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The start of a new blog. No fixed topic, no fixed format; just arbitrary inputs from my day :) - Jan. 14, 2026
January 14, 2026
Drove from Mississauga to Downtown Toronto to attend the first lecture of the day. Left home at 11:15am, reached the underground parking lot of the Myhal building (UofT) at 12:08pm - I'm starting this blog in my car parked in the lot as of right now :) On the way here, had three cars try to cut in front of me, twice on the highway - first after turning the indicator on just as they turned, squeezing between my car the one in front at 106 km/h, the other one, a Fiat, without even turning on their indicator. The third, on Lake Shore Blvd., a Porsche, failing to obey the yeild sign, decided to stick their nose in the tiny gap between my vehicle and the one in front - we were all moving - I had to sway to the wrong side of the road to avoid a collision. Usually when the same thing happens with you more than once, you tend to be the cause, but I assure you this wasn't one of those cases :)
Off to a fantastic start of the day :) Grabbed the elevator from the parking right to the fourth floor. Made it to the lecture room (basically the lab room being used to deliver the lecture) in time before Prof. Steve Mann introduced us to today's guest speaker, Jeanne Randolph - a "cultural critic, author, performance artist and psychiatrist" [1] - and a lovely lady, who entertained us for the first one and a half hours of the three hour lecture slot - giving us an insight into her work and the work of her colleague [insert name], and dove us into a completely different form of (engineered) art. Before leaving, she handed out a book of some of her work to each table.
Now, 4pm, had to head from the Myhal building to the fourth floor of the Earth Science building. Nice building, as in you get to see a bunch of rocks and minerals displayed on the ground floor, and a few plants being grown (at least they look like plants); but here's the thing, to get to the tutorial room (ES4000), you have to go through a maze, and when I say maze, I mean a real maze, no instructions or clear indications, you just have to keep going until either you reach right before the room where an A4-sized page is taped on the wall with an arrow pointing in a possible direction the room may be (like you still get to pick which alley the arrow is pointing to - or, you ended up on the other side of the building and you have to got all the way back the entire loop, yes, a looped corridor; the intention of these architects and engineers is questionable - at least made a hanging corridor cutting through the loop :(
And now, it's 6pm and starting to snow, yet the Nuclear Reactor's course's TA decides to run past the two hour mark - 6:06pm, I have to make a run for it leaving in the middle to get to the other side in order to reach my next 6-8pm lecture on time. 400m and 7 levels of (4 down and 3 up); 4 minutes remaining. Made it at 6:11pm - luckily not all UofT professors are religious of the 10 minutes past the hour start time; they were still setting up the stage for today's guest speaker, Prof. Joseph Wong - at the Munk School of Global Affairs. He shared some great insights on projects he and his colleagues are involved in, especially through "The Research Alliance" group. He also shared some of his published books, of which one was criticized after about 20 years of being published, which I found really interesting, that a group would actually contact a writer after decades to question their work - instead of just silently improving it themselves - this also showed how certain political literature was no longer completely actuate compared to what it was not too long ago (like perhaps just a timeframe of one generation).
Snow flurries outside, but I'm glad this last lecture was in the same building my car was parked in - took the elevator straight down to the parking level :) Benefits of leaving after 7pm is that from most roads, after 7pm you are allowed to turn left onto Spadina Ave., instead of having to explore new tiny roads in Downtown Toronto because of no left turns, no right turns, and no going straight signs posted on almost every intersection. Roads are still relatively clear at the moment - almost no snow accumulation. From Spadina, took the Gardiner Express, then merged onto HWY 427, where traffic was slowing a bit down due to reduce visibility - cars going an average of 90 km/h in a posted 100 km/h - and then there is me sticking to 100 km/h just so I get home before someone decides it's time to collide and block the collector lanes for the next whole hour. From HWY 427 merged onto HWY 401 (W), and now people decided it's time to hit their brakes, and me not trusting my car's winter weather traction, decided to not change lanes to pass traffic - at the end of my trip it only increased my estimated arrival time by a couple of minutes :) As soon as I exited the highway, I realized snow removal on city roads are not as much prioritized as the highways - especially not the residential roads - as soon as I turned onto one leading to my house, you could feel your brakes not engaging properly. Made it home in one piece around 8:20pm :)
Long day, but still thought it would be a fantastic idea to go on a short roadtrip at 11:30pm, despite severe weather condition warnings for the night and early morning. I open my garage door and see snow blowing, starting to accumulate. I carefully exit my driveway and calmly drive at speeds around 20 km/h - roads were completely empty (smart people staying indoors I guess). I decided to keep going straight on a road crossing two cities, until the road ended - at this point roads were extremely slippery - the cars in front clearly skidding when trying to stop at red lights; posted 80 km/h, I stuck going at 30-40 km/h - couldn't even drive in my lane, markings and even the curb were invisible at this point. I kept driving - met snow plow machines on the way; decided to take the unplowed road after the plow turned on a different road. I kept going until I came to an intersection - silence, -18 C with windchill - I decided to open my windows for some fresh air - with the heater on, the mix of air actually felt nice. Now, I decided I've come far and should grab the highway back home; ended up missing the turn for the highway. So I continued until I saw posted highway arrows. I turned to follow them, and... it was a narrow road with not too much visibility and soft road edges - my car's wheel leaned over into the ditch, I tried to turn back on to the road, however I was losing traction (yellow traction light on the dash) - finally, I pulled out, and with that force the car skid, rotated 90 degrees, and went over to the other side and made a full U-turn :( Posted speeds of 80 km/h I was driving at 30, and still this happened. Instead of the usual 25 minutes drive back in normal conditions, it took my an entire 2 hours to get back. I guess weather warnings are there for a reason :(
January 15, 2026
To much snow outside (40cm), I'm just gonna stay indoors and finish off my assignments :)
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