Petit papa Noël
Quand tu descendras du ciel
Avec des jouets par milliers
N’oublie pas mon petit soulier.
Mais avant de partir
Il faudra bien te couvrir
Dehors tu vas avoir si froid
C’est un peu à cause de moi.

Le marchand de sable est passé
Les enfants vont faire dodo
Et tu vas pouvoir commencer
Avec ta hotte sur le dos
Au son des cloches des églises
Ta distribution de surprises.

Petit papa Noël
Quand tu descendras du ciel
Avec des jouets par milliers
N’oublie pas mon petit soulier.
Mais avant de partir
Il faudra bien te couvrir
Dehors tu vas avoir si froid
C’est un peu à cause de moi.

Il me tarde que le jour se lève
Pour voir si tu m’as apporté
Tous les beaux joujoux que je vois en rêve
Et que je t’ai commandés.

Petit papa Noël
Quand tu descendras du ciel
Avec des jouets par milliers
N’oublie pas mon petit soulier.
Mais avant de partir
Il faudra bien te couvrir
Dehors tu vas avoir si froid
C’est un peu à cause de moi.

Et quand tu seras sur ton beau nuage
Viens d’abord sur notre maison
Je n’ai pas été tous les jours très sage
Mais j’en demande pardon.

Petit papa Noël
Quand tu descendras du ciel
Avec des jouets par milliers
N’oublie pas mon petit soulier.
Mais avant de partir
Il faudra bien te couvrir
Dehors tu vas avoir si froid
C’est un peu à cause de moi.

我不怕　死心不息愛你
表演討好的雜技
不惜更改性格都想配合你
施展魔鬼的嫵媚
加起修女莊嚴難以令你在意得到轉機
然後我　假裝瀟灑對你
偷歡偷不到妒忌
花心痴心竟然同樣不震撼你
哭泣表演可憐你嫌棄
大概正中你厭惡的禁忌
難道要我說我愛到想死
威脅若拒絕我便逼死你
又怕越快被你拋棄

猜想你最近在服侍別人
仍然一聲不響免太貼身
鬥命長亦鬥寬大　只要忍
冷待我　也要勉強對你笑得開心
如果不想答我永遠不會問
小心到以為能夠
得到報答垂憐我苦心

我不怕　死心不息愛你
表演討好的雜技
不惜更改性格都想配合你
施展魔鬼的嫵媚
加起修女莊嚴難以令你在意得到轉機
然後我　假裝瀟灑對你
偷歡偷不到妒忌
花心痴心竟然同樣不震撼你
哭泣表演可憐你嫌棄
大概正中你厭惡的禁忌
難道要我說我愛到想死
威脅若拒絕我便逼死你
又怕越快被你拋棄

曾　炫耀偉大無悔換一點感動
曾　強調最在乎你換一點激動
而你　愛完了　不會懂　不屑懂
死心不息無人歌頌
曾用盡了種種方式對你
種種討好的雜技
不惜更改性格都想配合你
施展魔鬼的嫵媚
加起修女莊嚴難以令你在意得到轉機

然後我　假裝瀟灑對你
偷歡偷不到妒忌
花心痴心竟然同樣不震撼你
哭泣表演可憐你嫌棄
大概正中你厭惡的禁忌
難道要我說我愛到想死
威脅若拒絕我便逼死你
無非要　要爭一口氣

太多溫馨昨天　太多濃情碎片
和一生不變的愛情　太靜
是何樣摰誠　得我說不停
得不到你和應

如同沉睡恬靜躺著
安心歸去　安息中寄居
天意註定這般的結束
停住以往幸福

無出息的漢子　曾呼天搶叫像瘋子
此生的快樂藏身於　那回憶的往事
仍只得你在心　無依暗暗在滲
這生得灰暗　無出息的漢子
情深得仿似痴　無心再有下次

這般傷感氣氛　這天嚴寒氣溫
能將這曲折的愛情　冷靜
動人或煽情　傷痛與激情
得一個我在聽

如同沉睡恬靜躺著
安心歸去　安息中寄居
天意註定這般的結束
停住以往幸福

無出息的漢子　曾呼天搶叫像瘋子
此生的快樂藏身於　那回憶的往事
仍只得你在心　無依暗暗在滲
這生得灰暗　無出息的漢子
情深得仿似痴　無心再有下次

無出息的漢子
這生的愛情　不會有下次

旁人 求我 要我不去愛你
為何 從一開始想做後備
情人 已沒有選擇餘地
我說我愛你 為何硬要把我處死

癡心都不再流行 戀火都不再動人
風一吹可以讓承諾變微塵
為何原本都算合襯
最終主角 變了這位陌路人

想好好擁抱情人 身邊竟充滿敵人
那裡會找到刻骨銘心
給那個某君 偷走你的吻
我像人潮浪裡中 往下陸沉
走不出這烙印

旁人 求我 要我不去愛你
為何 從一開始想做後備
情人 已沒有選擇餘地
我說我愛你 為何硬要把我處死

癡心都不再流行 戀火都不再動人
風一吹可以讓承諾變微塵
為何原本都算合襯
最終主角 變了這位陌路人

想好好擁抱情人 身邊竟充滿敵人
那裡會找到刻骨銘心
給那個某君 偷走你的吻
要在何日讓我再次走近

癡心都不再流行 戀火都不再動人
風一吹可以讓承諾變微塵
為何原本都算合襯
最終主角 變了這位陌路人

想好好擁抱情人 身邊竟充滿敵人
那裡會找到刻骨銘心
給那個某君 偷走你的吻
我像人潮浪裡中 往下陸沉
走不出這烙印

One of the things I’ve noticed about the new MacBook is that the feet on bottom aren’t as grippy as the old one. Perhaps it’s just a matter using up the less rubbery surface layer of the feet before it starts to grip the desk. While I’m on the topic of feet my cool feet don’t seem to be able to grip the bottom of the MacBook. Since the bottom of the MacBook is solid aluminium and the cool feet work on by suction, I can’t see why the feet won’t stick. They grip very nicely onto the polycarbonate MacBook bottom, maybe it’s something about the aluminum that’s causing it, but I’m not sure what it is.

The ambient light sensor which is located on the right side of the iSight (where the mic is on polycarbonate MacBooks), is kind of annoying at times, but can be useful. On the 2.0GHz MacBook it acts to change the screen brightness according to the ambient light. It’s useful in the sense that when you turn of the lights in the room and your screen was at full brightness, your eyes won’t be blinded by the bright screen because the computer adjusts the brightness to a lower level!! However, it’s annoying in the fact that when you’re on battery and you lower your screen brightness to converse battery time, then your close your MacBook and move to another location, when you open the laptop again, it can increase the brightness without you noticing and thus you lose some battery time, but otherwise it works great!

So I installed Windows Vista Business 64-bit on Friday night, thanks goes to Heston for burning the disc. The Vista install went okay, was pretty quick. The only actual hiccup actually came from Apple’s drivers! Apparently Apple doesn’t want the owners of comsumer portable line (non-Pro MacBooks) up to any 64-bit OS other than their own, so when I went to install the drivers I was greeted with a error message indicating that 64-bit bootcamp couldn’t be installed on my system! Yet, when one actually goes to browse through the files on the drivers DVD (same disc that the OS X 10.5.5 install is on), you’ll notice that the 64-bit bootcamp control panel is indeed on the disc and that all the drivers are there. A quick search on google reveals a few methods on how to install the drivers on the 64-bit Vista install. Although I don’t agree with Apple’s decision on not letting owners of their comsumer laptops install 64-bit Windows, I can see where they’re coming from. I understand that this is their way of separating users, and many users of non-Pro MacBooks probably don’t know the difference between 32 and 64-bit so it doesn’t matter to them. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t make sense, why bother putting 64-bit drivers on the disc if you don’t want use to have access to them, and why disable the install when the drivers are already on the damned disc?!?!?

Perhaps the most ironic thing about this MacBook is the fact that the max resolution for the VGA output is 1600 x 1000… The irony comes in the fact that my previous MacBook supported a higher resolution than that, and it had a much crappier graphics (if it could even be called that). A quick look in the Nvidia website shows that the maximum resolution supported via VGA by the GeForce 9400M is much higher than that, yet another stunt that Apple’s pulling that I nor understand, nor agree with. Anyways, so when you do use the $34 adapter you get to connect your widescreen monitor to the MacBook, what happens is that it’ll work, but at the MacBook’s leisure, it’ll cause the external monitor that has a native resolution that’s higher than 1600 x 1000 to flicker black for 2 seconds then things will go back to normal, there’s no predicting when it’ll happen. The only solution is to choose a lower resolution, but that just makes the screen irritable to work on… So I just deal with the flickering… not the best solution, but the alternative sucks mush more…

For the most part, this MacBook is cooler than my previous MacBook. On average, sensors show a 7°C difference in temperature! Not to mention that the bottom of the system feel cooler and the heat is more spread out, the aluminum casing is acting as a pretty good heat sink. However, the aluminum is case acting as a heat sink incidentally makes the top (keyboard) of the MacBook warmer than the previous one, but otherwise everything is cooler; and of course, the system is only warm when running slightly more processor intensive programs, otherwise its generally room temp.

Anyways, that’s all for now, perhaps I’ll be back for more later..

The LED-backlit screen is definitely much brighter than the LCD screen, however, it’s also much glossier; when the system is shutdown or the the sleep is sleeping you can literally see your own reflection on it, it might as well be a mirror. Despite this reflective property, the screen itself the screen works great, the reflection isn’t distracting when in use.

Perhaps the greatest change is the trackpad! The new trackpad has not button because the entire trackpad is the button… supposedly, in reality only the bottom 2/3 is clickable! Since the entire trackpad is supposed to be a button, my usual way of using the trackpad doesn’t always get interpreted the same way. I’m making a lot of unnecessary and unexpected right clicks. It’ll probably take some getting used to, but I should be able to get over it, sooner or later; preferably sooner rather than later.

Overall, the whole system is much better than the old one, definitely faster to begin with and cooler than the old one! This is definitely the best gift ever. Thanks Anney.

So I unboxed the MacBook and was a bit surprised that they had already included a iLife ‘09 “CPU Drop-In DVD,” funny thing is that I was all prepared to pay $10 to get it through their up “Up-to-Date” program, but it coming free definitely better than paying and waiting for it to ship! So I continued through the unboxing and booted the MacBook and basically went smoothly. As this isn’t my first mac I knew I wouldn’t be able to setup everything at 2AM so I just powered it down and went to bed.

When I woke up the next day and got a chance to look a it a bit more closely I saw what I thought was a scuff mark on one of the corners, so Anney and I proceeded to the nearest Best Buy to get an exchange – and that would be a the one just outside of Scarborough Town Centre. So we get there and and go to the customer service counter and they take a look at it and are ready for the exchange, the only problem was… they were out of stock! They told us that the the Best Buy at Warden & Eglinton had 4 in stock and that they would do the exchange there.

So off we went from on store to another, when we got to the Warden & Eglinton store, I was greeted by a stone wall. We got the customer service counter and they too took a look at the MacBook and then proceeded to tell me that they couldn’t take the machine back because it had physical damage… WTF… one Best Buy sends me another saying that they can help me there and when I get there they tell me they can’t help me?!?!? What kind of customer service is that!!!! The supervisor at the desk said that the only way that I could get it exchanged is to bring it back to the store it was bought at… WTF since when do you have to bring a product that you bought back to original store you bought it at to get it returned when it’s a frigging chain store!!! Isn’t the whole point of having these stores everywhere to allow easy access to the customer, so they can buy it wherever and get it returned or exchanged wherever?!?!? It makes no sense for them to have a boatload of stores then tell you that you can only get it returned at the original store that you bought it from. They kept telling us that their store policies didn’t allow them to take back anything that had physical damage! Funny thing is, less then 20 minutes before that at another one of their stores an exchange was going to take place if they had stock… so someone explain to me all of this works…

Anyways, Anney I make our way to the Best Buy that Markville Centrel where she had bought the MacBook a few days earlier. We get there do the whole customer service thing again, and a sales manager who happened to be at the counter took a look and it and said it that the scuff was probably just some aluminum dust so he proceeded to try to rub it off and it did indeed come off. I asked him if I could get an exchange anyways, just because of all the trouble we went through and because the MacBook gave us a bad feeling about things; the sales manager said he could give us an exchange if I wanted one. So I got a new MacBook and minus all the earlier mishap the the Eglinton & Warden store, everyone was happy.

What I really don’t understand in all of this is why on earth the Eglinton & Warden store representatives were such idiots. Honestly, I can’t make sense of why they just wouldn’t let me exchange it… I mean, it just doesn’t make sense to me, what kind of customer service is that, seriously they really should take their sign down and put up one that says “Worst Buy” because with that kind of service I don’t see why anyone would want to do business with them. So be forewarned, never go to the Best Buy at Eglinton & Warden, it’s got horrible customer service and possibly the weirdest store policy.

嗱你重要講嘢咁大聲 咁我重忍你做咩
忍到狂瀉
嗱困響屋企 喪失意志
我就抑鬱 再屈會癡
放工我玩湊仔 個仔太任性
我讀故仔岕N心機去聽
嗱你重要講嘢咁大聲 咁我重忍你做咩
忍到狂瀉

忍乜 成個好爸爸逼爆
忍咩 同朋友去酒吧隊爆
忍乜 大雪茄認真可靠
忍咩 望女子吹吹口哨
好似放監 然後要開七枝香檳我任人爆
忍吓忍 忍吓就爆

成世做君子有乜意思
要扮乖咪話好容易
行車冇超過速 你企要立正
冇事收工我修心養性

嗱你重咁辛苦去扮咩
咁我重忍嚟做咩
忍到狂瀉

忍乜 成個好爸爸逼爆
忍咩 同朋友去酒吧隊爆
忍乜 大雪茄認真可靠
忍咩 望女子吹吹口哨
好似放監 然後要開七枝香檳我任人爆
忍吓忍 忍吓就爆

想起當天和你一走近 每日拍拖旅行
全程係快樂滿分
多麼興奮 然後就我哋最後決定結婚
返屋企瞓

忍乜 其實要忍玩比較
忍者 就要學欣賞爭拗
今天 明日要彼此依靠
一於 陪我去瞓番好覺

忍到噴火 其實我點忍到唔俾你盡情咬
忍吓忍 忍吓就爆

如果她有福氣 未妒忌 別妒忌
讓我暫時地祝賀你
等你 分離 隨時準備
誰人來殘酷報喜

知你無本心 有日到她死心
我未會灰心 不怕受過的教訓
願意在呆等 不忠愛人
回頭負你責任 知你
曾花心 愛著你很驚心 卻又覺開心
得我願意受你苦困
我為何肯 等個舊人

誰叫我 不甘心 等到怕了都等

等等等還等 忍忍忍仍忍

我很清楚你的家 她可知那梳化
是共誰選擇嗎 可笑 可怕 只敢想一下
(可能你會返黎呢)

如她給你拋棄 別顧忌 別顧忌
尚有笨人在等待你
等你 分離 又再一起
猶如輪班去就你

知你無本心 有日到她死心
我未會灰心 不怕受過的教訓
願意在呆等 不忠愛人
回頭負你責任 知你
曾花心 愛著你很驚心 卻又覺開心
得我願意受你苦困
我為何肯 等個舊人

還錯過 多少的 親吻
內疚地 耐心地 靜盼愛反悔的你
你似是和她 朝晚未離
我也有信心等你

等你 尋開心 最後變出傷心 我便會開心
可以又再被你幽禁
我為何肯 等個舊人
誰叫我 不甘心 等你老了都等

即使終於與她 成親

BIOM*3100 – Mammalian Physiology I
Professors: John Armstrong, Pawel Bartlewski, and Chandra Tayade
Course Load: Average
Personal Thoughts:
From an engineers perspective, this course was hard, I wasn’t used to study pure facts so I found it hard to absorb the information, especially since some of the stuff requires a strong biology base and I really don’t have that. I’ve gotten used to being able to work things out through calculations and whatnot and physiology isn’t like that so I had a hard time with it.
With three different sections in the course, there three different professors, one for each section. It requires adapting to different teaching styles along with different topics. BIOM*3100 covers neurophysiology, endocrine physiology, and reproductive physiology.

ENGG*2100 – Engineering and Design II
Professor: Dr. W. Stiver
Course Load: High!
Personal Thoughts:
I would definitely have to say that I have a love hate relationship with this course. On one hand, it allows you to reinforce the skills you learned in first year, and apply them to designing a system that can solve the given problem; on the other hand, the work load and stress from this course is so high, it really makes you want to snap. ENGG*2100 or as we call it ‘Design’ is a course that really tries to give you the basic engineering experience. There are two term projects, the CAE and Design Build projects respectively and two individual presentations that really aren’t to worry about for the most part (though they can be at inconvenient times).
The for the CAE project you and your randomly assigned team are given an everyday appliance, and you’re responsible for disassembling it physically (while noting where things go and how they fit together) and then each group member is given a bunch of parts and you’re expected draw these parts in NX5 (a CAE software) and then with your team, assemble these parts together in NX5 so that you get your virtually appliance to fit together and ultimately work as it would work in real life. To me the whole project was brutal, no matter how well you manage your time, drawing the parts you’re given is a pain, there are so many functions in the software and so many commands you need to learn^* on your own it can really be overwhelming. Not to mention all the frustration one faces when you realize that you and your teammates didn’t coordinate properly during the drawing process, so now your parts don’t fit together… NIGHTMARE!
Then there’s design project, the real pain in the course! For this project you’re put into another randomly assigned group and you’re given the task of designing, building, and testing a device to accomplish a given task. The project is time consuming, stressful, and utterly insane! This project was the centerpiece of the semester, pretty much all the free time is devoted to this project. You start without nothing but the problem description and you get to testing in a matter of 11 weeks, and in between you have to keep a logbook for every idea, every piece of research or anything related to the project. Your team is asked to hand in several proposal like design reports to keep the professor and TA’s up to speed about your design. The whole experience is tiring and frustrating, but it really lets you get to know who on your team you can trust to do work and who you should only assign simple tasks to. Overall I’d say that the project really does help simulate real life in that you’re expected to design a device and constantly defend the idea with calculations and hopefully be able to have it perform in real-life like you say it would on paper. It gives us, as students, the chance to experience a somewhat realistic engineering experience.
The lecture component of the course covers 4 major topics: Teamwork, Creativity, Safety, and Sustainable Development. The professor brings you through the the importance of each topic and how they relate to the field of engineering. Along the way he gives talks about how these topics affect engineerings and why they’re important. To me, although this course is frustrating, tiring, and stressful it was definitely enjoyable.

ENGG*2160 – Engineering Mechanics II
Professor: Zoryana Salo
Course Load: Average
Personal Thoughts:
This is the continuation to ENGG*1210 – Engineering Mechanics, and is perhaps the most boring course of the semester. The material isn’t exactly the more exciting stuff and the the prof really doesn’t help make is any better. If I’m not mistaken she’ a PhD student, but has taught courses before, the problem is, she’s boring! It would perhaps be better if she could put her notes online so we didn’t spend all the lecture time to writing out paragraphs in the blackboard and us copying it like madmen.
Overall, I’d say the course was quite pathetic, there wasn’t much work to do, but the final was quite the misleading, of the 8 main topics that the professor told us were from the second half of the course and implied that we should concentrate on those, funny thing is, half the exam from from before the exam and most of us were unfamiliar with the material by then well, we panicked! But overall, we did okay, can’t say it was the best exam, but it was okay.

ENGG*2400 – Engineering Systems Analysis
Professor: Robert Dony
Course Load: Average for the most part
Personal Thoughts:
This course is like a sum of course, it wraps up your knowledge high school and first year courses and then shows you how to analyze a system rather than just solving for variables. The prof tries to keep the course as interesting as possible, cause some of the stuff is pretty dull, The course is complemented by MATH*2270 – Applied Differential Equations as both courses cover Laplace Transforms, but yo get your foundation of that from MATH*2270. Overall ENGG*2400 is enjoyable, the only stressful week from it is when the computer project is due, but other than that every thing’s fine. The only improvement the course could use is perhaps having the prof put up the answers to the assignments before the respective quiz so we could check to see if we did the work right, the solutions^** would be great, but the answers would suffice.

MATH*2270 – Applied Differential Equations
Professor: Anthony Vannelli
Course Load: Average
Personal Thoughts:
This course is one of those courses that makes me hate math, all the proofs that I couldn’t do and so many Laplace Transforms and properties… The redeeming factors are that the Laplace Transforms work related to ENGG*2400 and that the professor practically spoon fed us for quizzes and exams. I have to say that the material covered in the course were kind of boring, but definitely tolerable once you get the hang of it, it’s all pretty easier and straight forward.

^*You’re only taught how to use the basics of the software, the TA’s can be helpful with guiding you with what functions in the software to use, but since the software gets updated every few years, they don’t always know the exact function to use, usually the just know what the function is called, but they’re not exactly sure how to use it. Tough luck, gotta learn it yourself.
^**Prof Dony does put up the full solutions for the assignments after the quiz.

Dreams are my reality
The only real kind of real fantasy
Illusions are a common thing
I try to live in dreams
It seems as if it’s meant to be.

Dreams are my reality
A different kind of reality
I dream of loving in the night
And loving seems alright although it’s only fantasy.
If you do exist,honeydon’r resist
Show me a new way of loving
Tell me that it’s true
Show me what to do
I feel something special about you.

Dreams are my reality
A wonderous world where I like to be
Illusions are a common thing
I try to live in dreams although it’s only fantasy.
Dreams are my reality
I like to dream of you close to me
I dream of loving in the night
and loving you seems right perhaps that’s my reality.

Some of the main concerns of many students of the SOE is computer lab space, student lounge space, and more machine shop access. Believe it or not, the SOE, as it sits, doesn’t really have a computer lab that is dedicated for student use, most, if not all, computer labs are also use as classrooms, so at any time during the day when you’re in there, a TA or professor will tell you to so they can hold their scheduled class. This has become quite a nuisance because a lot of our work depends on proprietary software such as MATLAB and NX5, so the only way to get the work done, is to be in the labs!!!! We really need a large computer lab so we can have 24 hour access to the software without having to worry about be told to leave while we’re working!!!

Another facility that we would benefit from if we could gain more access to is a machine shop. Throughout out entire academic career here, we spend a lot of time designing, building, and testing our own systems, but we’re usually given a limited amount of time in the machine shop that’s part of the class schedule. We would greatly benefit from having a open access machine shop where we can work on our system when we need to, not just during the limited few hours of class!!

The one place that most SOE student spend their time is the undergraduate engineering lounge! Right now all it is is a small little area that is almost always filled with students, and for the most part, is impossible to find a seat in, we would really benefit from a larger lounge area. Now we’ve been told that the expansion includes a larger lounge area, however, there is a possibility that it will no longer just be the undergraduate engineering lounge, but rather the CPES^** lounge. Its great that the new lounge will bigger, because our current lounge really is small, and when the expansion is complete there will be more students so more lounge space is definitely welcome. However, what is the point of making the lounge bigger if you’re going shove 4 more departments into the lounge?! That’s basically moving us from a small and crowded area to a large, but much more crowded area, where’s the sense in this?

Now of course, in order for this expansion to actually happen, the university will need to approve it and then it’ll need to be funded; as of right now, they’re looking at a budget of $20 to $25 million but we’re not told where that will be coming from. Presumably, CPES will contribute to that sum and that’s probably why the new lounge might be named as the CPES lounge instead of the undergraduate engineering lounge… This brings up the argument of who paid for the New Science Complex?! CPES probably also contributed to that project, and yet most SOE students, who we are told make up 60% of CPES and contribute $12M to the university each year, barely step foot in that building after second year… If the science students get an entire building built for them, why can’t we get the same thing? Especially since we’d be an even bigger part of CPES after the expansion. When in fact this retrofitting of the old building and adding new sections to expand in the square footage, that’s how I understand it at least. SOE students have a tough workload and we need all the space and help we can get, so the expansion is welcome, but if all we’re going to do is expand and then share the expanded space, what’s the point?! Honestly, I don’t know of any other students who literally have to stay over night at school to get some of their work done; I know many students from other faculties stay late, but I don’t know of faculty’s students who have to stay over night! We deserve a larger newer lounge, and it should remain the undergraduate engineering lounge, not the CPES lounge!!

Along with this expansion, comes many rumours, including the one already mentioned about the student lounge. Another one is that the new mechanical engineering stream has been approved, and along with that approval came the approval of charging a higher tuition for that stream… Now here’s the question, if the new stream will charge more tuition, how will this effect the existing streams? Rumours have it that the new stream will charge about $8000 to $8500 in tuition, now that’s $3000 more than the current $5500. So how are they going to justify that the students who will be in mechanical engineering? How are they going to make they feel like they should pay $3000 more than those in the other streams?! Chances are that they’ll bump everyone one to the same tuition cost; something that would drive me insane. As it stands, U of G’s SOE charges less tuition than the province’s larger engineering schools; however, the other schools have much better facilities than we do, and that’s why we need to expand our facilities. The question remains, how will the SOE set the tuition rates between the new and old programs so that they can contribute to the expansion, while not causing a riot?! The quick and dirty way would be to charge everyone the new target tuition rate of $8000, but that wouldn’t be fair to most of the existing student because would be starting our last semester when the expansion project is completed, If they decide to charge different amounts across different streams than those in the streams that are paying more will be unhappy. Presumably the best and fairest way to do this is the increase tuition to those students who will actually benefit for at least for a full year from the new facilities and keep the tuition rate as it is (with the acceptable/allowable increase) for those who won’t be benefiting from this expansion. I don’t see why I would need to pay for a facility that I will barely use if it completes on time; I may never benefit from it if there’s delay somewhere.

I know I’m just one student and that my voice is limited, but I do think that future SOE students will benefit from the expansion, but it would be unfair for me to pay for something that I’ll benefit from. It’s paying for a meal that I never ate, or buying a shirt that I’ll never wear; why would I do that?! I know it’s nice to be generous and give back to society and all, but there’s a limit to my generosity and paying for someone else’s school facilities isn’t exactly something that I’m willing to do.

P.S. I didn’t get any sleep last night, thanks SOE!

^*The 4 streams of engineering the SOE currently offers are biological, environmental, systems & computing, and water resources.

^**CPES is the College of Physical and Engineering Science at Guelph and is comprised of several departments, including engineering.

I hate mammalian physiology… what was I thinking when I elected to take this course…

圍繞身邊已六百天　你喜歡過我六十秒嗎
還期望知道這段相處裡　被我暗戀得快樂嗎
如果喜歡你是笑話　你都有開心過六十秒嗎
旁人話總會有日感化你　待你這麼好有用嗎
還有用嗎　而你默然　還要問嗎

有沒有有沒有　你只要說句沒有
我自己即刻會走　絕對不騷擾好友
老實說你有沒有　再拖我怕我失救
如承認不愛我會內疚　讓我先對你自首

圍繞身邊已六百天　你喜歡過我六十秒嗎
還期望知道這段相處裡　被我暗戀得快樂嗎
如果喜歡你是笑話　你都有開心過六十秒嗎
旁人話總會有日感化你　待你這麼好有用嗎
還有用嗎　而你默然　還要問嗎

圍繞身邊已六百天　你喜歡過我六十秒嗎
還期望知道這段相處裡　被我暗戀得快樂嗎
如果喜歡你是笑話　儘管高聲笑也不怕
旁人話總會有日等到你
恨我這麼蠢聽不出是句反話
還去問你　能接受嗎　還要問嗎

費︰我送你離開　千里之外　你無聲黑白
　　沉默年代　或許不該　太遙遠的相愛
　　我送妳離開　天涯之外　妳是否還在
　　琴聲何來　生死難猜　用一生　去等待

RAP︰
　　聞淚聲入林　尋梨花白　只得一行青苔
　　天在山之外　雨落花台　我兩鬢斑白
　　聞淚聲入林　尋梨花白　只得一行青苔
　　天在山之外　雨落花台　我等妳來

費︰一身琉璃白　透明著塵埃　妳無瑕的愛
　　妳從雨中來　詩化了悲哀　我淋濕現在
周︰芙蓉水面採　船行影猶在　妳卻不回來
　　被歲月覆蓋　妳說的花開　過去成空白
費︰夢醒來　是誰在窗台　把結局打開
周︰那薄如蟬翼的未來　禁不起誰來拆

費︰我送你離開　千里之外　你無聲黑白
　　沉默年代　或許不該　太遙遠的相愛
周︰我送妳離開　天涯之外　妳是否還在
　　琴聲何來　生死難猜　用一生

費︰我送妳離開　千里之外　妳無聲黑白
　　沉默年代　或許不該　太遙遠的相愛
周︰我送妳離開　天涯之外　妳是否還在
　　琴聲何來
費︰生死難猜
合︰用一生　去等待

A君的家底好 B君出名獨到
是我沒能耐 高攀不起給你效勞
你要愛得進步 便盡力發掘
談情全為進步
你會控制得到

你 你背後有幾千樣野心
我未襯 再努力也擋不住競爭
不用吻 我輸不起 你的抱負太多
但我極明白我 實在沒法抽身愛下個
你每日也比較在計分
再合襯 我發現我都只屬次等
手在震 去握手會比拖手使你愉快得多
快為實現野心 放下我

誰能陪半旅行 自問沒有福份
我沒強項愛人 不要為我忍
我用全力來迎合你 也未夠吸引

你背後有幾千樣野心
我未襯 再努力也擋不住競爭
不用吻 我輸不起 你的抱負太多
但我極明白我 實在沒法抽身愛下個
你每日也比較在計分
再合襯 我發現我都只屬次等
手在震 去握手會比拖手使你愉快得多
快為實現野心 放下我
C君階級很高 D君即使未到
但我沒能耐 根本不可使你自豪
你要愛得進步 沒義務繼續停留
來吧去做 你有你野心 我阻不到

你背後有幾千樣野心
我未襯 再努力也擋不住競爭
不用吻 我怎都不似尊貴又勇敢
但我極明白我 實在沒法抽身愛下個
你盼望到出年便結婚
你就算 不講出口都知沒我份
保佑我 你揀好了 還會有禮貌
說聲再見 我自問未夠資格合襯

算吧 為發揮你潛能
我的犧牲 最襯

Somethings become stronger over time, while others will always remain fragile. Yet there’s still other things that can become strong but very brittle and easily damaged. These strong yet brittle things are generally those that cannot experience and type of ‘test’ as they’ll instantly shatter.

Whenever I think of my friends and our friendship, I’d like to think that it’s strong and indestructible, when in reality it’s usually very and even the slightest ‘challenge’ in life could tear it apart. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to maintain a friendship that’s indestructible, until then I’ll just have to be more careful.

My main grudge against the iPhone was that although I didn’t have Visual Voicemail service (or any voicemail service for that matter), I still got the red dot on top of the ‘Phone’ icon… the red dot usually only appears onto of the ‘Phone’ icon when you’ve either missed a call or have a new voicemail in your inbox, whereby a number in the circle indicates how many missed calls/voicemails you have. Yet, although I’m not subscribed to any voicemail service at all, the voicemail dot was ALWAYS there and there didn’t seem to be any way to get it to disappear…

Earlier this afternoon I called Rogers iPhone tech support about the issue and the support agent said he had never heard about the issue, but would look into it for me and told me to wait while he did so… When he came back he told to hard reset my iPhone but I explained that I had done that already, then I mentioned that the only time I’ve ever seen the dot go away was when I turned the phone on with the SIM card that it came with in it. The tech support agent then proceeded to tell me that I was supposed to be using the SIM card that came in the phone as it’s a newer/more powerful version (4000 series) SIM card and that the iPhone requires its power, using my older (3040 series) SIM card might even damage my iPhone in the long run (eh… I doubt it would be that serious…). He told me that I should put the 4000 series SIM card in the iPhone and he would activate it and it should all be normal, with the red dot gone!!! So I did what I was told and the red dot is GONE!!!

P.S. You can check your Rogers SIM card version by looking at the serial number of the card. For a 3040 series, you’ll see 3040 in the middle (3rd) row of the SIM serial number. For a 4000 series, you’ll see 4000 ass the 9^th through 12^th digits of the serial number.

P.P.S. The SIM card serial number is located on the back side (the side with the Rogers contact numbers on it) of your SIM card in gold. My 4000 series SIM card also happens to have UICC written on the front side.

[edit (August 01, 2008 @ 21:13): So I had my data connection blocked for my iPhone cause I wasn't sure if I needed it and it seems pointless to shell out $30/month if I don't actually need it. Anyways, I went to check my iPhone's 'usage' menu where it keeps logs of how many minutes and how much bandwidth you've used. To my surprise, the section labelled "Cellular Network Data" which was supposed to stay at ZERO since my data was blocked, was NOT zero. It was indicating that I had both sent and received data from Rogers!!! So I called Rogers and talked to someone from their iPhone technical support and was told that the reason that I was sending and receiving data from the cellular network was because customer service representative who had put the data block on my plan, put a data block for regular phones on my iPhone plan, and the iPhone needed a special data block. So iPhone technical support representative put the right type of block on it and put notes in my file to indicate that I shouldn't be charged for the data that was used because it wasn't my fault. Hopefully it's all fixed now...]

[edit (August 02, 2008 @ 12:28): So this morning I checked my usage menu again, and it seems that the data counts are still moving, which make no sense, since it was supposed to be blocked properly now!!! Guess it's time to call Rogers again.]

[edit (August 02, 2008 @ 14:21): So I just got off the phone with Rogers (seems like I'm spending all my time on the phone with them) and apparently the technical support representative that I talked to yesterday did in fact put on the proper data block, but what he did was block each type of data separately (email, internet, media, etc), and that causes problems in the system apparently. What the support representative that I talked to today did was put on a all-in-one block, hopefully everything's good now!!! BTW, I was credited for the data the I 'used' but wasn't supposed to be able to use.]

As it can be seen in the above example, the download speed it actually faster than what I’m supposed to be getting, but the upload speed is only half what it’s supposed to be, but I really can’t complain cause it’s already pretty good… Although I’ve read some review of people complaining that after a few months the connection speed drops by half, I’m not too worried about that cause I live really close to a CO, in fact if I’m not mistaken, it’s literally across the street from me (there’s a Bell office there, I really doubt there isn’t a CO there!) In anycase, I’d say that TekSavvy is a pretty good ISP, I ordered the DSL connection on a Sunday night and they called me within 5 minutes of me finalizing my order to confirm my information and to answer the questions I had. If anyone’s interested in getting DSL from TekSavvy, please include me as your referral: dannrabbittang at teksavvy dot com.

On another note about the new MacBook, I’m going to write it here to remind myself that the retail release of OS X 10.5 Leopard that I have doesn’t have the right integrated graphics card drivers for the new MacBook… I used the retail disc to reinstall Leopard and I got a pretty annoying appearance of a white window every time the screen wakes from sleep, but reinstalling Leopard with the install discs that came with the MacBook lets things run without a hitch, so I’ve learned to never do it again… sigh…

So the other night, I decided to write Steve Jobs an email to express my thoughts about the problems I’ve experienced thus far with my MacBook. (Note: This decision was based on hearing other people’s experience of getting their opinion heard when emailing him.) Anyways, today I got a reply from Apple, not from Steve Jobs, but from an Apple exec who has opened a file on my case. She says she’ll look into my case and that I should bring my MacBook in to a AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) to get my system looked at and see if there is indeed a hardware issue.

I’ve been instructed to keep her updated after I’ve had my MacBook brought into a AASP and they’ve determined if there’s an hardware issue with it.

After my dreaming
I woke with this fear
What am I leaving
When I’m done here

So if you’re asking me
I want you to know

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

And don’t resent me
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest

Don’t be afraid
I’ve taken my beating
I’ve shared what I made

I’m strong on the surface
Not all the way through
I’ve never been perfect
But neither have you

So if you’re asking me
I want you to know

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

Don’t resent me
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest

Forgetting
All the hurt inside
You’ve learned to hide so well

Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can’t be who you are

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

Don’t resent me
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest

Forgetting
All the hurt inside
You’ve learned to hide so well

Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can’t be who you are
I can’t be who you are

I’ve used the Cool Feet for a few days now and although the system’s reported temperature is about the same, the fan hasn’t come on as often as before. Before using Cool Feet, periodically the fan would spin up from it’s idle rate (2000 rpm) to a higher spin rate (~5000 rpm) sometimes even reaching it’s max spin rate (6200 rpm). So I would say that although the Cool Feet don’t lower the actual temperature of the system, it does help ventilate the heat and overall does keep the system cooler.

Although there are other cheaper alternatives then Cool Feet, such using two rubber erasers or cardboard, I think Cool Feet is worth the investment. Since they’re attached to the system through suction, if you have a sudden need to slide the system forward or backward a bit they’ll move with the system; where as cardboard won’t and erasers only move with it sometimes. Not to mention you can pick up the system move it to another part of desk with the Cool Feet still attached so you don’t have to worry about repositioning them to the setup you want. Overall, I would have to say it was money well spent!

Sometimes it seems as though I do think in a far too pessimistic way, but with 2/4 friendships failed it’s hard for me not to be as pessimistic as I sometimes am, but I do cherish what I have now and I do hope that these two friends will be there for me when I need them…

I really don’t mind helping people who miss a lecture once in a while because they were ill. However, it bothers me when who consistently miss lectures or skip a lecture because they have something ‘more important’ to do ask me to lend them my notes. Honestly, if you choose to skip a lecture, than it means you weighed the value of attending the lecture against the value of whatever it is you did instead of the lecture and decided that attending the lecture is less important. If you decided it’s less important, then why come around and ask someone if you missed anything important, honestly, the material is obviously important to the prof, otherwise why would he/she even bother to teach it?!

I don’t understand what makes these people think that I’m obligated to give them info when they don’t attend class?! What makes these people think they deserve the right sleep in a miss their 8:30AM class and expect me to just hand them the notes? What makes these people think that they can tell me “I stayed up last night to do the _________ assignment, so I was too tired to go to class, case I get your notes” and expect me to hand them over? I go to class after an all nighter a few times a semester, don’t see me complaining or skipping and bugging people for notes.

People need to learn that once they’re made a decision, they need to take responsibility for it. Honestly, if I chronically skipped class or chronically slept in class (I count at least 2 people sleeping in the lecture I’m in right now), I wouldn’t go around calling someone a ‘asshole’ for now helping me; when you make a choice, take responsibility for it.

I’m not saying that the Koma era songs aren’t good, because believe me, Koma Wong produced some of Beyond’s greatest songs, including but not limited to ‘海闊天空,’ ‘光輝歲月,’ ‘真的愛妳,’ ‘Amani,’ ‘喜歡你,’ and ‘再見理想.’ However, Beyond in the post Koma era had a few songs that I believe are really good too, yet you rarely hear them sing these songs when go out and sings songs individually or at some sort of get together. Songs that are from the post Koma era that I personally really like include: ‘缺口,’ ‘驚喜,’ ‘阿博,’ and ‘洗衣粉.’

I can understand that fans like hearing the best songs by artist/band, but can’t they slip in a song or two from their era, I mean, what’s the point in only singing older songs? It’s like saying that the songs that the post Koma era were all crap. Although they were mostly crap, there were still a few very good ones.

To sum things up about the midterms.. I wrote 2 midterms that I was totally unprepared for, and 1 that I thought I was well prepared for, but totally underestimated (prof’s outline made it sound easier than it was).

Now I just have to get through 5 more weeks of this and it’ll be finals and I’ll be set to go!!!!

Linear Algebra isn’t exactly easy stuff and it really needs a good prof who has a through understanding of the material and truly loves it to teach, and I have to say, out prof is a prime example of how you don’t want teaching it. I mean, she’s boring, refuses to post proper notes online and is sometimes monotone. Honestly, a great way to improve this course would be to tell us what section the next lecture will be on, I hate going into a lecture not knowing what material is up next. It would also help if the prof would giving us partially completed notes, rather than ‘chapter summaries,’ I’m not asking for full notes, but rather notes that have all the major theorems and side notes to be taught that lecture, and the examples, unsolved with space to solve it in class. I’m sure that way we can learn a lot better. Being able to quickly go over what was to be taught in the up coming lecture would make understanding it in lecture a lot easier, not to mention we would probably be able to get through more examples if we didn’t have to spend half the lecture copying slide after slide of notes… and more examples usually means better understanding.

Sometimes I really wish my high school discreet mathematics teacher from high school Mr. Korunovski was the one teaching this course, he was enthusiastic algebra teacher. He made high school algebra interesting and fun… sigh I wish he could come here and teach this course.

Yesterday (Monday), I had a 10% Engineering Analysis assignment due and even though I completed it to the best of my capabilities, I didn’t actually complete the assignment. I never figured out how to do the programming part of the assignment and from what I could tell a big portion of the class had no idea how to do it either, even the Engineering System & Computing majors couldn’t do it, so I just gave up on that part and submitted my assignment. Along with this assignment, I also had a quiz to prepare for an online economics experiment.

Today I had to do the economics experiment online. The experiment was really just a simulation of the supply and demand in free trade and supply and demand when there’s tax. Overall it was pretty smooth and easy, although I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know. After that, I also complete my biochemistry lab post and pre lab write ups, and I did my calculus quiz.

I’m really starting to feel exhausted and really really wish that reading week would be sooner but too bad it’s not… I still have to do an accounting assignment and accounting quiz. Hopefully those go smoothly…

~Marianne Williamson
A Return to Love

Anyways, so I slept some more then I got up and did my laundry and some studying… Sigh, I haven’t really studied much, spent most of my time procrastinating… Sigh, I should study some more, but I feel so confident even though I know I don’t know everything yet… sigh

My grandpa passed away this past summer, and while I calm and unaffected, it was like my life came to a grinding halt. My grandpa’s death affected me not only because I was the one there with him over the 2 month period that he was diagnosed and ultimately passed away from late stage brain and lung cancer, but also because everything was extremely unexpected. My grandpa was a strong and active person, up until 2~4 months before he passed away, he was still considerably active and independent. Yet, over the span of only 2 weeks he became bedridden and couldn’t even do any simple self grooming tasks. My grandpa’s passing made me realize how precious time is to us and how things can happen unexpectedly.

I know it may not seem like it, but I’m really trying to spend my time wisely. I now understand that every second of every day that has passed can no longer be relived. Time is the most precious thing we own and it shouldn’t be wasted in any way.

Note: “一寸光蔭一寸金，寸金難買寸光蔭” roughly translates to “time is worth its weight in gold, but no amount of gold can ever buy time.”

Honestly, why bother wasting time and energy to attend class if you’re not gonna pay attention anyways? Why don’t they just stay home and sleep in all day and then self study (don’t they have to self study anyways if they don’t pay attention in class?)…

These people need to learn to be shut up and pay attention in class….

I remember there was this one time, I really wanted this lego set, I think it was lego set for a lego racing car with a motor. I remember asking my parents to get it, but of course, they said no. And the like every kid does, I begged them to get it, and they still said no, so I begged some more and they still said no… anyways, so we wrestled about it for a bit, they said no… and after a bit more wrestling, they settled on getting me a simpler set… so I didn’t get the set I wanted (never did actually) but I didn’t go home an entirely disappointed kid that day…

Its funny how that single sized bed can feel so much more comfortable when the two of us lie there together, it may be crammed, but it’s comfortable.In fact, I’m come to realize that I even sleep better when she’s there with me.

I feel so lucky to have her in my life, and I know that we’re perfect together and we’ll continue to be perfect together forever. I just want to tell her that I love her and that I truly want to spend the rest of my life with her.

Anney, I love you.

Personally speaking, I’ve been able to maintain a close friendship with a girl, and we’ve been able to maintain our friendship, and draw a clean line at it. We both understand the fact that our friendship is where it’s at because we both don’t have romantic feels for one another; neither of us has a hidden agenda about for this friendship, and I think it’s great. Having a good friend of the opposite sex gives me an opportunity to hear what the opposite sex has say about different things and I have someone around to explain to me what my girlfriends thinking and why she’s thinking like that.

Maybe it’s just me being innocent, and thinking much simpler than what reality has to hold, but I strongly believe Guy + Girl ≠ Boyfriend + Girlfriend. Being able to be close friends with someone of the opposite sex has made things up to this point in my life much more interesting and enjoyable (in some ways…). Hopefully things stay the way they are, and perhaps get even better…

PLEN is a desktop humanoid robot!!! PLEN can be controlled with Wii remote, bluetooth enabled cell phone, or computer keyboard. It can skateboard, roller skate (rollerblade), play soccer and many more movements, as it is designed to replicate complex human movements.

Call me a geek and whatnot, but the idea of being able to use a bluetooth enabled cellphone (most modern phones) is just so COOL! Normally I would jump at the idea of grabbing something like this off the shelf, but there’s just one slight financial problem… PLEN retails for 262500Â¥ in Japan and $2399 in the US… Now if there was just a miraculous way for me to raise about $2500US, that would be GREAT!!!

This is a picture of PLEN at the RoboCup:

Here’s a video of PLEN skateboarding:

One important criteria about working on two separate machines is keeping work files and calendars in sync. I already use Foldershare to keep my work files nice in sync, but I couldn’t find a stable iCal syncing app.

I started off using gSync (it syncs one computer to Google Calendar and then it syncs the Google Calendar with the second computer), but that wasn’t very effective at all, it crashed all the time, had sync problem and bounced in the dock every time it syncs or tried to syncs with Google Calendar. It was a waste of my money.

So after I gave up on gSync I started looking for other solutions, then I stumbled up BusySync. Currently it only supports syncing over LAN, but they’re going to release an updated version soon that syncs with Google Calendar. BusySync works great, it’s reliable, and even if their soon to be released update doesn’t work too well with Google Calendar, I know I can still rollback to the version I’m using now.

It ridiculous and disappointing that they released Time Capsule, I mean they basically ripped that feature right out of Leopard and then put it what basically is a Airport Extreme Base Station with a harddrive thrown in it and guess what? The basic (500GB) model cost twice as much as the AEBS. Hopefully someone will crack the software when it comes out and make it work for the AEBS and a USB harddrive.

The there’s the MacBook Air… It’s so damn expensive! Sure it’s the thinning notebook in the world but it’s so smaller, but realistically its a shrunken MacBook with on less USB port, no firewire, mic/line-in or ethernet. If you ask me, I’ll keep my MacBook and gladly keep the extra 500 thank you very much!

Overall, I was disappointed about the products announced today and the fact that we still don’t have official iPhone’s in Canada.

Besides the fact that he dislikes cell phones in class, he’s a pretty good prof, manages to get us engaged in his lecture, and I don’t zone out trying to pay attention! I think I may like this course…

TorrentFlux is a server based BitTorrent client, meaning it downloads the files from a torrent directly onto a webserver. I know it may seem like this would only solve my download speed problem, but in a sense it solves the whole BitTorrent and residence problem for me, mainly because I can download own my FTP server a lot faster than it does with BT, and think about it, I download as much as I want to my server and only download it to my computer as needed and hence it saves me bandwidth (kinda). Not to mention that my server downloads the BT files faster than my residence internet does and the fact that I can download while the torrent’s fresh. The best part I guess it that I can access it from any computer with internet access and it downloads without having to leave my computer on.

It should be noted that this would mean at least double the bandwidth of each file’s filesize would be used to download it, 1x to download it from torrent to server, 2x to download it from server to computer, and of course what ever bandwidth is spent while you check up on the torrents through a browser.

The only requirements to run TorrentFlux is a server is Apache with PHP module a MySQL database, and Python 2.2 or higher (for Linux servers).

[edit (January 14, 2008 @ 12:39): Only one problem, it refuses to download files from torrents of my chinese tv series.] 

怕結婚只會守　三分鐘諾言
曾話過要戒煙　但講了就算
夢與想丟低很遠　但對返工厭倦
自小不會打算

但是仍　唯獨妳愛我這廢人
出錯妳都肯去忍
然而誰亦早知不會合襯
偏偏妳願意等

為何還喜歡我　我這種無賴
是話妳蠢還是很偉大
在座每位都將我踩　口碑有多壞
但妳亦永遠不見怪

何必跟我　我這種無賴
活大半生還是很失敗
但是妳死都不變心　跟我笑著捱
就算壞　我也不忍心　偷偷作怪

沒有根的野草　飄忽的命途
誰像妳當我寶　什麼也做到
舊愛數足一匹布　在這刻寫句號
只想跟妳終老

在地球　唯獨妳愛我這廢人
出錯妳都肯去忍
然而誰亦早知不會合襯
偏偏妳願意等

為何還喜歡我　我這種無賴
是話妳蠢還是很偉大
在座每位都將我踩　口碑有多壞
但妳亦永遠不見怪

何必跟我　我這種無賴
活大半生還是很失敗
但是妳死都不變心　跟我笑著捱
就算壞　我也不忍心

還喜歡我　我這種無賴
是話妳蠢還是很偉大
在座每位都將我踩　口碑有多壞
但妳亦永遠不見怪

何必跟我　我這種無賴
活大半生還是很失敗
但是妳死都不變心　跟我拼命捱
換轉別個　也不忍心　偷偷作怪

And when our love seems to fade away,
Listen to me hear what I say,

I don’t wanna feel,
the way that i do,
I just wanna be,
right here with you,
I don’t wanna see,
see us apart,
I just wanna say it straight from my heart,
I miss you…

What would it take,
for you to see,
To make you understand,
that i’ll always believe, (always believe)
You and i,
can make it through,
And i still know,
I can’t get over you,

Cause when our love seems to fade away,
Listen to me hear what I say,

I don’t wanna feel,
the way that I do,
I just wanna be,
right here with you,
I don’t wanna see,
see us apart, (see us apart)
I just wanna say it straight from my heart,
oh baby i miss you,
i do…

Cause when our love always fades away,
Listen to me hear what I say,

I don’t wanna feel,
the way that i do,
I just wanna be,
right here with you,
I don’t wanna see,
see us apart, (oh no, see us apart)
I just wanna say it straight from my heart,
I miss you, i miss you,
i do…

I don’t wanna feel,
the way that I do, (the way that i do)
I just wanna be, (just wanna be)
right here with you, (right here with you)
I don’t wanna see, (don’t wanna see)
See us apart,(see us apart oh baby)
I just wanna say it straight from my heart
oh baby i miss you,
i do…

Biochemistry… it’s either gonna be super hard or super fun… not sure which it’ll be yet…

The bundle includes:
1password
CoverSutra
Cha-Ching
iStopMotion
Awaken
TaskPaper
AppZapper
CSSEdit
Snapz Pro X
Pixelmator
Note: CSSEdit, Snapz Pro X, and Pixelmator are still locked.

I mean, I already have a copy of 1password and Appzapper; I have similar programs to Cha-ching, Awaken, and TaskPaper; I have no use for CoverSutra (had it, don’t like it), iStopMotion, CSSEdit, Snapz ProX, and Pixelmator. I’d love to support the mac shareware community, but I just can’t convince myself to get this bundle.

I’m taking 5 courses this semester and hopefully I do well in all of them. The five courses I’m taking are:
BIOC*2580 Introductory Biochemistry
BUS*2220 Financial Accounting
ECON*1050 Introductory Microeconomics
ENGG*1500 Engineering Analysis
MATH*1210 Calculus II

Although I’m taking 2 electives, which would’ve meant it would’ve been a easier workload, it’s starting to prove otherwise. I mean, the accounting course should’ve been pretty easy, but instead having 3 hours of lecture a week like there normally is, this semester there’s only 1.5 hours of lectures, so there’s gonna be a lot of material crammed into not a lot of time, and I’ll have to self study, A LOT. Then there’s economics, everyone said it’s a easy course and that even if you don’t do anything, you should get a easy 70. However, this semester, we have visiting professor teaching the course, and it seems as though it’ll be quite different from what I had expected it to be.

The 3 courses that are part of my program are just going to tear me apart. Biochemistry sounds hard-ish thus far but, prof for the first half seems to be easy going. However, we have to know those amino acids, and because of that, I’ll die. Engineering analysis is just linear algebra (for engineers)… I suck at math courses… and suffice to say, calculus will kill me like no tomorrow.

Hopefully this semester will go smoothly… got start those readings…

Personally speaking, I have very few friends, and for that reason they’re all very close to me and I go to them for just about anything. In a sense it’s because I treat them all as close friends and put them first that it hits me every time that I realize that I don’t hold the same position in their lives. I really wish that I could be that type of friend to people, where they would think of me whenever something comes up, but I guess I’m just not that type of friend.

I guess I shouldn’t be complaining because they practically did give me a new computer since the CPU is soldered onto the logicboard and they gave me a new one of those, but it still would’ve been nice to have gotten a new MacBook and not have to go through the hassle of coming and going to pick it up… Thus far they’ve replaced a heatsink, a battery, a logicboard with heatsink, a display bezel, and two top cases… All those repairs… it was definitely worth the 150 I spent on the extended warranty…

I’ve always been fascinated and been interested by forensics and the idea of using science to solve crimes; mainly cause I believe that’s there’s always some sort of mathematical/scientific reason for things that happen in life. Throughout high school my goal was simply to graduate and then go study at a university with a forensics program.

I suppose one can say that most of my dream came true, I graduated from high school and got accepted at to Trent University’s Forensic Program (one of the more popular schools for forensics here in Ontario). However, in the end I decided not to follow my passion for forensics and instead I went into Biological Engineering at the University of Guelph’s Biological Engineering program. My choice to go into engineering instead of forensic science was not because I started to get interested in engineering, but rather because of the ‘payout’. Forensics isn’t a big thing in Canada, it’s more common in the US, and frankly I don’t want to have to move to the US for my job, I’d much rather stay here in Canada. Secondly, biological engineering is just starting to blossom, so I thought I would pick something that I have some interest in and start from there….

At first I thought it was pretty good, it was a lot of hard work, but it was good, but soon after I realized that the chemistry involved would literally kill me… so after 3 semesters (1.5 years) I have now changed streams… I’m no longer in biological engineering, but rather in Engineering Systems & Computing (I believe they renamed it to Systems & Computer Engineering). I’ve always been geared toward technology so hopefully this stream of engineering will be good for me.

In the end I guess it doesn’t make a difference that I chose engineering over forensic science when I had the chance, perhaps I would be enjoying University of Trent’s forensic science program more, but I would still have to face the chemistry I’d had to do at the University of Guelph, and on top of that I would have to do biology and physics.

Hope my change into Engineering Systems & Computing will be my last change, otherwise I don’t know what I’d do…

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You are a true romantic. When you are in love, you will do anything and everything to keep your love true.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:
You are very serious about relationships and aren’t interested in wasting time with people you don’t really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.

Your views on education:
Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can. 

The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don’t focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success.

How do you view success:
You are confident that you will be successful in your chosen career and nothing will stop you from trying.

What are you most afraid of:
You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don’t ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you.

Who is your true self:
You like privacy very much because you enjoy spending time with your own thoughts. You like to disappear when you cannot find solutions to your own problems, but you would feel better if you learned to share your thoughts with a person you trust.

Anyhow, I’ve found one I really like and my girlfriend’s getting it for me as one of the millions of Christmas presents she’s getting me. The watch itself is a Trias Accapella III. I think it looks pretty good and is definitely slightly more mature than what I’m currently wearing.

Here’s the face of the watch:

Here’s the backside of watch^*:

^*Like many skeleton/automatic watches this one has a transparent back so you can see the rotor.

If what I said in the above is true then why is it that my house mate keeps microwaving his tray dinners then dumping the food onto a plate?! I can understand that it really has nothing to do with me and it really wouldn’t bother me if he did his dishes when he was done… The guy’s lazy and get tray dinners, I can understand that, but why get dishes dirty if you don’t want to clean up in the first place?! We share dishes and cutlery and most of it isn’t mine, but it still bothers me when I walk into the kitchen there’s a bunch of plates and forks and knives either sitting there unwashed or entirely missing… for a few days!!! Why can’t he just get his TV dinners, microwave them and eat them in their trays?! Wouldn’t that be better suited for a lazy lifestyle?!

Does anyone have answers?!

36 weeks is the time it takes for me to realize that I truly love someone, even though I don’t truly understand her.

36 weeks is how long it takes for me to realize that there’s so much my love has done for me, but so little that I’ve done for my love.

36 weeks is the amount of time I’ve spent emotionally abusing the love of my life.

How many more 36 weeks must I waste before I can get do things right?

I mean, anyone who’s taken high school chemistry (Grade 12) can explain how to use a galvanic series to pick a metal to protect another one. However, it takes some hardcore memorizing to list 4 examples of metal corrosion other than galvanic corrosion.

I’m fairly confident that I passed the exam… though there’s a chance that I screwed up every question enough to cause me to fail, hopefully that’s not the case.

ENGG*2120 (Material Science): Dec 3 @ 8:30AM in Athletic Centre, Main Gym
MATH*1200 (Calculus I): Dec 4 @ 2:30PM in Athletic Centre, Main Gym
CHEM*1050 (General Chemistry II): Dec 7 @ 8:30AM in Athletic Centre, Main Gym
MICR*1020 (Fundamentals of Applied Microbiology): Dec 8 @ 7:00PM in MacNaughton, Room 105
BIOM*2000 (Concepts of Physiology): Dec 12 @ 7:00PM in Rozanski Hall, Room 101

Being crazy and weird person that I am, I’ve worked out the approximations to what marks I would get if I got zero (basically my current mark) on my finals and what mark I need on the final to pass the course, along with what my mark would be if I got 50%, 75% and 100% on the final.

ENGG*2120
Current Mark: 42.4%
Zero on Final^*: ?!?!
49% on Final (worth 65%^**)^*: 31.85%
50% on Final (worth 65%^**)^*: 61.9%
75% on Final (worth 65%): 78.13%
100% on Final (worth 65%): 94.38%

MATH*1200
Curren/Zero on Final: 48.31
5% on Final: 50.06
50% on Final (worth 35%): 65.81%
75% on Final (worth 35%): 74.56%
100% on Final (worth 35%): 83.31%

CHEM*1050
Current/Zero on Final: 34.55%
45% on Final: 50.30%
50% on Final (worth 35%): 52.05%
75% on Final (worth 35%): 60.80%
100% on Final (worth 35%): 69.55%

MICR*1020
Current/Zero on Final: 37.35%
26% on Final: 50.35%
50% on Final (worth 50%): 62.35%
75% on Final (worth 50%): 74.85%
100% on Final (worth 50%): 87.35%

BIOM*2000
Current/Zero on Final: 42.60%
20% on Final: 50.60%
50% on Final (worth 40%): 62.60%
75% on Final (worth 40%): 72.60%
100% on Final (worth 40%): 82.60%

Most of the marks I’m computed in the above are fairly accurate to what my marks will be under the given situations, however, there are some marks that are pending adjustments or weighting changes. For example in CHEM*1050, the homework/quiz section is pending a weighting change whereas I’ve computed it to be 50/50 and my lab TA says that our lab section’s average is considerably lower than other sections so the lab co-ordinator is considering adjusting our lab sections mark a bit.

With these computed marks I can sort of set up priority to my studying for those finals that are one day from another based how well I know the material and what mark I need to at least pass the course and potential marks that depend on what I can get on finals.

^*As part of the course requirements, one must pass both the Lab/Assignment section and the examination sections and Final. If one fails the examination section/final, then they will not be given credit for their lab/assignment section.
^**The the midterm is ether worth 0% or 30% and the final is either worth 35% or 65% depending on which one gives the student a higher mark.

Many long time PC users who decide to switch to mac expect way more than is logical. In a sense I think the Apple’s fault; their Get a Mac ads sometimes may give mac’s a little too much credit (making them seem immune to most, if not all, PC problems), and thus cause switchers to expect too much. It’s not uncommon for one to find forum post where someone who’s newly switched to macs expects miracles to happen. I’ve seen quite a few people complain about issues that are not related to the mac OS or macs in general, but people are quick to point the finger at ‘mac’s’.

For example, I recently read a forum post about a switcher who thinks his switch to mac bought him an expensive brick, and that he could’ve bought several PC’s for the same price, all because his mac had a faulty hard drive. I mean, anyone who’s used a computer long enough (especially if it’s the same computer) will have seen a failed drive. I’ll admit, it’s not common to see drive failures in new computers, but it happens; yet people who switch seem to think that mac’s are immune to it. Or more commonly, people think macs don’t hang, freeze, or crash, but trust me, after more than a year of using mac’s I can say, they do hang, freeze, and crash, it just doesn’t happen as often compared to PC’s. I mean, I’ve had my share of crashes on my MacBook, but most of it I can link back to hardware issues, and I’ll take it into Apple the next time I’m in Toronto, but with those crashes aside, I’ve experience maybe one or two crashes, whereas I’d get a crash a month on my old PC laptop.

I just think switchers and potential switchers should realize that mac’s and PC’s are both computers, so when you switch over, you’ll still be plagued by problems that are common to PC’s, don’t expect hardware issues to be non-existent; your harddrive will still fail (eventually), same goes with your DVD burner, and someday your processor may burn out or your PSU might blow. Getting a mac in no way frees you from hardware related issues. However, I can ensure you that you’ll enjoy a better user experience.

I can’t say that that’s not true to some respect, but I don’t agree with that entirely. The way I see it, yes the person gets more ‘annoying’ as your relationship develops because you start to know every little bit of that person; however, I believe that through knowing them better you also learn to understand and ‘forgive’ them. I’m more in favour of the viewpoint that sides with the belief that more you know someone the deeper you fall in love with them. If that’s not the case, then the two of you were just never meant to be.

I really don’t see how people think being with someone for a long time means you grow old of them, I’ve just started to fall deeper and deeper in love with Anney, and I don’t see that changing, ever.

It feels so good to have finally found happiness in life. I go to bed every night with a smile on my face and Anney in my mind. I know it sounds like I’m just being repetitive and blogging randomly about being with Anney; however, this isn’t one of those types of posts, I just wanted to say that happiness comes with knowing that the person you love is happy. Every time I see a smile on Anney’s face I can’t help but to smile back. I’m so in love with Anney that I can’t get through a day without taking a look at her picture, without her, I don’t know how I’d survive. Anney’s my happiness, and having other friends who also support me is like a cherry on top.

So I was about to leave for class but decided to check to see if there were new notes up (the prof has been a bit late with notes lately), so I went onto ‘Blackboard’ and found new notes. I saved a copy onto my harddrive and then proceeded to try and print the notes… That’s where the problem came… No matter which program I used to try and print, the program would crash. I decided to stop attempting to print it and go to class… During my ‘lunch’ break I did a little ‘googling’ and found out that there’s driver issue with between many Lexmark printers and Leopard…

I contacted Lexmark and all they could say was that they’re working on updated drivers but don’t have a projected date for release yet, but their website says the drivers for series that my printer belongs to won’t be available until JANUARY 31, 2008. SIGH…. guess my Mac mini will either have to find its way back to OS X 10.4 Tiger from OS X 10.5 Leopard… that or do the workaround that people come up with… which is deleting a file that’s installed along with the driver, I’ll see how it goes…

[edit (October 17, 2007 @ 10:16PM): So I just finished the midterm a few minutes ago, and when I came out and took a look at my notes, I realized that for every question that I doubted myself on, I ended up putting down the wrong answer. I feel so stupid right now.]

[edit (October 12, 2007 @ 12:00PM): So I went to bed last night, without taking a Lorazepam. I figured since I haven't sleep in for a few nights, that I should be able to sleep without it, and I did. Had a fairly good night's sleep, but I still feel a bit tired, so I think I might just take a nap this later today. =P Hopefully everyhing goes well from here.]

[edit (October 12, 2007 @ 3:26PM): So I got back to my room, and now I've decided not to take a nap...]

[edit (October 10, 2007 @ 11:00AM): Anney, when you see this, I want you to know that I love you, and if you're the only person I get to spend time with, then so be it, you're more important than anyone else!! And I'm happy that I get to spend time with you.]

[edit (October 2, 2007 @ 1:07PM): We got it done at about 4AM that night, took a bit longer to get the layout to work when printed, but all in all, it was 28 pages of A grade report, in my opinion that is.]

[edit (September 28, 2007 @ 9:49AM): OK, so my very first replacement battery that couldn't be shipped to my PO box was returned to Apple via the courier (I already knew this). Then Apple had another battery sent out that was supposed to go directly to the service provider and then to me, however, for some strange reason, the courier shipped the second replacement battery back to Apple too. So now that that's been settled, Apple is going to send out another replacement battery and we'll see where it'll go from there.]

[edit (September 19, 2007 @ 12:16PM): So I finally got through to UTSC's financial aid office and they told me they cancelled the application, and then I went back to OSAP's website and felt like an idiot. I just realized that I always just looked about the summary page of my OSAP applications, I never really clicked the 'check status' button which gives more detail, but nonetheless, my UTSC OSAP application has been cancelled, so I'll be getting it soon.. well of course I have to pick it up from the registrar first before I get any money.]

So just a few minutes ago I got off the phone with Apple’s Phone tech support and they’re sending me a replacement battery!! You really can’t beat Apple’s tech support, all they did was ask a few questions then make some notes, confirm with me that their notes are correct them they asked for shipping information and told me that I should expect a new batter within a week or so. They only catch is that I have to ship back my defective battery back to them with 10 days otherwise they’ll charge me for the battery.

Yay!! New MacBook battery on its way to me!! No more random shutdown’s in class!!

[edit (September 13, 2007 @ 10:13PM): My housemate has a MacBook Pro and his battery is totally trashed, I mean it has just over 1500mAh, that's probably less than 50% of its original charge capacity. However, the phone support technician that he got told him to fill in a form, send it in, and then they'd mail him a new battery. I guess I got lucky, I mean, I didn't have to file in a form, the phone support technician just told me that she ordered a new battery to be shipped to me and I had to ship the old one back.]

[edit (September 18, 2007 @ 2:0PM): So I went online to DHL's website to track shipping for my MacBook's replacement battery and found out that they 'need additional information'. So I went ahead and called DHL and they told me I had to call Apple because only they're authorized to make any changes to Apple related shipments. Then I called Apple and found out that DHL doesn't ship to PO boxes... and after having spent a about 15 minutes on the phone with the phone support agent (who was really nice, by the way), I got apple to ship the battery to a Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) instead. The service provider they're sending it to is Synergenics and from what I remember about the staff there from the last time I went (had to get my heatsink replaced), they're pretty nice. I really glad that this worked out, otherwise I don't know how I would've gotten that replacement battery, I'm kind of getting tired of having my MacBook shutdown on my when it clearly says there's 30 minutes left of charge.]

[edit (September 13, 2007 @ 7:37AM): Apparently my cousin called my mom one night and my mom just decided to let her come stay in my room. WHAT THE HECK?! Argh, you'd think she'd at least ask me for my opinion and tell me what the circumstances are before she gave up my room... AHHH *dies*]

[edit (September 13, 2007 @ 10:10PM): I called home today and according to my mom, my cousin called her and suggested staying in my room and since my grandma was sitting in front of her she couldn't say no. Nonetheless, I would've appreciated it if my mom had called me and at least informed me about it first, wouldn't even matter if she didn't ask me if I would let my cousin stay in my room. Sigh...]

Maple TA, the online java program we use to do online calculus quizzes is getting on my nerves, it requires such specific input, not to mention so mention the java engine seems so damn slow. I had to do the first online quiz a few times because I was typing in periods instead of commas by accident. I have feeling it’s gonna happen a lot this year.

[edit (September 11, 2007 @ 1:56PM): Sigh, so asides for the good news with profs being nice and courses seeming not too hard the rest of my day is kind of just 'bleh'. Sigh, U of G needs me to pay 25% of my tuition as I wait for my OSAP to come, and after I pay my tuition and books I have practically no money in my account. =(]

[edit (September 10, 2007 @ 8:32PM): My chemistry prof uses a mac and on top of that he seems pretty nice; although I'm feeling a bit iffy about his new 'introduce, reinforce, and master' concept of teaching, maybe it'll prove to be interesting. Too bad chem is where the good news ends for me. I went to pickup my OSAP today and lo and behold, it was even here yet; reason being that I had applied for OSAP for the U of G and for UTSC because I had planned to transfer and now I'm not able to contact UTSC to cancel my application there because they're too busy and I can't get my OSAP here until they cancel it there. Man, this sucks, how am I going to pay for school now?]

The games I got my DS Lite are Brain Age²: More Training in Minutes a Day!, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tables, and Cooking Mama.

Brain Age²: More Training in Minutes a Day!
Brain Age is is pretty cool, it measures the ‘age’ of your brain, and on my first measurement of my brain’s ‘age’ was 77!! What the heck, my brain’s 57 years older than I am, makes me want to cry. *sniff* Anyways, it also has some ‘training’ exercises to help your brain be younger, after a few days my brain is now 38… hehe

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales
Chocobo Tales is a RPG like game with mini games and card duels. I haven’t even scratched the surface of this game, but so far I’ve played a few of the mini games and they’re pretty good!! I’m looking forward to playing this game more.

Cooking Mama
Cooking Mama is a pretty cool game, it was totally worth me and Anney looking for it in 2 malls!! Cooking Mama is based on ‘cooking’ different dishes, one can choose from simple recipes like making ‘instant ramen’ to more complicated dishes like ‘curry pork’.

I’m so love with my DS Lite, I’m sure it’ll come in handy when I have to wait in line for stuff or kill time.

[edit (September 5, 2007 @ 8:53PM): Okay, so according to Anney, I'm almost done packing, just need to pack up my computer stuff, but since I'll be using that stuff till the last minute, it doesn't really count.]

[edit (September 1, 2007 @ 2:52PM): Almost done packing, just need to pack some computer stuff that's still in use and go get some stuff that I need, then I'll be done packing.]

[edit (August 30, 2007 @ 20:13): Out of boredom I've started to manually input each post from my previous blog.][edit (August 30, 2007 @ 21:08): Everything's imported, and back where it should be]

[edit (January 10, 2008 @ 00:45): I decided that those posts were irrelevant and deleted them.] 

[edit (January 14, 2008 @ 12:41): I decided to delete everything I imported because I don't it's an accurate representation of the current me.]