Graduated...and off to California!

More graduation photos

Graduation
What sucks about the University of Toronto, is that it's gigantic. So on your graduation day, you may not know a single soul who is graduating with you. Convocation runs for about two weeks, twice daily. So for a few days I attended my friends' convocation and mine.

Congrats to everyone who graduated. I was ecstatic to receive my degree. The disappointing thing is that it just says Honours Bachelors of Science. Nothing about Computer Science was written on my degree. So I could have taken...Astronomy or something.
My parents bought me the beautiful University of Toronto frame, and it's hanging on my living room wall in all its shining glory.
My reception was the only one my friends and I attended. It was pretty good. Since we are all cheapies, we stuffed ourselves since we knew that our tuition was paying for it haha. There is nothing free in life.

Vlad's convocation was the last one...and he wanted to walk around the Computer Science building a bit for memories sake. I couldn't help but have that feeling of nostalgia.

Unfortunately the weather in Toronto sucks and so it kept on raining. Many photos we took that week occurred during rainy or cloudy weather. Bleh. Major suckage.

Well...bye bye University of Toronto! Thanks for shortening my lifespan due to the stress you put me through.

Goong Goong
On Friday June 26th 2 years ago, "Goong Goong" (i.e. Grandfather in Chinese) passed away due to cancer. My Mother and I took a trip to pay our respects and fix up the flowers and clean up his area.
I know Goong Goong would be proud of me if he could see me today. I took his last wishes to me to heart - to do well in school. We miss you Goong Goong!

Vince's Birthday
It's his birthday today. Happy 21st birthday! You're not old shut up!
Yesterday he held a BBQ party at his place downtown. Had a good time. Said goodbye to Peter since he bought a one ticket flight to Europe and isn't returning to Canada...
And well, everyone wished me fun in Cali and are expecting to see me immediately upon my return...

Looking Forward to that California Sun
So this is my last post before I take off to the sunny state. I know you're all jealous :) As I promised I will post pictures on here and on facebook. Unfortunately my regular digi cam decided to spaz on me this month, so I can only bring my giant DSLR with me...and I only have one CF memory card...aie! The majority of the time I will not have access to the internet. Though I'll have to find some time to dump my pictures and send it to myself so I can clear out my card haha. I'll be gone for two weeks.

And thanks for all the tips and advice you guys gave me on what to see, do and expect while I'm there.

At the moment I'm staring at LA's confusing public transit system. Everything is so bloody far from each other.

Bye bye rainy Toronto weather...and hello to PALM TREES!

And so....have a HAPPY CANADA'S DAY! Have a fun and safe time partying!

First week @ work: Orientation & Training!

Gallery
First thing to note, I got a Flickr account, right here. It's probably a much better idea since the database was taking up a lot of space on my webspace. I must complain though that I absolutely hate the interface and whoever designed it is a nut. I got the pro account though since I'm saving myself a hell lot of space.

Work!
My Mom was all excited and took a picture of me on my first day of work at like 5 am in the morning. I was so tired but hyped up at the same time.

1st Day
I forgot to put an umbrella in my bag. So when I got off the Go Train and was walking along Front Street I was freaking out since it started to rain. I asked some people to share umbrellas with them and kept on switching to other people's umbrellas until I finally made it to my workplace. I still got wet though since umbrellas are useless during a downpour.

Anyhow, they served me breakfast, yum yum yum :) After I met with the CEO. He was IBM Canada's president and now he's our CEO. Wow what a wonderful speaker. He just came into the room, sat down and just spoke for like 45 minutes with no powerpoint or anything. He explained and drilled into my brain the 5 huge goals that the company is focusing on and the strategies and how we will be contributing to those goals. I also met the CIO and a bunch of managers and SVPs all in the first day.
Ooo and they fed me lunch too ^^
Near the end of the day the Resource Manager came in and gave me a lap top. Umm I wasn't expecting this lol Neeeat lol

They will be giving me a VPN when I come back to work in August. I was really surprised that I was the only one out of the new recruits to be given a VPN...I guess I'll be working 24/7 eh??? They don't give Blackberrys to everyone and I'm scared that they are going to give me one. Everyone was hooked onto their Blackberrys and I don't want that lifestyle of checking my phone like every 5 minutes :(

2nd Day
Served breakfast again, am I spoiled or what? Set up our lappies and went through training on Lotus Notes, Kronos and other corporate applications. I set up a meeting with my Resource Manager already and added people to my SameTime (corporate MSN).
They gave me more toys. They gave me one of those mini mice for laptops, but it was even more cool because it had the company's brand on it lol. And they gave me a company branded leather notebook and waterbottle. Geez. Nice addition to the collection I already have of company stuff.

We played "The Apprentice" by dividing into teams to order pizza for lunch. We had to approach it like a project and consider stakeholder requirements, costs, time, etc. lol My group won :)

3rd Day
An executive taxi picked me up from my house and took me to work, paid by the company. I was totally surprised since the taxi looked like a mini limo and the driver was wearing a suit. Dang lol
Met the CTO and looked at the company's facilities at the different sites. What a giant company...lol We had a lovely dinner at a $ Italian restaurant at downtown Toronto, but paid by the company of course. Ohhh dinner was delicious but my meal was like $50 lol I'd never go there if I had to pay for it myself geez lol. Then I took a taxi home...paid by the company of course =p My neighbors saw me coming home and asked about why I was taking the taxi so often lol

4th Day
More meetings with important people and a look at another facility. They let me go home early. Exhausted I came home and just crashed. So sorry Andre that I didn't go to your bday celebration...seriously I was just pooped.
I went out to Tim Horton's with Janice since she just came back to Toronto and we had a nice chat.

Impressions: I'm glad that they allowed me to meet all of the important people of the company, despite their busy schedules. It shows that they really care about their employees. Not many people get this star treatment when they start working. I'm really lucky and pretty darn happy :)
I get super pay, amazing benefits and awesome treatment. I'm very happy.

Laineylains Time of the Month #2!

Here are the pics.

So the end of the story is:
1) Heap Sort runs in O(nlogn) time.
2) Hash table runs in O(1) or constant time.

I'll never forget those running times for the rest of my life.

All kidding aside, the focus of our conversations have changed from venting our frustrations on the horrible world of Computer Science to...work. Whether it be about what we are doing at work or interviews. It's crazy on how much things have changed within a month!

After banging around Rock Band and sucking like crap, we went to some fobby bar where of course Calvin knew people. Unfortunately Jason didn't pick up any girls, so the race between him and I finding someone is still on =p
I don't like beer and I suck at drinking games. But Tao is the worst =p

Happy Father's Day!
You didn't forget now did you? Hope not =p

Convocation is THIS WEEK
I still haven't gotten a pretty grad dress yet. Bloody hell. I'll go look for something cute tomorrow. Sooo last minute :(
I can't wait to throw my degree onto the living room wall beside my sister's. There has been an empty spot there waiting for me for ages.

It's so hot hot hot hot!

Wooo updates so close to each other

Photo Gallery Officially Dead
SO it seems that the MySQL databases on the server went unstable and all the tables broke. Unbelievable. Entire tables went MISSING and it is a gigantic mess to fix the entries that cascade to each other and bleh. I'm fairly upset at my web host and have no motivation whatsoever to fix it (like come on...I still never actually FINISHED this website yet). Should I just use Flickr?
I'm angry enough to switch web hosts, but that requires me to haul three websites over to another server and that requires work.

Passion

I didn't go to the launch party. By the time Nyresa and I arrived (a little after the supposed opening), they were still setting up. The place looked empty and I didn't want to pay cover for an empty place (Nyresa's thinking is that girls should NEVER have to pay for cover lol).
We already walked around the streets of Toronto enough for the night so we hit a bar and had some good ol' girl chat.

I love the city.


In all this push for "green," there's nothing more cool than seeing police on horses. This was in front of Dundas Square, and if you can tell there were just crowds and crowds of people on the streets. It took a bit of guts to jay walk in front of the police...but I did it lol


Nyresa and I at a bar. We should have went out on the patio...the weather was simply gorgeous!

It was lovely to walk around the streets of Toronto in the evening in such lovely weather. And there was so much activity going on. Loreal Paris was holding a free jazz concert and free hair and makeup makeovers. The line for the makeovers were gigantic so we said screw it lol But we checked out the event for a bit because it looked like fun :)

Usually when I walk around Toronto at night there's at least one guy with me so I don't get bothered much. I don't think I've ever been bothered so much before. Men are such freaking pigs, they disgust me! I can write a giant entry complaining about this topic, but I'll refrain from doing so.

Shopping!
I went shopping along Queen Street and Eaton Centre with Vince to help him search for a hat and find me a summer business formal outfit. I fell in love with so many clothes but they were just too trendy for the occasion. I don't want to come off as a ditz or something. Bleh too trendy for my own good! So I dived into boring Smart Set (I NEVER shop there since it's such a boring and plain store...), and found exactly what I needed. It looks youthful yet something presentable enough for when I meet with CEOs tomorrow!

I still haven't found a cute grad dress though...

Later I went to Vince's place to dye his hair. And blackmail picture *drum rolls*


I'm Loving this Hot Weather!!
I'm loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooving the heat. Not the crazy thunderstorms we've been having...but hmmm the hot weather is what I've been waiting for!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone seems to be having crazy allergy reactions. I'm not really getting any symptoms laetly...lucky lucky.

RSS/Atom Feeds, Don't give me that blank look
Whenever I speak of RSS/Atom feeds to people I get that "huh?" response. People get with the "new." How the hell do you guys keep up with blogs and news sites and stuff? Don't tell me that you manually open up each page and visit to check for updates. Get yourself an RSS reader. I personally use WizzRSS. It's for the FireFox. And if you are still using IE then you're really living in a cave =o And you can subscribe to my blog using this link.

Warning to All Travellers
This was brought up to my attention by Tao. If you are travelling, border guards are allowed to check your ipods, computers, phones, etc. for data that infringes copyrights. Read the source here.

Congrats to Kevin!
When I hopped onto Deviantart I was so excited to see Kevin's art featured on the main page. Kevin you're popular!!
I got all excited and even screencapped it. I'm such a dork :)



I Need Your Suggestions: People Who've Been to Cali
Specifically LA area. Besides Disneyland, Universal Studios and chilling at the beach, any other attractions that you recommend for me to check out???

Maid Cafe Pics
Just a few pics stolen from Cindy.



I'm the "lazy clutzy maid." I'm missing a tie and have no thigh socks hahahaha. Aren't we all o so cute?


Everyone I served got a chance to take a pic with me...let me serve you next year ;)

Real post time, done school + Chicago + Toronto + Dallas Cons

[Edit]My photo gallery database seems to have failed on me. I'll have to take a look into it sometime.[/Edit]

[Update] Oh, I know what happened to my database. I'll fix it this week![/Update]

So...a real post to keep you all happy. Mind you I don't really remember everything that happened in the past TWO month...so yeah O_O Suuuper long entry

Officially Done School!
So I have finally finished up my exams. My graduation ceremony is in June and I start working in August. Gosh it feels just SOO good to be free from school and know where the hell I am going after :) Even though I am out of school, I probably am going to be even more than busy before! Haha.
But yeah congrats to my fellow friends who are graduating with me...and those who are still lingering behind *pats* I'm here to support you haha.

And to those who were curious, I chose #5 for my grad pics and got them back in March. I scanned the pic, made some wallet sized ones and got them printed at Walmart. Yaay for being ghetto :) I'm still in the process of distributing them...ask me if I haven't given you one yet and if you want one :)

Kultura Dinner
Talk about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. But it was nice to see you guys when I was stressing like hell. Here is my review butchering it. I have to learn to take pics of the food before I start devouring it... =o

Pictures

Sheridan Headlines 2008 Art show
I went to an art show to support Elise, Peter and Hieng. I picked up the art book with all of the artists at the show and it has absolutely gorgeous stuff. They are such talented people!
My friends also made a nice art book themselves titled "Chaos." You can purchase it online for $25.

Michelle's Birthday
We celebrated my sister's birthday by having a free lunch at Pickle Barrel. That's a perk of being one of those "secret critics." Unfortunately we faced terrible service and the food was quite salty. I've always avoided that restaurant since it's $$ and the service is slow as hell. But just a recommendation, DEFINITELY don't go to the one in Yorkdale Mall ok?

Man I miss shopping "leisurely." I just realized that I'm super picky haha. And we must have went into Sephora like 3 times. I had to teach my older sister makeup stuffs...interesting!

Steve's Return Party
After spending the day with my sister, I ran off to Will's house around midnight. They were still rock banding when I arrived, but I did get to stay around long enough to watch the first asian horror film. I'm actually a huge wuss for horror movies but I didn't get scared once at all...but I think it was because we were watching it in a large group and people were making snide remarks...ruining the movie haha.
And what's with Will setting up these parties whenever I have a meeting the next day? lol Like seriously...:(

More Pictures...

Manpuku

A friend of mine recently opened up his own Japanese restaurant in Toronto. It's located near the Art Gallery of Ontario at 105 McCaul St unit 29-31. It's inside the Village Grande. I checked it out and it's really cute :) It was great on catching up with Sid AND super cool to get served by the manager harhar. I shall visit more often and bring more friends :) But anyhow if you're around the area (and if you go to University of Toronto, it's fairly close), go check it out!!

Made of Honor
I haven't watched a chick flick in awhile...and I am surprised to admit that it was pretty good! The male lead from Disney's Enchanted was in it. It reminded me a lot of My Best Friend's Wedding though. And yeah watching Made of Honor sort of made me sad because those guys are so freaking sweet...makes me feel lonely now *sniffles*

Bye Janice!

Janice is off to WAAAY up north in the middle of nowhere, Redlake, Ontario. So we had a small celebration after my last exam. And of course what does Lainey need to celebrate? Alcohol! Alrighty I only had one drink...lol
Pictures

Spicy Food = Pwnd
I chilled out with Jordan, Cindy and Amy the day before they departed for Japan. We ate at a fusion restaurant and I accidentally ordered a spicy plate and almost died trying to get through it. Lol everyone said it wasn't spicy but I really was going to die lol
Anyhow, afterwards I got a chance to visit Jordan's cool workplace again and chill there for a bit as he finished up some last minute work. His workplace is so nice.

We Will Rock You Musical
I saw the We Will Rock You musical with Peter Cho. It was pretty darn good. I looved Queen back in the '90s and so I enjoyed it very much. It was my first non-serious musical that I've been to.

LaineyLains Time of the Month...#1

So my friends and I from school made an agreement to try to see each other once a month/2 months. Our gatherings are named "Laineylains time of the month." I did not make up the stupid name...and I forgot who did.

We went to Korean BBQ (yum yum) where I had to do the cooking and take care of Calvin because he broke his arm...yet again. *sighs*...Why do you guys make me worry all the time? Later we went to Tao's place and us newbs tried to play Rock Band. Something interesting happened while we tried to play the first song...there was a black out.

Here are a couple of vids of us playing rock band:
here, here and here.

More Pictures

My Apartment - Oakville

I went down to Oakville to party with Elise. We had a nice looong girl chat and went to Erica's suishi restaurant to have dinner. MMMM...thanks for the "hot water..." saké is yummy! After we went to Erica's place for a pre-drinking. Elise was so darn excited to drink with me since she never drank with me before so she kept on shoving alcohol in my face. I don't think I've ever downed that much alcohol in such a short time span before. After a few martinis and shots later, we went clubbing. Unfortunately they only played a few good songs and guys kept trying to dance with me. But I had a fun time with the girls...and Adrian!!

More pictures

Back into Ballroom Dancing!
I'm taking ballroom dancing lessons with Andrew Chan. I didn't enjoy the private lessons but had a blast in the Swing group lesson. I've learned Jive (which is much harder than Swing) before, but Swing is lots of fun. I was learning swing with a male instructor and he had soo much style and did crazy stuff with me! I was surprised that I kept up with him since he kept on spinning me and whipping me about lol
My classes will end this week...and I need to find a new dancing partner all over again. I need a steady ballroom dancing partner...please T___T I'd LOOOVE to competitions one day...but I need a bloody partner that will last me longer than a year lol

Anime Central - Chicago

This was definitely the most relaxing and fun convention I have ever been to. Everything ran smoothly (which was a surprise since last year it was such a hellish convention for us).
I went to the convention with Elise, Bonnie, Vince P, Kevin and Keith. But man was it ever chilly.

Thursday
My friends helped me set up my booth in the dealers room. Thanks to my lovely friends at Anime Palace, I got to borrow a dolly and wheel my gigantic boxes from the hotel to the convention centre in one trip. After I went to artist alley to wait for my friends to finish setting up.

Later we went to treat ourself to eating at a restaurant called Bogart's. We were attracted to a flyer we received that advertised beer for $2 and martinis for $2.75. The food was yummy and our server was so friendly. Bonni and I were surprised to receive our martinis though since they weren't mixed and just straight raspberry vodka. Looked like 4 shots in our glass, crazy stuff for cheap. I didn't get a chance to finish my drink as I ran off to the airport to grab Keith from his flight. Elise is such an interesting person to sleep beside when she is drunk...=o

Friday
It's the first time that I've been separated from my friends as I usually sell in the artist alley beside them. However Keith kept me company so I was pretty happy ^^
It was slow though in the dealers room, as there were registration issues (as usual). O well, enabled me to Picto chat with Dino and dick around.
The famous Monty Oum came to meet me. He's a real sweetie. He's the creator of the famous Dead Fantasy movies. You should watch Dead Fantasy I and Dead Fantasy II if you haven't already.
While the others went to the Halcali concert, Keith and I went to watch Narnia Prince Caspian at a crazy movie theater called Muvico that had a VIP exclusive section...=o It was pretty cool, 21+, and we could eat dinner and drink alcohol. It had super wide seats and the seating was set up as love seats. Pretty neat.
The movie itself was disappointing...but Prince Caspian was pretty cute!!!

Saturday
It got a lot busier in the dealers room, but I was already quite tired. After convention hours Keith and I went to a Mexican restaurant that everyone seemed to be raving about. Ambiance was nice and it was such a romantic touch when there were musicians playing live at our table!!

Sunday
Last day of the convention. I thank everyone for helping me pack up my booth at the end. Thank you Monty for your crazy speed packing skills.
We decided to go eat at some Japanese food court "nearby." We squished 7 people into a tiny car where we were either sitting fully or partially on each other lol It was so dang hot from all that body heat and we had to avoid toll booths because we didn't want to get caught lol. After Monty's crazy driving and getting lost (driving through the airport like...3 times?!), we finally got to eat and rushed to the airport JUST in the knick of time.

So good times, good times!! What a relaxing convention.
Thank you Keith for helping me out, I really appreciated it and I enjoyed your company very much. I would not have been able to do it without you ^^
And a couple of other shot outs: Kozinu, Victoria, Chris, Dawn..and I'm sure I'm missing people...please forgive me.

Pictures

Anime North - Toronto
The next weekend was another convention.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out...I love you all: My mother, father, Michelle, Richard, Peter Cho, Vince L, and Jean. And thanks to Bon Bon for helping me out with something..*winks*

Friday
Business was slow so I was kind of disappointed. I had to run out in the evening to do a ballroom workshop where I taught the waltz and fox trot. A lot of people turned up and they got the hang of it quickly...sort of =o
Vince and I walked out and did a photoshoot. I was shivering since it was so cold. Plus I'm used to photographers telling me how to pose since I'm not a cam whore and Vince is not good with poses either so it took awhile for us to take pictures... :(

Saturday
Crazy day where my booth was constantly crowded and my "staff" were working in full force. It was so crazy busy that we were constantly starving for food, and when we did get it we had eating shifts because we could not afford to have more than one person on break. It was just constant massive crowds at my booths. Michelle was a wonderful salesperson and it was her first convention. She's a beast at selling!!!!!!
I had to leave everyone at the booth to do a photoshoot with Jean and then run off to change into a maid café and serve at the maid café.


The maid café ran for the first time at Anime North. So there were a couple of things that were uncertain and serving the first round of customers had a bit of hiccups and took quite a bit of time. Afterwards I got the hang of it and was super speedy and serving my customers. Acting all cute for a few hours straight was kind of fun...:)

Sunday
It was just me and Peter at the booth selling and business got mad crazy for a few hours again. I was surprised at how quickly we closed up the booths and packed the stuff away. I took Vince L and Peter out to Italian buffet for a treat for helping me out this weekend. That banana rum thingy was YUMMY!! AND THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE FOR HELPING ME OUT!!
Business was SUPER AMAZING and I wouldn't have done it without your help!!

The shout out list is going to be huge and I'm going to be missing a lot of people..forgive me: Ed, Kevin Y, Jinny, Bon Bon, Dani, Patty, Kevin, Sid, Andre, Mike, Jordan, Cindy, Amy, Michelle, Martin and Edgar.

Pictures

Akon - Dallas
Alright, all these conventions back to back were killing me. I went to Dallas with Elise, Bon Bon, Vince P, Kevin, Jinny, Hieng, Ed and Sonny.

It was quite hot in Dallas compared to Toronto. I loved how it wasn't humid though, just hot. Texan accents are amusing...:)

It seemed that anything that could go wrong, went wrong.

- Sonny's plane got delayed
- we got stuck in traffic
- I reserved a room with two beds but we got one king size bed and a TINY room with like no floor sleeping space (but I demanded a room change at the front desk and got the last double room available ^^)
- We were usually starving the entire weekend because there were so many issues on obtaining food. Things either closed early, or did not open at all (like on Sunday)...or whatever.
- Things got stolen
- poor Vince lost his money box and a handful of money along with it.
- We were running on like 4-5 hours of sleep and no food in our stomachs...geez.
- it was FREEZING cold in the convention centre since they blasted the air condition, yet outside was very hot.
- Since we were all starving, we all ordered a plate of food at the cheesecake factory (ignoring the fact that usually we split one plate per two people since the portions are GIGANTIC). We practically died trying to finish our plates...and I NEVER GOT A CHANCE TO EAT CHEESECAKE :( :(
- the taxi driver who was driving us to and from the cheesecake factory took foreeever to pick us up and we ended up coming back to the hotel late and slept at 3AM on Sunday morning.
- Returning back home was crazy since the shuttle bus is stupid and we were in a huge rush to pack things up and run to the airport to make it in time for our flight.
- While sitting on the plane...the plane just sat there and was delayed for a long time because it didn't get fuel...or something.
I'm sure there were more things that were no fun that happened that I forgot to write down.
*sighs*

It was a Nintendo DS crazy convention. We played endless rounds of Tetris and we kept on getting pwned by Hieng and Bon Bon. On the flight back I got pwned by Hieng in Taiko drums. I also tried NintendoDogs for the first time and was squealing by the cuteness of my yorkie puppy. But can NintendoDogs die? I can't take care of that thing everyday loool.
And whenever traffic was slow I hopped onto Nintendo DS Picto chat and started advertising my booth. Quite a number of people visited my booth and several ended up buying stuff :) lol the money I spent on my DS I got some back with the extra sales I made using it lol

It was a crazy hit-on-lainey convention. It has never been like this before and I don't know why because I looked really really tired and crappy all of the time (hey..I'm still recovering from Anime Central and Anime North!).
Sonny never protected me from guys like he said he would...=o Even Hieng just watched as a group of guys were hitting on me all at once. I couldn't seem to get rid of them and their cheesy pick up lines wouldn't end. Some guys were also flirting with me in an elevator and trying to get me to come to their hotel room. Like seriously, what did these guys expect? And of course...the guy who wanted a hug but I said no unless he bought something...and then he did. And it was VERY awkward on the number of pictures people took of me when I wasn't dressed up in costume...AT ALL. I didn't even bring a lolita outfit because I was sick of dressing up. I couldn't say no either...I really need to learn to say no.

Pictures

Gifties
Thanks Keith for both Mamegomas...though I seem to be abusing them quite badly :( Thanks Vince L. for the cute shirt, I love the colour and it's shiny!! Thanks Jordan for Bamboobi. She's so weird and cute lol And thanks Josh for getting me a yukata and obi set ^^ Stop spoiling me you guys or I'm going to get used to it hahahaha.

This week will be a nice and relaxing week for me to just veg and finish tasks that have been on my to do list for like ever.

*peeps in*

This fake update is for Keith.

Sorry for the false alarm everyone...=o