Y2kk Update: If you've read my Tweakui update for the week, then you'll know that it hasn't been a good week for me... I was going to update my MSN page about it before the weekend, but considering I was too engrossed in pretending that I was engrossed in my newfound zest and lust for studying (or lack thereof), and because it was the third anniversary of my Tweakui site, I sort of pushed this MSN site to the backburner... again... yet again... just like I always do, for you two readers out there...

But something did happen to me worth noting today, even though writing it here will leave my download site with nothing to report on later this week... I caught up with the girl I talk too much at school early this morning. She seemed reluctant to say hello at first, as if there was just not enough room for hello... Things just haven't been the same between us since she "swore never to talk to me again", after I called her jealous... those were her exact words, as she recalled after I sort of kissed and tried to make up... Before that day, she always sought me out. She called me a close friend. She went looking for me at the train station whenever she thought I could be there. Hell, she even wrote an e-mail to me first day of second term, in which she was all lonely in the computer lab at school and wanted to know where I was... turned out I was right in front of her as I read the e-mail, but that's besides the point... Things were cute back then. Things were peachy. She was a peach. She was cute. Adorable, even. Or especially. And now?... I can't believe I already sound like a guy who's been through ten years of marriage, but honestly, what happened to the girl that I developed a crush on in the first place, the crush that I never wanted in the first place?...

She's still adorable. She's still peachy. And she still lights up the room with her smile. But she only does so when there's someone else there besides me. Whenever she's with me, when she goes one on one with the not so great one, she seems all down and gloom, as if I was pestilence incarnate or some crap like that... Last week, she complained that I take friendships so seriously. All she wants, she claimed, is a friend who's fun, yet I twist around everything she says and makes it seem more than it really is... it is my nature to do such things. It's sadly my kind of fun, to overanalyze things without actually caring that I'm analyzing... a few weeks ago, she was a little less polite in how she mentioned my mundane, inane instinct to invert all our inane dribble into a melodramatic performance. She claimed that she didn't like talking about what I talk about, namely about philosophy and human nature and crap like that. She was scared that she was losing herself, as I kept prying secrets and passions out of the fruit of her loins. She instead just wants a fun guy to hang out with, and I can't offer her that. I can offer her loyalty, and commitment, and a Freudian twist on things, but nothing more, and nothing less. That is who am I. And although I still find her the most wonderful woman I have ever met to this day, it is starting to sink in yet again that this crush of mine, just like the rest, will never be anything more than a meaningless crush, because I'm just not what she's looking for. And I'm not what I'm looking for.

I've been thinking of my high school obsession a lot lately... either because I'm starting to lose my grip on reality and am secluding myself back in my own private history, or because it's spring time, the temps of printemps finally, and I'm as horny as a rabbit, following the white rabbits that is, but that's besides the point... I've been wondering a lot whether anything could've happened... between her and me, kissing in a tree, that is... I always felt like she felt something for me, if only because she thought she should. And I just can't help wondering, what would've happened if I just told her truth, that I had feelings for her, even though I never took my feelings as truth?... I guess that's the only way to know if a girl really does cares about you. To tell them the truth. And yet my Beautifully Minded, Sleepless in Seattle crush knew all along about me, yet didn't even bother to make eye contact, except as a pity gesture when she knew she would never have to hear from me again... Would my obsession have been the same? I may never know. All I know is she's my broad by the beach, my lady in the red dress, whom I shall always covet, and covet that I coveted, considering she was in a coven, but that's besides the point...

Are you listening to me, Neo? Or are you staring at the girl in the red dress?...

Huh?

Look again...

And I was like, WHOAH! That girl in the red dress was now a man with a golden gun, but that's a story for another day... but anyhew, the girl I talk too much about is my new lady in red, as my mind drifts towards her scent time and time again, but with just fondness, not the fury or the passion that makes her red. She was probably my closest friend in university at the start of this term... guessed the tides of war and the gales of wind sort of left me standing there in my tracks on that one... and I don't know what I'd do if I actually told her the truth. But if it's any consolation, or any step in the right direction, I've almost purposely told her twice... well, almost... every time I'm about the diverge my thoughts and divulge something about my feelings towards her, whether I mention they be romantic or not, I always get sidetracked by the look on her face, that she sees me only as a friend, and I eventually lose track of what I was trying to say, if only to make sure I don't lose whatever's left of the closeness we once had... it's now episode II, attack of the closeness, and I'm afraid I'm not just losing the battle. I'm losing myself. And I'm slowing losing her, day by day, as I get dragged deeper and deeper into cruelty and oppression... and it scares me. I don't know what to say. I have feelings for her, but no passion. Just love. A friendly love. Not romance. Not the love she wants. I can't offer her that. So what can I say? I'm no knight in shining armour. That's probably why she's been ignoring me. Because that's what she wants right now.

And then there's always days like today... where I make a mistake in speech, and she capitalizes on it, twisting around my words like I always twist around hers... She was mentioning stuff today about her looks, sort of pointing out her weight and whether she looks or not. And, well... I think she's looks darling the way she is. Is she a supermodel? I won't lie. She's not. But she's beautiful. She's invigorating. She's enticing. And I guess it kind of disturbs me how much she talks about her weight, always joking around as if she's fat or something, so I mentioned to her that she seems to talk about it so much... but then, of course, the generic girl and guy thing ensued: she started berating me, for implying that she's fat... Or actually, she didn't just say I said she was fat. She was more offended by the implication that she's a stereotypical girl, obsessed with her weight and cover girl thinness, which... um... quite frankly, I honestly, didn't really imply... Is she obsessed with her weight, I mean? In a way, yes. She tends to use it as a source of jokes, just like I use my own stupidity and lack of common sense for jokes. But do I see these traits of mine as necessarily a bad thing? No. Not normally. Not until I get depressed like hell from something like school or her. And that's what I sort of implied. That she talks about it a lot, but I wasn't making a judgement whether it was good or bad, or whether she thought she was fat or not. I was trying to be neutral, but yes, I did imply that she thinks about her weight a lot. But when she started acting all offended at what I had just said? By the tone of her voice, it really sounded like she thought I was implying that she thinks she should be thin. There is a difference between the two, a marketed difference that I apologized for after, as I repeated claimed like a whipped, little boy, that I did not mean anything of the implications she was implicated me for. And it's true: I did not mean what she thought I meant.

Eventually, she started warming up to me again... after ten or so minutes of my panicky groveling... But the thing was, she eventually opened up to me a truth near the end, before I got scared off by her lab partner with the boyish good looks... When I explained how guilty I felt for always saying the wrong things around her to get misunderstood, and for always being so pessimistically analytical (she was quite sick of me this morning, for seeing her as a science experiment, categorizing and generalizing her habits and figits or what not), she revealed to me that it's not just what I say that gets on her nerves... it's what I think... or what she thinks I think... She explained to me that she's afraid of what I think, but before she could finish off her thoughts, her partner of course just happened to waltz into the lab, breaking whatever trance or hypnosis I had over her for the truth... I left on decent terms with her today, but still, I left with a nagging feeling in the heart... besides the feeling that she's going to kill me if she ever finds these websites and realize that I have been thinking of her... a lot... and it ain't been all sweet things, but also bitter, salty, and oh so sweet like honey... But, um... getting back on track... I mean, she cares what I think? Wow... now I can't help caring that she cares what I think. But does this mean anything? I kept hoping that it did. As a guy, I only care what others think if I care about them, as friends or family or whatever. Of course, she acknowledging that she's scared of what I think could simply mean she once saw me as a friend, but lost whatever connection or closeness she had with me after all the judgements she thinks I made on her, even though I wasn't trying to judge (well, we'll let my websites indict me for that)... Or maybe women just always care what men think of them, just like how I can't help thinking what women are thinking about me?... but still... the way she said it this morning? She was practically glowing with honest grief... Maybe it was because she was unnerved about me, maybe it was because she just wanted to say something to get me off her back and off her breast, but still... she seemed to put more into her comment than just a friend would... but that's probably just my own wishful thinking talking there, and not her... because she didn't say anything more...

She's scared of what I think of her, and so I am. And that's why I'll never be good enough for her. Because as long as I'm scared of what I might say, or might do, or might think about her one of these days?... well... she deserves so much more... I'm loyal. I'm committed. But can I be trusted? I don't think so... I think my websites behind her back are proof of that... guess it's back to staring at the lady in the red dress for me...

Anyhew, in case you're too lazy to read my Tweakui update this week, and considering it's quite a pivotal update in the world of IvanF, I thought I would copy and paste it here, for absolutely no apparent reason whatsoever, except to compare and contrast to see whether it beats the pants off my Day in the Life of IvanF story for the longest single update in the history of Y2kk Updates... Just thought you should know. Consider it a three minute warning, for the third happy happy happy happy happy anniversary of my Tweakui site, March 15th...

"Okay, so it hasn't exactly been a good week for me. So sue me. Or actually, I know somebody that I'd like to sue, but that's besides the point... Today is March 15th. For the IvanFian impaired, that means it's the birthday and the birthright of this website. Tweakui.mycrowsoft.com is now officially three years old... break out the rice champagne, I say... or actually, I say, happy happy happy happy happy anniversary. But if you asked me, this week was anything but a goddam, happy birthday to my online self.

I guess from now on, I should take omens as... well... omens... Literally just hours after I uploaded my Tweakui update last week, the one where I complained about my cousin being too slothy and shoddy and lazy to get my stupid ATI Radeon card or whatever, it just so happened that fate decided to prove me wrong, and I ended up getting a call, with him telling me on the other line that my video card just came in... and, well... okay, I thought that weird at the time, and even somewhat ironic. But I only took it for what it's worth, and not what it may or may not actually stand for. I now look back at it, and see it as a warning... like a panic button... like a March 17th ultimatum or some crap like that... guess I like to connect the dots, after all is said and done, even if there weren't any dots in the first place. I'd make a great business analyst... because I really don't know a thing... and this week truly proved it...

For some, it's the Road to Wrestlemania. For others, it's now the Road to War. For me, I was hoping I was on the Road to El Dorado, or that at least, all roads lead to Rome... but it turns out, I'm on nothing but a Highway to Hell, with a one way ticket to being the damned, damsel in distress yet again, but I digress... Was it Monday or Tuesday that I had my Electricity mid-term exam? I already forget. That's how bloody long this week has been. All I remember, whichever day it was, was me checking my Discrete Mathematics mark on the internet in the morning, and witnessing a bloody 58% next to my name... a pass is a pass I guess, even if the class average was almost 80%... The only problem was, I thought I knew my stuff. The Discrete Mathematics exam was nearly high-school quality if you asked me... well, a really, really, ridiculously hard, high school exam, but still high school level nonetheless... and yet I almost failed it. It seemed so damn easy, and yet I nearly failed it... I always feel so depressed when I don't meet my own criteria, my own lameass expectations, because my expectations are already so damn low. I thought I'd get a 70% at least, and yet I ended up getting so much more worse than that... and with an Electricity mid-term later that Tuesday night? I didn't know what to think. My confidence had been completely shot down. I was hoping that Discrete would prove to be an term average booster for me... and sadly enough... heh... who would've guessed that I was right?...

I was horribly depressed from my Discrete mark, and I got little to no tissue sympathy from anyone. The girl I talk too much about? She pissed me off that day when she shrugged me off, scoffing at why I'd still be depressed about my mark when we got it so many days ago... guess she didn't figure that I had just checked it, and guess she hadn't taken her consideration pills for the day... But I used my pent up fury and feelings of wrath to study for the damn exam. I drove my nails deep into my temples, and consecrated my concentration on the goddam textbook at hand. I've never studied that hard for that long in a single day before. I did not move from my place for more than half of the day. Whether that's nothing for some people out there, I don't really care. All I know, is that I was sure it was my first step, albeit a baby step, in the right direction... The only problem was, I had barely studied anything for my Electricity course the days before. I was too busy with more pressing homework to bother with a piddly, giddy, jiggly, little exam that was worth twenty times more than my lab... And when the mid-term finally came around? I sure as hell figured out that cramming for one damn day, no matter how hard you cram, just doesn't cut it in university... not in my university, at least... and not when you're me, one of the bloody worst learners in my class when I look around... I did horribly on that exam. I had hoped my trials and tribulations and terror from that Discrete mark of mine would get my mind racing to the point where I'd actually be smart enough to tackle the professor's insanely hard questions. But instead, my frickin' brain was too frickin' tired to frickin' think, and I basically just sat there in the exam room, hoping that it wasn't just me, staring at those papers with absolutely no thoughts in mind. It was clear as daylight in my temples. It was literally clear as mud.

And yet stupidly enough, in hindsight, or hind-legged retrospect, that Tuesday or whatever turned out to be a decent day... in comparison to the crap I had to face on Thursday, at least... I was depressed Thursday morning yet again, simply because I had hoped that my second history mid-term would go better than my first. But some things were just not meant to be, as my stupid history of science course actually asked science questions for once, not just historical ones... and, well... you know me... the no-name, no-knowledge engineer... I realized then and there, that now that even history had been sucked down a gutter, absolutely none of my mid-terms had gone the way I planned. I had high hopes for Discrete, only to be not so discretely shot down. My only remaining hope left was my Digital Systems course, in which the mid-term had been damn easy, but was simply too damn long for me to finish... I had one last hope. A new hope. Before this goddam university of mine strikes back, and makes me as sad as if I were watching Episode I.

And on Thursday, that's when I checked my e-mail... It was 10 am in the morning or whatever. I was preparing to cram for the Electronics quiz I had later that day, when I decided to check my e-mail at school, just to procrastinate for a minute or so... and I noticed something, something that I never thought I'd have to contend with in my life... because you see, I got a letter from my TA.... it wasn't a very good letter... it wasn't a pat on the back, or a St. Patrick's Day letter... To paraphrase, he told me that he needed to see me next week. We had done a little open book quiz the day before, and he noticed something odd about my answer... He said I didn't get the answer in "the right way", but he wouldn't talk to the professor about it just quite yet, not until I talked to him first... and he ended off his e-mail with a "Best Regards" kind of signature... it really made me feel all warm and sweaty and bubbly tea inside...

And the thing was... huh?... He claimed I didn't get my answer in "the right way", and, um... What?!... I couldn't believe it... he was accusing me of cheating... tell me he wasn't accusing me of cheating... And the penalty for cheating in our Electricity class? It's of the highest severity... well, next to having your hand chopped off at least... I now know that even if I do get booked for cheating, I will only lose about 6% of my final mark, meaning I'd have little hope of passing anymore (considering my lameass marks and remarks), but at least I'd still have a chance. On Thursday however, I only knew about the rule in which if you're found cheating on the mid-term, you'll lose 60% of your mark, causing you to fail the entire term, if not your entire second year of engineering... I thought I was on a collision course with a complete and utter, uber failure, for no apparent reason or fault of mine whatsoever. I felt like I had been castrated. I felt like I had been framed. I felt like I was on trial for witchcraft. I felt like some TA was waving around names of communist manifestos or some crap like that. I thought I was going to be hanged. I honestly didn't know how to tell my dad...

So obviously, I was freaked out. I had never been accused of cheating in my life before. And I for one have never cheated. And the irony of the whole ordeal was, my TA had picked me to be the sacrificial lamb, when if he'd just look across the room, he'd literally see half of the damn class cheating... because you see, he was accusing me of cheating in one of the weekly, open book assignments we have in our Electricity tutorials. On the website, it simply states, "open book assignment". There are no rules, and no fine print. In the early lectures (before I started skipping), all I heard was "open book assignment". I heard no exceptions, and no Clarica clarifications, just to be clear... At the start of the year, everyone played it fair. Each assignment question is an exact question from the textbook, although with a few changes to the initial values. So everyone at first memorized as many homework solutions as they could, hoping that we'd be given one that we do remember, and if we don't remember all of the ten or so steps involved? We would then take a look at the formulae and example questions in the book for help, and all of us would finish off by checking our answers at the book (where only the final answers are, not the full solutions which are required for marks). That's the way it's always been. Or at least, that's the way I assume it's always been, and the way it should've been.

Until the questions started getting tougher, and mid-term season starting making us lazier. Eventually, even (or especially) the smart people in class started to lose themselves for ways to cheat. Some write out all the homework questions on paper beforehand and hide it in their textbooks until it's time to hand in, and some just write the full solutions in their actual textbooks, so they can just copy, paste, and modify for the real answer. Others literally have the full solution manual in hand, and for some damn reason, the TA never notices a third of the class copying out of book that ain't the textbook... But the thing is, Ripley believe me or not, I never succumbed to these temptations. I literally did everything by the book, no pun intended. I never cheated. It just isn't worth it. To cheat on an assignment worth just 2% of my final mark? Why would I risk it? Why would I risk my priorities, my pride, my prejudice and principles? Even though I do have the motive that I am pretty much failing all my courses...

And you know why he thought I cheated? Or at least, this is what I thought he thought... I didn't know the answer to the homework question that he gave us this week. Out of all questions to give, he gave us the hardest one, the only one that I didn't bother to study because I had no time. No time. I had my frickin' history mid-term the period after, and since I had gotten home at 11:30 pm from my Electricity mid-term the night before, I had no friggin' chance to study for history. So understandably and undeniably so, I just wanted to get out of that tutorial room as soon as possible, just to study every damn minute for history that I could. I didn't care about 2 paltry percentages of my Electricity mark, not compared to 25% of my history mark, so I essentially left my page blank. But I did however, put something down... Realizing that I had no time to figure out the question, I just checked the back of the book for the former answer (the answer for the question before he changed the initial values). And from that back of the book answer, I made up a fake answer that could've been right for all I knew... I wasn't trying to get marks. I wasn't trying to smart, SMRT. I just wanted to put something down on the page, rather than not hand anything in at all. And you see, that was probably the problem... I had literally just two steps down on my paper for a 15 step question, and yet what if, just what if, I had miraculously guessed at the final answer correctly? And what if, since this all looks so ominously suspicious, what if the TA saw that I had the right answer, and reasoned that the only way I could've gotten it without doing the math myself is by copying off of someone else?... That had to be it. I knew that had to be it. That had to be the solution. That had to be the final answer. That had to be knell that sounded the noose.

So I wrote him back. I was honest and candid, and tried to be as polite and apologetic as possible. I openly explained that by checking the back of the book, I might've gotten the right answer by fluke. And if I did somehow manage to get it correct, I'm as damn shocked as he is... But I did not cheat. I have never cheated in my life... except on myself... And after I sent him that e-mail, it finally hit me. It finally struck me... I wasn't afraid of failing all of university because of one, stupid mistake by the TA and one lucky guess by me... I was morbidly depressed, because someone who doesn't even know me, actually had the audacity to question my integrity. To say I'm a loser of an idiot is one thing, because all the above is true. But to call me a liar? To call me a cheater? To accuse me of compromising my ethics? I'm sorry, but if you Y2kk readers haven't at least figured out by now that I'm a man of principle, no matter how dumbass my principles may be, than I guess these websites of mine are a complete and utter failure, three long years in the making. A happy anniversary indeed.

And the stupid thing was, I couldn't study. Because I was so damn scared and so damn insulted by the awfully polite slander of my TA, I couldn't study. I couldn't consecrate. I couldn't damn concentrate on the damn Electronics crap I had to cram for the quiz later that day... So I got up, and checked the internet again. I wandered over to that Digital Systems website for my course, typed in my name, routinely inputted my password, checked the grades, and noticed... um... that the mid-term marks were up... And I had told you readers earlier that I was hoping Digital would be an average booster. I mean, the mid-term was long, but it was easy. It was easy, and that's all that counts, right?...

Wrong. Ease doesn't count But my mark does. On the record. For the record... I got 21 out of 60. That's 35 damn percent. I'm now barely passing Discrete Mathematics, and goddam failing a goddam Digital course that I thought I'd have no trouble with... And the saddest part of it all, was that I actually thought I did well on the exam... and, well... After seeing my Digital mark, I didn't feel as bad as I did after I failed the programming exam last term at least, but I felt bad. Real bad, when I realized I had cheated and slighted myself yet again... the Rattlesnake strikes again... I had studied for that course, but not in the right way. They wanted precise answers. I gave them... well... answers... And now that I've gotten my exam back, I now see that they gave me a hell of a whole lot of zeroes thanks to little mistakes here and there... I gave away marks, and literally gave away whatever was left of my pride in the process. I had overestimated my abilities yet again. I thought 70% for Discrete and 70% for Digital was fair for a fare... and, well... I don't really care when I get a failing mark. I just care when I see the mark I deserve is so much damn less than the mark I thought I deserved... and I usually think I deserve so little, and so few...

And to put it mildly, I was so damn pissed at that point. If Mr. McCarthy of the TA doesn't crucify me to the point of failing the term, I'd probably pull a Crucible on myself by flunking myself in every other damn course, and finish the job for his capitalist ass... And after suffering through all the above? I just couldn't muster the mustard or the gall or the strength or the fortitude or even the courage to study for that damn quiz of mine later that day, so I just picked up and left the library... I walked for quite a few hours that afternoon, just trying to cope and figure out what the hell I was going to do. Or actually, I didn't really care for the future... all I could think about was the here and now, and how I felt about me. What it meant to be IvanF, I mean... A mark may be meaningless, a mark may be meningitis, but the way my friends look at me when I tell them my mark? Priceless... or at least, if only it were priceless... The only problem is, none of them care. Especially the girl I talk too much about, none of them care... well, up until this day at least. I squandered and pondered and wandered for 40 minutes and 40 more minutes until I found some of my friends outside the classroom I was supposed to be in. I told them about my Digital mark. Of course, they shrugged it off, since how can they care for a mark that isn't theirs?... But when I told them about my ordeal in front of the Communist tribunal?... for once, they actually listened. Or actually, they always seem to listen... but for one moment, just one Lilo and stitch in time, when I was most small and broken, I had their undivided attention. For just one minute, they stared at me in system shock, because they actually cared about me, or at least cared about what I had to say, for one brief moment in the anal annals of time... And after that, I was able to concentrate. After that, I was able to consecrate. I really should thank them for that... not like any of my cramming helped me for the quiz to come, though...

But a little something came first. This day of hell of mine would just not end. Thursday the 13th literally seemed like it would go on forever. And I think it did, according to my watch, which oddly stopped ticking like a time bomb when 3 o'clock came roaring along... The thing was, I had already gotten two horrible sunrise, surprises for the day. It only took one more to complete the hat trick... It was finally time to get back our Electronics mid-terms. I noted on my download site a couple weeks ago that I knew I did horribly on that mid-term, that my work was so damn ugly that I'd be lucky to pull a 20%... and, well... I wasn't lucky... So sue me.

They gave me 4 out of 40. That's 10 bloody percent. It was almost as if I didn't show up for the damn exam. It was almost as if I didn't even exist... The day before, I had heard the class average was just 45% for this mid-term. For the first time I can ever recall in my university experiences here at University of Toronto Engineering, I have never once had a class average less than 60%... well, maybe just one... But the day before, when I learned of this failure of a class average? I was all class, and did the class act, and I simply could not help but wince and smile, because for once, just for once, I thought I wasn't the only one who was dragged down, deeper and deeper into cruelty and oppression... but when you compare my mark to the class average? God... I had less than a quarter of the damn insurance marker, and the only consolation I got was that one of my friends, that one friend who actually did truly care about me being accused of cheating... well, he did almost as badly as I did... Sure, he more than doubled my mark, but him being the genius that he is, I knew he deserved so much more. I know it's so cruel to be pleased that a close friend did almost as badly as yourself, but... well... honestly, that's what friends are for, I guess... because all I want is to feel even... the only problem is, the only thing I can brag about, is that I got an even number for a mark... and that I got the first digit of a perfect mark as my mark, but I digress...

And the thing was, there was the hat trick. Hats off to this day of hell, this Friday the 13th a day before, because that was it - three strikes for that day alone, and five strikes for the week, if that's base-ballian possible... I nearly failed Discrete. I mercilessly failed my Electricity mid-term. I was blamed for cheating on an absolutely worthless assignment. I did horribly on my Digital exam. And I couldn't even meet my 20% quota on the goddam Electronics mid-term... I felt like I was living out the goddam Crucible or some crap like that, or a Death of a Salesman, or a Day in the Life of IvanF... I guess either one's the same... I then trotted out into the hallway, where the girl I talk too much about was complaining about her 40% or whatever... I tried to explain to her my predicament, about the whole cheating thing and how I felt. I was hoping that she would care, or at least listen to me for one damn minute when I didn't have her cornered. I just prayed to God, that if she won't listen to me about my marks, at least she would care about this... But instead, like I noted on my download site, all I saw was sadness in her eyes. And when I realized that she was trying to get away from all the guys who were complaining about their 50%s or whatever around her, I simply left her alone for a moment, turned my back, and eventually turned back to notice that she was there no longer... because she really doesn't care about me, not even as a friend, does she?... I honestly don't know what's worse... besides a knife through the heart and being stabbed in the back, but I digress...

And oh God, I guess five strokes to the heart and five strikes to the gut just wasn't enough for one fine day, because fate just had to go for the grand ol' Oprah, the vexing vice city of six... When I finally got home that day, after most likely failing without qualms that damn Electronics quiz of mine, I checked my e-mail once again, and noticed that my wonderful Electricity TA had e-mailed me back so soon... The thing was, he called me a cheater again. Obviously, my alibi didn't touch his heart... but what I couldn't figure out, was why he now sounded so damn more sure that I cheated. Where was his proof? I had told him the truth, that I had made up a stupid, fake answer from the back of the book, and that'd I never do it again. What more could he want?

The problem was, he didn't want anything more. He didn't need anything more. Because goddammit, I had just signed my own destiny and indictment in pen... I had sworn to him that I've never cheated in my life... turns out now, that I've never cheated in my life... purposely, that is... Even though it says nothing about this anywhere on the website (I've now checked twice), and even though my entire tutorial class does this for every damn quiz, whether they knowingly cheat or not, my TA has made it official... or at least, claims it's official... He claims that looking at anything but the question and the formulae in the book, is cheating... And by revealing to him that I had checked the back of the book, since that was the last thing I considered to be cheating? And by signing my name on the damn e-mail I had sent him that morning?... I was now officially fucked...

I've never heard anything so ludicrous in my life. I've asked ten or more classmates on Friday about this whole back of the book issue, and none of them knew anything about it. All of us had assumed "open textbook" had actually meant you could friggin' use the damn textbook, but apparently, we were all wrong... I've asked the TA through e-mail to please send me the link that directly tells me that checking the back of the book warrants a would-be failing and caning of me in the course (since I'd be lucky to pull a 50%, even without this cheating crap), but besides all that, all I can do is ask for a meeting and beg him to let me off the John Proctor and gambling noose, if only because I didn't know better... I never once thought that actually using the textbook would've gotten me into trouble like this. And I never once thought that telling the truth would've poured goddam gasoline on the goddam flame, nipping at my rosebuds... But if there's one thing I've gotten out of this, it's support. All of my friends told me to warn my TA that almost nobody knows that checking the back of the book is a violation of the rules. If a true poll is taken and the rest of my tutorial class is as clueless as I was about all this? Then, well... then my TA will be officially fucked, for not clearly outlining to us what's legal, and what we simply cannot do... But I don't want to play this trump card yet. Not quite yet. Not until TET. Not until my TA proves to be a good or evil man... and besides, if I did play this card, the way my week's been going? It'll probably come back to haunt me, and knife me in the face... yeah, that stabbing in the back thing I talked about? Knowing my luck, it'll probably come true...

And I couldn't even get support from whom I consider my closest friend, who I know will read this update sometime in the next few days or so... I don't how to say this, so I'm just going to write it... I'm not trying to throw a shoe or a juice box at you or anything, so please don't take this the wrong way. But yesterday, instead of just listening to me and giving me support, you criticized me outright, telling me that you probably would've known better if you were in my position. You told me that in your Stats course, in words kinder and gentler than mine at least, you were smart enough to know you can't look at any part of the book besides the parts you were allowed to look at. But you didn't even try listening to me, about how I never even knew there were parts of the book that I wasn't allowed to view. I can't ever remember being told we can't look at the back of the book. Hell, the TA even once told us that looking at the back of the book is useless, but said it in a way that made it sound like it was legit... But you never once bothered to acknowledge the fact that I'm in trouble, real trouble, and that it's all by accident... even if only 6% is deducted from my mark, or even if I'm lucky enough that the TA only gives me zero on this assignment, how can I cope with my name being on the Dean's record instead of his list? I'll never be on his list... except his hitlist, but I digress... You did acknowledge the irony at least, that all the cheaters in the class are getting away with their crimes, yet I'm the one who gets booked all because I was the one who was being honest. But honestly... you're one of my closest friends, so why did you tell me I should've known better, at a time when I'm obviously in deep shit and scared? After we talked, I felt as badly as I did after September 11th, when so many people blamed America for their crimes at a time when people should've just shut up and mourned. Of course, it's obvious that my life is nothing compared to the 9-11 tragedy, but honestly... I know that you were right. Maybe I should've known better. But I don't really care who was right and who was wrong - it doesn't really matter. What should've mattered was that I'm your friend, and that I was trying to tell you something. I know I'm exaggerating, or just being an IvanFian idiot, but honestly, this is how I felt. I didn't just feel like you didn't care. I felt like you were acting as if you were better than me.

And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being mad at you. I'm sorry for being selfish, wanting some sort of solace... I'm sorry for being stupid enough to make up a fake answer, one that I should've known would get me in hot water, regardless of whether there was this stupid rule or not that you can't use the textbook in a bloody, open textbook assignment... I'm sorry for not studying enough, to pass my Electricity mid-term, or to even come close to half passing my goddam Electronics mid-term... I'm sorry for underestimating Digital Systems, forcing me to relive the pain I endured from my programming mid-term the term before. I'm sorry for not taking Discrete seriously enough, leaving me with not just one course to fail like usual, but three... even four... I've never been in this kind of trouble before. I've never been this worried before. I can hope, and I can pray, that I will work hard enough from this point on that I will survive and prosper... only to be killed by the hell of the non-existent bell, and the knell of the kneeling noose some other another goddam day. To die another die, a John Wilkes Phone Booth death. Dare to dream, I say... But honestly, three years ago... who would've thought that I would end up like this? All I knew, was that no matter what would happen, I would always be sorry. Am I am. I always am.

And you know what? I laughed. Thursday night, when I laid on my bed and stared up at my ceiling, cursing at the girl who talks too much in my mind, and cursing myself for being so damn cursed... that's when it all hit me at once. The irony of it all. The sheer magnitude of it all. That man is not a piece of fruit, and that I am not just some damn student number... I am IvanF. I have no last name. I am the sixth man, with no sixth sense but the sick sense to actually laugh. And I laughed. I laughed so heartily, I laughed so vehemently, I laughed so viscously, that you could almost consider it a laugh... if it weren't so damn evil... but then again, I do share a border with the Dutch... or maybe not, but I digress...

But before I go, just for the record, at least one thing cheered me up before I finally laid my eyes to rest. By trying to defend myself against cheating, I stupidly enough indicted myself for cheating. The irony of it all, ironically made me laugh... but the reality of it all made me feel so damn much more secure about myself... personality wise, not academic wise... I will never know whether I would've told the truth or not if I learned beforehand (but after I got that first e-mail), that looking at the back of the book is cheating... I will never know whether I would have willingly been honest, even if it meant getting me in deep shit... All I know, is that I didn't know. All I know, is that for what did happen, for what it's worth, I stayed true to myself, I stayed true to honesty, and I will get kicked in the anus of my arse of an ass for it. But at least I know, that I'm no liar. At least I know, that I'm no cheat... purposely, I mean... except to myself...

And on one last, final, musical note... The next morning, I checked the online site for my Electronics course. And voila, a bientot, there was my mark in bold print, 4 out of 40, right next to my name, bon voyage and au revoir... I have no last name... and next to it, was my adjusted mark... 43%... and, um... what?!... 43 percent?... The thing was, they actually did a bell curve. For the first time ever in my university experience, the professors actually did a real bell curve... it was socialism at its best... I love it... and if they didn't bell curve? My mark would've stunningly jumped from a 10% to a Big Mac of a Whopper 13%... such a lucky number... but thanks to Mr. Bell instead of the sound of the gnashing knell? I more than quadrupled my mark, and my close friend who actually cared about my situation? He jumped to 65%, and he deserves it... or actually, he deserves 90%, him being the genius that he is... and him being the first friend I made in this university, a friend that I now see I made for a reason, but I digress... and when I saw my adjusted mark, I just couldn't help but laugh. Even when I met the girl I talk too much about again, told her about my cheating predicament, and realized that she still doesn't care, I couldn't help but laugh. This whole week has been just one, big, fucking joke. I'm one, big, fucking joke, so why shouldn't I laugh? To me, the pitter patter of my falling marks is akin to the sound of music. My only remaining problem is, how do I explain this all to my kin?...

I had been planning an amusing and uplifting update for this third anniversary update of mine. But I now see that the Big O, national notation of a rotation of a number three, is just plain, bad luck when it comes to piss, poor me... and in that limelight, I might as well say, I simply cannot wait until the sixth anniversary of this site... and the 13th... and the entire 40s decade, if I ever get there and still consider myself Chinese, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean... All I know, is that I've survived long enough to get this site to its third birthday. And if that ain't a worth a laugh and a shudder asunder, then at least it's worth an oh so welcome, and an oh so joy-joy, happy happy happy happy happy anniversary... and a God Speed, Good Will Hunting, and God Bless Us, Everyone...

... if only that "everyone" included me... if only..."

Y2kk Update: A day in the life of IvanF... now there's a topic... Not a very good topic. Barely even a topic worth mentioning on a site as crappy as this one, and yet... just yet, last year's entry ended up as what I consider to be one my best and most betroved updates of all of 2002, as boring of a year as that was in my world of writing, simply for one reason and one reason only... because it highlighted the simple things in life, the little things I care so much about yet can't seem to remember even by the time the Sun sets that day. And even though these memories keep seeping and weeping in and out of memory, like the ghost of a moth to a flame, it's still the trivial treasures in life that truly make the difference between a smile and bad day, simply because there is a reason why we forget these things... which is why a sequel to a Day in the Life of IvanF has been in the Mycrowsoft works for a very long time. I've been itching to etch in stone, just one more day. Just one more day when nothing goes right, and nothing goes wrong... And heaven forbid, against all Great Expectations, I got my wish. Because this Wednesday was truly a day in the life of IvanF.

I woke up as usual at 6:45 am... and as usual, I took my alarm clock and shoved it down my pants... or my covers, at least... so that it's damn, incessant ringing and IvanFian whining wouldn't annoy me to death and actually wake me up. Sure, I can just flip the switch to shut the damn thing off, but that wouldn't be very sporting, now would it? Considering I'd just fall fast asleep again and forget all about the damn, dirty school I'm supposed to attend... By the time 7 am finally rolled around, I had finally rolled out of bed, with the set of a squire of uncombed hair that I would wear untamed like a timid beast for the rest of the day. As usual, I would go to the washroom, accidentally piss over a portion of my pants due to dreary weariness, and bust my bloody gums open with the blunt of my goddam toothbrush... just like any other day in the Life of IvanF... After finding something to don from my wide selection of three different shirts to wear, I went down to the kitchen, warmed up in the microwave the leftovers my mom saved for me from the dinner before, and tried my honest to God best not to gargle them all out, like a gargoyle spewing out garbage, or a trash compactor bashing its own rash... I still haven't told her that for some odd reason, rice in the morning makes me feel all woozy, and all clammy, and not very balmy, as I normally feel like I'm going to throw up... so instead, I just throw out most of the crap in the garbage, hide it all under a napkin so my dearest mommy won't see me wasting food, and go on with my newspaper business, as if the stuff I just spat out wasn't enough to feed three starving children in Africa... And after my little daily charade of where's the rice, where's the rice, it's off to the races for me, quite literally and figuratively. I'm always quite late for the city bus that comes at 7:35am, and I'm always huffing and puffing when I finally get on the damn thing, after running from my house all the way to the bus stop, just so I can make the train on time to no man's land, contrary to what ever fiber and Mycrowsoft file in my bloody body wants me to do.

A slightly weird thing happened that Wednesday morning though... As I was mourning on the train about rising from the evil dead in the morning, like a resident zombie that can't even point to a Starbucks sign or some crap like that, a GO train guy came up to me and actually stalked me to see my ticket, just moments after we had gotten underway... You see, the train service operates mostly on the trust system, not the trust fund system, in which once or twice a month, you'll get checked by a man in a black suit, to determine whether or not you have a ticket. And as for the other 28 days of the month, as long as you're no drunk Sandra Bullock or something, you're fine without a ticket, as long as the workers don't find out about it and give you a hefty fine... But the thing was, I was on the rush hour train. Not only that, but I was on the morning rush hour train. I've never been checked on it. Not once. Or at least, not this early, when most of us don't have enough brain activity to even remember whether we punched out tickets or not... Because honestly, the GO train guys have a lot better stuff to do (or at least, I assume they do), then rag and nag on every half dead, half sleeping corporate monger, all the way from the engine to the dainty, cotton caboose... Sure, I had my ticket with me, so it's not like I had any problems. It was just weird though, that I had actually been asked, less than three minutes after I had boarded the express, long before I could even realize what had just happened. And I knew, I just knew then and there, as if I was having some sort of messed premonition or some crap like that, that this Wednesday would definitely be no ordinary day in the life of IvanF... and that in the end, it would just be another day in the life of IvanF... and all things considered, especially all little things considered, I can honestly and earnestly say, it was definitely both of the above.

I'm not used to this happening to me, and yet it was so damn trivial that I almost froze up... and not just from the Canadian weather, eh. I froze up - my shoulders became inclined to lose their incline, and it was all because I saw her, the girl I talk too much about, walking right in front of me as I exited the subway station near school... I tried to reason with myself, and nudge my ass just to say hello. I mean, we were close friends, weren't we? So why the hell was I keeping my distance from her, as if I was running away from her again or some crap like that?... the X-files truth was, I steered the course and kept to my own business, as I stalked her whispering in the wind behind for three minutes straight, simply because I was still a little too hell bent and quite a bit demoralized from what she had told me the day before... If you've read my download site for the week, you'll know what I'm talking about... But short story short, she kind of admitted that she and I would make absolutely the worst couple imaginable, that we have no choice of ever doing the duel as the dual, and that she would never dream of ever being with a guy like me... ever... or being with me, specifically, for reasons I can only guess are more than obvious to anyone less oblivious than little prick me... She essentially had said that we would never be together, and I assume that includes even when I'm the last man on earth and she's the last woman on earth... and just when I was ready to shout in my mind, "What's your point?"... that's when I veered off, hard to starboard, avoiding all firm contact with her rudder. She went on her way, without ever knowing that I was there, and I went on my way, feeling damn useless that even she knew that I had absolutely nothing of decent worth to ever offer her... because size does matter, and she knows that my ego is too big for hers... she knows that I could never make her happy... And I just ran from her ass like a coward, or a Polonius behind the shudders, underneath the covers, ready to be slaughtered with his hands down his pants... or an alarm clock actually, but that's besides the point...

I finally made my way to the computer lab where I could print off a bunch of history stuff that I would need for my tutorial later that day... Now, the entire lab was empty that early in the morning. I could've heartedly stolen any seat that I wanted out of hundreds, and there wasn't a single soul there to contest mine with guilt... and yet, I kept seeing a mirror image of her in mind. The girl I talk too much about definitely had infiltrated my thoughts and subconscious mind a little too damn much... And if I recall properly, the last time I wrote about a day in the life of IvanF, I mentioned that I gave my seat up to her in the very lab that I was now standing in... and almost subconsciously, yet almost as if I was trying to sacrifice a lamb in hope of becoming Pygmalion or something more, on Wednesday I chose the only spot in the computer lab that I my conscience would allow me, the very seat that I had given up to her almost an entire damn year ago... Of course, my whole damn endeavour and vulturous venture down memory lane certainly didn't help things out with the damn computer systems at school. When I tried printing the crap that I had to print to ensure that my TA didn't yell at me again, another omen sort of passed me by, and darkness definitely fell on the box office... Because, um... no matter how many times I tried logging in, no matter where I checked on the damn computer systems, the damn computer I was at kept telling me that there was no printer in the room, even though I was practically sitting right next to it... and, um... okay... There were now other people in the computer lab, about three, all passing me by with their trinary, trinity star print jobs, and yet the computer that I picked all thanks to sentimental value and my pitiful blue crush, ended up being the only one that wouldn't let me damn print?... I knew, I just knew then and there for the third damn time that day, that something was definitely up, that something was definitely not right. But before I could test my theory by testing another damn computer, I motioned towards my watch and realized it was time to go... and time to die, as far as I was concerned. The knell sounded 9:30 am. And it was showtime. It was quiz time.

Last term, I had looked so damn forward to the end of Calculus class and the end of Circuit theory class... and after it was all said and done, I guess you can guess that I definitely was not a happy pappy of a camper, soiling my pampers by shitting in my pants, when I first saw my first evil of an Electricity and Magnetism quiz, and realized that everything I had learned in those damn two courses above would have to become my best damn friend this goddam second term around... Short story short, I went into that tutorial room to take my quiz, and as expected, I spent more time talking about global economics and hockey ergonomics and breakfast eggonomics than I did studying for my damn quiz to come... In the end, I failed the damn test as usual, not that I'm complaining, because when have I ever complained?... The quiz I took wasn't worth very much for my final mark, but the thing was, I was determined to get the marks nonetheless. The two questions posed were both exactly from the textbook, and since I have an aptitude, amplitude, and attitude to memorize final answers from the back of the book, all I essentially did on the quiz was write a couple of lines to start each equation, and then pretended like I knew what the hell I was doing by just writing the numerical answers at the bottom of the page... I was cheating without cheating. I thought I had it all worked out.... but unfortunately for me, my plan didn't exactly go ahead as, um, planned, this time around. Because simply put... um... I wasn't wrong, per say... It was just that, um... the book wasn't right... There's a reason why the cover of the textbook proudly states, "reprinted with corrections!", because yahoo.ca!, whoever the hell wrote the damn book on this book really damn sucks at figuring out the right answers, almost as damn badly as me. And even with the so-called corrections the book bragged about having, the answers at the back for both questions the quiz took were still bloody hell wrong... so now not only did I look like an idiot for not knowing a damn thing, but I looked like a complete doofus of a dumbass for writing completely wrong answers that ominously look exactly like those from the back of the book... or back to the future... go figure... and go fish... and sad to say, this was just another usual day in the life of IvanF, as far as I was concerned... it was just another day of feeling utterly, eternally useless...

The only thing that truly concerned me that morning however, was whether I could finally best my friend in a game of ping pong, or if that goddam rock-scissors-paper standard that we've set in sports entertainment would hold to that day. Because you see, I always used to beat this friend of mine at table tennis, even though he's had years of experience over me. And while I couldn't even score half of the requisite points against a certain other friend of mine (think Cricket.. gotta love those bugs...), this first guy that I could always beat managed to beat my other friend every single damn time that they played, hence rock, scissors, and paper... The thing was, that second friend is never around for our threesome games of horizontal ping pong anymore, and a new friend has joined the ranks... my partner from my labs this term, actually... And the thing was, he's ruined the mojo chemistry that I once claimed in the name of Spain, all thanks to the rock-scissors-paper concept being thrown completely out the window, only to return like a boomerang gutting my throat, dicing my gut into a marsupial pouch, and making me get real horny whenever I see kangaroos jumping on the screen... and I'm now scared that dingoes will eat my babies, oy oy oy, because now, for some damn reason, I can't even beat that first friend anymore, not even once, that I used to beat every single damn time that we played a game. And the thing is, I can beat my lab partner every single damn time we play, usually by double his score, as if to balance the scales and balance my sores between good and goddam pathetic... but the rock-scissors-paper cycle was not quite complete, as neither me or my lab partner have been able to beat my first friend for some damn reason for quite some time... Not until Wednesday, that is... Because after I tired my tuckered friend out from three matches straight, my lab partner moved in for the kill, and actually scored an impressive victory over my now less than impressive, first friend... Determined to not be outdone in sports by the same guy who overshadows me in all the hell labs we've ever done together, I once again declared that I would go one on one with the great one, or whatever you want to call that friend of ours that I no longer can seem to beat...

But the thing was, I suck at ping pong. I really do. I was getting beaten all over again, no matter how hard I tried. So the thing was, I decided that I would just take the whole game as a fling, and fling back the ball as if it was just a simple thing. Because it's the little things in life you treasure... What I mean is, I started to let myself have fun, let loose with the arms going left and right, making every return far more dramatic than it had to be, and in the process, I got a few oohs and awes from the two man crowd in the stands, and a standing ovation at the end, considering we were all standing in the first place... Because you see, there was one point where my friend blasted a curved spike at the opposite side of the table that I was at... and since I had absolutely nothing to lose, considering I only had half the score that him and his half life seemed to have, I decided to take my chances and go all out for a spectacular loss... and the thing was, I slid on my knees like a Mark wallaby rock star, oy oy oy and ow ow ow, and I stuck my paddle out like a guy all too happy to see a girl... and before I knew it, without even realizing it, I had bounced back his blinding shot all the way back to the opposite corner of his side of the table, and although he probably could've returned the shot if he had tried, he was simply too darn, goddam impressed by my overzealous efforts to bother ruining my perfect shot... and my perfect moment in this not so perfect day in the life of IvanF, I must say... and I'm still reaping the benefits of it, considering my right knee feels like a wonky sports injury even now, and I keep signing autographs for myself, just for the hell of it, though it's too cold here to be hell, but that's besides the point...

By that point in time, I went over to the Linux computer labs and found my friend once again fondling the Xpilot game found on the servers... The thing was though, I swear there was a clone of me sitting right next to him, the same damn mini-me (or larger-me) of mine that has been sitting beside him for the past week or so by now. So what else could I do but call my friend a traitor, for replacing me with a new friend who may look nothing like me, but I swear is supposed to be just like me... he's a more perfect version of me... he's more of a pig of a Pygmalion version of me... an IvanF version 2.0 I believe, which usurps the Mycrowsoft version 0.9 in me by quite a dozen of a doozle, thank you very much... Of course, my jokester routine with him was all in good fun, although my bud of a budric didn't exactly get the Jack Black reference I made when I screamed out, "Screw you, replacement friend!", or some crap along those lines, loud enough for the rest of the lab to turn a deaf ear to me... Either way, the end result was the same. For I am the game, and you don't want to play me... I ended up feeling guilty for making such bad jokes that I actually starting to play Xpilot with him, for the first time in God knows how many months. And the thing was, like I said, I haven't played in God knows how many months... but simply because the game was set to one shot kills, all I did was spin around in space like a sweet sixteen bottle, firing out little pellets like sixteen candles all over the skies on my six, and all over my pants in 69 places, if you know what I mean... because I certainly don't... and I accidentally hit my friend and all his go-lucky competitors God knows how many times, but definitely enough times to actually catch up to my friend's almighty score. And the funny thing was, he's been clamouring for months to get me in the game, simply so he could kick my whiny ass... flying dick, my ass... and here I was, kicking his ass all the way to no man's land, halving his score while doubling my own. And just when I was about to tie him for the lead, just when I was just three points down, simply by leading all my shots astray and hoping that my dumb luck will find just another victim, he quit the server, quit the game, and yanked me from his online Confederacy by the figurative ear, all the way down to our history lecture hall... with me half giggling like a school girl, for embarrassing the master to the point where he actually wanted to go to class... and half disappointed in myself, that I seemed to be half disappearing and half of a disappointment when it came to my friends... for he wasn't the only one who was replacing my useless ass with new buddies, but that's besides the point...

There's not much I can say about history class, except that it's weird seeing my TA just sitting in the back all the time, watching us feeble peasants like a falcon of a hawk, painting targets and maiming names, making sure that he's gonna be the top dawg and top draw in the household, but that's besides the point... The point is, I can live with that. In the lecture hall, at least... but definitely not in the tutorial room, where I have to suffer through his endless, tiresome, monotonous, monochromatic, Socratic voice, lecturing us about his days as a Computer history student, and how he's so much more of a hard worker than any our lazy asses, or even that of the professor's... Anyhew, the thing about our history tutorials is that each of us has to present a summary sometime in the term, about what the hell the professor said in the lectures of the week. And the thing was, the batter at the plate, or the sacrifice at the altar, for this week was none other than the girl who sat next to me the first day of this tutorial class... She actually caught me by surprise last month, because why would a cute girl sit next to a loser like me - willingly - when there was so many free seats left in the tutorial room?... of course, she immediately left my side after she figured out that I was just a lowly computer engineering student, while she was from that hot shots: part deux, engineering science course that rejected me a long time ago, in a high school far far away, but I digress... Short story hopefully short, it was her time to shine or grind at the center stage, full frontal and center, as if it was Just Jack... or at least, I wished that she had gone full frontal, considering I lost track of whatever she was saying, all thanks to her rack... or actually the jeans she was wearing, silhouetting her thighs, as she has this subtle look about her that really screamed out that she wanted to be licked... or that she wanted to be a chicken wing - either one's the same... If you've followed my no-name site, then you'll know that I have a thing for Amy Acker, the actress that plays Winnifred in Angel. And the thing was, not only was this tutorial girl as smart as Fred (to an extent in my eyes, at least), but she had almost the same damn face, the same damn pout, the same damn sucking of her succulent lips as if she attended a Mars bar school for very bad girls or something, and wanted to cum get some then and there... and honestly, with proof like that, how could I possibly not think that she wanted me? But sorry, ladies... I'm taken... I'm stalking the girl I talk too much about, and there's no way around it... except when I run away from her three minute warning of an ass, of course... regardless of whether I want it to be true or not... real or not... because dare to dream I say, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean...

After that Amy Acker clone was done reading off her sheet, and after the TA was done admiring his own voice while condemning us like the Church for thinking Copernicus actually started a scientific revolution or some crap like that, it was once again off to the races for me, as I don't get the newspaper I want at home anymore, and am forced to walk ten minutes to a university dorm place where I can steal a copy from unsuspecting idiots who hate unsuspecting idiots like me even more than I do... I sort of do that every day, or every day Canada isn't cold enough to hear our breathe fizzle in the freezing freakin' cold, but I digress, eh... I then returned to school, determined to be destined to start on my goddam Electronics lab two days early, although readers of my download site know the end result of that... When I finally arrived back at school, I found that my lab partner was nowhere to be found, even though we had agreed to stay the day before. I checked the ping pong arenas, the yin and yang forums, and even the When Sally Met Hally Berry lobbies, and all I could I could find was my first friend, who told me that my partner ran off after getting some sort of phone call or some sort of thing like that... I started becoming worried, not just because I was fearful that something had happened to his family, but also because without him, I'm useless. I was useless at the Digital Lab on Monday, and useless at the Electronics lab the week before. All I ever am is a distraction to him, and I was feeling so damn useless throughout the day that I seriously did want to get a head start on building the circuit for Friday, if only to make myself seem more useful than I actually am. But alas, it seems all of plans never go ahead as, um, planned... because instead, my plots just prod and pop and pierce and prove that I really am never going to become better than I am, better for her, for what must a man do to be hers, now will I?... not that I'm complaining, because when have I ever complained?

But even if I wanted to start on the circuit myself, there was no way in hell I could've done it by, um, myself... so allow myself to introduce myself, because lo and behold, I ran into my Cricket friend in the computer lab later that day as I was skipping yet another class... and apparently, so was he... and apparently, he had forgotten to bring our breadboard, the damn thing we needed to make the damn circuit for Friday. I finally figured that the reason why my lab partner left was not because of some family member getting disfigured, and not because of some alien abduction or an attack from Greenpeace, but because thanks to this friend that I could never beat in ping pong, I had lost all love and lost all hope of ever becoming more than love and war, or ever becoming a real, tangible vital stat, or a vitasoy vitality prick just for her, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean... But anyhew, I decided to stay at school anyhew, since there was a seminar later that day for our up and coming, bloody writing assignment for our Electricity and Magnetism course. So I stayed by my friend's side, the one that neglected to bring my only salvation at finding a solution to my circuit, and finding a solution to my uselessness... He started typing out his resume at school, and I started chatting with him about what I could possibly put into my own damn resume, considering I've never worked a day in my life, and considering I really needed to make a resume for once in my life, if only to fulfill the requisite engineering hours for my university bachelor's degree. In the end, our conversation degenerated to the point where I was complaining that his Linux menu bar could beat up mine, but that my ICQ number and my three I's had his number's number any day of the week, even this dreary day in the life of IvanF... but in reality, I was just hiding the fact that I was too ashamed of never achieving anything of any real value in my lifetime (...besides the stuff that I do value, I mean...) to even start on a resume, to even start lying about the accolades I only wished I had... I have absolutely nothing to write into my resume, and absolutely nothing to write home about. Thick and through, I felt like a failure. Or more to the point, I am a failure... because it's my fault, and always my fault... and, well... sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, doesn't it? Which is why it was just another day in the life of IvanF, as far as I was concerned....

Since I had several hours of downtime and down-to-earth time left before that goddam seminar would start, I opted to take the freezing, frickin' cold route and walk thirty minutes to a downtown mall, where I had seen a wrestling DVD that I wanted a month or so before. But before I could leave, I stumbled into the middle of some debate about registry codes this and Microsoft Office that... But let's backtrack a second first, before I get ahead of myself and collapse on my wonky knee. Realizing that my friend was ridden with guilt for forgetting to bring the breadboard as requested, I jumped on the window of opportunity to convince him to make me a copy of WindowsXP sometime down the line. He would scratch my back while I would scratch my dick, for my bark is better than my bite, and yadda yadda yahoo yadda... Eventually, a certain genius guy I have yet to talk about on this website stepped into the fold, and starting murmuring about some sort of geek crap, how every computer engineer has memorized a Microsoft registry code license sometime in their lives... The thing was, this guy has never made me feel like a decent person around him before. Before the exams last term, every time I asked a question to somebody around him, he would pounce on the opportunity, like a kangaroo that didn't make me horny, and tell me how damn easy the question that stumped me actually was... A year ago, I just couldn't take it when he stole the spotlight from me, and got all my friends to shine in his direction, as if he was some shrink of a shrine, simply from his stellar political commentaries about the Attila attacks going on in Afghanistan or the Congress meeting in Zimbabwe about zebras or zambonis or some kind of crap. And the worst of the worst was, he was bragging the other damn month how his skin all scalps off when push comes to shove and the winter season gets really, really, ridiculously bad, Molson Canadian style. And he even proved to me, by showing off his muscular arms and his muscular charm, that his skin disorder causes his brown skin to turn as white as a Michael Jackson that just realized all the bad press he's gotten, as if he was the dingo that ate my baby... And the thing was, I'm supposed to be the skin rash guy! I'm the guy who's supposed to complain about putting on a Doom wad of medical make-up every damn morning, otherwise my skin will flake off like corn flakes mixed with snowflakes, and turn pitch black! I'm supposed to be the one so horribly disfigured that I'm the one worthy of the rating of XXX! Hell, I'm supposed to be the one with the skin as horrible as that goddam movie!

And the damn thing was, he was stealing the spotlight from me, even for something that I thought nobody but me would ever want the damn spotlight for! And after making me feel damn stupid, by opening up our conversation with talk of how easy that damn quiz was this morning, and after stealing the spotlight from me yet again by getting all my friends to laugh like a whorish mob, he started ranting off registry code after registry code for Microsoft Office like a computer backup system or whatever, and I couldn't damn take his damn brain and his perfectly styled clothes and his damn sweaty balls on his damn sweater any goddam longer! I mean, he's the damn perfect guy, with a perfect brain, a perfect fashion sense, a perfect electronics sense, and perfect, goddam boyish looks! I hate how he's smarter than me! I hate how he's more creative than me! I hate how he's funnier than me! And I hate how he knows computers better than I ever will. So just before I left, I just had to steal the spotlight from him, just for once... just this once... I sort of raised my hand like a dunce of a dumbass discipline, and revealed that, "um, I don't have a registry key memorized"... That's when he just had to steal the spotlight back, and yelled in my face (with a service of a smile, of course) that I was an embarrassment to all engineers... Of course, nobody laughed at my comment. And of course, everybody laughed at his. I was an embarrassment. I was useless. And he wasn't. He's always done everything right. And that was the last straw... So in comical, IvanFian fashion, the only fashion sense that I knew, I just stormed off. As if damn trivial pursuit guys had stolen my room yet again, I just stomped my foot on the ground, parted the red sea, and let them have their way... but not without the last laugh. Because I actually got one, actually... as I had my back turned and walked out the front door, I decided to let loose with the fury that would be king, and siphoned off some fuel from that spectacular ping pong save that I made the morning before, by spouting out, "thanks for the chat!", with emphasis on the "chat" of course... I didn't look back to see what this perfect guy's respond was. But I think I did hear his chin go up in defence, and his nose pointing high in the air... and a laugh from the friend who was making the resume, which is all that I ever asked for... besides everything else that I ever asked for, of course...

And it was just my luck that day of course, that by the time I got to the mall, the damn DVD I wanted was gone. I walked half an hour to get there, and half an hour to get back in the freezing, frickin', freaky deeky cold, just to come back empty-handed... and to realize that the only way I'll ever cum is when I'm alone in a closet and definitely not empty-handed, but that's besides the point... Because by the time I got back to the computer lab, my friends had all vanished. But left in their place was still the perfect man that had knocked me off the pendulum podium so damn easily just an hour before... and the worst of it all, was that the girl I talk too much about was finally there, sitting next to him as if they were locking arms or locking gums or exchanging vows or some crap like that... Of course, my jealousy parking meter reached an all-time high then and there, and I couldn't help but be threatened by the fact that the girl I have a crush on was sitting next to the guy that was so damn much better than me in every single aspect, and every single aspect ratio possible, lest I ever forget... and he definitely showed it that Wednesday night. He definitely showed me, and snubbed me, and scoffed me off with those virtual fisticuffs of his... The girl I talk too much about had a computer problem with the printer, sort of echoing my own ill fate earlier that day. So I went up to her computer, and tried in vain to get the damn printer to work. But in the end, all I could end up doing was whimper out a joke and let loose with the guilt-ridden failure... because I am a failure... while he's not... because the thing was, as if guided by providence (while I was blinded by purgatory), the perfect guy that I perfectly couldn't stand sort of shoved me out of place, took one look at the computer systems, and got the printer to print, no damn problem whatso-goddam-ever... and the worst of it all, was that she started ignoring me, smiling so damn much at that perfect guy as if they were getting married to each other or some crap like that. And all I could do was sit there, as the perfect man kept cracking joke after joke, while I kept crackling noise after noise, almost to the point where the girl who I talk too much about began crying from laughter, while I almost started sobbing from being so damn useless... and hell, the way those two were going on? I swear to God, it was almost as if the were meant to be. It was almost as if she was going to cry from the lower eye as well, just from his smile that made her melt, and a belt he flirted as flimsy as Midas gold, but I digress...

An opportunity finally arose about ten minutes later, when she didn't like the print out that he had given her before. When she mentioned that she would've preferred if the font was bigger, I tried to run to her rescue naturally, and insisted that she copy the html contents of the webpage that she was printing into StarOffice or some sort of document editor where the font could be changed, or the page limits could be set. But of course, the perfect man had the perfect solution, and barged in, partially invited of course... and simply changed the minimum font setting on her Mozilla browser, much to my chagrin and her jubilant delight. And when she printed the html file again, the formatting was purely perfect, exactly what she always wanted in the first place, as if that perfect guy could tell from her eyes exactly what size she wanted... because size does matter, and he was the one, not I, who damn fit like a damn Cinderella slipper... and goddammit, I felt so damn useless then and there, for not being able to give her what she needs, or what she pleases, or what she truly deserves... Instead, no matter how hard I tried, the perfect man always had the perfect gift, and it's no wonder why she called me a big fat "minus" and a zilch of a zero hero just the day before. Because in a university where perfect guys come a dime a dozen, and where perfect girls get to cum by the dozens a day, it's no wonder that all I ever see is green. Because I'll forever be overshadowed by the jolly, green giants, with their pockets of cash and their pouches of soya beans...

Well, the girl I ceremoniously talk too much about eventually left with the perfect guy. They were practically holding damn hands as they parted, and practically holding damn private parts with their hands... and the thing was, I was now feeling utterly alone and ashamed, as useless as a person can possibly get, I'd wager. I was still hurting from being left as a single singularity when it came to the girl I talk too much about... The day before, I claimed to myself I was used to being told that I'm really nothing in the eyes of a women. But as true as that was, I lied... and it certainly didn't help matters when the perfect guy came along with the perfect marks, the perfect smile, and the perfect way to make me feel jealous and zealous, and definitely not Zest clean, with his talk of the easy quiz this morning, and his magical ways of enchanting all my friends to the point where they didn't even notice I was there anymore. And I'm not just paranoid and afraid of losing the girl I talk too much about, because I'm also now terrified of losing my university friends in general, as I've never been a general. I've always been just a follower, a private with privates barely worth mentioning, but that's besides the point... My lab partner has been real quiet around me ever since our first Electronics lab. He left school without telling me today, and call me paranoid delusional if you will, but I felt like I only had myself to blame. And yeah, the Cricket friend talks to me when I'm alone, but as soon as the perfect guy comes along and becomes the talk of the party? Well then, it's no wonder why he forgot the breadboard in the first place... And that bud of mine that plays Xpilot all the time? You know the scoop. That I've been scooped away and castaway with two scoops of raisins, simply by a replacement friend of a mini-me, as there's always someone better than me, or a tripod out there, even in a school this damn small... And I started thinking to myself, that in the end, my only true friend seems to be the one I rarely talk about, the one from high school that I threw a juice box at long time ago, the one who still talks to me every other night from some university out in the west. And I started thinking to myself, that he may be the only friend that will ever stay by my side. He's the only friend that I may still be able to call a friend, years down the road... and lo and behold, what do you know? Irony has a sense of humour, I suppose... because I checked my e-mail at the computer lab then and there, and I saw a more than just ominous message from that one and only friend that I was just oddjobly thinking about... and it turns out, he's moving back to America, farther than the phone line can reach... So who are you gonna call? I mean, we're not even going to get to see movies this summer, or more Star Trek actresses in movie theatres to harass (still no restraining orders, flying dick my ass, I thank you...)... After an entire day where friend after friend seemed to abandon me one after another, even if they only did so in the frame of my mind, I guess it was just natural that I would get this kind of bad news, at this time in the day in the life of IvanF... because it seems, the fates just always have to prove me wrong...

But the thing was, with me feeling wet cold and starving, with every man's hand against me or some crap like that, I was now left alone in the lab, feeling even more lonely than I was before, with this Asian girl that that perfect guy was initially helping, before my wave of a fire of a beautiful crush came along to steal the show... an Asian girl who was wearing the same damn, dainty pants that had lured me to the Vanilla Sky girl and her ass in the first place, so how could I possibly resist?... Because a threesome, polygamous idiot, I mean... So either out of stipulated stupidity or simply out of jealous guilt, or even out of hope that one day, I could make the girl I talk too much about get as jealous of me as I am of her, I introduced myself to this Oriental, Oedipal beauty, and despite my obvious reluctance to twist a smile, she still smiled back at me so damn much that it really looked like it hurt as I made my way out of the room... and since Wednesday, I've run across this gal too many times to tell in the computer labs, each and every time with her waving at me as if she were the late, great Princess Diana or somebody like that... and each time I wave at her, memories of being so damn unpolite and so damn pointless around the girl I talk too much about, kept flooding the bowels of the remnants of my revenant mind, reminding me of the revelation that I'll never be the man that I want to be... or the man she wants... Because not only did I feel absolutely horrid and torrid about being third place to the perfect guy, but I also now felt guilty for hoping to get the girl I care about jealous of me, not like she cares, mind you... and not like my plans ever go ahead as, um, planned...

Anyhew, I stayed at school until about 7pm, when the goddam seminar was finally over and done with. I still remember my exact words to my friends after we lurched out of that lecture room: "... God, that sucked"... simplistic, yet truthful. I summed up the whole damn seminar in three damn words... and I got a laugh out of my friends to boot... And as the day began to wear down, I was ready to sit my ass in the handicap car of the GO train that would finally take me home, when who did I see standing in the cold, starving and hopefully wet, was the girl that I talk too much about, especially in this excruciatingly long and painful update?... I mean, we both live in the same suburban town... the same region of that same town, actually... so it was only natural that we would catch each other on the train, considering she probably had waited for that utterly useless seminar as well... and thus, it appeared that she does wait around for completely useless things, so maybe a guy like me does stand a chance?... But still, I was about to elude her path and make my way to the rear of the train when I recalled the moment that morning, when I avoided her by the subway station. And realizing my feelings of utter contempt for myself, for not being apt or Johnny adept enough to give her what she deserves, I decided to revert back to my phallic and fallacy principles of truth and honesty, made my way to the rear of her caboose, and patted her gently on the shoulder, like a McDonalds' lighter choice meal, to show her that I was there... I then followed my sincerity up with a really stupid comment about accidentally falling underneath the train tracks, after which she rightly condemned me for always having suicidal thoughts.... I always screw things up, don't it? In the hope of being screwed, that is... But either way, no matter how much of a mad hatter fool I made myself to be, especially in contrast to the perfect man that she had all evening long, I would not run away. I owed her that, at least... and also, now that she saw me, I couldn't run away, even if I wanted too, or she'd give me that look that only women can give, but that's besides the bloody pint of a point...

And, well... I can't really tell you what we talked about on the train ride back home... but let me tell you this at least, that it put to rest most of my fears and doubts and Aberfoyles of what she was feeling... Because she wasn't mad at me anymore. She never once mentioned that jealousy thing again from weeks prior... And she definitely proved to me that she had no feelings for me, but at least I was also comforted by the fact that that perfect man was just a friend... and not even a good friend, as she said guys like him seem to intimidate her off... and, well... good then... If I'm going down, I'm taking his damn, skin disordered ass down with me, although I doubt that sounds very good... But the thing I can't really talk about, is the fact that she's been asking me a lot lately about Valentine's day, as if she wanted a cupid for Christmas, for one reason and one reason only... before Wednesday, I thought it was because maybe she had feelings for me... but I was wrong... I'm always damn wrong... because it wasn't about me. It was about him. Another him. She has a crush on another guy. We truly had a love triangle threesome going on here, as I listened to her softly the whole train ride home as she kept begging me for advice on whether she should ask him out or not before Valentine's day... at times, I hoped she was really referring to me, despite always referring to someone else that I know of... a guy that I have nothing against, as he has proved to be a rather decent man the last couple times he's asked for computer help... The truth of the matter is, the girl with mittens that loves those kittens, the girl that I'm hopelessly smitten with, is smitten with another guy. And that's when I finally realized, that that's where all the sexual tension was coming from. Because she's been hiding this from me, afraid that I'd react wrongly, or that I'd tell, knowing my record... but even by my standards, I was as close to being the perfect gentleman on that train as I possibly could've been... because simply put, I wasn't feeling useless anymore. All I've ever wanted was to give her what she deserves, and what she deserves, is the man she wants, who will comfort her, and love her, and make her feel special, in more ways and more places at once than one... and the thing was, I'm just hoping that she asks that guy out for Valentine's day, if only to give her what she craves, if only to make her happy, if only for a short circuited while... She keeps telling me that she often cries at night, although she never tells me the reasons why. I'm just praying, that even though I gave her very limited advice that Wednesday night, that at least I stopped her from shedding a tear for just one, long, wistful of a windy night.

But now I sound like a mental, sentimental loser of a stalker, now don't I? The truth is, I was just happy that I listened to her. I was just happy that I said absolutely nothing wrong... By the end of the conversation, she had unloaded so much off of her breast onto mine that she really did seem happy with me, and that's all I could've ever asked for. She claimed the day before that we share no connections, but once again, I thought I felt one, I thought I felt it... hell, I thought I felt her, despite all my logic telling me otherwise... though I still felt horrible, for always being a second rate loser compared to other guys. I still felt terrible, for not being the man I've always felt she deserves. But at least for the first time in the longest time, I felt like I was her friend again, and she was mine. I felt that she trusted me for once, and that's all I've ever asked for, even though I've always wanted more... I was no longer seeing green. I was no longer seeing threes. I was no longer seeing myself. But I was seeing her, just her... just like I'd always hoped... and, well...

That was pretty much my Wednesday... just another day in the life of IvanF, as far as I'm concerned... after all the above, I just waited as usual in the train station for my dad to pick me up, the details of which were pretty much outlined in last year's day in the life of IvanF. I then arrived home, exhausted at a morning where a) I actually had to wake up, b) I failed a quiz, c) I did a bang up job of banging my knee in ping pong, and d) I stared at the hips of that Amy Acker clone that kept swaying her ass as she Sinbad swayed her voice... I had gone through an afternoon where I felt useless for being a no-name lab partner, where I felt inept for having a friend who didn't show up, where I writhed and felt even more useless when I saw that other friend of mine writing his resume, and of course, I reached my zenith, my pinnacle of precision patheticness, when that perfect guy showed me the perfect way of feeling like a loser... And I had spent my night wandering the streets, all just to find nothing, like a dog searching for the end of a rainbow. I befriended a new girl at one moment, only because I was afraid of losing the friend, the only friend, that has ever trusted a no-name loser like me to the dogs of war... and to say that such a sudden revelation on such a dismal day sent a streak of a yellow spell down my goddam spine was more than just an understatement... because I felt horrible. I was losing the only friend who still talks to me from high school, and I felt like I was losing all my friends at university. And as for that girl I talk too much about? I thought I was the one who could make her laugh. I thought she appreciated me. But I now see that every damn guy in the damn sea of damn seamen and semen, full of squiggly fishes just looking for a home, can make her giggle and squiggle and wiggle, as if they were some gigolo, but that's besides the point...

But I had ended my evening, lending an ear to probably the closest friend I have in university, because she's the only friend who ever lends an ear to me. And I couldn't help but think of all this as I took out my notebook and laid my head to rest on my bed... that hell's bells, AOL, that ay, there lies the rub, and thar she blows, that this was actually a day worthy of an entire MSN update, perhaps the longest update I've ever written... or at least, a rental of one... Because as I laid motionless, cold and barren, on that rocky bed of mine, frozen in guilt and not just from the Canadian winter, I just couldn't help but smirk to myself, that it truly was just another day in the life of IvanF, wasn't it? Because it all sounds like so much fun, doesn't it?... And with that, before I could even open up my notebook that night, the overload of the overbearings of the entire goddam day just knocked me out, flat on my back, as if I had just spent hours knocking her up or some crap like that... and I woke up an hour later, at 1 am, realized that I had collapsed on my bed for the first time in God knows how many years, and simply tossed my book aside, ready for yet another day in the life of IvanF... because what else could I do? What else can I ever do? I'm at the mercy of the muses finding me amusing all thanks to the fates. So honestly, what else could I do but wish myself a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a God Bless Us, Everyone?... and that maybe, just maybe, that one day, just one day, I'll die another day, and live another moment, truly worthy of the title... or perhaps the titre... or perhaps the honour, lest we ever forget... of a day in the life of IvanF...

... and with that, I dimmed my eyes, murmured my "Dear Lord, thank you for this day", and bid myself adieu a long kiss goodnight... as in my face shone her long face, and the glitter of the patter of the pale moonlight... for... yup...you think you have all the time in the world, and yet... and yet?... it was just another day...

... best viewed in Netscape 3 (w/o javascipt on) at 800 x 600 resolution and 256 colours, because that's what I run at ...