School and Such
Its been a while! Quite a while….
Life has been pretty busy lately. For those of you who aren’t aware (I don’t know why you wouldn’t be, but I’ll continue anyway) I am currently enrolled in the Web Development program (well technically now its called Internet Applications and Web Development because they decided to change it for some reason) at Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario.
Yes, its quite a ways away from home, but as I’m sure most of you are aware, I was born in Ontario and lived in Ontario until I was 13. This is the longest I’ve been in the province since then. But, I had never been to Oshawa before, in my life so it was still a new experience for me. And driving in Ontario has been quite the experience too, since I learned to drive in the middle of nowhere in Northern Alberta, and got my driver’s license in less of nowhere in Southern Alberta.
With that said, I’m enjoying myself. For the most part. I’ve made a few friends. I’m not the best at making friends since I tend to be slightly anti-social at times, but I have met a few people that I really like.
Roommates
These people include my roommate. She’s pretty cool! I have to say she’s the best roommate I’ve ever had.
I liked the first roommates I had (Leandra, Dana and Eden) at Lethbridge College, but I didn’t stay with them. It was nothing personal against them, but an opening came up in the two bedroom suite, which was my first choice in residence so I took it, thinking it would be good for me with homewokr and such. I was correct, in that sense but the roommate situation, not so much. My roommate Katelyn was nice… as far as I could tell. She was always locked inside her bedroom and I rarely ever saw her. She hung out with me and my friend Cara once or twice but when we got back she went into her room and shut her door. The last day that she was there at the end of the year we went to Tim Horton’s for and ended up hanging out and talking for two or three hours. And it was fun but we don’t keep in touch. I did see her once in Lethbrige a few months ago and we talked for a few minutes but that’s it.
My roommate at Peace River Bible Institute was pretty cool. I like her too and we got along pretty well but we didn’t really hang out much.
But my roommate here in Oshawa I get along with really well. We seem to be a lot alike in personality, but in a good way. We haven’t gotten into any fights or anything yet lol. We seem to like the same TV shows, so we don’t fight over the TV at all. She watches it more than I do though, which doesn’t bother me at all. She even has relatives in Alberta too, and she’s been there, which is cool. I like her. Like I said, best roommate I’ve had!
Classes
My classes have been pretty good so far. Some have been fairly boring for me though, but only because I’m not actually learning anything. Well, I am, but I’m not. lol.
Mathematics for Computing
Fairly easy class. Learning things that I will definitely use. Remember things that I don’t remember how to do from high school math. And by “remembering” I mean that I’m remembering that I learned them but I don’t remember how to do them. Luckily, this class isn’t a normal math class. Its been described as being like an intro to programming class. We cover, briefly, some math concepts, and then we switch over to how to do them as if we were using them in JavaScript, rather than regular math.
Vector Graphics
This class is all about Adobe Illustrator. Definitely learning things in this class. Although, I took a graphic design class in Lethbridge, it didn’t cover as much about Illustrator as we’ve done in this class. I have a gigantic assignment due in a couple weeks where I have to recreate a company logo. Some how I got sucked into doing the Firefox logo. Its one of the hardest ones to do apparently, and I’ve already seen that. I started on it last week. All I’ve done so far is outlines but I don’t know what to do with half of it. Its very complicated.
Interface Design I
The instructor for this class is ridiculously hard to listen to! He’s extremely mono-toned and even more quiet. This class has been somewhat repetitive for me from a class I took in Lethbridge, so sometimes I don’t pay attention. I try, but its really hard.
Communication Essentials
Fancy name for English. I tried to get credit for this class but failed in that attempt. This is the third post-secondary English I’ve been forced to take so I’m doing pretty good in it so far. I’m a terrible writer. I’m fully aware of that. I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words. Or sometimes coming up with topics. I’m fairly good with grammar and spelling and such though so I have a pretty good mark so far.
Digital Imaging I
This class is all about Photoshop. Also, repetitive for me. Bigger projects though.
Extensible HTML
Obviously title, if you know anything about anything related to website design. So far the easiest class in this program, for me, because not only have I learned about it in college previously, I’ve been working with HTML for about 8 years. Most of my knowledge is self-taugh, but I got the basic understanding of it in a computer programming course I took in Junior High. We’re just starting to get into CSS, barely. Which is something else I’ve known for a while, but its all self-taught, and some things I picked up at LC.
Work
On top of my school work-load, I also have a part-time job. I transferred from Michaels, The Arts & Crafts Store in Lethbridge, Alberta to the one in Oshawa. I’m currently working way more hours than I should be too. I do need to talk to my manager about that but I’m going to see if I can make it past mid-term stress (which is happening right now) and maybe it won’t be too bad. I might have to ask for less hours though.
Anyways, I should probably get back to my homework. I finally finished my Photoshop project that’s due tomorrow but I have an XHTML assignment due on Friday night and a group project for Interface Design due on Tuesday and I have to work tomorrow night, Friday night and Saturday. And with my luck, probably Sunday too but I haven’t seen next week’s schedule yet.
That’s all for now.
Peace.
… ok did I really just say that…? I never say “Peace”… Weird.
P.S.
Oh yeah, an update on my friend Chris Craigman: he unfortunately did not make the top 16 of the MuchMusic VJ Search 2.0. But he totally would have made an awesome VJ!