• Peternorris.net is the site of 19 year old Canadian blogger Peter Norris. He blogs about technology, security, and university life.
  • Peter Norris' Facebook profile

Text Link Ads

Archive for the 'Life' Category

Where have I been?

Posted by Peter on February 14th, 2007

Its been more than a month since I last updated. I’ve got to start to do this more often. Anyways, life has been decent. School is busy as usual, but thankfully reading week is here. I’m just gonna try to relax for the most part, but I have a couple of assignments I’ll have to work on and three midterms to study for. For the most part I’m just looking forward to relaxing. That’s all for now. I promise to start updating more often.

It’s like riding a bike…

Posted by Peter on December 23rd, 2006

Wow- I haven’t updated since September. Everytime I think of it, I can’t (not at a computer, busy, etc..), and when I have nothing to do, I don’t think to update. But I finally found time to, so here goes.

First, school. So far its been pretty good. First term has finished and I’m currently enjoying some time off. I don’t know any marks yet, but I think I’ll be pretty happy with most of them. Especially math. It’s amazing how my lowest mark last year (a 60 in Algeo) could very well be my highest mark (probably at least an 80). None of my exams were even difficult. None of them took the full time allowed and I almost feel like I wasted time studying for a couple of them.

Hopefully next term will be just as easy as this last one. There were a few times when I had a lot of work to do, but the majority of the time my classes didn’t require any work or reading. Hopefully these new classes will all be the same. However, I have a few business ones this term, so we’ll see.

In other news, I get to move! I no longer have to live in crappy Simcoe in a shared room that never seems to go above about 10 degrees with a roommate who clogs the toilet about once a week. I’m going out on the 27th to move into my new room in South. Don’t know who my new roommate is, but at least I’ll get my own room.

Second, life. There really isn’t much to say. I’m still single with no prospects (surprising, eh?) and still sober. Yes, you read that right. No drinking for me. Why? No access and nobody I hang out with at school drinks (as of yet). Hopefully that will change soon. I could use a drink (or two, or three, or four). Although it’s only 12 days until I turn 19, so that will all be changing soon.

So far this “christmas” break has been full of relaxing and tv- just what the doctor ordered. It just doesn’t feel like christmas this year. Maye its the warm temperatures and lack of snow (but hey- that’s global warming). Although we are supposed to get some flurries on christmas day, so maybe we’ll get a somewhat white christmas after all.

Merry christmas and happy new year (if you dont celebrate christmas, tough- I don’t care about being politically correct!)

Peter

PS: The title came from an Apple article on shell scripting. It read “Writing a shell script is like riding a bike. You fall off and scrape your knees a lot at first, but once you are sufficiently experienced, you’ll understand why people drive cars.” I just thought it was a good title for the post as it kinda sums up my first few months of university which comes with alot of scrapes and bruises.

Update on life/classes/stuff

Posted by Peter on September 13th, 2006

I’ve been here at UOIT for just over a week now and I’m likeing it. I’m starting to get used to living in res and sharing a room, but I’m still going to be going home most weekends. As for classes they all seem like they’ll be pretty easy. Except discrete math of course. And networking, although fast paced, should be interesting and as a bonus I’ll get my CCNA certification at the end. My math tutorial today was “interesting” to say the least. I couldn’t understand a word the tutor said and we were there for 10 minutes- the class was supposed to be an hour and a half. He didn’t even explain anything. All he did was read a few examples off the board. He reminds me of Ferguson (scary- I know). Anyways, I swithced out of that class into another one. Other than that, nothing else is wort mentioning. Except for the fact that I got to go on a school bus. The building that one of my classes is supposed to be in wasn’t ready so we got bused 2 minutes down the street to the Shriner’s club. Anyways- that’s all for now. Have fun and stay (relatively) sober.

Peter

Life at UOIT

Posted by Peter on September 5th, 2006

I’ve been here at UOIT for 2 days now. While I like it hear and I’m having fun (FBIT!! FBIT!!) I’m not happy with the res situation. I could have had a suite with a private room and a shared common area but I got stuck with a shared room. Mr roomate is in chemical egineering at Durham College which means we will have different groups of friends and be going to some different events. He seems nice, but he’s not the type of person I’d hang out with. And the fridge runs all night. 15 minutes on, then 15 minutes off. All night long. I got 4 hours of sleep last night. And did I mention that I have no privacy? I know a lot of universities have have shared rooms, but I could have had a suite with my own room. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I can’t live like this for 8 months.

Update (And 1 week!!)

Posted by Peter on August 25th, 2006

So I haven’t posted in about three weeks. I just haven’t had the time. This is what I’ve been up to: got my laptop and ID card from UOIT, get a new Macbook Pro, watched 9 hours of LoTR and been out of the house alot. I don’t think I’ve had one day home in the past couple of weeks. And as of tomorrow it’s ony 1 week before school starts and I move into res! I can’t wait! Anyways- that’s all for now. I’ll post more later. I promise this time.

Later days, Peter

1 Month!!

Posted by Peter on August 3rd, 2006

Only 1 month till university starts and I move into res! I can’t wait! Besides that, nothing new is happening in my life, except for the fact that I finally got to see Pirates and I might (probably) be getting a Macbook Pro soon (for those of you who care). I’ll post more later.

The Course Selection Saga Part 2

Posted by Peter on July 20th, 2006

Well- I got in! I decided to call the registration helpline cause I wasn’t getting anywhere with emails. So when I called (using Skype I might add cause it was free long distance) the person I talked to said talk to the science advisor person and they would put me in the course. So I emailed her and a little while later I heard back. All I had to do was fill out an Add/Drop form and send it as an email attachment. So I did that and now I’m in. It’s showing up in my schedual so it’s official. I’m so happy!!!

The Course Selection Saga

Posted by Peter on July 16th, 2006

In the fall term at university I get one choice in my courses. There are only a limited number of courses available that don’t require prerequisits, which is the first problem. I had very little choice among the ones that even looked remotely interesting. There is a course, called Science in Context (basic bio, chem, physics, computer science), which I considered taking but I didn’t feel like doing chem and physics so I decided against it (plus there are only like 3 people enrolled in it). So, at first I enrolled in biology because I’ve always enjoyed it and it’s basically a repeat of grade 12 bio so it wouldn’t be too hard. The only problem is there are 2 lectures a week plus a lab. On Wednesdays alone I have 4 hours of bio- and I’m there for information technology. I don’t want to have to take bio if I don’t have to. So I set about looking for an alternative. And I found it: Scientific Computing Tools. This course looks at things like spreadsheets, databases, html, LaTeX, and other applications and is partially taught online- my kind of course. So I go to register for it and I get an error. It appears that I have to be a science student to take this course, even though nowhere in the catalogue or course description does it say so. However it does say I might be able to take it if I get permission. I emailed a student advisor who I had talked to about something earlier and he said he wasn’t aware of any restrictions on that course. He said they might just be restricting it to science students right now to give them a chance to enroll first (it’s a mandotory course for them). He’s going to talk to the science and registration people to see what’s up. Hopefully when I hear back from him It will be with good news. If I can’t take this course I guess I’ll just have to stick with bio. Anyways, I’ll keep you posted.

Peter

Summer so far….

Posted by Peter on July 15th, 2006

After 3 full weeks of summer I have accomplished….. NOTHING!!! Besides getting my wisdom teeth out (which actually wasn’t that bad- except for the 4 pills a day), and going to Ikea I have done nothing. We are getting our kitchen redone so we have basically be living in the basement with the dogs all day every day (and eating all meals down there as well). However, I’m going to change this. Starting tomorrow I’m going to begin work on my site and I will begin to learn Objective-c and some other programming languages. Why? Because I can and I want to. Plus, I’m going to do some social things. Friday is our Star Wars marathon at Kevin’s house and I plan on going to see PotC soon. Does anybody want to go see it with me? I don’t want to go alone and I definately don’t want to go with my dad. Let me know if you want to do anything.

Keep cool, Peter

Welcome

Posted by Peter on July 15th, 2006

Welcome to my blog. I’ve been meaning to start one for quite some time now. I have started several in the past but they never made it past one or two posts. Well not anymore. Starting today, I’m gonna blog regularly. I figured with going away to university this would be the best way to keep everybody informed of my life. However, this will only be a temporary home. Over the summer I’m going to work on creating a real site with a blog and once thats finished I will buy a domain name and hosting. But until then, this will be my little corner of the web.

Enjoy, and check back regulary.

Peter