Waterloo By The Numbers

Disclaimer: I took this from another blog, but this one is too funny to miss. I've linked the original post at the end.

Things Waterloo's admissions books don't tell you...

1957: Waterloo's virgin year as a University.
1957: Virgins in the Math faculty.

English: The second-most common language spoken on campus.
Mandarin: The most common language spoken on campus.

40.0% Approximate percentage of student body that is Asian.
0.04% Approximate percentage of student body that is black.

70: % of the Arts faculty that is white and female.
0.7: % of the Math faculty that is white and female.

23% Estimated proportion of Math Faculty that is hetero, homo, or bisexual.
77% Estimated proportion of Math Faculty that is asexual.

40: Turnout at Fed Hall on a Thursday night.
140: Turnout at Serge D'Alessio's 9:30am Linear Algebra lecture on Friday mornings.

Quebec province: Source of ~2% of Math Faculty.
Guangdong province: Source of ~20% of Math Faculty.

3: Mean number of girls present in a Computer Science lecture.
3: Also the annual mean number of showers taken by a Computer Science major.

75%: Percentage of UW CASA (Canadian Asian Students Association) that is actually Chinese.
95%: Percentage of UW Actuarial Science Club that is actually Chinese.

98%: Reputed percentage of students employed as claimed by Waterloo's co-op department.
40%: Actual percentage of term 1A students employed (based on an anecdotal sample).

3: Persons present in queue outside of Bomber on a Friday night.
30: Persons present in queue at Tim Horton's on a Friday night.

200: Persons enrolled in MTHEL 100 (Business Law).
20: Persons actually present in a MTHEL 100 lecture.

4: Record number of white people spotted on Fed Bus to Scarborough Friday afternoon.
4: Record number of visible minorities spotted at Molly Bloom's Irish Pub Friday night.

Original Post Here

Just too funny to miss.

Birthday Fun?

Now that the dust has settled, let's recap the few things I did this past week. On Wednesday night I had dinner with a friend and her boyfriend.. correction, I _cooked_ dinner for a friend and her boyfriend. It was something very simple (read: pasta and chicken, haha), but the main feature was the chestnut cake they brought me. Yummy! There are only a very selected few that actually enjoys chestnut cakes, and the fact I still have some cake in my fridge should be obvious that these two weren't big fans either.

On the actual day of my birthday, I went out with a broker to Ubon near my work. Even though it's a bit sad not to spend it with friends (and to be honest, I have a very limited social circle here in London), at least I was enjoying over-priced Japanese food.

Now on Friday.. I _was_ going to have dinner with some people, until they bailed on me one by one throughout the day. It got to a point where I just cancelled dinner and was planning on a quiet evening at home. That was until I received a call from Kent, who needed some help with his admission video to an art college. The catch was having to travel with him to Croydon where another mutual friend lives and she was supposed to help him with the video also. Why I agreed to that crazy idea, is still beyond me. I ended up not doing anything (to be honest, all he needed from me was the software to put it together.. why did I go all the way there..), not to mention I spent the entire night sleeping on the couch in the fetus position.. oh well, can't really complain because I did agree to go. Nobody twisted my arm and made me do it..

In any case, at least I was with some people this year.. otherwise I'd probably be more depressed than usual during this time of the year. Thanks for those who called - you know who you are. :)

Yet Another Birthday Rant

I had originally thought up this elaborate speech that I was going to share with you all, but after typing it all up and finished editing it, I don't feel like posting it any more. Each year I end up writing a convoluted mess on my birthday, only to be buried under a mass of meaningless entries to follow each step of my life. I continue being that drama queen that whines to the world, and visitors to this blog dwindles because I stopped updating as frequently as I had faithfully in the past.

Perhaps this will be a good time for to do a review for the year. Being in a full-time position is really quite different from school - even throughout co-op there was still an end in sight. Now there's nothing to really look forward to, except for weekends and holidays. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my job. In fact, I've grown to enjoy it a lot more than I originally thought I would. There were times when I wondered why I put myself through this pain and suffering of long hours and loneliness of being in London. The truth is, there isn't any other job I'd rather switch for at the moment. Heading back in engineering is not an option any more. In the upcoming year, I really would like to continue developing my skills in this field and perhaps one day become good at it?

In regards to my personal life.. wait, what personal life? My work consumes me, but most of you already know that I put work/school before anything else. It became really clear to me when I didn't receive any phone calls today... or e-mails.. or smoke signals.. I wouldn't have minded semaphores either! But nothing. Expecting too much? Perhaps.

I am still amazed at the fact how things can change quickly, and before you know it, it's almost as if nothing had ever happened. On the other hand, things can happen so quickly that deeply impacts your life without knowing it. Stepping away from my first quarter-of-a-century life and looking back, I've been blessed with many things that I am eternally grateful for. Thanks to those of you whom shaped the way I am today.

Time to step up my game, and make the best of what I've been given!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me,
happy birthday to me,
happy birthday to meeeeeeeeee,
happy birthday to me!

(Yes, I do this every year..)

Seafood Dinner

A few friends came by last night to stay the night, only because the fish market opens at 5am and we need to get there to buy fresh fish. The Billingsgate Market is actually quite near my work in Canary Wharf, and I actually used to live right across from it. Normally you find restaurants buying fish here in the morning for their needs throughout the day, and occasionally you'll find a few wanderers (like us!) buying in small quantity. The selection was huge and very inexpensive. We ended up buying shrimp, crab claws, mussels, and of course, fish!

We spent the rest of the day hanging out until the evening, and we cooked up a storm at Jenny's place. Okay, so originally it was supposed to have been hosted at MY place. Unfortunately, my place lacks the necessary utensils to cook up a proper meal. (I don't have a pot big enough to cook for more than two people!) Nevertheless, it was a great meal even though I couldn't eat most of what was on the table. Being allergic to shellfish really sucks!

Weaker by the day

Now I am convinced that my health deteriorates by the day while I'm living in this country. For the past three days, I've been going to work, and then sent home because I was too ill to stay at work. Normally this doesn't happen to me whilst I was in university, so I've come up with two theories why I've been sick so much more:

1) I'm living in a different country and it's location-related
2) I'm doing a different job and it's job-related

Now let's look at reason #2. I concur that the job is stressful and it involves long hours. However, at least it's routine stress and the hours are stable, unlike in university which comes in waves. So to say that my constant illness is stress induced would be questionable.

Therefore, I'm going with reason #1. Which also means that I'll need to get out of this country asap if I want to live until 30. (let's be honest, with the junk I eat everyday, I'm glad I'm still alive today)

Tonight a few friends are coming over and we're heading to the fish market first thing in the morning. The rest of that story will come later...

Stood Up

I don't like being stood up, but I can understand that sometimes things just happen and you have to alter plans somewhat. The thing I ask is at least to notify the person being stood up, and not just go MIA. It is very annoying, and it's basically an opportunity cost.

So I ended up doing nothing for the entire night.. ugh.

Too slow!

Where is my motivation and determination to be at the top? I was two seconds too late when one of my colleague took responsibility of something that would have moved me along in my job quite well... the reason? I hesitated. I wasn't sure if I wanted to throw myself out to do it.

Now? I regret having waited the two seconds.

Oooh fancy ball...

The annual event that literally maps who's who in the finance sector which I involve, was held last night at the Old Billingsgate Market near the river. This year's theme is of oriental and martial arts, following the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" concept. Little did they realise is that the movie is two years old and this whole oriental craze is no longer uber-cool.

In fact, I had a little episode of trying to find a tuxedo for this ball. I had completely forgotten that I signed up for this, and was reminded only at the beginning of the week. There simply wasn't enough time to rent one at a shop near work, so I went where a techno-geek would go - the internet. Everybody at work was shocked that I rented a tux from the internet, and not to mention that it fitted perfectly and it was a rather good-looking tux!

The ball itself was very extravagant. We were welcomed with lots of girls wearing traditional Chinese dress, serving us bubbly or juice. There were very gorgeous girls selling raffle tickets (and quite flirty too), and a few martial arts guys showing off their sword flinging skills.

You could definitely see the bling in the room, as there was a silent auction and a live auction going on and the bids went in in multiples of £100... I stood in awe watching those numbers go up. It got especially interesting at the live auction where a three-night vacation in the English countryside went as much as £6000. I kept telling myself, "It's good for the charity.. it's good for the charity.." The final lot was a package to watch the finals for World Cup 2006 - which went for.. something around £9000..

The rest of the evening consisted of more drinking, networking, talking to people from other banks and broker firms, and more drinking. Did I mention drinking?

We ended up leaving around 1am and I was exhausted so headed straight home, when some of my colleagues ventured to an afterhours club for a bit more partying.

House Party

One of the things I missed about being in Canada is the concept of house parties. Perhaps it's because I don't know many people here, and I didn't attend university in this country. Oh and the fact that I'm no longer 19 might contribute to the factor that "drinking until you puke" is no longer equivalent to a good weekend. Nevertheless, I still miss the atmosphere of drinking with random people and bonding over alcohol. Hence, I made sure I took advantage of the opportunity for a house party held by an ex-colleague last night.

His place was near Vauxhall station, which nears Brixton. Now I know why people warned me of Brixton at night - let's just say I'm glad I made it safely from the tube station to his house. The party was really great though, three floors to the house with a DJ on the roof blasting good beats. There was also a jacuzzi and a kitchen full of alcohol. I witnessed a belt fight over a small pond in the backyard, and some random guy (not part of my group of friends) joined in for no apparent reason.

With that much alcohol going around, hilarity definitely ensued.