Hey! Sorry for the late reply; never got around to it. I've been incredibly busy with university work; I have two assignments due tomorrow (technically today) with more due every day afterwards. How about you? Got lots of work to do?
I don't have insurance nor a car, so I can't drive by myself. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a G2 in the first place, but meh.
My frosh is next next week, with actual school starting the week after that. Still need to prepare some stuff, but for the most part. I've got everything I need.
My home internet is /really/ good. For 60 episodes in 720p, it takes me a little less than three hoursl, so I'm pretty fortunate. Add on to that my current stockpile of anime, I just don't have enough time to watch it all.
I've been watching a bunch of romance animes lately. The only one to really stand out is The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I loved it, just as I loved 5cm. Makoto Shinkai really knows how to write a story.
I'm currently watching Bakemonogatari. On the last episode; will probably finish that tomorrow (rather, later today, since it's almost 3:30 AM as I'm writing this). Loving it so far, and hopefully the ending won't disappoint.
Have you done all the shopping you need to do for uni yet, or are you waiting for the last bit?
I'm pretty good. Just got my G2 this morning, so I can drive on my own now =D
I haven't heard of any rioting, but I don't exactly watch the news or anything.
As for "free" wifi, it's fairly simple to "borrow" it from a nearby house. Honestly, you'd be surprised how many people use "password" or "123456" as their password.
There are really two main reasons why I would avoid HP like the plague. The first, and perhaps most important, is that they're unreliable. With any manufacturer, no matter how good, you are bound to get a lemon or two. It's the opposite with HP-they're generally really bad, but you might on some off chance get a well-built laptop from them. Of course, most consumers that buy HP are only doing so due to not knowing any better, so if that's their level of expertise then they probably aren't doing anything intensive enough to make the laptops start to show their problems.
My M/W/F consists of classes from 11:30-3:20, but with a break from 12:20-1:30. Though, my Wednesdays have Jap in that timeslot and Fridays have a tutorial from 10:30-11:20. T/Th, on the other hand, only have one lecture from 10:00-11:20 with an extra tutorial on Thursday from 3:30-4:20. It's a pretty chill schedule, if I do say so myself =D
I'm not sure about the rest of Canada, but here in Ontario we have OSAP, which apparently gives up to $12600 in loans per year. However much you borrow is interest-free until 6 months after your student status no longer applies (ie. graduated or dropped out), at which point it starts to accumulate interest. Though, there's some sort of policy that prevents them giving "loans" of over $7000 out, so anything above that is given as a grant and does not need to be repaid. I'm not sure what the US policy is though.
The SC2 problem has been fixed-manged to play for hours on max settings without going over 62 degrees, without an external fan. Considering that the idle temperature is ~55 degrees, that's pretty good. I also had an issue where a bar would appear at the top of my screen, but posted a thread about it and managed to get it resolved. Link is: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/597006-m17xr3-fan-screen-issues.html and pretty much just details what my problems were, if you want to take a look. Turned out to be a simple solution, so that was nice.
That aside, I'm /very/ satisfied. My previous desktop is 6 years old and could barely run SC2 on minimum, and most of the time it was unplayable, so this is something I've never experienced before. NO MORE MINIMUM SETTINGS!!!
As for people I know at Waterloo, there are four that are going into the same program and like a bajillion more going into other programs. In Ontario, Waterloo is pretty much "the" university to go to for any math-related subjects. It's also pretty high up there for engineering, and for anything else, Waterloo is still very attractive due to its superb coop program. And then, beyond that, it is about a 10 minute walk from the Waterloo campus to the Wilfrid Laurier University campus, which is a (I think) fairly respectable business school. I guess I know /tons/ of people going to Kitchener (the city) for university.
Heh, travelling? Have fun on your vacation! I wish I could go somewhere north of here-this week has been absolutely brutal from some heat wave. I've been sitting in air conditioning for the past 6 days or so, and it's really starting to get to me xD
The two major brands to avoid are Apple and HP. The former due to their ridiculously high prices, the latter for their ridiculously poor build quality. In any case, remember that you /must/ haggle. Even the "fixed" student discount can be haggled-the first guy I called said it was 5%, and calling back again and again got them to make the student discount 8%. Remember, they have no issues with lying, so you need to press the fact that you have the money that they want.
On top of that, all I had to do was mention that I was a student. I didn't give them a code or anything; they just discounted the price on the quote. From this, it's pretty obvious that they do indeed have the power to simply give discounts, and you should look to exploit that. After all, they're already making huge profit margins.
As for course selection, that sounds a lot like Engineering over here. Their schedules are /packed/ with no electives first year, and comparing my schedule to theirs is like comparing an Arts major's to mine, and that's really saying something. Though, ERS schedules are even emptier than Arts-they have 3 (yes, three) days off. And then weekends on top of that. And the two days that they /do/ have class, it's the same amount of class time that I have on my Mondays (which is less than my Wednesdays and Fridays).
I think it's become standard for universities to offer their first year students guaranteed residence. Every university I know of over here has that, but after that you need to find your own place unless you have some special condition. Though, residence is /really/ expensive. Beyond that, it's a lottery for which residence you get, so you might get stuck in a crappy residence. There's one at Waterloo called V1 where you get a mandatory "meal plan", costing just shy of $2000 per 4-month term. However, it's not even an all-you-can-eat meal plan, as they essentially just add that money to your account and you use that to buy food from their cafeteria. Essentially, it's a debit card which you are forced to pay for and use.
Naturally, cafeteria food isn't all that great, nor is there that much variety, and some people don't really eat much, so that is quite possibly the worst residence to get. Even if I were to have applied for residence and that was the one I got, I would've opted to look elsewhere for lodging-at the very least, I could save big on food costs by cooking my own.
And I'm just paying what my brother pays. He's renting from a landlord, but the landlord forces one-year contracts. Since my brother is in coop, he has work terms outside of Waterloo, so he needs to find someone to sublet or else the apartment goes to waste (paid for and no one living there). Luckily, I go in when he comes out, so it's all good.
Anyway, my M17x came in today. Well, yesterday, since it's 2:11 AM right now. So far, I've only noticed one very minor defect, where the soft-touch coating doesn't extend all the way around the lid. Though, it's only short by maybe 2mm, and aside from that, everything is great, so I'm fairly satisfied. Though, I was playing Starcraft 2 for about an hour earlier without a fan, thinking that it would be fine on minimum settings. That was a pretty big surprise, as when I checked the temperatures, my CPUs were hovering at around 65°C and my GPU was at 106°C. I'm not sure if the built-in fans aren't working or if it's just not getting enough air (air vents are at the bottom, and the bottom was flat against the table, so no air could be circulating through it), so I'll be thoroughly testing that out tomorrow (well, today xD). I also did 3DMark06 benchmarks, and got 15215 3DMarks on average, which is higher than what I've seen other people get with the same specs as mine.
Well, that was a pretty lengthy rant about my laptop. Back to university-do you have any friends going to the same program/uni?
IMO, don't order from a store. You want to order by phone because you can negotiate for good deals. Some OEMs offer student discounts as well, so you should check if your university has struck any deals with computer companies.
As for JAP 101, we are required to take 5 courses per term for my major, two of which are non-math. I also need at least 1.0 credits (2 courses) in the humanities, which mostly comprises of languages, so I figured that I Japanese is the best option.
Waterloo is about 2 hours away from my house (counting traffic, though it may be more on busy days), so I'm living over there. Going to be subletting my brother's place while he comes out for his work term, so it all works out. 2 hours is actually a /very/ long time to commute every single day (and back), so it's much better to live on res.
With the recent release of Llano, you can get a functional gaming laptop for about $500. The CPU side is slower than Intel's Sandy Bridge, but the integrated graphics are capable of playing most games smoothly, albeit with settings turned down, but that's still a great deal. If I were you, I'd look into that, as it's not overly expensive yet will allow you to game on it if you choose to.
Yea, that's the bad part about uni. I'm going to have to find DDL links, which is such a hassle. Though, my internet at home is fast enough and has plenty of bandwidth, so I don't really need to use university internet.
My university term starts in September. I just did course registration today; managed to get into JAP 101, so that's a huge relief xD
And no, nothing is hyperlinked for me. Though, it does happen on other websites, so I'm not sure why it would be happening on MAL.
I'm mostly learning to read right now as my friend recommended a textbook for me. The Japanese course I plan to take (hopefully I get in-only 35 available spots, and 5 are already taken, but my registration begins on Monday) is Hiragana only, so it shouldn't be too hard. The course after that is Hiragana+some Katakana, and then only in second year do we start to get into Kanji. Though, through reading, I'll (hopefully) learn the sounds, so I suppose speech shouldn't be an issue.
I'm getting an Alienware M17x. Alienware is ridiculously overpriced, but they're the only vendor that sells Sandy Bridge+Juniper/Barts in a single system. ASUS offers Sandy Bridge and Juniper, but not in the same laptop and Clevos only comes with Sandy Bridge+Cayman, which is out of my budget, so I got stuck with Alienware.
What do you plan to do with your laptop? If watching shows is the most intensive thing you're going to do, you could easily get a $300-$400 laptop which will be far more than sufficient.
As far as internet goes, university internet is /ridiculously/ fast. Speeds up to 100mb/s, for free? I'll take it!
If you're trying to make a business, you either have to a) scam people or b) add something to your product that is worth cash to a customer. Trying to buy and sell identical items for profit never works in real life.
I've been doing jogging and biking. Though, since I've been biking, jogging feels like such an inefficient means of travel, but it's probably better for keeping in shape than biking. I'm planning to join my university's parkour club, so that'll hopefully help keep me fit as well.
And for vacations, nope. I haven't been on one in a long time; not that I'd want to go, anyway. I'm perfectly content to sit at home, watching my anime, playing my games =]
How about you? Are you going anywhere this summer?
I've been pretty meh. Walked out of my exams with complete confidence and ended up not doing so well. Though, I didn't really care either way since I could've gotten 0s on every exam and still have retained my acceptance and scholarship, so that didn't really matter.
Now that summer's here, I've been trying to watch more anime. I've also been doing a fair bit of exercise (the first in over 3 years xD) and I'm planning on learning Japanese over the summer. When I actually think about it, summer is too short. My current goal is just to reach 165 completed before I actually go to university, and that shouldn't be too hard.
I've also ordered a laptop which should be arriving any day now. It's several times better than my current desktop, so I'll finally be able to watch Coalgirl's 1080p Bakemonogatari once it arrives (along with the dozens of other series this computer can't handle xD). My only wish is that I don't get a lemon; I'm really excited to get it, and since customer support is practically nonexistent (it's there, but if I ever have a problem with my laptop, I would have higher chances of fixing it if I /personally/ opened it up and replaced parts), if my laptop doesn't work perfectly right off the bat, I'm going to have to return it.
Anyway, enough of my life. How has yours been? Have you finally fixed your internet problem? xD
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My frosh is next next week, with actual school starting the week after that. Still need to prepare some stuff, but for the most part. I've got everything I need.
My home internet is /really/ good. For 60 episodes in 720p, it takes me a little less than three hoursl, so I'm pretty fortunate. Add on to that my current stockpile of anime, I just don't have enough time to watch it all.
I've been watching a bunch of romance animes lately. The only one to really stand out is The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I loved it, just as I loved 5cm. Makoto Shinkai really knows how to write a story.
I'm currently watching Bakemonogatari. On the last episode; will probably finish that tomorrow (rather, later today, since it's almost 3:30 AM as I'm writing this). Loving it so far, and hopefully the ending won't disappoint.
Have you done all the shopping you need to do for uni yet, or are you waiting for the last bit?
I haven't heard of any rioting, but I don't exactly watch the news or anything.
As for "free" wifi, it's fairly simple to "borrow" it from a nearby house. Honestly, you'd be surprised how many people use "password" or "123456" as their password.
My M/W/F consists of classes from 11:30-3:20, but with a break from 12:20-1:30. Though, my Wednesdays have Jap in that timeslot and Fridays have a tutorial from 10:30-11:20. T/Th, on the other hand, only have one lecture from 10:00-11:20 with an extra tutorial on Thursday from 3:30-4:20. It's a pretty chill schedule, if I do say so myself =D
I'm not sure about the rest of Canada, but here in Ontario we have OSAP, which apparently gives up to $12600 in loans per year. However much you borrow is interest-free until 6 months after your student status no longer applies (ie. graduated or dropped out), at which point it starts to accumulate interest. Though, there's some sort of policy that prevents them giving "loans" of over $7000 out, so anything above that is given as a grant and does not need to be repaid. I'm not sure what the US policy is though.
The SC2 problem has been fixed-manged to play for hours on max settings without going over 62 degrees, without an external fan. Considering that the idle temperature is ~55 degrees, that's pretty good. I also had an issue where a bar would appear at the top of my screen, but posted a thread about it and managed to get it resolved. Link is: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/597006-m17xr3-fan-screen-issues.html and pretty much just details what my problems were, if you want to take a look. Turned out to be a simple solution, so that was nice.
That aside, I'm /very/ satisfied. My previous desktop is 6 years old and could barely run SC2 on minimum, and most of the time it was unplayable, so this is something I've never experienced before. NO MORE MINIMUM SETTINGS!!!
As for people I know at Waterloo, there are four that are going into the same program and like a bajillion more going into other programs. In Ontario, Waterloo is pretty much "the" university to go to for any math-related subjects. It's also pretty high up there for engineering, and for anything else, Waterloo is still very attractive due to its superb coop program. And then, beyond that, it is about a 10 minute walk from the Waterloo campus to the Wilfrid Laurier University campus, which is a (I think) fairly respectable business school. I guess I know /tons/ of people going to Kitchener (the city) for university.
Heh, travelling? Have fun on your vacation! I wish I could go somewhere north of here-this week has been absolutely brutal from some heat wave. I've been sitting in air conditioning for the past 6 days or so, and it's really starting to get to me xD
On top of that, all I had to do was mention that I was a student. I didn't give them a code or anything; they just discounted the price on the quote. From this, it's pretty obvious that they do indeed have the power to simply give discounts, and you should look to exploit that. After all, they're already making huge profit margins.
As for course selection, that sounds a lot like Engineering over here. Their schedules are /packed/ with no electives first year, and comparing my schedule to theirs is like comparing an Arts major's to mine, and that's really saying something. Though, ERS schedules are even emptier than Arts-they have 3 (yes, three) days off. And then weekends on top of that. And the two days that they /do/ have class, it's the same amount of class time that I have on my Mondays (which is less than my Wednesdays and Fridays).
I think it's become standard for universities to offer their first year students guaranteed residence. Every university I know of over here has that, but after that you need to find your own place unless you have some special condition. Though, residence is /really/ expensive. Beyond that, it's a lottery for which residence you get, so you might get stuck in a crappy residence. There's one at Waterloo called V1 where you get a mandatory "meal plan", costing just shy of $2000 per 4-month term. However, it's not even an all-you-can-eat meal plan, as they essentially just add that money to your account and you use that to buy food from their cafeteria. Essentially, it's a debit card which you are forced to pay for and use.
Naturally, cafeteria food isn't all that great, nor is there that much variety, and some people don't really eat much, so that is quite possibly the worst residence to get. Even if I were to have applied for residence and that was the one I got, I would've opted to look elsewhere for lodging-at the very least, I could save big on food costs by cooking my own.
And I'm just paying what my brother pays. He's renting from a landlord, but the landlord forces one-year contracts. Since my brother is in coop, he has work terms outside of Waterloo, so he needs to find someone to sublet or else the apartment goes to waste (paid for and no one living there). Luckily, I go in when he comes out, so it's all good.
Anyway, my M17x came in today. Well, yesterday, since it's 2:11 AM right now. So far, I've only noticed one very minor defect, where the soft-touch coating doesn't extend all the way around the lid. Though, it's only short by maybe 2mm, and aside from that, everything is great, so I'm fairly satisfied. Though, I was playing Starcraft 2 for about an hour earlier without a fan, thinking that it would be fine on minimum settings. That was a pretty big surprise, as when I checked the temperatures, my CPUs were hovering at around 65°C and my GPU was at 106°C. I'm not sure if the built-in fans aren't working or if it's just not getting enough air (air vents are at the bottom, and the bottom was flat against the table, so no air could be circulating through it), so I'll be thoroughly testing that out tomorrow (well, today xD). I also did 3DMark06 benchmarks, and got 15215 3DMarks on average, which is higher than what I've seen other people get with the same specs as mine.
Well, that was a pretty lengthy rant about my laptop. Back to university-do you have any friends going to the same program/uni?
As for JAP 101, we are required to take 5 courses per term for my major, two of which are non-math. I also need at least 1.0 credits (2 courses) in the humanities, which mostly comprises of languages, so I figured that I Japanese is the best option.
Waterloo is about 2 hours away from my house (counting traffic, though it may be more on busy days), so I'm living over there. Going to be subletting my brother's place while he comes out for his work term, so it all works out. 2 hours is actually a /very/ long time to commute every single day (and back), so it's much better to live on res.
Yea, that's the bad part about uni. I'm going to have to find DDL links, which is such a hassle. Though, my internet at home is fast enough and has plenty of bandwidth, so I don't really need to use university internet.
My university term starts in September. I just did course registration today; managed to get into JAP 101, so that's a huge relief xD
And no, nothing is hyperlinked for me. Though, it does happen on other websites, so I'm not sure why it would be happening on MAL.
I'm getting an Alienware M17x. Alienware is ridiculously overpriced, but they're the only vendor that sells Sandy Bridge+Juniper/Barts in a single system. ASUS offers Sandy Bridge and Juniper, but not in the same laptop and Clevos only comes with Sandy Bridge+Cayman, which is out of my budget, so I got stuck with Alienware.
What do you plan to do with your laptop? If watching shows is the most intensive thing you're going to do, you could easily get a $300-$400 laptop which will be far more than sufficient.
As far as internet goes, university internet is /ridiculously/ fast. Speeds up to 100mb/s, for free? I'll take it!
If you're trying to make a business, you either have to a) scam people or b) add something to your product that is worth cash to a customer. Trying to buy and sell identical items for profit never works in real life.
I've been doing jogging and biking. Though, since I've been biking, jogging feels like such an inefficient means of travel, but it's probably better for keeping in shape than biking. I'm planning to join my university's parkour club, so that'll hopefully help keep me fit as well.
And for vacations, nope. I haven't been on one in a long time; not that I'd want to go, anyway. I'm perfectly content to sit at home, watching my anime, playing my games =]
How about you? Are you going anywhere this summer?
Now that summer's here, I've been trying to watch more anime. I've also been doing a fair bit of exercise (the first in over 3 years xD) and I'm planning on learning Japanese over the summer. When I actually think about it, summer is too short. My current goal is just to reach 165 completed before I actually go to university, and that shouldn't be too hard.
I've also ordered a laptop which should be arriving any day now. It's several times better than my current desktop, so I'll finally be able to watch Coalgirl's 1080p Bakemonogatari once it arrives (along with the dozens of other series this computer can't handle xD). My only wish is that I don't get a lemon; I'm really excited to get it, and since customer support is practically nonexistent (it's there, but if I ever have a problem with my laptop, I would have higher chances of fixing it if I /personally/ opened it up and replaced parts), if my laptop doesn't work perfectly right off the bat, I'm going to have to return it.
Anyway, enough of my life. How has yours been? Have you finally fixed your internet problem? xD