States I've Visited (American ones, not altered ones)

I'm over at the school having worked on a couple of my first assignments for most of the night after walking Shea to work at 7pm.  Now I'm just surfing around aimlessly because Shea's at work and if I go home, er, I'd probably just be doing the same thing. 

Here's something fun I came across linked from the de.licio.us bookmarks of the woman who is teaching social software this semester.  It's a site that allows you create a map of the states you've visited.  I was surprised at how many I had hit – 18/50 (though admittedly, many were pass-thru visits during a family trip to Disney World.)



The designer's original site was “Visited Countries” but I don't need a web interface to help me with that – Canada, United States, Mexico, England, Scotland, France, Holland, Japan, South Korea.  (At least I need two hands to count them.)

What else?  A few of us went into the other 504 class this morning but the ten minutes I asked for wasn't enough time (we had longer yesterday because the prof had to leave the room early.)  If they do “First Friday Q&A” in the future, I think they should always ask the professor for half an hour just to make sure there's time to cover everything.  And if our Student Council FAQ comes together, that will really help as well.  Plus I think every single question today was on co-op so I didn't get a chance to impart the three most vital pieces of wisdom in this program:

1. You should try to do as many of the readings as possible but that's all but impossible and nobody actually does. 
2. Something that's so important I'm completely blanking on it (anybody who was on the Grad Club patio who remembers, e-mail me!  And no, an alterted state achieved at the Grad Club wasn't the reason I've forgotten.  I only had two beers and left by 2pm.  I'm a lot older than I was back in January when my cohort did our own First Friday gathering – on the second Friday – and I sat there from noon until 6pm to “hold the table”.)
3. A plug for this blog.

Oh yeah, now I remember.  The second vital piece of information is that you should set-up a Yahoo Group for your cohort.  I think I did manage to mention that during the Q&A because I remember somebody suggesting that Facebook would be a good way to do this as well.  I can't remember who said it but if you (or anybody else out there is on Facebook), feel free to add me.  Since you need a University e-mail to join, all of the people I'd like to add aren't eligible and I feel much sadness at my relatively low number of friends.    I've tried a few social networking sites and Facebook is probably my favourite so far.  (Anybody got an Orkut invitation they can send my way so I can compare that one?)

Totally unrelated anecdote but thinking about the undergrads on Facebook reminds me of this funny story.  Shea and I walked over to UCC to watch “You, Me and Dupree” the other night (it was funnier than I'd heard plus a sub-plot about a sex-crazed librarian got me lots of elbows to the ribs from Shea) and seeing all the frosh kids out celebrating, I was like “How old are these kids?  Eighteen?  I'm old enough to be their dad!” and Shea was like: “Yeah, as if you were having sex at fifteen!”  (Sometimes she's the funniest person in this relationship, that's for sure.)

I guess that's about it.  Time to brave the skunk trail that leads from the University to our building.  (I could always walk out to Richmond St. and home but what fun would that be?  Er, watch that bravado come back to bite my butt and I'll show up to school on Monday smelling of skunk oil and tomato juice!)

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