Toronto -> Ottawa -> Montreal

Today, my family and I drove back from Toronto. The Toronto -> Montreal trip which usually takes 5 hours and 37 minutes, instead took 6 hours 46 minutes. Part of the 401 was blocked between Kingston and Montreal and I still don't know why although i suspect it has something to do with the strong winds that were blowing for most of the day. We had to take a detour through the capital instead and I was exhausted by the time I got home.

Onwards into the new year!

The fall semester is over and now and soon the winter one will begin. To be honest, i was getting a bit tired of the semester and was anxiously waiting its end. Unfortunately, it has not yet completely ended for me. I still have a presentation to give, but it is not worrying me too much. Aside from this fact, it has been a very good semester for me and I hope the next one is just as good.
 
Right now, and for the last 3 days, I have been celebrating the holidays with family in Toronto. As some know, Toronto is not one of my favourite cities. Nonetheless, my time here has been very enjoyable as I have been spending it mostly with family and not so much touring the city. I just finished playing games of saboteur and citadels with my cousins and siblings. They are both fairly good and I would definitely recommend trying them out.

Tomorrow, I return home to Montreal to resume my celebrations and also start looking into my plans for the next semester. As it stands, for the winter semester, I plan on taking

• COMP 621 - Program Analysis and Transformations with Professor Laurie Hendren,
• COMP 524 - Theoretical Foundations of Programming Languages with Professor Prakash Panangaden,
• PHYS 512 - General Relativity with Professor Alexander Maloney,
• COMP 761 - Advanced Topics Theory 2 with Professor Patrick Hayden (this is really quantum information theory).

I will only be taking the last one of these if I manage to convince the faculty of Science to allow me to take it. This has proven to be a very difficult task so far since the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Office (GPSO) recently forbade all undergraduate students from taking any 700-level courses. I am still very confused about this decision. What do they gain by denying these courses to students? Are they worried that undergrads are too likely fail these courses? If so, why allow access to 600-level courses? They are not necessarily any easier and they already have the 500-level courses which are meant for both undergraduate and graduate students. In short, I have no idea why they are doing this. In any case, if I do not get into this course, I don't know what course i will take instead. I might try to take the same course but under another course number (like an independent study) or just take an entirely different course (maybe algebra 4, number theory or combinatorics?). Any suggestions?

Best holiday wishes to all,
--Alex