Dec. 31(Grand Central Station,UN&MoMA)

The first stop we went to today was Grand Central Terminal, seeing it really made me know why I heard people criticize the demolition of Penn Station. It's really quite magnificent, the extent to which they build their train stations is quite something.

UN, we didn't really see a lot of it since we didn't take the tour.

MoMA(Museum of Modern Arts) was quite something, too. We saw a lot of famous paintings, like Matisse's The Dance, Picasso's Three Musicians& Les Demoiselles d'Avignon , Monet's Water Lilies triptych , Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy, some of Dali's, Miro's and van Gogh's. We didn't see van Gogh's The Starry Night, which was one of the paintings I wanted to see, it was in a special exhibition. But it was still nice, seeing all these artwork that you usually see in textbooks.

Dec. 30( Guggenheim Museum, The Met)

Since we slept late on the 29th, everyone slept late and we left late. We got to the Guggenheim Museum at just after noon, and "evaded" another long line because we had the "City Pass". I don't know about the artwork inside , but the building is really something, Frank Lloyd Wright was the designer. I've heard of it before and the architecture really isn't something to miss.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was, as almost everyplace we've been to, crowded. I guess I'll have to come at least another time, the Met isn't something you can finish in a day, don't even think of it. The museum is huge, I guess it really lives up to it's name, they have a huge collection of artwork and even someone who isn't into art, like me, can recognize the value of a museum like this. They have a great collection of Egyptian artifacts including a small Egyptian temple. I've already talked about how I'm "mildly" interested, you can guess that I took a lot of pictures.

For dinner, we met up with my cousin who's working in the fashion industry here in NYC. She came with her boyfriend and we ate at a "pricey" restaurant (An average of 20+ USD). It tasted well and cost a lot.

Arrival at NY& Dec. 29(Statue of Liberty& Empire State Building)

Well, we arrived at LaGuardia Airport on the evening of Dec. 28, the day before yesterday, and were picked up by a family friend who's also a pastor from our church in Taiwan, he currently works at the American Bible Society here in NY, they live at Long Island, which is also where we'll be staying for the week.

Yesterday, our little "group", which consists of my family and him, his wife and his two daughters who are in 8th and 5th grade, got up at around 7 and went to take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. It took us around two hours, which we spent standing in line, to get on to the ferry, it was totally crazy. But I guess it was kinda worth it, the statue is really worth seeing, it's quite something. Then we went to Ellis Island, which is the "gate to America" since it once was a place where immigrants had to pass through to enter the states.

After that we went to the Empire State Building, where, guess what? We encountered a long line again!! After waiting in-line for an hour and walking up six floors, we finally got to the 86th floor. The view was great, we could virtually see the lights, it was dark already, of the whole city of NY.

Then, after eating diner, we walked to Times Square. It is really a sight. I mean, really, how many places are there in the world where it's as bright at night as in the morning? It's really one of a kind. But as great as it is, I won't go there for New Year's Eve, it'll be to crowded and I prefer comfortably watching it on TV thank you very much.

On Christmas-The First Gift

(This isn't like a blog entry; it's more like a thought about Christmas.)
(The title doesn't mean "on Christmas (day)", it's more like "Concerning Christmas")

Christmas, it's a season of love, a season of gift giving, and a season of warmth in the cold of winter. It is a season of shopping, of Christmas trees, of Santa Claus and a lot more. But what is Christmas really about, what is this holiday which causes major traffic jams in cities around the world really about? There must be more. It actually is quite surprising; it celebrates the birth of an infant, 2000 years, in a manger, in a small town in the Middle East.

Two thousand years ago, in Bethlehem a small town in Israel, a child was born. He was born in a manger, not in a palace or a house of power, but in a humble manger. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6)." A king was born to us, but he was not born to be served, but to serve. Not only to serve, but to die for us, die so that our sins may be forgiven “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5)." "The Word became flesh." God came down as a man, he walked our roads and he felt our pains, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15)." God gave us the first gift, which is also the greatest one, his one and only son, Jesus Christ, who lived to die for our sins, so that we may be holy again.

So next time when Christmas come along and you're giving presents, don't forget the first gift, which was given by God to all mankind, Jesus Christ, the Savior.

Trip

I went on a three day trip to Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec with family& friends. It was fine, I guess, as long as my little sister and her "friend" turn down the volume of their talking and so on. It was a lot colder there than here in Toronto, about 10 degrees colder, but it's still bearable. Anyways, we went to a few places and some of them were quite cool, in Ottawa, we made a stop at the Canadian Parliament and then we went to the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which I admit doesn't sound too cool, and its normal exhibits only strengthen that, but then, there was a special exhibit that is cool, as long as you like ancient Egypt and don't freak out when you see mummies. There was an exhibit, "Tombs of Eternity: The Afterlife in Ancient Egypt", and since I'm "mildly" interested in Egyptology, which must have something to do with my uncle who, I believe, has a PhD in Egyptology, I loved it, it's not like you can see a real mummy every day.
Later we went to a catholic church, a big one, Saint Joseph's Oratory, at Montreal. And I have to admit, disregarding the problems in their theology; Catholics really know how to build a church.
Then, we went to the Olympic Tower, which wasn't a lot. The Biodome was better, there were all kinds of different animals in it, and it was.....just cool I guess.
Then there's old Quebec City, which was fine, I wasn't in a good mood then, it was way too cold for my liking. The next day, yesterday, we came back, passing through Kingston on the way.
Please forgive me if it wasn't a very interesting entry, I don't really know what to put in.

I'm really looking forward to the trip to NYC, I haven't really been there before and I..... Guess I just look forward to it.

Photos from the three day trip

Last Week of School

It's the last week of school, there's tons of HW. I'm just sick of it.Looking forward to the53 day winter break.

University of Waterloo& Weather& Random stuff

Last Friday, my family went to the University of Waterloo. It's a pleasant school, and since it isn't located in a big city, it has a bigger campus, which makes it "feel more like a university"(That's what my mom said), although it is quite cold, even compared to Toronto. I went on a general campus tour and an engineering tour (software engineering). I'm mainly interested in computer science, which at Waterloo is in the Math Department. I think I'm interested in it because it's "computer" and "science", LOL, just kidding, I'm interested in it because I think I'd like to have a career related to it and because......I like it. We went to Waterloo because it is considered No.1 in computer science in Canada, and since it's near, we decided to visit. I am actually considering taking my undergrad studies outside of Taiwan, there are, naturally, some reasons. Some of the reasons are because A LOT of the schools outside of Taiwan offer better Computer Science programs than those in Taiwan, and I can also skip the university entrance exam in Taiwan, YEAH!!! And since the tuition in Canada is much more affordable than that in the state, it's possible that I'll pursue my university education here.

The weather here is beginning to become quite terrible, it's started to be freezing cold; literally, it was as low as -10 today. Walking outside is becoming more and more unbearable, so I'm thankful that I won't have to last through the whole winter here.

I bought two books last Thursday when we went to Costco, they're "The Appeal" by John Grisham and "Change of Heart" by Jodi Picoult, both are great writers and I look forward to reading them, but they'll have to wait, for a reason......... No, I'm not that hardworking, it's not because I have to study more, though I do, it's because I'm gonna read the books borrowed from the library here, since I can read the two books later and not the library books. I still have like 5+ books at home that I haven't read yet and a few that I hope I can get and finish before I leave Canada.

OK, I guess I've made up for not writing for a long time, or maybe not, anyways we'll be at New York from the 28th to the 3 of January (New Years Eve!!! Time Square!!!), after that we'll go visit my uncle at LA on the 7th and leave for Taiwan on the 20th, arriving home on the 21st, thus ending the half year "trip" to Canada.

Random Stuff

I haven't written for quite some time, just had a lot of things happening but not really knowing what to write, it's kinda confusing actually, so I'll just talk randomly about my life.

To call the temperature here "cool" is a total understatement, it's literally "freezing" here, and the temperature routinely goes below zero now. While the temperature is still 14~18°C in Taipei, it's already -2~-7°C here, it's already snowed quite a few times.
We've just gotten our first term report card; I did OK on some, great on others, and even did quite bad on one subject. Since I did quite awful on one subject, I got an average of 87.5, it's OK I guess, but considering that I wasn't really studying, I guess I could and should have done better.
What I'm more worried about is the school work back at Taiwan. I haven't been studying hard on the material, and learned why Jianguo High School is considered the most prestigious high school in Taiwan. I tried their first exam, and might have failed about half of them, it's totally scary. It might partially be because I'm only reading on my own, but it still means I "should" work a lot harder.
And I'm reading like crazy. The public library here is so much better than the ones back a Taiwan, there are tons of novels available, and I can even download audio books from their website .YES!!!! But, NO!!! I don't have time for school work. Oh, whatever.......XD.
I'm also thinking about writing a story, which I sometimes do but never finish, I think the setting would be at least 1000+ years into the future, some of the random elements would be: space, magic, technology, feud, assassination, interstellar empire, emperor, coup, loyalty and others(what a mess:) ) I'll try to start it if I can get the time to do it; it's quite an interesting thought. I might be able to put some of the drafts here or on Facebook soon, but don't hold your breath :).

I've just jot down some things about my life here. Even more random stuff.... I'll write more in about a week.

Nigara Falls

Yesterday I went to Niagara Falls with my family and a schoolmate of my sister.
We went to Niagara -On-The-Lake first, it's a small town near Niagara Falls, we went there and, ate lunch, and got a slice of the best fudge I've seen anywhere. There's a store there, Maple Leaf Fudge, that sells fabulous fudge, I bought one slice and it was as good as I remembered, it's HEAVENLY!! If you ever go there, you have to try it.
After that, we went to the falls. Niagara Falls is one of those places that I would say are"must go's" in your life. The sight of the falls is breath-taking, and the walk along the sidewalk which took us through the "veil" of water which was being blown are way,that was really an experience of a lifetime. It left the outside of my jacket all wet but it was definitely worth it.
Here are the photos.

Books I've been reading recently

Just a list of some of the books I've been reading recently.

Kite Runner: I won't say much about it, half of the people I know have already read it. It's a good book, that's all I'll say, it isn't one of my favorite books and I'm only reading it for my English class, haven't finished it yet.

Children of Hurin: A great book, if you are a The Lord of The Rings addict that is. I love it, but I don't recommend reading it unless you've read LOTR+The Unfinished Tales+The Silmarillion+a dozen other books related to them. It talks about the "child of Hurin", Turin,his life is epic but also quite tragical. A must read for all who like LOTR.

Nineteen Minutes: A book that is a worthy read. Its author is Jodi Picoult, who's a great writer, her books have great depth and are definitely worth reading. It's a tragic story with a tragic ending, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a great book. It talks about a teen who in nineteen minutes, kills 10 of his schoolmates and wounds 19 of them in a school shooting, it goes on to talk about the problem of bullying in schools, family problems, and teen problems, it's a great book that gives you a lot to think about.

The Black Jewels Series: Great reads!!!! The books in the series are great. I admit, the stories are dark, nasty, and violent, but they're also fascinating, absorbing and great reads. I haven't finished the books yet,I've only read the first two, but I'm already hooked by the story. Just read it, it's GREAT!

The surgery

I had the surgery done yesterday, it was the "short and painful" kind. There wasn't any dizziness but unfortunately I did experience the slight and temporary loss of taste for a little which, believe me, isn't pleasant at all.
But other than the surgery, yesterday was a fine day, I didn't go to school, ate New York Fries(the Works is great!!!), got a new book back from the library, finished it(YEAH!) and generally had a great day.

SNOW!!

It SNOWED today!! Well, not a lot but there was SNOW! It's only October and it's already started to snow, in Taipei, the temperature still hits 30, it's so unbelievable.

Bad news, I have to go to the hospital tomorrow. Those who know me well should know that I routinely have to put ventilation tubes in my ears since they fall out, now it's fallen out again, and the situation in my left ear is deteriorating. So I'm going to the hospital tomorrow, and I might have to have a surgery done, for the dozen+ time. And although I've had surgery on my ears a lot of times it still is a pain, and believe me, it is definitely not a pleasant experience. I could either have sufficient local anaesthetic applied, not feel a lot of pain, but feel dizzy and off balance for the remainder of the day; or I could apply some local anaesthetic, not be dizzy, but feel some CRAZY pain for a minute or so, I haven't really figured out which is more worth it. So, I'll be praying for myself and the, possibly, upcoming surgery.

Trip to Rochester

I'm just going to complete the entry for my trip to Rochester.


On the second day, Saturday, I went to my old kindergarten,Cobblestone School, which I can still remember, it was a good year back then at Cobblestone. Then we went to the place where I lived 10 years ago when I lived in Rochester, and we also went to the U of R. Then,in the afternoon, we went to the wedding of Karen Chen and Luke Kallberg, the wedding was enjoyable,you get affected by the whole happy mood, and I met some people from back at HFPC, so it was good.

On Sunday, we went to Oswego, and visited a family friend. Then on Monday we started returning to Toronto via Thousand Islands, and we went on a 3 hour boat ride around the area. The highlights of the trip were the Boldt Castle and the seagulls that followed the boat at the end. Boldt castle was really impressive,even just seen from a distance, I would love to have another chance to actually go in there. As for the seagulls, it was an impressive sight, more than a dozen seagulls were following our ship, you can see it in the photos.

So, the trip to Rochester was great, I enjoyed it a lot.

photos

Rochester

I've just arrived at Rochester,NY this evening.
Rochester is the place where I went to kindergarten when I was 5, we arrived there after a lengthy drive from Toronto which included a 70+ km detour. This time we're here for two reasons, my mom is attending a 40th anniversary of the family medicine department of University of Rochester where she did her internship ten years ago, and secondly, we're going to go to a wedding of someone from our church back at Taipei.
Tonight, we went to a friends home for dinner, my mom and their mom have known each other for ten years. There are two people my age in the family, Taylor and Dylan, brother and sister, 16 and 13, I used to go to the same kindergarten as Taylor when I was here, so we go way back, but I haven't seen them for like 8 years, they haven't changed a lot, I would be able to recognise all of them except Dylan, whom I didn't have much of an impression in the first place.We ate Lasagna, bread, and salad, I played table-tennis with Taylor, Dylan played with my sister, the grownups talked and everyone generally had a good evening.

One of my teachers is AWFUL

My least favorite teacher in Jarvis(I won't say who she is.)
You know what she did? She gave our whole class ZERO on test!! ZERO!
First, she gave half of the class zero on their presentation marks because the time ran out and they didn't get time to present. Then, in reading period, some guys came in and went over to someone in our class and she thought that the person had invited them in , so, the class gets ZERO for the test........
Is this reasonable??

More random things&Photos

No. 1: I've turned 16, you can see my birthday cake in the photo link below.
No. 2: I've gotten two new pairs of shoes because before I only had one pair of shoes. So I went to this store and they had 2nd pair 50% off discount which made me buy two pairs. And guess how much they cost? After discount and tax....................130$, it was so worth it. I have pictures of them in the link.
No. 3: Although it isn't even October here the leaves are already changing in color, some of the leaves are already red. And the temperature is CRAZILY low compared to Taiwan, we'll have as low as 5 degrees Celsius the day after tomorrow, it's SO COLD!!!!
No. 4-Ms. Gotsis: Ms. Gotsis is GREAT, she's one of the best teachers I've ever had. She said something that was awesome last class. She said that when she made spelling or grammatical errors it is a........."Sign of Genius"........ It's great, next time when I make mathematical mistakes or write a paragraph that doesn't make sense I'll just say “But Mr. Goodes/Ms. Ancans, it's a sign of genius, my hand cannot keep up with the speed of my brain, it's a sign of genius you know." I think I would totally get whacked for saying that.
photos

First month of school

YA!!!!
First month of school is over, 1 down 3 to go. School is better than I expected before, most of the teachers are great and the courses are interesting, so I'm quite enjoying myself. The only teacher that I don't really like is my Physics teacher, who is quite a pain, and the only class I don't enjoy, except of Physics which is the teacher's fault, is Math, which is way to elementary. Math is also a pain not because it's hard but because it's way to easy, the 11th grade Math here is like a mixture of 7&8&9th grade Math back in Taiwan, mostly 8th grade I guess, so I have to focus on not falling asleep during classes. Economics is great mostly because of the teacher, Ms. Gotsis, she's GREAT!! Although I've already had Economics in grade 9, it's still quite pleasant to take economics.
And it's my BIRTHDAY!! Happy Birthday to me.....I'm officially 16 years old now,for all that's worth.
And I'm getting a new computer when I get back to Taiwan!! A new COMPUTER!! My dad said that I should list down the specs. first, so here they are
CPU:Intel® Core™2 Duo E8500 6 MB L2 3.16 GHz
Motherboard:Asus Rampage Formula
Physics-Acceleration Card:Asus PhysX P1
Graphics Card:Asus EAH4850(ATI HD4850)/1G
Hard-drive:1TB
Memory:DDR3-1600, 4GB
If everything runs according to plan and I get this computer I'm gonna be thrilled, it's a great configuration for gamming without spending to much on it,at least thats what I think, so that's is another reason for me to look forward to going back.
So, there's a lot to say and I've typed down some of it, I'll get back when I have more to write about.

Random things

Random thing #1:I just got my notebook(actually it's my family's but whatever) back up and running after it was re-formatted and its Windows XP re-installed, I had to go to ASUS's website to get all the drivers before the computer could go on-line and etc. I also installed Office 2007 Enterprise version,which I downloaded with BT.
Random thing #2:I totally miss HFPC and my youth fellowship back in Taiwan, it's way better than the church here(not that the one here is bad)."You don' know how important it is to you until you lose it", you don't know how true it is. I MISS YOU GUYS!!!!LOOKING FOWARD TO RETURNING!!
Random thing #3:School here is interesting and simple as long as you don't include essays and reports in the calculation. Some of my teachers are interesting(my English teacher managed to fall once off her chair and once onto the street in three weeks) and some are boring.So generally school is OK,but you know it's school so........

First week of school

So, I've survived my first week of school fairly well. The classes here are fairly simple(I skipped a grade and it's still......), Math is a like 7&8th grade, and all the others are okay, the only subject I'm struggling with is ... ..English(Big surprise....), I've already had to write a whole page of things for homework and an essay(Oh the dreaded essay...) for this weekend on whether a old man in a story by Mark Twain is a lunatic.....
Jarvis Collegiate Institute is a typical American/Canadian high-school, people running to catch classes, people late for classes, people talking in the hall, people being sent to the VP's office for having a hat on..... You get it.
Anyway, the first week of school is interesting enough to make me go to school next week(like I have a choice) so I'll be posting more once I have the time(and stuff to write).

back&getting ready for school

OK, it's been a long time since I've posted anything, so I'll summarize whats happened in the past week or so.

Last week I was in Seattle, you can see the pictures through the link in my last post. I returned to Toronto on the 25th and I moved into where I'm living now on the 26th, here are the photos

living room

stairs

my room

Then, on the 27th I went to the local school board to take a test on my English and Math, after a few hour they decided that I should be in 11th grade according to my age,almost 16, and the results of my tests,11or12th grade in reading comprehension and passing 10th grade math, so I'll be going into 11th grade at Jarvis Collegiate Institute here,skipping 10th grade......

Anyway, it'll be a tough semester here,I'm taking 8 courses here: The Individual and the Economy, English, Healthy Active Living Education (co-ed), Functions(Math), Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer and Information Science, all 11th grade courses and,of course, all in English. And at the same time I'll be studying the 10th grade material of my school back in Taiwan, Jianguo High School , which makes it a double work-load. The only good thing is that school here only starts at 8:50 and even later, 9:55, on Wednesday and ends a 15:10, school hours are much shorter than those in Taiwan.
I'll be starting school on 9/2, I'll post more later, after school starts.

You can always check my pictures on Facebook(my Facebook is Jesse Lee), here's the link:Photos

seattle

photos:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158133&l=370f3&id=1382332956

lock-in

I went to the church of a family friend, Christian Evangelical Church of Vancouver,CECV, and I like their youth group a lot,the music, the feeling, you get it. So somehow I got into this lock-in thing(which is an event in which kids in the youth fellowship stay over night at church), and I loved it. We sang songs, prayed,chatted all night,etc. It would have been perfect if I hadn't skinned my knee, I skinned it while we were playing CTF(Capture The Flag), I was chasing someone and tripped and then someone else bumped into me,which didn't help at all, so my knee hasn't been in great shape in a few days.Otherwise it was a fabulous night.
Photos:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158094&l=de4f8&id=1382332956
Photos of knee
Be WARNED
Gross picture below
Watch at OWN RISK
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Portland

I arrived at Portland,Washington at midnight on 8/7, I'm staying at the home of a family friend, they live in a enormous house, there are four children in the house, Ariel, Peter,Paul,and Angela(from eldest to youngest), the eldest is in the first year of college and the youngest is 9. I went to their fellowship's bible study last night, it was quite good, I enjoyed it immensely. My mom will be going to a conference here, and I'll be going to Seattle next Friday or Saturday.

Book!!

I've been to the public library near where I'm living and I found literally tons of books to read, so I checked out these.

Robots

On the fourth week of DEEP we made Battlebots(robots that fight), these are some of the photos

Toronto Islands&Getting sick

Yesterday at about noon we went to Toronto Islands, a chain of islands just offshore of Toronto. My sister went playing in the amusement park there and had a lot of fun.It's quite a beautiful place and it would have been a good trip if it hadn't started to rain. It started raining cats and dogs and after getting my head wet while running for cover, I started having a severe headache and a fever(up to 39℃) that didn't get any better until this morning. I really don't want to talk more about this since it's such a bad memory. So here are some photos

cats

This is one of the cats(they have 2) at my aunt's home(we're living there for the time being), he's called 'Baku'

Settling down&DEEP

I've been here in Canada for 9 days now(those back in Taiwan who miss me, keep on doing that,HAHA! Just kidding!) and I think that I've been adjusting to the life here quite well, but my English will still need A LOT of improvements(which is ok,since I've left the States for almost 10 years).

I've been gong to the DEEP(da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/apsc/html/deep/) summer camp,it's like a camp that teaches all kind of elements of engineering(it's called an Engineering Enrichment Program),and I took the J-ROB-3 Robotics: Mind, Body & Senses! course.

The first two days aren't quite worth mentioning, we learned about a program called MATLAB(wikipedia-it if you wanna know more), it wasn't awful but still when the instructor said that we wouldn't have to use it on the day we sorta went "Ya!" "Finally!" and things like that(that should give you an idea of what was going on). On the third day we tested out Quake 3 bots(wikipedia-it)(under the instructor's orders :)) and built the LEGO NXT(wikipedia-it) robot

which was quite fun though I have one at home(in Taipei......) We had a competition the next day,the video's too big so I can't upload it.
And on the last day of the week,today, we went to a kids rehab center and saw some neat things, like some basic mind-reading, playing a mini-golf game by pursing your lip etc. Just contraptions that can help people who are disabled in one way or another. It was quite interesting to see how the cutting edged tech could be used to help different kinds of people, but I really feel sorry for those kids, it's such a pain to see someone your age who has to have help from others to do anything.

Anyway, I'll be in another week of DEEP in which we make Battlebots(like robots that can battle each other), it sound interesting and I'm looking forward to it.

I'll write again if there's more to write about.