Last one, seriously.
We won our first football game today 7-0. I almost lost an eye when the moron tried to tackle me after I knocked down a pass, but oh well. Got the win. I got an interception, caught a pass and knocked down a bunch more. All in all a good game.
Off to Van-City! See ya all when I'm back - just in time for the big birthday!
One thing I forgot. I have a amazon.ca wishlist for anyone looking for gifts for my upcoming birthday. Was this a shameless plug? Perhaps. Don't feel obligated - but if you want to, feel free! hehe
Last post until Monday - unless I can find a way to do so from Van-City.
Looking forward to Vancouver now, since my moot is done (see comment thread below for a definition of a moot if you don't know). Before Vancouver, though, is the first game of the Outlaws football season. You wonder where the name came from? The legal society had 1 massive team, and a bunch of us requested that it be split. So a bunch of us decided we would form our own team, and so we did. I named it the Outlaws because we were kicked out/broke off. It will be interesting when we meet the other law team - Law vs. the Outlaws. It's kinda cute, if nothing else.
My record of disappointing performances in school continues. I got absolutely shredded and fleeced today in Negotiation and Mediation class - but that was at least partially because my negotiating partner (opponent) was really good, and used all kinds of tricks - some of which were in the book, and some of which weren't. Smile and learn, I suppose.
It's nice to have Berend posting, too. Always nice to know people are reading the blog. Welcome!
IP class about to start. Everyone have fun while I'm gone, and I'll post when I'm back.
In the meantime, I've got another RTOTD.
RTOTD: Who's right in the NHL Labour dispute? Players or owners?
Well, the moot is done. Got grilled to death, and a complete disaster. Oh well. Good experience, and I won't let it happen again. I'll win the next one.
Off to Vancouver! I'm getting pretty excited now. In between - we have a big football game, game 1 of the season. The Outlaws are going to go all the way. Hopefully.
So happy Lerners is over, and done with. Now I can get back to normal school again.
Finally - Oct. 5th is the big day - I finally turn 20. Next Tuesday. I'll have to arrange celebrations when I get back from Vancouver, but it'll be a fun week next week. And I promise to blog lots about the trip!
Last link, today, I promise.
Governor Ah-nold has
banned smoking in prisons. Interesting. Seems to be placed solely on the fact they will save money from health-care costs. Now, they only have to worry about inmates with withdrawal symptoms...
Just quickly. Had to post these two articles.
Churchill
UN hypocrisy
Go read. 2 great articles in one morning. Now I have to get back to my moot.
Well, I got some good news today. According to a recently released
study, men are living .2 years longer (at least those born in 2002). I wonder if that applied retroactively. Afterall, who wouldn't want an extra 2.5 months to their lives? Women still lead men in terms of total life expectancy, but that's now a smaller gap than 5 years.
Also, these links are finally working. I've been trying repeatedly to have links work from my blog, but until yesterday, they hadn't been working. Expect to see an increase in cool news stories, funny blurbs and, of course, important sports stories all finding links within my blogs. Which I again promise will increase in their regularity.
One thing that I have found increasingly annoying with the blogger interface is that when you hit Ctrl-S - "save" in MS Word, it publishes the blog. I've known this for a long time, but since I'm now back in school and always saving my Word documents, I tend to hit Ctrl-S often - just like I would in class. Now, it publishes the blog, and then I have to go edit it. As just happened - not surprisingly, right before this little rant.
It's fun today - everyone is walking around in their suits. Today is the first day of the Lerners Cup - I go Tuesday at 7pm - and inevitably everyone is pumped for it. The general consensus is that everyone will be most happy when it is all just done and finished forever. Which I'll be happy with as well, just happier if I am all done and finished - and I've placed high enough to make an external team. If not, oh well. But making an external team would be very nice. Good luck to all my fellow LS students reading my blog and participating in Lerners.
See - again, I almost hit Ctrl-S, just like I would after a paragraph in Word. Stupid blogger interface.
RTOTD: If you could change one thing about the blogger interface, what would it be?
Well, it's been quite a while.
First off - I'm off to Vancouver from Thursday through Sunday. It's the CLF National Conference
http://www.christianlegalfellowship.org/Conference2004/index.htm, and I can hardly wait. Should be a lot of fun, and a great place to network. Plus the fact that its in the city of Vancouver will be great - stupid lack of hockey means I can't see my Canucks while I'm there.
In addition, it'll be the first time I've ever flown - so that should be interesting. I'm taking lots of stuff, including this laptop to study with. I get into Vancouver at 120 pm on Thursday, so I'll have about 5 hours to kill downtown before the conference gets started on Thursday night. I'll be staying at the
http://www.sandmanhotels.com/hotels/bc/vancouver.asp , which seems to be a nice hotel. I'll also be going on a trip up Grouse Mountain, which should be fun.
I'm also finally almost finished the Lerners Cup moot - my round is Tuesday at 7 pm. Looking forward to it being done and being able to concentrate solely on school again.
Classes are good - Negotiation and Mediation is the best class I have ever taken at university. Phenomenal - I can't wait for it.
More soon - I'm going to get back into posting daily, don't worry.
Well, my last post was a controversial one...at least for the 2 people who apparently still comment on my blog. Promises it will improve have not encouraged readership, and everyone seems to be flocking to mikewc.blogspot.com to comment on his gun control ideas. So, therefore, I'll post MY opinions on a couple topics.
Bottom line is, there needs to be some major changes to our health care system. We've gone too long with long waiting lists, longer emergency waits, and longer still promises for reform. With my condolences to anyone who believed Paul Martin when he said "Waiting times are the priority to be fixed" - the truth is short waiting lines are evidence of a system that is working, long waiting lines evidence the system is not. You can't be all grandiose and say "We are going to fix the problem of long waiting lines" - it just doesn't make sense. It's like saying "My business isn't making enough money - so I'm going to get more customers". Sadly, it's not that simple. You have to have a method for attracting customers, just like you have to have a method for improving health care.
Here's the deal. In Canada, we already have a 2-tier health care system. What? How can I say that? Look at the States. If you need a MRI or CAT scan and you don't want to wait, what do you do? You go to the States. Joe Clark did it. Paul Martin's family has done it. Truth be told, if I want to circumvent waiting lines, I'll just pay the money, go to Detroit or Buffalo, get whatever needs to be done done, and then I'll be sitting pretty. Or at least, skipped all the people ahead of me in Canadian waiting lines.
Now, the Canadian government has no problem with this. At least, if they did, you would think they would do something OTHER than go to the States themselves for health care (again, remember Paul Martin and Joe Clark have done this). Maybe they would commit to waiting in those lines - maybe that would help encourage them to actually work on the system.
BUT, heaven forbid if there are actually places in CANADA where you can jump the lines! Alberta? Private clinics? Bad, bad boy. How dare you try to create a system where more people can have access to health care! How dare you try to create a system where more people, rich and poor have access - remember, people jumping out of lines make THOSE lines shorter. Perhaps this is the ONLY way waiting lines can be better without changing the health care system from the inside - removing people from those waiting lines.
Inevitably the response will come - "Well, this means the wealthy will be getting better care". This may be true. But it will, by default, increase the care the poor can receive as well - by improving the public system. Maybe if we actually caused some incentive for doctors to stay in Canada the whole system might just improve. As it stands right now, why would I be a Canadian doctor? I can go to the States, work fewer hours, and make more money. Yes, there are some altruistic doctors out there, and more power to them. But our world doesn't work on altruism - it'd be nice if it did, but it doesn't. So lets go with the hand we are dealt and try to fix the system, rather than propose grandiose theories that will never work because people are inherently greedy - or the majority of people, anyways.
I'll be honest. I'm a conservative, and proud of it. Why? Because its practical. Unlike socialism, which believes that people are inherently good and will work together, I believe people are inherently greedy and focussed on number 1. Is this right? Probably not. In a utopian world, I'd be a raving socialist. In this world, I'm conservative. Let's get back to implementing solutions that will actually help the system.
Stock Day put up a sign in 2000 that said "No 2-tier health care". Well, it's here - and Paul Martin uses it. Why shouldn't I? Moreover, why shouldn't we make it easier - so MORE people can use it? Let's get back to practically helping people. If that means some people having access to different services because they want to pay more for it, how can I refuse them? Isn't freedom a big part of our Charter? I have the right to health care - however I wish to obtain it. If I want to pay for my own health care, and agree to pay for the rest of the country's as well - why can I not?
So I get on the bus this morning, and about halfway to school another student hops on the bus. This student is wearing a shirt that has the letterboard from Wheel of Fortune on it, and the letters say "G- F--- Y--s-lf" and then the caption below it - "Wanna buy a vowel?" Has to be stupidest shirt I have ever seen. Seriously. I wonder what the guy would say if I walked up to him when he wasn't wearing that shirt and repeated that phrase to him. He'd probably be royally ticked off - and with good reason, why would I say that to him without provocation? Well, I wouldn't say it either way, but that's a topic for another day. Seriously. Not very impressed.
That said, the day has gotten better - including the best class I have ever had here at Western Law, and maybe the best class of my university career. Negotiation and Mediation has been amazing - with an awesome simulation today that mad ethe time fly by - I really was shocked to see it had been 3 hours. Combine that with an surprise visit at dinner :), and the day has been great! Posting in the middle of a IP class break --> more later.
Classes continue to really get underway. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of them so far – even Company, the real wild card of the mix. The reading has been steady, but not excessive – yet. It has been an enjoyable busy, rather than a frustrating one, although that could, and likely will change. I’m enjoying my time now because I know that it won’t last forever.
Big news story today – Batman scales Buckingham Palace. Apparently a protestor dressed in a Batman outfit was able to scale the Queen of England’s most famous residence and perch there for 5.5 hours until police were finally able to a) realize he was there, and b) get him down. I haven’t cared to look up what he was actually trying to accomplish – just the fact he dressed up in an old-school Batman outfit was enough. What are the chances of that? Apparently British security IS that bad. And they are the US’s primary allies in Iraq? That’s a scary thought.
Movie Review: Paparazzi. Good movie. Had some weak points, lower budget, and had a difficulty with attaching the audience to the “hero”, but maybe that was the point. Overall, a enjoyable 90 minutes, and worth seeing – if for nothing other than some of the awesome cinematography – it really put you ‘there’. Camera styles at some points something like Bourne Supremacy, but they were well timed, and hammered the point home.
Team Canada goes for the WC trophy tomorrow, should be a good, yet perhaps somewhat boring game – the Finns aren’t known for their excitement. It’ll be a close one though, and Canada better not think that the Finns are just going to roll over.
RTOTD: These have started to lose their luster, because I’ve been trying too hard to come up with them. So I’m going to adapt this forum. Today, it’s about the song “Let You Down” by Default à off their inaugural disc The Fallout. Excellent track – ironically, about NOT letting people down (causing a close friend to even comment they thought the name was “Never Let You Down”). Go look it up. Don’t download it, of course, but look it up ;)
And yes, life is great, and change is good. :)
Hey all...
Just a quick post to let you all know my class schedule - and why if you've been trying to call me, you haven't been getting ahold of me.
M: 6-8 pm.
T: 11-1 pm.
W: 8-10 am, 2-5 pm, 6-8 pm.
T: 11-1 pm.
F: 8-10 am.
My cell phone's off during those times, so send an email. Actually, if you want to contact me during the week day, email is almost better than phone - because I can get email anywhere, phone hasn't been working in the library for whatever reason. And I try not to answer it there anyways. So yeah.
More later...
School begins!
Started off first thing Wednesday morning with Big Bruce Welling. Classic, classic, classic. What would we do without the Surfing Prof to welcome us at our brand new start time of 8 AM. Seriously, there will be complaints to the Legal Society. Why do we need to start at 8? Is there something that can't wait until 830? Seriously. Worst idea ever, and I hope it's changed for next year.
My group I was JPing for was Group I. Seem to be a decent bunch, the usual mix of keeners, relaxed fun seekers, and the gauntlet between. Looking forward to getting to know everyone here again - good to see all the usual suspects around.
Frosh week continues. I have seriously started to wonder what is more important to certain people here - what books they'll need for their first class, or what clothes they are going to wear for their first class.
Canada vs. Slovakia tonight - we better win. After Sweden and Russia both lost to weaker opponents, and Finland ALMOST lost to Germany, we better be careful. Prediction? 5-2 Canada: Scorers: Sakic (2), Richards, Doan, Brewer.
Applications for Toronto firms are almost done - 19 of them. I again wonder who came up with this process, but at least it's almost over - or the first stage of it, anyways.
That's about all.
RTOTD: Which is more important: starting strong, or finishing strong?
