Stuff done during holidays

So after moving and all that, it was time to enjoy the christmas break. Did a number of things which include:

Christmas Lan @ the Singh's

As always, Christmas lan (or pretty much, wc3 and dota day) was hosted by the gracious ryan singh. However, this time, the numbers doubled since Kevin's friends were in as well. It was quite the task to fit all us guys (about 10 of us i think?) and one girl (Gaelyn) in the usual 'lan area'. Having more people was definitely more interesting, but it was a shame that many of us had to leave early since we had christmas plans. Gotta give props to kevin and ryan (and their mom ;) ) for hosting every year since, for real, they are great hosts. Might sound like a geek, but lan is one of those things i look forward to every year. It's not so much about playing the video games since we do that enough on a regular basis, but it's the joy of blasting your own music thru speakers and the constant random '$h!t' talking to one another all day that makes the experience fun. No pics for this event.

Christmas party @ the Wu's

So like i said, i had to leave lan early so i could make it to a christmas event, which is this one. I missed last year's party since i had to go back to HK, so this was my first time visiting the Wu's place. Now that i've moved, im now a 10 minute drive from their place. As janice says, we're practically 'neighbours' lol. It was a great night since it's not often we're all able to get together and just relax, and also, I think this was the first time i ever tried chocolate fondue. From what i heard, Richie tried pouring Bailey's into the machine last year, and clogged the machine up. Shame i wasn't there for that.

America's very own Mr. Gary Cheng came back to the Land of Hockey and Lumberjacks for Christmas

Don't let this pic fool you, i was pretty happy i got the Dark Knight dvd from the gift game. I've never seen movie before, making this a great snatch. Also, it's not the alcohol (not that there was a lot ingested anyway), im just not photogenic

Church Christmas Banquet
Ah annual church banquet. For those who don't know, the church i attend is affliated with a number of sister churches. As a celebration, on christmas all the churches come together for dinner, worship singing, christmas message from the pastor, and last but not least, prize draws! This marks the first time I sang with the worship team at the banquet. Shame i don't know how to embed the video of our performance here or else you all can enjoy Vanessa's heavenly solo of "O Holy Night". It's on facebook though for those interested. Finally, difference between the previous banquets and this one is that the prizes are much better this time, which we could thank Patrick for. As usual, my number was drawn at the banquet. 2 years ago, i won a basket of oranges. Last year i won a gardening hose. This year, though i didn't win the better prizes, i won a free peking duck platter (with purchases over $50).

With some of the gentlemen: I have to stop with the half drunk expression in my pics

I have grown fond of the double peace sign

Singing

Blue Mountain: Snowboarding @ night

I went snowboarding for the first time this christmas. Not including cross country skiing when i was in elementary school, I've never skied or snowboarded before. I opted for snowboarding over skiing just because i figured it'd be more challenging and fun. With my natural prowess in sports, i thought it'd be easy to get a hang of it. However, I was struggling pretty hard in the beginning because I couldnt control where i was going nor could i stop. Even on the most bunny of hills i was having problems sliding down (i had no problems rolling down). I would naturally slide towards the left side and into the fencing.

Perplexed by my own failures, i started thinking that perhaps the pain my feet were feeling from the tight boots were causing the issues. Not knowing anything about snowboarding, i thought it'd be a good idea to have tight fitting boots, and hence i got a pair that were 1 size smaller than my feet. My toes were at one point going numb because they were getting crushed inside. So after getting a larger pair of boots, i hit the slopes again. I left the extreme bunny hill and tried some of the other green hills and found it much much (yes 2 much's, it's not a typo) more easier to control, turn, balance and stop. Although i still fell on my ass on occassion, i was actually standing on my 2 feet snowboarding. In retrospect, had i smarten up and changed boot sizes the moment i tried them on, i would have had more fun boarding. I changed at the later half of the tme we were there, so i missed some quality snowboarding time. Oh well, there's always next time. I should also wear contacts or wear glasses next time since we were doing it at night when my vision goes all blurry....

New Place

So after a post on the old house, here's one of the new house.

Of course, by now we have garage doors.

My room before

The night after i moved in. As i recall, i stayed up till 5am setting up my display shelf, which is the next pic

Initial room layout.

Day 2: I didn't have a computer table then so i was using a tiny shelf thing as one. As you can see, it's as tall as my chair. I also realized it was a bad idea to put the bed there, because when the sun came up in the morning, my initial reaction was, "Gah, da blinds, dey do nuttin" (some of you may get that joke).

A week after i think. Got a good work station from ikea, which is quite nifty for the price you pay.

Now. With blinds.

Having moved from scarborough to the edge of markham (i'm now on elgin mills), the distance from home to UTSC became huge, and hence we needed a new car.

09 civic after couple days on the road. Now with all the slush and snow, the color became dirt brown. Could use a good cleaning about now.





2nd day of school and i'm greeted by old man winter. Took me about an hour and a half to drive to school. If i was still living in scarborough, it would of taken me 15 minutes even when there's a storm. I'll just have to get used to it.

Salute to 71 Oakmeadow

So for those who don't know, i moved in mid decemeber. It was a hectic time since it was during my finals when all this happened. I actually had an exam the day we were supposed to leave. Anyway, this was our first home in Canada which makes it a total of 15 years that we've stayed in this place. Some may consider this a short period of time, but i consider it as long. I've spent more time in this house than i did in the two places i lived back in HK. It's also worth noting that i've spent the majority of my childhood and all of my teenage life in this place, so much memories were had.


I admit i was sad the day i left (not to the point of crying), but at the same time i had this pleasant feeling within me. By all means, it wasn't that i was happy to leave an old house for a new one. I was just glad that i was able to spend my childhood years in this place. It was a cozy home. Also, looking ahead, i saw it as a sign of change in life. As i'll be finishing up my last year of uni , parting with my old house was in essense, parting with my inner child. Now don't get me wrong, i don't mean to say im mr.adult now. And as most of you know, i still take part in all sorts of child-like shinnanigans. Basically, all i'm trying to say is that moving houses is symbolic of my moving into a new stage in life. Anyway, here are some pics i took the night i moved.

Oh yea, these pics are of the house when everythings been moved. Pics of how the house actually looked when we were living in it are in a photo album somewhere and it takes too much time to scan.

Ah farewell 71 Oakmeadow

Considering how we've lived in this house for 15 yrs, the white carpet's still....white

There goes my L table

How i spent my night before final. Tifa poster is new btw.

Everything's been moved to the new house by now, so i had to sleep in a sleeping bag the night of exam.

In my final moments in the house, i decided that i just couldn't leave without striking a few poses.

Me thinking...

Lavalife pic

Reminiscing before leaving

Trying fob girl pose...fail

Trying fob girl pose #2...super fail

"So long my home of 15 yrs"

End of 08 Review

It's been pretty much half a year since the last time i blogged. I've been meaning to write another entry ever since the new years, but i never got around to it. No excuses, I was just plain lazy. There's nothing to do at this hour, so here i am again with another entry. To be exact, it's a list of since much has happened within the end of 08.

TVB Event at Splendid China Tower

Summer vacation is over now and it's time for school once again. Though it sucked that i had to take 5 summer courses, the cruise trip made up for it. I posted pictures on my facebook, so i won't put them here. There's not much to say about the trip anyway. There was a lot of eating and a decent amount of drinking. Aside from losing $100 in the casino, i had a great time. Not often do we get the chance to get together with all our relatives for vacation.

Anyway, the purpose of this blog is on the TVB event i went to today at the Splendid China Tower. TVB's Angela Tong (湯盈盈), Shirley Yeung (楊思琦), Sunny Chen (陳錦鴻) and Michael Tse (謝天華) held an autograph session there. For those who don't know, these are some of the stars that appear in HK's TV series, and they are extremely popular amongst viewers.

The crew handed out passes to the public at 7pm, and so i started lining up around 6: 20. People with passes were given seats during the conference and were given autographed pics of each star.. The stars arrived at 8 and the whole thing lasted about 30 minutes. They just arrived from Calgary where they did another show, so i'm guessing they're exhausted. It is part of a small Canada tour, were they stopped over in vancouver and calgary. Overall it was a good experience. However, i am quite disappointed that I didn't get to have my picture taken with any of them since i lacked a photographer. This marks the first time I ever met TVB stars in person. Though i did meet with Andy Lau before when i was 11.

Here are some vids and pics:
These vids were taken with my low battery camera so the quality aint great.







Here are the autographed pics:

Host w/ Miss Chinese Toronto 07:

The stars:

End of Summer Term

Back to Blogging/Rant
I have not given up on this blog yet lol. I know it has been quite a while since my last entry, and in all reality, I'm sure not many people read this anyway. I just finished my last exam which is for C11, and my summer vacation officially begins. I have about 3 weeks until fall session comes, which is enough of a break I guess. Though i should be overjoyed that I'm finally finished summer school, I don't feel any different than before. I assume that summer school has sucked the life out of me, leaving me devoid of emotions. Or it could be because I haven't slept much lately and i'm just tired right now.

In all honesty though, it's not like i was working hard throughout the summer. It was still pretty 'chill'. However, it is because having been through 3 semesters in a roll now (with pretty much a full course load) have left me burnt out. It's like I've been at school forever. And with such great weather, you cannot help but think of the things you could be doing (work, beach, sports, etc.) instead of wandering the dark concrete hallways of UTSC. Though it's not all bad. I've met some new people, Amitay's (C11) class is awesome, and Leonard's film class is pretty interesting. Hopefully I get into both of Amitay's D levels for next term.

The end of this summer term also marks the end of my 3rd year at UTSC, and damn, these 3 years sure blew by. It didn't feel like a long time has passed since i was a freshman at frosh, though upon introspection, I think I've changed quite a lot since i entered the university. For some reason i'm less joyous than i was in high school. Perhaps i failed at achieving the university experience, or maybe it is just a natural process that occurs as one ages. As one grows older, there is more responsbilitiy thrust upon us and there are a number of things that we have to consider now. Especially now that i'm entering my last year, I have to worry about what the hell i'll be doing after I graduate and the prospect of having to move within a couple of months is adding to the confusion. I remember in elementary and high school, all that mattered was what happens the next day. Nonetheless, as much as i dislike university, it played a crucial role in shaping who i am today. I guess you can say the experience builds one's character. I know more about myself now throughout these years. I know what kind of person I am and what I am not. Kind of weird how it takes time to realize who we are, yet we've been ourselves now for 20 or so years. THough at the same time it makes sense, because our experience in society is what shapes us. Genetics alone are not what defines us. Anyway i'm going off on a tangent here.

Normal Stuff
Now that school's done I can focus on the cruise that's around the corner now. I'll be gone to florida this sunday to board the 'Freedom of the Seas'. I don't really know much about it aside from the fact that it is part of Royal Carribean Cruise and i'll be gone for a week. All that mattered is that it's a cruise, which i've never been on before. Got less than a week now to make up for the work outs i missed since exams and final assignments lol. I'll try to take some good pictures and blog them when i get back.
Also i got a new phone now. It's the sony k660i, and i like it. It's not bulky and looks stylish. Screen resolution is much better than my old phone. I'm not exactly an advocate of new gadgets, but my old phone just sucked. It ran out of batteries in a day, and i get no reception anywhere. It eventually died on me and now i have this. Basically i just needed a phone that was reliable, have long battery life, and can play mp3s as ringtones. I don't need all the fancy functions of an iPhone. So this new sony phone is perfect. I've been using it for 2 days now and it barely used a quater of the battery life. Mine is like the black one in this picture, except that purple part is metalic blue (or aqua, i don't really know my colors).

Oh yea, it also has a 2 mega pixel camera, so the pics i'll post in the future will look much better than the ones I have up before. Anyway this is enough for now, time to get stuff for the cruise and perhaps a much needed haircut.

What will await us in the future...

Just got back from a wedding dinner at Century Palace. At least i think that's what it's called. In any case, it's the big chinese banquet hall at Metro. It's one of those occasions where your parents drag you to for the sake of 'giving face' to the hosts. These occasions usually turn out to be quite awkward because you would have no idea who the hell the people there are and they have no idea who you are either. It is probably just me, but i find it downright weird to be sitting at a wedding banquet when you have never met the bride and groom before.
To sum up, it was quite a boring night for me. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure everyone who knew the bride and groom or their respective families enjoyed themselves as they indulged in conversation and alcohol, and i congratulate the two on their marriage. But put in my situation, i'm sure most of you would feel the same.
Dancing soon followed dinner, and by this time, i was feeling slightly peeved. I guess i'm jus a bad spirited fellow but watching couples dance on the floor wasn't exactly getting my spirits up lol... I couldn't exactly leave either since my parents were up there as i sat alone at my table. Having my mom constantly telling me to invite some random girl in the hall to dance wasn't improving my mood either. I'm sure some of you wouldn't mind doing that, but i do. To make things worse, my mom then said she'd go and dance with me then. In my head @ the moment, i was like 'WTF...leave me the hell alone and go dance.' I know it's natural that all parents somehow make their kids feel embarassed, but what the hell... How bloody hard is it to place yourself in the position of another. If a person has their arms crossed looking kinda peeved, you'd think the wise thing to do is NOT make insensitive and thick headed comments. Not to mention i was supposed to be studying for a midterm that's on monday, but she figured it was more important for me to accompany her for dinner. It still ticks me off thinking about it now, and i'm starting to sweat because of it...damn lack of a/c.

(Brief moment of calming myself)

Problems aside, participating at the dinner tonight put things in perspective for me. As i watched the bride and groom lead off in the first dance, i wondered what and where i'd be years from now. Questions like 'what job i'd have?', 'would i still be in canada?' and 'would i be married or even be in a relationship?' began to pop up. It was a good time to reflect on my life and think about what awaits me in the future.
Anyway this is enough ranting and/or emo-ish posting. I'm sure all of you have at least thought about what your own future would be like. Anyone care to share?