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!

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?

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...