Tomorrow is the first day

Praying

Tomorrow is my first day at the new school. I was panicking yesterday, but now that it's so close, I've calmed down. I know that tomorrow morning I'll again be terrified, but that's something to worry about tomorrow. I've ran through the trip again and again in my head, I'll get up at 6:15, leave at 6:55, take the train at 7:16, arrive at blah blah blah. You get the idea. I can't think of anything more I can do to ensure tomorrow goes well anymore. I think I've done all that I can do, but at the last minute just as I'm about to get out the door I'll probably remember something I just have to bring. = =

Claire's phoned me and we've agreed to meet at the bus stop. So, hopefully I haven't forgotten anything serious, hopefully I won't get lost, hopefully I'll get there on time, hopefully everything will go well. Fingers crossed and wish me well.

Technology hates me

For years now I've had a problem with my iPod where it displays some of the titles of my Chinese songs as a jumble of English letters with accents and weird symbols. The reason I had that problem was because I didn't set my computer to recongnise Chinese unicode. So I changed the unicode setting about a year ago, but the mixed up Chinese titles didn't revert back. I thought, okay, that's alright, I can still listen to the songs, it's not that big a deal. But it's annoying to listen to a song I like and not know the name so I can't go back to it.

Today, I was going to clean up my ipod, delete some songs I don't like and things like that. So I double click on a song with a messed up title on iTunes to listen to it, and it magically reverted back to Chinese! How was I supposed to know playing them in iTunes will make the Chinese display again? Ugh, and I've been listening to them with messed up titles for a year now, I can't believe it could have been fixed so easily. *bangs head on desk*

Even though it's easy to do, I have a lot of songs. Over 4000 of them, and I would say more than half of those are Chinese songs with messed up titles. That's why I spent the whole evening sitting in front of my computer and double clicking on songs. I double clicked on 1891 songs this evening, and I'm not done yet. On top of that I still want to delete duplicate songs to clear up space. I didn't expect this to be such a big project... TT.TT My right shoulder and wrist are complaining to me. Is there an easier way?

Technology help

Okay, I need some help with digital cameras. What is the difference, if any, between Sony HX5C, HX5V and HX5? I've been trying to find the price in Australia for Sony HX5C on the internet, but I can see they're all from China. I think that maybe (and that's a big maybe), HX5 and HX5C might be the same thing, and the C stands for classic or something.

My Aspirations and Interests

When I was little I wanted to be an author. It seemed the obvious choice since I love reading so much. When I was little I used to be praised for my writing. Now I'm finding that even I'm not able to get into reading my own writing. Whether that's because I've read a lot more now and know what good writing is or my writing has gotten worse doesn't matter. I don't like the stories I'm writing now, so once I've read through them some time later I can't finish them. I tried to edit some of my old stories but they just seem so boring now. I co-wrote a long-ish story with Li Sa, each of us writing a page or so  and alternating. I'm thinking I might tidy that up, grammar and plot wise. Because we didn't know where we were going sometimes, there are abandoned plot lines and bits of foreshadowing that are just forgotten about.

iPod/iPhone situation

There's been some problem with the purchase of iPod Touch. I was on the phone with Grandma earlier, she had to call a relative (Grandma's eldest sister's daughter, what would I call her in English?) that's better at the technological things.

Since Grandma's English is as good as any grandma who's never learnt English before, I think she was really vague and the relative thought she was talking about the iPhone. Now apparently, the people who makes the product is being sneaky and stopped production in China. So when they do actually release some, the products get snatched up super quickly, and I assume, really expensively.

They are sold in Hong Kong, but when they're taken back over the border into China, you have to pay a ridiculously high tax. So now Mum's saying we might as well buy it in Australia. I'm not really that hung up on it, if I get it I'm happy, if I don't then I won't be upset either.

Computer was being mean

AAAAAHHHH. It took me so long to finish changing the blog skin this time because Internet Explorer froze up so many times. My computer is also being slow. Soooooo slow. I got so frustrated I restarted my computer three times and Internet Explorer who knows how many time. I pretty much use ctrl+alt+delete about three times a day to force "not responding" programs to close. Frustrating to the extreme.

This time I'm using blogspot's template designer, which I haven't touched before. It gives a good range of choices to pick from, and the backgrounds are really nice! There's one with Chinese characters and three with maple leaves that I want to use later. I like the linkbar gadget it gives. It's exactly like the one Helena has and is by far the best way to display links I've used so far. Granted, I'm still new to this blogging thing.

Good new! Mum is going to get Grandma to get me an iPod Touch in China. It's about 1300 Chinese dollars and she said that's not too expensive. I'll definitely have to streamline my music collection once I get it. Right now I have 4552 songs and only 9.9 GB free in my 80 GB iPod Classic. I only realised after the iPod began complaining that it's not really designed to be used as a storage device. By then it freezes up one time out of three when I plug it into the computer.

It'll be presents time when Grandma gets back from China. A new camera, iPod Touch and other assortments of food, clothing and jewelry. Woho! \\ (^ o ^) //

Conversation with a friend



Bittersweet by JL89

 I was talking with a friend yesterday, and we came to the topic of talking with other people. I said that often when I chat with people, I would think of something to say, but I would stop and think about whether or not I should say them. Some of the times I would come to the conclusion that I probably shouldn't say them, but I'm not a person that says a lot anyway, so I seem like I'm not participating in the conversation at all. But sometimes when I've worked out I could say them so I don't say anything. Even when I do say them, I give the impression that I'm just a beat slower than everyone else.

Burwood Westfields

I went to Burwood with Mum today. When she was doing acupuncture and banking, I went to Burwood Westfields. I was looking around for birthday presents for Cinda and Linda, and I do hope they like what I got for them. One thing is that my skirt was so light that when I walked down the street it tried to fly up at the slightest breeze. Luckily I spent most of my shopping time indoors.

Goal 2: Draw

My Grandma went back to China on Sunday, which is ... the 9th I think. So my holidays has officially begun. Don't tell my mum, but I'm sleeping in a bit in the mornings. Without Grandma here, I'm relaxing and starting to do things that don't involve studying. The down side of my Grandma leaving is that some of the housework will fall to me, but so far I think me and Mum are doing okay.

Snowing outside the window

Since it's a new year, I thought, 'That's a good excuse to change the blogskin', and here we are. I went through a few templates and settled on this one. It's a lot simpler than my previous one, but I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

It took me ages to get the chatbox to co-operate though. I just couldn't get it to the right width to fit. And blogspot doesn't have the time stamp format of "MMM, DD", so that looks a bit messy.

Now please sit back and appreciate the pretty photographs I have in this post. It's the view outside the photographer's window when it snowed in Toronto today. All credits for the photo goes to Zhang Jigna (aka zemotion), an amazing photographer. I have her blog in my blog list, so you can go and look at the original post titled 'Snowing'.

Goal: Improve My Handwriting

It’s hit me today just how utterly atrocious my handwriting has become. It’s messy and ugly and wriggly and all over the place. The laptops we always use for class has definitely contributed to that. I’m determined to correct this by the end of the holidays, so beginning today, I’m going to practise my handwriting a lot.

The basic idea (according to articles on the internet) is to write slow to start with, begin with writing letters seperately, and practise, practise, practise.

Hopefully, when I go back to school at the end of the month, my handwriting will be bearable to look at even when I’m trying to write fast. Wish me luck. :-)

First post of the year

First post of the new year! (even if it's several days after the 1st) I wish everyone a wonderful, fulfilling year ahead of us. Year 11 is going to be a lot tougher than the years before, and it's likely to be more fast paced than we're used to, so let's work hard everyone. :-)

To start the year off with a laugh (hopefully), I present to you a funny website called (The Customer is) Not Always Right. This website showcases many many (410 pages as of today) anecdotes of when the customer is being stupid and when the salesperson is made of pure win.

I spent hours on Not Always Right last night and I laughed out loud so many time. The stupidity of some customers begins to make your faith in humanity falter. Not Always Right is extraordinarily funny, so I had to share it. Tell me if you like it! (I've learnt that my tastes are not always the same as other people's, so tell me if you didn't like it too)