January 10th, 07:49 | A slew; a large number

A whole mess of thoughts (a slew?) from yesterday. Never seem to find time to do anything, even when I plan for it these days. Hmm. Wonder if Work has any time-management courses. I'm sure the university does. Really must look into those.

As I was leaving last night, I washed my hands, and was thinking about how frothy the tap water is. Seriously. A little like it is in those huge cinemas. I wonder what kind of people require so much air mixed in with their water that it's actually fluffy. Then, of course, I remember that this is the same building where you can't actually flush the toilet yourself, because they're all auto-flush. Which, according to the woman who comes by nightly to empty our recycling boxes, is highly frustrating for cleaning purposes. We've abstracted the mechanism of toilet-flushing.

Anyone who's ever taken a CS course knows all about abstraction. Good high-level programs are all about controlling the most detailed innards of the machine without actually needing to "see" what you're manipulating. The higher-up you go, the less platform-dependant (yeah, Java: I'm talking to you), the more abstract. And this is a good thing. In theory. It means people can design and code without worrying about the specifics of which machine they're writing for. It means they focus on the flow-charts and the algorithms without really needing to know the character of the machine.

It means people forget what the machines are like, and how they think. I've never been much good at thinking like a machine (heck, I have issues with counting; that in itself has been a major hamper in my programming) but of all the courses I've taken, my favourite by far have been the architecture ones, with zeroes and ones, and little "logic" diagrams that defy all common sense, and programs written in Assembly. I couldn't tell you why I'm so against abstraction (not really "against" so much as pro-non-abstraction, actually) but I feel like people who just skim past it without ever looking at what's in the machine are seriously missing out. Like they're programming with great skill, and great theories, but without paying hommage to the soul of the hardware.

Or something. I blame this madness on writing on an empty stomach with a carrot muffin next to me.

We have deliciously piled-up snow. I'm very happy with it, really. WorkBoy thinks I'm crazy to love snow, but think about the city. Nature perhaps has other ways of disguising winter's ugliness, but here in the city we got squat. So when a blanket of snow comes, dressing everything up in frosty whiteness, all the edges are softened, all the trees look like they're sugared. The whole city glows, no matter the time of day, from all the light reflecting off the snow. Some of you may like it dark at night, but I'm so used to the, urh, snowglow that it's almost as much a part of winter as the being cold and the icy wind.

While we're on the subject of him, I'm getting frustrated again. The guy's talked to me twice, in the presence of The Three Wise Men (more on them in a moment) and twice with just us. He's convinced himself that I'm fabulous (so far the words "adorable", "gorgeous", "unique", "we have lots in common" (???) and "not like any other girl I've dated before" have been applied to me) and that damnit, he wants me. While it's very flattering (holy fuck, Batman -- someone who falls faster than me??), I'm not interested. I'm not interested because I'm about to start being busier than I can handle, and won't have time for anything for four months. And after that I go back to school in September. I'm not willing to pile extra anguish on myself for someone I've just met, and who already thinks...
1 - that I have no empathy
2 - that I've no initiative/give up easily.

Fuck that. It pisses me off enough when people put me into a box (do we not remember my rant about the whole "gwai mui" thing?), but anyone who tells me I'm completely unempathetic, and unable to sympathize with them has just read me so completely wrong that I lose it. I think the only assumption about me that makes me angrier is people who assume that it doesn't hurt me all those times past boyfriends and I broke up.

So anyway, yes. A little pissed off. I don't know what it is he sees when he looks at me but I highly doubt it's me.

I had carefully amassed a small mountain of tinsel over the week, so that I could tie the strands into my hair today. But. It seems that the custodian people have tidied it away. Pooh. Been feeling increasingly that I really want to have someone to curl up against. Was talking to PseudoBrother about it, and he's pretty worried about Roo's "intentions envers [me]". I'm not really sure why, but whatever. I'm worried about my own motivations. But, we'll see. Having that other point of view has also made me nervous though. What exactly am I doing?

Having used the word "nervous" approximately 17 times in the last paragraph, I'm going to stop writing now. Things still a little tense with the parents due to My Big Stupidity, and I haven't quite had the nerve to tell them about Ottawa yet. (I know, I'm such a wuss.) This weekend is all about pulling it together.

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