Chaos Zone v2

Happy Chinese New Year

2008-02-11T00:08:00.000-08:00

I know I am late, but here you go. Happy new year to everyone who is Chinese.

I have been really busy with school. 4/5 of my classes have on going group projects. They are really time consuming. It means I don't get any breaks.

I am starting to look for co-op jobs. I got some interviews, so I guess I am pretty happy.

Winter Term 2008

2008-01-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

School started. I have four classes that are all teaching information technology related topics. I have one law class, which is like the most interesting class in this term.

I did a relatively good job at staying awake in classes so far.

There are a lot of terms I have to remember for IT though... and that's a bit discerning.

Studying and etc aside, I have been playing a bit of PS2. I tried out Persona3 and played a bit more of Tales of Abyss. For the first time in a year I touched my PSP. I get to play Disgaea and Brave Story when I am standing on the bus home. It's rather entertaining.

New Year Resolutions

2008-01-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

My new year resolutions (not in order of importance)

1) Read my text books, keep up with school work, get high grade average
2) Find a good co-op job
3) Finish Tales of the Abyss
4) Try out a new sport
5) Actually finish writing a story
6) Improve on grammar and spelling
7) Be less transparent, learn better anger management

Three Days in the Life of an University Student during Exam Week

2007-12-10T21:57:00.000-08:00

As mentioned before, exam weeks of hell started, and today it reached the climax with 2 exams back to back. Let me just discuss about how I spent the past 3 days.

Saturaday:
- Woke up at 7:30am
- Chinese history class
- Lunch out
- Head to school and study until 10:30pm

Sunday:
- Woke up at 8:00am
- Prep for Church's Christmas event
- Study till 9:30pm

Monday:
- Woke up at 3:00am
- Study
- Leave house at 7:00am
- Start exam A at 8:30am
- Finish exam A at 10:45am
- Walk to study room and study till 3:15pm
- Start exam B at 3:30pm
- Finish exam B at 6:30pm

Special Notes:
- Saturday, my dinner consisted of Palmier and fresh taro bubble tea
- Saturday, forced my friend to buy the bubble tea for me
- Sunday, I had problems concentrating
- Sunday, it snowed in the morning for about an hour
- Sunday, slept at 10:00pm
- Monday, had two cups of latte from Starbucks
- Monday, actually explained something to some girl before goverment and business exam.
- Monday, almost cried in joy when the teacher announced he would give us 3 hours to do the test, not 2 hours as I originally thought
- Monday, actually felt sad when I handed in the CPSC 313's final because I like the prof very very much

Posts I Made Today but under a Different Date

2007-12-07T01:19:00.000-08:00

Just got off first exam. It started at 7pm and it's 3 hours, so you do the math. Seeing I am behind on blogging, I decided to celebrate the end of the first exam by doing a few entries I wanted to write but never had a chance to write earlier (yes, I know, I am just that sad).

I changed the date of these entries so that they would better reflect on the originally intended dates.

Akizuki's Cosplay Magazine Picture Post -- deserve a post of its own because as pitiful as it may sound Akizuki in any context makes me swoon.

David Beckham Game Post -- Well it's not every day that Canadians get to see Davide Beckham in Canada

Way to Kill Sympathy Post -- It's something I feel rather strongly about

First Flurry of the Winter Post -- What can I say? You treasure what you don't get.

Santa Parade Post - I happened to have lots of pictures. So...

Gundam 00 Post - Well this is the only anime I am following really actively this season

Snow Geese Post -- It is a bit worrying.

-- About a series called Beauty Honey

Handsome manga guy I chanced upon

2007-12-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

Last summer, finals' stress manifested itself into mad e-mail checking and generally staring out into space. This year finals' stress manifested itself into some mad manga downloading.

During this craze, I happened upon this manga called Beauty Honey... and I think I found one of the most handsome shoujo manga characters in my shoujo manga reading history.

I actually don't know his name, but here are two pictures of him:

Plot wise, I think this series is just like your typical shoujo manga, but who cares when I get to stare at this guy?

Gundam 00

2007-12-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

I thought I left Gundam behind me in grade 9 when Gundam Wing aired in North America. You see, I have not actually liked any Gundam series since then (yes, including the infamous Gundam Seed and Seed-Desiny), and I have also been quite successful in convincing myself that Gundam Wing actually sucked -- and had I not been so young and naive I would have never lay eye on that series as well.

But then, Gundam 00 arrived...

And all hell broke lose.

I will leave the long commentary about characters for another day, but let me just post a picture of the two characters I care most of. Now, they are not the most popular of the cast by far, they are not even all that well developed as characters so far, but they have certain qualities that I find endearing (possibly have something to do with the few similarities they share with Arc and Lumeria?).

*meant to post this post before the OP song post too, but didn't get around to it till now just like the other post

Global warming

2007-11-30T08:37:00.000-08:00

While the rest of the world is worrying about global warming, Canada is having one of the coldest winters in many years.

But I would not go off calling global warming a myth just yet, especially when Snow Geese start invading school yards like this...

First flurry of the Winter

2007-11-26T00:41:00.000-08:00

Santa Parade 2007

2007-11-25T01:49:00.000-08:00

If people in HK see this parade, I think their first reaction would be to snort in disdain -- But around here, people actually thought it was pretty impressive.

Personally, I think it was just too damn cold.

When your feet are so cold they hurt, your good humour just kind of goes out the window. I doubt I would have stayed the whole parade if I actually had a choice, but I didn't, not really, because there were so many people on the street you really can't move anywhere until the whole thing's over.

Anyway, before I got all cold and bitter about the whole thing I was volunteering for the food bank, selling pompom (yes of all things) at the jacked up price of $2. Of course, it's all to a good cause, so many people were actually willing to pay the bucks.

I haven't done stuff like this for soooo long. I think the last time I volunteered at a one day event for a charity organization is back in grade 12, when this sort of thing is still useful on my resume. If I am less apathetic (and tragically disillusion), I would have probably feel warm and fuzzy and enjoy the whole ordeal more. But as it was, the whole event was only okay.

But regardless, here are a few pictures of the better floats so you can get a sense of what it was like there.

And just for a touch of patriotism...

I never knew Canadian high schools have marching bands too. O_o

My personal favorites...

Daybreak's Bell - L'arc~en~ciel

2007-11-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

I was searching for English translation of Daybreak's Bell (Gundam 00's Op) and I realized that the most wide-spread version is done by some beginner Japanese student translating with a Japanese-English dictionary.

There's a mistake even in the first line of that translation. "Hey, haven’t you seen another shape besides this one?" That's not how you translate "ねえこんな形の出逢いしかなかったの?"

Yes, 形 can mean "shape" in some situation, but not in this case, according to my research.

Here's my understanding of what the lyrics are really about:

Daybreak's Bell

Hey, can we only meet under these circumstances? How sad.
I don't want you to kill or be killed.
I beg of you...
Even destiny have been swallowed by the seemingly sinking sea.

Let this wish ride the wind and ring the daybreak's bell
Like a bird,
MY WISHES OVER THEIR AIRSPACE*
Let it cross endless wave,
To protect you, who stand to face tomorrow
MY LIFE I TRADE IN FOR YOUR PAIN
End the fighting

Hey, why do people keep making the same mistakes?
I dislike this unevolving blood that flows in everyone's veins.

On this Earth that belongs to no one, we use fire to impede one another.

If a perfect cloudless future arrives one day,
Then even weapons can be overgrown with flowers.**
MY WISH OVER THEIR AIRSPACE
Someone shake and awake me from this nightmare.
If my wish can come true,
MY LIFE I TRADE IN FOR YOUR PAIN
How long must I pray [for my wish] to reach the heavens?

At the moment, the daybreak glow shines on the endless sea and I.

Let my wish ride the wind and ring the daybreak's bell
Like a bird,
MY WISH OVER THEIR AIRSPACE
Let it cross endless wave,
To protect you, who stand to face tomorrow
MY LIFE I TRADE IN FOR YOUR PAIN

Let unwaving*** wings take these thoughts
And fly toward that sky.

No one can shoot down that future.

*I have no control over the Engrish. I wonder what they actually meant. They can either mean "my wish is over the airspace" or "my wishes are over the airspace" or "my wishes are flying through the airspace"...
**A more direct translation of this line would be "even flowers can grow out of weapons"
***it actually said "unturning" in the song but unturning wings don't really make sense, so I choose to translate that as resolute and without regret, thus unwavering.

The Smart People Around Me

2007-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

It's hard to ignore smart presence when you sit right next to them or just a few seats away. That's why it's hard to ignore how smart some people are in university. Seeing them makes me question what exactly can I accomplish when I have to compete with brilliant people like them.

In deed how can I compete at all? They are obviously smart to another level.

But then I remember Mr. President and suddenly I feel strangely encouraged.

Back-logged Post about Life illustrated by Photo

2007-11-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a short update on life in general with random pictures I took. I will make a few posts later on a few things I wanted to go deeper in.

Since my first post there had be several sabotage with the Engeneering E.

This one is done by Ski & Board.

But this one, done by unknown students... is much more impressive. They even got a bike rack up onto the block! Unfortunately, because this is really sabotage, what you see here was taken off within half a day.

Our Honda Civic 1997 was brought into the shop right after we bought our car for gear box problems.

And here's our... courtesy car [that I had promptly nicked named 'a piece of junk']?

My father's birthday came and went. Last week, almost a month after his actual birthday, I took him out for dinner to Little Sheep Hot-pot. This is what the soup looks like. The spicy side is really funny and I enjoyed watching my father eat food too spicy for him.

I am still working at the same place doing paper work. (This is actually not my own picture, but I think it demonstrates the point well enough.)

And in the morning I have to line up for bus... which really suck.

David Beckham Game

2007-11-07T00:44:00.000-08:00

I hope I spelled his name right. I really am not a huge Beckham fan, but he came to Vancouver and my friend happened to have an extra ticket... so I tagged along.

The game itself was nothing spectacular. The streaker who ran around the field may actually be the most entertaining part of the game. I have definately seen better games on TV before, plus, Beckham is like 10x better a player than most players on the field. That's pretty sad, since Beckham is seriously getting old and he is injured.

Nevertheless, it was fun seeing a celebrity. At least now I can brag that I have actually seen David Backham live.

Way to Kill Sympathy

2007-11-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

They call it Trek Park. I call it junk yard.

My sentiments actually leaned toward them in September but by the end of October all that was gone.

Seriously, you can only save the knoll if you can show with action that you ACTUALLY care about the environment around the knoll.

Leaving random couches and trash around after the protest just isn't it. T_T

Guess what I saw...

2007-10-05T01:17:00.000-07:00

Guess what I saw a couple of weeks ago at the Japanese book store?!

IT'S AKIZUKI-SAMA! ZOMG!!!!!

Why I think there's more to Gurren Lagann

2007-10-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

The show ended last Sat. The ending is not horrible.

Although it seems like it tied everything up on the surface with the epilogue... I think there's a big possibility that we will see more Simon and Co. in their former glory.

Something about the epilogue just didn't feel right to me.

What stuck out in the show for me is how Simon is able to repeatedly change impossibility into possibility. As he said very confidently in an earlier episode, "If it's not 0% then it's 100% to me."

That is the show's reoccuring theme but the ending seems to compromise that. Having Simon to just travel alone forever (and never visiting his old friends other than those who are dead?!) makes him seem too resign for his own character. And to make it worse, he just had to say something along the line of, "Who do you think I am?! I am... it's not important." That just kills all the "garness" that he processed throughout the last 1/4 of the show. Where is that Kamina's spirit?!

What I thought may be clues of a possible continuation are:

1. Viral is heading to a galatic peace conference, if things are really as peaceful as they implies in the epilogue, you don't need a peace conference.
2. In the opening squence, Boota was an adult, but in the show, when Boota took on human form he was just a kid.
3. What Simon said in the epilouge about the stars clearly mirrors what was said by "Simon" in the opening sequence.
4. One of Simon's eyes in the epilogue looks very special and I don't think it means he is blind.

A Sudden News

2007-09-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

This morning I half heard about some accident at the Smashing Pumpkin concert at PNE. For some reason I heard that a 70 year old man got killed.

Later, I got a message from Steph F. The message said, "Did you know the news about K____?"

I didn't know what she was talking about and replied her saying, "No what about him?"

And when she didn't reply I joked with a friend saying, "My friend said I am suppose to know about some news about this guy. I wonder what it is."

"Is it bad?"

"I can't really tell," I replied and added as a joke, "As far as I can see it can be anything from, 'he is a father' to 'he is a millionair'."

When I came back home, almost 8:30pm, my father asked me if I heard about some guy in my old school who died in a concert. I still didn't make any connection.

Then he told me, he is a Chinese.

And then I realized.

The moment I got home I searched on google to find out more about this. Here's the news article about him:

Autopsy on fan who died at Smashing Pumpkins concert set for Thursday
source: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hnU9iR3Ujtcop6vSpY9IubfzJW7Q

VANCOUVER - The B.C. coroner's office says it won't know until Thursday how a man died at a Smashing Pumpkins concert in Vancouver.

Vancouver police say the concert-goer was unconscious when he was dragged out of the crowd at the PNE Forum on Monday night.

One witness reported the man had fallen while crowd-surfing.

Police couldn't rule out the incident was linked to jostling and semi-violent dancing known as moshing but said there was nothing in the police report to indicate obvious signs of injury.

At a Smashing Pumpkins concert in Dublin in 1996, a 17-year-old girl was crushed and later died when the crowd of people surged to the front of the stage and began to surf over the crowd.

The band stopped the show twice to lift people to safety while Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan told the crowd that people were being hurt.

Concert promoters and the band issued statements extending condolences to the family of the man who died.

"The Smashing Pumpkins were deeply saddened to learn about the passing of a young man who attended their Vancouver show Monday night," said a statement from the band.

"As they and everyone else await news from the investigation into the nature of his passing, the band want to express their sincerest condolences to his family and friends."

John Vlautin, vice-president of communications for concert promotion company Livenation, said the company is awaiting an official report from local authorities.

"We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased."

This is so wrong. This guy is not just any fans. He is a really talented musician. He played so many musical instruments. And I just saw him a few months back.

The saddest thing is to see K___ still on-line on msn. But now, next to him name is a message that says to add his sister on the list. I talked to Somnifer, and talking to her made me remember I actually took some pictures of him. Looking at those pictures I realize I actually did more with him than I can remember. He was in my program, he was in the same group for camp with me, we went to the grade 10 trip together. I remember suddenly of that play that he and his friends did that got them in deep trouble. It wasn't supposed to be offensive, but it turned out to be. I remember him being sprayed with shaving cream and locked outside his room during the trip, and how Somnifer, being the nice person that she is, let her go back in from our room. I remember...

Rest in peace, K___.

Reading and Cafe

2007-09-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

Lately I have fallen in love with reading text books in cafes. That's what I did last Tuesday and Friday.

Here are two pictures I took at the cafe I went to on Friday.

Kakunojou Dabble

2007-09-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

This is a short dabble I cleaned up for Iroha (recall, Iroha was, and still is one of my fav. anime. My face literally lit up when I talk about Akizuki with H-dono during the summer + I couldn't stop grinning for a whole night after getting the mook).

I wrote this a while back, probably beginning of this year. It's probably one of the very few fanfiction-ish thing that has no romantic undertone.

Her mother was a kind a gentle woman famous for her humility.

As a daughter of a minor landlord who valued arts and education, she took lessons on language, music and dancing from private tutors with her sisters. As such, all five sisters grew up very accomplished and they all had many suitors.

Zagashira told her stories of how her mother charmed even the most callous men by her singing and dancing. You have taken after her, he would add, sometime, as an after thought. Other times, he would go on to tell the glorious saga of how her father won her mother’s hand dispite of her many other, richer and more power, suitors.

Five riddles, Zagashira would say, you mother declared she would marry who ever in the room that could solve all five correctly.

She sometimes wondered if Zagashira was telling the truth, because five riddles seemed too wondrous a way to choose a husband, and what father would allow his daughter to marry for such frivolous reason? Yet, she never questions him. Finding the turth would, she knew, destroy the rich tales and legends that solidfy her parents in the turf of her mind.

So Zagashira kept telling and she kept listening, doing her best to retain the two vague sihouettes that occasionally dance in her dreams.

The engineering block

2007-09-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

From this day on I should take a picture of the engineering E block every time it gets vandalize. It should be a pretty interesting bunch of pictures.

I have always wanted to do this but I have never gotten a chance to, but now that I walk past it every other day I finally can!

This time the block is painted red with EWOB painted in white on it.

It is done by engineer without boarders... can we really call this vandalizing...?

New addition

2007-09-11T19:41:00.001-07:00

Today my father picked up our new car -- 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid.

Our new car

It looks much nicer than our old car so I am happy. Hopefully we won't almost total this car within a year like our old car.

I am sure you guys can all find the specifications at the Honda site, so I won't bother listing them.

I would, however, tell you that the wheels look better than the first generation of Civic hybrid wheels.

The wheels actually have holes!!

The colour is a bit odd looking inside my garage I think, maybe it would look better out door. But I don't think I should really complain since the car is still a huge huge improvement from our last car (which is dying, mind you, the gear box is messed up -- we are fixing it later this week).

My favorite anime on a 22" monitor

2007-09-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Gurren Lagann is my current favorite anime (ZOMG NIA AND SIMON ARE SO FREAKING CUTE!!!!!). It looked good on my 15" monitor, but ever since the end of last week when I bought the Samsung SyncMaster 226BW... it looks REALLY good.

Gurren Lagann ep 11 playing on my 22" monitor

The monitor was real good. There were no dead pixels and no noticable bleeding for the most part. I tried playing PS2 games on it and it worked pretty well. The monitor can be really bright, but I generally turn the brightness down so it's easier on my eyes when I stare at the monitor for a long period of time. The base is a bit big, though so part of it has to stick out of the little shelf I put it on.

It's funny, even though I have been using a tiny 15" monitor for the last few years (4-5 years?) going to a 22" doesn't feel weird to me at all. It actually feels natural. I don't even find it looking all that big, actually...

How did I survived this long without this?!

Chaos Zone v2 Commence

2007-09-09T15:59:00.001-07:00

After being fully inspired by H-dono, I decided to restart my blog after returning to HK.

I didn't feel like using my old blog again because I want this to be a new start, so I started a second blog with an upgraded template (upgraded because this blog now uses the new blogger template code instead of the old stuff). Like another blog I started this one also uses the same code to hide full post. I also made minor adjustments to the banner. I am pretty satisfied with what this place look like right now so I doubt I will be changing this template anytime soon.

Let's see how long I can keep this blog going this time. =D