RHCP Concert!!

Absolutely amazing in every way possible...
would be the best way to describe my weekend.

Starting off my blog, like the concert setlist

I've only been to a few major rock concerts, like concerts that you pay more than $50 for a ticket and is held in a stadium. The few that I have been to was...umm memorable I suppose you could say.
I've been to a Three Days Grace concert waaay back when I was in like grade 7 or 8 and I went deaf for a couple weeks.
I've been to a Roger Waters concert which was definitely memorable in that there were giant video wall blocks and elaborate stage set ups and well Roger Waters...



But I've gotta say, Red Hot blew everything out of the water, it went beyond all my expectations.


The night before was a good one, hanging out with Trevor, Brad, Konrad and Tina.
Konrad being the super swell guy he is, took us out for pizza at 1AM
I clocked about 3 hours of sleep friday night....or I guess saturday morning

So to kick off the monumental day, I sat in a Unicolour jam session and twas awesome. Apparently they're rusty, so if what I heard was an eargasm served on a drum stick then I wonder why not rusty sounds like.
After the Unicolour jam and a lovely breakfast made by the lovely TS, we broke the sound barrier to get to the ferry terminal to catch the 11AM ferry.

At least half the boat was decked out in Red Hot gear and the other half were Red Hot fans in disguise obviously, I mean there's no other reason to explain why you would ever want to go to Vancouver.
There were so many foot passengers on the boat that we missed all 3 buses that would take us to the skytrain station.
So Graeme did the natural thing while waiting in line for the next bus, he started a wave.

So after transiting around, we ended up at our hotel but we couldn't check in so we hung around McDs and ate dinner there.
Graeme's cousin came along and got our hotel room and lemme say this...
Our hotel room was SWANKY to put it in Fresh terms.
The room was like an apartment. We had 2 separate bedrooms, a "living room" and a bathroom, it was pretty friggin sweet, we was living in the lap of luxury.

We decked our selves out in our RHCP gear, facepaint and shirts, and headed off to Rogers Arena.
Unfortunately we took the long way around and we missed seeing Josh and Anthony coming out of their tour bus by literally 30 seconds.
We then spent the next few hours wandering around the arena looking for the right gate to get into. Eventually we settled in and started blasting out songs...while we were standing in line...for the show tonight...there was a light on...heavy glow...
The tour photographer came along while we were waiting and we got our photos taken and they might be used which is AWESOME

This is what I'm getting at

So for the promotion of the concert, they were advertising a new paperless ticket system to save money on tickets which is why the tickets were relatively inexpensive.
Welp when you swipe your credit card, guess what happens?
You get a paper ticket.
So we got paperless paper ticket or papered paper tickets or ticketless papers

We got in and booked it to our seats. Brad and I got decent seats that looked at the side of the stage and Graeme and Trevor got floor seats.

The opening band was Rebirth Brass Band, a brass jazz band from New Orleans and they were pretty tight. I mean all their songs sounded pretty much the same but they were grooving.

Then the lights dimmed, suddenly the somewhat full stadium filled up in the blink of an eye...

They were just there, jamming out

and the entire arena went nuts

There was a pretty damn awesome and elaborate stage set up. There was a giant asterisk on the stage that lit up with the giant screen behind it.
And hanging above the stage were these screen panels and halfway through the concert (around Raindance Maggie), the screens split into bars and hung low to the stage and it was so smooth that I didn't even notice until Brad pointed them out to me when they were almost half split.
There was also the 2nd coolest guys in the arena, working the spotlights.
They took a sketchy rope ladder to the platform where all the lights were and stayed up there for the entire concert...they are probably all badasses when not crewing for the band.

One of the night's favourites

ITs awesome how much energy their show has and how much energy the entire band just exudes.

I'm pretty sure Anthony had only 1 foot on the ground for half the concert because he was jumping and spinning all over the place.

Josh was swinging all over the place and rocking out

Flea was just crazy, he made the entire stadium looked like they were asleep (btw, there was no-one sitting down in the stadium)

Chad was pounding his drums so hard, it looked like he could pound out a tunnel to China

The setlist for the night was:

Monarchy of Roses

Around the World

Snow

Scar Tissue

Can't Stop

Hey

Throw Away Your Television

She's Only 18

The Adventures of Raindance Maggie

Charlie

Did I Let You Know

Under the Bridge

Look Around

Californication

By the Way

Encore

Suck My Kiss

Soul to Squeeze

Give It Away

You could tell who brought weed because they all took out their lighters to wave when this song came on

And they didn't just play those songs, they pretty much jammed between every song

And if you were a real fan (like Graeme and Trevor), you could pretty much predict most of the songs (that means I couldn't predict the songs)

I feel like I got second-hand high again but it wasn't as bad as Roger Waters (maybe because I was on the floor for Roger Waters and there was a haze of smoke (not from the smoke machines if you get what I'm saying) over the floor).

I did get super hungry halfway through the concert though.

Lot of parents brought their kids and either smoked in front of their kids or their kids smoked in front of them...great parenting eh? But then again they did bring their kids to the concert...

After the wild concert, we waited at the backdoor to see the band. It started off as 7 or 8 of us and it grew to a small crowd. After an hour we got to see all 4 band members.

None of them signed autographs but it was still awesome to see them.

I don't really blame them either because they were probably tired and they had a show the next day.

Flea gave a heartbreaking apology for not signing stuff and he was genuinely sad.

But still, we got to see them in person, less than 2 meters from us.

After that, we went to 7-11 and McDon's again and after filling up on food, we crashed for 3 hours

So I got about 6 hours of sleep the entire weekend and all of them were at like 3 in the morning.
Pretty hardcore

It has been the MOST AMAZING weekend of my life so far.

First Month of University

So its been a full month of university so far and this is my current outlook on it.

Tired

I fall asleep tired, and I wake up tired

Welp, I'm done now, you don't have to read any more if you don't want to.

(a little music to keep you sane while you read through a small epitaph)

But assuming you're reading this, I'll go into more detail.

Don't be discouraged by all the horrible details that are about to follow.
I mean I love university.
It's great, my brain is thinking like it's never thought before
It feels great to have my brain running this fast and processing this much information
Of course most of the time I feel dumb, but when I don't feel dumb, I feel enlightened
Like if Buddha descended from on high and told me the meaning of life, that kind of enlightened.
No, I don't know the meaning of life but you can try 42.

So a tip if you are registering for classes, don't pick 8:30AM classes unless absolutely necessary
You might think you can handle it...lemme break your delusion now...you can't...adequately (and this is coming from the guy who used to go to high school at 7:30)
Every morning I go in for an 8:30 class, I'm thinking "What was I thinking??"
It's not a good way to start off your day.

Also when registering for classes, you probably don't want to stack class on class on class so you only get a 10 minute break between classes (and that's barely enough time to get to your next class depending on your building).
Not only are you running to your next class, you also lose out on any good seats. Sitting in the back usually results in a lack of attention to what's going on.
Unless you're the question guy in my chemistry lecture and you ask a question every single, bloody lecture.

As of now, I'm a little behind on my physics readings...like 5 chapters
So moral of that sentence is don't fall behind in anything or else you're pretty much screwed

Tests from high school are replaced by midterms in university
Except the midterms are pretty tough... (depending on your class)
and you get less time to write a midterm in university than you do for a test in high school.
So I hope you don't plan on thinking too much during a midterm but don't think too little.

Also the amount of work you get is dependent on the faculty you're in.
So if you signed up for Engineering or Science, you can kiss your social life good-bye (not that I had a blooming social life anyhow)
And the workload per major faculty after Engineering and Science (excluding Business since I haven't really talked to anyone in Business) is as follows from large workloads to parties every night:
-Social Sciences
-Humanities
-Fine Arts (not entirely sure that everyone in the Fine Arts faculty is sane)

Math 100...
it's going well, I aced my first midterm (well this being 3rd time around, I certainly hope so)
We are covering a section each lecture (which I think is kinda slow) but the questions are getting tougher.
Probably doesn't help when the professor publicly announces that the 2nd midterm will be ALOT tougher.

English 135
I'm liking it alot but that's because of my instructor who is without a doubt, the best human being on Earth...in that room. It's pretty slow, you go over how to write an essay and grammar and stuff like that. But the instructor sure makes it entertaining.

By the way, my English professor was rapping this in one of my classes

Yeah he's that awesome.

Chemistry 101
I'm liking all the course material we're learning. For the first time since Chem11, I feel like I'm learning something. I can brag that I know a bit of quantum theory and feel like a genius.

The lab sections on the other hand...are an entirely different story.
I'm usually one of the last to leave
Every time I have a lab, it's like a bad comedy show how bad I screw up sometimes because I'm
a) clumsy
b) inattentive
c) momentarily lapsing  into stupidity
My TA even told me that I need to be more efficient during the actual lab time so you know shits serious

Physics 120
Apparently the physics taken for a physics and astronomy degree is easier than the general science physics that other science majors are taking. That being said, I felt like I did alright on the midterm or I spectacularly failed it...probably the latter.
But we're pretty much rehashing physics 11 and 12 with calculus and tougher questions.

For the lab sections, I want to cry every time I get to the discussion because there's usually an impossible question to solve. Either cry or flip the work bench that is bolted into the ground.
Other than that, physics labs are alright because all the work (experiment, lab write up and all) are done in the lab so there's no homework to take home like chemistry.

Computer Science 110
Well...
It's frustrating, that's for sure
Steep learning curve too I suppose
Computer programming is so finicky, its like an entire different language written in English...so that thing Scottish people speak pretty much.
Programming in it is like speaking a foreign language that you don't know entirely so you risk offending your host family and then getting thrown out on the streets.
On the bright side, I feel like a god when I solve a problem, like the last question on the midterm...which unfortunately took 15 minutes of my 50 minutes of allotted time.

Also I would like to say that I have the best CompSci lab instructor ever. Sarshad will live forever through my computer programs

First Week of University

University...
My first week at Uni...
What could possibly go wrong?

September 4th, 2012
This day was orientation day for all new students. We were split up into faculties and then into tour groups. We went to a bunch of science buildings and I found out where I need to go for labs and lectures. We also went to a few presentations (a faculty of science presentation, a time management presentation (a bunch of groups showed up late for that, oh the irony!) and a small skit play thing (apparently at university parties, you notice all the different flavours of chips there are)

Then there was the opening convocation which was slow.
Got to listen to Craig Kielburger though.
Now the method I use to determine whether a speaker is good or not is by how well they can hold my attention without me trying. When I listen to someone, I don't want to force myself to pay attention (I have a feeling I'll be doing that with my professors at one point or another), they should be able to grab my attention and hold it. Don't get me wrong, he's inspirational, amazing, selfless and all that, he even met Mother Theresa, I mean who gets to do that? But technically by my standards, he wasn't that great of a speaker.

Oh yeah and then there was free food and free swag everywhere and I got awkwardly cornered by a Christian group that wanted to invite me to their BBQ and that got really awkward really fast.

September 5th, 2012
Welp...I showed up late for my 1st University lecture ever (Math 100) by a few minutes and every seat in the house was taken (that's 200) and I had to sit on the stairs (I lost all sense of feeling in my ass). Then after the lecture, there were a bunch of students who lined up to meet the professor (who has a wicked accent by the way) and I immediately thought "kiss-ups" and then I thought "wait, I'm supposed to do that too..."
Math 100 is looking slightly bleak, mainly because I haven't done any math for 2 months and I can't remember a lot of the precalculus skills.
English was kinda reminiscent to high school, mainly because the actual classroom is smaller than every high school classroom I've been in and there were upwards of 40 or so people crammed in there.
Physics was the first class where I actually had to take notes...can't wait for the rest of them...

September 6th, 2012
The great thing about university is you can set your own classes so I didn't need to go to class until 11. Life is good...
In Computer Science (CSC110), my teacher started typing out a bunch of gibberish (well to me it was), it was like he was speaking a whole other language...which he was...and it was Java.
In hindsight, it was a bad idea to scrunch together a bunch of classes with only 10 minutes in between to get to each one because for each class, there is a group of wait listed students who want a piece of the pie and they come in early and hog all the seats so getting good seats is a hit and miss.

The general vibe I'm getting at university is not exactly a comforting one but hey it's only been 2 days. In lectures, I'm alright, apart from the 200+ people sitting in the same room, squeaking in their chairs. But outside of class, it's completely different. Unless you've made a substantial amount of new friends, you feel kinda isolated and alone (or at least I do). Its not exactly easy to make new friends either when every time I turn around, I see a Claremont grad, which is nice to see a familiar face but it also hinders the process of making new friends.
Can't really help but feel that if I HAD chosen UBC, I'd have at least 20 gazillion new friends instead of here where I have made none yet. But again it's only been a few days, I'll start worrying about being antisocial 3 months from now if I still haven't made any new friends

September 7th, 2012
So Math, blah, been there done that, we're moving slower than I thought we would, not that I'm complaining.
English, writing a diagnostic essay, which is basically an essay to diagnose how terminally ill our English skills are after summer.
And that's it
I ended at 12:20
and I do that every Friday for this entire semester
Admit it....you're jelly

Oh yeah and there's these weird washrooms at the Student Union Building (SUB) that are multi-use, genderless washrooms. Basically there are no boys or girls washrooms so its a bit awkward...yeah
My friends decided to go to the washroom together...yeah...

The Oregon Expedition

Back when I was a wee young lad, I'd email my friends en masse of my goings during my vacations which I guess they may or may not have found it annoying. But now I have a blog so everyone can read at their leisure without me spamming their inboxes. Instead, I will now clog their Facebook news feed.

DAY 1 (July 1)
What a better way to celebrate Canada Day than going out of the country? We left Victoria via the MV Coho and entered Port Angeles at 12. We had a lovely lunch of McDonalds for lunch and proceeded to drive our way to Astoria, Oregon. Along the way, I spotted: 15 sketchy fireworks stands 8 deserted expresso shacks and the place where I first ate beef jerky
We entered Astoria around 5ish and proceeded to take up residence in a Comfort Suites Inn. And I must say this hotel room I'm sitting in is incredibly classy for a chain hotel room. It's so classy, I'm not even going to bother explaining what it looks like. But anyhow, we left to go eat dinner and I had the MOST AMAZING STEAK I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE EVER at the Baked Alaskan. That's right folks, the Baked Alaskan, gets the coveted "Michael Situ Seal of Approval and Reccomendation" so whenever you're in Astoria, check them up!
When I eat at a restaurant, I expect to dine at a culinary level above what I usually eat. Unfortunately, my parent's are incredibly competent in cooking so they usually are parallel and on par to what most restaurant's serve or even higher dare I say. It's really rare where I find a restaurant that is truly amazing.
But don't worry, I proceeded to crap my pants when we decided to climb the Astoria Column, a giant tower situated above the town. Did I mention I'm deathly afraid of heights, well we climbed inside a concrete tube and ended up way above ground level so I practically died climbing up.

this was taken with my back to the wall of the tower, not by the railing

Whenever I get near heights, I suddenly start imagining all these gruesome ways I fall off and explode into a million pieces on the ground below. I'm fine in enclosed spaces like buildings high up or planes but I don't do open air well.

getting some use out of my panoramic thing on my camera

DAY 2 (July 2)
I just realized that my days correspond with the day of the month, funny how that works out.
So apparently everyone in Oregon parks like me, and I park like the asian amongst asians, which is really bad. I guess whenever we drive around, my bad driving just forms a radius of influence and makes everyone park wonky.
And another thing, what is up with all these espresso shacks? I mean wherever I go, there are like these 1 room shacks that make espressos and they are everywhere...out in the boonies, in the middle of cities, in rural villages, I mean do farmers just wake up and go for a nice espresso in the morning??

Anyhow, I'll get back on track, woke up, left Astoria and ended up at a small time at the sea side called Seaside. I see the Americans are very literally and original. What better way to go to the beach than in rainy weather?? Looks like the weather from Victoria followed us down to Oregon because it was raining while we walked around. Downtown Seaside is literally a 6 block rectangle so we walked it and went on our merry way.

my brother and I pull a Lewis and Clark

We stopped for lunch at McDonalds again and I got a 20pc Chicken Nugget meal, the infamous meal that Trevor kept on talking about everytime we passed a McDonalds when I went to DCON for Key Club.
We made a stop at Cannon Beach, an even smaller town/village/hamlet that is famous for...its beach, yeah you guessed it! Well the beach wouldn't be that special if it weren't for the giant 200 foot rock just off shore, called Haystack Rock. So yeah we wandered around downtown Cannon Beach which was like a 4 block square so that took even less time.

omg, a giant rock

Then we booked it to Tillamook, the site of its world famous Cheese factory. Apparently ice cream is a subset of cheese because they served some pretty damn good ice cream there too. If you've ever watched Looney Toons and saw the factories characters got chased around in, that is pretty much the factory at Tillamook. They had this funky looking spiral packaging thing that came over top of a big block of cheese and for all I know dwarves wrapped up the cheese in airtight package because that's what came out after 5 seconds.
I also saw the flavour Mint Chocolate Chip...*cough* Unicolour *cough* (Yeah I know, that's a temporary name but still)
We then proceeded to Lincoln City, the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter expert. He apparently endorses outlet malls because we stayed there to shop for 3 hours. I mean, that's pretty much the only thing tourists do when they go to Lincoln City, well apart from seeing the silver axe Abe used to kill many of his prey.
After that we hit up Newport and that is currently where I'm residing.
According to my calculations and projections, I'll be home around thursday or friday which means I get to experience the 4th of July in America...and I've probably passed 50 fireworks tents so this should be interesting...

DAY 3 (July 3)
So looking back at my previous entries, I realize that I'm making these a bit large, so I'll try to tone it down, that being said, I'm wasting space right now.

Today started off in Newport, we walked through the historic district, which is basically a street on the harbour edge. The entire district stank of fish but it was a fishing town.

isn't he cute???

After that, we blasted off to Florence...Oregon, not Italy.
You know your town is kinda in the boonies when your A&W still does that old fashioned thing where you drive up to the restaurant, order from your car and they bring your food to your car with a tray that hooks onto your window. Or if you order inside the restaurant, they bring your burgers to your table.

rocking it old school

Anyhow after lunch in Florence, we moved on to the meaty part of the day. We went to Sandland Adventures.
Now if you're wondering where Sandland comes from, there is a desert just outside of Florence...yeah a desert. So Sandland, provides tours of the sand dunes via dune buggies. Now if you're a senior citizen, you go for the slow riding giant tour bus-esque buggie. You could literally ride a bike faster than it...or at least I'm guessing because I'm young and hip and exciting so I went on the super fast one. That one will for sure put some hair on your chest. I was placed in the front seat so I was sucking sand the entire time...AND IT WAS AWESOME. The driver really knew his stuff, he tackled giant dunes like it was nothing.
If you're ever going to the Oregon coast, make sure you check out Sandland Adventures in Florence, Oregon, you won't regret it.

desert anyone?

After Florence, we booked it to Woodburn, Oregon, the site of a giant outlet mall where we've stopped for the day. You can assume, that I did some shopping. Tomorrow we conquer Portland.

If you're wondering how we get from place to place so fast, it's because my dad likes to travel somewhere near the land speed record and we practically fly everywhere

I've been noticing some signs everywhere I've gone so far on the coast that say: Oregon Coast Bike Route. That gets me thinking about how my life is pretty dull and boring. I mean leaving my house is considered an exciting day. So one day, I hope to bike the Oregon Coast Bike Route because if I don't do it now while I'm young, I'm probably never going to get the chance. Toss that onto the bucket list.

Another thing I realized on this trip is how beautiful the world is. I mean you don't see sights like these around Victoria, it's amazing how beautiful it is out here and how little humanity has touched it. Standing atop high locations, I can see how little we've disturbed the land and its hard to think that despite how little we've developed the land, we're still causing climate change or damaging ecosystems.

isn't it beautiful?

DAY 4 (July 4)
Happy America Day! or Independence Day!
Even as I sit down and type this out, everyone and their grandma are lighting off fireworks and its not even dark yet. I can't wait for the rest of this night...
I guess all those fireworks tents that we passed by are finally showing their colours...literally.
So the day started off in Woodburn and that's all it did at Woodburn because we were out of there before you could say 'Good Morning'
We hit Portland and visited the Japanese Gardens. It was so nice and peaceful in there and when it's nice and peaceful, I like to think deep, introspective thoughts. I was thinking so much that I walked into a tree. My brother and I then proceeded to disturb the tranquility of the park by banging every single gong we could find at the gift shop, right before we read the sign that said "Please respect the tranquility of the gardens"...whoops.

peaceful and tranquil...until we came along

Next door to the Japanese Gardens is their Rose Garden. The bloody thing is like the size of Buchart Gardens (ok maybe that's a stretch but still). There are so many different types of roses there, and its free admission too!
 After the nice beauty of nature, we hit up downtown Portland and walked around a bit. The downtown is really nice and clean. Apparently all the buskers have been killed off and replaced with ghetto drummers. Basically it's a drummer who is hitting a bunch of plastic buckets and metal rings and making funky beats. We passed like 5 of them in the short time we were there and there were no other buskers.

acoustic drumming at its pinnacle of evolution

After that we hopped back into the car and drove all the way into Seattle just in time to see the Pike Place Market close up. So we'll have to try again tomorrow morning. We ended up at a seafood restaurant at the Seattle waterfront. I don't know if I was in the right area or what but I didn't see a lot of people in american colours waiting for fireworks. Of course, I could be in the wrong section of town but whatever.

Now I might sound like a hippie by the way I describe the splendour of  nature but in addition to loving the sight of unspoiled natural scenes, I also love seeing modern cities with highways stacked on top of each other with a nice rugged skyline. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy nature and if its within my ability to do so, I will be environmentally conscious but the ability for humanity to build giant skyscrapers is pretty friggin awesome.


DAY 5 (July 5)
As I type this, I'm sitting on the BC ferries ride home shaking because the boat is trembling.

I didn't get any sleep between the chainsaw snoring of my dad and the boom of fireworks. So I struggled over to the Pike Street Market and my entire life was made. I found a legit and real keffiyeh scarf (or as I lovingly refer to as my arabic desert scarf etc.) at a little Afghan store. My entire trip was made, I'm set for life.
Anyhow, the Pike Street Market is a gigantic maze of vendors that sell food, fish, trinkets, clothes and just about everything in between that is sellable at a market. There was even an ocarina vendor and she had replicas of the Ocarina of Time and was playing the Song of Time...like a boss.

looks legit..

So the first real Starbucks also started at Pike Street so of course, my dad hit that up and got his 50th cup of morning coffee that day.

definitely legit

There are actually no big name stores like American Eagle or stuff like that, only local vendors, cafes, bakeries and stores so it provides a nice environment for tourists.

looked more crowded in person

After spending 2 hours or so at the Pike Street Market, we proceeded to the Space Needle. Turns out the Space Needle is in a compound that also contains a bunch of other tourist attractions like the EMP. However, we were getting tired of living the tourist life and the lineup for tickets to get to the Space Needle was probably longer than the Needle itself and that's not counting the line for the elevators to the top so we just ate lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant and headed back to the car.

well it looked nice

However along the way, we cut across the KOMO head quarter's courtyard square and a news chopper flew by to the helipad and blew dust everywhere. It also blew my jacket back so I looked like a badass. Just felt I needed to put that in.

Anyhow we were heading back to Vancouver via the Pacific Track X-Crossing (because honestly, the Peach Arch is overrated and takes waaaay to long) and the traffic heading into Vancouver was so long that we just decided that we'd head straight to the ferry instead of to Richmond (as true Asians would)
and now here I am...

Overall I'd say the trip was very fun. I got to do some things I'd never do at Victoria, I got some sick new stuff and a couple of souvenirs and a ton of photos.

By the way, fun fact, it is illegal to pump your own gas at gas stations in Oregon. Yup...

Last Week of High School

So I've finished my last week of high school education (not that I've learned anything for the past 2 weeks as its all been review)

I would like to say that this week has been one of the best in my life so far, one that is by far the most positive experiences ever.
But I can't because it has been a disgusting week, packed to the brim with all kinds of stress inducing situations.

I'm absolutely positive that all my teacher's meet in an underground cult layer, chanting incantations to bring about the downfall of my grades because they plotted to make my last week the worst one ever.

I had 3 midterms, 2 tests, 1 mock exam, 1 presentation, 1 lab in this week and then next week its 4 exams in 3 days and then the week after that, its the english provincial.

Can't imagine how those people with 20 spares in their timetable managed this week.
Everyone is saying how fast it came and how they're not ready or it came too soon but they also couldn't wait.
This week has been one of the most agonizingly slow weeks ever, I could feel myself growing old everytime I touched my notes.
These past few months, it feels like I'm trading a piece of my personality for a good score on tests but that might just be me wearing out after straight academics from grade 11 until now.

So I've studied like mad this entire week and I like to think I destroyed most of it

Towards the end of the week, I guess I burned myself out? Never happened before but I just lost the momentum I built up and all that was running through my head was this:

Thanks to Graeme for getting that mantra stuck in my head.

Don't get me wrong,
this week was definitely memorable, from the giant waterfight to the last jazz band practice where we played some songs that we haven't played since Mr. K was teaching (nostalgia is a beautiful thing, no?) to all the people who signed my yearbook to the countdown to the last Key Club meeting.

High school has been a great experience to me
I'll do an in-depth post of my entire high school career after the grad ceremony


EDIT: well the debacle with the Grad song was cute too but you know, nothing like a good argument to get the brain thinking and to keep you on your toes

UVIC...I choose YOU!!!

So as the title suggests, I've selected UVIC as my university for undergraduate studies for Physics and Astronomy.

This was a gigantic and colossal decision that I made.

If you read my earlier blog post about the trouble I had deciding, you'd know that it was the logical side vs. emotional side. The logical side picked UVIC from the outset and set it's uhh mind i guess on it whereas the emotional side clung to UBC.

Evidently, the logical side repressed the emotional side (as usual) but this time, the emotional side went down with a fight or flail I guess.

Even though I know I made a good decision based on my future, I feel like I forget that I live in the present.
I know I will miss new experiences and feelings because I'm going to UVIC instead of UBC and I feel sad because I'm missing out.

"Stop moping!" shouts the logical side of my brain, "It's not like you go out and party your brains out! What could you possibly be missing out on that you would enjoy??"
"Well I'd be missing out on residence, parties (not that I'd really have that much fun there), the feeling you get when you're alone without supervision, living in a new city etc." quips the emotional side as it is dragged kicking and screaming back to its box

A few things helped propel me into UVIC's arms:
-One of my friends quoted an article that resonated inside my mind.
"When something is new we have the tendency to want it because some part of our brain is activated, but it wears off over time when we just end up remembering we wanted it and therefore still want it, but when we get it we don't feel the satsifaction we were expecting because that part of the brain has already calmed back down."
-I talked to one of my teachers who suggested that I go back to UBC to see if I still felt the vibe I felt when I first visited and make sure it just wasn't what the quote above says. Well I certainly felt something but I had no idea what I felt
-I emailed my cousin and a friend who went to both UBC and UVIC and see what they had to say.
Ironically enough, the one who left UBC sounds like they promote UBC and the one who left UVIC sounds like they promote UVIC more. But both left solid impressions
-I thoroughly explored the astronomy buildings of UBC and UVIC (well not UVIC so much, but I did look around, but they do have swively chairs)

Roger Waters The Wall

So I went to Roger Waters at BC Place in Vancouver, my first rock concert of an internationally acclaimed artist that I truly like.

Needless to say, the overall experience was amazing, awesome, astonishing (and any other synonyms of the sort that start with A) but a few things detracted from the overall epicness of the concert (which I will get into later)

First, I'm going to bore you with details of my day before the concert,
Woke up at the crack of dawn to take the 7AM ferry, got to Vancouver and ended up at UBC.
I wanted to go back to UBC, after I received a giant flood of advice about which university to go, I wanted to see if I still felt the connection, the vibe that I felt when I first visited.
Well I still haven't figured out if I felt anything...
Then we went to Granville Island and walked around. It's a really colourful place, nice place to visit if it weren't covered in traffic all day long. Had lunch and met this nice senior who is the picture perfect representation of what I want to be when I retire, out and about, healthy, relaxed, enjoying life without any worries and stress (but I'll probably go on about being old in another blog post WAAAAY later in life).

Alright enough of that garbage, let's skip to the concert.
I decided that I wanted a t-shirt so I stood in a giant line up for like 40 minutes waiting to get a shirt and then they ran out of my size so I had to start a riot and flip the table...I mean settle for another shirt.
So my dad got nice floor seats so I had a great view of the stage and everything.
Let's talk about the stage, it was set up so that a giant wall cut off half the stadium and the stage was in the center of the wall. Each brick is like a projector screen so during the entire show, images and movies were shot onto the bricks.

Like that

And at the start of the show, a plane smashed into the side of the wall and took a bunch of bricks with it, followed by a giant pyrotechnic display that was eyewatering and awesome.



Throughout the first act, the "wall" was being built by "stagecraft" until the wall was completely finished and you couldn't see Roger or any of the other musicians.
Roger Waters sounded just like he does in all his studio-recorded songs.
If you notice when you go to see your favourite musicians live and they sound different or they sound terrible, you can tell how much their voices needed to be manipulated and altered but there was no such thing with Roger Waters, no siree, he sounded exactly like his records.

The 2nd half was soured when everyone around us started to light up and smoke pot. I guess you can inhale it and second hand smoke the stuff, so does that mean I got second hand high...? I did get really hungry after the show. I also got a killer headache from all the degenerates smoking pot.
To be honest, I can't really remember too much of the 2nd half, other than a really fucked up cartoon (which probably looked awesome for everyone who was high), a giant flying pig and getting really pissed off at all the people around me lighting up and wondering where the hell security was.
We left before the encores because my brother and mom were about to throw up on the smokers.

The negative things that brought down what could have been an even more awesome show were:
-the pot smokers
-these 2 russians sitting behind us. One was a banshee who was high. She had iron lungs or something because she just kept screaming the entire time, I'm pretty sure the reason why I was half deaf is because of her. The other one was a large russian fellow who would probably be really good at hailing taxis in New York because his whistle is ear-shattering. And to top it all off, they were smoking pot too, go figure.
-the fact that all I really wanted to do in the middle of the 2nd half was start a giant brawl with the 2 teenage kids who were probably younger than I was who were lighting up. I mean I felt homicidal.

But overall, it was a POSITIVE experience for the most part, I did have fun, I had an amazing experience and this is probably the last time he's coming to Vancouver.
But next time I go to a concert, I'm bringing ear plugs and a gas mask

University Problems

One BIG question has been cycling through my mind for the past 2 weeks:

UVIC or UBC

UVIC is local, it's most certainly more affordable to go to, I'll have people I know there, it's not a bad university to go to, I can get advice on which professors to sign up for, the campus isn't too big so I won't get lost (well theoretically anyhow), they started Co-ops which is what I want to get into in 3rd year and they have an all round better astronomy department complete with 2 observatories. They also offered me a fair-sized entrance scholarship.
This is the school that I should logically go to and that's what the part of my brain who aces tests says I should go.
It makes logical sense to go to UVIC

UBC is "foreign" in that its a new environment in a new city (not because its practically Asia over there) that I've had little contact with. It will be an adventure, something new and exciting that suits the new and exciting chapter that will open in my life. I will be 'alone' for the first time (no family, not a whole lot of familiar faces). It is a very good university, one of the best in Canada with a decent astronomy department. Their campus is very advanced and modern. But they didn't offer me any scholarships so I'd be entirely dependent on loans, bursaries and whatever I've made so far.
Something at the university connected with me when I went there that I didn't feel when I went to UVIC. It's something I can't really describe, it'd be like describing colour to a person who has been blind all their life. But I definitely feel strong about UBC.
It is highly likely that I will go into a large student debt.
This is the school that I want to go in my...heart I guess, I don't say that alot
It feels right to go to UBC (of course not saying that it's a good or bad feeling)

I can't decide which university to go to and the opinions and choices I've been suggested aren't helping me either.
All my friends and younger people in general are suggesting that I follow my feeling/heart/dream and go to UBC
My parents and most adults I talk to are in favour for UVIC since it makes more sense to go.

This decision is tearing me apart because I'm afraid of making the wrong choice. Where I go shapes what I do for the rest of my life and if I pick the wrong one, how will that affect my life?
The logical side of my brain is battling the touchy-feely part of my brain and its a stalemate because every point for a university I come up with, I shoot it down with a counter point.

Being wrong is one of the few things that really ticks me off. But getting small stuff wrong like questions on a midterm or test, those things are small fry, they don't matter in the big picture. Screwing up a really BIG decision of my life, that would REALLY tick me off.

I just want to get it right but
I am still lost as to where to go and the deadline is running up fast

Sharply Dressed

First, play this song before reading

Second, start reading really fast so you finish by the time this song is over

So today I picked up the last part of my grad suit for umm...grad
That's right I said suit because I don't like tuxs even though I've never worn one before.
I dunno, something about the pleated shirt with frills repels me away.

I was trying on dress shirts and I always thought I was a monochromed kind of guy, white or black and that's it.
But I was convinced to try on what my mom calls "Playboy Purple" (well okay I coined the term but she said I looked like a playboy in purple) and I looked pretty friggin awesome.
And then my mom was afraid I'd come off as a womanizer or something (she doesn't see me at school ever so she doesn't know how far I am from that) so I stuck to a nice pewter silver grey colour thing.

When I wear formal attire, I feel old (and when I say old I mean not a teenager) and empowered, I suppose.
Like it really hit me that I was graduating when I went to winter grad and everyone was dressed up.

Anyhow, I was kinda antsy about graduating and all the traditions and stuff but with my new suit, I feel that at least I look the part

Guitars and stuff

You all might've noticed that I like to play guitar or talk about it and guitar paraphernalia.

Funny thing is I don't actually know too much about guitars but I just find the guitar fascinating and talking about it with people who know guitars is my way of adding to my knowledge.

And I'm not that great at playing the guitar either, I mean I'm not down right terrible...okay maybe I am
When I play my guitar, it buzzes alot (I think it's the strings that vibrate against the fretboard) but when my friends play, it sounds amazing and beautiful and stuff like that.
Which is why whenever I walk around with a guitar, I'm more than happy to let other people play it.
Kind of like getting my guitar blessed by someone of higher skill.
I'm sure my guitar doesn't mind getting played by someone who knows what they're doing too.

Another reason why I practically hand my guitar out is because I get inspired by people who play my guitar. It's one thing to listen to famous bands and their awesome guitarists but there's a certain kind of distance...I kind of feel like I'll never play like them because they're so awesome and I don't know them personally, I don't know who they are which creates the distance.
Whereas when my friends play my guitar, I know them personally, I know that they put in a ton of practice and work (those famous guitarists could've been born holding a guitar and rocking out for all I know but that's not to say guitarists like John Frusciante doesn't practice) and I can ask them questions, it's more of a personal level.

Whenever I hear my friends play or small local bands, I get inspired, I get pumped up to go and play my guitar and be as awesome as they sound (of course, the moment I pick up my guitar, it doesn't sound awesome at all)

I have a list of guitarists that inspire me,
they include but are not limited to:
John Frusciante, Nick Valensi, Oliver Brooks, Jonny Buckland, Mark Foster, Jon Foreman, Graeme Clarke, Tom Hogg, Trevor Schultz and Felicity Baker

If you've never heard of some of those names, they're my friends and they inspire me to be a better guitarist everytime they pick up their guitar

Partying Hard

If you were under the delusion that I am a cool guy, it's time for me to bring you to reality.

First off, I'm a lightweight amongst lightweights.
Of course that might be because I don't even weigh enough to donate blood and my first encounter with alcohol was with an empty stomach.

At the after party for the Wizard of Oz cast party,
as any good party should have (or so I'm told, because I've only ever been to 2), it had alcohol.

So with the philosophy of YOLO in mind, I decided that I should have at least 1 drink before I graduate (which is looming fast).
To start the night off, I had a "Ms. Braun", a Sunny D and gin mixed drink.
Of course being the big wimp that I am, I had a full cup of Sunny D and maybe 3 teaspoons of gin.
That being said, I was basically drinking Sunny D so I was perfectly fine.
Then, one member of the orchestra asked if I'd have a shot, so the thought process in my mind went a little something like:
"Well Michael, that Sunny D and gin thing wasn't too bad, what's the worse that could possibly happen"
(the tiny voice of reason) "Michael don't be retarded, you hardly had any alcohol, hell you barely had enough to poison a dead daisy"
Of course the voice of reason was drowned out.
So I had a straight shot of gin put in front of me and a can of red bull next to it.
I took one sip and that was when the tiny voice of reason grew some balls...I mean courage/nerves and said "This stuff tastes like really really REALLY strong cough medicine or in other words, it tastes like SHT". I managed to finish 1/2 a shot glass before I came to my senses and thought "well that was terrible" and in the spirit of peer pressure, I tried to drink the other 1/2, which ended up spat across the table because my throat was burning like someone sandpapered it.
That ended really well didn't it Michael said the voice of reason in my head.

And thus ended my first and only encounter with alcohol.
20 minutes after that, I felt my sense of balance shift slightly but I didn't sway or wobble and I could still do calculus so I attribute that somewhere between sober and tipsy.
Then I decided that I wanted to shift back to optimum brain power so I drank twice my weight in water.

Now I've reverted to my original company policy of no alcohol.
And now YOLO only means the song by the Strokes.

I'm a real hit at parties, eh? Just a regular party animal

I could've said "To hell with it, I'll go drink something that tastes better" and gotten really drunk and totally lost it but I saw how some of my friends acted when they were completely drunk and I think to myself  "what a wonderful wor...I mean do I really want to be like that"

I guess the reason why I don't want to get drunk and lose myself is because my mind is all I really have in life.
I'm not buff or atheltic, I'm not particularly good-looking (I wouldn't say I got hit by the ugly train, maybe fender bendered by it), all I really have going for me is my brain, my mind and I'm not particularly high up on the food chain of brainpower in the first place. I'm probably above-average at most but my mind, my intelligence is the one thing I can take pride in and I guess I wouldn't be able to stand it if I lost control of it because then I'd have nothing.

I feel like an outsider at parties, like I'm there just to watch, not take part if I'm not drinking and boozing heavily.
Of course my general attitude when surrounded by all this is said best by the best video game character ever, Legion from Mass Effect 2.
"We do not understand the organic fascination with self-poisoning, auditory damage and sexually transmitted diseases"

All of that being said, I did enjoy the party and I did have a good time...or as much fun as one can have while being mostly sober (hell why beat around the bush, I was sober, there's no denying it).

On a funny side note, some people I talked to thought I was drunk because I said I had something to drink and my voice was cracking like crazy (because I was Glinda in the spoof before the after party and I had to switch between my falsetto and my heavy metal voice and I had to shout at the top of my lungs because I wasn't miked). In my mind, I sounded like Howard Wolowitz's mom for the first half of the night and then I sounded like the teenaged kid from the Simpsons for the rest of the nut.

Wizard of Oz

So a memorable 2 weeks have ended for me.

While I'm not going to burst into tears [because this unit is devoid of emotions as it was installed without the aforementioned emotions] because it's over, I will miss sitting in a concrete hole for 2 hours, it grows on you.

I have been apart of something that bonds all the participants together. I felt like the production of the Wizard of Oz made 1 big happy family or community. Of course, I feel like the cast were a more tight-knit group while the crew and orcehstra skirted around them.
Kinda like awkward cousin Stanley at family reunions who everyone is nice to because he's family but you don't really talk to him and you change your topics of conversation to something entirely different when he comes within earshot.
At least, that's the feeling I got
But I'm sure it was unintentional or I'm just completely paranoid because the cast are all great, kind, compassionate people.

Closing night was especially memorable.
That was without a doubt, the best show put on out of all the nights.
I thought that was my best show too,  I was in tune the entire time (that kinda makes me sound like I was out of tune all the other shows but I just wasn't as in tune as I was on closing night), I hit every note, I nailed the timing.
All in all, the closing night was a major success.

The cast party after was fun as well.
It was a shame that the script for the spoof didn't work out, it had a ton of potential in it but that's life I suppose.
I'd just like to say that Glinda's hat is really uncomfortable.
...and then the after party for the cast party...well let's just say that it gets its own entry post thing,

On a completely unrelated topic,
The orchestra meant to tackle Graeme and Alexa during circle time when they went and did their high fives but since we ran out of time, it was decided that breaking their legs then wouldn't have been a good idea.

Needless to say, I'll be making Wizard of Oz references for what little remains of my high school life.

Opening Night

So about 3-4 weeks ago, I got gangpressed into the pit orchestra for my school's musical theater production, the Wizard of Oz.
At first, I thought it would be the most painful weeks of my life, having to stay at school for inhumane hours, playing music that I've only just seen while everyone around me has a 3 month lead on me.
I was also concerned with how it would affect my mark because throughout my high school years, I've watched musical theater kids walk into their classes like zombies and I am Asian after all so marks are a pretty big deal.

It turns out that it grows on you, you develop comraderie with your fellow orchestra members, the music starts to flow, you realize how well you integrate into the overall group.
As I learned where all the music fitted into the actual play, I started to feel a connection with everyone in the production (although it's probably not reciprocated)


I just finished my first and last opening night. It was a blast, sure I missed a bunch of bars because I'm rhythmically retarded and I can't count to say my life but it was an overall awesome experience.
It makes me wonder why I haven't signed up for this in my earlier years of high school.

This makes me realize how much I've missed in my high school life.
Sure I miss all the parties (because no-one bothers to tell me...or maybe I'm just anitsocial) but that's out of my control.
But joining extracurricular activities, clubs and events are, and I've missed 2 years of it. I only started joining everything in grade 11 because I listened to my homeroom teacher say how much we miss in high school if we don't sign up for anything.
After signing up for a few things, I was amazed at how much I missed out because I chose not to do it because I thought it might've been lame or I was too chicken to join it.

I guess the moral of the story is your high school life is shaped by decisions you make
Yeah lame moral...decisions shape everything

Scholarships

One of the more frustrating things that I've experienced in my life so far (other than trying to beat Uncharted 2 on Crushing and having a test scheduled for every single bloody week) is the struggle to receive scholarships.

Now I'm told I'm a relatively smart guy so one would think it would be easy to win something right?
So far the only stuff I've gotten are entrance scholarships, not that I'm complaining...they're very nice and everything but it's exclusive to that university.
Supposing I attend a university that gave me an entrance scholarship. And now suppose after 1 semester, I hate the university that offers me the scholarship and I want to transfer. I'm in a rut basically because I'd be abandoning whatever I won there to go to a different university where I might not have anything available to win.

Adults (especially my parents) make scholarships sound easy to get. Like people just carelessly leave piles of cash lying on the side of the road ready to be claimed...which is a load of horsesht. I don't know if scholarships changed since they were in school or something but most scholarships don't involve signing up and receiving a nice torrent of cash.
You have to work for the bloody things. You have to provide essays, paragraphs, references, resumes, cover letters, transcripts, a portion of your soul, lamb's blood and goat hearts. It's ridiculous how much work goes into "free money".

I don't have alot of time to work on scholarship essays because I'm a pretty busy guy. So I either have to sacrifice time that can be spent on schoolwork to write essays for scholarships (and then my grades won't be up to snuff (EGAD I dropped 1%!) and then I won't be eligble for w/e scholarship I'm applying for) or I can just go about my usual schedule and go into bankruptcy in post-secondary.

I understand that the people who are giving out scholarships wants to make sure that their money goes to a suitable winner but I mean COME ON!
It's probably easier to break into Fort Knox and fund your education with stolen gold bars or something...

It doesn't help when everyone and their mom are applying for a limited amount of scholarships, supply and demand here folks...

Rant over for now...

30 Hour Famine

I've recently taken part in an event called the 30 Hour Famine sponsored by World Vision.
Basically, it's a fundraiser and an awareness-raiser where you starve yourself for 30 hours (hence the name) for programs that run in the Third World.

The 4 programs are:
-Food
-Water
-Education
-Safety

One of my friends organized the event so it would take place at the school and we`d sleep over and play games and bands would come and play for us
Since it`s my last year of high school, I thought it would be a cool thing to do so I signed up.
Starving for 30 hours actually isn`t as big as a deal as everything thinks, it`s not too bad either. But according to one of my friends, I don`t eat so it doesn`t affect me anyway (which isn`t entirely true, I eat alot, just slowly...). You`re allowed clear liquids so I promptly drank twice my body weight in fluids so I wasn`t feeling particularly hungry.

I thought this was a good cause to do and it isn't caught up in controversy either like Invisible Children (what with dodgy financial records and one of the co-founders caught publicly doing his thing and another co-founder on a youtube video drunk, talking about pocketing $10 million bucks)
But the thing is I didn't really get a good idea of how widespread this event is, I kinda felt like it was isolated to the group of people who stayed at the school was doing it even though we saw 4 videos that showed how large the event had become, featuring celebrities and other kids.

So I`ll just run down all the stuff that happened:
-Presentation on the 30 Hour Famine
-games in the gym (involving icebreakers which kinda got awkward after a bit, but Ì`m in Key Club, awkward icebreakers are practically built in when you go and meet the other Key Clubbers)
-Bands (Oh Hello, Felicity and Fintan, Leisure Suit (best local band ever) and Aivia)
-Sardines/Bang
-Movies
-Sleep
-EAT

My favourite local band, Leisure Suit came which is awesome, I went fanboy and screamed to my heart's content. That's right I screamed...like a 5 year old girl...not going to hide it
They just make the most unique sounding music ever and it's so chill
I just want to lie back, relax and forget all my worries and stresses
I'll just casually toss the link to their bandcamp here:
http://leisuresuit.bandcamp.com/album/leisure-suit-ep

But overall, I had an amazing time
Something that I won't forget for awhile

P.S. that was alot of writing but i've been putting this off for awhile so w/e
P.P.S. the hiding spot that I picked for sardines looked perfect for 1 person but after 5, it got iffy, not going to lie

First Post...ever

So this is my first post on my first blog.

This blog has been inspired by 3 other people who have blogs so I guess I should thank them.
Big props to:
Genevieve, Robert and Graeme for having blogs that were amazing enough to inspire me to make my own blog...not that anyone is going to read this

So this blog will be a place where I will post my thoughts, opinions and events in life when they happen to me, whether they're hilarious or incredibly mind-numbingly boring.

And here are my friend's blogs:
Genevieve's blog:
http://genevieve-luyt.blogspot.ca/

Graeme's blog:
http://hypnofish.blogspot.ca/