Blessed by the Potato

You have to learn to stop caring about saving paper when you’re writing a thesis. When you’re proof-reading a 117-page document, it’s nice to do it on paper rather than the screen, and double-spaced at that (if only because the final version must be double-spaced, and changing the spacing sometimes screws up embedded images or other things).

But tonight has just been ridiculous. I’ve burned 3 copies already: 1 came out with weird line spacing errors (so that some lines actually overlapped each other, and the whole thing had the wrong number of total pages). The next copy ran out of toner around page 15. It got into the 100’s before I stopped it and changed the cartridge (fortunately I knew that would happen to me tonight of all nights). With the new cartridge, I tried printing a few test pages (not sure if it would come out streaky at first or what). By entering page 6-10 in the print pages dialog, I ended up getting page vi through 10 (which, thanks to my introductory section going up to x ended up giving me about 16 pages). Those pages came out crooked, too — a very slight misalignment of the stack of paper I fed in that was somehow horribly magnified by the paper feeder. So, giving up on trying to print selected pages with the box in the dialog (since it seems to somehow use both the actual page number in the document, X/117, as well as the header number, i-x, 1-108), I just sent a whole new copy to print… and it just came out with no headers or footers. So now I have to think of whether I can salvage those hundred-some pages by feeding them through again to print the page numbers on the top (and nothing else), and I don’t think I can. In addition to the pain of setting up a document with just page numbers, I’d have to worry about aligning the pages, possibly changing their order… so another copy comes off the presses.

In addition to all this, I have the usual waste of paper associated with a properly formatted thesis: some sections (i.e.: figures) have to be vertically centred on the page, while the rest is aligned to the top like a normal document. Unfortunately, Word doesn’t play very nice about trying to set up seperate sections with different alignments, so we do it the old-fashioned way: after the whole thing has printed, we change the document to be vertically centred, and reprint the 20-odd pages that need it, and replace them in the copy.

As I burn through paper, I find that every pack of paper I bought has a slightly different brightness and opacity (the brightness is usually listed on the pack of paper, the opacity is not, though one would expect 20 lb paper of similar brightness (between 88 and 96) to have similar opacities…

So, it took a few hours and about 400 wasted sheets of paper, but I finally have my 4 hard copies (1 on bond paper) ready to take in to school tomorrow, where hopefully they will be approved without hassle so I can graduate and get them bound.

As I said in the comments of my last post, I passed my master’s defense with relative ease. Now I just have a few corrections to make to my thesis and I’ll be done completely, and can move on to my PhD.

That also means that it’s time to start my diet/exercise program in earnest. I’m not off to a very good start — I only went for a 10 minute walk today, and had a large pizza for dinner. I don’t feel too bad though, since it’s still celebratory, and since they were very late with it (they hadn’t even started by the time I got there to pick it up) they knocked the price down to $8 and gave me cheddar cheese without me even asking (I actually didn’t mind the wait — I wasn’t in a hurry and used the time to extend my walk with a lap around the block). Bonus!

The celebration weekend for the MSc was all right — we had some last-minute drop-outs for health reasons (Shubh’s mom and Dimple’s reluctance), and a good chunk of the party left first thing Sunday and missed some good eats and cards. The whole thing made me feel kind of old though — the latest I stayed up was 2:01 am, and that was a pretty sad sight at that point. Must be the coke withdrawl (I think I only had 6 the whole weekend).

More good news than my own was shared though — Reggie announced his engagement and showed off what 4 month’s salary will get you these days (yes, for a diamond it was pretty big and sparkly, but I still have trouble believing that that much money goes into finger ornamentation that doesn’t even tell time or shoot laser beams). Plus, Joce brought her latest boy toy/legitimately serious boyfriend to show off (though I don’t think he was entirely comfortable stranded in the wilderness with a bunch of old men who might die and stink up the joint before the ambulance could arrive should any sort of fatty-food related coronaries occur).

When I got home, I found a letter from my landlord saying they were going to come in today to change the toilets and showerheads to new water saving ones. I won’t be sad to see the toilets go (which are the original ’62 fixtures) since they don’t work any better than devilish no-flow ones do… but that showerhead is a classic. It doesn’t have a ton of settings, and it doesn’t need them. It has one setting that just simply gets the job done. My shower here has the best water pressure of any shower I’ve ever used. My parents used to have a similar no-nonsense showerhead, but replaced it some years ago for a detachable one with a hose, and showering at home hasn’t been the same since. It has a ton of settings, which can basically be summed up as “useless spray, wide useless spray, narrow useless spray, wide gentle dribble, single stream dribble, single stream high powered massage, and three stream pressurized shower” — of which, only really the last one is of much use for getting shampoo out of your hair, though the effective rinse area is pretty small.

Anyhow, I didn’t sleep at all last night because I hate the thought of someone coming into my apartment while I slumber, so I got up at 9 and waited for them on the couch… and fell asleep and snoozed right through until almost 2. Around 4, they dropped off another letter saying they won’t be here until tomorrow (Tuesday, so today as I post this). I’ve got a bunch of stuff that requires going in to the hospital tomorrow, so I’ll have to let them do it without me here (which is a shame — I was going to try to save my showerhead).

My allergies have been pretty bad this year. That’s the problem with Wayfare: not only does she have crazy, ridiculously over-sensitive allergies, but she also spreads them to everyone around her. It sounds nuts, and I didn’t believe her when she said she gave her strawberry allergy to her best friend in high school… except I used to only have fall allergies (ragweed), which are mostly itchy eyes… but I’ve been pretty damned sneezy the last two springs, too. Plus I gained a mouse allergy (but that can also happen just from working with them as much as I have).

I think that’s about it for tonight.

I’m optimistic about tomorrow (technically today now). I think it will go well. I know my shit, at the PhD level if not the master’s. My presentation is reasonably polished. I know the two or three things I inevitably forgot to do, and I don’t care.

I had a great practice run of my lecture this afternoon. A little too good — I don’t think the actual talk will be that good or that smooth, but as long as it’s close, it will be fine. I’ve spent the last bit of tonight not worrying. I made some cookies for my committee, I cleaned up a bit more.

Optimism is a bit of a strange feeling for me (though I do have times where I’m hopelessly so). I just hope it’s not a sign of over-confidence.

Wish me luck tomorrow (today), and the next time I post, I should have some extra letters after my name!

Let’s do this.

Well, a year of thesis writing and working from home (and being sick and not giving a damn) has really taken a toll on my room. It is, I think, the messiest home office I’ve ever seen. I should qualify that statement: it’s the messiest where the mess is relatively sanitary (for those people blessed with the special gift of not fearing food and bugs on the ground, they have the ability to make things far worse).

While writing I’ve wanted to have a large number of papers handy to reference, and while reading I’ve been too lazy to file them away properly, so I’ve been stacking them nearby… which has lead to a massive buildup of papers on virtually every surface, but particularly the floor. Now with tax season in full swing, I’ve brought out all my financial records and have them strewn about so that not only have I run out of floor space to walk on, I’m even building piles on top of my keyboard (one keyboard is completely covered, the other is only experiencing some fringing clutter along the F-keys).

So, with my presentation done, my review paper submitted to the journal, and nothing but stress between now and Friday, I decided to do some cleanup.

“Some cleanup” hmmf, it sounds so oridinary and mundane. I did a monumental cleanup, clearing clutter of epic proportions — the clutter to end all clutter. Hell, I deserve a degree just for getting all those papers in some kind of logical order! Not to dimish the hard work and knowledge put into my MSc, but damn, that shit’s got to be worth a 2-year college diploma of some sort! At the very least a certificate with some nice calligraphy.

Actually, that might not be such a good idea, since if I fail to hang said certificate on my walls immediately, it may sit in a corner somewhere, and serve as a nucleus for the condensation of more clutter.

I’ll post some pictures shortly (well, not that shortly, it’ll probably wait until next week), until then you’ll just have to imagine suddenly having all this walking space on the floor open up. Combined with the offensively pleasant spring weather (it’s so pleasant it’s just all up in your face about how really really nice it is, taunting me with its severe mildness, letting me know that weather like this only comes along two or maybe, if I’ve been really good, maybe three times a year) it makes me want to stay in and go for a long walk around my apartment.

Anyhow, for my PhD I think I’m going to reinstate my no-taking-work-home rule that worked so well for the first 3 months of my masters. It’s going to be hard with a summer start, since my air conditioning is so clearly superior to the one at the hospital, and I’m going to have a lot of writing to start with…

Greetings loyal readers. I want to give you fair warning that this post will contain what is for many people too much information.

You’ve been warned.

Seriously now, I’m going to talk about my pee in a bit, so skip this post if that bothers you…

Ok, so I was at my parents’ for the day, and my dad is still recovering from chemo, so there are a ton of mega vitamins around. A bottle for a multi-B vitamin, some giant vitamin C pills, some vitamin E & D tablets, as well as some echinacea and other herbal junk… the only one missing was A, I think. I usually take a multivitamin at home (Flintstone’s :) since I don’t eat properly at all, but don’t actually seem to need much excess vitamins (I think my system really aggressively absorbs anything I put in it), but my parents only had these crazy grown-up ones. So, I took an individual C, D, and E vitamin, each of which was easily twice the size of my combined multivitamin.

Then, I got a sugar craving, and there wasn’t much sweet in the house. I had to get lunch and money too, so with 3 trips I could justify taking the car (rather than walking, don’t know why I was feeling so lazy, the weather was gorgeous) and got cash, a sub, and stopped at the pharmacy for some snacks. What I really wanted was a pack of Runts, but they didn’t have any. Their whole candy section was depressingly low on stock. I saw some sugar-free hard candies and figured they’d be kind of close to Runts (they were hard and fruity, and that’s how sad the candy section was), and I figured they wouldn’t draw as much flak from my parents (who really want me to stick to my diet since I look like crap).

They tasted pretty good, actually — they were sweetened with a combination of Splenda (sucralose) and another artificial sweetener that I’ve forgotten. There were only 3 flavours, all sour citrus (lemon, lime, and grapefruit) but none of them were overly tart, the sour was very subtle. After I ate about half the package I started to feel really ill and bloated. The stupid things gave me terrible gas pain and I started burping like crazy — so loud once that I scared the dog! Despite all the, er… pressure relief, the bloating was actually really painful/crampy.

That wasn’t all that fun, and I remembered why it was that I distrusted all manner of bizzare, expensive replacements for sugar. Going to the washroom later (I told you there’d be pee) I noticed that my urine was a crazy shade of neon yellow: it looked pretty much just like Moutain Dew. Ever since I had my kidney stone I have to check pretty much every time I go to the washroom to make sure I’m not too dehydrated (or cloudy, or bloody, which is always fun because sometimes when I was passing the stone the pee would be bloody before it really hurt, so I’d see it and be like “oh, shit, this is going to really fucking hurt in a second” and then it would, though most often the blood was actually from the previous round of pain). So I see this and immediately start to worry that the sucralose has somehow made it out of my bloodstream through my kidney, and that no good could possibly come of that.

Turns out it was due to the other thing I ate at my parents’: the B-vitamin complex. It had way, way more vitamin B2 than my body could use in a day, and the excess is naturally expelled by the kidneys and turns your urine freaky bright yellow. Thank goodness for Google, with my history I could have hypochondriacated my way into an emergency room for that one!

PS: I hearby coin “hypochondriacated” as a verb, and you must pay me a dime every time you wish to use it.