me against the world

This picture was taken in 2005 on one of those really random, fun, and definitely unforgettable days. All of a sudden we had decided to drive to the beach and five of us piled into a car and drove off for an adventure. And that is exactly what we had.

Fun. I enjoy sharing pictures with friends, communicating via wall posts and private messages, getting notice about offline events that I would have missed otherwise, joining random groups and laughing at shared feelings and opinions, and ultimately I enjoy being able to find and connect with both new friends and old friends that I thought I would never be in contact with ever again.

Addictive. When I first signed up, I thought I’d be able to avoid the addiction. But now that I’m away from school, it’s so hard not to come on and find out what people are up to. The bigger your network is, the more that happens over the course of one single day for you to look at. I’m managing to keep the visits per day at a moderate number though…

Frustrating. While it’s a great way to keep up with what your friends are up to, it can also be painful to see images or hear of events that took place that you missed out on, either because you just couldn’t be there, or because they chose not to invite you. And I hope to God that no one ever breaks up with me over facebook. A text message (like Britney Spears) is bad enough, but changing your relationship status on facebook to indicate it’s over? That’s harsh. I wonder how many hundreds of people will find out about the break up before you do! I guess in this situation, it pays to be addicted and to be logging on frequently.

Creepy. Stalkerish much? Depending on how much information they decide to share, I can find out all these details about people without actually talking to them. If I meet someone, I can facebook (oh boy, I made it into a verb!) them to find out what they are like, or at least who they know. And I can look up friends of friends without them knowing. And let’s not forget about the news feeds…

Amazing. I have never been so amazed about the social aspect of computing and the ability for university students across the globe to come together and stand up for themselves before the introduction of the Facebook news feeds. The minute the news feeds were introduced to Facebook there was outrage across the networks. I was amazed to sit by and watch, as well as participate in, the huge movement against the news feeds and this new invasion of privacy. I am so proud to say that the people behind Facebook listened and made changes that now allow us to modify our privacy settings.

Ultimately, I like Facebook. I like that it helps me keep in contact with people in a fun, social setting. If I want something to be private, then I can make that happen. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the stalkerish aspect though… it’s creepy!

What do you think?

In the summer, three of my friends each bought a Canon PowerShot SD700 IS. I spent the summer taking random pictures with this camera and enjoying the features - especially the somewhat-new Image Stabilizer technology.

As a result, I began to dislike my own old Canon PowerShot S410.

Nothing frustrated me more than when it started packing up and the camera lost all its video recording capabilities. I e-mailed Canon and was told to send it in for repair. I’ve had the camera for years now and without a warranty, I wasn’t prepared to waste my money on fixing what I now thought of as junk.

So, from that day on, I have been dreaming about picking up my own SD700. But I decided that I could wait a while for prices to drop. No one seemed too interested in the camera at that point so I wasn’t worried.

My dad bought the same camera for his workplace around that time and brought it home. After having a few moments to play around with the camera again, my desire for this product grew tremendously.

Months passed and boxing day rolled around. I decided to look to see if I could find my camera on sale. My friends had bought the camera in the summer for almost CDN $600. We walked into Future Shop and they had the camera listed as “on sale” for a price $30 higher than what my dad paid for it. We asked them about it and they admitted that the price had been lower, but refused to price match during Boxing Week.

Irritated, we walked across the street to Best Buy (who owns Future Shop). They were selling the camera for $100 less than Future Shop had it!! I was ecstatic. But, they were sold out.

So, the next day I drove into Toronto and went to the Future Shop near work. They were selling it for the price my dad had bought it at, but were sold out. I went to Best Buy and they were sold out too.

We went online to the Best Buy website, but they wouldn’t accept any of the credit card numbers my dad entered. When I went back to the website the next day, they were all sold out.

I tried Henry’s. But Henry’s was more expensive than Best Buy, and before I had the chance to ask them to price match, Boxing Week was over and the prices went back up.

Last week, they had all priced the camera at $469.95. This week, Future Shop put it up on sale for $429.99.

I would really like this camera but I can’t get myself to pay this when I knew I could have saved $100. I think I’m mostly frustrated because there didn’t seem to be much of a demand for this camera until Boxing Day rolled around.

Not fair.

I’m not sure if I should give in and buy the camera for $429.99 now. I just know that I would like it for many of the events coming up, and I will definitely be buying it before I go to Japan.

Though I wonder what wonderful cameras I could get there for a low price…

At work yesterday, beside my open spreadsheet document, I had an auto-refreshing window with minute-by-minute match highlights (courtesy of soccernet.com) open. The match was Liverpool vs. Arsenal.

It must have been an exciting match to watch because even though I was only following text, I was really getting into it. After making a decision to stay longer after work because of my inability to focus while the game was on, I decided I would log my comments as time passed:

4:29pm -

On Saturday, in the third round of this year’s FA Cup, Liverpool played Arsenal at home. They lost 3-1. And it was sad because the 2006 cup holders are now out of the running to hold onto the silverware for a consecutive year.

Now, because of a reschedule of a previous match, the two teams are playing again today. Three days later, the teams are playing yet again but this time in the Carling Cup quarter-final.

At half time, Liverpool were losing 4-1. It’s frustrating, but mostly sad to see.

It’s now the 74th minute and it’s 5-2. Liverpool have made many famous comebacks from behind, so it’s hard not to latch onto the glimmer of hope. We all know they have done it before, and we hope that they can do it again.

But who knows.

I’m clutching to my seat while also trying to be productive at work (oh it’s ok, I already know I’m staying a bit late today). Let’s just see what happens.

And, if all else fails, hopefully they’ll beat Barcelona and move on in the Champion’s League. It will be sad if they crash out of that too.

4:35pm - YES! it’s 5-3!

4:37pm - No :( It’s 6-3! I wonder if my Arsenal-supporting friend will take pity on me and not bring it up after the game…

4:42pm - I do believe in miracles, but I don’t know how this one is going to work with a minute left plus some injury time…

4:48pm - It’s over :( I will bow down and say Arsenal kicked butt both times. But, at least it wasn’t one of those other teams I hate.

5:21pm - And on top of all of that, we have injured players. It’s a sad day for the Liverpool fans :(

note: image was taken from the BBC football photos collection.

For those who don’t know already, I’m going to Japan in March for a huge work event. I am also going to be staying there for an extra week to travel around certain parts of the country.

So, over the past week or so I have been reading all sorts of guides and websites in order to figure out what I want to do there, as well as to learn more about the Japanese culture.

What I can’t wait to experience is this so-called “culture shock” that everyone says they experience when visiting Japan. This is the result of seeing the traditional Japanese culture almost side-by-side with the modern “only-in-Japan” flare.

Think Geisha, then Buddhist monks, and then Harajuku girls. Right.

I keep reading about how both streams of culture co-exist peacefully and I can’t wait to see this for myself.

Today I was reading about the custom of bowing, and how far low you bow and for how long depends on who you are, who you are bowing to, etc.

Apparently, since the Japanese know that foreigners tend to shake hands when they meet, during business meetings they try to do the same. But, because of habit, they still tend to bow slightly at the same time.

The author of the article said that the best example she had seen that demonstrated that this tradition was now a habit, was when she walked past someone who was bowing while saying hello on the phone, even though the person on the other end could not see the polite gesture.

This image both charmed and amused me at the same time.

I received a friendly reminder from Sarah telling me that I still haven’t put up an end-of-year post, so here it is.

I spent a long time writing a very long entry in my own private journal and so I’ve decided not to do a long, all-encompassing entry on here. But, instead I am going to write this short, more concise entry. It may not look short, but trust me it’s many pages shorter than my other one is.

2006 was a good year for me. The year that began with a continuation of personal struggles from the previous year turned itself around as time went on. It reached a happy climax in the summer, and then dropped down to calm and decent levels during the fall term. And I will say that it definitely ended on a good note.

I grew a lot, I experienced a lot, I smiled a lot, and I definitely laughed a lot. I traveled, I went to shows, I made new friends, and I had a really good time with old ones.

Highlights that I can remember at this moment were:

- Organizing a charity event for the NPO that I was interning at for a semester, seeing it all come together at the actual event, and then feeling good when I found out about the huge sum of money we had raised
- The road trip to Toronto for SAA to cheer on our poor UWO dance squad, then driving all around the GTA extremely hyper, before ending up at Aladdins in Mississauga for food and fun
- Finding out that I got the internship position that I am working right now. I will never forget how that felt and how I couldn’t settle for feeling just one emotion; I had to feel all of them at once
- Packing up all of my stuff, moving out of London and back to Toronto to live with my parents and start this job
- This internship. Period.
- Doors Open Toronto
- The World Cup. Watching matches everywhere… all the way up to watching the final at the Rogers Centre and being amongst the French fans who all went silent when Zizou made his infamous move, and then cheering anyway after because it was all that we could do at that moment. Haha.
- White water rafting in Ottawa
- The crazy Montreal trip
- Concerts! JM, Imogen Heap, Goo Goo Dolls & Counting Crows…
- My very first musical: Wicked
- My first live ice hockey game: Leafs vs. Thrashers.
- Paintball :)
- The summer when I played too much soccer (if there is such a thing)
- I played so much that I guess I was destined to badly hurt my ankle for no reason in September
- The conference we organized at work. It was such an amazing experience and one I definitely will not forget anytime soon
- All the random nights out, dinners, lunches, get-togethers, parties, spur-of-the-moment activities…

There were some lows here and there, but as I said 2006 was a pretty good year. And I’m very thankful for that.

Let’s hope that 2007 will be even better. I’m already looking forward to traveling, learning more, and having even more fun.

I hope that we all have a great 2007 and that we all achieve everything that we work towards and dream of.