Calgary Exchange
Gord's Exchange to the University of Calgary
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Ouch!
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My friend took part in some intra school soccer competition. Someone rammed the ball which hit his wrist and fractured it. Ouch! Initially, he was cheapo and didn't want to see the doctor. Being the good ol' hum ji medic, I reminded him that he was insured and so he called back to his insurance company to ask if he can claim for this injury(that time still dunno is fracture or not). I think the reply is can claim but the amount is subject to approval or something. So he went to the school clinic and paid 100 bucks for consultation and x ray. Then, doctor diagnosed as fracture and referred him to some clinic in Downtown to put on his cast. On his way there, he met a Canadian friend(Asian), who told him that he can simply borrow his Health card so that he don't need to pay medical fees. Oh ya, forgot to mention that all Canadians in Alberta are medically insured. Anyway, so he removed his name from the referral form and got his cast done under his friend's name. When he came back, he thought about what he had done and discovered many loopholes in this plan and got worried. Morale of the story? I have 1 less person to travel with after the exams! |
Bo hua
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Just ate the most bo hua meal EVER! 3 CAD for ham and cheese sandwich. Thats 4.50 SGD, more than enough to get a Mac meal in NUS. Ingredients: 2 slices of bread, a bit of ham, a slice of cheese and for added measure, a handful of potato chips. POTATO CHIPS! Omg, at least give french fries which are slightly healthier. And they still have the cheek to call it value meal. Of course, its cheap compared to their usual stuffs, which cost 5 or 6 bucks. When they have special meals, such as heart shaped pasta for Vday, it will be even more ex. And if it couldn't get worse, the sandwich grill also sells ham and cheese sandwich, at a slightly cheaper price (2.80 i think), but no potato chips. Well, I wouldn't pay 20 cents for a handful of chips. Furthermore, they grill the sandwich on the spot, so its fresher and nicer. Also, the sandwich grill allows me to add a fries side for a buck, which I think is more worth it. Anyway, I'm talking about the dining centre here. Expensive food, but, oh well, everything here is expensive. |
Saturday, March 25, 2006
| Snowboarding is so freaking tiring. Im sore all over after a day of snowboarding in COP. Today they are celebrating the end of season and the discovery lessons cost only 15 bucks, damn cheap. However, the snow is rather hard is uncomfortable and it really saps your energy when you fall. Going to sleep now.. too tired already |
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Sex Discrimination in Canada
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Got this link from my HR prof. Never know that sexual discrimination still exists in Canada, and in such an extreme form. Richmond's female firefighters walk off job, cite harassment http://www.cbc.ca/bc/story/firefighters-20060322.html And the story is totally similar to North Country. |
Friday, March 17, 2006
Saint Patrick's Day
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Today is Saint Patrick's Day. Its an Irish festival with Catholic origins. Most people here celebrate St Paddy's by wearing green, eating Irish food and drinking(typical Irish). Can see quite a lot of people wearing green in campus today. RSA even gave out free mint and chocolate ice creams! yummy! Was planning on going to a Strip club tonight, don't know if they will charge extra for today or not. Hopefully not, since its not an official public holiday in Calgary. I think this festival will become more popular. Who will mind another Christmas? Haha Just saw the news, last night(this early morning), a car crashed outside the university, with 2 21-year old victims. I think they were most likely out to celebrate St Paddy's, like the bunch of ang mohs I saw outside my apartment last night at around 2am who were on their way out. Damn happening. |
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Show off
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I would like to show off and say that I topped my class for the mid term for ENEL 465, which is a more advanced EE2005, about transistors and stuff. Surprising, cause I don't know how to do the assignments and I just blindly went through the test, even leaving earlier cause its giving me a headache. Apparently, the rest of the class struggled too, allowing me to top the class. Well, I don't know if the lecturer mentioned anything about it cause I skipped the tutorial and was late for lecture, so I got the exam paper much later than the rest. Maybe I can show it off to Suzanne D, the exchange coordinator from UofC who disallowed me initially to take 6 courses cause "most exchange students will not be able to handle the differences and hence should take less modules." (Eventually, I dropped to 5 modules cause the 6th module has a very siong project which does not allow me to slack :p). She also said that many Asians may know English very well, but will still find it hard to struggle in a mainly English-speaking society, the bloody frog-in-a-well who thinks that we speak and write only in Mandarin in Singapore. Haha after ranting, I have to say that she is actually quite a nice person la, showing concern for a poor little exchange student. Even though I have this feeling behind my head that tells me she does not allow me to take an extra module because I do not pay school fees, and the fees here are charged by the course, the more courses you take, the higher the fees. ANYWAY.... Goes to show how extreme my grades can be, topping the class for 1 engin module (just the mid terms, the assignments I was below average, quiz I was normal), struggling to pass the other one. Well, the other engin module is electrical machines, and requires memorising formulas and standard solutions (until I realised a 1 page cheat sheet is allowed, damn!), and constant practising of questions, which slack me obviously never. It is rather similar to the first year EE module, which is probably my worst scoring module so far together with MA1506, both of which also require constant practise. University education should be about understanding! Not memorising. Not practising the same old questions over and over again. It should be emphasizing on analytical skills, not on regurgitation of information. They say Singapore's education system is bad for emphasizing on exams and memory work, I think its still a problem worldwide (maybe not so for Australia, the slackers). Or maybe its just an engineering problem, this emphasis on memory. Singapore's education system is meant (imo, at least in the past) to groom potential engineers.. Hmm.. |
Monday, March 06, 2006
Jarhead
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Jarhead is a movie based on a book by a Gulf War veteran. Obviously will have lots of spoilers below if you want to watch the movie. Nice war movie! The movie tells the Iraq war as it is, and it is up to the viewers to interpret. Though I feel its more towards the emptiness of war, with the soldiers not using a single bullet and not understanding the war and the absurdness of the tactics of the marine corps. The author did not hide his biasedness, with him saying in the movie that he wants out. Its a psychological movie, with the soldiers doing what soldiers do best, wait (all you SG boys understand rite?). For all the training the Marines had gone through, they are basically not needed in the Gulf War. Not shooting a single bullet, play-acting for the news, finding out their partners are cheating on them back in US (the only guy whose wife didn't cheat on him was laughed at in the beginning of the show for having an ugly wife... hmm...), having his wife send him a video of herself shagging her neighbour, and unwittingly showing it to the whole platoon, etc. All these are playing on their heads, with the boredom leading to 1 soldier shooting some Arab's camels and collecting dead "crispy" bodies. The absurdity of the tactics are also shown, with a soldier lashing out when they were fortifying an area that the planes had already gone miles ahead, that this was different from the Vietnam War but they were using the same tactics. Also, the only US casualties portrayed were that of friendly fire, with their own planes bombing their vehicles. My favourite part is the last part, the scene where the snipers had a chance at last to assasinate an officer, only to be stopped, as the area was going to be bombed. The sniper cracked, and pleaded with his superior to allow him to kill the target first before they bomb the area. Whats ironic is that the guy who cracked is not the one shooting, he's the lookout, the guy who gives the instructions to the shooter. I really feel for the guy, trained for half his life for this 1 shot, only for it to be called off at the final second. Makes me think back on the SG army, and how low the motivation is. All the training, for no reason, who would be motivated? Of course, there are a few who love the army, like the Staff Sergeant in the movie. "What other job allows you to see this shit?", I loosely quote from him. Anyway, many of the author's comrades in the war have called him a liar. Well, nothing wrong with an author using some creative license, but I guess they are outraged because of the bad light cast on the Marines in the movie. An ex Marine complained that their skills were not being portrayed in the movie, but that's the whole point of the show! The Marines' skills are not needed! Excellent movie, excellent cinematography, I never knew I would say such a thing, but some parts of the show are really shot very well.An example would be the part where the protaganist looked into the mirror and saw his gf, very well shot, I don't know why, but its just nice. |
Exam Fever
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Just finished my power electronics mid term. Damn hard, and I cocked up, as usual. Supposed to allow a 1 page cheat sheet, but as the course outline said no cheat sheet, I did not prepare one. Of course, I can only blame myself for not going lectures. No cheat sheet, last minute preparations, never go lecture, abstract questions, how to pass... Sigh, hope my usual good luck in passing exams will support me again. Think back to General Bio, where I simply forgot to do the 10 last MCQ questions which account for 1/6 of the total score, and I still manage a A-. Software Engin, where I got stuck with 2 non-existant members together with Guorong for my project, and managed to squeeze out a B, or B+, forgot. Of course, I have Sheng to thank for that, for sacrificing his sleep to spend the night before presentation with us to finish up the program. But I think I do have a slight chance of passing, 3 questions I think I can do 1, so the other 2 just need to get a few points to pass. But then again, I thought I knew how to do the quiz, but ended up failing it, so....... Later going to watch Jarhead, some war movie about Iraq, hope its nice. [ADD] forgot to mention that someone was cheating during that exam. Supposed to be a 1 PAGE cheat sheet, she brought along 3 pieces of cheat sheet, with both sides written. PRO |
Thursday, March 02, 2006
gauntlet
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gauntlet is a weekly student-run newspaper from UofC, much like NUSSU's The Ridge, but much more interesting. Unlike The Ridge, the students here really look forward to reading gauntlet and I have heard shreks of delight whenever a new issue is out. Even though I do read The Ridge, I never look forward to it, unlike gauntlet, which I love even though they talk about issues that don't bother me at all, such as their SU elections and administration cockups. Yes, the administration here sucks, more so than NUS I guess. NUS has fee hikes? UofC's fees have been increasing steadily by around 6% yearly (I guess, not sure). In fact, I think its common for the lecturers here to sue the school (or just complain anonymously to gauntlet). Quote from gauntlet: (This is a dictionary parody thingy) University of Calgary : Lacks the "vision thing". Currently, finds itself in the country's richest province(Alberta, for you Singaporeans) yet perennially lacks funding. Remains consistent as the 14th best university in the country. Mislead, to : Omitting the fact that the 14th place ranking was out of 15 universities. Anyway, my favourite definition is that of Bush. Bush is stupid in much the same fashion a sumo wrestler is fat. A denigrating characteristic, but also the key to success in his job. Maybe can use this definition in a GP exam. Quite interesting. What say you? |
Disabled
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One of the first things I noticed in Calgary is that there are a lot of disabled people around. In fact, one of my lecturers lost his arm (I had since dropped that course). Also, there are a lot of facilities for the disabled, most doors have a button where you can press to open, toilet cubicles are mostly handicapped toilets, ramps connect floors of different levels together with stairs, etc. Speaking of toilets, Canadian toilets (many of which only have handicapped cubicles) support xiaxue's claims that "normal" people should be able to use handicapped toilets, so Mr Self-Centred Peter Tan(I think thats his name) can shut his mouth up about handicapped people not being able to use "dirty" toilets. Initially, I thought that I see so many disabled people around Calgary as compared to Singapore is because of society's acceptance of them, and the additional facilities also allowed them to gain a high level of independance. Now, I think that there really could be more disabled people here. It could be due to their culture, which is unlike the risk averse culture in Singapore. For example, I recently knew that the mayor of Vancouver is crippled, and his injury came from skiing. As Vancouver will be hosting the Winter Olympics next, he would be lighting up the Olympic fire. Ironic that Canada's worst skier would light the Olympic fire (loosely quoted from him). Before I went to ski, my mom would tell me to be very careful when skiing, and not go too fast, etc. Comparatively, the Canadian parents bring their 5 year old kids to the black routes(expert level) and ski ahead, leaving them alone. Totally different. I wonder if there is a single Singaporean family who would let their 5 year old kid learn skiing. I mean, Singapore thinks it is happening when it allows casinos, bungee jumping, chewing gum and bartop dancing! (with many conditions attached no less) I'm not criticising Singapore nor its government, its just a different culture. Here's a cool video about an Autistic basketball pro. |
