a few things i keep forgetting to mention:

i) mpub is the antiphysics. out of 18 students, 14 are female.

ii) i met three other edmontonians in the program yesterday. eerie. but cool. they all seem like solid people.

iii) sfu, like ubc, is a corporate whore of an institution. but sfu doesn't even try to be subtle about it. forget subway-sponsored orientation sessions; at the harbour centre campus, there's a labatt lecture theatre and a royal bank computer lab, just to name a couple.

iv) because it's so heavily sponsored, though, the building is emaculate, and i feel hideously underdressed. i also feel like i'm going to gain 30 kg by the end of the term 'cause everything moves for me. there are escalators and elevators -- nobody even knows where the stairs are, and i'm pretty sure they only open out to the ground floor.

v) sweet, sweet schematic diagrams. the key to turning a dry flimsy 16-page piece of poo into an MSc thesis. i'm about 3/4 of the way there...