Chinese work harder?

As I mentioned in the previous post, recently I have been stressed over this one huge course project. Java based, student scheduling assistant. Well that's not the point. The point is, we are a four-man group..ok, three-man-one-woman group.

And out of the 4 people, one is a non-Chinese dude, who appears smart, and somewhat hardworking. I didn't know him that well before the project; since my friends picked him, I assumed he was at least OK.

The result was: for the past 4 days, he contributed to around..let's say...7.5% of the entire project. I'm being polite here.

He did appear he was trying hard: he came up with a clever idea of how to test this standard input/output intensive program by creating mocking projects so we only needed to do it in Java. ok ok. Except my another teammate built an ingenious tool for command line testing and the mocking part was entirely unnecessary. Today he finished the user manual, which we had to read over and correct the mistakes and add in the content he forgot/missed.

On the contrary, the other 2 teammates and me worked HARD. Every day we worked since the time we woke up, non-stop (and communicating via MSN) until 2am. EVERYDAY for the past 3 days. I adore how hard they could push themselves, and consequently I had to push myself a lot more too since I didn't want to let them down. We were like a bunch of perfectionists who would drain the last drop of our blood to make this project clean, beautiful, extensible, well structured, and matching industry standard. (I'm serious: we've had enough knowledge to make this happen)

At the end, I remember what the non-Chinese dude responded to a question we raised for a spec related question: "Who the fuck cares."

Well we did. And we worked harder.

I have another example to prove this cliche. CUTC - the Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference, had a TechTeam challenge. We were given a task to design a whatever crazy-ass computer that worked in the wild. My group was consisted of 5 people: me, Dave, a Chinese girl, and 2 other non-Chinese dudes. We had 2 days to do it, and for almost 1.5 days, the 2 non-Chinese people were missing. When we met for the prototype details, a guy(deceivingly talkative, but full of bullshit) said "who the fuck cares, I don't care."

Again, we cared. In order to complete the task that met our standard, me and Dave ended up not sleeping all night to finish the presentation slides and prototype. We lost - for 2 people working for the amount of 5 people's work. I thought we did a decent job though.

One more - last semester's business software project. Group of 5, 3 Chinese, 2 non-Chinese. The 3 of us did almost all the work while the other 2 slacked or produced non-acceptable results. We all got a good mark.

I don't know what the moral of the story is. I'm not trying to be discriminative, but I do notice the difference. We have the tradition to be perfect - sometimes too rigorously following the standards. It could be the ideal we share; or the expectation of life. We ought to be more practical. Maybe this explains why the rate of education is much higher in Chinese here, why there are a lot of Chinese doctors and lawyers, and why Engineering/CS/Commerce programs are flooded by Chinese students.

I can rant about how non-Chinese groups are different, but I'm feeling weird for slacking and not doing any work. Oh well...

Remedy of the day

After a tiresome long day of programming in Java in the lab, this tranquil, understanding smile is no doubt like a refreshing breeze to my heart. Looking at my teammates who worked beside me for the entire afternoon, I am asking for no more.

Home Town

Bumped into this photo yesterday. Quite amazed how where I grew up could look so good. :)

See the "twin towers" on the up right corner? My high school is right beside them. These two buildings were supposed to be the "Chinese World Trade Center" and just finished building before 911. Sigh.

Walking Cliche

Actually it should be "driving cliche".

I rented a car for the first time in my life. Don't laugh: if you live in downtown Toronto and your parents aren't around, you will be like me too. Being under 25 and holding a G2 license, I was able to get a car for 88 bucks a day(plus whatever gas I used up by the end of the day). It's a crazy price, but I needed to practice for my coming G test as well as dealing with some errands here and there.

So here I am, an Asian woman, driving.

What's worse: the car rental place decided to give me a Toyota Corrola.

Woohoo!!

What's worst: I perfectly, 100% match this stereotype. Haven't driven for almost 2 years, my driving skills were rotten and smelt like H2S. I still feel sorry for the terrified passenger. And I had to go through unimaginable situations: closed highways; extreme cold alert weather; blowing snow storm on hwy 7, when I had to use the anti-freezing liquid on the windshield every 5 seconds; got stuck in ice and went out only after 2 guys decided to help push the car.

What a day.

On the bright side, I only got honked once and made back home alive. There wasn't much car damage, except a scrape when backing out from the ice holes and worn tires. At the end of the day I was much more confident with driving, and got a lot braver.

Did I mention I improved too?

Something interesting

This is reading week and I have been going to sleep at 5am and getting up around 3pm daily. Not a good life style at all. Slacking leads to laziness, laziness leads to less discoveries. However I still got a couple of interesting pictures to share here.

Women rule! - Taken in the medical science building




The rival

Happy Chinese New Year!

Best wishes to whoever celebrate the arrival of the year of pig! A white friend of mine -_- sent me this set of pictures and I found them extremely cute...So let them carry my greetings :)
Note the play on the words...I can only do a rough translation =(

"Happy New Year! Wish you in the new year of pig..."


"Healthy and Happy, forever young"


"In your specialty area, know what you do and do it well"


"Everybody praise you for being smart and wise"


"All your friends healthy and good looking" -_- i can't translate this


"But only you can keep your looks at its best"


"You will have so many lovers that you can barely handle it"


"Everybody desires you"


"Don't be so 'flower-hearted' and have sexy time every night ;)"


"and wish you and your entire family happy, safe and healthy. "

Beauty

So after the snow storm everything went back to tranquility. I decided to post more pictures...to show how beautiful the blue sky/white snow look.

"Digging" through my way to the library. :)


somebody shoveled the sidewalks. :)





During work's break. This is my favorite scene of the day.

Happy Valentine's Day - yada yada

This is the time of the year - streets are filled with red things: roses, hearts, stuffy red animals, chocolates in red wrapper, etc.
Let's see something GREEN!!



This is what Chinese soldiers did in their barrack. Amazing eh.

I never get how people have to get flowers involved in this freezing temperature and blowing wind. It's just, not, natural! Especially this day Toronto is buried under 15cm of snow. I pity those who have to sell flowers in this weather.

Here's what it's like before the snow hit last night.


and this morning!! Although it blows to my face, I still like it ;)



Enjoy your day people.

Tax Breaks

After all I could not keep the pictures coming. It does take some effort to find interesting snapshots of life - the fact that recently I've been ranting and being all nerdy busy doesn't help either.

So here's something I think might help.

For a student who's got some income for 2006, it's essential to get tax credits. In addition to the tuition credit we can claim, here's what's new for 2006:

1. Textbook tax credit. Finally, we can make use of those big ass heavy gold rocks! Students can claim $65 for each month enrolled as a full-time student, or $20 for a part-time status. It can be carried over to future years or transferred to other family members. This means I can get $65 x 4 = $260 tax credit. Better than nothing.

2. Scholarship, fellowship and bursary income will be fully exempt provided the student is enrolled in a program for which they are entitled to claim an education credit. Before we are only entitled to exempt up to $3000 if there's education credit, or $500 if there isn't. Yay.

3. Public transit credit. Do I need to say more...each Metropass can be claimed as $15 or something tax credit, accompanied with the Pass itself and an official receipt.
Darn I just lost my February receipt. =/

More $$$$$ is always good!

"create a repository that lets you store, search, and extract ODF documents in a standards-based manner."

So I was intrigued by this article on Slashdot which used lots of flashy words such as "Document storage", "OpenOffice", "Apache Derby", and of course, the most attractive words: "hot, hot, hot! ".

So I was tricked, and got linked into what made me feel all nostalgic: an IBM DeveloperWorks page. (It's notable how the Slashdot article never mentioned anything to do with IBM). It turned out this "new" feature Slashdot is mentioning is actually about the new DB2 V9's XML feature. Since IBM had DB2 V9 out last summer, IBM is definitely trying to grab all sorts of resources to let every developer know how great it is and how useful it can be.

So I decided to give this fancy thing a try. Initial system requirement: DB2 V9 Express-C (The free DB2 version for local useage), and DB2 Developer Workbench. Each product is about 500MB. Although I worked for DB2 for 16 months, I never used a non-developer DB2 build before. The personal DB2 version didn't look too bad though: downloading took about 20 mins and installation was almost seamless. It also happily picked up my Chinese language setting and converted all menus and instruction into Chinese. (This is the component I worked on before. :))

The Workbench was a pain, however. It is essentially an IBM-ized eclipse, with a bunch of fancy stuff, plug-ins you might never use. Download took about another half an hour, and installation wasn't that bad either. Setting up Derby was another story. I had to follow another link only to find out the Callisto Discovery Site is broken (or say, doesn't support) for eclipse 3.1.x so I couldn't install the Web Tool Platform; and to find out that I didn't at all need this WTP.

Another error with the document also made me ponder why the heck I couldn't connect to a Derby database. Long story short: 4 hours later (Including an episode of 24, an episode of Heroes, and a bunch of assignment work), I finally got the environment set up.

Then.... I got tired of it. Did have a glance of the explanation of how OpenOffice stores data and how to search through it. And how DB2 can help with its XML feature. And how the code works. That's the rest of the 8/12 pages of the document. Wahaha.

I'm sorry readers. I could have tried the thing out and wrote a review about it. After all the hardship with installation and fighting with all sorts of eclipse, plug-ins, I really should have.

Moral of the story: Don't let your readers/users spend 4 hours just to set up the environment (regardless if they are watching TV or not). Sad to say this happens A LOT at IBM - setting up a Windows build DB2 was a nightmare of all developers. Yes and I did it twice...

Of course, DB2 is a great tool. Once you get it all set up, you can enjoy all the convenience and beauty it brings you - just you have to be patient enough to find out. :)

I love winter

I love winter. To be specific - I love Toronto's winter. It's one season that everything seems to be crisp clear. You will never find another day with comparable viability and a feeling of freedom. Sky is so blue that it seems to be melting in my eyes.
You might want to complain about the dry and chilly wind, and how it hurts you like a sharp knife. I'd rather call the coldness and wind "awakening". Compared to the steam and heat in the summer, you are no longer drowsy all day long. Instead, you are wide awake. Winter keeps my head clear and mind active to its maximum. What is the best is that I don't need to struggle with annoying sweat any more. I hate to sweat with a passion.

Of course there is always deeper reasonings behind this. This Toronto weather reminds me of home. The home. Taiyuan is an inland city in China, stuck between two major mountains. It hardly rains nor snows, while in the winter wind literally blows you away. It's not some pleasant climate, but it's home. The lack of moisture and harshness of a Toronto winter is exactly like that - and I liked it because it reminded me of home. Although many years after I start to call Toronto home, this feeling of belonging still hovers around.

Enough with the talking. I took a couple of pictures on College street. Pedestrians didn't seem to care. :)



This is the Department of Architecture and Landscape Design (or something like that).
Note - the "cloud" is not real cloud, it is steam coming from a chimney nearby. Made the picture look even better.



Isn't the blueness heart-melting?

The place I make my rent

Two days a week, I work at the New College Library as a "Computer Lab Assistant".
This is my "job title". I put this sign on my little desk, and hope someone will have trouble with one of the 20 WinXP computers and ask me to help them.



There are quite a few interesting questions I have got. I always answer them patiently - after all this world is not perfectly filled with nerds like me.

"How do you..turn on the Internet?"
- Click on the "e" sign on the front.

"How do you open another window?"
- I pressed Ctrl+N for him. He was very happy.

"What's wrong with this computer? It wouldn't load MySpace."
- (Apparently MySpace uses some funky Flash that crashes IE every time.)
Go talk to Microsoft...(Of course I could ask the system admin to update the Flash plug-in...meh - library computers aren't for MySpaces.)

"UTORMail is not working! Can you check this computer?"
- Looks like this computer can't access UTORMail when they are doing its maintenance. Give it a few minutes I guess?

I rarely get asked difficult or even technical questions. The most work I've done was to set up a girl's MAC wireless connection- it was fun.

When people are busy with their important business such as facebook, I look around or study. When you have to sit at a fixed spot facing the same view 6 hours a day, you start to appreciate its profoundity and beauty.

This is the exact view from my angle. Figured out where I sit yet?



The other side. These books are Encyclopedia Britannia, published in the 1910s. Over 100 years of wisdom is all written in these thick, fine-covered books.



This is the study area. Quite fancy light - it reminds me of the honey nut cheerios :)



It is fairly easy work - a part time work in a library to make up my monthly rent. I am not asking for more.

How many wires are you carrying?

Following yesterday's craze, I started to seriously think about taking pictures daily. No matter what I use - cell phone, or a digital camera, I am facing a problem: If I want to upload pictures on the go, how many damn wires am I gonna carry?



So let's see. Currently I already have the following wires/cables in my backpack:

- A laptop power cord
- A power cord extension cord (because the above item is just not long enough)
- A mouse (you get tired of the trackpoint at some point)
- An Ethernet cable (wireless in BA sucks)
- Cell phone headset
- ipod earphones

- Camera/(optional)phone USB cord....

So this is it. In addition to the 10 pound textbooks I have (and the coins in my wallet), I need to carry these lovelies around. We are so bound to the electronics and their accessories that they are invisibly, subtly and powerfully tying us up, not talking about the added burdens to our young shoulders.



Untie me!!

Photo Blog?

I spent quite some time reading Feng Ming's Project365. A picture a day. A story a day. Isn't this a brilliant idea? Consider that I have kept a written diary for more than 5 years, I should be able to mimic what he is doing. It takes commitment and persistence, but a few years from now I will thank myself for keeping it up. If not daily, I'll try to use pictures to record the beauty of my world at least once a week.

With the whooping wind and deep freezing temperature around -20 Celsius, don't you miss all the beautiful colour of the seasons?

The following pictures are all from my cell phone - yes, I'm one of those with a phone that plays music, takes pictures and cooks my dinners.

Me and Carmen found this on a DB2 picnic day last summer. The scene took us by surprise - when we were astonished by its cuteness and vivid colour, we were thinking - these better not be poisonous.






Taken outside of UT bookstore. It was a chilling afternoon, but I still felt warm and fuzzy inside when I saw this. hehe.



Of course...we always need some girls in the scene.


I'll be careful with the winter colour...

Here, the live leafs game I went last year, thanks to Liu. I still miss the atmosphere, the screaming, and the love for the blue and white. It was one hell of an exciting game - went over time, and shoot-out!! Leafs lasted for 4 shots...then lost...At least it saved me some post-victory drinking.



Shoot!!


Leafs are on fire these days. 7 game winning streak?? GO LEAFS GO!

I did not expect this post to end with "go leafs go". We still have to face the harsh winter days...

"A new blog is created every second"

I actually have an explanation for my crazy new blog idea. Greg - the professor who cares us more than academically - sent us a link today, which "inspired" my web nerves.

Web 2.0 in 5 mins

A trial

After all I'm a Computer Science person - using MSN Space makes me feel I'm downgraded - limited selections of templates, inflexibility to modify modules, and IE?! It is just so, not, cool.

Well it doesn't mean using Blogger will make myself that much more tech savvy - but it's worth a try, no?

Unlike MSN Space, a blog somewhere else means people will have to *deliberately* click on a link to visit it. Oh well - I'm not running for the homecoming queen title anyway.

We'll see where this goes. Amen.