A very late Merry Christmas!
I didn’t JUST realize I haven’t updated this blog for a while, it’s just that, the lack of time keeps on preventing me from posting. Or should I just simply say, I suck at time management.
I just came back from my Shanghai trip and spent a week of Christmas break over there with friends. It was certainly nice seeing them, but now that I lived in Hong Kong for such a long time, I realize how boring Shanghai is. I was there for a week, but I could basically think of only two places to hang out at. And in those places, there were basically only one thing to do, besides shopping at really lame stores and eating, Karaoke. (Oh my voice…)
But it is true that I was very busy these days though. After the Finals and the school stuff, I immediately began working on my 8 website projects. Yes, 8. Let me count it for you:
- Tribal Facebook App – my Dean asked me to write a Facebook App that would basically act as a online community for students – for them to post pics, comments, blog posts, etc.
- ICS Buy – an eBay system thing that lets ICS students to trade materials and equipments
- CubePoints – a WordPress plugin that lets users to earn points by commenting/posting
- EEC - a website for my church
- LO.SG – a domain shortener
- AxieBlast - I need to find some way to revive my dead community. Hmph!
- (Not confirmed) A Wedding site for a teacher
- (Not confirmed) A site for an Environmental Club in SMIC
But that’s not it. Since my complete fail at SAT (with a pity 1890 – Reading 520, Writing 650, Math 720), my mom has been urging me to study SAT. I know I need to study, but I just never had the motivation. I get out my SAT book, put it on my desk, and just as I flip the book open, something on the computer would happen: either a new email comes in or somebody would start chatting with me. Sucks 
.
And besides working, so many good movies are out recently, too! Besides Avatar, there’s Alvin and Chipmunks 2, Sherlock Holmes, and heck, I didn’t even watch Christmas Carol yet!
BUSY BUSY BUSY.
But I’m not giving any of these up. Just wait. I am working on the 2nd day of my ThinkQuest journey, and I already have 2000 words. Heh, wish I can write that much for English class. I doubt anybody is going to read it, but still, I think such a nice experience deserves somebody to document it thoroughly. Just MAYBE, sometime somebody will notice it and asks me more about ThinkQuest… and I’ll be famous? *daydreaming*
What’s up? I’m finally back from an exhausting road trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong. In these two days, we went to the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Guangdong. The whole trip was around 1600km (or 1000 miles for you English people), and took more than 18 hours of driving. With the help of Google Maps and my dad’s company’s GPS, we did it! 
. We started on July 28th morning, and arrived at 29th night (more like the morning of 30th, actually)
Visit the complete gallery of pictures!
Just to post to note my final day in Shanghai. I need to pack up my computer now, and… this can be the last blogpost from Shanghai too (hehe…). Farewell! Zai Jian!
There are only two more days before I leave Shanghai (for good, hopefully)to Hong Kong. I am having a mixed emotion right now – I really want to go to Hong Kong, but at the same time, I think I miss my friends here. Luckily, too many things have kept me busy from thinking about these things. Meh, I’ll survive.
We started disassembling everything in my room yesterday. My desk, my computers, everything. (But then I realized I needed my computer, so I had to assemble it again)
As if I am not busy enough, I think there are still like 5 things on my to-do list: MVC stuff, SAT stuff, some coding for the next release of CubePoints, etc. etc.
BUSY BUSY BUSY!
On the morning of 12th July 2009, I arrived at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) for my flight FM809 to Hong Kong. I finished check-in at around 8 o’clock, and went to the gate to wait for my flight, which is departing at 9:10. Suddenly, as I walk around to check out the shops around, I found this absolutely amusing scene:
Just as I thought that sometimes weird people just show up, I then see another person doing the same thing.
Then, the same scene even happened on the day when I come back from Hong Kong in the HK International Airport.
Seriously, dude? This is a waiting lounge of the airport, not some random curbside that you can just sleep! If you don’t respect yourself, at least respect the ones around you, or the airport!
Shanghai has indeed done a good job building the airport, but scenes like these absolutely ruined the whole environment. On one side of the government, they tell the whole world how ready they are for the Expo 2010, but on the other side, they let things like these happen. Sure, they have banners all around Shanghai telling people to “be civilized”, which certainly HELP A LOT, but there are still some people who just don’t get it.
I am not pointing to Shanghai people in a whole, but people like these just bring down the whole image of Shanghai. Now, I have been living in Shanghai for about 5 years, so in a sense, I am used to these manners already. However, how will the visiting foreigners for Expo 2010 react? It will be more than a disgrace – it will be an offence and a sign of disrespect. Visitors may not remember how nice things look like in Shanghai, but they will definitely remember such disturbing scenes.
It is time to grow up. There might be an arms race in terms of modern technology, architecture and what not; but to me, and surely many others, what matters most is the ability to please others. And as clearly shown, the manners above show exactly the opposite. That is the reason why Shanghai can’t catch up with the world yet, because it has yet to discover the real problem that hinders them. Jia you (good luck), Shanghai.