Sorry xanga for not updating you for more than six months. I went thru alot in the past couple of months. Alot has changed... and alot has happened.

I wrote my updates on http://www.davidchan.ca.

It's so nice to see silly, littlemcmug and vern write me comments in the previous message... I miss Waterloo and the people... :(

Jusqu'ici, je suis elementaire en francais. Mais, j'ai ameliore beaucoup. Je parle francais tout le temps. Mais, mon francais est terrible encore. J'espere que je vais ameliorer mon francais dans le deux semaine prochaine.

A Trois-Pistoles, j'habite avec un garcon qu'est un Chretien. C'est tres amusant parce que il n y a pas beaucoup des Chretiens donc les etudiantes ici. Nous faissons beaucoup des choses ensemble.

Hum... vern... je ne sais pas comment on dit 'take care' en francais. Desole! I vais savior, peut-etre, avant je pars de Trois-Pistoles.

Hey, I'm going to Quebec City for the weekend.... well I'm going with the school. Kinda excited because it's my first visit. Well, I visited before when I was perhaps ten or eleven years old. I don't remember. So, the visit should be fantastic.

Oh... I uploaded some recent photos taken in Trois-Pistoles to my webshots. Since the dial-up connection is terribly slow, I could only upload a few. There are 200 more photos!

A bientot tout le monde!

Once again, it's been a while since I have the courage to write something here. Have been in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec for more than two weeks now. It's only now that I have the time and motivation to scribble some words.

Actually, the week before I left Toronto for Trois-Pistoles, I was really really busy. There was no time to do anything else other than fulfilling promised committments. I was so busy that I didn't start packing until 3 hours before my flight departs. I ended up under-packed and mis-packed. Like, now I don't have enough clothes to last me a week comfortably... thus I have to wash them very frequently. And then my clothes are too thin for the weather here. I can't believe we are getting so much rain (and snow too) in May. Thought about shopping for some clothes... but hey, this is Trois-Pistoles. Shopping-wise, TP is worse than Waterloo!

The only brand recognizable in TP to most of us is Subway. No McDonald's or Pizza Pizza. No Tim's or 2nd cup. No Walmart. No Bay. No Shoppers. No Buffalo. Nil.

Anyhow, that's not a huge problem for me. I like the tiny town (comparing to small town Waterloo) lifestyle here. Living beside the St. Lawrence river is something really new for me. Riding my bike everyday by the river is tantilizing. There are two 'unique' cafe in town that I frequent. One is called Cafe L'essentiel and the other is Cafe Chansonnier. They are the centre of night life in TP... well, other than Quidam, the sole student bar in town.

Learning French here is intensive and frustrating at times. I am expected to speak French 100% of the time. And I do! I read the dictionary more than a dozen times every day. That is essential. At times, I feel like I am back in grade 4 trying to adapt to the English-speaking environment but can't. When I can't find the words or proper grammar to express myself, I get so frustrated. The feeling is like being outcasted. But there are 200 other students here to be outcasted with, so that's not too bad. :)

Having been here for two weeks, my French has really improved. More French has soaked into my head than all those years of French since grade 4. I'm not saying all those years learning French was a waste. Those years gave me the fundamentals that I find really useful now. Living in a French-environment demands the oral part which classroom learning can't provide. I find it very difficult to pickup what Francophones speak because they speak very fast with strong accents.

But I'm learning. Hopefully, I will be nearly fluent in French after three more weeks. But it seems that I will need to go on a few more immersion programmes before I can declare myself "tri-lingual".

I have alot more I want to write. But I must go now. Later.

Oh my, I am trying to come to grasp with all this alumni stuff. Have been getting emails about registering for the alumni e-community and this and that. And oh, I got my first solicitation for alumni donations. Of course I didn't give any money... poorer than my piggy bank.

It's funny how I can remember all these 16 digit numbers... especially my credit card. Must be using it too much online (to buy stuff; login to my account and cry) and over the phone that I can spit out the number and expiry date immediately. Not a good sign... Actually, same thing happened with my UW bar code. If you go to DC or DP library often, you'd know that you need to scan your Watcard before getting books. I got so fed up with the crapiness of the bar code scanner that I just type in my bar code. I remember my bar code 'coz I need to enter it everytime I request a book from Trellis. And over the years, God knows how many books I have requested.

Finally got my travel arrangements to TP settled. Brother's wedding website 99% complete. Now onto reference letters for internship and grad school apps. Oh, income tax return. Darn.

SWELLING ON THE WEST AND EAST END

Bad mouth

I had four wisdom teeth yanked out on Friday. I was so so so nervous before the operation. Well, since the bottom two teeth were embedded in my gums, they had to basically cut open whatever is necessary to extract the teeth. The other two required just normal hardcore pulling and some heavy equipment.

Actually, I didn't feel any pain because they gave me 'laughing gas' (remember in Lethal Weapon III, Mel Gibson and that Chinese mafia ring leader were getting high on laughing gas at the dentist's office?). They also gave me sedation (making my entire mouth senseless and numb). Basically, I lost consciousness and had some weird sensations BEFORE any equipment entered my mouth.

I woke up a couple of times during the operation, but I immediately lost consciousness probably because they increased the dose of laughing gas to put me back under. Anyhow, I felt like the entire surgery took only five minutes when in fact it took an hour. No pain afterwards. Even up to now, no pain. Just a bloody and badly cut up mouth! And two puffy cheeks. Anyhow, my recovery is amazingly fast. The only painful thing is watching yummy food (i.e. steak) pass by while I drink soup and eat mashed potatoes (which was good too).

Dreaded programming

I was overly confident to think I can escape the curse of web application development in my near future. Since mid last year, I really wanted to move away from high tech stuff (namely web app dev) and concentrate on establishing a scholarly foundation in political science (for grad school). Well, I think I was reasonably successful. Thank God! But now, one week after moving back to Toronto, I already have at least 3 applications waiting for me to design, code and manage.

I anticipated a return to web apps actually. I knew I'll need $ (wisdom teeth extraction cost almost a grand, travel and expense for Trois-Pistoles, keeping the car running,...) and writing web apps is the fastest and most efficient way for me to get good money. But I'm starting to lose interest in the process... I just need the income!

Anyhow, while trying to finish one app today, I realized how my app development skills and knowledge of languages have deteriorated. I've gotten so rusty that I don't even know how to use my language reference resources. A simple database app took me hours to write (it's still not done). My workflow planning really need some brushing up. Well, it has been more than a year since I wrote any new applications.

The worst is that all these applications must be done before I leave for Trois-Pistoles next Friday. But I have so many other things to do: make travel arrangements to TP (still), income tax return (yes, it's late), apply to internships and grad school, getting reference letters, appealing a course grade for Fall 2001, writing an article for the church newsletter, making financial arrangements for stay at TP...