A Morbid Anniversary

That's what Mike called it. Francis said it gave him nightmares. That was the beginning of a whole series of events, including the development of a number of friendships, particularly the ones formed with Grant and A.

It's been a full year. A rather busy and stressful one, the opposite of what it 'should' have been.

Most people didn't notice that I changed my birth date on Facebook, which is reasonable because I wouldn't have known if someone else had done that. I wasn't conscious yet at this time last year, in either time zone.

Around May/June 2006, a lot of people had already changed their school/network on Facebook to the university they were going to attend in the fall. I thought that was somewhat...I don't know how to describe it - shameless? bold? I just didn't think that it was 'correct' that people were claiming to be in university when they hadn't graduated from high school yet. Who knows if they would? Either way, that's how I felt about it, so I decided against doing that as I wanted to be precise about my status information. Sometimes I wonder if I had quickly entered 'University of Waterloo' as my school, that's where I would be right now by some twist of fate.

On the other hand, I still haven't changed it this year because I don't believe anything is 'certain' anymore. If someone had asked me where I would be right now and how sure I was of my answer, I would have said UW with about 99% certainty (1% reserved for some freak accident). It would be an understatement to say that a lot has changed since then.

Last year, I had planned on being 4-stream, meaning at school for the Fall 2006 term (the four months from September to December), at work for Winter 2007 (January to April) and back at school from May through August. That way, I would be on-stream with everyone I knew. I had also wanted to be living at Mackenzie King Village, in an apartment-style suite with three or four other girls. This year, I had wanted to be in 8-stream, but I still got 4-stream and I'll be off-stream with all my friends, so I'll never meet them regularly at school. I don't think I know anyone with this streaming.

I'm told that there were more students who accepted UW's offer of admission than they had anticipated, so there's a bit of a shortage in residences. I'm glad I submitted a request for a single room instead of waiting and hoping that I'll get my choice through their "random lottery." I picked Village 1, because it's the only residence with completely single rooms. No, I don't want to live in a suite with a "single room" but still have to live with other people. I hate to say it, but I don't think I can deal with that right now.

I went to UW's Student Life 101 on Saturday and had a hard time concentrating to their presentations, so I don't remember much of anything that was said. I bought my textbooks, but I think there might be a problem with the Calculus one. On the sheet, MATH 135 is supposed to require a 6th edition textbook and it warned not to look in the used bookstore because it's a new edition, but they had stacks upon stacks of 5th editions even in their new bookstore. I wasn't paying very close attention, because I didn't realize that it wasn't a 6th edition one until I got home. I thought it looked strangely like the one Puiyan used at UWO and gave me because she heard that it was going to be out of date. I don't think it's my fault, because those were the ones they had set out for this very common course, so a lot of people must have purchased it. I am certainly not going to take this problem up with the department, because I'd like to continue using Puiyan's textbook, study guide and solutions manual. The new package I bought, which costs about $108, has what appears to be the same textbook split into two volumes, in addition to a solutions manual for a non-existent study guide. Very strange. I'm going to keep it for now and hope that it's too late for them to correct their mistake, then refund my package by September 28th.

Aside from picking up all of the textbooks except the one for BUS111W because WLU wasn't open on Saturday, I visited my residence. My particular room wasn't open, but they did have a sample one that would be pretty much identical to mine. I took photos, but they weren't very good, so here's the illustration:

Single room – 3.0 m x 2.9 m

• 1 single bed and mattress
• 1 closet with built-in dresser and mirror
• 1 desk, desk lamp, and chair
• 1 bookshelf
• 1 wastebasket
• 1 active telephone line
• 1 ResNet high-speed Internet connection

The room is quite nice, much better than my brother's at McGill. Of course, his school is much older, but his room is at the top of a large hill and quite a distance away from where he was taking his classes. My dad made a lot of comments about how all of the non-single rooms would be really nice - if you were living with good friends. Sure, but not the case for me.

A lot of people were surprised that I got this room and said I was very lucky. I've heard many times that "There's no such thing as luck unless it's the lottery. When it comes to your life, luck is when preparation meets opportunity." That's especially true in this case. I wasn't in the lottery with everyone else ;)

My Dad :D

Intensecure caught this post during the 30 second duration that it was published, then taken offline almost immediately. Amazing.

I guess I have to publish it anyways and I don't know why I obsess over things concerning numbers, as described below:

I was going to post this right after writing about the iPod case, but I wanted to cap the posts at exactly 40 in the first month of writing for this blog, which would be April, the fourth month of the year. Besides, I didn't have a picture to go with it at the time anyways. [I want to have all my posts go with a picture, but I don't really feel like turning on my desktop just to get a photo of my dad then turning it off. Here's a temporary one that I have on my camera, even though I thought I deleted almost all of them.]


What a funny picture of him yawning while driving. In fact, now that it's been uploaded and doesn't look as awful as I thought it would, I might even keep it. In case you're wondering, I believe we were driving our Toyota Corolla and not the Camry, as I had thought originally. I can't remember where we were going or why I took it either. Well, I took it because I was probably bored and laughing maniacally while keeping myself entertained. They don't mind having their pictures taken as much as I do, so it's all in good fun. That's our garage door opener clipped to the mirror on the top.

My dad went on a business trip last week, where he bought me the iPod case. My mom has been worrying about this trip since January and she's been on his case to shorten it every single day. These trips usually last about three weeks, but he ended up having to strategically shorten it to seven days, one week including plane flights, to HK exclusively. I don't think it's very fair, because that's what he was essentially hired to do - accompany his boss on business trips, namely to Asia. On his business card under his name, is written New Buisness Delvelopment. Yes, both Business and Development are spelled incorrectly. My dad has had maybe over several thousand business cards made very recently, because he never brings enough with him to foreign countries, where he always seems to get caught working on business affairs. Typical of my workaholic father. I checked his other ones and they were copied from the original so they're all incorrect.

To be more specific, he is a buyer or a product manager, as described at his previous company. He picks items that he thinks will sell well, but instead of choosing them for a mail order catalog targeting senior customers, he is selecting them for infomercials to be shown on television and, more recently, online. I am so glad they updated their sites for the company and for online shopping. They also sell the "As Seen On TV" products in stores, such as Walmart, for people who don't like calling in and giving their name, credit card number, expiry date and address over the phone. I wouldn't. I've worked at a customer service call centre and I know how easily that information could be abused. Before my dad joined the team, they were a distributer, sourcing from another distributer in the US. Why pay another distributer when you can buy directly from The Source - China, where everything is or can made. I'm told that they don't like the label "Made in China" anymore and they're trying to change it to "Made by China". China as its own proper entity, as if it were a specific person. Strange thinking.

Let's say my dad picked out an item in HK or saw a unique but interesting one here in Canada that Northern Response (International) Ltd. wants to sell on television as a revolutionary, state-of-the-art product. First of all, it has to undergo a long process that now seems very similar to a bill becoming law in Parliament: My dad will present it to his boss and some other people, who will either pick it up or reject it immediately. The other option is that they will laugh, make fun of it, mess around with it at the office, reconsider and...probably reject it again later. If it does go through, he will go and contact either the original supplier or find his own sources to compare for the best price. Sometimes his sources actually look for other suppliers for him or they find factories to make it for themselves if it's very unique or they think they can sell it elsewhere and they send samples, wherever they get it from, so he can present it again. Then the sales people (the guys sitting next to him at the office) make a sales pitch to companies like Walmart or Showcase, which sells all the "As Seen On TV" products in-store, regardless of it supposedly being "not available in stores". If all goes well, my dad places an order and agrees upon the method of payment with the supplier. I forgot how they do it exactly, but it's a clever, conservative way to ensure that they don't buy thousands of pieces and end up over-stocking, which was a common problem at the other company. Eventually, they might hire some celebrity or a bunch of attractive models, who did not get that way through their product but actually started out that way to get the job to advertise it in stores. My dad looks out for other items in stores or at product shows (hardware shows, toy shows, etc), like he did in HK, but this time the focus was more on visiting the factories and suppliers, because they were so pressed for time. Here, the sales people also attend product shows, where they demonstrate the product and try to convince other stores or companies to source the product through them, just like they used to do before.

A large portion of this work used to be part of the sales department, but it is now part of product development, which is mainly composed of my dad and so he answers directly to the president/founder of the company. Big assets that put my dad above a lot of people were his experience and language abilities. No, not English. The "tremendous experience", as his boss tells all of his acquaintances he has and met with overseas, is mostly referring to the 28 years he has worked with factories and suppliers in Asia. Another important component was, at the moment when a former colleague recommended him, his boss was looking to hire someone to solve the problem with the middle-man and source directly from China. He was really quite desperate to find a travel guide/translator to take him to Asia, because he's gone a few times before in the past but came back with nothing, as he couldn't communicate and didn't know where to even begin.

A lot of people thought he would never be able to find a job at his age when he lost his old one when the other company went bankrupt. Age and experience really does come in handy, even if it looks unappealing on a resumé, because he only had a few jobs on it and his BA in Commerce, as they came to call it, was completed in one of the top universities in Taiwan, but they don't know that. All they see is a foreign one, an old guy with 'not a lot of job experience', probably with poor language skills - more specifically, English. I wrote those cover letters and put together his resumé for him, so there's no reason for the prejudice.

As you can probably see, I'm very proud of my dad. And as you would probably guess, my dad's the best and it's not even Father's Day, haha XD

My Humps

I was reminded to make this post by the song "My Humps" by Black Eyed Peas. It's really quite an absurd song with a lame video, but it came to mind when I was looking at myself in the mirror.

I was looking for silhouettes to help demonstrate my point and I thought I might as well include the following as well; although, I'm not sure if it'll be useful to my male readers:

Check the one that looks most like you.

Average hip. No excessive roundness directly below the waist at sides or back. There is no great sidethigh prominence. The greatest circumference measurement is at the seat level, usually 7-9" below waist.

Little difference. Little difference between hip and waist measurement; generally doesn't have curves below the waist.

Heart hip. Great roundness just below the waist. The upper hip measurement taken 3-4" below the waist will be larger than the measurement at the seat level.

Semi-heart hip. Curves below the waistline may not appear to be as extreme as the heart shape. The lower hip circumference may be the same or up to 1 1/2" more than the measurements taken 3-4" below the waistline. There is no thigh prominence.

Diamond hip. Great thigh prominence at the side. The difference between the waist and lower hip measurements is 11 1/2" or more.

Rounded diamond hip. Great prominence at the sides as well as curves just below the waistline. This sometimes makes the difference between the waist and hip much less than a standard diamond.

I think you could say I have the one in the first picture, the "Average" waistline. However, I'm not exactly Average anymore:
I've got something of a lump on the right side and my left side is just a little bit turned inwards but it's not noticeable. When I lie down, I can feel my left pelvic bone protrudes in the right position or at least how I remembered it, but the right side is flat, does not protrude and feels some what dislocated. It's all very subtle and it seems normal to the unsuspecting eye, but that's what it looks like in the mirror. I think my jeans aren't fitting quite right at the waistline because of it. I wonder if it'll show if I wore a clingy dress. Of course, if you were to check my x-rays it's position would not only be much more obvious, but you'd even see the fractures. The right leg was in traction for about eight weeks and that was the best it could do. I think it made my right leg a little bit longer than the left, but that's adjustable and I think the physiotherapist I was seeing did something to align them, but I'm not sure. My right leg bothers me from time to time when I'm walking, but it's tolerable, albeit a discomfort.

Nevertheless!

I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk/ Get you love drunk off my hump./ My hump, my hump, my hump, (etc) / My lovely little lumps. (Check it out!).

Damn those stupid, catchy lyrics. See, if I were to dress like Fergie, I'd have uneven camel lumps XD

Atticus

For my English Independent Study Project, which I believe a lot of people are either finishing up or preparing their presentations around this time of the year, I had wanted to compare The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things with The Child Called 'It' by Dave Pelzer and write an essay on different aspects concerning child abuse. I had it all planned out, I was going to compare the tones in each book as they were written through a child's perspective and contrast the character developments throughout the novels. There were a lot of ideas in my mind and I had almost had it written out...

But my teacher wouldn't let me use those two books. She said the vocabulary and writing styles were too simple.

I ended up having to compare To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee with Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. They had SparkNotes on them, but they weren't entirely helpful. I also figured they had movies, so I could watch them for inspiration. I couldn't get through five minutes of To Kill A Mockingbird. Of course, that's to be expected because I didn't enjoy the book at all and I'd had to read it a million times over, select quotes to support my arguments, pick out specific examples to compare and contrast with the other novel, Snow Falling on Cedars. I had watched that movie many years ago, but opted out this time because it really wasn't worth watching again. I was dying to switch novels, but by then, it was already too late. My essay focused on racial discrimination in both eras and against different races in the US.


My dad gave me these pens, but I'm not sure where or why he had them. It might have been a bonus with the purchase of a bottle of Hennesy XO Cognac, which is what seems to be printed in silver on the inside of the cover. The pens don't even write very well and they're also too big and heavy for my preference.

The problem with the English curriculum throughout high school is the rigid rules on writing a "proper essay." The student must not deviate from the robotic fill-in-the-blanks format and reiterate but paraphrase the thesis at the end of every paragraph. Each paragraph had to have a specific argument and it had to end with a sentence that connected the topic of that paragraph with the thesis and attempt to make it flow into the next. One thesis. Three arguments. Done.


I don't remember what I did with my essay that ended up being something like twenty pages long or so, double-spaced, but I remember my teacher simply wrote "Beautifully written. 40/40." I don't know why the students of the year before mine were making such a big fuss over it, causing fear in the hearts of all the younger students in each year after them. It may have just been the excessive amount of time that we were given to write it.


I can't remember how much, but this essay was worth a lot in the calculation of the final mark for university. There were many simple components to this project in an attempt to allow the student to redeem him/herself, such as the essay outline, which was also worth a fair amount of marks. After the essay was completed, each student was also required to do a presentation, preferably in some creative manner.

I decided to present my project in the form of a court case as Atticus, a lawyer and the father of Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird. I dressed in black suit, put on a Southern accent, slicked and tied my hair back and strode in with a file folder, transparencies with quotes, notes on index cards, notebook, a case of pens, my Emporio Armani watch, and the thin glasses in the photograph above. It was a bit of a reverse order, because I walked in with the glasses and promptly took them off as I began my presentation, because I have 20/20 vision and I could not see clearly through them, whereas they're supposed to be reading glasses. The two cartons of cupcakes I had baked the night before to be distributed as a part of my Southern hospitality were already under the desk. I think I had made something like sixty cupcakes of both "black" (chocolate) and "white/yellow" (lemon) varieties to represent racial harmony. It hadn't gone as well as I had hoped because I was very flustered, nervous, and experiencing a serious case of social anxiety.

To think, the year before I was the alienated Joan d'Arc, pleading for my innocence in a French accent with the occasional French word, while wearing the heavy steel armour my friend had made for her Classics project, aluminum foil thigh and arm pieces, black pants under knee-high black leather boots, standing on a chair, tied to a Roman pillar, and had pieces of fire made from construction paper on little stands around me. I had to get someone else to cue the background music for me from my MP3 player and a pair of speakers because the school didn't have enough CD players to go around. Of course, it was the track I use for almost all my presentations of this nature: "Cleansing" from the Resident Evil soundtrack and, while it contained no lyrics, its score was written by Marilyn Manson. I think that was probably my best presentation throughout high school.

As always, I'm off topic again. The real focus of this post was on the pen that I've been meaning to describe, the one on the black notebook and on my laptop in a previous post. I saw this advertisement in a free magazine that I picked up at a subway station on my early trip back from DECA.



I cut that page out of the magazine and stuck it to the inside of my locker with a magnet for the rest of the year and its corner has gotten a little bit damaged. No fear, for I have made a copy on thick, high quality, glossy photo paper, encased in a page protector. It's sitting on the top of the shelf to the left of my desk.

I believe Julianne Moore also supported this ad campaign for the "Entertainment Industry Foundation and Montblanc to help children develop their most valuable asset: imagination."

I wish I had taken more magazines with me, but I was in a rush to catch the subway and get home as soon as possible. I still have that page from the magazine on the shelf wall of my other desk and I look at the slogan everyday "Time is Precious. Use it Wisely." It doesn't really motivate me to study hard or anything though.

I had a whole bunch of useless "coaster" CDs and I didn't know what to do with them and nobody else seemed to have any brilliant plans either. I came up with a simple one, where I threaded a rope through two discs stacked on top of each other and hung it from the magazine rack on the top of the shelf attached to the desk on my right. It allows for papers and notes to be gently clamped between the two discs without damaging them and they don't fall out too easily either. Johnny Depp has been there since I created the contraption and he is still firmly in place. In short, I'm sitting between two identical pictures of Johnny Depp; although the one on my left is mixed in with a stack of university packages and notifications.

It's a strange feeling to have been staring at the same stack of brochures and pamphlets on being accepted to university and other packages of information for about a full year now, while I am now receiving a new batch in the mail. I'm not sure if I should throw it out just yet, but I will have to eventually, because it really is quite a collection. That first set was the one I was supposed to have made good use of. If you had asked me at the time that I had been receiving those notifications how sure I would be that I would be student of the University of Waterloo in September '06 I would have said 99.9% certain, because nothing is ever absolutely for certain in life. Who would have known that I would be opening those packages at 4AM, lying crippled in bed at Markham-Stouffville Hospital in September, when I should have been sleeping in an apartment-style suite with two or three other girls in Mackenzie King Village in Kitchener-Waterloo?

That 0.1% of uncertainty was what happened to me.