Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

READ, READ, READ!!!

I realized how much reading I've been skipping. I seriously need to start cracking on those readings. I know i might not be able to catch up, but it's better now than a week before my midterm exam. Hopefully, I'll get as much as possible in my head.

Labs are so frustrating! Especially when you have 4 of them and sometimes you forget which is which. So far, I've screwed up all my labs this week, and I have a feeling that I'll screw up tomorrow's microbiology lab, just because it's microbiology. Today's chem lab was kind of stupid, though it was pretty straight forward. I messed up one of the steps pretty bad because I accidentally added 5mL extra of 6M HCL to our experiment. Technically it didn't matter much, but it's weird having a different colour solution than everyone else. Also, when I was trying to turn on the Bunsen burner, I had trouble AGAIN. This time, it wasn't about my lack of skills with the sparkler. Apparently, i stuck the ube to the 'air' facet, not the gas one. That was pretty embarrassing. FML

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

I don't like Tuesdays very much...

Tuesdays are the days where I can't take any naps. Tuesdays are the days where I can't eat proper meals. Tuesdays are the days where I start at 8:30am and end at 9pm. I hate you, Tuesdays.

Today's lectures were not as bad as yesterday because I actually was able to stay awake. The lab, on the other hand, was a big fail. We had to draw 7 figures of different species within 3 hours. When there were 10 minutes left, Viv L and I were still scrambling through our last two slides. For our last slide, we found a really nicely stained, bug/lobster-looking species. Without any hesitation, we started drawing that figure. Ryan came by and saw our species and was shocked because it was so different from his. He then showed us a picture in our textbook - apparently it was supposed to look like a flower, not a bug! We immediately asked our TA to come and help us take a look. When she first saw our half-drawn diagram, she gave us the "what the fuck" look and started laughing. Luckily, she found us the species and we somehow finished cramming everything together. Boy, that was embarrassing...

I found out that some people are having their econ midterm/term test on Friday. So, currently I don't have a ride back to Toronto. Worse comes to worse, I'll have to take the FED bus, which is a regular yellow school bus [YUCK!]. Hopefully, I could find someone that I could leech a ride off, or at least someone to take the FED bus with me.

Monday, September 28th, 2009

It's only been the third week of school and we're already pulling an all nighter. Sad thing was only 2 out of 4 of us finished.

The day went by really slow as I kept on falling asleep in my lectures. The only thing that was running through my head was "when will this lecture be done?" The BIOL 130L lab was a a big fail. We had to mark another's lab report, but there were a lot of questions. It was quite surprising how there were people who don't know how to write a proper lab report. What's amusing was that people did not read the instruction properly. My report was a big mess and at times, I feel bad for deducting the marks.

Viv L, who had lack of sleep, found out who had her lab report. The guy who had her lab report kept asking the TA [teacher assistants] if he need to deduct marks. Viv L got really pissed off and started being really picky with HER lab report [she had the lab report of the guy's friend]. The point of this exercise is to mark another's lab report and try to get as close to the mark that the TA will give them. she ended up almost failing the guy's report. The way Viv L acted was priceless. I guess that's the result of lack of sleep.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Everyone is cramming for their lab report for tomorrow. We [Nathan, Viv L. and I] are in Victor and Christian's room working on our lab reports. I'm done my report, though I don't know what to put for the 'linker'. Now I need to finish my flow chart, which is straight copying. Okay, work time again.

Saturday, Spetember 26th, 2009

Today was packed with things to do, unlike the previous Saturday. I went to my ortho in the morning to have my check up. Apparently, I'm getting my braces off 3 weeks later. After, I went to Kim's birthday party. This was the only time where I didn't stay late [that means staying for dinner] because I had a baby shower to attend to. Even though I didn't stay long, I got to see a lot of my friends that I haven't seen them when school started. The baby shower was a waste of time, though the food was quite good. I would rather use those few hours to work on my lab report that's due on Monday. But on a second thought, if I didn't go to the baby shower, I would've stayed at Kim's place, and do nothing. So, either way, I wouldn't have done anything. I guess seeing all [well, most] of my friends in Toronto was worth it. I'll just pull a late night tomorrow.

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Back in Toronto again! Except, this time my weekend is actually packed. I left my keys to my friends so they can have a sleep over at MKV. Okay, have to get back to work...

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

It's only 9:35pm right now, and I'm dying to sleep.

I woke up at 7:00am today just so that I could get my free breakfast from my Don. We had banana pancakes, which was worth waking up for. But the day went downhill from there. Usually, after my 8:30am-9:20am class, I go back to MKV to take a nap before I go to my next class at 1130am. Today was different because I had a Chem tutorial, which filled up the 2 hours between my two classes. What sucks more was that I had a lab in the afternoon as well.

Today's lab was about microbiology. Even though labs are far more interesting than lectures and tutorials, it can be quite frustrating at the same time. We were required to examine 4 different kinds of microorganisms. Most of us had trouble staining and finding the organism. When the clock struck 4pm [the lab started at 2:30pm and ends at 5:20], I was still on my first slide. Luckily, I was able to finish the lab despite of the many struggles that I had. I guess labs aren't my thing...

On another note, I am getting better in using the bunsen burner. In Ward, we were not allowed to use the bunsen burner and instead, used the hot plate instead. In university, we are forced to use the bunsen burner. At first, it was pretty embarrassing because it'll take me at least a minute for me to get the fire started. For some reason, the bunsen burner makes me feel a bit 'mature' since Ward kind of sheltered us by not letting us use it. I have to be extra careful and not let my lab coat burn, especially when I was on my own to do today's lab. In fact, this realization triggered the reality - the fact that I'm an university student. More importantly, I'm not a kid anymore because I'm all grown up. It took me around 2 and a half weeks to figure this out and get things sorted. I guess it's better later than never.

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Today was amazing because I only had 2 classes. It was a nice day to catch up on some work. I finished all the quizzes that I have to complete, which was pretty good. Though, for my chemistry lab quiz, i got marks deducted because I didn't enter a period in one of the fill-in-the-blanks. This sucks cause it lowered my mark a lot since it was only out of 6. So I emailed my teacher and she noticed the problem. She said that she'll fix the mark when she's grading.

At 6pm, Viv L., Ryan and I went to an mini orientation for biology major students. I learned a lot of interesting things, and of course, new friends. The only sad thing is that I realized that I have to take physics next term. Although I'm bummed about it, I kind of knew it was coming. I could skip the whole physics part if I want, and still graduate, but I need to know physics for the MCAT test. So now, it's the matter of staying stubborn and refuse to take physics, or suck it up and take the damn course so I could do the MCAT test. I really don't want to do it, but I want to do the MCAT just incase I 'miraculously' get into Med-school. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to do the MCAT test, for backup if anything, but at the same time, it's PHYSICS. Oh man, life sucks...

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Oh my God! I actually forgot to blog for Tuesday because I had night class. Oh well, nothing much happened that day so it's all good.

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Today was very hard to get through because I didn't have a good night sleep. But it was all good because my microbiology lecture for shortened by half and hour. It was like Christmas since I was able to take a nap because I go to my biol 130L lab. The lab was actually the first formal lab that I did in Waterloo. It was pretty straight forward and fun - nothing too complicated. I hope that all my other labs for the remainder of the week will be just as fun and straight forward.

One thing that pissed me off tonight was the stupid Psychology survey. There were 40 sections, each section containing about 10 questions. It said that it'll take only an hour to complete this survey, but I ended up taking two hours. The sad thing is that when I reached the 39th section, the system logged me out because I've reached the time limit. I never knew there was a time limit to begin with! I ended up redoing the whole damn survey, except this time I didn't give a crap about it checked off random circles. All of this work for just 1%...

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Back in Waterloo today.

The trip to Toronto seemed really short, probably because I didn't get to see my family that much. We came back to Waterloo earlier today because we want to participate in the ballroom dancing club. It was really fun, but I don't know if I have the time to do it. After dancing, a bunch of us went to crash CLV's BBQ. All of us were not satisfied and were still pretty hungry. So, we decided to go back to MKV to cook some dinner. That was pretty much summarize the whole day.

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

Today, I had fun driving around the city and finishing what I had to do. I picked up Vivian C and Vivian L to get some curling equipments. After, I went to Vivian L's house to chill. I realized that I really need a haircut, so I decided to take a trip to the salon and get one. Mariel texted me and said she wants to me get an invitation from her. So I went all the way down to her place [which is really REALLY far!] and got my invite. At first, I thought I got lost because Ellesmere started to get really isolated. I even went pass UTSC on the way there.

It's really sad how today was my first full day back in Toronto, and my mom told me this morning that I have to eat dinner alone. My mom needed to work, and my grandfather and my brother went to the chinese opera. I was lucky enough to stay for dinner at Vivian and Kim's place.

Okay, back to reading... =(

Friday, September 18th, 2009

First week of school is done! I'm glad that I actually survived this week, although I know that next week is gonna be worse.

I like my Fridays because I only have two classes to go to. Technically, I finished at 1:30pm, but I had to wait for the others to finish their classes to leave for Toronto. We left Waterloo around 6:30pm and reached Toronto Around 8:30pm. The rest of the night was pretty much relaxing, though I do regret not reading or work on some chemistry. Oh well.

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

-> San pressuring me to give her my iPod Touch. Thanks San, you made my day. =)

So I decided to put the date for my title instead because I tend to miss blogging or blog after 12am. I guess it's more convenient when I actually look back at this blog. [And because I'm running out of ideas for title names]

The first week of school is almost done and I can't wait to sleep in. All I've been doing was reading, reading, and more reading. It's sad to know that next week and the week after is gonna be much worse because my labs begins. After this blog, I still have a few pages to read before I go to bed. Sad, eh?

Some people asked me if I miss home yet. The answer is no, but I do miss all my friends in Toronto. What does it feel like? I guess it's indescribable because technically I'm not going away for a trip. I could say that my feelings are neutral right now, which is probably a good thing. The only thing I kinda doubt is my choice in program. Maybe it's just the beginning and that I need to adapt to it. I hope things turn out better because I really don't know how long I could last for or if I could make it to the end.

It's All the Textbook's Fault

Wow, I actually forgot to blog yesterday because I was so busy reading my BIOL 130 textbook.

Yesterday was actually pretty tiring because I had my first chemistry lab. That was a big fail because I had trouble finishing my titration/'how to use a burette' exercise. Stupid guide was so misleading and I ended up redoing the exercise. I kept on forgetting to shut the stopcock, so the water kept on running and it never reached 0mL [If you took grade 11 chemistry, you would know what I'm talking about]. Thank god I was at the back of the lab so no one really noticed, but it was quite embarrassing.

After classes, I went back to my residence to do some reading. It took my almost 4 hours to finish 30 pages of cell biology, which was pretty sad. I was going to read a chapter for Psychology, but ended up going to bed because it was getting late and I wanted at least 7 hours of sleep. [I probably got like 6 and a half, damnit]

Feeling the Stress...Already

It's only been the third day of school and it already felt like the hated schedules days in Ward.

Today, I was supposed to have 5 classes to attend, totaling of 9 hours of classes. Luckily, my lab and tutorial were cancelled for this week. I thought Zoology would be the most interesting course that I'm taking right now, but so far I'm hating it. On the other hand, my Cell Biology class is almost like the carbon copy of my grade 12 biology course, which is a great thing! At least I'll understand one of my 5 courses now.

Because of the cancellations, it gave me time to shop for the rest of my books. The line up to get in the bookstore was crazy. Now, I have all my textbooks, lab manuals, and lecture notes. The total amount of money I used for books was not pretty.

I had one night class tonight, which was Psychology. Surprisingly, this course is actually interesting. Sadly, Psychology is the only course that I'm looking forward to because it seemed so easy compared to my 4 other science courses [maybe excluding Cell Biology].

First Day of School

Even though I only had 2 classes today, it was quite tiring. The lectures are so boring and I almost fell asleep during one of them. After the lectures, I realized that I have to buy 2 of my textbooks. The line up for the bookstore was ridiculously long. It's sad that I'm not half done buying my textbooks at the moment. All of the books that I need are sold out in the used bookstore.

Surprisingly, I actually felt sleepy really early tonight. I've been wanting to go to sleep ever since 9:00pm. Tomorrow's gonna be even worse because I have a total of 9 hours of classes. It's sucks because I heard that clubs sign ups were tomorrow as well. Must find a solution to it...

And the Hell Begins Tomorrow

Today was like a 'meet our parents' day because all of our parents came to Waterloo to visit us. [Well, with the exception of Kenneth because he went back a few days ago.] Each family brought in a lot of food and groceries, so much that at one point, we had a hard time of rearranging the things in our fridges. [Yes, we had to bring an extra fridge.] I think we have more food here than in my own apartment in Toronto. With that amount of food, I think it could last us for a couple of weeks.

I went out for lunch with my family and we had chinese food. We wanted to see if the chinese food here were any good. Even though the looks of the food were not as appetizing, it was surprisingly good. When all of our parents left, we were supposed to visit the mall, but that didn't happen. So we stayed in our residence for the rest of the afternoon. As always, we had some of our friends over and a few stayed for dinner.

School starts tomorrow and as always, I'm not excited at all. Though, I think sleeping earlier would be a good idea since I've been sleeping really late lately.

Last Day of Frosh

As expected, I had muscle aches all over my legs so I decided to rest for the day. The day started out pretty bad because leaders were knocking on our doors and hitting pots and pans very loudly to wake us up and make us go to the events. Since I slept at 4am last night, I decided to just ignore them and go back to sleep. The events for today wasn't that interesting anyways. I only went out to eat dinner because we were running out of food.

Today was pretty much a waste of time. I should've went back to Toronto if I knew earlier. Oh well, I guess it's good to take a day off.

Leader Chase - Revenge or Torture? [September 11th]

Fire drill at 9:45am - not cool.

The day started out pretty relax. I decided to skip out on all the activities in the morning and in the afternoon because I heard that it was just mock lectures and stuff. At first, I was looking forward to the Leader Chase. Basically, it a game of manhunt, except we have to carry them back to the Link for points. Our leaders told us that this was the chance to get back at other leaders who've been teasing us. But at the same time, it felt like a torture because all of the leaders that we caught were quite heavy and there were only the 2 of us, Viv L and me. This was like the workout of the year. Some leaders were very sneaky and purposely made it harder for us to carry them back. Some female leaders were deceivingly heavy, despite of their petit size. After the game, I was pretty much guaranteed to have sore aches on every part of my body.

After the Chase, we had a dance for students of science faculty only. It was great! We had some freezies, took a lot of plastic flowers since it's hawaiian-themed, and met some new friends.

People came over to our place after the dance and we chilled until 4:00am. We played poker [Viv L totally dominated], did our science dance [chyeah!] and played video games. Viv L. decided to stay for the night because it was getting late and we don't want her to bike back to her resident, which is really, really, REALLY far away.

Back-to-back parties means lack of sleep. Thank god frosh week is almost over.

The Blog for September 10th

I ended up waking up at around 11:30am yesterday morning. I decided to make myself a grilled cheese for lunch, with a cup of milk. It wasn't that great because I used processed cheese, but whatever, it was easy to make. After, I went to SLC to meet up with some people. There, I saw Harry and Vivian L with their friends. Then, I decided to chill with Ryan, Charlene, Jessica, Eliz, and Katie. We went back to UWP, which is like on the other side of the campus, to check out their rooms. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. An interesting thing that happened was when Charlene lost, or should I say, misplaced her keys. So we went back to the SLC to see if she dropped it somewhere. She ended up finding it on top of the water bottles at her place when she went back to double check. Owned much?

After, we got ready to go to Monte Carlo, which is a semi formal dance with a casino [not real gambling of course] It was pretty cool and we met a lot of friends and old friends. Apparently, Agatha went to Waterloo as well! I swear she was at York, but she told me that she changed her mind. When we were lining up to get in, there was a drunkard who randomly started to talk to me and 3 of my korean friends. He went on explaining his life and how asian people have weird names. Then he asked us what's our 'asian' name. Of course, I made up one on the spot, saying my name was Ho Lee [yes, the guy from 'Single and Sexy' for anyone who watched it]. That was probably the highlight of the day.

Inside Monte Carlo, Laura jumped and hugged me from behind. At first, I was so shocked and thought "Who's that crazy girl?" It was nice reuniting with people that I haven't seen for a long time.

Monte Carlo was supposed to end at 1am, but Chris, Ryan and I decided to go back to residence around 11pm. As the night progresses, more people came visit one after another. We ended up having 9 people over. I guess I could call it a party. Within the group, we made new friends and had a chance to share emails and phone numbers. Around 2am, there was ANOTHER white drunkard who was trying to find a jam with booze. At first, it was pretty scary because we though it was our Don explaining to us that we're being too loud. I quickly kicked the drunkard out of our room because we never know what he'll end up doing.

As a matter of fact, it was Ryan's birthday. The 3 girls from our building decided to make a Nutella Bread Cake for Ryan. Ryan didn't really like the idea of eating too much sweet, so we all helped him finishing it. In the end, the people ended up leaving at 3:30am. HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!

GAGS = Mission Impossible

"Sine, sine, cosine, sine,

Three point one four one five nine!" - Math cheer that was use for a game of broken telephone.

The morning portion of the day was pretty much boring because of the lectures and speeches. The fun began when we played Go and Get Stuff [aka GAGS]. GAGS is basically a scavenger hunt, but there's a twist to it. Most of the things listed were quite impossible to find. We had to do thrillers, cheers and all of those crap to please our judge so we'll get more points. Since some of the things are impossible to find, we were told to use our imagination. Vivian L, Michael and I went back to my res to find anything that meets the requirements of the game. One of the thing listed was chopsticks with chinese writings on it. So we took a pair of disposable wooden chopstick and wrote random chinese characters with a sharpie. For 'an World Cup', we drew and wrote 'the world' on a styrofoam cup.

There were a lot of walking around the campus today. We basically walked from the northern part of the campus, to the southern part, and back. I didn't stay long at the Bonfire at night because I was extremely tired and wanted to rest my legs. The good news is, I get to sleep in tomorrow!

So Tired!

It's 12:50am in the morning and I am falling asleep. Today's frosh was filled with events and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The most important thing is that I got cool gifts and freebies! [Joking!] The night before, I found out that Vivian L. was in my orientation group. I was glad that I have someone to chill with. During the orientation, she introduced me to one of her friend, Michael. We learned some cheers, learned a dance, and had a chance to watch an hypnotizing show. The show was extremely funny, though I think half of the people there were faking it.

Okay, I'm really REALLY tired right now. I think this is enough, though i might polish this up later on if I have time.

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY! =)

Frosh - Day 1

Water, water, water! ... Loo, loo, loo!

Water, water, water! ... Loo, loo, loo!

Water! ... Loo!

Water! ... Loo!

Water, water, water! ... Loo, loo, loo!

That's basically our cheer...

Frosh was pretty interesting. It was kind of like Oasis at Ward, but just with a larger amount of people. It was quite interactive, as the MC forces us to meet new people. I guess it was alright, but I kind of feel bad because I don't remember half of the people I met. Hopefully, I'll bump into one of those people and get to know them better.

We played many games and did a lot of rotations. One thing that still lingers in my mind is during one of the games where a pair link their arms with their backs together. One of my partner was a really bulky football player. So, he locked his arms to his sides and begins to lead the way [more like dragging me around]. For the next minute or so, I was literally being dragged on my heels. Not fun at all...

Tomorrow, the faculty has a chance to host some [nerdy, in my case] events for their students. Boy, I can't wait...*rolls eyes*

The First Day

It's hard to believe that I'm an university student already. Waterloo is definitely different from Toronto, environment wise...

Moving in was quite simple and easy. The volunteer works at Waterloo were really helpful. The room I'm living in is quite roomy. After all, it's the most expensive residents in campus. The Dons [aka dorm supervisors] hosted a gamenight. Met some new friends, played this weird game [forgot what it's called] and table tennis. That's about it.

It's funny how I received about 14 calls from my family and it hasn't been 24 hours yet. I don't think I miss them, my friends and Toronto a whole not at this moment because it feels like any other overnight field trip I had in the past years.

On another note, frosh officially starts tomorrow, and I am not looking forward to it. Why? Because all the events sounds so nerdy.

The Night Before

Excited to move in? Nah…
Ready for school? Not really…
Finished packing? Not quite…

For the past few months [more like for the past year], everyone’s been hyping about going to university. And now, this will become the reality in a few hours. I don’t know why, but I am not excited for university at all. Yes, I got into the program I want and the school I want to go to, but there’s something different and something missing. Perhaps, it might be the lack of chilling in Toronto because of my 5-week trip to China. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re all going separate ways, or the fact that we were once on the top of the hierarchy and now we’re back to the bottom in our new environment, just like the transition between elementary school to high school.

Back to the packing business, it looks like I’ll have to wake up extra early in the morning just to finish/double check all my things. There are still some things on top of my luggage that needs to be packed at the moment and I don’t think I’m gonna touch it anytime soon…