Two past students meeting up

I like working with students. It's one aspect of my work that I enjoy and don't want to give up.

Last night, I had a text conversation with a former student. She let me know that she met another student from my program who was there a couple of years before she was. I joked and asked whether they were in therapy together after spending time at the workplace.

She let me know that she was on a student panel, sharing experiences of being in a co-op program at their university. She recognized the other student's name and they met. Cool!

She was kind to say that they both talked about how much they loved me. It's always nice to hear.

Interviewing skills and conversation

Last Thursday, my manager and I had an interview with a prospective intern. He is from my alma mater, which is a first.

He was polite and knowledgeable. My manager conducted the first half of the interview, as he had to leave to attend a meeting. I took over after that.

I like honing my interviewing skills. I don't like firing question after question, or going into a huge soliloquy. I'd rather have a conversation, which made it more comfortable for both of us.

When I asked if he had any questions towards the end of our time together, he truly opened up. I like when folks are comfortable with me, and vice-versa.

His writing and editing skills are superb. He'll do just fine.

He accepted the offer. I look forward to working with him soon.

Returning to my alma mater - a familiar homecoming

I attended a handful of free learning sessions at my alma mater, where I got my undergraduate degree. It was a great night out.

I hadn't been there in years. Many of the buildings have had facelifts. Yet, I walked on campus as if time had stopped. It was highly familiar to me. Second nature.

It makes sense that it felt like home. I spent four years of my life there.

I sat in a lecture hall where one of the sessions took place. It was the same lecture hall where I attended my first summer math course. The long tables and pull-out chairs are long gone. Bolted, fold-up chairs with tiny desks that you can fold down are their replacements. As technology has advanced, so has the lectern with tons of ports and cables.

All my math courses that I took on this campus were in this building. I felt like I was an undergraduate student again. It felt comfortable and right after all these years.

Weird. In a cool way.

Former math professor is with his fractals in heaven

The other day, I was talking to my mini-me colleague at work about my second-year calculus professor that I had in my undergraduate years. Yesterday, I did a survey sent by my alma mater.

After completing the survey, while on my university's Web site, I did a departmental search of the Math faculty. This professor wasn't on the list. Perhaps he had retired.

I did a search on Google. Sadly, he had passed away nearly two years ago from cancer.

This man was such a gentle soul. He was fully bilingual (English and French) and bright. I didn't realize that he was Jewish, as his last name is waspy.

The last time that I saw him was probably in the early 2000's. I had come to visit a former computer science professor on campus and this professor was on the same floor. We chatted. It was nice. I have fond memories of our conversation. 

May he rest in peace and enjoy the fractals in his new universe.

Interviews in the city where my guy resides

Friday was quite the day. My manager and I had to drive to a university about an hour away from the office.

My boss indicated that we should leave the office at 09:00 sharp. I am extremely punctual. I actually had to go upstairs to tell my manager to come downstairs to where I had parked in the lot. I was driving.

Already, we were about ten minutes late. My boss isn't the most punctual person. Add the fact that a tractor trailer decided to balance itself on a guardrail between two sets of highways (the collector and express lanes) during rush hour, which affected us, I knew that we were going to be late.

I do have a lead foot. I managed to make up some time, but we were still fifteen minutes late when you factor in parking at the university, walking over to the building that you need, registering, and settling in your new surroundings. Apparently, being fifteen minutes late wasn't too bad. According to our first intern candidate, her interview before ours was delayed by an hour.

One of our current intern students had recommended a taco place by the university. I reached out to her to get some suggestions. She did a nice job. I enjoyed the tacos. My boss is more of the buffet type. He likes volume. You don't get that at the restaurant. I am a foodie who tries anything and cannot stomach plates of food at a buffet. These tacos were tasty.

We had a surprise, unscheduled interview. As a result, our lunch was shortened. We were still running late, but all the candidates were exceptionally understanding.

We interviewed a total of five candidates. The toughest part now is selecting one from the crop. They are talented, bright, and articulate.

The drive back was decent. The last time we did it, it was stop-and-go traffic. It doesn't work well with my boss, who gets carsick easily.

Although I get along fine with my boss, he tends to be a combination of a worry wart and a whiner. It was a hot day, with temperatures easily hitting the 30-degree mark on the Celsius scale. He constantly complained about how hot it was in and out of my car. I ended up calling him crispy.

It is good that I am patient and calm. Otherwise, I would have told him to stop whining and complaining.

I thought about my guy often during this trip. The university is in the same city in which he lives. I wish that the timing were better. Both times where I have conducted on-campus interviews, my guy has been on the road. It would have been nice to have seen him for lunch or something.

Oh, well. We'll try again soon.

Shorter week means more work, trips, and cuddles with Woolly

A shorter workweek sounds good. For me, it tends to be hectic. Unfortunately, I predicted correctly.

I work from home on Wednesdays. My boss booked a two-hour meeting yesterday. I was asked to join online. I decided to join for half an hour, citing having an appointment at 10:30 am. I am glad that I did. I spent the remaining time catching up on work.

It is pretty hectic trying to complete my own work on top of working with two summer interns. I spend a decent amount of time making sure that they know what they are doing. I then spend even more time reviewing their work, which involved a total of 1000 pages of edits within the past two days.

The fun part? I finished filing my travel expenses for last week's conference. As strange as it sounds, I enjoy filing expenses. I am organized. It's probably a math thing. I had all my receipts photographed. My boss knows how I tick. He immediately approved everything.

Guess what? I get to go on campus to one of the universities I had visited back in February to interview a new set of prospective interns to start work in September. I get to do a mini road trip this Friday with my boss, who likes that I end up expensing everything and driving us there. It really means that he will approve what we have for lunch.

He actually trusts me so much with my food recommendations that he has asked that I pick a place. Back in February, I chose a ramen place right off the bat, without even being asked to do this task. He was game. It's good that we both love food and I have a say in what yummy food I want to eat.

I miss my guy. I was cuddling Woolly, the stuffed plush sheep that he gave me, earlier. I had him in between my breasts. The way that Woolly looked at me reminds me of my guy doing the same thing after playing or sucking on my breasts.

My guy chose the perfect gift as a sweet reminder of him.

Interviews, e-card, ramen, and nail polish

Last Friday was a pretty long day for me. I had to get up early to head to a university with my manager and interview prospective interns.

My manager had slept in late. He arrived twenty minutes late. I had arrived at the office parking lot at 7 am. I actually went into the building to fix myself a tea, came back out, got into my car, and reviewed my e-mail. I am that practical and surprisingly functional at that hour.

Long story short, but my manager hopped into my car at 7:35 am. I noticed that his car's headlights were on as I slowly pulled away, so we had to cycle back to his car. He got out and went back into this car to turn them off.

I am glad that I drove us there. He obviously wasn't fully awake. I also have a lead foot. I easily made up for lost time.

Anyway, I visited my guy's hometown. It has an excellent Japanese ramen restaurant. My manager and I loved the food there, which arrived quickly.

I told my guy about it. He was pleased that I had a good day. Of course, it would have been better with him there.

We exchanged Valentine's Day greetings. Since I have been with my guy, he always sends me an e-card for this occasion. He's sweet.

I ended up sending him a photo of my nail polish colour for the week. It's a nice blue on my fingernails.

Incidentally, one of the interviewees commented on how nice my nails looks. I had red polish on last week. My guy is right. My nails are nice, even to women!

A is for ancient computer - my first one

It's the first day of the Spanking A to Z challenge!

The other day, Han wrote a delightful post about his first computer. It's now my turn to go back into my technology archives and do the same.

My first computer seems ancient now. My asked my dad if I could get a Tandy 1000 SX that was in the Radio Shack flyer when I was in grade ten.

Mine looked like this one, minus the second floppy disk drive and joystick:

Courtesy: PC Museum

It seems so long ago. Radio Shack no longer exists in Canada. Instead, the chain is known as The Source. The Tandy line is long gone. Even the mall in which we went to get this laptop has been demolished!

Anyway, I was so happy with my Tandy computer. It had one 5.25" floppy disk drive. It had a rather tiny hard drive. The monitor was monochrome in a lovely shade of green. I also needed a printer, so we got a daisywheel printer that must have been two feet in width. It was a noisy printer such that I couldn't print at night. I would wake up everyone on our entire apartment floor!

Being the novice geeky girl back then, I accidentally wiped out the operating system disk information. I had to go back to Radio Shack and ask that the nice gentleman copy MS-DOS onto my blank floppy disk. He was nice to do that for me without charging the high school student anything.

After taking my first computer course in grade 11, I used my computer often. I programmed in BASIC. My favourite programming task that I did at my leisure (when I say that I was a geek, I was then, and still am) was creating a program that played songs that I liked. It isn't a huge surprise. I love music.

I ended up getting some fun games. I got Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. My friends loved to come over and play them with me. Yes, they didn't mind that the wheel was in different shades of green on my monochrome screen.

I then got into Shareware programs. It is nice to play Frogger, among other classic games that I used to play on my Atari 2600.

I actually had this computer till my third year of undergraduate studies. I did a number of upgrades on my Tandy, including the RAM and hard disk drive. I even installed a 2400 bps modem, which was all the rage back then.

Eventually, being a computer science student, I had to upgrade my computer. I did, but I still had the computer until I graduated. I ended up donating my beloved Tandy and the daisywheel printer to a local charity in Winnipeg.

Memories are wonderful, especially when it comes to technology. What was your first computer

Cold freeze and a solid reference

All is well. I have simply been busy.

We have been under a deep freeze here. You would think that with a windchill of -30º C that it would force me to stay at home and write tons of blog posts. It hasn't.

My guy is off to Thailand on business for the next two weeks. We have been spending as much time together as we could before he leaves.

I have decided to apply for a job opportunity that involves a slight shift in what I do. I would be a long shot, but I figure that it doesn't hurt to apply. I meet the minimum requirements from a degree perspective. However, I have so much work experience that it should prove valuable.

I have a master's degree. My guy has a PhD. It may be one indication why we are so geeky at times.

I asked my guy to be a reference for me. He didn't hesitate at all.

"I think that this position would be great for you. With your great personality and experience, they would be happy to have you. If they call me, I'll make sure to tell them about all your qualities."
"I'm having second thoughts about your telling the hiring folks about all my qualities, "I replied. "I may not get the job if you reveal everything."

We continued to cuddle, with my guy lightly patting my backside.

Private sex life of rough sex the cause for employment termination?

One of the first few podcasts that I listened to when I got my first iPod was Q, which started off as an arts and music podcast on CBC. It was hosted by Jian Ghomeshi, who was the former drummer of Moxy Fruvous back in the 90's.

This podcast grew in popularity, to the point where it became a video podcast and a TV show. He was a decent, intelligent host, who made guests feel at ease.

Jian and I went to the same university for our undergraduate studies. He was several years ahead of me and we majored in different areas (he in fine arts; me in geeky computer science and math subjects).

I say that Jian was the host. It wasn't meant to be such an abrupt ending. He had worked at CBC for fourteen years.

Last week, Jian had indicated that he was taking a leave of absence, to grieve for his father who had passed away.

Well, CBC decided to terminate his employment. That isn't exactly the best timing when one of your shining stars is going through a tough time.

There is a lot more to the story, which is unfolding with every day that passes. Jian was allegedly fired because of his "private sex life," and "false accusations pursued by a jilted ex-girlfriend and a freelance writer."

Jian wrote a long message on his Facebook page. He elaborates on his private sex life with a woman in her late twenties, which he feels that CBC felt was reason enough to fire him:

We saw each other on and off over the period of a year and began engaging in adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission. We discussed our interests at length before engaging in rough sex (forms of BDSM).

Naturally, we need to hear all sides of this story. However, I do not think that Jian is obligated to explain his private sexual life to the world. It is just that -- private. His employer should not make a judgment about him based on what he does in his bedroom and be dismissed as an employee for what he does away from work, if this point is indeed the reason for his losing his job.

As much as I get along with my colleagues at work, I never want to share my private sex life with them. My guy is my colleague, but we are in a relationship. What we do in our relationship, especially behind closed doors is private to us. I would be horrified if I were let go from my job because management found out that I like having my bare bottom smacked hard by an attractive guy who holds my hands behind my back and punishes me. It has nothing to do with how competent I am doing my job.

We will see how things progress this week. Jian is suing CBC for $50 dollars, likely for wrongful dismissal.

In the meantime, it would be nice if Jian could be left alone to grieve for his father.