Mon pays

Skuttler

Skuttler Logo

About a month ago, I had an idea. This is not unusual for me. I have lots of ideas. What’s different about this one is that I actually decided to follow up on it.

When I’m in a vehicle, often it’s the case that I want to send a message to the driver of another car, and I usually don’t have their telephone number or email, so that makes it difficult. But the nice thing about cars is that they all have a unique identifier—their licence plate.

So what I did was write a very simple piece of software. I call it Skuttler. It’s a public messaging platform to allow users to send short messages to licence plates. (Such messages will be called “skoots.” Naturally, skoots are to Skuttler as tweets are to Twitter.) Then, anyone (whether they have an account or not) can look up what skoots are sent to any licence plate. Users can also claim to be the driver of the vehicle with that plate, and they can “follow” licence plates that are interesting to them if they want to receive email or SMS notifications.

I imagine that many of the skoots that go through Skuttler will be road rage-related. But then, I can imagine a number of other uses for it too. I, for one, am perversely curious to know what sorts of messages other people would send my family and friends.

As of today, the service is up and running, which means that you can sign up and use the full web version, and there’s also a mobile version for your convenience that has been tested on an iPhone 4 and an iPod Touch. I have not tested it on an Android or a BlackBerry, but I will do so at my earliest convenience. I’d call this a beta release, since there’s certainly going to be bugs in it, and I’m still field-testing it. That said, everything “works” on it. (Except changing user settings on the mobile version.) Just promise me you won’t use it while you’re in the driver’s seat, unless the car is in “park.”

Writing Skuttler was a fun little challenge. I had to brush up on my parameterised SQL queries, and I learned a lot about best practices regarding safe storage of user information. (What? I can’t just save users’ passwords as plain text? :P)

I’m sure that the French version has some … erreurs. That said, I came up with the second greatest pun in my life while working on it. Shortly after decreeing that Skuttler messages would be called “skoots,” I remembered that in French, “discuter” means “to discuss.” So if you go on Skuttler using a browser set to French, instead of saying “nouveau skoot,” it will say “diskooter.” Now, I just need to think up an equally fun English pun.

There currently is no native iOS app for Skuttler. I wanted to focus on making a web version that is platform-independent before I got too crazy making an iOS version. I expect that I will write an app for Skuttler in the near future, but for the time being, if you want Skuttler for your iPhone, you can install it as a web app, which works great!

I’m treating this mostly as a social experiment, and I also plan to use it myself as a place to vent automotive frustrations, but if you want to join me for the ride (or if you have some suggestions regarding the way it works—or my French), please check Skuttler out!

September 21, 2011 | 4 comments | Tags: I have a great idea Skuttler Work Yintewang

Gambling with OSAP

I’m not usually a betting man, but in the last week I reached a critical point in terms of funding my grad school habit and I had to reconsider some options I had previously ruled out.

On the 7th of September, I received a nasty surprise by email: tuition for nursing school is literally on an order of magnitude higher than I was originally billed. At first, I thought that they were charging me tuition twice—once for my bioethics MA and once for my nursing MSc(A). I went in to the Service Point office to double-check, and it turns out that the tuition fee was accurate. It’s going to cost me about $11,000 for nursing school for this year, when you put together all the tuition, fees, books, uniforms and equipment.

So I went in to McGill student services to see what my options were and if there was anything that they could do to help me. The woman at the desk told me to make an appointment by email. I emailed and McGill student aid actually declined to meet with me to discuss my situation. They no longer respond to my emails.

So at first I panicked, and considered dropping out of the programme just because I couldn’t afford it: I didn’t have the money, I had no prospects of getting a TA-ship or an RA-ship, and I had no collateral for a bank loan. You might be asking yourself, what about the student loans you got in previous years? Why not get another one of those?

It’s true. In years past, in order to make ends meet, I did successfully apply to OSAP for a student loan. I did not apply this year because in October of last year, OSAP sent me a letter indicating that they would not send me any more loans until I sent them a payment of $2222. They did this because I was offered my RA-ship after I had already received my student loan for last year. (For the record, last year they sent me about $5000 to live on for the whole year.) So when I told them that I had an RA-ship after all, they decided that they overpaid me by $2222.

Up until September 7th, it appeared that my tuition would be roughly the same as last year, so I didn’t think it was rational to apply for OSAP: if it would take a $2222 payment just to apply, and they only sent me $5000 last time, it’s entirely possible that I would receive a loan for no more money (or possibly less) than I spent to apply.

Then September 7th rolled around and I found out how much tuition actually costs, which changed a few variables. Since tuition is so much higher this year than last year, I decided to make the repayment and gamble that OSAP will send me more in loans than I’m expending for the ability to apply.

As it stands now, I have sent in the $2222 and I’m waiting to hear back from them about how much (if any) money they plan on loaning me for this year. The size of the loan will dictate whether or not I stay in school.

What’s really annoying about this whole thing is that OSAP has given me a strong disincentive to accept any upcoming offers of legitimate work for this year. For example, if I am offered an RA-ship, OSAP will hear about it and probably do the same thing as last year—demand that I repay a large sum of money. The harder I work, the less help I get. Frustratingly, if I had just sat on my rear end all summer and burned through my savings rather than working and setting aside money for school, I would actually be much less stressed about whether or not I have enough money to make it through the school year.

Anyone need a kidney? Lightly used—like new! Still in original packaging.

September 15, 2011 | 3 comments | Tags: Frustrating Money TA-ship Why is this so hard? Work

TA-ship for next semester

Recently, I found out that I have been offered a second TA-ship. This is great, because it means that I will have enough money to last me for the rest of the semester and a bit into the summer. Last year, I only had one TA-ship and I pretty much ran out of money at the end of the school year (which is why it was such a big deal for me to get a job right away, and why I was so panicked about it at the time).

I will be a TA for Contemporary Moral Issues. I’m not sure who the prof is, yet. I’m looking forward to TA-ing this course. I think it will be more like last year’s TA-ship than the one I’m just finishing, because the course isn’t really a “core” philosophy course—there will be many students taking the course who are not philosophy majors, just like the biomedical ethics course from last year.

December 19, 2010 | Leave a comment | Tags: TA-ship Work

Free time in grad school

Let us define “free time (0)” to mean something like “time where a person has no particular appointments or where she has no duties that need to fulfilled within that time.” So, for example, an hour break between classes would be an example of free time (0).

There is another sense of free time that is not captured by free time (0). Let us define “free time (1)” to mean something like “time where a person doesn’t have anything that she even could be doing during that time.” For a person with free time (1), that person would be able to say, “I don’t have any assignments hanging over my head right now.” Of course, for such a concept to be useful, it may be necessary to specify a domain over which it applies—so one might meaningfully say, “I have free time (1) with respect to my job, but not with respect to my chores at home.” It would be rare indeed to have free time (1) without qualification.

So for example, a student between semesters, or at the beginning of the summer break has free time (1) as far as school is concerned. And if we consider the previous example, it’s easy to see how a person might have free time (0) in an hour break between classes, but how that person will not truly have free time (1) until after she writes her final exam and hands in all her assignments, because until then, there is always more preparation and work that she could do.

When I worked at my 9-5 job this summer, I was lucky because I had a lot of free time (1) with respect to my job, even though I didn’t really have as much free time (0) as I had when I was in school. That is to say, I didn’t have much free time (0) because my job dictated that I spend the hours between 9h in the morning to 17h in the afternoon at my desk, doing particular things. I had little free time (0) in that sense. Contrarily, I had plenty of free time (1), compared to being at school. At school, really, the only time you get free time (1) is when you are between semesters (and sometimes not even then). At work, I had free time (1) from my job every night. When I left my work, the responsibilities of the office stayed at the office. I never had homework. I never had exams. There was a clear line separating my work-life from the rest of my life. In fact, as far as work was concerned, the set of hours that made up my free time (0) was exactly co-extensive with the set of hours that made up my free time (1).

Now that I’m working on my thesis full-time, I have more free time (0) than I have ever had in my life, especially now that my office hours and conferences are over for the semester. The trade-off is that I don’t ever have any free time (1). There is always something else I could be reading, or something I should be writing or a revision to my thesis that I should be working on. There is no time that I couldn’t point to on my day-timer of which I couldn’t say, “maybe I should use this time for my thesis.”

Here’s where it gets interesting: I believe both that I’ve never truly had any free time (1) while in school, and that somehow this experience of writing my thesis means that I have even less free time (1) than I had before. This is obviously a contradiction (to think that I never had something before and that now I somehow have less), so it means that my conception of free time (1) is too simple.

So let’s now re-define free time (x) as being time with no particular appointments or tasks to do, when there is up to (1-x) times a full workload’s responsibility “hanging over your head.” And x can be any real number between 0 and 1, inclusive.

Awesome. The previous definitions still hold, pretty much, and it gives us the language for describing the difference between my experience in undergrad and my experience with my thesis.

My experience in undergrad was that while I never actually did experience free time (1), I often experienced free time (1/2) or free time (3/4). I would come to a point where I only had a very few things that I could reasonably do (after all, there’s a finite number of review questions for your chemistry test) and so I wouldn’t feel the weight of the full workload’s responsibility. At the beginning of each semester in my undergrad, I would have free time (x) with a higher value for x than at the end of the semester.

With my thesis, on the other hand, even though the whole thing is divided into chapters, it’s more like one long paper than a series of short and connected ones. For example, I have to make sure that any changes I make to one chapter will agree with the other chapters. My supervisor uses the analogy of building a railroad. I have to make sure that the tracks at one end (chapter one) line up with the tracks at the other end (the last chapter). My thesis is a whole, in some ways, and so I think that’s why my experience with regard to free time is different than it was during my undergrad. I sometimes do experience a little bit of free time (1/4), though, but that’s after I submit a draft of a chapter or something.

In conclusion, right now I have lots of free time (0), no free time (1), and only little bits of free time (1/4), every once in a while.

And for the record, I did write this while procrastinating on writing my thesis.

December 16, 2010 | One comment | Tags: Grad school Philosophy Work

I had a visitor

A visitor

On Saturday, I had a visitor. An old friend of mine from my undergrad days at Western came to town. Old friendships are a wonderful thing, and I’m very proud to call this man my friend.

On an unrelated note, you’ll notice also that my eye is pretty much healed. You’d never know that I have a metal plate in my head, would you?

In fact, when I went in to work to claim my last two paycheques, which I missed due to the surgery, it must have been very suspicious that I didn’t have a cut or an eye-patch or a bruise or even much swelling or redness. I just had surgery, I swear!

August 18, 2010 | Leave a comment | Tags: Old friends Surgery Work

On Thursday, I quit my job

… Effective August 1, 2010.

A lot has changed over these past few months. My original plan, coming in to the summer was to work at my job for a year, and take a year off school, or if I could manage it, work at my job and finish my thesis at the same time. As the summer went on, I quickly discovered how unfeasible that plan really was.

First off, when I went to the philosophy department to see if I could find a supervisor, I discovered that there was a professor who would have been perfect for supervising me, but she took last year off for maternity, and this year she’s on sabbatical, and so I just happened to be doing my MA on the two years that she wouldn’t be here.

So a couple weeks ago, I spoke with a professor regarding my situation, asking if it would be possible to take a year off, since that would give me a chance to recover financially and to figure out what to do for my thesis.

I had a lengthy conversation with that was emotionally cathartic, rational and productive. The prof I spoke to was my Human Research Ethics prof from last semester, who was also the acting head of the Bioethics MA programme at the time. When I told him my plan, his response was basically:

“No! Don’t take a year off! You’ll never come back!”

So we talked about that for a while. And the big thing that was keeping me from continuing in September was the money. I had done some math before the phone call, to see what my situation was, and really, I wouldn’t need that much more to make it through the school year. A second TA-ship in my second semester would do it, but I can’t count on getting one of those, necessarily.

The prof called me back a few days later with an offer of some grant money for a research assistant-ship, and he suggested that I re-arrange my thesis so that it aligns with the RA-ship. I’m going to be researching the ethics of prediction in human research.

(The term “RA” is confusing. At McGill, it means “Research Assistant,” but at UWO, where I did my undergrad, it means “Residence Advisor.”)

This is great. Now, I have a supervisor, a thesis topic, and a bit more money.

I estimate that if I take all the money from my TA-ship, my new-found RA-ship, the money in my bank account, everything I will have set aside by September, and what I expect to receive from OSAP, I will have just enough to make it through the school year, as long as there are no nasty surprises.

But I suppose, even after all that, the question still remains, Why did I quit my job?

I’m going to take the MCAT this September. I’ve been preparing for this for the last few weeks (I’m almost done orgo!), and I want to take the month before the test off, so that I can focus on my studies. I’m able to do this because I got paid for some old freelance web design work that I’ve been doing off-and-on for the last few months.

My plan for the month of August will be to get up like I normally do, at 5h, go to the gym for 6h30, be done there by 8h30 and hit the library by 9h. Then I’ll spend the day there, either working on my research, or prepping for the MCAT. I’m going to study like it’s my job.

I’m glad of the design job that I had this summer, but I’m excited about the beginning of August, too. :)

July 10, 2010 | One comment | Tags: Bioethics MCAT McGill Work

Figuring things out

So I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing, come this September. I have a few options right now, and it feels like on the even-numbered days, I’ve made one decision, and on odd-numbered days, I’m of completely the opposite opinion.

To catch you up, last semester was really disappointing to me in a lot of ways. I was closer than I ever have been to dropping out of school. It got so bad, that in a counselling session with a therapist at McGill, I explored the question of how bad an academic programme would have to be before one would be justified in suing McGill for one’s tuition back.

After I stopped being so bitter about that, I ended up with a job, and a pretty decent one, too. It’s close to where I live, the money is good, and I get to be creative at work. I’m working as a designer at a marketing company. It’s an excellent job, and I’m glad for it. I’m still in a sort of probationary period that will last 3 months, where they’re still deciding whether they want to keep me, and I’m still deciding whether I want to stay there.

I’ve been enjoying living with the privileges of a regular paycheque. I don’t have to worry at the end of the month about whether or not I will have enough money to cover rent. This is a step up from the last semester. They ran out of TA-ships before they got to me, and so money was very tight, and I had a spreadsheet going that calculated, based on my previous expenses, how long I had until my money ran out.

So when I landed this job, my first thought was that I could finally relax a bit. And I have been! Things have been pretty decent of late. I’m enjoying things being stress-free, by comparison to this last year.

One of the options that I am considering is taking a year off school to de-stress, pay off some debt and enjoy not having to worry about money or school. There’s a few reasons I’m considering this:

I don’t think that I’ll get much by way of student loans for this year, and I have no reason to believe that I’ll get a second TA-ship this year either, which means I’ll be in a much worse financial situation than even last year, unless something unexpected and good happens.

To make it through the year, I’d only need a few thousand dollars more. You wouldn’t think that would be so hard to get, but it’s easier to get a full-time job than it is to get a job, even part-time, that is compatible with being a student.

I could probably make it through the year if I knew I was going to get a second TA-ship, or if there was an RA-ship (Research Assistantship) on the horizon somewhere, but things are looking grim.

I’m going to apply for OSAP anyway, even though I am sceptical that I will get anything from them. And I’m going to send out some emails to profs to see if there’s any RA-ships that I can do during the school year. I don’t need a lot of money. I just need enough to get through the second semester.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep my options open as best I can. If I think I can make it through the year financially, I will give notice that I’m quitting my job when the probationary period ends.

Does anyone know any profs at McGill who need research assistants who know philosophy and medical science? I can write, think critically, closely read dense papers, and I know my way around a pipette.

June 20, 2010 | Leave a comment | Tags: Bioethics Disappointing Finance McGill Work

The job search is over

One of the fun things about looking for jobs on the internet is that often the people who are hiring like to remain anonymous. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been applying to a bunch of jobs that looked vaguely related to the skills that I have, without knowing clearly where I was applying, or what job exactly they were looking to fill. What this means is that I’ve had a number of phone calls recently that began as follows:

[Ring ring]

Other person: “Hi, is Benjamin there?”

Me: “Speaking.”

Other person: “Hi, my name is [person's name]. You recently applied for a job that was posted on [website].”

Me: “Oh, that’s certainly possible.” …

The fun continues into the interview, because I often have no way of knowing which job advertisement corresponds with which phone call I receive, and so I don’t even know which job I am interviewing for until partway through the interview.

And I wasn’t too picky about which jobs I applied for, so sometimes the job is quite surprising. At one point, I ended up in an interview for a job as one of those street-marketing people who walks around downtown Montréal trying to get other people to sign up to sponsor a World Vision child or give to the Red Cross. The guy interviewing me asked if I thought I could handle approaching random strangers and talking to them.

After so many years of involvement with Campus for Christ, I think I probably could have handled it.

As exciting as a summer of evangelising for World Vision or the Red Cross would have been, I was offered another job that I’m actually looking forward to: I’m going to be working as a web designer for a company that makes websites for small businesses. I’ll be designing custom WordPress or Drupal themes, and working out a system for managing clients’ sites.

And it gets better: They’re going to pay me on a regular basis. I am going to have a regular paycheque.

On Friday, when the deal was finalised, I went out to the Metro supermarket across the street and bought enough brand-name groceries to fill my refrigerator.

I’m living the high life. :)

April 17, 2010 | 2 comments | Tags: Work

This makes me kinda sad

IE6 on a Mac

This makes me a kinda sad. Do you see why? It’s Internet Explorer 6. But more: it’s Internet Explorer 6, installed on my Mac. :(

This happened because the Acer laptop that I have been using up until this point to test sites on IE died. It had a long life, for an Acer—5 years. And now, it’s gone forever. RIP, Acer.

April 5, 2010 | 2 comments | Tags: Disappointing Work

It’s live

The new BGC Web Design logo

I have put the finishing touches on my refresh of www.bgcarlisle.com. Actually, I’m still doing some compatibility tests, but I wanted to launch the site anyway. I can’t be bothered to make it work with IE6, really.

There is a brand new logo, a new look-and-feel to the whole site, a portfolio of previous projects, and testimonials from one client. (More to come, I promise!)

Here’s hoping the investment of time pays off this summer!

Check out the new www.bgcarlisle.com and then send all your friends with small businesses and lots of money my way.

March 31, 2010 | 4 comments | Tags: Work Yintewang