Exciting Times!

Whew! I just finished my 3 exams in a row yesterday. It is such a relief. I still have one more exam left, but it's not until next Monday, so I have lots of time to study! I still have to be super effective and productive though, since I still got lots of stuff to do, and I'll be going to Toronto this weekend!
Now that I'm almost out of the woods, I can properly look forward to what is coming up. Here are some things that I am excited about!!!:

1. Seeing Jordan this weekend, and going to his family's holiday party! Yay holiday party and Christmas!
2. Going back to Vancouver to see my family, Toto and my friends :) I miss them!!
3. Christmas. Although my family doesn't really celebrate it, it's still a nice time of year. I hope it snows!
4. Jordan coming to Vancouver! Yay! Jordan will be visiting Vancouver from Jan 9 to 15th! I'll be doing lots of planning during the break to make sure his visit is super exciting and fun and full of fooooooood! :D It's to prime both of us for...
5. ASIA TRIP! We will visiting..
1. Taiwan to see my family! We'll be arriving in Taiwan on Jan 16th, and my dad will be picking us up. He's got accomodations lined up for us, and we'll be relying on him to bring us around and visit my grandma. It definitely will be interesting to visit Taiwan after so many years...
2. Singapore! We're planning a trip to Singapore because we want to travel around Asia more. We were deciding between Bangkok and Singapore, but it seemed easier to book flights in and out of Singapore so we decided on it instead. We'll be spending about 4-5 days there. We still need to look up some attractions and what to do etc there!
3. Hong Kong for SCHOOL! We'll be in Hong Kong for 4 months, doing school at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The campus looks beautiful. And the food sounds amazing (there is a dim sum place right on campus!). We both are going to eat so much lol. And the subway system there is super efficient and cheap, so even though we're not living close to Downtown, we'll still be able to visit lots!

So yeah. I have A LOT to look forward to. I really cannot wait to get out of Waterloo (sorry, Waterloo!) and get onto this adventureeeeee!

Anyways, it's getting late so it's sleep time for me. I should really get back to a normal sleeping schedule now that most of my exams are done....

Goodnight!!

Clear Water Bay

Isn't this beautiful...

sourcehttp://www.ece.ust.hk/~palomar/photos/HKUST_campus/photos_HKUST_campus.html

This is where I will be next term! The HKUST campus is right beside the Clear Water Bay...and look at the view! It's so gorgeous! It beats looking out of the windows at UW campus and seeing a mass of geese poop and gray buildings (no offense UW :P I still love you!).
I am very excited to go. Jordan and I are planning to keep a blog of our adventures for the term! There is not too much going on there right now...just us talking about some of our planning and preparation for our trip :) But soon, it shall be updated with exciting pictures, tales and videos about HONG KONG! WOOO!

My weeks

Whew, it's a while since I've updated this blog!
Life has been busy, crazy, fun, stressful and lacking sleep. I find I'm busier than usual this term, although it is comparable to what I had going on the past Winter term. There are some days where I'm running around campus non-stop for about 8 hours and then I go to the library to study for a few hours. By then, I'm exhausted  and hungry but proud that I had such a productive day :P
Anyways, school is going well, for the most part. I actually just recently found out that I got a horrendous mark for the written part of one of my midterms. I keep thinking about it, and trying to recall the question and thinking "how the heck did I get that mark?". It's been bothering me a lot. I'm going to go see the midterm hopefully tmr or the day after to see what happened. I really hoping some kind of error was made, or that I can get some marks back because I really really believe that I deserve a better mark.
But otherwise, my midterms have gone well. Another round is coming up, so I am currently studying and reviewing lots to make sure I am not ultra stressed out when the time comes.

The term has been interesting so far, because I've never spent a term in Waterloo without Jordan here, ever since we started going out. It's always been me going off somewhere while I leave him here in Loo :(. But thankfully, he is only in Toronto so that means I get to see him on weekends! It's amazing how much I look forward to the weekends. Every week is just so busy and taxing that I just think about how I can relax on the weekend, see Jordan and have fun! I still enjoy my weekdays, but it's just hard getting used to being so busy :0
The dynamics is very different and interesting compared to the past Winter term, because Jordan and I used to see each other everyday and pretty much do everything together, including studying. Now that we don't get to see each other as much, we make the best out of the time we have together! I try my best to get as much work done as I can before we see each other on the weekends, so that I don't have to ditch him too much to do work. And our weekends are usually packed with activities, such as cooking, eating (mmm dim sum!), drinking, strolling in parks, watching movies, partying, seeing friends, going on scavenger hunts and much more! Another reason why I look forward to the weekends so much is that I don't get to do those things during weekdays (well, except eating and cooking and drinking non-alcoholic drinks).
Anyway, speaking of weekend and weekdays, my weekend just turned into a weekday, which means it's past 12am and I should really be getting back to studying and sleeping soon after. So I bid you farewell and I shall post another update/random thought soon!

Comfort Zone

I am definitely stepping out, far out, of my comfort zone right now and it's quite scary :S I decided to run for the a position on the AHSUM executive team. There is another person running for the same position, so that means we will have to do a vote. So basically this requires me to put myself out there, tell people what I stand for and hope they'll vote for me! I made a Facebook pages describing my platform and such, so I hope people will appreciate and listen to what I have to say. However, I feel like this may be a popularity vote and I actually don't know that many AHS people in comparison to my competitor. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.
I am also thinking of doing an announcement in a couple of my classes if I am allowed to. And that is a scary thought because I hate public speaking. So yes, stepping so far out of my comfort zone.
Anyways I gotta go get my laundry and sleep because I am dead tired.

Busy time

Whew, life has been super busy ever since I got back to Loo! Mostly because of O-Week and WCRI CEG duties (Community Engagement Guide). And also, because I want to spend time with Jordan, but had to ditch him for half the time he was here in Loo because of my commitments :( But we have lots of fun weekends planned for the next month (including hang gliding, going to a comedy bar, eating Thai food) and I'm excited! He will be starting his new job tomorrow at Deloitte (well, orientation is tomorrow)!
Anyways, I an currently unpacking and sorting out my stuff so my room is organized and not too messy. Tomorrow for O-Week, we'll be meeting the first years for the first time, which will be exciting! But I shall leave you and head back to unpacking while I still have the energy.
P.S. I found my M&M dispenser and have filled it with peanut M&Ms. Om nom!

My Heart in Two Places

Today is one of my last days in Vancouver before I head off to Toronto/Waterloo for another four months! Like usual, I am mixed with sad and happy emotions at the same time. I am going to miss my family, my doggie, my friends and doing all the fun activities here in Vancouver...but I am excited to see Jordan, my friends at school and also to start school and be ridiculously busy again. Sometime I wish I could just combine both of my lives from Vancouver and Waterloo together, so I can have the best of both. But then I have to remember that firstly, it's not really possible to do it completely, and secondly, I made my decision to move across the country to live on my own. And it does have it's pros of course. And combining them may not result in the best of both worlds...it may just be overwhelming. I just hope that I can have Jordan visit Vancouver sometime soon, because it's important to me, for him to see this side of my life and meet the rest of my family, visit the town in which I grew up and hang out with my friends :)

Anyway, I'll prepare to say goodbye to my family and friends here in Vancouver...but also adding in a 'See you later!' 

Robson Square Shenanigans

This post is a few days late, as the last Robson Square of the summer was last Friday. But I just wanted to reflect on my experience with this Summer's Robson Square, as it was a big part of my summer here in Vancouver!

I wanted to firstly congratulation Mr. Andrew Miller, Sarah Vaughan and the Robson Square Series Committee for such a successful summer. This is a huge project to undertake, and the dedicated team put a lot of their time and effort into putting this on for the public every Friday night in July and August.

Robson this year was amazing! It was great to see many old faces again and to meet a lot of new people from the UBC dance club, or people I've never gotten the chance to meet. There were nights I wish I could have danced more, but I was glad to be helping out as a volunteer (I am an expert on bag-check now :P and also a collection "bunny" haha). I especially enjoyed the performances; it was inspiring to see many couples still dancing after all these years, and also the formation of new partnerships that I feel have a lot of great potential (eg. Kevin and Yukie). And another kudos to Andrew and Andrea, because they are such fantastic dancers. I'm really glad Andrew has finally found someone like her to dance with because I've felt he has been held back by his previous partners (with various reasons) and therefore cannot exceed his potential. From what he's described of her, I feel she has great passion for dance and wants to improve as much as he does. They are such a good match and it was great to watch them dance.

I also really enjoyed our late, late night eats after finishing up at Robson. Late night om nom-ing of congee and prawns and spicy squid and tofu was so good after a hard night of working and dancing :P

On the last night of Robson (last Friday), I brought my sisters camera (mine was not charged) to take lots of pictures with people. Being the busy night it was, and because I wanted to dance a lot, I ended up only taking one. But I'm glad it was this one, because I got a picture with some people I worked in the bag-check booth in :) It was fun (although sometimes frustrating, when the bags were out of order which made them very hard to find).

From left to right: Cindy, me, Michael, Ahmad

There were many, many more volunteers, but like mentioned before, we were pretty busy :S

I know I'll miss our awesome Robson nights and seeing these people every Friday night. But I'll look forward to future shenanigans that we'll have!