JBlog

Maybe some of you have noticed that the changes to the blog have been reverted after my aborted overseas placement with EWB.  Life, on the other hand is still in transition.  

Since my last update a few things of note have happened.  I became gainfully and permanently (or indefinitely) employed as a National Program Coordinator for Engineers Without Borders (Canada).  My role is to drive and support EWB’s university curriculum program and vision, establish and maintain links with our faculty supporters and coach chapters and our National Conference organising team.  Counter-intuitively, between putting my last job with EWB on indefinite hold in June and accepting this new job with EWB in July, there was a full job search that yielded a few options.  Funny that it just so happened that the winner happened to be another job at EWB.  Job is going really well and I’m thoroughly enjoying it and learning from it!

Also, the Masters is done like dinner!  The degree has been awarded, but I have to wait until convocation at the end of October to actually get it.  My thesis was finalised, accepted and published, and if anyone’s interested it can be found here.

Other than that the family situation continues to be tense.  The only thing we can really do there is just roll with the punches while still hoping for the best.

But, one of my goals for my overseas placement was to work on my writing skills through this blog.  Even though I’m no longer going overseas just yet, there’s no reason why the goal has to be suspended too.  Thus I’m going to keep the posts up on this blog again.  It’s a little easier now with my BlackBerry since I can do some writing from anywhere.  So watch for updates every couple weeks or so.

Well, it was only about a week ago that I announced my new and exciting plans with Engineers Without Borders.  Sadly, I’ve got some bad news to tell you all. After a lot of thinking and discussions with EWB over this week, I’m sorry to say that I will be indefinitely postponing my overseas placement with EWB.

The reason for the decision is due to the situation with my family. Unfortunately, my Mom is not well and we’ve received some discouraging information this week regarding her condition.  Because of all this, I am no longer be able to have an uninterrupted, 13-month placement overseas with EWB.

As you can imagine, this has been a very difficult decision for me.  My whole reason for going overseas, was to try and do a kick-ass job for the community I worked in and the partner organization I was assigned to. I truly agree with EWB’s philosophy that in order to have impact on a placement you need to spend a consistent, long-term and uninterrupted time and effort overseas. Since I know now that the situation with my family precludes that from happening, I feel that it is the right decision to put my departure on indefinite postponement. Since my desire to make a difference in the world is something I truly believe in, I have promised both myself and EWB that once my personal situation improves, I will reapply for a placement.

Those of you who have already made donations to EWB on my behalf, thank you very much and I’m sorry I won’t be able to put your donation to use overseas.  I can assure you that you have helped support other dedicated and committed volunteers help bring about an end of global poverty.

Please feel free to get in contact with me by e-mail if you have any questions regarding my decision or what’s going on in my life.

Those of you who know me know that I am interested in a whole lot of socially-related issues.  Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of ethical consumerism.  The Good people at Wikipedia define as ethical consumerism as buying things that are made in a socially responsible manner (like certified fairtrade, energy friendly, anti-sweatshop and etc.)

A bunch of associates and I are trying to see if we can make a go of creating a business that sells only ethical goods, online. But we need everyone’s help to decide whether this would be a useful service!  We’ve created a small survey to gauge people’s desires to be an ethical consumer and what they’d look for in ethical suppliers.  If you’ve got a minute, click the link below to take our survey and tell us what you think!

• Ethical Consumerism Survey 

For 5 out of my last 7 meals, I’ve been eating roasted vegetable lasagna that I made for a potluck dinner this past Sunday and that I have copious amounts of leftovers of. You may ask, why am I posting about this? Well, I haven’t updated the blog in a while and I’m sure some of you may have been wondering what I’ve been up to!

Since posting has been few and far between in August, there’s some queued up update posts that need to be cleared off the post list. You know between moving, work, and whole lot of vacation, updating this blog regularly can be quite a challenge.

The first piece of news is that my radio show on CKMS has a new permanent name and timeslot! The shows called Soundcheck and you can now hear the DJ stylings of myself spin the latest and greatest in independent Canadian music on Tuesdays between 2pm-3pm (that’s Eastern time for all you out-of-townies) at CKMS 100.3 FM on terrestrial radio or new fangled Rogers Digital Cable on channel 946. Alternatively, you can always put your ear to one of those tubes on the Internets at CKMS live web feed.

And to round this post off, the ever famous Rick Theis has teamed up with the notoriously infamous me to produce a weekly Podcast for the Ontario General Election geared at University students in Waterloo. We’re trying to do for Election Ontario what the O’Fishbein Factor did for the FEDS election, but where the O’Fishbein Factor was more Colbert Report this show will be Daily Show-esque. Anyways, the shows called Public Disclosure and you can check it out from that link.

You should spread the buzz and tell all your friends, I’ll keep the hits coming!

Everybody has their pet peeves. For some people, it’s nails being scratched along a chalkboard. For others, it’s people who are just generally stupid. For me, it’s moving (…although that last option isn’t bad either).

After four long years (and after having lived in two separate rooms in the place), I’ve given up the old Waterloo pad at 255 Keats Way (a.k.a. “Unit 701″, and for some reason even after he moved out for two years, “Tim’s Place”) and made the 10 minute drive to my new swinging love-nest at 45 Caroline Street North, pictured below.

The apartment’s great, walking distance to all amenities as well as the University, and I will really enjoy living there. In fact (and thanks to Porter for the link), it scores a 48 on the walk-ability index which is a vast improvement over the old apartment’s score of 18. I’ll really be enjoying the Waterloo Uptown living, which is where I hang out most of the time anyways.

But, honestly, I really hate moving. In my opinion, moving is the absolute worst thing I could spend my time doing. It’s so … unproductive. And trust me, I feel I’m qualified to make that statement having been an undergraduate co-op student and moving between cities more times than I’d care to recall. As I exclaimed (rather loudly) during the GSA Council meeting this week, I would rather die five consecutive times than move. The issue is that since I hate moving so much I decided that I would keep the old apartment for multiple years and not move. But that led to the foreseeable, yet unfortunate, side effect of accumulating a lot of crap over my years living in the old place. Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with all my stuff which just won’t fit in the new place. I used to be able to move all my belongings (minus my mattress) in two car loads. Those days, as it seems, are long gone.

I’m about 75% done now and plan to finish up on the weekend. It hasn’t be going so well though. In fact, MacKinnon, who helped me move some large pieces of furniture mentioned to me that he never heard me drop the “F-Bomb” so many times as when we tried to move my pullout couch. But that being said, the new apartment has a pullout couch so if anyone needs a place to crash in Waterloo, drop me a line!

For the past 7 months, I’ve been trying to get back into shape. I’ve been doing pretty well too! I’ve noticeably lost some fat weight and gained some visible muscle mass. There’s been two secrets that I’m going to share with you on how I’ve been successful. Secret the first is that I’ve managed to work exercise into my daily schedule which makes it really easy to find the time to go the gym. Secret the second is that I’ve been setting short term fitness goals to challenge myself and keep my motivation up.

Now here’s the problem: I’m running out of fitness goals. My second last goal was to train so I could complete the 50km course on the Becel Ride for Heart in 2hrs or less, which I was able to do with no problems. Then I decided to go a little crazy! My next goal was to workout 6 times a week for a month. That was a little more difficult to complete, but with some creative rearranging of my schedule and diversifying my exercise so I could be active outside of gym hours I managed to knock that one down last week.

So, now I need some new short term goals to keep the motivation up! Anyone have any suggestions?

After the success of The O’Fishbein Factor and my highly sought after podcasting skills, my illustrious radio career is beginning! After finishing my studio training at CKMS, the University of Waterloo’s campus and community radio station, I’ve been awarded the opportunity to guest host the Thursday morning radio programming slot from 8am till 10am. I’ll be starting June 23rd till July 12th, then taking a 2 week break as the original host returns, and concluding by taking over the whole month of August. Format will be a music show, focusing on indie and small label Canadian bands which is what I’ve been listening to lately, in addition to my trademark radio banter. If you’re in the Waterloo area you can take a listen on 100.3 FM or on Rogers Digital Cable on channel 947. For the rest of you in the rest of the world, you can listen to the CKMS webcast on the Internet.

So I know where I’ll be June 23rd and onwards from 8am-10am … in the CKMS studio trying not to embarrass myself too much. Where will you be?

Someone tipped me off to this MyHeritage.com website that takes an image of your face and tells you what celebrities you look like. The Dick Cheney one is my personal favourite!