Revival

Haven’t been here in a while.

In the midst of an (horrible) exam season. Gotta tell ya’, mass education is truly a hellish invention of mankind.

Plans for the coming winter break:

Cavalcade of Lights at the Toronto Old City Hall (photos will follow)

Downsview Park’s Trail of Lights (photos will follow)

Finally put those skates on and blast that puck

Finally put those x-country skis on

Finally get enough sleep

Pretty modest, but fine for now.

Catch you all later!

“Americans versus Canadians” or “How I am so happy and proud to be Canadian!”

The turn to answer the long lastingly annoying question of “who is better: Canadians or Americans?” has fell upon my fiancee and myself today. Little did we know, the answer was right in front of us.

Now, as it is customary to say, “viewer discretion is advised”, because the text contains intricate subject matter. Rated as SN (Somewhat Nationalistic). Before I make any further remarks, I would like to say that I certainly do not generalise the following image of an American person to the entirety of masses, for I happen to know plenty of people, who carry an American passport of their own, who at the same time happen to be extremely intelligent, interesting, educated and all in all very nice people and who deserve my deepest respect.

In our trip to the Niagara Falls Butterfly Conservatory (which you can read about here), which is located here
I shall direct your attention that it is located very well on the Canadian side — this fact will come in handy in the discussion below.

Camp Oochigeas

My fiancee right now is volunteering at a camp for children with cancer, called Camp Oochigeas. All the kids are very small (4-8 years old), all of them are very fine, funny and great.

I am not going to say much, except a phrase that one child said that just makes you want to cry:

I don’t like drinking too much water, because if I do it tastes like those yellow pills they give us at the hospital.

If you were lately thinking of where to donate a few dollars, may be this is the right place.

Visit their web site: http://www.ooch.org/.

Cold day at hot place

As customarily Friday is always our family day, Liana and I went to Wonderland today, for it was the first Friday they opened their Splash Works. Intending to leave the house at 8:30, I was as always set back by my father who realised at 8:25 that our car needs oil change — so he drove down to our mechanic and exchanged our crap-full Ford Windstar for his Chevrolet Impala, which I really like by the way.

So we came near to the Wonderland, but both realised we were dead hungry, so as being true North-American Canadians (like there’s other types), we decided to have a meal in the Subway; not just a meal, but each has gotten a foot-long sandwich with all the oowy-goowy stuff. I think if we get such meals regularly, soon enough will come the time when someone will actually need to roll us from one room to the other, given the fact that we actually fit into the doorway, not to speak of the room itself.

So we had gotten to the amuzement park to unveil a huge lineup to enter. As shocked as we were, Liana was able to spot a line that moved the fastest. In 35 minutes we came into the park and went straight to the Splash Works. The water was exceedingly cold, so we weren’t able to spend too much time there, unfortunately. But cannot take away the fact that pitifully small lineups cherish the eye.

Save our CBC Radio Orchestra

Just recently my very good friend (Eugene) has brought to my attention the CBC radio station. The radio station has a very interesting repertoire, raging from the classical music to some pleasant blues.

To make a long story short, CBC is trying to cut classical music on air by some 10 times. The details are in this facebook goup.

Update: Here’s a video of Eugene speaking at the strike against this disastrous closure: here.

End of Year (Party?)

So the academic year is finally over. Exams are finished (5), assignments are submitted (3) and papers are handed in (0). This has been the toughest one for me for various unpleasant reasons. I’m just really glad that it is now in the past, even though I yet do not know what my final marks are like (but certainly a pass (hopefully)…).

Now I am just going to focus on how to recharge my batteries and start the new year from a clean sheet. The people who say that the New Year’s resolution must come on the New Years Eve are all nuts: it should come after you finish your finals!

The summer is promising to be quite eventful, exciting and relaxing. Much work has to be done, though. But so it will.

Science Rendezvous Part 1: Invitation

As one of the organisers, I invite all, who lives in Toronto, the Greater Toronto Area or near, or just happens to be at Toronto for a moment, to the first annual Toronto’s science and technology festival: the Science Rendezvous!

This is an all-day, free event! Everyone will find something to raise and feed their interest!

Time: 10 of May. All day, from early morning or so to sunset or so.

Location: Toronto Downtown, University of Toronto St. George campus, St. George street, near Willcocks and College (map).

Specifically, I invite you to our physics part of the Science Rendezvous, which is located in the department of Physics, 80 St. George Street (map).

We will have lots of very cool demonstrations, which I shall not reveal here yet. It is going to be very-very exciting! You’ll have a chance to see real laboratories and what we do there (well, not really “we” — theorists are usually repelled by the labs…)

Further information: official website, UofT Bulletin article, Globe and Mail article.

Please, come by. You’re all very welcome!

Evening in my neighbourhood

I decided to take a little walk around the neighbourhood before I go to bed tonight. I took my dog and a nice cup of hot tea. It’s a bit chilly outside, and since I have already put away all my winter clothes, I had to put two jackets on. And I swear, if someone were to try to recognise what nationality I am, nothing would have given me away: I wore sandals with socks, workout pants and a leather jacket!

Last time I took this kind of a long, meaningful-less walk around the community was some 3 years ago. At the time, I was still in high school, the mere fact of which I pity with deep sorrow and regret. So, in comparison to what has been about three years ago, a few points of observation taken:

• That huge corner house still hasn’t finished building the wooden fence around it. I mean come on, people! You put poles into the ground and think no one’s gonna see ya? Well believe me, I have seen enough and even more!
• Local arts community is under serious danger of extinction, perhaps due to severe lack of funding: that swastika sign drawn on the sidewalk is gone!
• More and more people have finally started leading an active life style. In fact, it seems to be so active that everyone just gets really tired by the end of the day and neighbourhood falls asleep at about 8 o’clock.
• Dinosaurs are extinct. Not that I’ve seen any 3 years ago, but I’m pretty sure they are.
• The dinosaur cars, though, are still thriving in population and seem to never get old, or hungry, or lonely, because there are just so many of them I lost count!
• The local junior school is still undergoing a one year “facility renewal project”. Its short-term help has just become so very popular over the last three years, because I local middle school has the same sign now, too.

But most importantly, the star-bright sky hasn’t changed its beauty: I want… no-no,.. I need a telescope, right now!

I should do that more often :)

Toronto’s Russian Consulate: Brain Boiler

A few days ago I had to come down the Russian consulate here in Toronto for some legal services. It was probably my nature of wanting everything to be nicely and professionally done, or the fact that I haven’t been to Russia for a little while now and hence had forgotten how all the legal processes are done there, or something else — I don’t know; but the fact stood: I was absolutely disgusted!

Oh those ravishing lineups that have no meaning, nor have they got the beginning or the end; oh those precious fights for who was there first; oh those splendid near-scrummage situations about various matters of mutual (dis)interest; oh those lovely looks on the faces of other people around you, as if you have slept with their mothers; oh those wonderful speaking manners and the beautiful expressions on the faces of the consulate workers, as if they are kings and queens, while you are just a simple peasant, who has forgotten to clean their toilet. Oh those happy-happy things!

I stood about half an hour in a line to get to the window, where a lady in a “very kind manner” said that the issue is to be addressed to another window. Having stood another 40 minutes in the proper line, I finally get an answer from another even kinder young lady: “Oh, we can’t do this for you, because of so-and-so” (something completely trivial). “Oh, yeah?” — I said — “That’s funny, because I just talked to a very-very kind lady in the nearby window, and she didn’t say ANYTHING ABOUT IT!”

You would think that the workers of a foreign consulate or embassy in an English-speaking country would be familiar with English language. You would think. But no, apparently these notions are dumb, and we have no understanding of what the real world really is all about! Nobody in the entire Russian consulate speaks decent English (only the person in the window concerning Russian visas can actually speak a little). A Canadian woman came to get a VISA to go to Russia; he went to pay for the service to the Cashier window. Another very-very nice and sweet lady in that window tried to explain to her things about the payment, but came disastrously unsuccessful, because her English was poorer than my grandmother’s. If it wasn’t for the nice gentleman, who was also getting his visa to go to Russia, that explained everything to that woman (by the way, huge complements and my great admiration towards the knowledge of the Russian language of the gentleman — truly amazing!).

So, can we be anymore pathetic?

I am just wondering…

… what is the meaning of a “consensus”?

Well, the Oxford Concise English Dictionary (which was the first ever English book I bought and did so in the rainy London, U.K.) defines it as a “general agreement”. The Answers.com gives a little more elaboration: “An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole”. While this is all quite fussy and fizzy, a consensus arises when two parties bear discussions over a matter and eventually arrive at a decision or a solution, which at least somewhat equally satisfies the two sides.

Here’s a perfect example of what is a consensus:

Party A wants to eat the whole cake.

Party B wants to eat the whole cake.

Parties A & B realise that they cannot eat a single cake entirely at the same time simultaneously.

Party A: “How about I eat 3/4 of that cake?”

Party B: “No, that won’t do, as I want to get at least half that cake.”

Party A: “Okay, a half is fine with me.”

Party B: “Alrighty then.”

Here, however, is a bloody example of what is not a consensus:

Party A wants to know what to do in this situation. They (carelessly) think about it and somewhat makeup their mind (let’s call their decision D, which doesn’t stand for “decision”). They ask (for whatever reason undefined) for an advice of party B.

Party B, meanwhile, had already done (fairly precise) calculations and made its mind up quite solidly and, shall it be forgotten, had already proposed their solution (let’s call their solution P, which doesn’t stand for “poor”).

At the first hearing, long before party A made up its mind, solution P was ignored by party A as being a low priority issue at the moment.

During the second hearing, at the time of the mutual “thinking-it-over” time, solution P was yet again poorly listened to, although an apparent attempt to be “nice” was acted by party A fairly well.

Party A appreciates the input of party B and refers to it as “yeah, that’s true” and decides that P is a good idea.

Party A decides to go ahead with the solution D and starts to execute it.

Halfway through the work done in solution D, party B comes into the “know” that solution D is taking place.

Party B exclaims its apparent disappointment and claims to have no further business with party A.

Party A answers with a cascade of insults and claims that party B does not understand the meaning of the word “consensus”.

A little while later, party B rubs its hands in consolation, as solution D proved deficient.

Here’s a question for a million: why do we always stick to the second example and never learn from it?