My special someone has requested me to blog before I leave for New York City. She wants something to read. Actually, I want to wait for all the photos first before I write about the Quebec city trip (as I dun wanna write so much. I want to use photos to tell the story). I don’t have any photos with me (I’ll tell you guys the reason for that at the end of the post) However, I cant turn my dear darling down. This is it.

I came back from Quebec city yesterday night. It was one cool trip as I got to meet my friends who have gone on exchange program across Canada: Yam and Peaung from Alberta, Tong from Calgary and Bo and Ploy from McGill.
Ottawa folks (Fai, N.P., Bonny and I), Yam (she came to visit Ottawa), P’ Beam and her mom, and Meng got to Quebec city first. There we met Meng’s friends, Guy, his wife Christine and his daughter, Marie-Anne. We were so well taken care off by Guy. We really appreciated it.

On second day, Meng drove us to the bus station to pick Bo, Ploy, Tong and Peaung up (Tong and Peaung stopped by Montreal before coming to Quebec city). We spent most of the time taking photos and traveling to places (Guy drove his car and Meng drove the van).

P’Beam, her mom, and Meng had to come back to Ottawa on the second night. Fai and I decided to come with them as we have been to most of the city. We’d love to spend our second night chatting with our friends but it was so expensive to come back to Ottawa by ourselves ($76 for one way trip ticket from Quebec to Ottawa). Bonny and N.P. decided to stay.

Five of us stopped in Montreal for dinner. Then Meng took us to Mt. Royal (if I didn’t get the name wrong). From there, we could see the city in bird’s eye view. Also, we saw one big fire blazing in the city. Black smoke rose into the sky. It was very scary. After that, Meng drove straight back to the Capital.

Now, the reason I dun have any photos with me was that I forgot to put the memory card into the camera. I was about to take a photo when it said ‘no memory card’. I wasn’t really surprised as this wasn’t my first time. Do you guys still remember a post that I wrote about a beautiful sunset at a park near the Parliament Hill? I told you that I’d take photos for you guys to see how awesome it was as I didn’t bring my cam with me. I did try to do that but…

My batteries were empty on my 2nd trip there. On my 3rd attempt, I forgot to put my memory card. And for my latest time, I was too late. The sun had already set (I had my cam ready for the first time).

Btw, I’ll try again. It might not be as beautiful as the one during Fall but I’ll take it for you guys to see.

BEWARE! Long but funny post and loads of photos ahead...


"take this night and all it's stars
well could it be anyone else with you?
no no no
take this time now and all this charm well
could it be anyone else here?"

Again?

Songs kept playing in my head when I was doing my exams.

It happened when I did marketing exam on Sunday night. That time I knew I did visit YouTube too often (details on this will be followed after). Having learned my lessons, I stopped tubing those two songs (and a few others). I listened to the radio instead. The radio station played this song, a night like this and I went to tube it. Once. I swear. I only watched the song once. However when I woke up this morning, the station played it again. So, I listened to the song 3 times in total. It wasn’t as bad as the previous exam (the song was slow, unlike those two). Still…I’m speechless.

Anw, I’ll tell you guys what I’ve been doing during the past few days.

I studied and played and slacked. But when the marketing exam was drawing near, my boredom level rising so bad. I couldn’t concentrate. I went to tubing and gone bonkers.

This is my advice; if you ever get bored on studying, just listen to some music that will make you go like

Hugh Grant here or
this guy here or
just sit on a chair and move your body and shake your head like I did…haha…

These are some of the songs I’ve been listening to

KnockKnock
BamBamBabaBamBam
FairyTales
OhShit
Ohhhh…
ScoopySnacks

Once in a while, I got bored of those songs, so I went to knocked on other’s people doors and took their photos (I’m leaving here soon. I want these photos as souvenirs).

Guillaume, my nice neighbor (though I wanted to kill him sometimes when he's making loud noise at night). This guy is an assistance to one of the Canadian MPs.



David, my (self-proclaimed) naughty little brother. He's also very sweet.



Patrick, my (another self-proclaimed) lovely little brother (though I perfer the naughty one 'cos I can beat him up...haha). He's a page at the Parliament.



Patricia, my fave gal.



Grace, Tricia's roommate, another sweet gal.



It's a pity that I couldnt get photos of Jean-Francois. He's one cool guy (except that he smokes). It would be lovely to have him as an older brother. I have other photos of him though.



Perfect! JF as my older brother and David as my younger...dream comes true man (I wish)!

Christian, one of my best exchange friends I've made. He got away with the candid shot.



Pio, my another best exchange friend.



I didnt get photos of Louise, another good exchange friend. She's left for her holidays.

And today, it was snowing in the morning. I was extremely happy. Good sign (or not) for my last exam.

After exam, Christain and I went to eat Subway's special. Finally, we had Subway together after we'd been talking about it for almost the whole semester.



When I was back to my room, my neighbor knocked on my door. He came to say goodbye before he left for Montreal. So lovely of him!



Pio came to my room to take photo with me while I was packing my stuff. We took some but there's only one on my cam.



My room during the packing...looks like a guy's room (I bet many guys have tidier rooms than mine)





And yeah...I've hugged so many friends today (as I'll be leaving for Quebec city tomorrow and they'll be leaving for their home) : Guillaume, Tricia, Pio, Chistian. Oh! It's only four. Anw, I feel like I've hugged at least 10 friends.

"...Come on, come on
Turn a little faster
Come on, come on
The world will follow after
Come on, come on..."


I SOOOO screwed my marketing exam up!!


"...Come on, come on
Spin a little tighter
Come on, come on
And the world's a little brighter
Come on, come on..."


if you guys wanna know why...read the next post...hehe...=P


'...I wanna go all night
Ain't no stoppin' 'till the breakin' of the dawn...
...I wanna go knock knock..."

Ok. I’m now in the middle of studying for my last two exams. Also, I’m facing a dilemma.

My next exam is on Sunday night. It’s marketing exam. There’re MCQ and case sections. I have to study the whole textbook for 100 MCQs that worth 10 marks! For the case section, it’s open-book. I’m at chapter 10, 8 more to go (plus 5 cases). Damn, I dunno the time spend studying for it would worth the opportunity costs.



The last exam is on Tuesday. It’s finance. This one is also an open-book exam with 100 MCQs. I’m definitely going to study for this one. Ok, I might not study that hard for it but I think I’ll be able to concentrate more on Monday before the exam. I know what I dunno about the materials taught in class so I’ll be able to focus on that and work it out.

What bother me at this very moment is whether to study for the marketing exam or not. The two fish in me are fighting. One wants to go out and relax: walking along Confederation Boulevard, going to 24 Sussex Dr., exploring the city a bit more. But the other one want to bring a good grade home (though I only want a B for marketing class). The good fish says study, dun be complacent and stay home while the not so good one says go out and enjoy myself as an exchange student with the time I have left here.

How? Any advice?

I didn’t plan to blog this early. However, many things happened during the first half of my ‘stressful’ exam period. I want to share them with you guys.

Friday December 1

There’s a lighting ceremony in front of Tabaret Hall. Patricia asked Bonny and I to join her and Brianna. Why should I turn her down? No matter how sucky it would be, it definitely was going to be better than studying.

It turned out that we were too early so we decided to drop by at the Second Cup nearby. It was so near to the Uni but I had never been there. So did Tricia and Bonny. The place was packed. I had wanted to try Second Cup hot chocolate for sometimes as it supposed to be better than Tim Hortons (also, it’s more ex).

After drinking, Tricia and I came to an agreement that Tim Hortons hot choc was so much better than that of Second Cup. Still, it’s better than Beavertails hot choc.
I’ll be faithful to you, Tim (only for hot choc ‘cos his coffee sux real bad. Or it’s just because I dun like drinking coffee?)

Then we walked back to Tabaret Hall. We had to wait for quite a while before everything started. There was a countdown and the light lit up. It was not an impressive lighting. The color combo was…umm…out of sync. The colors just didn’t go well together. Carol singers sang silent night in French. Cool! We didn’t stay until everything ended ‘cos it’s getting colder ( I'm ok with the cold weather right now. Thank you P’Pum for the warm jacket!)

Monday December 11

I had my first exam this morning with Fai and N.P. It went pretty well, though I left a question blank. I should be ok if I didn’t make stupid mistake on other questions. Then Fai and I went to have lunch in the kitchen. There we met Bonny, Pam, and Nin. They were cooking.
I went back to my room and got a call from Kristina. She said she left my marketing casebook at the lobby and told me to get it from there. I went to back to the kitchen and chatted with the rest. Then I went to the lobby to get my casebook.

When I walked back to Marchand, I heard the fire alarm. I also met Matt and Brandon at the door. They told me there’s fire. I didn’t pay much attention to them (Matt and Brandon are ones of the last that I listen to). I thought it might just be another fire drill so I decided to go up to get my jacket and stuff.

Everybody was running down the stairs but I was walking up. I met Patrick and Guillaume on the way. They said I set the fire. I was like ‘yeah…’ I climbed the stairs until I met one of the C.A.s. She told me to get out of the building but I insisted to go back to my room. I gave in.

Seconds later, Fai walked down. She told me about what that caused the fire alarm. This was the story told to me by Fai.

Not long after I left the kitchen, Antoinette came in and cooked her pork chops. As always, she left her pan on the stovetop. Then there was smoke coming from the pan. Suddenly, it changed to fire. Fai, Bonny, Pam, and Nin saw everything. They were panicking. Fai took the pan and she was going to put water onto it. Luckily, Bonny stopped her just in time. Fai asked Nin to use the fire extinguisher. Nin couldn’t pull the thing out so she gave it to Fai. She stuck with it for a while before the thing was out. She used the fire extinguisher but forgot to aim the host at the fire. Her shorts were all yellow. Still, she was able to put the fire out.

After the accident, everybody on the 8th and 9th floors was talking about it. Nobody could study, including me. What worse was I had another exam in the evening, shit!

I also realized about how silly I was. I didn’t listen to Matt and Brandon (if you knew them, you wouldn’t have listened to them. so I wasn’t really silly on this point). I didn’t give a shit on the fire alarm, thinking that it might just be another false alarm. The lessons learned this time was something I’d remember for a long long time.

On the other hand, I wanted to be in the drama. I wanted to know what and how I would do in this situation. Would I be calm or freaked out? How would I react to the fire and smoke in front of me? I really want to know.

I met Tricia in the kitchen on the next day. We talked about the fire and all. Both of us felt sorry for missing the drama. We jokingly said that we should set another fire so we wouldn’t miss it this time. Haha…great (or wicked) minds think alike.

Oh! The exam in the evening was not bad. I could do it, given that I didn’t make any stupid mistakes. I spent whole night slacking.

Wednesday December 13

I chatted with Erik on MSN on Monday night. He told me about the question session at the Parliament. It’s a session where the MPs argue on policies and stuff. It sounded interesting. When I saw Guillaume in the (clean and shiny) kitchen on Tuesday night, I asked him about it. He told me that the last session would be on this Wednesday (which is today). He also asked me why I didn’t tell him earlier so he could kinda bring me in (he’s working for one of the MPs there). Sorry friend, I just knew about it.

I did go there today; I sat in the public gallery. It was fun and interesting seeing the politicians quarrel. The speaker would let the members of the oppositions to ask the government questions. If the questions were specific to the Minister of Finance, the Minister would then answer those questions. They behaved like kids in there: yelling and booing at each other, standing up and clapping when their fellow party members asking or answering questions.

I couldn’t hear much of the stuff they were saying as there were lots of commotion in the House (boos, shouts, claps, etc.). There were questions on education, tuition fees, equality in Saskatchewan, CIA planes, etc. I had no clue what they were talking about ( I wish I could ). What I heard most was promises kept and promises broken. Damn! Politicians, despite of nationalities, love to make promises that they hardly keep.This was what Stephen Harper told the oppositions ‘you broke our promise.’ (I bet he’s broken some too). The Finance Minister said something like ‘14M in taxes…gone…gone…gone!’ Still, it was interesting and fun enough to keep me there until the end of the session.

I got to see most of the Canadian politicians and I didn’t know who they were except the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. If I gotta to see Thailand House of Commons, I would go like ‘That’s Abhisit. Oh! It’s Chuan and Suthep over there. Yuck! Stupid Thanksin, Suranant and Sitha. Banhan is smaller than I think he’d be.’

I had never paid much attention to the debate during question sessions in Thailand. I followed big news and stuff. I only watched the no-confidence motion (อภิปรายไม่ไว้วางใจ) once (but not all of it as the debate usually lasted for a couple of days). It was not like what I saw today. It was much more orderly with little commotions.

Shit! I better go back to study. See you guys soon! =P

Mug, Eat, and Sleep
(go nuts and get rund)

My first exam is coming in less than a week. There're no more classes to attend and no more projects due. This means that I seriously have to start studying [It also implies that I'll gain more pounds (add on to almost 6 lbs I've gained previously) during this time].

I didnt mug today: only some light reading. I took about 5 naps and ate like nobody's biz. สาด! Shit! Scheisse! I hope my mugging ability would improve soon or else my GPAs would surely drop.

I shall now excuse myself to go back to my study. Damn, why is it so hard to be a 'chao mugger'!?

P.S. I'll come back in abt a week or so. Hope I wont go bonkers before that. Hehe =P

Today is our king's birthday. Since he's a father to all Thais, we use Dec 5th as our father's day.

This was what he said on the day he accessed to the throne, "We will reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people." He has been doing that for 60 years. Look at how tired he must have been.







He must be even more tired this year as loads of many uneventful situations have occurred- political turmoil, violence in the south getting worse, flood, etc. I just keep my fingers crossed that next year will be a better year for Thailand.

If you guys wanna know more abt the King, click here

This is my fave picture. I love it.




P.S. You guys can click at my sidebar under 'ITubeUTube' heading. The first 3 links are clips about the King.


(we love the king)

Dood's Field Trip

Finally, Patch and Dood got to meet after 3 years.

We didn’t have a chance to meet when I went to Toronto in early September as he had to work. When he said that he was planning to come to Ottawa to visit me here, I was damn excited (I thought I am not going see him for another 10 years after my Toronto trip).

Old memories flooded my head when I met him: the fun I had during the 1st 3 months in ACJC, the stupid back-row council, paper planes flying in the lecture theater, exhausted PE lessons, Fun-O-Rama, etc.

Anw, being the ‘local’ here, I had to be his tour guide for the weekend. So the journey began.

The parliament





We were lucky to see they turned the pages of the books in the memorial chamber. The pages are flipped everyday at 1100 so that all the names in each book are seen at least once a year.





Bonny told me to go to the Wall of Whisper. It's a statue on the left of the Parliament. She said that I only need to whisper thru the wall and a person on the other side would be able to hear me clearly. We tried but we couldnt hear anything. Maybe we didnt do it the right way. I think I'll try it again before I go back.

The beautiful church (that I cant remember its name)



A walk to Museum of Civilization







Quebecois poutine at La Pataterie Hulloise



Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Zak's (2nd day)





Before he left



Then we walked to China Town and the bus terminal. It's time to say goodbye. We jokingly said that we may see one another again in the future- 3, 5 or 7 years. But I hope we'd meet in SG so that we can have a full SC4 reunion. That'd be fun.

Little Jasmine

Blogged about relationship and stuff yesterday makes me want to talk about one of my friends, J.P. He’s a friend I’ve made when I went trekking in Chaing Mai during Songkran (water festival) two years ago. We’ve been keeping in touch ever since.

These are photos we took.







He’s a Dutch expatriate working in Thailand at that time. He used to work in Singapore, South Africa, and many other places around the world. He’s working in Japan right now. I really want to be an expat like him. I bet it’s fun to work in different countries and experience different cultures and people.

Anw, the point is he’s a daddy now. He sent me this link to his online photo gallery. There I’ve found many amazing photos.







Daddy’s little girl named Jasmine. Beautiful is she not?


P.S. YP, I think they are more cool than your pics of cancer cells, apoptotic bodies, neuroblastoma cells, etc (Speaking from an ex-bio student’s point of view, both do show wonders of life and of living. Even though, I preferred to learn about blastocyte and embryonic cells to cancer cells).
P.S. 2 Today is the first official snow day. Photos will be added later

IMPROPER ASSUMPTION

The last presentation for this semester was over. It went pretty well. Two projects were presented: portfolio selection and personal finance project. For the latter project, we needed to come up with assumptions (lots of them) in order to predict the future cash flows – incomes, expenses, savings and investments. My group consisted of Fai, N.P., Christian and me. Christian, being a very studious and hard working, came up with initial assumptions and figures for this project. We were awed by the word document and the excel spreadsheet he did. However, we found something disturbing on the assumptions he made. This was what he wrote for one of assumptions, “at the age of 30 he will marry his girlfriend who is pregnant at that time.”

We went, “No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

This conversation came after.

J&Fai : Seriously, we have to change this.
Christian : Why? What’s wrong with this?
J&Fai : This is so wrong. It’s unacceptable.
Christian : People are doing this.

Then we kept going on about it for a while and Fai left for the restroom. Christian and I continued the chat. I told him my point of view. I knew people are doing this but it’s not the norm of Thai culture. It’s improper. Okay, many couples do cohabit. I’m fine with that. It’s everywhere, even in Thailand (I’m so sure that there’re cases of pregnancy before marriage, the infamous case was of the well-known Thai actress. It caused much stir in the country. People kept talking about it for months).

Nevertheless, what really disturbed me is the fact that a guy marry a girl because she’s pregnant. It’s like the guy has to take responsibility for what he’s done. Pregnancy…responsibility…are not reasons for marriage. I think it should be the other way round: a guy marries a girl then she’s got pregnant. That’s the way. Then he told me what’s happening in Germany and Europe in general. As you guys might have guessed, it’s something like what happening in Hollywood right now. After that, we went on chatting about other things related to that issue. He talked about his relationship. He said he used to have a girlfriend but they kind of broke up ‘cos of distance. He’s away on exchange program and she’s going to be away too. I told him it’s a stupid reason to end a relationship. If he and obviously her are willing to work on it, they should give it a try. Brian and Lea were in that same situation but they survived. Three years into the relationship, they're still going strong. They are now living happily together in New York. Fai came back and she ushered us to get back to work.

It’s good to have that conversation with him. I rather bored talking to him about studies, exams, projects and subway daily specials (I take 3 courses with him and we are in the same groups for 2 projects). I can say that I’ve made one new good friend.

By the way, he also jokingly said that if our parents ever going to see the report, they’re going to come after him for being such a bad influence to us. I told him not to worry about it ‘cos we are changing that part. We changed it to, “they get married at the age of 30 and they are expecting their first child a year after.” Sounds better eh?