Missing Person in Fredericton

Sorry it had to end this way. You will not be forgotten.

Spontaneous thoughts from my night class.

So here I am, figuratively sweating my balls off (literally noticeably sweating from my forehead) in my three hour marathon night class at UNB with the prof whose name I can't yet pronounce and I find myself wondering "am I typing enough"? Do you know how uncomfortable these chairs are? Probably. Do you know how uncomfortably they are with a sweaty bum? Hopefully not. Frig, the guy to my left just looked at me, maybe I am typing too much now. Or maybe it's the sudden influx of typing that through him off. In his mind I went from barely awake to the most dedicated note taker in class. 
This class is pretty good, I mean the make up of it that is. The professor is foreign and mumbles so I am barely grasping half the stuff he is trying to express. Luckily he doesn't expect too much class engagement and whenever he does there are a couple of students who pick up the slack. Most notably the 38 year old eager woman in the front row who will offer a quick, casual yet wrong answer to most open ended questions. I mean yeah, she usually doesn't get it right but at least the prof feels like we're all listening because of her frequent participation. When she isn't up to the task or her self confidence is too belittled from being constantly corrected there are two or three others who snap out of their distant half-slumber to mutter a few words that are considered satisfactory.

Let's say that hypothetically you wrote a university level textbook and you somehow got a say in who were to teach your class, would you pick the most incomprehensible sorry sack to teach your class? Think about it, if half of the professors words are not English and the other half are spoken so softly that students are falling off their chairs to try and hear them then everybody would be flocking to the store to purchase your unreasonably expensive textbook.

Actually Mr. Fudd, we think you would be perfect for the position

You know what's super lame? Putting a picture of a roller coaster on a book called "Corporate Finance" ... really? Surely that's false advertising. There has to be some laws against that. I mean I understand that finances are involved in building a roller coaster but still.

Am I wrong to assume that graphs are universally similar? It amazes me how messy some professors can get from drawing graphs. You know when you're sitting in class and you're like "frig, what do I take down for notes here? I have no idea what's going on. Why don't I pay more attention" and then bam he picks up his marker and you're like aww hell yeah it's graph time. Everyone understands graphs, time to get back in the game. And you know it starts out tame enough, you start to get even more optimistic.

But this isn't grade school anymore champ. One lined graphs are a thing of the past and any real learnin' is done with the classic yet very simple double line graph. Also this be UNB so we can't afford several marker colors... yet

Oh and didn't we tell you? This is a scatter plot graph ... so let's add that in even though it's a bit late. 

That's when sanity takes the back seat. The Mozart track that symbolize insane craziness takes a predominant role as the disconnect between the pen hand and reality visibly increases. 

Finally, like a man who was out with family and volunteered as a subject to the sexual hypnotist exposition, the prof snaps back to common sense, embarrassed - possibly even in tears - and tries to save face "ahem ... yes so all that will be on the mid term. Let's close our books and I'll see everyone next week" 

Anyway ... I think I will end my rant here. Class has started to pick up, we're doing maths now so that's a bit more exciting ... to me anyway. 

To my fellow students, best wishes in your first month of classes. Make sure dem techas are learnin ya reel gud lol. 

September First (moving day)

September first is a big day for a lot of people, most notably Uhaul, because it is the end of the classic pain in the ass year lease. At this point in the year a lot of people are throbbing at the tip to release a massive load of built up troubles that come with welfare apartments. Yes, they will just be relocating from a dysfunctional stove to a broken fridge; a leaky sink to a leaky shower; a dark damp apartment to an unbearably cold/hot one. You can't win. Well you can, but not on the budget most of us are working with. Nonetheless, August 31st is move out day, where I say goodbye to all the friends I never made.

I didn't really have a great relationship with any of the other current tenants. Our next door neighbour borrowed some vinegar once but I wasn't home. I shoveled the car out for the old lady who lived upstairs. I feel like I have become best friends with the revolving door of tenants that live above us since all of them have communicated exclusively with the use of megaphones while riding their horses around on the hardwood floor. 

Over time, the neighbours across the hall and I did manage to bond over our love of thunder storms. At the crack of thunder we would both find ourselves on the front porch watching the free spectacle. Unfortunately she is one of the many taking off. 

But with the new batch of people there was only one goal: Making us more like this 

and less like this:

It doesn't look likely though. Moving in across from us is a mother and her teen son. I don't imagine either of them to be interested in socializing with us. Mind you I might take her son under my wing. I am sure she would appreciate that. If he wouldn't eat his Brussel sprouts (wow did not know that the B in Brussel sprouts is always a capital letter) he could come over and have some of my roommates Alphaghetti. I could even support him financially by paying 2 bucks every Sunday to clean my apartment (more than reasonable, teach him the value of a dollar). So while there are opportunities there, it won't be much like Friends. Maybe I can push him towards writing that novel of his though

Mela, the older lady next door who so kindly and unknowingly provided us with Internet service the first 3 months of our lease, was staying put - further hindering the "Friends" dream that I had going. That left only one apartment to be filled (well, there are eight other apartments on higher floors, but I have never been up there and really don't plan on it).

I haven't actually met them yet, so there is still some hope. But they did show up with a massive moving truck this morning. Like ... not a U-haul attached to the back of a car, but literally a "we're packing up and going across the country" truck. And professional movers too. I feel like they haven't seen the place yet. I think they just saw the price and the word "spacious" and said "Yep. Perfect, just what we're looking for, sign it. No we don't need to see it, as long as it's spacious". They will be quite disappointed when they finally show up.

Okay, just put hot tub on top of the kitchen table.

Hopefully they will realize they have too many things and turn out backyard into a play area with a fooseball table and a BBQ. That would be awesome. 

As for us, well we're staying put for the year. Didn't want to deal with that hassle of moving. Just kept all our stuff in one place, nominated ourselves as ambassadors of the basement floor and stayed put to overly judge all the people moving in and get further disappointed at our diminishing dream of a Friends like environment due to their shortcomings.

... maybe there not the problem? Nah, impossible.