Dead Week/Hell Week/Reading Week

Oh, here we go once again!

I'm going to be way too familiar with this by the end of this year.

It's that time of year again for most college and university students, MIDTERMS!

Gosh, this term is turning out to be my most hectic one (even thought this is only my second term). Although reading week is coming up, most of my exams and quizzes are after it. And in addition the TAs may go on strike, which means that most of our quizzes, labs and midterms won't be marked (unless our professors want to do it).

Anyways, I've heard that some colleges and universities in the States have certain traditions or "rituals" during reading week. At UTSC, I know of no such thing so I'm interested in on what things you do during reading week. Let me know in the comments below!

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images & videos, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

Week 3 - Winter Semester + Goodies

So a semester and 3 weeks into university, I finally seem to be finding my groove.

Stocked up for winter

Everything seems to be going well so far. I'm keeping up with readings, doing practice questions every now and again, but most importantly, I've finally found time for anime. Being able to watch 2 episodes almost every day during my commute has really helped me in catching up with a bunch of series that were on my backlog (including: Witch Hunter Robin, Ore no Imouto, Highschool of the Dead, Gosick, TTGL...).

Recently, I finished Witch Hunter Robin (as you've seen in a previous post), HOTD and I'm working my way through Gosick, so expect a review pretty soon. 

     Another thing I've been doing is finding and gathering all the goodies I can get to last me at least a few weeks though this semester as picture above. My inventory includes:

4 x ValNature Roasted Amond Bars

9 x Small Pocky Packets

1 x Reg. Pocky

1 x Empty Pringles Can =P

3 x Biscotti dipped in cholocate

1 x Milk Chocolate Candy

1 x Lotte Fruito Gum

1 x Atkins Adv. Bar

4 x NutriGrain Bar

1 x PreSk8 Energy Drink

1 x Nestle Instant Coffee

8 x Stride Gum

2 x Trident Splash Gum

A lengthy list, but I'll probably have to restock soon as I'm munching on Pocky like crazy.

For this post, I'm going to bring back something I did way back when I started the blog in May/June, which were reviews on foreign confectionery goods, mainly Japanese goodies. (You can ready them by clicking the links below)

Japanese Treats (1 of 3) - Kompeito

Japanese Treats (2 of 3) - Lotte Black Black Gum

Japanese Treats (3 of 3) - Melty Kiss Chocolate

This time, I review a Japanese Milk Coffee Candy from Tokuno. I picked up this piece from a local Asian market instead of ordering from J-list this time.

How can you go wrong with anything coffee for university students?

Well apparently, you can. The flavour and aroma of the candy is nothing mind blowing; it taste like any other coffee candy I've tried before. The "milk" aspect on the candy didn't really add or take away from the candy either. But my biggest pet peeve about this candy was the texture of it when it starts to dissolve. From the picture above, it's basically a puck shaped candy, but once it starts dissolving, cracks develop on it and the texture of the candy becomes awkward. For the Asian readers, it feels like dried scallops (pictured below). 

Anyways, this is not one I can recommend, so I'll just suggest people to stick with whatever coffee candy you regularly buy, and stay away from this one.

What did you crave during your university/college studies? Do you like coffee candy? Any preference to a brand? Let me know in the comments below, and I'll see you guys soon!

Hello World!

So I finally finished my final exams and then someone reminds me...midterms in 2 months.

Me, during every exam

     Well to be exact, I finished my exams last week and I've been procrastinating to make a new post (heh, procrastinating). I also started getting some of my marks back, and for the time being, I'm pleased with them so far, but I think to most important thing for me during the break right now is to pace and change my lifestyle that would be suitable for a university student.
     I find myself time and time again gaming. It's a really bad lifestyle that I've kept since high school, thinking I can still get away with it in university. I think I game so much that I barely have time to watch anime. D: So I think the most effective way for me to really focus is to simply not start my steam (I mostly play games on steam) because those pop-ups towards the bottom right corner that shows who is playing what really distracts me. But for the duration of the break...I'll be gaming =).
     Now off to the anime issue, oh how I've missed you. At least I've finally found a susatinable way to keep this hobby. My morning commute to school is about 25 mins (by car, it's an hour by public transit) and you know what that time is perfect for? Perfect for just an episode of any anime. So that means going to school and coming back, I'm still able to watch 2 episodes, yay!

Anyways, I'll be back next week to make an anime related post and hopefully, I'll be able to make weekly posts when school resumes! Thanks for reading!
    
I do not own or take credit for all of the above images & videos, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

So what are you guys doing during your winter breaks? How did your exams go? Let me know in the comment section below!

I'm Back!

After a temporary hiatus (and midterm exams), I'm glad to announce that I'll be back on board.

 After getting all 5 of my mid-terms out of the way, I've finally think I've found to groove to settle down and merge into the life of a university student. But just because I've finished writing the mid-terms doesn't mean my worries are gone, it's when I actually get them back and know my marks =/. Hopefully is DWei faring better than I am. Hang in there bud! Sadly, finals are coming up, in less than a month.

And in reply to Shaw's comment a while back
  Shaw said...

I've been meaning to ask you, how can this blog be a NEET corner when you are at Uni?

I guess you're right, it's more of a "Foreclosed corner" because of such high tuition payments.

But getting back to what's current, Payday: The Heist. A FPS released by Overkill, and indie devloper has taken some of the FPS community by storm. It's mainly a 4 person, co-op oriented game where you are in the shoes of thieves (hence, "heist"). It's a really unique concept that requires major teamwork and communication skills. Although I've never had that chance to play it yet, I've seen many game play videos and all I can say is that it's intense. It really is a shame that this game isn't well known. To be honest, I would have never checked this game out if I didn't catch a glimpse of it on the front page of the steam store. Hopefully this game catches on. Props to Overkill, especially for releasing a FPS in the same month as Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. (More than enough to throw any university student off course, am I right?).

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images & videos, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

 Have you guys checked out any of the new games released this month such as the new Batman game?

 

UTSC Frosh Day 3 & 4

 The last two days of frosh week ends in style.

All of frosh week seemed to lead up to the final events for day 4, but let's get back to day 3 for now.

Day 3's main event was "The Ultimate Froshie". Froshie in this case refers to all frosh members (freshmen), and it's essentially finding the most enthusiastic, exciting and fun froshie. This is determined trhough a series of challenges which involve cheers (such as the "I feel so good!" cheer) and more. Sadly, I had class during this event and pretty much missed most of it. Video below for whoever wants to check it out.

Which brings me to my next point, who decided to make frosh week coincide with the first week of classes (most people had classes Thursday and/or Friday). So not only did I miss Thursday's main event, I missed all of Friday, but for the people that participated, I heard that it was a blast.

Friday's first main event was the parade where all 3 campuses (Scarborough, Mississauga and St. George)  convene. As fun as this sounds, there is always compeititoin between all 3 campuses to see who does the best and loudest cheers. See for yourself below.

Friday ended with an event at some event cetnre, and at a club at the Guv.
Hopefully everyone had fun, as I probably had more of it in class. =/

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images & videos, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

How did you frosh conclude? Did class ever coincide with frosh?

UTSC Frosh Day 2

We feel so good! Oh, we feel so good! Oh!

Youtube Karaoke @ AC112

Nothing beats karaoke, especially in a lecture hall singing things by Aqua and Bieber.

Well I'll have to say I had fun during the second day. Just like Ferdinand commented on my previous post, I also consider myself as an introvert. Those that do know me in real life know me as someone who is very quiet, as the type that is cool, calm and always collected. Today was no different? I think not. With help from my GLs (group leaders) I started to come out of that shell and had some fun.

The "Carnival"

For day 2, once of the featured events was the Carnival. Essentially it was 5-6 inflatable play areas (like rock climbing pictured above). Now don't get me wrong, these activities were fun, but when this activity lasted for 4 hours, your patience for new things to do is easily spent.

The long day was concluded with a fun event (for some at least and embarrassing for others), the long awaited hypnotist show. You can see the first part of it embedded above (I do not own the video, it was uploaded by my colleagues).


What quirky events did you have at your frosh? What was the best event?

UTSC Frosh Day 1

First impressions are everything, and today, frosh has definitely made its mark.

Woo! Frosh Week

Frosh, Day 1: All froshies were assigned to groups and separated by departments, marked by different colour t-shirts. Blue for management students, green for science and red for arts. Each group was assigned 2 group leaders which are seniors in the corresponding deparments.

Now I'm not sure how all my peers felt, but I can say I was definitely nervous and my natural personality of being shy definitely didn't help. On the other hand, all the group leaders (GLs for short) were very warm and enthusiastic (whether they were being forced to can be questioned) but the GLs assigned to my group were great.

Ice Breakers!

 For the first day, we generally did a lot of ice breaker related activities to get to know our group members better. We were also taught a number of cheers of which some are unique to each department as departments may engage in spontaneous cheer-offs against each other. Being a management student, some of our cheers would include: "Your test tubes are short" which is directed at the science department and "You talk big, you walk tall, making up for something small!" which can be directed to any department (Yes, a lot of the things were somewhat...suggestive). One my favourite comebacks against the management cheers would be: "Schu-lich Re-jects!" (People in Ontario should get this one).

Party Hard!

 There were also lots of other activities throughout the day, which eventually made me come out of my shell a bit. And to conclude the day, was a foam dance party. (Unfortunately, I didn't stay long enough to witness the "foam" part of it).

Foam Dance Party (without the foam)

I'll be back in a few days reporting on day 2 of frosh.

Do you still remember your first day of frosh? Any cheers that are memorable or unique to your school?

Back to School Laptops

It's that time of year again, on for this year, my supplies list includes a laptop.

For the past few weeks, I've been browsing various laptops, and so far, I've come up with 3 laptops that may fit my needs.

The Asus A53SV-XN1

1.) Newegg.ca - ASUS A53 Series A53SV-XN1 Notebook Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory DDR3 1333 750GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
ASUS A53 Series A53SV-XN1
Price: $750.00
CPU: Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz)
RAM: 6GB Memory DDR3 1333
GPU: Nvidia GT 540M
HDD: 750 GB (7200 RPM)
Screen: 15.6"
Res: 1366x768 

The MSI FX620DX-256US

2.) Newegg.ca - MSI FX620DX-256US Notebook Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory 640GB HDD DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
Price: $730.00
CPU: Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz)
RAM: 6GB Memory DDR3
GPU: Nvidia GT 540M
HDD: 640 GB (??? RPM)
Screen: 15.6"
Res: 1366x768

The Asus A53SV-XTI

3.) Buy the ASUS A53SV-XT1 15.6 Laptop Computer at TigerDirect.ca
Price: $770.00
CPU: Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.0GHz
RAM: 4GB Memory DDR3
GPU: Nvidia GT 540M
HDD: 500GB (5400 RPM)
Screen: 15.6"
Res: 1366x768 

I guess the differences are the CPU (i5 2410 vs i72630, and the ram, 6 GB for i5 vs 4 GB for i7, and the HDD 5400 vs 7200). Anyone care to comment on these things?

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images and wideos, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

Which laptop out of the 3 would you choose? What laptop do you use? Any recommendations for any specific laptop or brand or specs?

University of Toronto Scarborough: First Impressions

So for many Canadians, graduating high school students heading off to post secondary school had to choose their educational institution for next year. I for one, accepted my UTSC (University of Toronto Scarborough Campus) co-op management offer. For those that are not as familiar with University of Toronto, U of T is actually made up of 3 campuses, UTM (University of Toronto Mississauga), UTSG (University of Toronto St. George) and UTSC

For the 2015 Pan Am games, an aquatics and athletics complex (such as 2 Olympic sized pool,
runnings tracks and other facilities) will be available for UTSC students in the future

     Well as I said in the last post (Japanese Treats! Meltykiss Chocolate (Part 3 of 3), I would be visiting UTSC today for the "Ready! Set! Go!" event which is to really get first year students familiarized with course selection and the next steps students should take.I also opt-ed to go for a residence and campus tour.

The infamous trios of smokestacks that
towers over the campus

Upon entering the campus, I encounter a figure that my peers have talked about, the infamous smokestack that makes the building look like a factory.









I also visited various wings of the campus and I'll have to say, some of them look really great and others look not too appealing in my opinion.


The one that didn't appeal to me were the ones that were structured by complete concrete (at least it looked like concrete to me). As you can see below, the whole building's interior is just this dull grey and looks like an unfinished basement to me. Another building also looks like this, but at least they painted a coat of white paint to change the scenery.

Concrete, Concrete Everywhere!

On the bright side, this is the new
Instructional Centre/Management building open for 2011

Besides the infamous smokestacks, some people also know UTSC for its lack of social life. Honestly, I really think this is up to the individual and their involvement in extra curricular activities (this university is a commuter school). I'll once again make a post about life at UTSC once I'm actually a student there. I might make another post about frosh/orientation week.

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

So how was everyone else's first experience/impression of their post-secondary institutional? How did you transition from secondary school? Or how is/was your post-secondary school experience altogether?