J . M A I L

A tale of two cities

Hi Blog,

This is an update to let everyone know what is going on with Jon. For those that don’t already know I will be moving to Calgary shortly. This situation is this:

I am starting two courses as an open classified student in Jan at U of C with no funding.

If I get my thesis defended and all the paper work submitted by the 22nd of Jan I will switch from open status to full time PhD status (which woud be awesome).

If I do not get all my documents in hand by the 22nd I will have to reapply to the PhD program in Calgary and upon re-acceptance I will be able to transfer my course credits from the winter semester to the full time PhD program. The problem with this option is that re acceptance is not a 100 % certainty and I have to pay and go through the headaches of reapplying.

I submit my thesis to Judi on the 28th of Dec meaning this week is going to be used to finalize everything so that I will be able to defend in early Jan upon Judi’s approval.

So far everything is looking like things will work out in my favor which is great.

No matter what I fly out of Toronto on the 2nd of January. I will not be able to make it to Toronto for my birthday on the 29th of December but if I can be very organized with my packing and shipping and get everything on the greyhound on the 30th or the morning of the 31st of Dec I will try to make it to Toronto for new years. Hopefully someone is having a house party cause new years house parties are more fun than the bar imho.

I will hopefully be back in Jan to defend so I might get a chance to see people but may not get to see anyone as I will be scrambling to get revisions and paper work done.

So that is where I am at. Hope everyone has an awesome holidays. I am sending all of you a great big e-hug as I type.

J

Snow Underfoot

My thesis in its full glory is due in 19 days on December 28th @ midnight. I submit it that day and when I wake up the next day it will be my birthday.

I still have to call Calgary and find out exactly where I stand with them and to be honest I am scared to do so. Will they let me start on Jan the 8th if I have a defense date set for my Masters before I show up? What if they say no? What do I do then?

If everything works I will be happy that I was lucky. I will move to Calgary in a hurry and fly back to Guelph at the end of January to defend.

If everything doesn’t I see no reason to move to Calgary right away. Maybe I can couch surf in Toronto for a bit.

I want to come visit people in Toronto. I guess it either has to be this weekend or next. Time is very valuable at this point so I can only spare a couple of days but I would very much like to see everyone. What dates work best for everyone?

I miss you guys in Toronto and think about you guys all the time.

If you havn’t decided if this year you want to celebrate Christmas or Cinco de Ocho this chart might help (from the holytaco).

What's the word?

I am steadily working towards finishing my thesis. Revisions are consistently on the go. I should be wrapping up soon. I need to pick up the pace but I am also thankful I am making progress and that I still see light at the end of the tunnel.

I have just been up to school lately, haven’t been going to the gym on the regular and although it shows I don’t really care. I will make up for it some other time. In this respect time is on my side.

I want to start wearing more dress shirts. I like looking put together regardless of the situation.

For those out there using windows and firefox I highly recommend the Firefox Preloader. It loads and keeps portions of firefox in memory so that when you go to launch Firefox it loads much faster. I really like this.

As for desktop design, which I have been thinking about lately … I moved my taskbar to the top of the screen like a mac. I got rid of object dock and replaced all the functionality it provided me with new system tray icons. I know that the upper left quadrant of a screen is important for a number of reasons and I want to see the effect that having the task bar occupy part of that space has.

Much love to everyone and I hope I can see you all in person before the winter holidays. I will try to make a trip into Toronto after the 15th of Dec. I will be in Guelph for the entire month of December so please feel free to come visit me. I will even be around for my birthday this year.

Hugs everyone. J

Participants Needed for Online Microblogging Study

Participants are needed for a microblogging study that will contribute
to a master’s thesis.
This is an online survey that takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.
One participant will win a $25 dollar University of Guelph hospitality
gift card.

To participate, please visit:
http://atthelib.com/twitter/

Thank you,
Jonathan Haber
MSc Candidate
University of Guelph - Dept of Computer and Information Science