Today I had lunch with a friend whom went to Hawaii in the summer.? I made an comment about the size of Waikiki beach seems shrinked.? I remember when I visit Hawaii many years ago as a little kid, the Waikiki beach seems bigger.? This friend and my friends I went Hawaii with agree with me, as they all recall Waikiki was very big.? I came up with two theory explaining the reduce in size.? First theory is global warming, the sea level rise and drown the beach.? Second theory is part of the beach is converted into new hotels.? My friend points out the hotels by the beach are not brand new, they have been around for many years.? So my second theory is not very convincing.? The first theory doesn’t make much scientific sense since the sea level has only raise a few centimeters in the past 10 years, it should not eat up a large chunk of the beach.? I try to find some data on the web about Waikiki’s size, but every link on google is just useless advertisments.? Someone should write a search enginer that filters out commerical sites, only return informative site with information I am looking for.? Here comes one last theory, maybe our memory had cheated all of us.? The Waikiki beach is always the same size.? It looks bigger back then because we were much smaller.? When I was search for the information of? Waikiki’s size, I came across the answer for a question puzzled me for a few days.? There is a canal on the north side of Waikiki, and I always wonder what is it for.? The Ala Wai Canal was dig to drain the water from weland.? Waikiki was originally a swamp.? The beautiful beach and the land of all resort hotels are man made.

The past weekend I went to Haiwaii to attent FTBY’s wedding. Too bad that I can only stay in Haiwaii for 3 days. This weekend is really fun. When the Lasallian gang get together, there are always lots of laughters. Saturday is the wedding, everytime runs smoothly, except the groomsman got lost in the morning. Sunday we went to snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, a coral reef nationa park. It is quite an experience swim among schools of tropical fishes. We visited the Peal Harbour on Monday. The line up to see the Arizona memorial is not very long, we only have to wait about an hour. It is a very good deal, you get a free boat ride of the Pearl Harbour after seeing actual films footage from WWII. We don’t have time to visit the Missouri floating museum since we are having dim sum with Mr. and Mrs. FTBY. I accomplished alot in just 3 days. I had sampled almost every thing you can do in Honolulu. Staying longer is just repeating more or less the same activities in a more relax mood while spending more money. On my way back home, I almost got stuck in Portland. My flight back tO Vancouver is cancelled. Luckily the airline routed me first from Portland to Seattle, then from Seattle to Vancouver. It is the shortest flight with most stop I have taken. I am really tired after flying red eye back to Vancouver from Haiwaii and head straight to work. Gota sleep early tonight and probably for the rest of the week to recover. Click here to see my pictures.

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I found in the philosophy class I am taking this term, most people I talked to are part time students.? Some of them are obviously over age, they are seniors.? Some of them I talked to are still working toward their undergard degree, but they are already working full time.? I didn’t ask the reason, but I suppose they have no choice but to support themselves.? Otherwise, it would be better to finish school first then join the work force.? Today I met an acturaist, who is married, and thinking of a career change.? She just quit her job to go back to school.? I learnt that there are only 3000 or so fellow acturaist, completed all the exams, in Canada.? This field sounds really though.? I wonder where my friends studied actural science in Waterloo doing nowadays.? Looks like most of them won’t make it to the top.? Political philosophy is a very intereting topic, because we can all relate to it.? The class is in the evening at the downtown campus, time and location are quite convenient for people with full time job, except me who work much closer to the Burnaby campus.? That explain why there are so many part-time student in my class.? In class, you can tell the difference between part-time and full-time students.? Part-time students are more keen on asking questions and not shy talking back to the professor.? On the other hand, mostly the full time students just sit there quietly and some of them skip classes occasionally.? That’s the difference between study for fun and study for grade.? No one force part-time students to study, they are motiviated by their interest and want to get most out of the class.? Many full-time students don’t even know what they want to study, or study for the sake of grades or money.? They see learning as a mean to an end rather than the end itself.? That explain the different altitude between full and part time students.

Tonight I went to a Persian resturant to have dinner? The resturant is at the street corner of Pat’s place.? Pat always wanted to try it.? It was an Indian resturant before.? According to my theory, Chinese guy doesn’t eat Indian food, I refuse to go there although Pat asked a few times.? Actually, we don’t know the resturant had changed to serve Persian food.? All I can see is it had rennovated and have some weird characters on the sign.? I can’t tell the difference between Indian script from Persian script, so I assume it is still an Indian resturant.? Originally, we wanted to go to the chinese resturant on the same plazza, but it was really full.? Pat suggested to check out that place.? It has no customer.? We were checking out the menu.? The food doesn’t look like Indian and it sounds a little bit like Greek.? The shop owner come out and invite us to come inside.? Knowing it is not Indian food, I decide to give it a try.? The food is indeed very much like Greek food.? We ordered chicken and beef kabab.? It come with rice, vegetable and salad, just like Greek sovlaki.? The only difference is the rice is bigger, and have grilled vegetable.? The shop owner knows how to do bussiness.? He think we may find the portion of food too small, he gave us extra rice.? Then he give us a $2 discount off from the bill.? The place is quiet and the setting is very comfortable.? The food is ok but not exceptionally good.? I won’t mind revisit this resturant again in the future, however I still prefer chinese food or normal western cuisine more.

I can’t study at home.? There are just too many distraction at home.? Most of time, I will just sit in front of my computer instead of doing my reading.? One of my favourate study place is bubble tea cafe.? I go there on average one evening a week to prepare my reading for school.? The food there is just so-and-so, however bubble tea cafe is the few places people will hang out there doing their own thing.? My only complain is the light is too dim in all but one table.? I can study in noise place, as long as the background noise cancel out each other so that it doesn’t grep my attention.? Actually bread garden has a better studying environment, but it has nothing to eat.? Ok, they have sandwitch but sandwitch is not real food.? I am too lazy to move again after having dinner, otherwise it would be a perfect spot.? There is a common lounge in my apartment, it is very quiet.? I should try studying in there sometimes.? The only trouble is that the door lock automatically at 10p.m.? On weekends, I like to study in public library.? Library is the most natural place to study.? However, I have to constraint myself not to browse the books shelves too much.? I allow myself to read books only in breaks between studies.? Very often, I end up borrowing books from the library after studying.? I have bought too many books already, I really need to catch up with my reading.? When I lived close to SFU, I like to study in school too, but it is too far away for me now.? My ideal place to study is a quiet cafe serve real food, with good lighting and opens late.? I doubt I can ever find such a place.? Those requirements contradicts with bussiness sense.