Busy Days

I know that's its been awhile since I have posted but its because of has mid term week. I a Calculus midterm Monday, a Spanish midterm and then a Accounting and Marketing midterms today. They were all pretty hard. Luckily I passed my Calculus midterm with a 61, which I am very happy about. Wont know anything about the other ones until next week. Now I am just relaxing watching a movie and playing qith my latest gadget. A iPod Touch.

I sold a few things and used that money to buy it. That sad thing is I am going to have to return this one because it has somewhat of a glitch when shutting down, and when i sync it to my computer it says I need to restore to factory settings. For some reason its working okay right now but I don't know for how long. I am actually typing this blog entry on it. It shows web pages as they actually are not some condensed picture less cellphone browser.

Well I am going to go finish movie,"They".m

The Long Weekend

Today is the beginning of our long weekend. No school until Wednesday, it's a much needed break for me to catch up on my school readings, though from what it looks like now I'll probably wait to the end of the break to start it. More procrastination.

Right now I am watching the first season of the show called Firefly. Before yesterday I had only heard of the title of the show and didn't really know much about it besides that it was in space and the future. One of my room mates watched it and decided to buy the entire series on DVD. From watching two episodes so far it's a pretty good show. It's almost like an old cowboy tv show but in space.

Venice Pizza

Since living here, we have eaten at Venice Pizza (our pizza shop on the corner) way to much. The problem is, is that their pizza is way too good, and the location of their restaurant is only a few steps away from our house. It's hard not to eat there .

Our usual is a Jumbo Garlic finger, for $10.50 which isn't too bad split four ways. I have also tried their Meat Lovers Pizza, their Greek Pizza (with stuffed crust) and their Fries Extreme (which is fries with gravy and dressing). The dressing is very good, before coming to Newfoundland I had only heard the term dressing used for the dressing most families eat for Thanksgiving. But here in Newfoundland everyone knows about fry dressing. Go in to a fish and chips restaurant and they'll ask you two things when ordering fries. The usual "Would you like gravy with that?" and the new one "Would you like dressing with that". So most people who aren't from Newfoundland would only assume that the dressing their talking about is bread dressing, or turkey dressing depending on what you call it. Which is what I expected the first time I had it on fries, but it is nothing like it. It's hard to explain what it tastes like or what it looks like, it doesn't look like turkey dressing, but it is crumbly. Lets just say you can't visit Newfoundland without buying fries, with added dressing.

11:00PM

The photo above is of The Basillica Cathedral of St. John's the Baptist. It took sixteen years to build this giant church, from 1839 to 1855. It sits 2,500 people in a giant hall, has ceilings 48 meters high. Even though I am not a very religious person, you can't help but notice the architecture of this giant structure. It seems to also be a huge tourist attraction, as every time I drive by on the bus or walk by there are always people taking pictures in front of it. The church is also apart of a historic route of downtown St. John's. The Basillica reminds of a slightly smaller version of the Notre Dame in Paris, France, which I had the opportunity to see in person a little over a year ago.

Downtown

Today was an other warm day out for St. John's. I ended up walking home because I didn't feel like waiting for the bus. Walking uphill for thirty minutes with a heavy back wasn't fun, but at least it was nice out. I am hoping that it keeps getting warmer ad warmer, right through winter.

This morning I was almost late for my 8am Accounting class. I was about to cross the street after getting the bus at the UC (University Center). I noticed six or seven police officers on the side of the street and two in the middle of the road directing traffic. They were being trained to properly direct traffic. I didn't realise that there was a certain way to direct traffic. You're arms have to be at a certain angle when waving, and you have to be standing completely straight. Luckily I got to class on time.

Tonight we had pizza from Venice pizza, a pizza shop located right on the corner of our street. We had a jumbo sized pizza with ground beef, pepperoni, green peppers, salami, and stuffed crust along with a small garlic fingers and two litre bottle of Coke. It was really good.

Escalators

First of October, hard to believe the first month of my second year of university is already over. Strangely today was a nicer day than any day we had in September (temperature wise). So on this nice October day, I decided to back-up my important files and reinstall my operating system. It had to be done, for some reason my computer was really slow and programs were freezing up all the time. Now my computers nice and fast and back to the state it was in when I first bought it, now the process of me clogging it up begins.

Over the weekend I applied to the Dominion grocery story that just opened down the street, hopefully I'll get an interview. I'd rather work somewheres within walking distance, so the Dominion would be a good place, and it's something different from the fast food industry. An other cool thing is that this Dominion has escalators, and it also has an escalator for your cart to go up and down besides you. An other good reason as to why I want to work there, escalators.

Well I should get back to studying (this entire blog post has been a procrastination attempt), I have a small marketing quiz tomorrow on the first five chapters on the book. It sounds simple, the test format is thirty multiple choice questions, except their not "Choose the correct answer" their "Choose the best answer", which makes multiple choice a lot harder than it was back in high school. Good 'ole high school days. Hard to believe it will be 2 years this summer!

Future Me

I got an e-mail today. The senders name was Future Me.org. After seeing that I remembered visiting a website a few years ago where you type a message to yourself, select how many weeks, months or years you want to wait to recieve it and then click send. I obviously chose two years, since the date it said I wrote it on was September 30th,2005.

"Today is September 30th, 2005. By the time I get this I should be in University. Hopefully everything has turned out. As of now I have been planning on going to DAL, but have later on changed my mind to MTA. It may end up not even being either one.

If I happen to die before this (ie; car accident, etc) my family can read this.

Well Good Luck and you will soon be getting this."

I wish had a wrote more espcially since I had forgotten all about this. Nothing I predicted really came true except one, I didn't go to DAL, and I didn't go to MTA and I didn't die, the only part that was true was the last part "It may not even be either one", and it wasn't.

Want to try it yourself? Go to Futureme.org

Slowly Improving

I am slowly trying to improve the look of my blog. I have recently figured out how to get the three column look I've been wanting since the beginning. I have also been playing with the colours and haven't quite found the ones I want to use. In the next few days it's likely I am going to redesign the banner at the top, that or revert back to the original.

I am also planning on adding useful information on myself. Mainly current information like movies I've seen, what I'm watching etc. This will all be located on the left sidebar. The only thing there now is a Pro-Ad banner ad. It should be filled up soon enough.

An other thing, I'm going to try posting more, and using my camera a lot more. Everytime I go somewhere I wish I had brought my camera to take pictures. So that's my plan!

Three

Avie (Avalon) and Leanidas. Missing: Screech

We now have three more room mates at 63 Colonial. Three six week old kittens. Paul has adopted them from a family who couldn't keep them anymore. They are very tiny, and don't weight more than a few pounds. They are always climbing up our pant legs to take a nap on our laps. They reach the couch by jumping and sticking to the comforter and then crawling up. They can't climb the stairs yet so they are living downstairs. Luckily there are three, so they keep each other preoccupied when we are gone, and curl up together when they sleep.

Needed: Time Management Skills

I am terrible at time management when it comes to school. I seems procrastination really hits hard the first few weeks of school. I have written everything I need to do on a calender have my computer remind me of when things are coming up. Hopefully this will help.

Now I just need to start doing this so called work...

House Related

Seeing as the other day I mentioned my new house as being rebuilt in 1902 I thought I would upload a picture of what it looks like.

It's the traditional very tall and narrow three story house. I am currently living in the two windows to right on the top floor. To reach my bedroom you have to go up 25 stairs. Which to me seems quite a bit for a house seeing as the most I have had in a house was probably 10.

The temperature difference climbing the stairs is very noticeable. Very cool and sometimes chilly on the main floor, to comfortably warm on the second floor, to too hot and muggy that windows need to be open third floor. Being too hot and muggy will come in handy during the winter though, I probably won't have to turn my base heater on.


Now this is a desk. I really wanted to find a desk that had a lot of room for storage (see shelves) as well as enough desk space that I could do homework on. This is what I found a $80 desk from Walmart. Everything I need and use is located somewheres on it. My huge 22' monitor, powered by my hidden Macbook as well as my scanner, speakers and printer. The only thing I still have yet to find is a reasonable chair. The fold up chair from Walmart is not meant to be a sat on for more than an hour, but for $16 I guess I can deal with an uncomfortable chair.

Speaking of uncomfortable that is something our futon is not. Every time someone new comes over one of us is saying "Try the futon! It's the best thing ever." Most people who read this will think we're crazy. I understand because most futons are not comfortable. However ours is different. It's approximately ten years old, and has the old style wood frame. The mattress is very thick, making sure we don't feel the wood panels supporting it. One of the greatest things about this futon is that you sink in to it. The front of it is somewhat raised so that when you sit down on it you're sort of stuck in it. It's hard to describe you'll just have to try it out yourself.

Take a hike!

A glimpse of what hiking up to Signal Hill is like.

My Room

Above is an attempt at a Panoramic of my new bedroom. Compared to my bedroom at home it is a bit smaller. Not just in floor space but in every kind of way. The ceiling height is around 6'6'' high. Making the door 6'2'' high. I have to duck to go through the door. It didn't take long to learn to duck after banging my head five or six times. I really enjoy older homes, they always have some quirks. I like having huge windows with some what of a view (previously mentioned Signal Hill from the window closest to my desk).

I've learned that this house was built in 1902. Well actually it was rebuilt in 1902. In 1892, St. John's was devastated by a fire known as The Great Fire of 1892. It started off as a small fire in someones barn and wasn't seen as that big of a threat but according to Wikipedia several things happened that allowed the fire to devour the city.



Above is a picture of the city after the fire was finally put out. You can see the only thing left standing are the chimneys to houses, and the large stone church at the top of the hill. I now live straight down from the church in the photo, near the barn that's still standing. Another interesting thing with this house that we found out while the carpenter was working on the floor in the bedroom next to me was that the wood still had smoke soot and ash under the floor boards. Back then they used anything they could salvage to rebuild their homes. It's cool to think that it's been trapped in the floorboards for 105 years now.

Everyone had arrived

I moved in to my new place on Colonial street a little over two weeks ago now. Only to find that they were still doing construction work on one of the floors on the third floor. Luckily it wasn't my room. An other plus was that the carpenter helped me move my box spring in to my room by cutting it in half (the box spring is new large to manoeuvre around the tiny staircases). He even found me a junky looking dresser, which turned in to a nice looking piece of furniture after I realised he sanded it and stained it for me.

My room is the on the third floor, facing the front of the street. It's not that bad living down here either. It has it's charm. You do sometimes see the "crazy" lady with the large platform shoes and then leopard print jacket walking down the street with a shopping cart yelling "Does anyone have beer bottles". That was something new and interesting I had never seen before. If you look out my two bedroom windows, you're looking straight in to the windows of the house across a very tiny street, so blinds are a must. Other than looking out the window as I sit at my desk I can see the peak of Signal Hill, which is really cool.

My office/bedroom view of Signal Hill

All of my roommates moved in shortly after I did. The last one to arrive was Shanna, and that was late Sept 1st. The following morning we decided to take the hike up to Signal Hill. Luckily where we are now living the hiking trail started only several minutes down the road and around a few turns.



The entire hike took us approx. 2 hours. An hour and a half to walk up the dirt trail that spiraled around the huge rock formations, and then a half hour to walk down the paved road. The weather was excellent, though we all overdressed assuming that being right next to the water the wind would freeze us, but it wasn't very strong at all.



I need to take some more pictures of the downtown that's around my place. A park at the one end of the street, a pizza place on the corner, convenience stores in every which direction you take, the harbour, and the downtown core streets. As well as my own place inside and out.



Back to the now: School is okay, school is always just okay. I find my two business courses, Accounting and Marketing very interesting, which I think is a good sign. Calculus again is boring and a waste of my time, but I am trying to stay positive and pass it this time. Third times the charm! Spanish is hard. It seems by having two Spanish courses already under our belts that we should now know how to speak fluent Spanish, and for me that's not that case. I have forgotten most things, except for the basic. Hola, como estas? De donde eres? Soy de Nova Scotia. Folklore also seems like it's going to be an interesting course, so 3 out of 5 classes I like, which is pretty good, for now.

Finally!

After 16 long days I am back online. It's hard to believe how much we depend on the internet. Not only to stay in touch, but for news and nowadays universities are dependant on it. Teachers have all their notes online that they want you to print before coming to class so that all we have to do is follow along. I think it's a great idea,it just sucks when you don't have the internet. Now that I do have the internet I am going to try and blog everyday, seeing as there is more happening here than there was at home.

Anyway I am going to go for now but I will be back with pictures and maybe stories of my first few days here.

The count down is still counting down.

4 days, 18 hours, 3 mins until I fly back to St. John's and only a short few days after that will I be in school. I would rather not go back to school so soon, I'd much rather tour around St. John's while the weather is still fairly warm.

I only have 3 more days left of work. After working a full week with no breaks I am sure to be tired. Luckily once I see the huge paycheck Ill be getting from it, Ill be happy.

Sunday Night Movie

This evening Jordan, Jason and I went to see Superbad, the teen comedy. I have to say I had high hopes and those hopes were fulfilled. It was a very funny movie and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys that teen sort of comedy.

"And the lightning strikes"

Around 2am this morning a thunder and lightning storm rolled in. So I got out my camera and started taking a video clip hoping to catch chain lightning. Here is a part of the video that I cropped out.



If you noticed about nine seconds into the clip you see a chain of lightning come down towards my window (in the basement of my house where my bedroom is). I don't think it hit the ground because I didn't hear anything, but then again the video could be off a little bit and making it look like it came down closer than it did. My parents think it may have come down in the ditch across the street.

Due to the quality of the video I have uploaded a few snapshots from the video of the three most important seconds.

Reminder: Learn how to play cards. All games.

28:09:30

The title to today's post refers to the countdown I have going until I am back on the rock. It's hard to believe how fast time is going by lately. It just seems like I was catching the bus after my last exam and thinking "wow five months of summer". Now I'm thinking "five months of summer.. when is it going to end?". I am used to having the mandatory two month summer break that I've had for the past thirteen years of school. Now having five months of no school seems way too long.

For about the fifth day in a row it is nice and sunny out, and again for the fifth day in a row it is extremely humid. I am in my bedroom, and even though it's in the basement it is still hot in here. It's times like these I wish we had an air conditioner. We do, except it's keeping our garage cool.

I think Ill go for a swim, and in doing so I'm going to try something. That something is underwater picture taking with my digital camera, without any special camera protection. Instead I have huge airtight scuba goggles that I am going to place the camera in and set it on a timer. Let's hope this works out well and doesn't end up destroying my camera.

About Me

Hi, my name is Mike Johnson. I am currently a fourth year student at Memorial University of Newfoundland, working towards a Bachelor of Commerce with a focus in Marketing.