Days 54 – 58 in Vancouver | this lush garden within

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It's My Life

Days 54 – 58 in Vancouver

By mrbiao ⋅ March 4, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Day 54

It was a terrible day for me… I slept too little and was tired the whole day, couldn’t finish writing my midterm answers because I had too much to write… and I forgot to bring my assignment that I was supposed to hand in during class today.

Right after class I went up to the instructor and asked if I could email my work to him. He said no, he doesn’t accept submissions after class. So I asked if I can run back to my room and back within 20 minutes to submit. Still no. That sucks big time. Especially when just earlier today I was thinking that he was probably the best instructor I ever had.

Quite upset at that, because it’s worth 5% and I thought I done quite a good job.

To me it’s unreasonable because I don’t recall he ever mentioned that even slightly late submissions would not be accepted. Even back in NUS where its pretty strict, we just get penalized for late submissions. Furthermore it was a genuine oversight and not that I didn’t finish my work and was bargaining for more time. 20 minutes to go and grab my printout and come back isn’t too much to ask for I think.

Day 55

Bad luck has no boundaries. This morning my espresso machine imploded on me. Saving money on food but spending more on replacing stuff… Forces of Nature 1 – Mrbiao 0.

I volunteered at the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival today. My job was to go around the winery counters, filling up water and emptying spit buckets where people spit the wine they tasted. Not a very nice job, but fun because we’ve got a contest where the team with the highest number of spit buckets emptied wins a prize. I’m lagging far behind though… not that I really care about it.

Pails and pails of… spit… bioharzardous waste…

Empty the spit bucket contest statistics… looks like art…

Tomorrow will be my turn to go into the Tasting Room as a ticket holder and taste the wine and food.

Day 56

It’s my roommate’s birthday today (Feb 29). He has his birthday once every 4 years because he was born on this fateful day in a leap year! We celebrated with him with… of course, liquor. This means I’ll be drinking for a straight 3 nights including tomorrow night’s 701 wines tasting in 3 hours.

Still can’t get over the brooding feeling that lots of things are going wrong for me. They aren’t life threatening or really serious stuff, just that they all add up to a lot. Things breaking down on me, losing stuff, forgetting things, etc. Sigh

I had a meeting with some UBC staff today regarding a project I’m working on for them as part of my coursework in E-Marketing. I have a feeling that if I actually ask them, I might get an opportunity to work officially for them for a while or even just as an internship or co-op… or whatever it can be called. But the problem is I don’t want to leave my loved ones back home for too long… at the same time I want this opportunity. Hmmm. Dilemma.

After that, I went downtown with some friends to book a tour to the Canadian Rockies for the Easter holidays. Then we had $1.25 pizza slices and I went for the wine festival tasting session.

There were a total of 701 wines from around the world (well, actually just from North and South America, Europe, Australia and NZ). I tasted about 60 wines in 3 hours… hah… far less than what I expected to cover, because there were just too many people and a lot of time was spent waiting in line and trying to dodge around people who were just standing around. I totally forgot to taste any of the Icewine though =(. Well, now I know what to go for first when I go for future wine tastings like this… eliminate the good stuff first, then go for the normal ones!

I did cover all of the German wines (I’m very partial to German Rieslings and Gewurztraminers) and most of the champagne though. And I skipped all the USA and Canada wines (and totally forgot about Canadian Icewine!).

I couldn’t resist buying a bottle of Austrian Muscat that was only available at the show… gee… when I’m supposed to be saving $. I guess I succumbed to the marketing ploy of “buy now because it won’t be available later”.

Day 57

Went for buffet lunch today at Granville and 41^st Ave. It was pretty good value at $11.95 before taxes and tips, but the food was not very good. I still miss the buffet I had at the Tulalip Casino in Marysville.

Went for my wine festival volunteer duty in the evening. There were lots of people getting drunk on wine even though they were supposed to spit most of the time – I suppose people just wanted to get their money’s worth of the evening. I bumped into my wine science professor and said hi.

Day 58

I rented a car today because I had some expiring credits for the car sharing program I signed up for. Together with a couple of friends we went to Lynn Canyon valley to check out the suspension bridge. We heard that the Capilano Suspension bridge was nothing more than a over-hyped tourist trap, so we decided to go for this one instead. The view of the river below the bridge was breathtaking. The bridge was quite stable, not shaky like I expected it to be. It’d be more fun if it was like the one I’d been on last year in China – nothing more than just a piece of netting across a lake…well… for Lynn Canyon it’s a 100 meters drop…

We hiked through a trail that followed after the bridge, and went to the riverside. Bummed around there taking photos for a while, then made our way out again. Then, we took the car to Metrotown to do groceries shopping and went back home.