Earthquake -> we have no internet!

I'm wondering how many people will see this, but the break in undersea cables serving Hong Kong has drastically affected everyone in Hong Kong's ability to communicate with the outside world.

It's kinda freaky to know that we rely so much on the internet and technology in general nowadays (Blackout 2003, anyone), and not having it for a couple of days wreaks absolute havoc.

Phone if you're bored :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (2006/2007)

Above: Swarovski Christmas Tree in the Toronto Eaton Centre

Merry Christmas and a have a Happy New Year everyone!

So another year has passed... hard to believe all this has happened, and that 2006 will soon be in the past.

The good times, the bad times, the fun times, the sad times. Now is the time to take a few minutes, sit back, and reflect. And most importantly, plan.

2007 will be the here shortly - and it also marks the year that I'm going to be done five years of at Waterloo. the relative "stability" and routine which I'm used to will be gone. What will 2007 bring?

In memoriam - Janet Yip - UW EE 2007

Rest in peace, Janet. You will be missed by us all.

1776 steps - 24 October 2006

I came, I saw, I conquered. In this case, it was the CN Tower. 9000 people climbed for the United Way last weekend, and wow, it was an awesome workout.

5:30 - Aaron and Henry are awake and cooking breakfast (or something like that) I'm still sleeping on a very comfy air mattress and don't want to wake up.

5:50 - I'm finally up. Shower, breakfast, etc.

6:40 - Meet up with Lily to go down.

7:30 - Meet up with the rest of the Toronto Watpubbers team to get ready for the climb!

8:22 - I start my climb!

8:56 - I'm finished my climb!

24 minutes, 26 seconds after starting out from the base, I finished. It was a long walk up - 145 flights of stairs, 1776 steps. But getting to the top of the tower was one of the more amazing experiences I've had in Toronto. After all, not that many people can claim that they climbed the world's tallest freestanding tower.

Standing at the observation deck was also awesome. It was so incredibly windy! Unfortunately it was raining a bit, and so we couldn't see that far out, but it was amazing running around and doing (what we called) the "victory lap" around the observation deck :)

Afterwards, lunch with Lily, Aaron, Henry, Rob, and Julie (did I get your name right??), and then collapsing once I got home... Note: Mr. Greenjeans in Eaton Centre is NOT a good place to go if you're in a rush, and it's the weekend.

Thanks again Jen for organizing this whole event for the Toronto Watpubbers!

And of course, thanks to Lily for driving us down to the tower by 7:30!

After a lonnnnng while later ... 3 October 2006

Sorry for not updating for this long... just been really busy at work, and so haven't found time to update at all... so, here are the highlights of the previous month-ish:

Frosh week

That was one hell of a week. Team yellow rocks! I don't have the patience to put up pictures here just yet, but eventually they might come. In any case, it was a huge blast, and unfortunately it's the last time I get to do it. (everyone say "awwwww")

It was an amazing team of leaders, an amazing team of frosh, and all of it turned out that it was... well, just amazing. I got dirty as heck - how many people get cream-corned, dish-detergented, totally muddied and filthy, and otherwise so completely exhausted but yet manage to go to parties afterwards... and then wake up the next day to do it all over again? Not many people, I imagine ;)

Architecture proves also that some people in UW _do_ care about some of us... man, you guys have an awesome campus.

I did have a couple of gripes that I'm sure most of my fellow engineering leaders experienced (Smorgasbord, anyone?) but I don't think I'm willing to share that on a public forum. Overall though it was amazing and I had an amazing time.

Who are we? ;)

Dinner with Lily. Aaron, Henry... and co. (becasuse I'm too lazy to type out names)

Hm, that was the weirdest experience I've had for a long time... your friends are weird as hell too (i mean at least your high school friends... UW people are just weird anyways). But that made for such a fun evening :) Hotpot was awesome, and you couldn't really tell if the guy was pissed off or not when he told us that we were at 2 hours of a 1.5 hour time limit. haha...

Bowling afterwards was awesome too... 143! A new high score for me! Too bad it fizzled out by the end... oh well, I need to start improving :P

Hmm, that's all I feel like typing at the moment. I'm tired :) 10 hours at work really takes it out of you. Add to that the 1.5 hour commute (each way!) from Richmond Hill, and it's a lonnnnnng day.

After one week at work - 26 August 2006

I've started my job in downtown Toronto! I have to say, after a week, it feels like my head is about to explode. It's a nice little operation close to St. Andrew station in downtown Toronto, open concept office, foosball table, and 50-cent pop :) Mmm, 50-cent pop.

Friday night we went ouf for drinks with our team leads, and that was pretty cool - I've never tasted apple-flavoured beer before, so it was interesting.

Maybe it was the little bit of alcohol that Friday evening, but leaving the bar it was just one of those perfect nights, where the weather was perfect and everything just seemed right. Or perhaps it's the feeling that I'm back in a (relatively) large city, and I feel more relaxed because of that. Who knows, it just felt nice :)

Commuting to and from work is a bit more of an annoyance though - it takes an hour and 20 minutes or so to get from my aunt's place to downtown, so spending 2h40 per day really takes its toll -- I need to be asleep by 11 to 12 and up and out by 7:30-ish. But I've been getting reading done -- books are being ordered from Amazon right... now. (thanks for your reading suggestions, vicky :) )

Anyway, to all of you who got their GCSE/A-Level results, hope you all did well!

To those of you who have graduated... where are you guys?? Only about 8 months left for me till graduation. I have no clue what I want to do in a year's time, so hopefully I'll figure something out, soon.

4A is finished! - 13 August 2006

Me asleep in the 4th year room

Finally! 4A is finished! Exams have finished, and in... (looks at watch) about 11 hours, grades will start to become available on QUEST. Hopefully I didn't do badly on any of the exams -- see, that's always a worry whenever I leave an exam feeling confident - I don't quite know how they went. At least when you leave an exam feeling absolutely killed you know it, but a "good" feeling could go either way...

Shouts out to Puiyan, Peter, Dan, Jack, uhh, I can't remember any more off the top of my head... but anyway, the study buddies during this term - the study period would have been absolutely impossible without you guys around!

So... the next couple of weeks: a lot of nothing planned. One week left before going out to start work. Speaking of which, I still haven't gotten a contract from my employer next term yet, so this might turn out ugly if I don't sort it out soon...

Enough for now, I'm going to go to bed and continue my sleeping streak :) I've slept more in the past two days than I have in the past week, so it's been nice to have a bit of a recovery period.

And there have been some behind the scenes updates at jasonpang.net the past little while, so apologies if stuff hasn't quite worked in a while.

One thing: the guestbook is down while I figure out some way to thwart spammers (again!)

Awesome BBQ/Party @ Ammon's - 7 July 2006

Awesome BBQ/Party, Ammon! Thanks again!

(I played a bit too much in terms of video games and the like... pounding for a couple of hours on Smash Bros and then playing Winning 11 for like 5 hours really does it to you, even if you're playing in shifts!)

UW Canada Day - 1 July 2006

Hmm, so compared to last time I volunteered (2004) -- this time it blew everything before out of the water.

What was I up to...

13:00-14:00: Made my way to the Canada Day event, all ready to go

For a long while: supervised a water balloon event. Except for a few kids who decided they needed to make my life, Jay's, and Adam's a living hell by deciding they would monopolize all the water balloons for their own purposes. That is, until we brought in the water guns...

For another long while: supervised the water slide. For you non-Waterlooers, the water slide is basically a big plastic sheet that runs down a large hill. Water goes down it, people slide, everyone is happy. Oh yeah, we called in the fire department and used a fire hose to keep the thing wet. Needless to say, it was a huge hit, and even when it rained there was a huge line. It only started to really die down after about 7pm, when the clouds rolled in and stayed there. Holding a fire hose down is also difficult... my arms are sore because of it.

We also had to use the fire hose to fill smaller paint buckets of water. That... was interesting... a two person operation:

1) Yell out: "You are going to get wet if you hear this"

2) Stop the water slide line

3) One person holds down the bucket

4) The other person aims the fire hose into the bucket.

5) Repeat from 3 until all buckets are filled

6) Resume the water slide

The biomed people (running the transport-water-to-a-bottle-using-a-sponge event - for lack of a better name; one of them was called "Bobo" I think and I forget the other person's name is... sorry -_-) commented that I was soaked when I brought the water over; I think she eventually saw why.

So once that was packed up -- off to sell glow sticks; was working in a tiny tent with 8 people crammed inside it... it was a pretty crazy operation, especially the beginning part when we were trying to get set up with all these people in line waiting. Insanity, I tell you; but once everything was set up, and we had a set order of how to do things (Adam at cash, me handing out glow sticks, (name escapes me) doling out the attachment things, it worked out handsomely. Except for when we discovered our cash box was unexplicably locked -- and the key was inside the cash box. Luckily Adam (and yes, we ARE comps) used a screwdriver to pry the stupid thing open. All was well.

Fireworks were pretty good - about 15 minutes of it - nothing like what you'd see in HK, but it was good enough to make me feel like a total kid again... and it showed (one of the people I was working with who didn't know me -- her comment was that I looked like a small kid at Christmas and just got his favourite toy).

Lots of glowsticks left activated and not sold - these were from a junior soccer group who was selling some for us - and we had to get rid of them. So Andrew (Rudy, as he's lovingly called in WEEF) and I and some other guy start trying to get rid of them by, well, selling them at severely reduced prices and by parading them around. I almost accidentally punched a punk teen in the face when he tried to snatch the glowsticks out of my hand - I was gripping them really hard, and he jerked my hand dangerously close to his face before I realised what was happening and pulled back.

Cleanup time -- a fire extinguisher explodes, covering a good majority of us in a big cloud of I-don't-know-what smoke, and it left an awfully nasty smell in my mouth for a long while. Apparently what happened was that it rolled off a van and dropped awkwardly. By the time I heard the loud "bang!" noise and turned around, I was engulfed in a huge ball of smoke/chemicals... or whatever it was. So I ran for it, crashing into someone in the process.

So all in all, it was an awesome day - I guess I just get a kick of volunteering and seeing people happy in general. As far as I can tell, despite a bit of rain (I was soaked from head to toe at least 10 times today), despite my feet hurting, my nose stuffing up, and possibly catching a cold from being soaked so many times, I can say I'd do it again... well, that's why I did it again I guess.

A little something can go a long way... letting someone have an extra water balloon, giving someone that extra last go down the water slide (and yes, I did eventually go down it... it was a lot more exhilerating than the frosh week one, even though i was soaked from head to toe and no change of clothes), giving a kid a glow stick (I only did it twice, don't anyone start screaming at me) when they were out of money -- you make someone's day that much brighter.

Hopefully I can be in Frosh Week this year... depends on what my employer says.

Wow, I feel sore. My feet ache. My legs ache. My arms ache. A day well spent :) To heck with school work!

Grad photos! - 17 May 2006

And man, it's been yet another month. I should get into more of a habit of... updating this thing.

Today I woke up at 9:30... as I walked towards the Student Life Centre, I couldn't help but develop this huge grin on my face - after all, I was going to get my grad photo (you know, the one with the robes and stuff) taken. Studio shots. And it seemed like everything was cooperating too -- it was slightly drizzly out (good, since it means my hayfever is kept at bay), and I was able to sleep a good 9 hours so I won't look I was spending my university days in a labour camp in my grad photo.

I still have about 300 days till graduation, so I've got some time left, but I couldn't help but feel just a tad proud for a while there that I made it this far. After all, I hadn't been doing well in first year, and it's taken a long and slow climb up back to rebuild my confidence.

This, after four years of school and co-op, with no real holidays. Wow, I made it this far? I darn well deserve this grad photo! :)

"I guess this is for those of you who are really confident or really optimistic" -- Kennings (ECE 457) about a notice about grad photos on the whiteboard.

To put things into perspective

4 years ago (2002) -- this is for all you KGV grads this year ;)

Interesting note: in fact, our last day was on 17 May 2002. So yes, I'm typing this four years to the DAY of my last day at KGV. Interesting also to note that most people have graduated by now, and I'm one of the few left who haven't finished his bachelor's degree from Class of 2002...

Last days at KGV - was in that half-excited, half-sad mood that is the end of high school. You don't know what's around the corner, and you don't want to leave the school behind. Yet... you can't help but wonder what life will be like in 4 months when university starts. Was getting all exicted for prom, and got into a huge misunderstanding over (something as trivial as -- at least from today's perspective) prom seating arrangements.

Three years ago (2003):

Not doing especially well, and university life in general was sucking. I was not able to go back to HK for the work term that I had wanted to - co-op denied my request at the last minute because of SARS. Yeah, that was an extremely low point given the past few years. Probably at that time I was about as low as I'd ever felt in my 19 years (up to even now).

Two years ago (2004):

I would have just come back to Waterloo after finishing an awesome work term at KGV, and beginning 2B (and ohh man, that was an annoying term... I almost bombed that one). Visted Vancouver for the first time since 1997, and also got badly food poisoned. Was on electrolyte fluid for 4 days before I could start to eat normal food again.

One year ago (I shouldn't have to put in the year here...):

Started working at FAG in Stratford... not knowing that I'd return 8 months later for another work term. Finished 3A and got beaten close to death with it. But by that time I had basically come to the conclusion that no term is easier than the previous one no matter how much the profs claim. Except 2A, that is.

11 months left in my uni life -- where on earth will I end up after one more year? What will I be doing?

Aside: SkypeOut now free to call USA/Canada, i.e. you can call a Canada/USA landline through Skype for free. Is it only for North American users on Skype though? http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/

Thanks everyone! - 4 April 2006

Thanks to everyone who either SMSed, MSNed, called, left a voicemail, or told me "happy birthday" today or days previous :) It's impossible for me to name all those that did so. You're all awesome in your own little way

Anyway, a conversation I was having tonight with Felda about my aging... and of course, happy birthday!! (It's rare that you and I can celebrate our birthdays at exactly the same time, but thanks to the timezone difference we can!)

felda...: so how do u feel - this is ur first day 'day' as a 22 year old
jason@strfd: it doesn't feel too much different from being 21 years +364 days old actually

Mmmm... all you can eat steak... - 7 March 2006

So yeah... we went out to all you can eat steak at the 2F Restaurant (changed from the 419 Music Bar -- totally new management, staff, chef... etc)

My stomach held:

• Two steaks
• 1 salmon steak
• 2 heaping plates of mussels
• Shrimp
• Other random stuff

Mmmm... worth every penny spent :)

I also bought some SkypeOut credit... unfortunately, for some stupid reason, it doesn't properly send DTMF tones. So I couldn't call into the conference call I needed to be in using Skype. Oh well, just gotta remember NOT to talk for too much during non-weekend/weeknight hours on my phone.

Continuing boredom... - 5 March 2006

And yet another month has passed. As most of you know, I've been trapped (more or less) in Stratford and there's really been nothing going on for me in terms of anything "exciting" going on.

In continuing with the tradition of me when I don't post, here's a summary of what's been going on with my life:

• Skype remains cool.
• There should be a weekend of 2 days, followed by a day at work where you're allowed to be completely brain dead so you can recover from the effects of the weekend.
• Fried rice lasts an awful long time in the fridge, even though it might not be healthy for you
• The Canadian government takes wayyyy too much tax.
• I haven't shown up in Toronto in a long while.
• CIBC has been gypping me $1.90 in service charges every single month.
• Fraser gets owned... buying $0.99 TV dinners with $1.25 service charge on his debit card.
• Being stuck in Stratford allows you to save a lot of money because there's just nothing to do.

TV has also begun to take its dive into long and uneventful re-runs... it's as if I've seen everything before, but hey, it's always cool to see the Mythbusters Chicken Gun, right?

Waterloo next weekend for the Frosh week Leader Retreat... hmm... and that's about it for now.

Have to file taxes and choose courses soon. What does 4A have in store for me?

And:

:P

You know who you are. ;)

Wow... a long time has passed! - 2 February 2006

Woww... it's been a long time since I've put up anything here. Just posting to let everyone know I'm still alive :P

So... observations from the past month:

• Hong Kong was a blast! Unfortunately I wasn't able to meet up with _everyone_ I wanted to, but hey, it was an awful lot of fun
• CUTC was an amazing experience
• Work is proceeding as usual... working relatively crazy hours, but whatever.. it's work. And I'm in Stratford, so there's nothing much going on here as usual.
• Outing day with the company was awesome, but Playdium was disappointing. I never knew I could fit in 2.5 steaks (8 oz apiece) plus enough lobster, crab, mussel, shrimp, escargot, chicken wings... oh man, it's hard to list it all. Basically it amounted to me eating so much that I could barely walk.
• Chinese New Year was a blast... had dinner with family in Toronto, and it's been a while since I've had such a good meal!
• Kung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year!
• Skype is annoying, but hey, it's free (connection dropped every 20 mins or so) .
• Remote desktop / remote assistance is cool
• People in HK with a CNY holiday .. grr.

Hmm, that's about all I really have to write for now. Watching the OC in the lounge right now, so I guess I'll leave it here for now. Take care everyone!

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