I Wish I Had A Half-Kitten, Half-Monkey

In the fine tradition of the pigeon-rat from The Simpsons, the janitor on Scrubs this week alluded to Leonard: half-kitten, half-monkey. Now where can I get me one of those?

I can’t believe how quickly these past couple of weeks have flown by. Sven and Mandy are now out in BC, hanging out for a bit before leaving for their teaching gig in Japan in a few days. Luckily we were able to get together beforehand. Last week Sven and I caught A Very Long Engagement at The Princess, where coincidentally enough his only other visit was to see another Audrey Tautou movie with me: Dirty Pretty Things. On the Friday night I went to Sven’s parents’ place with them, where we got in a final round of Mario Party 6 plus some other games.

The next day, Billie and Ryan came down from Ottawa to pick up a few things, so I mooched a ride with Sven that night and we went to London to visit with them. We (eventually) met up with them, Laura, and Deana at Laura’s place. Never rely on a girl’s schedule that involves a “quick” trip to the mall. We played some Trivial Pursuit (some sort of DVD version) before going to Billie’s mom place and breaking out Cranium (P-R-I-M-O edition … it’s a long story). Sven and I crashed there for the night. I got a ride back to Waterloo in the morning, but before Sven left town I made sure that he experienced at least one meal at Mel’s.

Once I got back to my place I watched an episode of Buffy (now onto season 4) before planning to take a nap and then getting down to some work. Well, I went to sleep at about 12:30 … and woke up a little over 6 hours later. I guess I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep the previous two nights.

Monday involved something of a field trip! I’ve spoken with one of my profs (Richard Cook, a great professor not to mention extremely helpful) a couple of times about job possibilities in the biostatistics field. He works regularly with the group from GlaxoSmithKline in Oakville, and since the pharmaceutical industry is high on my list of areas I’d like to work in, he invited me to a technical meeting he was attending there. I can’t talk about the content of the meeting, but it was very interesting. It was a good chance to get an in-person view of some of the problems they work on, as well as the organization of the biostats group. I spoke with a manager about some details of a coop position they have available, so I think I have a clearer picture of what would be in store for me in terms of starting out in the industry. Now if things were to work out with that coop job, it would alter the logistics of my graduation date; but experience seems to be the key and it would be an excellent opportunity and well worth technically delaying my graduation by a couple of terms. Well, we’ll see what happens. That’s just one possibility of many I’m looking at right now.

Of course there must be balance between work and fun. Putting aside thoughts of my career, I went to see House of Flying Daggers that night. The movie, and my first visit to the new Princess Twin, deserves a separate post.

I spent a lot of time this week getting myself organized in terms of school work. The end of the first month is a good time to review and summarize material, plus I want to be well positioned for the next round of assignments in the next week and a half. With job hunting and the research paper to worry about this term, I’d like to stay ahead of the game.