my interview. so i'm supposed to call today to follow up. i'm scared of the phonecall cuz i have a gut feeling that the news isn't gonna be good. all i did was think about this interview for days before it, and for a day after, and then i just totally forgot abt it as if what happened in light of it was inconsequential. i don't really even want to make this phonecall...it's fine if i don't get a second interview, which is what's gonna happen anyway....so why do i have to hear it on the phone?!

watched da vinci code this weekend...thought it was really good. gotta read the book.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

after a long hiatus

finally have something to talk about. this morning, i had a job interview with one of the big four audit companies and almost didn't go. i've been preparing for this interview for the last three days (and nights), but since last night i was getting so ansy, headachy, and nauseous that i just didn't want to go this morning. but that would obviously mean my chances of ever getting in with this particular firm would be over even before i gave it a chance. so i got up, showered, and made the rush-hour subway journey to downtown toronto. which stressed me out no end. i'm not used to riding the subway at rush hour...and seeing the hordes of people waiting at the platforms, and inside the trains...it's madness! and if i work in toronto i have to do this every single day. at that point, i was almost ready to get off and go back.

after getting all wound up, i reached the offices in the financial district, and just happened to be about 15 minutes early, which kind of gave me some time to nurse my frayed nerves. when time came for the interview, somehow all the nerves had vanished...i'd even forgotten that i'd had them. from my perspective, the interview went well. the interviewer was young, and since he was an HR guy, there wasn't a lot of technical questions to answer. and he had the bluest eyes i've ever seen. it's a surprise i didn't flirt with him, now that i think about it.

possible deal breakers if i don't get a call back for a second interview: 1) i fidgeted non-stop. i guess this is a sign that all the nervousness didn't go away...even though i was answering the questions confidently (or so i thought), i was fidgeting with my fingers everytime he was going into an explanation of anything. 2) i don't know if i made a good first impression on the receptionist....she thought i was an intern, i.e. she didn't regard me with much confidence/respect. 3) i think i said "stuff" way more than was necessary. 4) i had a hard time explaining to my interviewer that i was interested in working for a big business like theirs because of my choice of graduate studies. why did i want to do this stupid natural resource economics again?! 5) i think i repeated too much of the same stuff over and over (i said stuff again) and pointed out negatives that i didn't have to because he didn't ask about them. too much disclosure. this is what happens when you prepare too well for an interview.

hmm, after saying all those things, i can't help but wonder whether the interview went well. i think i had a similar feeling in my last face-to-face interview, and that one indeed hadn't gone well since i never got the offer. oh man.

well, that's my little story for the day. need to remember to send a thank you note.