So my morning newspapers (I get the Vancouver Sun and The Province for free* on my way to school!) have informed me that there are 4 days until the Olympics. What they really mean is 4 days until the second most expensive extravaganza this month, the opening ceremony (the most expensive one being the closing ceremony). Which is weird, because I can still remember that ‘breaking news’ clip about when ‘Vahn-couver’ had gotten the 2010 Games. And did you know it’s incredibly warm in BC right now? It was bright and sunshiney all day. For the day of the opening ceremony (February 12th), there’s a low of 6°C. It feels like spring. I saw girls in skirts on campus, as well as people wearing flipflops, tank tops and very spring-ish wear. Me, personally, I was wearing a hoodie over a tank top and jeans and runners (which need to be replaced already, gah). Very spring-like weather, I rather like it. No wonder they’re having snow issues on Grouse Mountain.

I had a midterm today (boo) for my plants biology class. The nice thing is that my prof, S (whom we all call her by her first name, I don’t think anyone has referred to her, in class or lab, by her last name), wrote up a very fair test. I liked it. Mostly because the multiple choice (20 marks out of the total of 50) were incredibly easy! The essay topic (which was a bit of a bitch to do) was 20/50 as well and the remaining 10 marks came from easy-peasy short answer questions. Oh, and I also got to draw on my exam paper. “Feel free to include drawings on the back page if you feel that they are necessary for your answers or if you cannot get out of the row of seats you are in early.” I was part of the latter. I made the mistake of sitting in my regular spot, which is in the middle of the long row of seats (about 12, I think) and 5 rows from the front of the room (I counted one day, hush). And my row was full of people. And no one left early in my row. So I sat there, after having written my entire test and checked over everything at least three times, doodling on the back of my paper. I drew a plant and labeled it (and also put a caption saying that it was not a drawing related to any of the questions).

Why yes, I am a total dork. Thank you for realizing this.

I just need to get through this week. Only 3 more midterms (yeah, three more) between now and my two week break (which is, sadly, longer than my break between terms was!), which will be followed by two more midterms (1 lab midterm, 1 lecture midterm). Clearly, all my profs have gotten together to decide how to best torture their students.

On Thursday, I have a lab midterm from 9:30-10:30am. Then I have an evening midterm, 7:00-9:00pm that I could not get out of because my prof refused to let me write it the day before (my reason was that because I commute, I would not get home until nearly 11pm). And then on Friday (oh yes, the day after my miserable long day at school), I have a midterm at 8am. Which means I’ll get home at around 11pm, wake up at 5:30am and get to school before 8am to write another midterm.

And my father wonders why I don’t have enough time to talk to him anymore (well, that and whenever I try to talk to him, it turns into a lecture about how I’m not applying myself and how I should ‘only’ be applying to school A and not school B – because I should only want to go to school A – and then it ends up with me being in tears and me wanting to run away… but I try calling people and no one’s home/answering/has their cell phone on – yes, I’m talking about you <- not-so passive aggressiveness at its est, I know).

Hope everyone had a super-awesome-shiny Monday and an even better Tuesday!

* The free papers are sponsored by companies that get their advertisements on the very front page, above the headlining news. Lately it’s only been Olympic sponsors getting their advertisements everywhere – like I need to see a McDonald’s ad to know that they serve disgustingly oily, fried and oh-so-bad but oh-so-good (on a moderated) basis?

Photos taken by me in Chilliwack, British Columbia. I’m not from Chilliwack, I was definitely not the one doing all the driving, but I was (unfortunately?) helping with moving stuff (boxes upon boxes with labels like “kitchen stuff” and “bathroom stuff” and “living roomish stuff” – descriptive, no?). I stuck around for the torch relay and other festivities until I went home (and studied in the car, at home, etc.).

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So there’s this blog that I loved. Loved as in past tense. Why the change of heart of my opinion? Simple: guest blogging.

I know it’s kind of popular. People who want to get their name out there, get more links back to their own blogs will guest blog on someone else’s blog for a day. But this blog (which, ironically, is about blogging – platforms, niches, etc.) used to have like a guest blogger entry maybe once every few months. Now it’s every single day. Sometimes those days also include an entry from the actual person who runs the website, but more often than not, there’s a guest entry. Each entry is clearly labeled as being from a guest author – which is good, the person’s not claiming the work to be his own, but at the same time… I used to read his blog because of his writing and his witty commentary about blogging trends and whatnot. Not because of everyone else that wrote in guest entries for his blog.

I recently went through and whittled down the list of blogs that I have on my RSS feeds – I went from 119 to under 50. Among the removed RSS feeds were the blog with the annoying surplus of guest blog entries, a personal finance blog of a woman who always claimed about never being able to pay off her debts but funded several vacations in 2009 on credit and a blog about cupcakes (cupcakes!) where the authors stopped posting photos of their own work, and just started linking to Flickr accounts.

Did bloggers just get lazier, or is it just me?

Anyways… School’s been interesting-ish. A lot of construction going on, more thefts have been reported =/ There was a piece in my school’s paper where a girl said she took a nap in one of the libraries for ~20 minutes and when she woke up, her backpack was gone (containing her laptop, purse and a textbook). That thief certainly has guts doing that, especially since there’s security cameras and not a lot of places that don’t have other students around.