green ribbon

If there's one thing that I enjoy doing and is pretty good at, it's gift wrapping.

Pretty proud of how this turned out :]
(I doubt Jason follows my blog and he's asleep by now~)

photonic

The first month of school is always a busy time. Schedule starts to relax around mid October as initial motivation runs out. But will pick up yet again in late November as university applications becomes available.

A quick check in with marks:
math is doing well (100/100/97).
physics could be better (94/unknown).
chem definitely can be better, stupid inequality signs -o-" (70, only quiz mark though).
earth&space science has the most ambiguously worded test ever(unknown/unknown).
English all depends on current assignment and quiz this Thursday.
Tech can only hover around 95, but gonna put more effort in my drawings.

and now back to these

financial management

Extracurricular is srs buziness.

情字何解 怎落笔都不对

Study drink is tea/earl grey latte (out of milk and yet to find vanilla syrup).
Study songs are either instrumental or Jay Chou.
 I am so slow at writing, English will be the death of me.

Distinctly remember posting this up before, but couldn't find it. Always worth a second mention though ;D

兰亭序 周杰伦 

兰亭临帖 行书如行云流水  
月下门棰 心细如你脚步碎  
忙不迭 千年碑易拓 却难拓你的美  
剩几阕 真心能给谁  
  
牧笛横吹 黄酒小菜有几碟  
夕阳余晖 如你的羞怯似醉  
我本已写 而墨香不退淤泥都有余味  
一竿朱砂 到底揭了谁  

无花风月 我提取的泥灰  
悬笔欲绝 那岸边浪千叠  
情字何解 怎落笔都不对  
而我独缺 你一生的了解  
无花风月 我提取的泥灰  
悬笔欲绝 那岸边浪千叠  
情字何解 怎落笔都不对  
而我独缺 你一生的了解  

弹指岁月 轻唱清歌净延绵  
青丝半截 回眸一笑你婉约  
恨了美 你摇铜镜叹 谁让你蹙秀眉  
而声回 徒留胭脂味  

人雁南飞 转身欲别离溅泪  
菊已八月 收揽回忆怎么睡  
又怎么会 心事密封搜刮谁睁着眼对  
落花怨蝶 你会怨着谁  

无花风月 我提取的泥灰  
悬笔欲绝 那岸边浪千叠  
情字何解 怎落笔都不对  
而我独缺 你一生的了解  

无花风月 我提取的泥灰  
手书无愧 无惧人间是非  
雨的蕉叶 又消瘦了几夜  
我等着泪 来提醒你爱谁

Feynman's Rainbow

Just finished this book and want to share some of Richard Feynman's words of wisdom. Good practice jotting down inspirational passages from my leisure readings in preparation for the English IRP.

On how to stay motivated in the face of difficult problems:

I fool myself into thinking I have an extra chance. That I have something to contribute. Otherwise I may as well wait for him to do it, whoever it is.

Tried this before the math test today, got me oh so close to answering the last question.

On how to not spoil your happiness:

She taught me that one has to irrational sometimes. That doesn't men stupid, it just means that there are occasions, situations, you should think about, and others you shouldn't ... My rule is when you are unhappy, think about it. But when you're happy, don't. Why spoil it? You're probably happy for some ridiculous reason and you'd just spoil to know it.

qft.

Lastly, the book includes a quotation from Einstein that appears in Zen & Motorcycle Maintenance (which is also on my reading list):

Man tries to make himself in the fashion that suit him best, a simplified and intelligible picture of the world ... and thus to overcome it ... He makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life in order to find in this way the peace and serenity which he cannot find in the whirlpool of personal experience

optical properties

I like the rain.

Rainy days make the progression of time seem slower. I do everything at a slower pace, and in between notice how pretty things are. Appreciation is nice.



It's also nice how the rain subtlety paints everything the colour of the sunset. In the duration of time from when I took this photo to typing this sentence, the sky has changed from this mauve-ish purple to a grey-ed out navy. Considered describing the colours as mixtures of watercolour paints, but I haven't touched those since the summer @_@ Also an apology as the colour in the photo is photoshop enhanced. There was a great difference in what camera picked up and my perceived reality.

And now the sky has turned into an almost-black.

ouroboros

Past few days feel like an endless queue of work to be done, which is not far from reality. This is not a full fledged complaint, yet. I actually feel energized while working on the tasks (like learning about electron orbitals ;D), only realize how tired I am during the short breaks in between (like now).

Should be all goood. Schoolwork has yet to pick up, the majority of my stress is coming from scholarship applications, rather, application. Loran award, such a far shot haha. It should be a helpful process though, forces me to evaluate my accomplishments over the past few years and start a mad dash to fill up missing areas, like music. Never guessed that this day would come, but I'm going to learn some basic theory and hopefully be able to play a certain Jay Chou song on piano. Putting it out here so I can't lazy out of it.

The first month has yet to be over, woah. TV shows, fall anime season and Noblesse arc 3 is starting, distractions are all set in place, time to start working ;D

edit: and for even more distraction, I've revived my tumblr. For efficient work, I need as good quality material to browse through on break as the work I'm trying to produce. Hopefully there will be some sort of theme to my postings on there as well. 

honeysuckle buds

Out goes summer and in comes autumn.

Autumn brings some pretty wonderful things with it, like cozy sweaters, rustic soup, roasted meat, long knit scarfs, and hiding under thick duvets. But one of the best things about the cooling temperature is the feeling of holding a steaming cup of tea in your hands. Whether it's traditional Chinese tea in a terracotta mug, earl grey latte from starbucks (must learn to make this at home!),
or this awesome package designed bagged tea:

via: yankodesign.com

starry skies

This week was a cycle of feeling incompetent and motivated, hopefully it'll stay on the high. Scholarship applications will drain a lot of energy, it's a battle of willpower fought with essays and accomplishment lists.

Completely unrelated, brief anime talk.

No. 6 just ended. Last episode was majorly rushed, so many different emotions in the span of mere minutes. Overall I found the series quite enjoyable, especially since Sion, the main character, is actually capable.

Now to wait for Hanasaku Iroha's bonbori festival~

slumber

I vaguely remember setting a goal to sleep more years ago. Guess what, I've finally gotten around to it! ;D It took a painful combination of shad sleep deprivation, grueling internship hours, and the fact that Jason sleeps so darn early.

Well kind of. I kick myself off the computer earlier enough to be able to turn off the lights before 11:00pm (note the sig figs). However I usually squeeze my daily reading time in there and end up sleeping at 11:30pm, which is still half an hour earlier. Nice.

Two good things come out from this habit change.
Firstly, despite waking up still being equally painful, at least I stay awake once I do wake up. No more dozing off in class! This is partially helped by having a highly energetic physics teacher in the morning.
Secondly, more reading done! This, like almost every other thought in this entry, comes with an exception. The Hamlet study guides that I borrowed before summer even ended have yet to be opened. Going through other books though! Currently have a biography on Richard Feynman and one in which Stephan Hawking and Roger Penrose argues about the nature of space-time. Appropriate as I wrote on my physics introduction assignment that I hope this course helps me understand popular science better.

Also appropriate is this awesome math doodle video that Ryan showed me:

bayonnaise

Happy Mid Autumn Festival :]


Funny how my family decided to celebrate by eating out at Le Montmartre, a French restaurant, with some family friends, their idea haha.

Fresh flowers! The restaurant is pretty plain from the outside, but the interior is quite nice. Bonus points for the owner, who's actually french, being personally present. Our waiter is also quite good, a pleasant break from dealing with other much less than professional and full of attitude service personnel.

Anyways, all that would amount to nothing if the restaurant's bread is not good.

T'was delicious, the perfect combination of a crusty exterior and a fluffy interior. We all liked it so much that an additional basket was brought out during the main course.
psst Rui, we gotta come here sometimes XD

Les cœurs d’artichauts vinaigrette
Decided to be adventurous and try out an unique appetizer, artichoke hearts. It was alright, a tad sour but not a bad thing in my books as I'm use to sour asian appetizers.

Sauteed grouper filet with a tomato sauce. (couldn't find this on the menu on their website o_o)

I apologize for the LQ photo, sun was setting and the light got pretty bad. 
Fish was gooood, cooked to just the right tenderness. The portions of everything is just right as well, there's always more delicious bread if you feel hungry afterwards haha.

Lemon Sorbet

Something nice and light for a chaser~

the blue sky starts to change colour deeply

I discovered Suneohair through Honey&Clover (Waltz was and will be my ringtone forever and ever), though more of you might know him by Arakawa (ed 1&2). Regardless he is awesome and deserve to be known more ;D


(translations here)
すれ違うばかりの通りに
響かない乾いた声
ちょうどノイズと無音の真中
そんな感じ

並んだ影は
混ざり合ってるけど
染みこむように薄らいで
消えてる

思うよりも早く世界はまわってる
急がなきゃこのままここで
ぼやいてる時間も無いさ

知らない誰かの噂で
気づけば踏み場も無いほど
それでも夕暮れ色づいて
優しく包んでみせる

高い鉄塔の上に吹いてる
遠くから来る風に
飛んで行きたいな

すごいスピードで
瞬きも出来ずに
まるで時間は止まってる
間違い無く動いている

思うよりも遥か
遠くに霞んでる
昨日を思うよりも
すぐに明日がやってくる

ああ 君はどんな空を見てるだろう
すれ違い紛れてく中に一人
そう どこで何を考えてるだろう
空は青く深く色を変えてゆくさ

そう 僕らが思うよりも早く
世界はまわってる
急がなきゃこのままで
止まってもいられないな

すごいスピードで
瞬きも出来ずに
まるで時間は止まってる
間違い無く動いている

ああ 君はどんな空を見てるだろう
すれ違い紛れてく中に一人
そう どこで何を考えてるだろう
空は青く深く色を変えてゆくさ

4U

First week of grade 12 has gone by and I have not made a post about the subject. Bit of a problem as I had the plans to document my struggles and triumph as the end of my highschool days approach.

So far it hasn't been as busy as I anticipated, mostly because Advance Functions is barely past review stages. Still doing my homework diligently ;D One improvement over the previous years is that I'm not skipping over questions in which my answer doesn't match the textbooks. My hypothesis is that if I check homework more carefully, I will be able to do so on tests and avoid getting marks off from negative signs.

Clubs have yet to pick up either. Planning to dramatically concentrate my efforts this year in Engineering Club and WCC. I will, for sure, not have useless meetings in engineering and have more in club events (shad being the inspirations for a lot of them, thank you so much for sunday engineering challenges).

Speaking of shad (and I will be continuing to talk about that for soooo long to come, it's actually really close to a life changing experience that I'm only beginning to truly appreciate), I really miss being in a room where every single person tries to make the most of out of whatever's currently happening. The positivity really feeds off one another, I remember people going to their 3rd choice seminars and coming back the very least not bored. Heck I even paid full attention in biology focused lectures which I would otherwise just tune out at school. Though attention is not a concern this year as 7/8 courses are electives which I'm interested in.
I've gone off topic, the reason why I brought this up is because in shad (reason why my house group had so much conflict), or even enriched English last year, it doesn't feel awkward raising your hand and talking all the time. But in the science classes that I really like and want to ramble on and on in, I'm thinking "how many questions should go by before it's not awkward again to answer". As my current English would say, it's not students fault but rather the education system etc etc etc (this is a whole discussion for another day).

...blah don't think the above paragraph is an accurate representation of what I have in my head. This is another really big problem, I have trouble expressing myself when it comes to my opinions. Perhaps this is how my impression of uncaring formed to Alex, maybe I subconsciously avoid having to express opinions. Problem acknowledged and will work towards problem fixed.

go second week gooooo.

17 years

So the year has revolved again to the day of my birth.
The specialness wears off bit by bit every time haha. It's still loads of fun celebrating with friends&family, and using it as leverage against them ;D

And so, since it is my birthday today, I ask thee to listen to this awesome and ridiculously catchy song about physics ;D
(Jason told me to do something fun rather than chem hmwrk, so blame him)


and also listen to Richard Feynman (maaaaajor contribution to physics) talk!

this summer

So what do I do on the last day of summer vacation? Anticipate Final Fantasy Versus XIII. The song is fantastic *u*
Shall lessen the pains of waiting with XIII and XIII-2 (which you will get right Sean? ;D).

In more productive terms, I'm all ready for school in terms of supplies. Tis the year of sticky notes and quality writing instruments (in which the lazy me has resorted to Staedler and Sakura fine liners).

shopping ban until boxing day

^don't think that's toooo unrealistic.

Recent damages:
From PMall trip/two people shad reunion with Cynthia ;D

Totoro bag for school! A surprisingly good find from Smart Maple. It's roomy, shows an aspect of my interests, and durable enough to survive me launching it across the hallway :]
The folder has a panda AND four leaf clover, how could I say no?

From a highly productive shopping trip with my mom. It's so much more relaxing shopping with parents haha.

Thick grey cardigan from Zara, think red cardigan from Esprit (could have gotten a cheaper one from Zara as well...), tights from Smart Set, and shorts from AE (40% off yuhhh).

I realized the majority of the items are grey. This is not helping my predominately black & white clothing, which perhaps can be an excuse for some colourful scarf shopping (after boxing day of course).


Desert boots from Aldo.
Was deciding between these or combat boots, decided on the latter but ended up with the former. Productive.
Anyways I loveeeee them ;D The heel provide a nice height boost while being low enough that it feels like walking with a flat shoe. Been wanting a pair of suede shoes for a while too, they look and feel very nice. Only downside is that the material is extremely high maintenance, this baby isn't going anywhere near rough weather conditions. Though it's good practice for me to take care of my stuff for the day in the distant future that I have enough discretionary income to purchase luxury goods.

Researcher1

The last day of internship started off beautifully with a seemingly molten sun peaking over the horizon.
Going to miss watching the sunrise every morning.

The day was a perfectly normal day, going through resumes on Monster and digging through LinkedIn for the darn lead roles. Been working on those roles for well over a week and I can swear that I've gone through almost every civil engineer with mining experience in North America. Alas I still couldn't find a good fit for the position.

Although the tasks I do aren't the most exciting, I did learn soooo much about resume writing. It pains me so much having to read through and extract information from badly formatted and worded resumes. Please don't be one of those people, I have to read through them, but your hiring manager will just toss it right out.
So as a reminder to us all, here are what you should never ever do.

operation SUCCESS!

I am very, very happy to say that after 2 unsuccessful trips downtown, Grace and I was finally able to eat the shepherd's pie again!
Memory has slightly exaggerated how good it tastes, but it was still quite delicious :] Plus it's a hugeee portion for less than a combo at fast food restaurants!

Went to visit a family friend's office in the heart of the financial district afterwards. It has quite the view of the downtown.

Looking up Yonge St.

More towards the lakeshore.