Saturday, October 25, 2008

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.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

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.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

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

Friday, October 10, 2008

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??