Toronto Dragonboat Festival 2005

Here are some pics from the T.O DB festival 2005 @ Center Island (Thanx Alex for the pics!)

Cut-throat competition!

The hardware (Hooray Holy Mac-A-Row-Ni!)

The entire Mac team :D (I'm somewhere in there!)

Random Act of Kindness

Time: 11:30pm
Mood: Brain drained
Song of the moment: Coldplay - Speed of Sound

Today I was the recipient of a random act of kindness. I had to go to school early this evening to print off a chapter of my thesis. My school campus has free parking after 7:30, and I went around 8, so I knew the parking would be free. So I went up, printed some stuff off, then left the school at 8:30. As I walked closer to my car I noticed something on my windshield. At first I thought "Oh crap! I got a ticket! Did they change it so that I always have to pay for parking?". But no, it was actually a temporary parking permit. I guess a person that was leaving saw that my car didn't have a temp parking permit and since they were leaving, decided to give me theirs just so I wouldn't get a ticket. Even though the parking permit was unnecessary, I thought it was such a nice random act. It reassured me that good people do exist in this world. It made my day!

Since I'm blogging, I might as well blog about my weekend. I spent the weekend @ Center Island for the Toronto International Dragonboat Festival. I was competing w/ the Mac team. It was two days of fun in the sun, getting a bunch of free stuff (I got LOADS of Tide detergent samples and floss.. and I won a free fold out chair! sweet! :S haha) and some hard-core paddling. I was racing w/ MacRow on Saturday, then they switched me to Mac-A-Row-Ni on Sunday... which was alright cuz Mac-A-Row-Ni ended up winning their university cup final. Hooray! That race was amazing.. it felt GREAT... the team really felt like they were on the same page during that race. I had such an awesome weekend (and I got pretty dark too! haha). I bumped into so many ppl that weekend.. some ppl I havn't seen in over 3 years! Oh how I've missed dragonboating! If you havn't tried it.. DO IT! It's so much fun.. definitely a good social sport :D

Well back to writing... it's brutal.. I'm slowly trucking along....

Stress Stress Stress

Time: 1:22am
Mood: Tired
Song of the moment: Foo Fighters - Best Of You

I havn't blogged in forever! I feel so withdrawn for the blogging world l8lee. But hey.. it's not cuz I've been lazy.. ok fine.. maybe a little lazy. I've just been so busy w/ my thesis. Like I expected, those 3 chapters I handed in to my supervisor got slaughtered :( Not a fun time for me. I've fixed up most of it but it still needs work. I headed back to Hamilton last Wednesday not expecting to come back home until this Friday, but of course things never go to planned.

Last weekend I was kinda upset because I knew I was gonna be missing a lot of things that were happening on the weekend. My friends Wil and Jack each had birthday celebrations (2 different events) and I couldn't go to that. What really sucks is that Jack's gf Nancy came back from HK for a few days.. so I missed seeing her. Oh, and my Mac friends went out Friday night. I felt so anti-social. Luckily Friday night Jimmy came up to keep me company! hehe! But get this! Friday night I get a rare MSN msg from Bashar, a really close buddy of mines (one of Jimmy's best friends).... he's my insult tag-team buddy :D. I was wondering why he was msging me, then I find out he's friggin back from Cali for a few days (he came back for a wedding). Apparently Jimmy forgot to tell me he was coming back. agh! He told me he was gonna be in the T-dot until Tuesday morning, but I told him I was stuck in Hamtown all weekend + week. I spent my weekend just bummy over what and who I was missing. So Sunday night, I said f**k my thesis, I'm going home!!

I got home Sunday night, then hit the bar w/ Bashar, Jimmy, Geoff and Michelle. Joyce and Kin joined in a bit later after Geoff and Michelle left. So began the drunken fun. Whenever Jimmy, Bashar and Kin get together it's pure stupidness... and of course I join in the fun :D After drinking a few beers and getting a bit trashed, we headed to Timmies to sober up. Oh man.. it was good times :D

The nxt day I headed downtown with Bashar and Jimmy (Bashar drove Jimmy to work.. I just tagged along) and we hung out @ UofT all day. Actually I took off for a bit to visit Sandy @ Sick Kids Hospital (she's working there) during her lunch break :) Sandy is always the first person I think of visiting when I head downtown. Sometimes I really miss hanging out w/ her (we really bonded when we were over in Leeds during our exchange). I brought Jimmy's laptop downtown so I managed to do a bit of work before heading back uptown w/ Bashar. That night I went to watch Jimmy play roller hockey but such bad luck for them.. right when they got into the rink the lights went out.. apparently they had a blackout so their game got cancelled :( So what did we do? We went to the bar! Ok I think I had warm beer that night cuz I ended up puking (not as bad as Kin though... haha). The guys were acting more stupid than usual... they spent the night trying to do these russian dance jump moves or throwing coasters and forks up in the air and attempting to catch them (keep in mind this is AFTER we had a few drinks). We were just plain stupid after the ... hm... 5th pitcher of beer? hahah!

Sounds like I have travel plans for this and nxt year! Bashar wants us all to go to Montreal for New Years Eve (they guys seemed really eager to go.. I wonder why.. perhaps.. the strip bars there? Le Super Sex! hahah), and Kin thinks we should all go on a cruise nxt summer. Ah.. this is why I like being part of a small clique sometimes :D You're always included in some sort of plans :)

I finally got my VS Angel credit card :D I applied for one when I was in NYC. And it came w/ coupons for free underwear! awesome! hahah!

So this weekend is the dragonboat festival @ Center Island, which I will be participating in. It's also Pride week, so the Pride parade is this Sunday. I usually go (cuz it's such a fun time.. it's like one big street party!) but I don't think I can this year cuz of dragonboat. ooh.. and I booked my restaurants for Summerlicious! I'm going to Jalapeno Restaurant with Rita (she's coming back Sunday..hooray! I can't wait!) and Centro Restaurant & Lounge with Jimmy. I'm quite excited!

Oh how I love Toronto!

Foo Fighters New CD (out Tuesday!)

Hooray! The Foo's are FINALLY coming out w/ a new album! It's out next Tuesday! Kathy & I are argueing over who's gonna be getting the CD (it feels dumb for both of us to get the CD but I'm afraid that's gonna happen!)

I also want the new Oasis cd too! It's awesome (I've heard some of the new tracks and I love it!). Oh but I want both CDs... eh.. I'll splurge!

Speaking of bands.. guess who got tickets to see Coldplay in concert August 2nd @ the ACC? waahoo! :D

**off topic note**
I handed in my Results chapter of my thesis to my supervisor today! Man my nerves are rattled.. it's gonna get cut up so bad... :(

Murphy's Law Day Pt. 2

Time: 4:34pm
Mood: Goin' Crazy!
Song of the moment: Beck - Summer Girl

So last week I had the absolute week from hell. It was definitely a Murphy's Law WEEK (not just a day!).

It all began when I drove back to Hamilton on Tuesday afternoon. I got back to Hamilton to realize I left my keyboard for my computer in T.O (I brought it home b/c I like typing with my keyboard). Then I realized that left my portable hard-drive there too, meaning I left all the work I did during the week + the presentation I was working in T.O. I freaked out because I need my work with me and I needed that presentation for Thursday. Later that evening, I went to take out my contacts when I discovered I left my contact case at home too. At that point I just wanted to scream. What a HORRIBLE day! I went out to Shoppers to buy a travel size bottle of my contact solution because for some dumb reason cases no longer come with the big bottles anymore, but when I got there I found out they didn' t have my contact solution in the travel size! *grr* so I had to buy some random brand I don't even use. I managed to get my dad to send me my files that I needed (It took quite a while), then I headed to bed, hoping my string of bad luck would end after a good nights rest.

It didn't.

I went to school the next day to find that the work I spent all Friday night on was non-existent. It was like I never saved my work. And I know I saved it.. I remember I pressed the "save" button on several occasions. *grr* So frustrating. Then I spent all day learning how to use Matlab, which I finally got a hang of by the end of the day! hahah!

Thursday I did my presentation. I was the last one to go, and my supervisor asked me this one question that I got too nervous about and I didn't quite answer (I kinda started to answer, then I stopped b/c I didn't how to explain it in words). That was my "defense-prep" question apparently. Now I'm just friggin nervous! After that, I helped a summer student w/ her experiments, then I headed back to T.O. I thought, b/c it was thursday, the traffic wouldn't be too bad. Boy was I wrong! It took me 2 1/2 hours to get home! The road was just littered with traffic accidents. OMG!! Boy was I glad when I got home!

This weekend I was @ the Pickering DB festival w/ the Mac team. It was a day of fun in the sun and some fun races. Our boats did pretty well, the boat I was on kept improving all day :D It was great! I got to get to know my teammates a bit better :) And I bumped into a few old friends that I havn't seen in so long! haah I can't wait until the Toronto DB festival :D

Thesis is up to 67 pages & counting (well it's a bit more than that.. but that's what I have formatted so far!) :S