Maëlys McArdle

Category: Life

Every other post.

  • The Road Trip

    The Road Trip

    One month ago, I embarked on a road trip with Jay and two of his friends.  The trip started out from my home town of Ottawa, and we would hit up Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, Boston and Montreal. We did all of this in seven days.

     

    One of the guys estimated that we drove around 5,700 kilometers. Five of the days were spent on the road. Among the sights while driving were the Great Lakes, the awe-inspiring storms of the Midwest, the beautiful rolling hills of Pennsylvania, and the small forest Eden that was Connecticut.

    Of course, we did do plenty of stops as well. We stayed a full day in Washington D.C. and New York City. We toured the Capitol building. We walked around the MIT campus in Cambridge. We took a nice break in Milwaukee. We wandered around the Chicago water front, which you can see in the picture below.

    For the most part, things went smooth. There were a few surprises a long the way as well. As this was my first time doing extensive driving in the US, I hadn’t realized to what extent Americans love toll roads. Most major routes between the big cities were toll roads. I remember one day costing us over $60.

    The extensive advertising for basic medical care and for religion were also a bit of a culture shock. I know that Americans treat basic medical care as a privilege rather than a right, but I always get taken aback seeing those ads.

    If I could go back to any place, it would be New York City. I really felt like I only touched the surface. On our first night, we visited the core of Manhattan, ate dinner in the Empire State Building, after which we took a ride to its top (second photo below.) Then the following day, Jay and I went shopping while the two other guys we were with (picture below) went off to Ellis Island and toured the statue of Liberty. We got back together at Central Park and went off for a supper in the city’s vibrant Chinatown.

     

    The day complete, we headed back to our hotel in New Jersey. But there was so much more to see: Queen’s, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, SOHO, etc. Most of the cities were like this actually – there was so much to do and see, and so little time to do it in.

    After all was said and done, I felt like I needed a vacation from the vacation. Too much driving and too little time for the places we were at. But despite these minor gripes, this was a great experience, and one I’m glad I had the opportunity to take part in.

  • Weight Loss

    Weight Loss

    Brief overview: I weighed around 158lbs when I started working my first “real” office job in 2008. I then went on to gain 20lbs. A year later, I shed the weight, and went back down to 160. After I hooked up with my boyfriend, I started to gain again. By last spring, I weighed over 210lbs. 

    Over the last few months I’ve been working on losing weight. I’ve managed to shed over 30lbs, and now sit in at 178lbs on the scale. The photos below compare what I looked like this past spring (left) with my current appearance.

    This isn’t the first time I’ve made a concerted effort to lose weight, but it is the first time I’ve done it right. My previous approach had been terrible: I’d eat one massive unhealthy meal a day, which I’d get from a local restaurant. By reducing my consumption to a single meal, I did end up shedding pounds – at the expense of my life span.

    This time, I’m eating again, but eating smarter. I started measuring portions and counting calories. I set daily calorie intake goals for myself. I found that I was eating much more than I needed to, and started make changes to my eating habits.

    I eschewed bread and cheese for vegetables as my snack of choice. Chicken breasts, fish, salads, stir fry’s became our dinner staples. Gone were the foods that came in boxes from the grocery store. Pasta became rarer. I stopped buying coke and chips from the work vending machines, and resisted our doughnuts Fridays. Frozen juice replaced ice cream at home.

    I became aware that I did not need to eat as much to feel satisfied. That I could be happy with a burger without the fries and the sugary drink. That I didn’t need to buy popcorn at the cinema. That using smaller plates, limiting the items per plate per trip at a buffet, placing the pots of food outside of arm’s reach, and eating slower – would all make me eat less without actually putting restrictions on food.

    Most important of all: I didn’t stop eating the things I like. That would have been a sure way to guarantee failure. It’s all about eating smart, and that just means putting those foods in context.

    Unlike the last weight loss stint, these changes to my eating habits are permanent. To be honest, I can no longer envision myself living like the old days – and I couldn’t be happier for it.

  • When prejudice wins

    When prejudice wins

    On Tuesday, the Minister of Education for the province of Ontario attended a breakfast to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. It was there where the Xtra! finally caught up to her, and was able to talk about the Gay-Straight Alliances and its province-wide ban in Catholic schools.

    Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky (Flickr)

    Unfortunately, it turns out that the minister sides with Catholic boards on the ban. Though I should have expected this outcome given the previous tepid response from the provincial politicians on the matter, it still came as a shock.

    It’s a disheartening development, because short of the courts, the provincial government is the highest authority on the matter. So now you have the schools, the boards, their religious overseers, and finally the provincial government all backing homophobic policies.

    What’s particularly discouraging is that I feel like there’s no one left to turn to. The provincial government was the last level in the Catholic boards’ chain of command that could have put an end to this bigotry.

    I’m very skeptical on there being swift progress on this issue. Despite the negative press, the Liberals are getting out of this relatively unscathed and the Conservatives are keeping silent. Meanwhile, the minister’s endorsement of some initiatives to counter homophobia is serving as an effective shield to defuse criticism.

    The burden is on advocacy groups and dissenting voices, but I don’t know what these voices are worth if there’s no one left to listen.

    I contacted my local MPP, Yasir Naqvi, who also happens to be the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Education. I promptly received a reply from his staffer informing me that he’d get back to me. That was over a month ago. I sent an email to follow-up the other day, and I was told by the staffer that a response was forthcoming. I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Naqvi.

    A thank you to Duncan for catching and informing me of the typographical error.

  • Solaire Progressing Well

    Solaire Progressing Well

    Development for Solaire is progressing well. I’m on track to have it finished by the end of the month. Since the last update, I finished the editor and started work on the game’s main “exploration” mode.

    I need to pay more attention to what kind of gameplay I want. Initially, I wanted a single-player story arc whereby your hand-drawn ship made it from a forgotten notebook at school to the owner’s home, fighting other doodles along the way. As you went along, you collected ink with which you could draw improvements on your ship, which would help you in the big boss battles.

    However, right now I’m aiming for something simpler. I’m going the “tower defence” formula: travel around a randomly generated universe, with your ship fighting off waves of enemies. Blowing up baddies gets you ink, which you use to improve your ship, which in turn prepares you for a more powerful wave of baddies. A scoring system serves as motivation to play more.

    Once I get that done, then I’ll think about creating a story mode. As usual, the source code for the project is available: you can download it here.

  • New Creative Project

    New Creative Project

    I’ve started a new creative endeavour: a video game which is at this time named Solaire. I’ve been working on it pretty heavily for the last week, and anticipate to have it done in about a month or so.

    The premise of the game is to have you draw a space ship and have it explore/battle through space, with everything taking on the appearance of being hand drawn. Rewards come in the form of ink, which you can then use to draw more stuff on your ship.

    I’m coding this using HTML5 and Javascript. The same stuff websites are made of. What this means is that this game will work on Windows, OS X, Linux, or even an iPad. As long as the device has a browser that follows standards, it can play this. You can access the source code here.

    It’s been interesting to take this on. The existing graphical facilities in HTML5 are very rudimentary, with few primitives (which doesn’t include circles) and text placing capabilities. I had to write a very limited game engine so that I could go from that to something with menus and user-interaction which animates at 100 frames per second. I love doing this kind of stuff though.

    Expect more news once I get closer to completion.