During the past week, bent under the weight of multiple problem sets, we (Bob, Kim, Calden, Kari, Nicole, Sara, 'Henrì,' Niels [all of them] and others) devised a new system for qualifying the immense injustice of the work we've brought on ourselves. For those not familar, we're in Engineering Science, known to Arts & Science students at the University of Toronto as 'the hard one' and to other engineers as 'suicide' or just 'haha.' In short it's a program that looks very advanced and edifying on paper, makes for great bragging and only adds eight months of grief to your $8000 …

Well, it's Thanksgiving, more than a month already into the Fall term. I think it's fair to say I'm staying afloat so far, but I'm not sure if I'm up to the 80%+ standard I've set for myself. Still, I feel like I'm doing a much better job staying on top of all the assignments, labs, problem sets, and midterms (already!). Time is still short for fun and games.

Random stuff:

• I've started reading War and Peace. I'm on p. 140 of ~1500, but it's surprisingly easy reading so far. I think people are just easily intimidated by large books …

Hooooooooo boy. Things are getting busy. Here's what's up:

• The Iron Dragons have gotten approval for sponsorship to buy a full team set of PFDs and get them screening. We are going to look hardcore badass next year - and I mean moreso than previously.
• School's started - studying and problem sets out the wazoo. I'm happy to report that I haven't failed to hand anything in - yet - and I'm actually understanding the math. Aerodynamics in particular is a fascinating course, PDEs is horrid, and the prof for Control Systems lectures at lightspeed. About all these more later. Honour roll, here I …

…is how bad news comes - or is it good news? Anyway, it turns out I was struck by both a dead motherboard AND defective RAM. Figuring this out involved a lot of time and grief, which I'm thankful is over - EXCEPT for the fact that the HD with my 80 GB music collection and most of my IM received files has tanked. It's under warranty, but it'll be hell and a half downloading it all again.

Make no mistake, though - I intend to!

Now Playing: Nothing.

In the spirit of total disclosure:

…I mean, two. I move back into residence tomorrow, for my third year of Engineering Science and my first in the Aerospace option. The summer isn't ending on a good note; rather things have ramped up from manageable through busy to crazy, and might stay that way for some time. To those who've asked if I'm free for social events in the next week, I've been forced to say "Thanks, but no thanks" (Except for F!rosh Nite, 9:00PM Wednesday 7 September at the Guvernment, which everyone in the city should attend). Once again, there's no easing into the …

I'm doing Aerospace Engineering in school, for the last two years of a four year degree, and hopefully for a 12-16 month co-op term between third and fourth year. For the uninitiated, that's more or less your cliché "rocket science." But, let us be clear, I probably won't work for NASA, and I'm not going to be an astronaut in the conventional sense.

Although there are many fascinating things happening on the "-space" side of aerospace engineering (development of the CEV and a possible Sino-European shuttle, probe robotics, etc.) I'm more interested in the "aero-" bits. Here's why:

First, I …

I now have a homebrewed MySQL/PHP booklist which I'm very happy about. I'm still debugging a script to display a database of my favourite poetry. The background changes every couple minutes but is still buggy - remember kids, X mod Y occasionally yields zero; make sure you're zero-indexed. Ahem

Now Playing: Millencolin - Kingwood - 11 - Mooseman's Jukebox

I won't even bother covering everything I've missed. If it's important to the context in the future I'll fill in the details. It's a good policy: no playing catch-up just to make myself feel better. Work on what's important!

I stumbled across this recently. It's a well-considered and -supported solution to one of the many facets of institutional disorganization that bothers me about U of T. You'll note that every single organiziation and body within the university, every college, department, institute, and administration group has a different layout. Many of these feature poor design; some make me nauseous. Even the …

What is this shit?

Now Playing: Hallucinogen - The Lone Deranger - 06 - Gamma Goblins Part 2

What's new, let's see. Aside from dragon boat and running, which are going strong, everything else is in a sort of limbo. This includes the job situation (I had an interview Monday with Design Shelter, but I won't hear back until "later this week or early next"), my summer reading/studying plans, and various other things it would be impolitic to talk about.

Speaking of politics, reading the paper every morning is becoming increasingly depressing. There are always signs of hope in national and world news, but inevitably they're cautious promises for the future, and outweighed by the glaring bad …

"I am a consumer whore!" "And how!"

Justin's party was quality - we played some unconventional football, including a faked broken leg and the most spectacular fumble ever. Dad's famed nacho dip went over well. Jeff's was equally awesome, although I ended up doing quite a bit of chauffeuring, since I wasn't drinking. The hot tub was excellent, and I got to watch drunken antics, for once, instead of perpetrating them.

The Nike 10 km run went fairly well - I beat my target time of 45 minutes, finishing in 44:11. Photos forthcoming as soon as the Nike photographers get their …

I Googled myself today, for fun (?…!). For Paul Kishimoto the top 5 matches actually refer to me. In quotes, 80 results show up, not all referring to me. My sister Marla Kishimoto doesn't give any relevant results - in quotes, there's nothing at all. A plain search for Kishimoto turns up my cousin Laura in about 130th position, and me. about 230th. Perhaps I should aspire to be at the top; perhaps that's hugely nerdy. We'll see.

Intermediate Salsa started today - I'm both proud and ashamed that I'm good at it. I don't seem to have forgotten much since November or …

In yet another effort to be beholden to noone besides myself (and perhaps Dave) I've moved my blog here from Blogger. It's not that I feel Blogger isn't great, or better than LJ; it's only that WordPress was too shiny to resist, and two places online beats two.

The old theme complete with shiny backgrounds stolen from SXC and mind-numbing blackness will return as soon as I can figure out how to make WordPress look that way.

Bob, Brian, Cole and I all got back into Innis for next year - along with Kim, Nicole, Trisha, Brian C and a whole …

I need a damn job, to post more in my ample free time, to register for my races, and to make some sort of a decision before the many-headed rebound hydra I've created rears up and bites me, or grows yet larger. But for now, wrapping a Mother's Day gift, downtempo music, then bed.

Now Playing: Air - Moon Safari - 08 - Ce Matin La

Who'd have thought I've got so much stuff? I've spent most of the past week cleaning. I've cleaned my room, including unpacking, filling two large boxes with old books and Popular Science magazines (1992-2002!), two more with old clothes I never wear, and sorting through this year's schoolwork. Lots of stuff for charity. I seem to have been more organized this year; only one 3" binder and four notebooks for the whole year, as opposed to two 3" and one 1" for 2003-2004.

Also, I've purged the basement of a lot of old computer stuff. Unfortunately computer recycling seems to …

I really like this album. Sam Roberts seems to have the right idea when he shouts "We will rise like a phoenix from the ashes" - it is something that should be shouted, not sort of…prayed. You know? "Life sucks right now, I hope I can somehow miraculously succeed" is not the tone that goes with the statement.

Is it pretentious to point out that there's only one phoenix?

…

I also like Every Part Of Me ("I can never bring them back but those days remain inside the very heart of me / My memories are white and black but the …

It's not strictly true anymore. Haha!

No, really - what I mean is that Flash music video that recently made the meme rounds. I've got this nagging idea that the audio is a parody of something else, or at least uses the tune of another less humorous song. Extensive Googling hasn't turned up anything - maybe I actually heard the same song, or perhaps they've just nailed that particular, rock-anthem style, thereby exemplifying every similar song I've heard.

Anyway I'd like a conclusive yea or nay. Any help?

I've got FOCUS in big red sharpie on a Post-It on my monitor, but it's only helping me sporadically. Tonight was a bit of a write-off; I printed off some past exams for Fluid Mechanics and went down to the Fish Bowl to study, but couldn't get into it because of

• Boorishly drunk first-years stomping down the hall,
• A rude couple gabbling at each other instead of studying, and
• Cute girls just sitting there being cute.

Seriously, I made errors in a triple integral. I never do that. </sarcasm> So it's one post and off to bed.

I'm not sure …

I think a good use of (relatively) cheap commercial space travel would be to send every head of state up for a good look at the planet. Some wouldn't want to go; some would be unfit to; some would merely retreat further into their hidebound ways - but from what I've read and heard, the majority would be shocked into a new perspective on our planet and the life on it. You can't see a flag waved from space; you can't see skin, you can't even see religious differences from a few metres away. What you can see is the beauty …