Ob nox ious : [uhb-nok-shuhs]

As the semester comes to an end I find myself feeling the consequences of pressure. Not only do I have a lot of work to do academically and with my organizations, I have a lot of work to do in my apartment, packing up, cleaning up, and trying to organize the last couple of days of my stay. Although that is still three or four weeks away one cannot think that it is a long time to plan. The weeks are flying by and I'm finding myself surprised by the date at a more rapid pace each time. Can you believe it's May in just a few days? Well I can't because I thought it was just February! Come on, man!

But other than my time lapse and failing judgement of how long my work would take I am also finding myself worried about... well, not being worried enough. If any of you feel anxiety and its impact a lot you know that there are times when you feel worried and just don't know why.
That is, in fact, easy to define by dictionary:

ob·nox·ious

 [uhb-nok-shuhs] Show IPA

adjective

1. highly objectionable or offensive; odious: obnoxious behavior.

2. annoying or objectionable due to being a showoff or attracting undue attention to oneself: an obnoxious little brat.

3. Archaic . exposed or liable to harm, evil, or anything objectionable.

4. Obsolete . liable to punishment or censure; reprehensible.

Origin:
1575–85;  < Latin obnoxiōsus  harmful, equivalent to ob- ob-  + noxiōsus noxious

 

 

So I've decided:

 

The day I almost died, twice

The last 24 hours have been very interesting. While last night is a long story of great awesomeness it's not part of this post. It start when I met a friend and we went to a cafe to do work. I finished my capstone project for one of my majors, a 32 page paper, and just wanted to have another look at it to make sure it was perfect. I opened it... but... it didn't open. "Document Corrupted". I stared at the screen. Document corrupted? What do you mean document corrupted? I tried it on the zip drive, from the email, and the one from my laptop. None of them worked! I slowly died inside, knowing that the only one that worked again was one before the final edits of this draft. I put 25 hours condensed  in it since Tuesday and Tuesday was the last draft saved that worked.
I think i almost threw up knowing that I had three days to reedit everything I had worked on. I got up at 6 every day and worked for 5 hours before my first class. Then after class I stayed in the library until 8 or 10pm, another 8 or more hours of work, before I would go home, dinner time, and get back to work.  It was horrible. I got so worried. I told my friend Chelsea about what happened and she said she would try it on her computer. Still it didn't work, but she tried to fix it for a little while. In the meantime I thought I would just start editing because it's already Saturday afternoon and it's due Tuesday. But suddenly Chelsea was able to extract the text and posted it into an email. Constant text though, I would have to go through the whole thing and reenter spaces, paragraphs, underlines, and visually appealing structure. It was exhausting, but I was so excited that I didn't have to rewrite all the edits but rather could just go through it to add paragraphs etc.

I thought I would die...
But not literally, that only came later in the day.

It was around 6:15 when suddenly people started getting up and grabbing their stuff. Chelsea and I were listening to music on our headphones so we had no idea what's going on. We looked around at the emptying room when the lady in charge said to grab our stuff and go into the cellar. There was a tornado coming quick. Since we didn't live far away Chelsea and I got in the car and booked it towards home. Suddenly there were weird random bangs on the car and we realized it was hailing. Golf ball sized hail! Banging on the car... We drove slowly and carefully and decided to bunker down in the parking garage of another house.
We got out and wind was pummeling like crazy and we snuck in with another person and sat in the lobby. We started watching a movie and it was cool. Suddenly though the fire alarm went off and  and tornado warning went off which meant, technically, we should head to the cellar. We didn't because it was interesting to watch all the stuff outside. Firefighters arrived because of the alarm and we continued watching the movie in peace. When the rain stopped and it all calmed we quickly drove home and bunkered in there.

It was an interesting day so far.

New York from every angle

Pretty much one of the major reasons why I decided to go study in the US is so that I can go visit New York. Finally I have completed this mission and below are some of the pictures that resulted from the trip. Enjoy.
Brooklyn Bridge:

Times Square:

 Central Park:

Manhatten Skyline

That's right CAMERA PANORAMA FUNCTION! Muahahah!!!

The hope

Some moments in life really make you set your priorities straight. This moment came for me once more this morning when I realized there weer only about three more weeks before the end of the semester when I have to have all my stuff done and ready. So I had reality sneak up on me once more and it smacked me in the face.
Now I'm setting my priorities in order so first thing I did was write a To-do list. I organized the to-do list, then I colour coded it, and now I'm writing a blog about it. Time management at its finest right here.
The problem most people probably face at this phase is not the management of time, with so much management of other things to do than work that's not the issue. The true issue is just motivation to start whatever we need to start. That's the problem I have every time. I can finish it once it's started, I just can't manage to get the first sentence of a paper out, the first page of a book read, or the first communication with a group going.
Tomorrow I'll be busy, so that's my excuse for not doing my work then. But I promise on Thursday I'll get my first three papers done and wrapped up. I hope...

Vegas Part Deux

 Part two to the post about Vegas, it continues.
The Venetian gondola rides:

 Treasure Island:

 Caesar's Palace:

 Treasure Island once more, the pirate ship right outside:

 The Mirage from the inside, looking out at other hotels:

This is actually in Caesar's Palace. I should really put them in order...

Treasure Island:

The Mirage has a volcano outside:

New York New York has a miniature of the Brooklyn Bridge:

 And of course the Statue of Liberty:

 And the Empire State Building:

Vegas, a place of... well a lot...

Hello there friends,
I thought its about time to give you another update on my travels. A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend and we drove to Vegas for some days. Here are some pictures because it was awesome.
The view from my hotel room:

And of course we drove out to see the famous sign:

The Freemont Street Experience is where the old Vegas is. The one we know today is the new Vegas:

And now come all the famous casinos along Las Vegas Blvd.
Caesar's Palace:

Flamingo:

Excalibur, where I stayed:

Paris:

Bellagio:

New York New York:

 Bellagio fountain show:

Luxor:

Venetian:

Mandalay Bay:

With just about one and a half day to experience entire Vegas we set off on foot. We walked for 8 hours straight, only stopping to watch the shows, but never sitting down. It was exhausting and at the end of it we just shuffled along the boulevard. All in all a successful trip and I definitely want to go back some time. I love the atmosphere and can't believe the amount of electricity used in that place.