02.17.07

My last LAN. And my lost friend.

Posted in Life, Work at 01:46 by krikkert

It appears I’ve arranged my last LAN party.

Our story begins yesterday, Thursday the 15th. I had just been informed that we were due to start preparations for our winter holiday LAN party (Saturday-Wednesday) on Friday at 10 o’clock, when my co-admin had finished at work. This was far too late, so I called him and made arrangements to pick the keys to the school we’re arranging it at up earlier. It should’ve been obvious to me then, that he hated having control wrested from him like that. But I didn’t care at that point — we couldn’t start arrangements 12 hours before we were supposed to open the doors!

Today, it continued. At four o’clock, my younger brother, Kenneth, and I started shuffling tables around so people would have somewhere to sit. A couple of hours later, our crew showed up — four more people to help us lay out power lines, work on networking, suchlike. Fast-forward another four hours. My co-chief shows up — only to point out that nothing is done to his satisfaction, and that everything will need to be redone. Now, at this point, my heels were aching (more about that in another post later) and I had finally managed to get on top of the bucking bronco that is a volunteer arrangement. Only to basically be told to get off it.

I left. Frankly, I’m not being paid highly enough to have that thrown in my face. Not to mention not being paid anything at all for the actual setup, only for the actual LAN itself. Three years of what I thought was cooperation, only to realise he’s been a prick about it all along.

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01.29.07

Christer’s adventures in the Army.

Posted in Life at 00:15 by krikkert

January 9th.
0610 — Christer departs from his warm, safe, secure bed to the army base at Sessvollmoen to be enrolled in the Army’s registers.
0900 — Enrollment starts. Christer brought a book and a GameBoy. First out, the drug scan — fifteen minutes of being sniffed in the crotch by a dog. Fun, eh? The next few hours were spent being tested to see if I’m really fit for service. The Army scores you on a 9-point scale on physique. I had 9 in all categories, save General Physique (7, due to asthma at an early age) and Vision (6). The day is mostly spent standing in line to visit various checkpoints to be vaccinated, vision tests, blood tests, a talk with the doctor, and a talk with the dentist. We also got a visit from the Royal Guard stationed in Oslo, showing off the various troops we were supposed to be stuffed into. A recon platoon, two light infantry platoons, and a SISU platoon. There was also food involved. Stew, type Unknown. After that endeavour was done (around 1800 hours), we were loaded onto a bus and shipped northwards to Terningmoen. We were introduced to two of our sergeants — Sgts. Ahmed and Gjelstenli.

The rest of the week progressed rather smoothly. We learned close-order formation (well, the basics), finished our hearing tests (9, perfect score) and had an introductory lecture on how to dress and behave in a winter climate. We wondered a bit why, because so far, it had been rather mild. Oh boy, were we wrong. So very wrong. We were checked for security clearance (there are four levels: Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, Cosmic Top Secret). Every Guardsman has to be cleared for Secret, and I got the clearance. The second week consisted basically of being told to wash our rooms all over again. In the Norwegian Army, you have clean rooms. Our beds had to be so neat you could see the sergeant wet himself with joy. Oy yay. This week we were handed out personal weapons, and told that tradition was that you named your gun after the last girl you nailed before being conscripted. It was also the first trip to the range. I didn’t do too badly — a nice circle with a 4cm (1.5 inches) radius on the second round. The rifle didn’t have the recoil I thought it would have — barely a little pop against the shoulder. However, 7.62mm ammunition does make quite a bang. We also had a lecture in how to properly have a tent set up. My first medical appointment for my heels was this Tuesday — told to swallow some pills, and see the doc again in a week.

Monday before I was discharged, the 22nd, we went out camping. In -30 C. For some reason, it was insanely hilarious when the entire platoon was ordered to strip on the spot and put on warmer underwear. Especially when you can stand there with the AG on your shoulder, backpack leaning towards your leg, and watch. Because you had assessed the weather and dressed accordingly.
The Tuesday I was discharged was an all-day range day. We got 20 bullets to spend. This day, my personal best was a 2cm radius (bit less than an inch) spread. At 1240, I was sent to the doctor, who gave me the news — my heels were in too bad a condition to let me serve. I had achieved what few others could: In the scope of two weeks, manage to get a serious heel infection rendering me unable to walk long distances, stand for long periods of time, run, or lift heavy stuff. Two hours after my appointment, I surrendered my personal weapon. Two more hours, and I had delivered all my stuff. Six hours later, I had my discharge papers and was home again. What a long army career.

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11.26.06

Updates!

Posted in Life at 09:29 by krikkert

Today, there was a rather irregular argument — about window blinds. It was thought, by the majority, that some sun would be nice, and as such, the blinds were opened. Until Mr. Fourth came home, and immediatly closed them. A short argument started, which ended in Mr. Fourth stomping away and exclaiming “I hate it when the first thing that happens after I come home is having to defend the practices I have instigated as property manager!” (paraphrased). Basically, I’ve lived there for four months now, and this is the first time he’s ever pulled rank. Would I be justified in consequently sardonically referring to him as “Mr. Surname” for a given period of time to enforce a point? Said point being that if you want to remain friendly, you don’t pull rank unless you have to. That was an unwarranted use, in my opinion.

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09.29.06

My feet are still shot.

Posted in Life at 12:37 by krikkert

And I’m saying that on the Friday after Career Fair Wednesday.

To most people, career fairs imply lots of free stuff. I’m not that lucky. In the morning, I was assigned to the loading bay — voluntarily, I’ll add. For a 7:30AM position, I was looking forward to little human interaction. But no, I had to become the team leader for the loading bay. In other words, supervise everyone else and in addition, be Mr. Meet-and-Greet for all the employers visiting the career fair. To be honest, showing a group of people where they’re going is easy. Look like you know what you’re doing, and they’ll follow you like a herd of cows. Three hours of loading employers’ supplies onto carts and running up two floors’ worth of stairs while the carts were going on a comfortable elevator later, the loading bay had no further duties requiring any attention. So I got drafted for hospitality duty, basically making sure that the employers’ needs were met. Including sitting in for the Institute of Charted Accountants of Alberta and the David Thompson Health Region while their representatives were having lunch. I then got fifteen minutes of lunch around 1 o’clock-ish.
At three o’clock, representatives of the corporations present were tearing down quickly — I was back at the loading bay trying to manage things as best as possible, however, it gets rather difficult with only one cargo van and one shuttle bus (and roughly 70 corporations present, most with two or three representatives) At 16:30, however, we were all done and the last employer had been shipped off with all his stuff. Afterwards, well, let’s just say filling out reports is fun. I got home around six o’clock. Nearly an eleven-hour shift.

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09.21.06

42 days in Canada.

Posted in Life at 10:19 by krikkert

Today’s lecture in Political Science was on research method. The lecture was done by the library’s political science specialist, and was a really well-composed one of its kind on how to do research. Amongst other things, she recommended using a research log, logging every search, every result, every quote — so you know what you’ve done and what you haven’t.

Philosophy class saw my being accused of being a stalker, because one of my classmates swore he’d seen me in all his classes. Turned out we only had philosophy in common. I tell you, not only am I stalking this guy, I’m even hiring people who look like me to sign up for his other classes.

We’re well into science in Liberal Education, and it’s all about the dead bodies. When the professor is a PhD in archeology, no wonder. Today’s lecture was dedicated to the topic “How do scientists know?” — appropriately enough, we spent 20 minutes watching clips from CSI. And then another 10 minutes taking CSI apart and making a case for why it isn’t representative.

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09.16.06

Roughly a week has passed.

Posted in Education, Life at 21:48 by krikkert

A week has passed. And I’m still hanging in there. The first assignments have been received (Philosophy, due on 2. October), 800-1000 words on Plato’s allegory of the cave and how it is related to today’s society.

This morning was the Senate’s Welcoming Committee’s breakfast for the international students. Free food! And good conversation, as well. The Dean of Fine Arts is an interesting guy (and a Newfie). When the VP of the University spoke, he mentioned that a Lot of people within the administration were international students — the VP himself is Irish. And his associate VP is English. I didn’t get to take any pictures, because I forgot my camera. Silly Christer.

I saw Snakes on a Plane last night. I don’t think I’ll be flying anytime soon.

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09.07.06

My first day of school!

Posted in Education, Life at 03:57 by krikkert

Yep, Wednesday would be Christer’s official First Day of Classes. On the schedule for Wednesdays are the subjects of Political Science, Philosophy, and Liberal Education. PoliSci promised well for my first university experience — the professor, Dr. Paul Gecelovsky, was there before the students. He opened up by going through the course syllabus, I’ll describe that in another post. I muchly regret that there was only space in the back, because due to the construction work at the university there was quite a lot of noise. Must show up earlier for Friday’s class. The professor further specified that he hated lectures, and that he’d much rather have discussions. This promises well. Sadly, the 50 minutes allotted to this class went all too quickly. As a quick remark, I am deeply disturbed that in a class of 80 students, I was the only one who could answer the professor’s question about how we define an ‘ad hominem’.

Ten minutes later, it was time for Philosophy. According to Dr. Govier, the professor teaching the subject, we will be studying the foundations of western philosophy — from Socrates and Plato through Hume to Kant. The study of philosophy is about the ability to ask questions and dare to face said questions afterwards instead of running away from them. Very promising!

After this, I had allotted myself a nice hour of break. This was spent mostly in line to the Cash Office to ask why my tuition had been registered under the summer semester instead of the fall semester. This was apparently expected and would fix itself. Then I had lunch, a lovely salami and white cheddar sandwich, and proceeded to B660.
Liberal Education has proven to be the most interesting class by FAR. According to the instructor, Dr. MacKay, LibEd is basically a micro-University. It’s basically a ‘how to get the most out of university’. In addition, there is no final exam, and the assignments are all about exploring WebCT, the university’s online course system. I’m thinking ‘easy marks’. I should be able to score at least a 3.8 in this, and I need an average of 3.38 to get into the Faculty of Education (grades are from 1-4). I also got major brownie points for sitting there reading the book when the instructor arrived. His line to that was “Hey, we’re not going to use that book before November. Great of you to come prepared though!”

I’m pondering whether to designate Philosophy as a Credit/Non-Credit class. Basically, if I should against all odds fare badly in that class, it won’t hurt my GPA unless I fail.

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08.30.06

My schedule!

Posted in Education, Life at 09:38 by krikkert

I’m sure you all want it badly. So, here goes:

I finally got Philosophy moved from a 15:05 slot to a more proper 10:00 slot. Hooray for me!

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08.08.06

Recounting my trip to Canada

Posted in Life at 01:16 by krikkert

Saturday, August 5th.
Woke up around 11. Parents in a fuss, thought I woke up too late. So I had to do some emergency packing while my mother packed food. She didn’t trust the food abroad. And I asked for it. Around 1 o’clock, we realised that I had gone and done some confusion — I had calculated with a check-in time of 5 o’clock. I was wrong — the plane departed at 5 o’clock! So, in other words, pick up Erik (who is here with me on two weeks of vacation) and rush to the airport. We got there in good time (roughly 2:30), and there was a short goodbye with my parents and my middle brother. We don’t have sentimental goodbyes in my family. A rough hug from my mother, shook hands with my father, and nodded to my brother. Then it was off. Fast-forward to London, where we were rushed through passport control and met oot (or Ghostly Weasel), who joined us for our flight to Manchester. We arrived at 10 o’clock British time, and met Ociros, a friend of mine. The four of us spent the night fighting (in the case of me and oot), watching The Gladiator, reading papers, and half-dozing off. Such was the night spent, and morning arrived.

Pictures: Me and oot at Heathrow

Sunday, August 6th

Another friend of mine dropped by for breakfast(-ish), LoonyPandora (Andrew), a friendly guy who’s into Macs and whom I’ve known for roughly four years or so. Around 7AM, we were checked in on the Canadian Affair flight to Calgary. Andrew was late and didn’t drop by to talk before roughly 8:30, so we had half an hour. 9 o’clock, the security checkpoint was passed, passports were duly controlled, and we were on our way. The flight was rather uneventful, and we got a rough few hours of sleep. I was woken up every half hour or so by the person in front of me trying to ram the back of his chair into my knees. Erik slept like a child. After what seemed like an eternity in an airplane, we landed in Calgary around noon local time. I went through Immigrations with a curious American in front of me (she said she and her family were fleeing the US and applying for political asylum) who kept asking about my studies and what I was going to be doing afterwards. Behind me in the line was an elderly British couple who were unfortunate enough to be booked for a return flight exactly six months and a day after their arrival. I got quickly through immigrations, no fuss about my paperwork, and got a few helping tips in case I wanted a work permit.
After a four-hour layover (two lunches) and meeting Techi870 — great guy, by the way — it was time for flying the home stretch into Lethbridge. In a propeller airplane. After I had managed to catch up on some Zs, that is. To be honest, I was scared like heck when we went up, but it went rather well. I even managed to sleep a(nother) bit there on the plane. Once down on the ground, I was greeted by Mike (the property manager) and his mother (his mother and father are my landlords). We had a short dinner (meatballs and mashed potatoes, just like home… well, nearly) before I and Odd-Erik fell asleep.

Monday, August 7th
The day begun well, I woke up roughly 8:30 and went about having a (cold) shower to make sure I was awake. Once I was back, I took the liberty of sneaking in a few pictures of my lovely room. We were then taken first grocery shopping at Safeway (I also picked up a Safeway card for discounts), before Mike woke up and it was decided we should go get some furniture. At this point, I should express how grateful I am for my landlords — Vera, one half of them, drives a van and stayed to help this Monday so I’d be able to actually transport furniture back home. We made two trips, first to Staples where I acquired a laptop and later a desk (Odd-Erik and I had a lot of fun assembling it), to a cell phone store to get me a cell phone (number available on-request) and then to United Furniture Warehouse where I ordered a twin bed and a mattress for roughly $300 CDN. It felt weird, getting one for that cheap — it’s like I robbed them and went out with a receipt for the robbery.
Mike then asked me if I could sign for a new fridge that had been ordered, it was scheduled to arrive on the 12th and he would be working the graveyard shift.

Anyway, it’s a quarter past one and I’m tired. krikkert goes sleepy-sleepy.

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08.03.06

Protected: How to get in touch with me while I’m offline.

Posted in Life at 02:14 by krikkert

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