Post Industrial Brambles

I really don’t get why graduate students can’t give understandable presentations. I just sat through fifteen presentations and gave two. Most of the presentations were completely incomprehensible and I don’t understand why. Most of the students can speak reasonably coherently. The topics covered are no more difficult than the topics the professor discusses in class, especially since the presentations will generally just give an overview and not go into the minute details. Yet, most of the presentations I’ve experienced in last two weeks were an exercise in twiddling my thumbs and checking the time. I guess once you get to grad school, your speech circuits fuse.

I was picking my winter courses this week. My advisor started laughing when I said I want to take two courses. This should have been a hint, but me being stubborn and all we picked the two courses and off I went.

Then I looked at my schedule and realised that I would have to be away from work 9 hours a week during the prime meeting season (11 to 3, Mondays through Wednesdays). It was obvious that something had to go, but at this point I was still too stubborn to take full responsibility for the decision. I run this by my manager who was too nice to say anything but was obviously against it. He run it by my team leader who politely told me that he would prefer if I only took one course.

Though at this rate I will not graduate until the cows come home, I am relieved to only be taking one course. Two courses a semester are a lot of work and I end up being spread pretty thin. I am still annoyed at the fact that the courses are offered at such ridiculous times, though.

In any case, I am taking a CS course on Formal Software Development. My advisor said that the prof giving this course is good so I am looking forward to it. But first, I have to get my current courses done and over with. Ahoy!

As evidenced (well apart from my address that Chris erased for internet safety reasons) I just got a letter from PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario) with my name followed by P.Eng. I have yet to figure out what good this’ll do apart from having a pretty plaque to hang on my cubicle wall.

On a related note, I have become more professional by purchasing a watch.

While this seems, and indeed is, trivial to most people, it is a big deal to me. The last time I wore a watch was so long ago the watch was covered in construction tape and had pseudo-ideological slogans written on it.

I’ve been checking Laibach website for tour dates for over a year now so it is little surprise that we’ve driven to Montreal for the concert at Cafe Campus this Monday and even less surprise that we’ve had a blast.

In format the concert was very similar to the last one we’ve been to in ’97 at Foufs. Laibach has been around for almost 25 years, so I was not expecting anything new. However, I found this concert better than the last one and here are some of reasons:
* I am more familiar with the band and their music then I was in ‘97, which will make any concert more enjoyable
* They seemed to have spent more money on this one. The lighting was impeccable and big, the movie was projected to the entire wall rather than little square spot like last time and they brought the Laibach chorus girls with them
* Last time we were in the balcony so we a) did not get the full frontal thing which makes a difference at a Laibach concert and b) did not really see the keyboard player which is another cool thing about the Laibach concert

The keyboard player could have carried the concert by himself, except the front man did the job way too well. And then the chorus girls came in and the whole thing got taken to a new level.

Some other tidbits from the concert include:
* The opening band The Bonfire Madigan was cool.
* Before Laibach came on stage there was a light show with Blue Danube blasting – very well done.
* During the “Now You Will Pay” there was a looping video of a door, I thought this was clever. Other videos were probably clever too, but I wouldn’t know.
* I actually got my act together before everything was sold out and gone (well, asked Chris) to get T shirt and CDs (signed) from both bands. Usually by the time I decide that I want to buy the CD or a T-shirt the vendors are long gone or are selling some leftover junk that isn’t even from the band and nobody in their right mind would want.
* Our old Dark Wave Nights crew was at the concert so we got to catch up with Rachie, Evil Dr Go and Mr Black.
* The class that I cut in order to go to Montreal for the concert ended up being cancelled.

Some fun facts about my latest musical acquisition I by the Magnetic Fileds:

- there are some kick ass songs on this album. Some songs fall flat, but are supported by a number of good ditties.
- there are string instruments hacked into the music which makes it more fun
- some songs are quite sad, but appropriately so
- lyrics are interesting
- the music borrows from a number of musical genres. The fun is figuring out which. So far I’ve discerned proto goth, waltz, lounge among others.
- I’ve had the album for a week now and I am still not sick of it

It is the beginning of November and the point in the semester where light panic is starting to settle in at the bottom of my stomach. I have the following deadlines:

SYSC 5207
Nov 15th – Assignment #2
Nov 15th – Presentation (15 min)
Nov 22nd – Project part I
Dec 9th – Exam
Dec 17th – Project part II

SCI 5174
Nov 25th – Presentation (20 min)
Nov 25th – Assignment #3
Dec 6th – Exam

Oh yea, and I have to be able to run my software in production on November 13th for work. So I will be a bit nutty for the next 7 weeks. Then I will have a nice holiday and sign up for another two classes in Winter. I guess the nuttiness is more or less constant.

*”Straight to you”, NickCave and the Bad Seeds