I took the day off to chase the torch again. It was a 24 hour relay and they started yesterday afternoon. I sent K down to UBC yesterday to see the torch there and then she went downtown where she caught Luongo lighting the community cauldron! This morning I hitched a ride with my parents downtown and when I got there I was just in time to catch the torch at the corner of Granville and Georgia. Perfect timing! Too bad it was raining. I took a lot of pictures though.



Even though it was pouring rain, the school kids were out supporting their teacher. She was the last torchbearer to light a community cauldron.



I met up with K after the torch left Robson Square. We then went around looking for pins and found that RBC were giving some away! Then we saw Sumi at Robson and Beatty and also at the Canada Pavilion at LiveCity. For the rest of the day we went around looking at the sights to pass the time before we had to head to BC Place to see the Paralympic opening ceremony!



We left LiveCity at about 4:30 and there was already a huge amount of people heading over to BC Place. Organizers told us to be there at about an hour earlier since there will be audience participation and they will be showing us how to use the props.



We had to wear ponchos! Awwww we got white. One Inspires Many was the theme of the evening. Paralympic opening ceremony!



It was totally worth it for $30. We even got to participate in a breaking a world record! The world`s largest flash mob! Sumi was there again flying! OoO



Rick Hansen was there and the tribute was given to Terry Fox the greatest Canadian of all time. His parents were given the honour of bearing the torch into BC Place.




Let the Games begin!

I have been part of BzzAgent for a while now, a really cool word of mouth company. Basically they send out products to people and you get to try it out, then tell people about it! It's a lot of fun! The newest campaign I'm doing is for Danone DanActive. It's a yummy probiotic yogurt drink. They come in small bottles so it makes a great snack, while helping your body's defenses at the same time! OOO, what more could you ask for??

Well there IS more actually! I have some $1 off coupons so you can try it yourself AND save a buck! And not only that, there is a contest to win a year's supply of DanActive! All you need is a pin number, which I will gladly send you if you leave me a message or email!

I hope everyone goes out and tries it because this drink is DEE-LISH!

The rings glow gold after the Canadian Women's Hockey team beat US 2-0

Current medal count: 8G 6S 3B

1. Got baptized
2. Graduated from university
3. Backpacked (sort of) through central Europe
4. Started my new job
5. Got laid off from my new job
6. Started my OTHER new job

Hahaha. Yeah so that's it in a nutshell. Hope 2010 is as fun!

Finally I graduated from university!

Today marks the first day of the rest of my life. I was baptized into the Catholic Church by Father Michael during the beautiful Easter vigil. My family and friends were there to share this joyous day with me.

Words cannot fully describe what I am feeling right now. Happy, joyous, excited, ecstatic, at peace. God has blessed my life many times over, I hope I can live my life in a way to glorify His name.

Wow, 2008 was a blast wasn't it. It's been ages since we had snow in DECEMBER! It has to be global warming! We had to postpone our Christmas dinner, ate someone else's party turkey (also due snow related issues) on our makeup dinner on the 31st, and we might be able to get out tomorrow for our real makeup dinner because it is STILL snowing!

Anyways, my new year's resolutions:

1. Spend less money on coffee and food....and DVDs. Hahaha.
   
   Starbucks coffee is too expensive but 8 o'clock classes kill me. I might have those early classes for the entire next term though! O_o;
   
   Ah food. Most of my expenses go to food and coffee. Snacks that I should eat anyways. So I'll hoping to cut back on some of those expenses.
   
   DVDs I don't usually buy but this boxing day I bought a lot of $5 DVDs that I wouldn't have normally bought at Walmart. I could have saved those extra $5s and gotten me a Starbucks coffee! ;P
   
   
2. Graduate from UBC! I'm hoping to do this by May! I already have enough requirements for my CPSC degree! (Yay!) All that is left is 3 courses of MICB and I'm done! Then it is off to the work force with me!
   
   
3. Save $10,000 and increase my investment portfolio. So the stock market crashed and I lost an undisclosed amount of money. I'm pretty sure it will bounce back in time. I am starting the new year with setting up DRIPs for some of my stocks and going to try to contribute to them monthly through their SSP (Yay! No more high commissions for me!)
   
   
4. Exercise. Heheh always on the list. I'll try to do some Wii boxing at least once every two days. ;P
   

I've just spent my week's earnings on coffee. I have been participating in paid studies as a test subject recently to earn money. I earned $10 this week and spent most of it on 2 cups of Starbucks coffee. T_T I wanted to try the new holiday drink selections. I tried the Expresso Truffle today. I must try to refrain from spending on unnecessary things. Was it worth $4.04 and a burnt tongue?...probably not.

School actually started yesterday but I only had one class and first day usually is not that bad. I don't want to go to school anymore! I miss work. I just have to hang on for one more year...

The buses are so busy this year! Every time I get on I barely get on. This morning the 43 AND the 41 bus was completely full! I had to get on the next 41. I feel so sorry for the people at Kerrisdale because there was a huge crowd of people there but the bus was still full; nobody could get on. The buses get more full each year! I think it is because new people are going to UBC but the existing students don't graduate! (i.e. me lol) So it is good to plan out your degree and get out of there fast so that you don't have to use the bus anymore. I can't believe everyone is encouraging taking the bus (and I'm all for it; I take the bus to work) when there are not enough buses to take! You probably have to leave your home 1-3 hours ahead just to get to school on time depending on where you live. That's ridiculous! It's worse than the airport!

Another complaint I have is with UBC. They changed their PRS system again! What the heck?! They just changed it about 2 years ago! And now the bookstore has reached its quota on PRS buybacks. They said to come back January. >=( I know what school I'm not going to donate to.

Just came back from the Full Moon Evening Explorer kayaking tour at Deep Cove. It was pretty cool. The moon was breathtakingly beautiful. I had to resist the natural urge to howl or people would think I'm crazy. lol I know I'm crazy but I don't want strangers to know. =P The moon was pretty full but I'm not sure it was completely full.

It costs $55 for a single kayak and $40 for a double kayak (per person) from 8pm to 11pm. I doubled with Winnie. lol We forgot how to steer at the beginning heheh. But we bounced back quickly. Power strokes! I was so tired at the end I couldn't lift up my paddle over my head.

Besides the moon we saw bioluminescence in the water. It was so pretty like fairy dust. Beautiful.

Today while I was waiting for the bus, a group of old ladies came to the front and stood a little off to the side. Then slowly, and slowly, they nonchalantly budged in front of me.

I find it very amusing, albeit a little annoying, that they would think I won't notice them cut in front of me. They pretended they where in front of me all along! Hahaha.

They were old ladies - I forgive them.

Woot! I received my free 8GB Zune in the mail recently. This was part of Matchstick's word of mouth promotion and I was lucky enough to qualify! I was already considering getting it as it has FM radio which is a great plus!

The Zune is pretty sweet! It is so pretty. Even the box is nice. Haha. I can also transfer songs and pictures wirelessly between Zune users! Cool eh? I added all my pictures from my gallery onto it so I can show people.

I think I can download some games to play on it too. I'll have to experiment some more.

Now something for you guys:

As part of the promo, you all have a chance to win up to $500 in Amazon.com gift certificates!

Here's how:
Log on to ChatThreads.com and enter 102 986 0387 for the Conversation ID and you'll be entered to win a $500 Amazon.ca gift card! You can also tell your friends about it and give them the conversation ID if you talk about the Zune.

I so love it. So what do you guys think of the Zune?

Made my first profit selling stocks today. I made $651.66 since August 2007! Not really a lot when I think about it...

Hahaha I sold YLO.UN for profit of $20. Heheh. I was going to keep it because their dividend yield is 13%! But I was afraid it might still go down. And I also sold all my BMO stock only to find out it went up a little bit higher later in the day. =( Still I made a nice little profit so I can't complain. I just don't know if it going to go higher (4th consecutive day) or go down. It kind of plateaued midday but closed at 45.96.

The monthly income fund is killing me. I'm losing $384.24 as of today. I don't like mutual funds. The BMO monthly income fund was the first I bought when I got into investing. I was up 100+ before the market plummeted. =(

If only I don't have to pay commission fees. Just to buy and sell a stock costs $50 for me! Zecco is a company that offers 10 free trades per month, but I've read bad reviews about Zecco. But maybe I should give it a try?

I entered a contest at Dose.ca to win tickets to the screening of Hellboy 2 and won! There was some email trouble so they called me this morning to tell me that the screening was tonight and I have to pick up the tickets downtown! I had to leave work for an hour to bus down there to pick it up.

Overall, I liked the movie. It had its moments; it was funny and made me laugh at times. The thing I didn't like was that Hellboy looked a little fake in this sequel. Maybe they changed his eyes or his makeup or something. It just didn't sit well with me. I didn't like the kid in the beginning either - so fake. I don't think I can say anymore without spoiling it. And Liz's fire! I liked her blue fire in the first movie better. Now it is regular fire. That's so boring! =(

I do hope that they make another one. I like Hellboy. But from the looks of it I'm going to say it is highly likely.

I just found out that Skye the golden eagle at the Greater Vancouver Zoo has died today! Apparently she flew into the lion enclosure and three lionesses hunted her down.

This is so saddening. Golden eagles are my favourite birds. It is hard to believe she is gone. I was just there a month ago. Rest in peace, Skye. Rest in peace.

I bought my first stock today. Or rather I submitted an offer and I'll have to wait until the markets open to find out if they will buy it at that price for me. I'm buying 100 shares of BMO at 42.55 (hopefully). I only have enough money to buy 1 stock. LOL Well, we all have to start somewhere, I guess.

Ha! I got a 40 gallon aquarium today! My friend and my dad helped me bring it home. It is used so my dad is going to fix it up a bit before I can use it. It comes with a wooden stand. It is black so I think my dad is going to help me repaint it.

I'm planning to keep a pair of german rams, some neon tetras and ottos in there. It's going to be a planted tank too. I'm going to have to move my 10 gallon downstairs...If I can clean up down there.

I recently found out about a local fishkeeping site bcaquaria.com! There are so many people interested in fishkeeping! I didn't realize it was so popular! There's a store called Pets Beautiful near Dunbar Loop that sells fish and fish products and the owner is apparently very nice. I'll have to visit someday!

Hahah one of our neighbours have wireless internet set up but didn't encrypt it. There is a weak signal that my sis' connected her laptop to.

This is why it is important to properly set up your wireless connection! Some one can leech off bandwidth from you!

This year we had a white Christmas. It started to snow at about 11 in the morning on the 25th. So we just spent a quiet day at home as we had our Christmas dinner on Sunday already.

I was already eagerly awaiting boxing day...I slept early at 11:20. I fell asleep BUT woke up an hour later! Then I couldn't get back to sleep! So I just spent the night tossing and turning all the while thinking of what I'd get today. Hahahah!

I got up at 4:30am as Karen and I planned to be at the Metrotown BestBuy before 5:30. Our dad wasn't going to go this year but our mom made him come with us anyways! He dropped us off at BestBuy then lined up at Futureshop.

It was SO CROWDED! There were about 300+ people in front of us already. But we got everything we wanted. Hahah my credit card is going to blow up! We bought so many DVDs!

After we went to Lansdowne mall to for lunch and to check out the other BestBuy. It was SO crowded. It was so hard to find parking. There was this aggressive lady driver who STOLE our parking spot! Someone was leaving and we were in right spot to get the it. There was a car in front of us and SHE was in front of that. She had the audacity to reverse and wave at us to backup! >>>=( Stupid lady! Once you're past you can't claim the spot! The nerve!

Well, eventually we found a spot. We just ate at the food court since all the restaurants had lineups. Then Karen and I went off to BestBuy while our dad went to look for phones at Rogers and Fido stores. There wasn't anything much I wanted to buy anymore. It was still very busy there compared to Burnaby.

Heehee another productive boxing day. Tomorrow? Round two!

Hahaha I think it is fitting that I got a dog for a daemon.

The test said:

"Your profile reveals that you are: Flexible, spontaneous, modest, dependable and passive. You are therefore matched with the Whippet Daemon."

I got dragged to an Avril Lavigne concert yesterday in the middle of a BLIZZARD! Ok maybe it wasn't quite a blizzard but it was snowing pretty hard. I had to stand in Swangard Stadium for about 2 and a half hours. She was an hour late showing up.

My cousin was too short and couldn't see anything so I made her a snow pile to stand on! Hahaha. Everyone else started to copy me after that. Heeheehee. It was about 1 and a half feet high. The highest out of everyone's. Everyone probably thought I was crazy rolling snowballs around.

But I guess the concert was okay. My sister had gotten VIP tickets so she HAD to go. And my cousin also wanted to go therefore I had to go in order to watch over her since we had regular tickets.

We got some freebies though. $5 off coupons for BestBuy and Telus bags! The Telus bags are the best. They were also giving out little BestBuy flags (this concert was put together by BestBuy) but why would anyone want those?! It's just garbage. They should give out lanyards or something that people will keep and use.

I was freezing after the concert. We hopped over to the Starbucks at the corner and had mochas and hot chocolate. That Starbucks had such good business. It was SO crowded. Everyone wanted to warm up after standing in the snow for several hours.

After coffee , we took the bus to Bestbuy. I wanted to buy another nunchuck because my sister bought Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games on Friday and each of us needed a nunchuck to play 2 player.

Afterwards my aunt and uncle and parents went to Uncle Willy's for dinner. I don't know but for some reason my dad really wanted to go there. I thought there was nothing to eat there. But then I don't like buffets anyways.

Sigh. Another study day wasted.

I want to watch Enchanted so badly!

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=21557772

"I've been dreaming OOFF" Heehee!

Too bad it comes out so close to the end of term. I'll probably busy with finishing up projects and assignments.

I got my wisdom teeth pulled today. I only have two top ones. I have no room for the bottom ones. These top ones are already growing out at an angle at the end.

Hurts. Can't eat anything but congee. Sucks because still I'm hungry.

I got the chance to go to Calgary today! Just for the day for an interview. lol I didn't get a lot of time to go anywhere though. I just spend one hour at the Chinook mall before I had to go back to the airport for my trip back to Vancouver. Not enough time to properly go shopping! =( Oh well. Next time.

I was so brave I actually talked with my cab driver and the passenger sitting next to me on the plane! Wahahahah! I would usually just avoid talking to people. I felt so proud of myself. lol

I don't have any photos because my sister gave me dead batteries. >=( She took all the good ones to her trip to Bamfield. Battery hog! I wanted to take some pictures of the rocky mountains they looked very nice.

I rearranged my aquarium (again) today. I actually went out and bought some driftwood and slate so that I could start aquascaping. So here is the result. The left is still a little bare...I'm waiting for my plants to grow first so that I can take some cuttings and filling in those bare spots.

I also bought some proper lighting and test kits. I found that I was using only a 3000K bulb. So I went to Home Depot and bought a 6500K compact fluorescent. It is way brighter! Maybe that is why all my plants were looking miserable. lol. This is costing me quite a little fortune...And still I want a 55 gallon.

I also have about 23 baby guppies O_o hence the small plastic tanks I'm floating in the corners. They are growing so fast!

Hehehe it seems this has become my aquarium blog...

Yes, that's right I saw one of my guppy females (the big amazon one) plop out a baby guppy! I wish I had taken a video clip of it! This was last night. Today I have several more babies that I fished out. I'm going to run out of places to put them!

Ah I'm so sad! All my fish died! Well not ALL my fish, just the tetras and the oto. :( That's 3 glo-lites and 5 neons gone. I think it was a heater malfunction. The water was sooo hot. They got boiled to death.

This morning I found two of the glo-lites had died. I thought it was odd but didn't do anything about it. I thought I'll fish them out when I get back from work...When I got back they had all died! I'm so sad. They were so fun to watch. The sucker fish was still swimming around at that time but it was slowly dying.

Amazingly the shrimp is still alive. So are the six guppies...and the baby guppies! Yes, I found 5 more baby guppies in the tank. I fished them all out. Heehee. Some are not very strong looking. Maybe they haven't had any luck in finding food to eat...or effects of the boiling water.

Stupid heater. On one of the hottest days of the year too. >=(

Yes! One of my guppies has given birth! I didn't see it happen though...and there are only two. Maybe the rest were eaten. Too bad. It was not like I have anywhere to put them all anyways.
I've isolated the two and they are doing quite well I think. At least they are eating. I still have the powdered food left from the whole white cloud fry fiasco. Baby fish also makes me happy. XD

Happy Canada Day!

I spent today at home gardening. Look my freesia are in bloom! I stepped into the garden and it smelt so nice! I cut a whole bunch and put them in the kitchen.

Blooming flowers make me happy. The is a sense of joy when the flowers you planted thrive and bloom. I love gardening.

If only the weeds grow slower! I put one up and ten more come up! LOL The front yard has been neglected for a while now so there are so many weeds. And all the plants are in a disarray. I plan to dig up everything, plant new things and organize it a bit better. I want flowers to be in bloom all summer long and I like only the fragrant flowers. :)

Woohoo! I bought the Wii! I went to Superstore today to get my Grandpa some of those European weiners he likes so much, so I stopped by the Electronics department. I saw they had a Wii box out and I asked if they still have one. And the girl said yes they still have one and did I want one! Of course I said yes! Haahaha! She reached inside a big cardboard box and lo and behold! I had try so hard to hide my glee! Heeheehee!

I was surprised they still had it since it Superstore started advertising it last Saturday. Karen went to check if they had it at Metro (I got it at Marine Drive) but they didn't and when she asked the people to check the other stores if they still had some in stock they refused! They said that it was probably sold out anyways and so they didn't bother to check. >:(

I was a little suspicious though so I asked I asked if it was a return. She said no. They just got it this morning!

I'll be playing it tonight!

Ok for a while I've had blue-green algae growing in my tank. It spreads over the substrate in the front of the tank and climbs up the sides and some grow on my plants. Sob! I've tried cleaning and manually removing it but it kept growing back then I bought some erythromycin antibiotic to kill it but that just seemed to slow the growth down. So I kind of gave up getting rid of it. I just try to get rid of as much as I can during my water changes.

But today most of it was all gone! The sides of the tank and the ground are nearly clean! My hungry guppies ATE the cyanobacteria! Hahaha! Yay! I love guppies!

I finally bought some guppies. I bought 3 females on Wednesday and 2 males today. The males are so pretty I think. Now the tank is so active! They are always swimming around all the time! The tetras just like to lurk in the plant forest and come out only once in a while. They don't swim as fast as the guppies. I might get 2 more females because I think the males are harassing the females too much.

Well from my previous post you probably know that I went to Disneyland. It was a nice break from co-op. I went with my dad and Karen. We left on April 30th and came back yesterday. We spent first day in traffic and the last day at the airport. >_< We spent the middle three days at Disneyland! Yay!

We rode Indiana Jones like four times! Hahahah! This year we lined up for pictures with the characters. I spent 1 and a half hours lining up for 3 princesses! Karen went off on her own and got a pic with Goofy WITHOUT ME! When we finally got to the front of the line Cinderella LEFT! NUUUU!!! She's the one with the prettiest dress! *sniff* We only got Jasmine, Mulan and Belle. And Mulan isn't even a princess! Humph. We also got a pic of Ariel!!! She's my favourite! And I told her so. Heehee. She said "Thank you!"

Pictures later.

I came back from Disneyland to find myself hacked on Gaia! I can't log in and all the stuff I was wearing is gone. Sob.

Well. This is a sign I should quit playing.

Who's the bright person who made the new Contac? They made the daytime pill blue and the night pill white! I would have done it the other way! It makes me so confused. I have to always think about which one is which.

Sigh. I was SUPPOSE to run in the Sun Run today. But in the beginning of last week a caught a cold and now I can't run it. The doctor thought I was crazy to even consider running it.

My first Sun Run...and I didn't even get to run.

So I stayed home and did my taxes.

Life's not fair.

Phew! Gardening is hard work!...Especially if your garden is composed entirely of WEEDS! I only weeded one small side of the garden. The front and the right side is still unweeded. I started on the front but it was getting dark so I stopped.

It was a nice day to garden because it just stopped raining and but it was still cloudy so there wasn't as much sun out. The earth was nice and soft to dig in. I planted Freesia bulbs on the side. We only have white and blue colours. And I divided up some of the Mei's grass flower bulbs. There's still a whole bunch of them.

I can't wait to see the Freesia grow. I still have to plant the Dahlia bulbs. I have four. The question is where to put them. We have a lot of tulips, daffodils and dying rose bushes already occupying space. If it were up to me I would dig them all up and replant them.

I really should dig up all the bulbs in the fall so that I can replant them in the spring. That would also make weeding a lot easier. I'd just get a big shovel and bye bye weeds.

Odd. I seem to be missing a tetra. I can only count 5. Last time one of my goldfish went missing. No body was ever found...Seems like it is happening again.

And an Oto died on Sunday. My poor lonely Oto. He has such a big head.

Another one of my tetras died. It was gasping so I isolated it. It looked like it had 2 little bumps on its side. So now from 10, I'm down to 6 tetras.

Two other tetras became ill. I quickly isolated them but I don't know if it is going to help. I have read that once Neon Tetra Disease gets introduced into a tank it is very hard to get rid of. The others seem fine for now but the disease spreads by spores. Once a tetra consumes a spore it is infected. All my tetras are going to die! T_T

I've been planning this for a long time. I'm feeling a bit more ambitious this time and will be attempting a planted AND warm water aquarium!

Last week I went to Big Al's to buy gravel. I ended up buying FloraBase substrate and a whole bunch of plants as well! There was a sale on and some other guy bought a lot of plants and I thought I might as well get some too.

I bought 3 bunches of Java ferns, 1 hygrophilia polysperma, and 2 plants I can't identify maybe some type of Vallisneria or Lilaeopsis macloviana and Limnophila aquatica or Cabomba caroliniana. I hope it is not the latter because that is hard to grow! I shouldn't buy plants that aren't labeled. I asked the store person but he didn't know either! X( But I bought it anyways because it is a pretty plant. XD

I didn't have anything to attach the Java Ferns to so I just kinda left them floating about in the center of the aquarium. But today my dad help me find his BC Jade from his old aquarium. He used to have a 55 gallon aquarium at the old house. We can still see the indentation the weight of the water made on the floor!

It was my first day of work today! And I have my own little cubicle. I just got shown around the office and now I'm learning Flex. Looking at demo apps and following the tutorials online. I think Flex is very neat. It let's you do a lot with little coding. I like it.

Sat Dec 23
We left Vancouver for Las Vegas late last night (we took off at 8:15 and landed at 10:28) and took a shuttle to Alamo to rent a van. There were only two vans left and we ended up picking a teal Dodge Crystler over a silver one. This year we stayed at the Aladdin Hotel which is just next to Paris. They are doing some construction so there was a discount or something. I think they are building and extension and some towers.

Our room as down the hall from Uncle Adrian's not like last time where we were neighbours. Karen got some tape from Auntie Maria to tape our dad's mouth shut. It supposedly stops him from snoring. Karen is really sensitive to noises and can't sleep with Ba's loud snoring. It doesn't stop his snoring completely but it does muffle some of the sound. But apparently during the night the tape fell off and Karen left to sleep in the bathroom! But by that time early birds started taking showers and the plumbing was terrible so there was a lot of noise of water rushing through the pipes! Poor Karen.

Like last year we got up at 8 to go to the M&M store (AGAIN! Karen's obsessed!). But before we left Karen had to put all her dimes and nickels (she had a lot) into the vending machine just outside our room so that she could get quarters back! Heehee I thought it was ingenious...for the first few dimes and nickels. Then I just got impatient of waiting for 10 minutes! >:(

When we finally got out of the hotel (taking the FRONT exit this time) we stopped by some sovenier stores to look around. We ended up buying postcards and keychains. Karen gave the poor lady all her change and rolls of pennies. lol

The M&M store was decorated in a Christmas theme this year. Last year it was Star Wars. We watched the 3D show again then Karen bought SO MUCH STUFF! 60 Dollars worth of stuff. It was at least 60 since if we buy $30 worth we get a 0.5 pound of M&Ms for free and we paid separately to get two bags! She's still sore about not buying enough to get the free plushie last year. xD

This time we went over to the Coca Cola store to look around. But then we were out of time so ran back to the Aladdin to meet our parents and Auntie and Uncle. But as usual Aunt Maria wasn't ready! We found this sign on the door:

When everyone finally got ready we headed to the Spice Market Buffet in the hotel after waiting around indecisively. Heheh while in the line we had our eyes on some Strawberry tarts in the dessert section and when we were seated we made a beeline towards them. Food was ok but we took a lot of crackers (for later!) heheh. I didn't eat too much lox or smoked salmon this time. I was sick of it from last time! That's what I get for being greedy!

After lunch, we headed out to the van only to find that the steering wheel fluid had all drained onto the ground! So we couldn't go anywhere while we waited around for the adults to phone Alamo and complain. After 3 hours we finally got our replacement but by that time it was too late to do very much so we headed out to Macy's to do some shopping! I love Macy's. XD

We then watched Sirens of Treasure Island. "Ahoy!" "Who are you calling a hoy?" HEEHEE! It was a funny show. I liked it. I wouldn't mind watching it again but I would like to be in the middle. We arrived late so we were in the back to the side. I couldn't really see the men's pirate ship.

Then we had wonton noodles for dinner and went to bed.

Sun Dec 24
We woke up early again but as before Auntie Maria wasn't ready so we took Ba to the Bellagio to look at the Christmas decorations. Nothing spectacular; it was almost the same as last year.

For lunch we all drove to the Wynn but the line was MILES long so we left and ended up at Monte Carlo were there was no line. I like to eat the mashed potatoes. Mmmm.

After that Uncle Adrian dropped us off at the Mirage with Ba and we when to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden! We saw Bottlenose Dolphins, white lions, white tigers, leopards and regular tigers. I could stay there forever. Those cats were so beautiful!

We wanted to catch the moving statues at the Forum Shops but we were too late! It's a maze in there! Too many shops! And they make you walk ALL around you can't even cut across to get to where you want.

Since we didn't get to watch the show we went across the street to Harrah's to ask where the trollies were except the stupid people didn't know anything and not even what Circus Circus was! We asked a dealer but he didn't know anything so he called over his floor manager but he didn't know what we were talking about either! He thought we were speaking in some foreign language. CIRCUS CIRCUS! Stupid! He said do you speak Cantonese? And we were like uh my dad does and Ba said English is fine. We FINALLY got directed to the loading bay where buses were and found the Strip Trolley but they had raised the price by $1.50! So we paid $19 in total.

We stopped by the Hilton to look the Star Trek Gift Shop. xD Karen bought the little Klingon plushie keychain that she wanted to get. Now the Trip and T'Pol dolls have 3 children! Heehee! But apparently a Tom and B'Elanna doll will come soon to take away the klingon man. XD

Stopping at the Hilton proved to be a big mistake as the Trolley did come at all. We waited like an hour before walking to the Stratosphere to take a look. We took the wrong way and ended up circling the building in the outskirts of the strip. Freaky. Good thing we weren't mugged! When we got to an entrance to the Stratosphere there was nothing there but we saw the trolley leave us behind. X( So we waiting 15 more minutes to take the next trolley to Circus Circus.

Circus Circus is just like PNE except smokier. *Cough cough* The games were cheaper though and Ba played a game; one of those rolling ball horse races. And he lost. LOL he wasn't very good at all. We watched a 15 minute acrobatic show. The lady was making her debut swinging around in rings up high. Karen was disappointed being not able to play any games since she wouldn't be able to bring any of her prizes home with her. xD

After that we headed back to the hotel. Ma couldn't come back yet because we took all the keycards! But we found out that they were out in the street. Santa Clause was driving down the strip giving out presents! Ma said Auntie Maria went crazy and yelling to get the dog plushies and ran out into the street to get them too! She wanted the get one for each of us but everyone else was too afraid to get one. Mrs Clause recognized her and didn't want to give her another one. But she said it was for her other daughter. And Santa said ok. Heehee.

Mon Dec 25
On Christmas morning, we flew to LA. The wind was with us so we were 20 minutes early. We rented another van then went back to the airport to wait for Francis and Krystal to arrive from San Fran and John to pick them up. There was a lot of miscommunication going around on where we were supposed to meet each other and we ended up driving 'round and 'round the airport. Eventually we found each other and John took us to McDonald's for lunch. We all had Filet-O-Fish without the tartar sauce. Mmmm.

Karen and I sat with Francis and Krystal and caught up. We haven't seen them in two or more years. More for Karen since she never went to San Fran with Ma and me.

After lunch we followed John back to Aunt Martha's house and said hello to everybody then we went to our hotel the Quality Inn. It was a seedy gaudy pink and greenish place, much like the setting for My Name is Earl and where MURDERS happen! LOL. Our room was kind of damp and smelly so we turned the fan on full blast! So after we dumped all our luggage in the rooms we went out to the Zen Buffet for dinner with the entire family plus some other people we don't know. Naturally, there was nothing to eat.

Tues Dec 26
Boxing Day! Too bad we weren't in Canada to enjoy it. *grumble* Nobody seems to know what Boxing Day is in the US! Why it is only the single most enjoyable awesome day in the whole entire year! I can't BELIEVE that Francis and Krystal have NEVER heard of it!

Last night Karen ditched me to sleep with Krystal. The OTHER woman. XD She can't sleep with Ba snoring so I got the entire bed to myself. I think I slept better than when she's in bed with me. One of the other nights she punched me in the eye while she was sleeping! "Accidentally". Puh.

Anyways us kids and Ba woke up at 7am for the free breakfast (I love free breakfast!). We had to wait forever for Aunt Maria so we hung out in Francis and Krystal's room. We were watching Back to the Future and Karen was playing on Francis' Nintendo DS.

We went to a Dim Sum place for lunch for Uncle Anthony's birthday then went shopping at Macy's again! lol. We picked up a lot of shirts because it was super discounted plus on top of the discounts we have a traveler's discount!

For dinner we went to Tofu House. I love it! All that tofu! So delicious. I was so full afterwards. They also had an ice cream machine where you can get little tiny cups of ice cream. heheh.

Wed Dec 27
Yay! Today we went to Universal Studios! Aunt Maria got 50% discount for four people and $10 off for the rest of us. So it was like $51 for our family. I think I would like to be a part time travel agent! HAHAHA! We went on the Studio Tour first and it was really interesting. They had added new stuff since the last time we went, like the Fast and the Furious cars.

Next we went on the Back to the Future ride. Ma has bad memories of this but we dragged her along anyways. We sat in the front of the car this time because I wanted to know what the Doc was saying on the little screen. lol.

It was kinda cold so Ma and Ba went back to the van to get jackets and the rest of us went on the Mummy ride. Heehe they could have went on with us but Ma hates rollar coasters so avoided this one at all costs. Heehee. Before the ride there props and stuff and spooky voices whispering. Then there was that hole in the wall. Francis put is hand in it and it sucked up his arm! AHHH! I wanted to know how it felt but he wouldn't tell me and I was too scared. Hahahha. We also pushed Francis to touch the cursed book. hehehe. He touched it twice and a spooky voice said something about doom and stuff. I told him to touch it again so he gets uncursed. LOL. Karen and I sat in the middle seats with Francis and Krystal sandwiching us while Meighen, Aunt Maria and Uncle Adrian sat in the back. All of us were screaming and screaming but it was very scary just projects pictures or something. Hahah it was so fun.


To be continued...

Gosh, I haven't updated it so long! This term has been hectic. It has been the busiest ever. Taking four computer science courses at once was definately a big mistake. There were so many assignments and projects. Managed to finish them all though. lol. I made two text adventure games (One in Prolog and one in Haskell), a Gmail plugin for Eclipse, and a Restaurant POS system in a team of 8 people!

I haven't done as well on my midterms as I have hoped. So definately I have to do well on my finals. I kinda slacked off the past two days though. I wanted to just relax. I am going to really study tomorrow. My first exam is on Friday. It's the AI course. It is such a hard course! I don't think that I will be pursuing the AI field anymore. I have no idea what the prof is talking about. But it was a somewhat fun course. On the last day we had the Great Wolfman Shearing! You can watch it here on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49TmxNPhXnw Yeah our prof is not a rational agent. lol

Had some weird dreams again. But not as weird as the floating fetuses...One about a dragon and its rider and one was about these creatures that had the job of protecting mankind from some other creatures but they were not liked at all. Then there was some pokemon-like creatures and there was a revolt because people were being nasty to the protectors...Ok that makes no sense at all to who ever is reading this.

I've been playing Gaia a lot too. It is all Mei's fault! She started playing and now I'm addicted! And I'm eating a lot of jellybeans. Coffee jelly beans...mmmm.

Sleeptime. Finals begin on Friday.

Amazing.

It's almost the end of the second week of school and already I'm behind in everything.

Co-op jobs are closing everyday and I don't have the time to write cover letters not to mention that my cover letters and resume sucks. I don't know why I was ever in English enriched since I apparently have no idea how to write at all. It is amazing that I ever passed English in highschool. Yesterday I went to the library and borrowed some resume/cover letter writing books. Hopefully I will learn something from them.

Some courses it is not my fault that I am behind since the bloody textbooks have not even arrived yet. How am I suppose to keep up with the reading when there is no textbook to read? The UBC bookstore should get their act together. They should have all the books available at the start of the term!

I'm wondering how I will ever be able to get through this term!

Ok this isn't what I do at work. It was only during the slow periods when there was no one around. I might just make a full picture of the tiger. I'm quite pleased with the result.

The pictures are doodled with pen on the back of a stack of playland ride passports at the PNE. The dragon was the first one drawn then the tiger the next day.

LOL. My captain saw the tiger and said it was cute. whoops.

I got my employee evaluation today. It said I am suitable for rehire. Heheh. That I am very polite and have a great attitude. =D

Tomorrow is my last day. I'm relief. Just like the first day. So it all comes round in a circle. Karen is going to go and see all the shows. And we're going to eat our last candy apple from the market place this year.

The day after school will start and I shall have to start applying to co-op jobs. Hopefully I will get hired. Another summer has gone and another school year is starting. Time flies by so fast. It really does.

Now the white minnow fry are actually big enough to take semi-decent photos of. They move around quite a bit so I have to take photos at night when they are drowsy. xD

Not all of them survived. There were three that were deformed; their tails were on crooked so they couldn't swim properly. I named them Quasi, Modo, and Esmeralda. Sadly all of them perished, the last being Esmeralda. Oh well 'tis life.

So now there are only about 9-10 left. Still a lot. There also might be 4 others in the parent's tank. Sometimes I see them, sometimes I don't. I think I'm just going to leave them in there.

I have high hopes of the other 9 surviving. I bought actual fry food from the pet store...though the flake food I crushed myself seems to be finer than the power fry food. Still it is fresher and probably a more balanced diet for my babies so I'm not complaining about the price. It also smells really good. lol.

Also Axel moulted! At first I thought he had disinigrated but I looked closer and it was just is empty exoskeleton.

Axel is doing well. He is not starving as I had previously thought. Quite the opposite! He has plenty to eat and plenty to choose from! I have an unwanted algae bloom in the tank. Fuzz algae was introduced with the plants I bought. Then brown algae and green appeared and green dot algae! Oy. I think my lamp is too bright! And not in the right spectrum. It is too yellow. And I may be guilty of overfeeding...Time to do some water changes.

I am SO EXCITED today! Why? Because my fish made BABIES! They probably laid the eggs a while ago but today I saw small fry swimming in the tank! So I scooped the five I saw out into another container. Just in case the parents might eat them. (I've read that they won't but why take the chance?)

When I can home from work I saw that there were more! I counted a least 13 fry! 8DDD I am so deliriously happy!!!!!! Yay!

I was making food for the fry during work. I was crushing flakes into fine powder.

I forgot to write about work...Well now I work for the PNE! I am a ticket seller and have been working for 4 days. It is my very first job ever! (Working for my uncle doesn't count.)

This is it! I am officially certified as an open water diver!

We had 5 confined pool dives at the UBC swimming pool previously and this weekend we finally went into the ocean! We went to Wytecliff park on Saturday and Copper Cove today. We saw lots of sea stars, fish, crabs and some sea cucumbers today.

But aww we wanted to go see the anemone wall! But the instructor that took us on the second dive of the day only spent 17 minutes with us! And we only worked on our skills. Dive #4 was supposed to be a sightseeing tour. We even changed our tanks because we told that they were going to take us down longer. :(

Anyways, diving is so fun!...in the water. Because what kills me is the getting into and especially OUT of the water. Once I fall down in the shallows there is no getting back up again. My legs are just too weak. LOL.

That picture is of Copper Cove where we dove today. We have to walk down a fight of stairs to get down there. And that means carrying HEAVY tanks up and down that. My biceps are definately bigger than when I started.

Even though I'm certified and can dive on my own now, I'll still dive with two other people: a buddy and someone to help me get out the water and carry my tank. HAHAHAH!

One of the males my friends got for me is dead. I think the other male killed him because he bullies the female too! I searched online for the cause of this aggressiveness and turns out I should keep at least 5 white clouds together with more females than males.

So today I went and bought 3 more FEMALE white clouds. Heheh I said to the staff I want the fat ones. Heehee.

Yeah so he's still bullying but I think there is a female that is not afraid to bully him back so it's all cool...so far.

Heehee. Do you see the Axel, the shrimp on the log? He is SO CUTE! I love shrimp. He might be starving though because I don't have any algae yet. Gotta get him something to eat!

Where have I been these days after I got off school? Well! Setting up a new aquarium in my room! Teehee!

I bought the tank at the end of July and have been adding things to it until now.

At first it was only filled with some Java moss and gravel and a temporary female betta that my sister bought. She named her Ferrari (I think). She's a pretty red colour. I actually saw her and told Karen about it. Karen's wanting buy a male too but all the petstores don't have any blue ones that Karen likes or they are of not very good quality. Petcetera's fish section is in a particularly dismal state. My my have they've gone downhill.

On Friday, Winnie, Vicki and Michelle gave me 3 white cloud minnows (the fish I wanted) for my (belated) birthday present! Yay! Here's them when I brought them home. I think the two on the left are males and the one on the right is the female. :) The males are VicVic and Winifred. xD My friends wanted me to name them that. Hehhehe. I don't know which is which since I can't distinguish between the two males.

And the fish and the tank today after some plant additions and an artificial log. I bought the plants today along with an Amano shrimp. The fish are up at the top there. Ferrari got moved to another tank in my sister's room.

The Amano shrimp is so cute! I'll probably get another one. We'll see how well this one fares.

I am so excited this is my first aquarium that has REAL plants in it! The plants I have are Sagittaria subulata and Java moss. I bought some liquid fertilizer for them but I think I should also add tablets in the gravel and get a better light. I'm just using my desk lamp right now. The tank doesn't come with the light and to buy it is an additional $34.99! That's too much for me. I haven't even started my job yet and I'm spending all my money away.