3B (May - August 2019)
School in the summer...
This perspective shift towards school was complimented by the quietness of a summer semester. Waterloo students often say how summer school semesters are their favourite and while I can see their point about better weather and overall less of a “stressful” atmosphere, the campus lacks life in my opinion. The diminished student population is immediately noticeable from emptier common areas and reduced or nonexistent student clubs/events. It’s also hard to mentally dial into the student routine when the rest of the world typically associates summer time with leisure time.
With an abundance of summer time festivals and events, I tried a new approach to school where I would treat it like a job and work during the weekdays 9-5 without break so that I could hopefully have my weekends free. That lasted about three weeks. I still was able to make room for my cardinal summer events but I had to be flexible in fitting in homework time, even if it was 2am after coming back from a music festival. Though I would still say working in the summer easily trumps school in the summer, I was happy to still be able to make some fun summer memories. One night, my high school friends and I spontaneously went from baking cookies to going to a board game cafe to getting late night drinks and staying out until about 4:30am. There were birds chirping by the time we decided to call it a night. That ruined my sleep schedule for the rest of the semester (aided by a returning Minecraft addiction not seen since high school).
As much as the previous school semester had instilled in me to make the most of the student experience, I was hindered by a course load that I was struggling to keep a handle on. CS350, operating systems, and CS349, user interfaces, had fairly infrequent but sizable assignments which I would leave on the backburner too long and desperately scramble to finish. CS350 assignment #2 brought me to my metaphorical academic knees and I seriously considered if I was in the right major. I thought I was close to completing the fork system call and thought if I dedicated my morning and afternoon to finishing it, I could go drive back to Guelph for the Canada Day long weekend and eat dinner with my family. That didn’t end up happening and it was getting late and I decided I would just go home the following day and work through the night. Again, the same thing happened and on the third day, I finally went home, the assignment still not finished. I don’t think I was out of my room for more than a collective hour across those three days.
Running-wise, I was so excited to be back in town with some of my teammates. The summer started off with a big group, but through injury, after only about a month and a half, it was reduced to just me and one other guy. That guy and I were good friends but it wasn’t quite the “team” dynamic I was looking forward to. Neither of us ran particularly well, likely due to school stress among other factors but good times were still had. On really hot days, we’d stop by a grocery store on the drive back from the track and buy fruit and Gatorade to quench our thirst. Watermelon on a scorching summer day is a religious experience I swear.
The highlight of this semester was definitely music. I wasn’t taking studio classes but instead joined the school orchestra, an experience I wrote about here. For sake of repetition, I’ll just summarise and say that it was very meaningful to me and was a source of comfort for the semester. The repertoire was also really great, “Fairytales and Legends” was the theme. There was an initiative at Waterloo to place pianos outdoors in various spots around campus in the summer. As I’d walk back home after a long day of class/studying, I would sometimes hear somebody playing something really pretty on one of these pianos. In the blanket of night time darkness, these moments were extremely beautiful. It motivated me to start dabbling with piano, something I’ve always been meaning to do. Many summer nights were spent in the practice rooms at Conrad Grebel (the music building) hammering away and trying to learn pop songs or themes from movies I liked. I still can’t really play piano but I got pretty good at playing the theme from the movie, Amelie. Time well spent.
Part of what makes the co-op program exciting is that you can feel your “market value” increase semester to semester as better and better companies start interviewing you. I interviewed at some very cool companies this semester, either in awesome locations or in that tier of company I was hoping to “break into”. In the end, I got another job at a mid-sized but popular company in Toronto. I was a bit disappointed at the time but it ended up being pretty great, we’ll get into that later.
Scattered memories:
- Post practice Costco trip
- David’s 27th birthday 27km on the track
- Guelph summer events, Hillside, Art on the Street, Potter’s Market
- Peru trip after semester finished
- Sneaking onto Laurier track
- SR Inferno in Guelph and sleepover
- Kitchener Summer Festival
- Wilmot Line tempo
- Orchestra concert
- Boys in town, Huether dinner and Smash bros
Classes took:
- CS370 w/ Jeff Orchard
- As much as I like math, I hate how unrigorous it gets when applied in computing
- CS350 w/ Lesley Istead
- CS349 w/ Jeff Avery
- Great instructor and a fun class overall
- PSCI225 w/ Christopher Bennet
- ERS361 online
- Did a food journal for this class and my camera roll for this entire semester is just food pictures
Songs:
- Just Like a Star - Corinne Bailey Rae
- Listening to this during a quiet summer’s evening is a vibe
- Normal People - Fucked Up
- Dernier Jour - Hotel Morphee
- Nightmare - Halsey
- Without Me - Eminem
- Ghost White Dress - TYSM
- Wow - Post Malone
- Goodbyes - Post Malone ft Young Thug
- free (at ease) - fantompower
- September Song - Agnes Obel
- This song came on the radio while driving past the retro looking Dairy Queen at night and it just hit so hard