Oh I hate the TTC and its countless, lazy and overpaid employees too! If you read my previous blog, which you probably haven’t, then you’ll know what I mean.

Reasons:

1) The Service stinks: I think this pretty much says it all. They’re slow, break down and there are constant delays. I especially hate it when I wait ages for a bus and then suddenly pack of them come along. What’s worse, is when they’re all express and I’m at a local stop.

2) Employees are overpaid: Read this. I don’t care how hard or long this man worked; working in a ticket booth does not warrant $100 000. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not him I’m mad at. If I were him I’d do the exact same thing. Money is money.

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Before I delve into my bickering of the endless idiots I run into on the TTC; I just have to say whoever named the TTC “The Rocket” is also an idiot.

Here are 8 of my TTC pet peeves:

1. People putting their bags on an empty seat. It’s okay when there are a few people but not okay when it’s 9 in the morning and people are barely awake.
2. People standing in front of an empty seat, which is bad because a) you are blocking people’s view of the empty seat, preventing someone else from sitting in it and b) you’re taking up more space by not sitting, douchebag.
3. People standing by the doors, as if there are no other places to stand and that they must block your way as you try to leave.
4. People continuing to wear their backpacks in a train full of people rather than setting them down on the floor. Doing this takes up so much space.
5. Guys (yes it’s only guys I’ve seen do this) sitting with their gigantic legs so far apart they take up one extra seat on either side of them.
6. People lean on posts when other people need to hold on to them.
7. People yapping loudly, especially a group of immature teenagers, and especially on the phone… Okay this one I don’t mind too much but when I’m tired, it is really annoying.
8. The bus driver tells people to move down but they don’t.

I mean is it really all that hard to be considerate? I can admit at times I can be inconsiderate myself like failing to give up my seat to an elder, which I am truly ashamed of and which is why I often sit in the back of the bus.

Just three weeks before the end of the fall semester, I have come to the realization that I haven’t done any productive work outside of school since the start of classes.

As a first-year student, I naturally had many plans to do extra-curricular activities over the summer. French Club. The Varsity newspaper. Engineering Toastmasters. Engineers Without Borders. The Blue & Gold Committee (a spirit group for engineers). The Engineering Society, Academic Committee. The Engineering LEGO Club.

Tons of plans, but they’ve fallen through due to:

1. Time commitments. Toastmasters ends at 10pm on Thursdays, when I am often staying up late completing PHY180 lab write-ups. I also have limited time to begin with because the commute eats up 3 hours each day. LEGO Club… well, meetings are also on Thursdays, and I guess doing error analysis calculations is more feasible than constructing a house made of LEGO bricks.
2. Lack of response from group executives. I’m serious – I signed up for a gazillion clubs during the UTSU and Engineering Clubs’ Fairs, but have only been e-mailed by a handful. And some have only e-mailed once, and never again. The only French Club meeting I’ve been to was their introductory brunch, which, incidentally, was delicious.
3. Laziness. I signed up for blogUT, knew I was going to blog the second I had something to say, and… kind of forgot about it.
4. In my defence, it was partly also due to shyness and decision-making. I was trying to come up with something interesting to talk about. Whatever was remotely related to engineering, I stuck the blog entry into the Online Design Journal I’m required to keep in preparation for one of my final exams.

Considering that all of my friends here at U of T are first-years in engineering, I haven’t been doing non-scientifically-related writing for a while now, and I am slowly losing my French skills, my inactivity is clearly something I should deal with.

Fortunately, I kept the last e-mail I got from blogUT, in my Inbox where I could easily see it. And I discovered that not only was the founder a former EngSci graduate, but there were posts, personal ones (i.e. not just artsy reviews or school events!) that could resemble what I’d write in any blog.

I decided not to write for the Arts section of the Varsity when I realized that they didn’t publish book reviews (plus my  reviews are generally outdated – a few months after the book’s release), and didn’t write for the Science section because they seem to expect up-to-date news from research conducted right at the U of T. The Cannon, the engineering newspaper, has never e-mailed me since I wrote my contact information on the sign-up sheet.

So much for trying to be connected to student life. I guess that’s how blogUT started, because it sure feels good to be blogging and just… doing something aside from problem sets and whatnot.

There has been a lot of fearmongering going around about the evils of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. I recently had a conversation with a friend where she brought up pretty much all of the usual objections, and we came up with some interesting conclusions as to why social media is… not evil.

Objection #1: Social media cheapens social interaction.

No, no it doesn’t. I’ve heard this one a lot, and it always makes my blood boil. Just because I tweet back and forth with someone I haven’t seen since high school does NOT mean that I put him on the same level as my best friend. Just because I like having people write on my wall does NOT mean that I am deluded into thinking that cyber-companionship is a substitute for the real deal.

Social interaction is just that, social. Letter-writing in 19th-century England did not help make upper-class society any less fake, and its absense today will not make ours any more fake. Social media helps us reconnect with people we haven’t seen in a long time, or find out more about people we know only casually, but there is no limit to how many people we can know or be in contact with at a given time; finding out more about one person does not magically cheapen our relationship with another.

Objection #2: Social media cheapens the value of communication.

Anyone who says this clearly hasn’t read Jane Austen. Writing a ten page letter does not make everything you write meaningful. This way, at least the nonesense people write is limited to 140 characters. Plus, it means that we don’t have to wait until we have 10-pages worth of information to share with our friends. We can give them real-time updates about the things we think are important, and they can respond, in real time. Social media also means that we can connect information in unheard-of ways. Instead of telling you that my friend’s sister’s husband’s daughter’s teacher thought Aroma was a good coffee shop, I can just link you to Lori’s review.

And, just like with relationships, updating Twitter won’t stop you from writing that Nobel-prize winning novel. (more…)

Before your brush this off as a Twilight-bashing or Twilight fangirl post, please be aware that neither of the reasons stated above are the purpose of this blog. However, I cannot promise neutrality as I read the first two books in a post-exam state of brain-deadness while the last two were read with the purpose of cynically laughing at the characters and plot. (You should ask me and my fellow friend and blogger, Ailsa, for our five minute skit of the entire series. We’ve made complete strangers laugh with it.)

Nonetheless, I’ve been wanting to explore this question for a while since I heard the following comment from one of my friends: “I know that Twilight is a horribly written series but Edward is the kind of guy I’ve always wished for.” Coincidentally enough, I was not surprised by her declaration; in fact, I always had a suspicion that this was the reason why the book had become so popular.

Although he is definitely not my cup of tea, I can somewhat understand how Stephanie Meyer’s readers would be attracted to the sparkling vampire. However, I feel that there are a few implications that are quite alarming in the fact that millions of girls and boys of all ages are obsessed with this handsome vampire. (more…)

So unless you’ve been living under a rock or have been busy helping NASA bomb the moon today, you should know that the Obamster has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Isn’t it amazing how the world seems to just be going down that downward spiral faster and faster these days? Personally, I’m loving all the commentary I’m hearing online, offline, on screen, on everywhere…nothing better than controversy that’s powerful enough to rile up the masses!

But seriously now, what’s going on here? Last time I checked, to win the Peace Prize, a person had to a) do the best work to encourage fraternity between nations b) abolish or reduce standing armies and c) hold and promote peace congresses. And so, Obama won the Peace Prize because? Because he’s the commander-in-chief of three wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and two other lower-scale ones in Africa and the Philippines? Because he’s given plenty of lofty speeches full of equally lofty promises? Because he’s apologized for America around the world? Because it is his fervent hope that peace will be achieved one day? Oh right! How could I have overlooked that?
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Now that I’ve seen all these posts on first years, I’d like to add to that mix and describe how it’s been in my third year at U of T so far.

This year is set to be the most challenging yet rewarding for me, I feel. I find my courses more difficult but definitely more interesting. I’ve fell asleep in only 1 of my lectures so far! Albeit it’s only been 2 weeks. Although I think I’ve made a little progress in terms of time management, discipline and hard work, and making a little more sacrifices here and there (i.e. less time at home and on Youtube = more time at library).

My first year was tough but second year was toughest for me since I slacked off even more. Trust me, first years, you don’t want to start slacking off after first year — it’ll only get harder to catch up! I’ve only started to learn how to study and it’s hard to get used to all that reading I must do before class. I used to not do any of my readings until right before the test, when there would be hundreds of pages to read.

I haven’t totally warmed up to U of T yet, though. (more…)