Site Diary Entries for 17 Dec 2003 - 2 May 2004

2nd May 2004

Bleugh, don't know what I ate yesterday to cause me to get up at 4am... and sit in the bathroom until about 7am (No exaggeration). But this has given me yet another reminder to be careful about what I eat until I fully recover (and hopefully that's a matter of days, not weeks). Thankfully I'm at my aunt's and uncle's place in Toronto and they took really good care of me then (they even woke up at 4 to find out what was wrong with me)... so the day was spent sleeping (I slept 8 hours from 9am-5pm) and eating Jello and drinking water.

Probably have to miss the first day of class tomorrow - I think it's better that I do that rather than kill myself tomorrow. Well, heck, I'm staying the night in Toronto anyhow, it'll be rather impossible to get there on time. Take it slightly easy for a little while, hopefully all will be better soon.

And i got rid of the snow. Happy? :P

1st May 2004, at about 14:00 PDT

I don't know what it is with me and airport delays - seems to always happen! Today we were delayed a good hour since there were other connecting flights that were delayed, and thus we were held back in Vancouver for much longer than I anticipated. Note to self: never worry about the "Departure Times" in Vancouver - they're better described as "Boarding times" (just FYI, my "boarding time" was 11:55, "departure time" was 12:30. Actual boarding time: 12:30, departure time: closer to 13:00.

If any of you suddenly looked and said, "Wait a sec, you were supposed to be in Toronto by the 29th!" - you're absolutely right. I was supposed to fly out on the evening of the 29th and be in Toronto early - but I think I ate something dodgy at a place called "iCafe" on Broadway on the Monday. So on Tuesday, I was out with Mark and Thomas Hong (wow, it's been HOW many years?!) and their bunch of friends (nice meeting you all! ~ hope you all read this!). I think the intention was that we'd go to someone's place to watch "Kill Bill" (one) after dinner, but I asked Mark to take me home first - feeling really sick by that time. Good timing too, since I threw up on the sidewalk about 20 seconds after getting out of Mark's car. And so, I was incapacitated for the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday.

(Sorry, Karen and Teresa - was REALLY looking forward to seeing you, but I was completely dead on Wednesday and Thursday. I was sprawled over the couch for most of those two days. Next time, I promise!)

So Friday, went out and had lunch with my aunt and her friends - I was actually feeling really faint most of the day, but it was my last day there. so forget about being faint.

Recapping the rest of the week: Saturday and Sunday, went around places with my aunt and Karen (my cousin). lunches and dinners with various people that I haven't seen for. wow, SEVEN whole years. Monday - Granville Island, Tuesday - see above.

And that leads us to Saturday, and I'm caught on another delayed plane, not feeling entirely up to it, to be honest.

One more day of holiday. Then it's back to the crazy confines of the university. With the engineering library closed for the summer.

Argh?

24th April 2004 about 17:00 HKT

So the goodbyes were said to most people, the bags are packed, stowed, and I've boarded the plane. Now the failure of the flight entertainment system has caused me to look for something to do since I can't fall asleep. So, here goes.

Day "begins" at about 09:00 after 4 hours of sleep. So after doing the customary check on emails and stuff like that, I pack up all the rest of the stuff I have (computer being last, obviously) and then leave home.

So on the way to the airport, I finally manage to get Kara's number (to wish her a happy early birthday since I would have left by that time) through Linda -> Connie -> Bonnie. Lovely. Oh wait, the first number doesn't work. So again, this chain is tapped and I finally get a shoddy connection to her mobile phone (can't tell whether it was MY side that was crappy or her side, but whatever, I blame "my" phone since it isn't mine!) Happy Birthdays are wished, and then I head on merrily (?) to the airport.

Finally get to the airport at roughly 11:20, where I find a huge line of people waiting to get their bags checked (note to self: try to travel light next time) and by the time I'm out of it, it's something stupid like 11:50. And since the departure time (moved up to 12:50 from 13:00 - a whopping 10 minutes) I found myself with barely enough time to check through security and get to the gate.

And what made matters worse was the fact that I was loaded down so heavily with stuff (most notably this laptop) that I got myself one of those small cart thingies. Those can't be brought down to the APM (Automated People Mover - the fancy name for "the train that gets you to the gate quick") and the person standing there nicely asks me to go "this way" (pointing in a general direction). Okay, that's fine by me. What she DIDN'T tell me was that the other way meant that I would have to WALK the approximately 2km distance from gate 1 to gate 49 (instead of taking the train, shortening my walk to <500m)

So I'm walking, and a casual glance at the monitor shows "Air Canada AC 008 12:50 Now Boarding"

Uh oh. I'm still at Gate 10.

Which means that for the next 5 minutes, the airport security cameras see a crazy guy speeding around people, objects, and things, and the crazy guy (me) almost crashing head on to one of those car thingies used for transporting elderly and disabled people.

I never would have thought that HK airport (HKIA) was that huge without having to run the whole distance.

And I get to Gate 49 at the end with about 10 minutes to spare. Make a couple of calls, and then I sped off into the plane.

Not that it would have mattered though. At 12:50, the plane hadn't pushed off yet, and we were wondering why, at the super-efficient HKIA that we were delayed. Maybe it was the weather - but nonetheless, we pushed off 2 minutes after.

Captain: "We have two minutes till takeoff - cabin crew, please get into position for takeoff."

But as we taxi onto the runway, I notice that they only half-heartedly gun the engines. and then, we turn BACK onto the taxiway! The people not familiar with HKIA's layout probably didn't notice, but we had headed back from the runway onto the taxiway. and back to the gate! It was only until we were halfway back that they informed us that there "was a problem that required us to go back to the gate." Uh oh, what could THAT be? By this time, we were about 30 minutes late already since it took quite a while to taxi up the runway away from the terminal, and then back again. And hoping to be able to stand up and stretch, I eagerly await being back inside the spacious terminal building and away from seat 19G on an Airbus A340 with a broken pouch and a wet Air Canada "EnRoute" magazine in that pocket. And messed up TVs that are so fuzzy that you'd think that the three guys busted the VCR on their way out (okay, bad explanation - the projectors work fine, and the small LCD ones work fine, just not the big TVs.

(Turbulence at this point means that I'll stop for a second and write again later. 17:28 HKT)

17:50 HKT - Hm, long bout of turbulence there. Continuing... They didn't let us back into the airport, but two HK Police (I think - could be Customs and Immigration guys, I'm not entirely sure) boarded the plane and escorted three rather large men off the plane. They made a huge fuss about it, but eventually got off the plane. Doors closed, and we again made the long journey to the runway. According to the Captain, they had "determined that there was a security threat on the airplane and these people were removed." Wow. We were about 30 seconds away from taking off. At least they got taken off while we were still on the ground though (I can imagine it now - "excuse me sir, but can you please leave the plane by this door?" "But." "Yes sir, you're a security threat. Here's your parachute, have a safe journey") . being delayed by an hour is much better than having people that could potentially hurt you on the plane.

So, Lost in Translation is a big fuzzy picture. I'll tell you more when I feel the need to rant while on this plane. Maybe I'll actually catch up on some sleep in this time - after all, I only had about four.

24th April 2004, at about 03:00

I have to admit, it was a cool last day in Hong Kong - was out early in the day since something like 9am, and then went to HKU to attend lectures at - what was it, 12:40pm.

The lecture was interesting, to say the least - I could understand about the first couple of sentences that the prof said (something about low pass and high pass filters, which we covered in no little detail with Lipshitz). After that, VOCs and whatever - hey, even Peter didn't understand that stuff, how am I supposed to? Mind you, I intend to not go into the analog stuff, and I reckon that they're going faster than Waterloo - it's only a 3 year course!

Hm, afterwards, went to HSBC to set up some banking stuff (yay, I made $500 on those stocks we bought as "investment"). It took a while to find my way to the HSBC though, since I was in Admiralty, and just didn't know the place well enough. I had -0.80 on my Octopus card, about $8 in my wallet, and no means with which to get back to Kowloon side without resorting to begging. Therefore, I had to go and find that HSBC hidden somewhere and then get out the cash. Only that the HSBC didn't have the forms I needed, so I ended up doing what I REALLY needed to do in Festival Walk.

So then I'm in the PCC and meet up with Athena and Vivien - it was cool to actually be able to meet up with these two before I left for the great unknown. haha you guys haven't changed too much since the last time we talked at length, just a bit wackier.

Afterwards - went home to quickly shower and change, and then received a call from Linda that Sherman was going to meet us at Festival Walk and give me something. At the end, it turns out that I made the trip to Festival Walk not for the reasons intended (i.e. seeing Sherman) but to see a person who was infinitely less insane - Linda.

Which brings us to about 7pm, and I'm racing down the MTR to get to Central Station to meet up with Peter, Tammy and Ben. We go up to SoHo to eat, which was quite interesting. But we had to settle for the Fat Angelo's there since nobody could decide what they wanted to eat!

After a long, long dinner, we just head down to Central and mill about - mostly we were trying out the XTC ice cream place, somewhere I haven't been to in my earlier travels up to Lan Kwai. And so after milling about, taking random photos, and then finally deciding that it was getting a bit late, we decided to go our separate ways home. Till we meet again! :)

And here I am, packing stuff, and trying desperately to stay awake so I can sleep on the plane and adjust to the jet lag faster.

4 April 2004

Hm, the big TWO-OH. I kinda feel old now!

Thanks for all the ppl who've wished me a happy birthday :D

And now - I think it's my turn to post a large post on those who have bdays this month:

Felda : 5 Apr

Shiga: 6 Apr

Toni: 15 Apr

Sarah: 15 Apr

Ying Qi: 20 Apr

Wingsi: 21 Apr

Sybil: 24 Apr

Kara: 25 Apr

Ernest: 29 Apr

So happy birthday to all of you! Haha you'll get more personal messages some point later :p Todays plans: not much. Adjust to being twenty years old and out of my teens? Probably it'll take a little while to wear off on me!

29 March 2004

Monday. Day 3 after wisdoms out...

Ouch.

It STILL really hurts -- I'm on extra stength Panadol (Tylenol - for those of you in Canada) and I need TWO of them to keep the pain in check.

I've had no solid food since Friday. Leaving me a tired, pissed off, swollen shell of a person.

Photos for staff today - been sitting at the back of the Hall, and it's pretty interesting seeing everyone come by and stuff... haha. Everyone keeps asking me why this thing's at the back with all the fancy-schmancy lights and stuff.

I woke up at 6 today to get to KGV for 7:20 - man, that was difficult. Esp since I couldn't really eat fast, and I couldn't really do much else but to mash everything I had in front of me and make it a liquidy substance so I could swallow without chewing. Oh wait, I need to open my jaw. That hurts too!

And no - ahem, Jaime and Emily - NO I won't be swollen... so i'll just be a "shorty" and not a "fatty shorty" (Or whatever you guys said i was today)

So, tomorrow, getting the stitches out of my mouth. See you all at 12pm.

28 March 2004

Ouch.

That's all i can really say - I had 3 wisdoms taken out, and today it's started swelling - but at least it's not hurting quite as much. In other words, it hurts less than when I first got braces, but still, it's more than I want to hurt. As a result - i slept for well over 50% of the day. So now I'm just taking my medicine (Panadol) to get rid of the pain so I can sleep.

But the Conscious sedation thing that i went through was sooo weird.

Apparently after surgery my dad came in to see how I was doing. I had a rather long discussion about whatever we were talking about... then we went on a taxi and I went home with my mom and aunt. I was able to walk by myself, and I was really alert (to the point where I pointed out to my dad that my extracted teeth were in my backpack's front pocket). O_o

The most interesting part is that I have no recollection of it whatsoever - I only know it happened because my mom told me about it afterwards. And whatever I did between 12pm and 2pm are completely blank... well, almost.

Have you felt what it feels like to completely not remember something? It's a weird feeling. Now that I've been reminded about what happened, I can sorta remember tiny bits of what happened... I remember being in a taxi and going across a tunnel. And that's about it. The rest of it is completely and utterly blank.

Weeeeird. And I also vaguely remember my dentist taking my blook pressure every so often.

So I wasn't completely out like GA, but it was probably the weirdest expereince I've had in a while.

Haha hopefully I'll be better by Monday.

13 March 2004

Wow, this week sucked.

So, as of the last entry, I was feeling okay. Then it started: on Monday, I was feeling okay in the morning... and then as I kept on working throughout the day, I got worse and worse -- nose clogging up, coughing, etc. until Nathan (coworker) commented to me (at 4pm) that I looked like I was gonna die. At which time I went home.

From that time on, I slept and developed a fever... couldn't get back up until 12 noon the next day. Saw the doctor, who said I had the flu, and gave me TWO days of antibiotics. Wait. TWO days -- all antibiotics are supposed to have a course of FIVE or SEVEN days. So the next day we went back to demand him to give us the rest of the course. And promptly we get charged for an extra "consultation". Never going back again.

So Wednesday I hobble back to work (since I was feeling slightly better, and since there was tons of stuff to do anyway...) but still feeling like a truck had run over me.

Thursday turned out slightly better - until about 3pm, that is, when close to the entire network melted down, and we spent most of the rest of the night fixing it (I was there until about 6 that day)

Friday - well, for the first glorious time in days, I could breathe through my nose! No coughing anymore! I felt so much better... and get to work to find that Daniel (my supervisor) isn't there - he's fallen ill! (Hopefully it's not my fault). The day is mainly uneventful, but it turned out plain annoying due to a number of things that happened starting at about 9 in the morning. Again, network melts down unexplicably at 5pm, prompting a reset of a network switch and I stay till WAY too late trying to fix up a server so that it can be used for Saturday's GCSE "panic session".

So that brings me to today, where my nose is completely clear, my MSN name has changed to "getting better..." and I actually managed to sleep till 10, when I was awakened by someone from PCCW to obtain my old DSL modem. Lovely.

7 March 2004

Been a lonnnng time since I've put up a post, so I thought since there's nothing on but "Castaway" and I only have the 4 basic channels (ok, there's sth about Watergate on ABC AP) there's nothing really to watch...

Cheer up, James. You'll still have plenty of chances if these people don't appreciate you. You've got your talents, you're strong. You'll pull through.

So, yesterday... Spring Fair. Went there at 1 (heh, sorry Ben for being later than the 15 mins - lunch w/ parents) and saw... well, all the people I do tech support for :P Former 7P people (i still contend that without your peer support, you'd be slightly worse off than you are now!)... Tammy, Peter, Blee, James, Sam, Liz - haha haven't seen you for a few weeks now (and esp. longer for the Class of 2003 people!)

Some evil people were conspiring to soak me with a water balloon, others were trying to get me to conspire against a certain individual :P

And James and I (James, mainly) kept dissing Arthur and making fun of him and Sharon. And "racist Jeremy" as I like to call him! (No, he's not racist at all, it's just an incident from when he was Y7 - he loved talking 'black' then)

Was fun, hung around the place for a while, witnessed a YE Company "flee" the scene since their stuff was breaking down, and then just mainly walking around talking with people! I only wish stuff like this happened more often - it's just hard to see that many people at once!

My raffle tickets didn't win, unfortunately. But we had fun. My total spendings at the spring fair amounted to something like $5 - for a drink. But then I did spend $30 on raffle tickets... so that's okay, right? I did support KGV!

Hm, so what happened since I posted last?

Lots... but I just can't really remember.

Usually it's just the work-home-revise-sleep cycle... haven't really managed to see that many people.

Before Winnie and Sue left we did go to see the Festival of Lights. And then again with Zara later. Hm... what else? Went out a few times, seen some ppl I haven't seen in ages as usual, uhh... yeah, I have pictures from a few things, just too lazy to shrink and upload everything.

Tickets are booked for me back to Canada on 23 April... I'll spend a few days in Vancouver, and then I'll head back to the 'loo.

Note to self:update more often!

31 January 2004

Wow, I can't believe I've been working here for a month -- well, almost that anyway. It's been a pretty cool experience - although I must say I'm still at odds about how to address the teachers at school (laugh if you will, if any KGV teachers are reading).

Under 3 months till I leave.

IFC2 is sooooo huge! Haha it was cool having "ha ng cha" there - gotta go there more often. But the MTR is sooooo expensive!! $10 to get across! Heh I'm going to have to learn how to get the Cross Harbour buses and stuff.

Ooh ooh -- I have a webcam now! Catch me on MSN if you have a webcam! :)

So, according to sources - this website is an interesting read for people in KGV Class of 2004 who are interested in singing weird and wonderful songs! (source: Mrs Eaglestone) Lovely - I'll try to post up more songs and stuff when I find the time :) Thanks for visiting!

23 January 2004

WOW!! The fireworks were absolutely amazing -- I wasn't there for the live show, but we could hear it from our place... we're about 3km from the harbour. But even on TV, it was absolutely amazing!! I'd only wished I'd videotaped it... this kind of show you'd never get to see in Canada

The past few days weren't too eventful, just went out to "bai leen" a lot...

Jenny and George -- you're leaving on 24th, yeah?! I don't have your phone numbers so I couldn't call you guys today! Argh... well, maybe next time.

¹A¾ä¤j¦~ªì¤@ -- 22 January 2004

®¥³ßµo°]¡T ¯¬¤j®a¨­Åé«Ø±d¡M ¤ß·Q¨Æ¦¨¡M ¨B¨B°ª¤É!

(And for everyone at school -- ¾Ç·~¶i¨B!)

Happy Chinese New Year!!

(Please use Chinese Big5 encoding to view the Chinese Characters)

16 January 2004

Heh, just got back from dinner w/ Peter, Lai, Blee... got bored, saw this, not bad :)

10 January 2004

Heh, one week has passed since I started working at KGV - very interesting, to suddenly be on the staff side of things and not the student side of things! Well, if anyone has time during their frees or breaks, you're welcome to drop by the ICT Office :)

Oh and I just realized that I hadn't uploaded anything I said earlier. Oops.

4 January 2004

Whew! What a holiday! Well, work starts tomorrow...

Hiking... Christmas Eve... Countdown... going out... going out... haha soooooo much that I did during this Christmas holiday - it's insane! Heh so many pics too, but I'm just too lazy to post them all up :P Maybe some other day.

Just posting to let people know I'm gonna be at work tomorrow! And to apologize for not uploading for such a long time :P

So, in short: MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I don't think I could really describe all that happened. It's just been great seeing you all - I'll miss ya when you all go back off to wherever you are! See you soon!

19 December 2003, 21:00 HKT (UTC +8)

I'm back in HK! As I expected, I was just almost late for final assembly. Kinda annoying - i heard the Panto was really good this year. But my flight got in at like 09:00, meaning i wasn't out in the city till about 10. After a shower, I rushed out... and made it just in time to be late for Panto. Oh well.

Everyone in HK - see ya all soon!

18 December 2003, 01:10 PST (UTC -8)

Well, now I'm in Vancouver International Airport - heh, I was here 22:30, 17 Dec 1.5 hours delayed from Toronto... it was snowing like crazy and there was a huge lineup to get de-iced and then for the runway. Well, you gotta get de-iced immediately before take-off, so we had to sit on the plane for a lonnnnng time. First time I've been through a de-icing procedure...

Just met with Karen (General Currie) at the airport - haha haven't seen her in... 8 years?! Yeah, it's been way too long :D Hopefully when I go back to Waterloo in April I'll have a few more days to stop over in Vancouver to meet up with more people.

I'm just sitting here updating since the snow in Toronto has caused a delay for the plane I'm connecting to (it comes in from Toronto), and now a mechanical failure has caused the plane to be delayed by a good 2 hrs before we get off the ground. Too bad, coulda talked for a little while longer w/ Karen if I had known.

By the looks of it, I'll barely make final assembly -- of course, nobody will find out about it until I manage to find a connection! Telus doesn't offer free net connections like they do at Toronto. Oh well...

So I guess I'll have a bit of food down me first, and then I'll get on the plane for the 13 hours back to HK. On the bright side, they're showing Pirates of the Carribbean (spelling?) so it'll be a good final few hours on the plane.

17 December 2003, 17:30 EST (UTC -5)
1 hour before departure - Inside security area at Toronto International Airport Terminal 2:

This is unheard of - me actually updating Xanga before updating jasonpang.net

Well, there's a reason for that - Dreamweaver sucks up CPU like no there's no tomorrow, and I'm trying to conserve battery life. I'm on a wireless connection at YYZ Terminal 2 (Toronto Pearson Airport). There are no AC outlets - only DC. That's soooo annoying!

Just got bored - I got here like an hour ago, and the boarding time is like 18:10 for Vancouver. So I'm in no rush, just updating. Seeing who's online, etc etc etc. Chatting till either my battery runs out or until 17:45, when I'll start heading to my boarding gate and buy a magazine or sth.

Security checks have gotten lots more stringent (even more so now than before) - I've never had a person say "don't think you're getting away THAT quickly" to me. Geez, so rude.

Hmm, what else can I rant about?

Nothing, really. Oh, yeah, departure time does not mean the time the plane leaves the ground here. So I'm not in a particular rush to get to my gate and stuff.

Just been reading emails... I missed out on 20 emails during the exam period. That's insane. I hope nobody's tapping my wireless connection!

Anyway, enough random stuff. See you all in HK!

17 December 2003 (Wednesday) 04:19

14 hours before departure

Well (breathes sigh of relief) exams are finally finally over (well, ok, they were over on 12 Dec, but it's just taken me this long to catch my breath.

(John and co. - yeah, what was this about going over at "whatever" time! haha lucky I phoned and Victor picked up - but yeah, in any case, sorry i couldn't make it over -packing sorta preempted me, and even at this late (early) hour I'm still up cleaning up and packing stuff)

Exam time - hm, what happened? I don't exactly remember, but from 29 Nov till 12 Dec, I had absolutely no clue about the day of the week or even the hour of the day. I had to repeatedly ask janitors or other people who weren't stressed out by these exams what day of the week it actually was.

Well, not like it mattered, since the few hours I slept every night were still full of thoughts about all the weird and wonderful (?) subjects I had to take, and one classified a day as "ECE 250 day" or "MSci day" and not the normal names one would actually attribute to a day of the week. The days were pretty routine: for exam days, wake up at 9 and go to the library and study till 2. Go home, sleep till 9... you get the point. For exam days, it was wake up 1 hour before exam, write exam, go to library, study till 2... etc.

So it's been hard keeping track of the day of the week, hour of the day, etc.

Events to be noted:

"Excuse me, what day of the week is it right now?"

"You mean what it is right now or what it was when you woke up?"

"Right now would be good, when I woke up is irrelevant and I forget when I did anyway."

4 Dec - TWO EXAMS! Three hours back to back with only an hour and a half in between. It's been a while since that's happened.

Calc studying - from 09:00 - 12:00 study session w/ Lipshitz. 13:00 - 05:00: study in RCH 209 (basement-ish room)

17:30, Friday 12 Dec - promptly start sniffling - it's the after-stress sickness I always manage to get.

So exams are finished - well, nothing too much to celebrate - passing would be. But anyway, enough of that crap :) It's nice to have nothing to do! On Friday night, just went out to see "Elf" - pretty good movie, I'd say, brings out the Christmas spirit in you - "SANTA!!!"

So, Saturday went out with William - finally - this guy's like FAMILY and I haven't seen him in years. But it was nice, had lunch at Kelsey's, and then milled around and then went home. After that I sorta just lounged around until dinner, then lounged around some more ... you get the point ;)

Sunday - nothing much to do, just again lounged around and picked up some stuff that I needed to bring to HK. Just sat around and watched TV w/ Jaime, until like 3am, pigged out on cookies and all sorts of other snacks.

Monday - woke up at 2pm! Went out to Conestoga Mall to take a walk... soak in some Christmas spirit ;)

Tuesday - hard core packing day... I had to do all sorts of laundry and whatnot so that I could pack it all -- two weeks of clothing really piles up.

And that leads me to now - where I'm still packing but in a much better off state than I was 4 hours ago.

And 14 hours from stepping on the plane to go home!

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