Happy New Year!!!

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! This year I get to spend it at home with family, unlike spending it at school last year. Even my sister is coming back to be with the family this weekend. I, of course have to go pick her up from Scarborough Town Center. That's where the bus drops her off from Queens. So I decided to stay at work and try to get a little homework done (Mathematical Physics II). I bought some food at a chinese bakery to tide me over until I get home. Did I ever mention how much I liked chinese baked goods? Mmmm, soo good. And to think that in Waterloo, there is no bakery nearby! Maybe I should open one....it'll definitely get a lot of business. So as you can probably tell, I'm not getting much work done here at work, since I'm blogging instead.

Whenever I go to Markham for work, I usually go over to First Markham Place for lunch. It's really close by and the food is good and cheap. The total opposite of the office's lunch diner. A meal there will be $7 for stuff that doesn't taste that good. I went there on my first day and decided to never go back there again. (well maybe for soup or breakfast, but never for lunch). So that has got me thinking about how much money I spend for lunches. Ever since the summer after high school, I've been practically buying my lunch everyday (unless I'm already at home). That means I'm approaching 3 years of going out for lunch everyday, which represents a lot of cash. Let's do some simple calculations. Let's say that Lunch costs on average around $5. I usually try to buy lunch cheaply (w/ coupons if possible :) )and some days I'm at home, so I'm not buying anything. And other days, I go out to nice restaurants for lunch, or some pricey place. So for the sake of argument let's say $5, even though I'm sure you've all noticed how hard it is to get a decent meal for $5. And let's say there are 250 work/school days in a year. That's equal to $1250 a year! Over three years, that's $3750!

Wow, that's a lot of money. That's what happens when you're too lazy to pack your lunch. You lose almost $4000 bucks. That's one terms' worth of tuition! So the lesson here is pack your own lunch. But I won't be listening to my own advice....I happen to enjoy going out for lunch greatly and the convenience is fantastic. At least I know where all my money went. One of my goals of getting a PDA was recording expenses....but I never found a convenient expense program, so I never got around to it....maybe it's time I start looking into that.

One last thing, just wanted to thank Mike for blogging with me over the summer. It was fun and entertaining (remember our first posts and how we looked at each other's work...haha). He also made a very excellent suggestion that I have guest bloggers on every so often. If I can't find a regular blogging partner, then that's going to be my plan. So anyone want to be a guest blogger every now and then? It would mean much less commitment, but allow you to post your thoughts and events in your life. ICQ me if you're interested!

P.S. Still would prefer a regular blogging partner though and get some new blood in here...

--Nelson

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Hard Work

Surprisingly I only started last week, and I'm already really busy. Maybe it's becuase I have to do so much reading and learning or I don't know my stuff. I've had 10 hour work days all this week, which are tiring. I missed bball this week, because my feet are so sore from climbing so many stairs today. Although, I was lucky today, because I worked out at the GTAA. Got to see Kitty and all my past coworkers. In fact I'll be working with some of my past coworkers again. That's really wacky, because by the end of the term, I'll have know some of those people for a year. Never really thought about that...

But upon meeting one of my former bosses, the first thing we talked about was Ghost Recon (a fps (first person shooter (ie a really fun computer game!!!))). He mentioned how he was a now a Ghost Recon Clan Leader. I wonder if I'll be playing games when i get older and when I have kids....i can't imagine it....but it's different nowadays since our generation grew up w/ video games as an integral part of our lives (at least for some of us...). So it might be the norm in the future, parents who keep up with gaming as much as their kids do....am I talking crazy here?

Just got my marks back last week....pretty depressing again. They say this is the hardest term, so maybe I can pull it up from here. My goal next term is to get an average of at least 80%...which is a pretty low standard nowadays, but at least it's a realistic one. While on the same topic, Keith and I decide to even out the bets for this round. I think I would have lost again (by only a bit this time), but Keith was merciful. I really have to change to the structure of this betting arrangement or else find a new betting/competing partner (or be boring and not do any betting at all).

One course that really pulled up my mark was Sociology 101. It turned out to be pretty interesting and I'm glad I took it. I've never taken an arts course before. I don't know about other ones, but this one was so easy! The most perplexing part of the course was how insanely low the class average was. And the final was so easy! I finished with half the allotted time and left. It was kinda weird not taking a technical course, where the majority of the work is just piece of cake reading. Another big difference was the class' demographs. It's full of non Asians and mostly female. I didn't even realize there were so many white people on campus! It was also my first night class...which meant that I was awake for the whole class. I even went to the lecture across the hall, econ101, on break (instead of sleeping). The econ prof, Larry Smith, was so interesting. He had very entertaining, but relevant stories. I'm strongly considering taking an econ course in the near future. Learned cool things in that class...like when you're eating gravy, what you are actually eating is blood!

But seriously, learned some cool things in soc class too. Like how all professional hockey players have early birth months. This is because when they were kids, they were more physically developed than the slightly younger kids, so they were picked to play with the better players. This process continued from season to season, and each time they got to play with the better kids they were able to hone their skills. So eventually, you look at the NHL and almost all the players have an early birth month. Something as seemingly insignificant as birth month can have an effect on your outcome in life. Actually the main idea in sociology is that your place in society (by birth a lot of the time), will have a large determination on your path in life. Also that some social problems, such as suicide, which is seeminly a very personal decision, is constant within different societies from year to year. Which implies that your society you live in determines how many suicide occur per year. This figure does not fluctuate greatly from year to year. I guess you could sum it up as we are products of our society, which makes a lot of sense. But it is kinda scary to think that the person you are today is not really a product of your own choosing, but one created by our society. No wonder there are wars in this world.

Which reminds me...I watched Bush's State of the Union address the other night. The most surprising thing was watching the Democratic response, because it was delivered by a chinese dude! Couldn't believe it, but the Governor of Washington, Gary Locke is Chinese. I don't know if any of you watched it, because he has a great personal story (but his speech was just a tad boring because it was all domestic issues). Never heard of Chinese politicians in America. Quite a surprise to me, but I was happy to see Gary Locke representin' and breaking down the stereotypes (just like Yao Ming...hahaha).

Inspiring.

--Nelson

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Movies Galore

Strange, but after chilling so long while unemployed, i wanted to chill some more this weekend. I was feeling quite tired, especially from driving to work. The drive is so grueling...one hour one way in never ending traffic. Carol suggested using the 407....something to seriously consider if it'll save a lot of time. You know the saying, time is money.

So luckily when some of the guys wanted to go out for a movie on fri, Cary was nice enough to drive. Ended up going to Alice Fazooli's. Nice restaurant, felt like a place to bring a date, but our group was 5 guys. Huy came out with Rick, Keith and Cary and I. We caught a movie afterward (using our free passes....i burned through 30+ of those things over the last year), Confessions of a Dangerious Mind, George Clooney's directorial debut. Interesting movie to say the least. Some real belly laughs, some implausibilites, weirdness throughout, over-directed and definitely entertaining. It was so strange watching Clooney's work, because it looks so much like a Soderbergh film. He was obviously influenced by him and I guess it's a good thing, cause Soderbergh is one of my favourite directors. Clooney seems to have a little more fun with the whole thing though. Can't wait to see his next movie.

Oh yeah, got to ride in Huy's car. It's a 1985 Nissan 300ZX. It's so cool....Because it talks!! Just like K.I.T.T from Nightrider!!! It says things like the lights are on, and the parking brake is on in an even digitized voice. It has wings that open up on top. The interior instrumentation is all green with a bar graphs for RPM and throttle, an accelerometer, transmission voltage and all sorts of other things that you don't normally see. It's a pretty fast car too (it is a sports car after all). Anyway, it was fun to ride in and it would probably be even more fun to drive, but i need to learn manual first...

Caught two movies on sat...an anime flick, Jin-Roh and M.Night Shyamalan's Signs. Signs was pretty good i guess...Shyamalan is so good at creating atmosphere and suspense, but his plots could be a bit better. I think he has to expand his film making in scope a little to get further as a filmmaker.
Jin-Roh was a little weird and messed up, like most anime. I got a little confused in the story unfortunately. One thing I noticed was how different the movie was culturally. The characters and their motivations are so different from those in western movies. Their actions and attitudes are sometimes incomprehensible to me, which is a strange thing to say, because I'm an Asian. But I grew up here and I suppose I'm more used to watching Western films, whether that's good or bad. Anyway enough about my banananess.

Or not....While on the same thought, I am pretty asian too. I must say, I prefer chinese food most of the time. I went to go get my hair cut at an asian place and adjusted my glasses at a Chinese optical this weekend. And my mom went to T&T supermarket twice this weekend!

And ironically enough, I like basketball a lot, which is practically the most popular sport in China (next to table tennis of course, which i also like). Kinda messed up since Asians are on average the shortest race, but we have produced Yao Ming. Have I mentioned he's my favourite player in the L? My fantasy basketball team is named "Ming Dynasty" (surprisingly enough, I didn't go with a team name of BLING BLING like last year). Oh yeah, caught the Raptor's game today....Vince is back! And he played well enough for a win against Sacramento. What an exciting game!

Which is in complete contrast to the Super Bowl, what a bore... One thing that always pissed me off was having to watch the Canadian commercials, which are inferior to the one's on the American channel. If only I had cable....

(...I'd watch sports 24-7)

:)

--Nelson

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First Lesson

Take Care of Yourself

Well that really does sound obvious, doesn't it? Very true...even more so at work. They were nice enough to lend me a laptop, which they just handed to me on my first day. So what was next? Nothing, practically all the people at the office left to go on site (at the airport) and left only a few people behind. So i spent that first day setting up my laptop, which meant formatting and installing everything on it. That actually took me about 10 hours to complete. So I used the time to read up on Microsoft's .NET initiative. Some interesting ideas, which i won't bore you with, but it does seem like Microsoft is trying to squash every language (ie Java) out there. .NET basically reduces all the languages to just a difference in syntax. So what's the point of different languages if the only difference is the syntax? There is none really....and that's why Microsoft is pushing C# so aggressively. C#, an invention of Microsoft, is something they want to see dominate the maketplace. And now I really understand the implications of Waterloo whoring itself for money to Microsoft by letting them teach C# to the frosh. Really quite sad actually, but enough about the programming world.

I happen to work right across from First Markham Place. Kitty and I hung out there yesterday where we got our second sticker picture. Everything happens so quickly in there, and there's so much pressure! Luckily the picture turned out better than last time, and I think I may be getting the hang of it...haha, it actually takes practice to use those picture booths properly, who would've thought?

One last thing. The drive to and from work is killer. I spend two hours a day stuck in traffic. I really, really hate it. Such a waste of time. I was thinking of getting a some tape to learn a language, although I doubt those things work, but doesn't hurt to try. I really should get a voting thing going on my webpage....then I could get you to vote on what language to learn! So if you have a suggestion, ICQ me.

--Nelson

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A New Year

And changes are afoot.

First of, my blogging partner Mike, will no longer be blogging, which means I'm looking for a new blogging partner! So if there's anyone out there wanting to blog w/ me please tell me. I'm looking to change the URL and title of the page and maybe even the look of the page. So please apply!

In other news,I have finally found a job! I had decided not to blog until I found one. Well now I have a job and you are reading this. So far this term, I've had 11 interviews! Eleven!!! Some interviews were for really good jobs, such as ATI, March Networks, an ECE Professor, Certicom and Honeywell. But I didn't get any of them. Therefore, I have a big problem. My interview skills blow. Either that, or my technical skills aren't good enough. Either way, I've got something to really work on. I went to a job search workshop today, and got a few tips on interview skills, but nothing major that I wasn't already doing.

Anyway, my job is with a small software consulting company that does a lot of their work for the GTAA (Greater Toronto Airport Authority, my previous employers). That is actually how I got the job; while working at the GTAA, I met a contractor working there. Turns out he was a Waterloo Systems graduate and started his own company. It's a really small company, less than 10 people and I think it'll be a very good experience to work in such a small company. I'm a little worried about my programming skills though, because I done any programming for almost a year now! But I think a challenging work term is a good work term. I'll definitely learn something.

I had a good Christmas. Maybe I'll summarize it tomorrow, I have to sleep now and be ready for my first day of work tomorrow.

Oh, one more thing...was in a minor car accident today with whanger and matt wong. It was whanger's old 91 corolla car. We're all ok. But the car isn't in good shape. Anyway sleep now, I think matt will blog about it in detail.

Nice to be back....hopefully people are still reading this page.

--Nelson

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