Today I bought two Canadian flags from Superstore at a discount after the Canada day. The flags are for Me and Pat to use in the World Youth Day. When groups of people from different country gather together, a way to identify yourself is by showing your nationality. I would display Canadian marks on my backpack when I try overseas. I feel proud of being a Canadian and the maple leaf flag is something I can associate with. Even though I’m Chinese and have a HK passport, I’ll feel ashamed displaying the Chinese flag. The five stars flag is one of the ugliest flag design and government behind it is even worse. If I have a choice, I would rather display the dragon flag of the Ching Dynasty. Then I tried to imagine what if I am living live in the States. Would I feel the same towards the American flag? People who associated with the US flag are usually stereotyped patriots. The word patriot has a negative meaning in my dictionary, which means people who are blindly follow the country without a critical mind. One does not have to be a patriot to love his country. Patriot is merely a label used by the authority to divided up its citizens. Every time I hear patriot in the news, either in English or in Chinese media, I feel really distaste towards those who mention this word.
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Vancouver Flight Tour
My old friend Derek visit Vancouver over this long weekend. It’s the first time I meet his new born baby, Kathyn. She is really cute, the body is chubby, and the skin is like Tofu. She is indeed a perfect target for face pinching. In the afternoon, after having dim sum with Peter Choy, Derek gave me an air tour of Vancouver. We took off at the Pit Meadows airport, flew to downtown Vancouver, then turn around at Horse Shoe Bay. The tour lasted a little bit more than an hour, and it’s quite an experience for me. It’s my first time riding on a small airplane. When I first saw the plane, I was a bit disappointed. The plane is very old, it even have rusty spots on the hulk. The interior is about the same size as a mini-copper. Since Derek cannot get the Canadian temporary pilot license on time, we had a flight instructor came along, so I didn’t get my chance to steer a little bit. I was sitting at the back seat and it’s not as tight as it seems. The airplane is much nosier than I had expected. I have to wear a headset in order to talk with Derek, otherwise he has no way to hear my voice. The ride is very smooth, I didn’t experience any turbulence. The landing part is a bit scary, since Derek had to set the engine to idle. It’s uneasy for an untrained passenger when the comfort humming of the engine is suddenly lost. I took lots of picture of the scenery I saw, a total different view from what I usually see on commercial airline. Please check it out at my photo ablum.
Dentist
I have a dental appointment today. After visiting the dentist, my mouth feel funny for the whole afternoon. I used to be quite positive seeing dentist, but it changes when I had my first bad teeth last year. I used to be very proud of my good tooth. Since my teeth no longer 100% organic, everything I visit the dentist, I worry when I’ll have to have another filling. In addition, because of I still haven’t take out my wisdom teeth, I also have to worry when it will come up. The cleaning of the plague is a bit painful, but I don’t really mind that. The worst part is teeth polishing, which is done by the dental technician instead of the dentist. I always suspect they are not doing a very good job. I’m still waiting for the technology advancement to the cleaning of the teeth mechanically obsolete. I can foresee in the future, laser or ultrasound will replace the metal scrapper as the dentist’s tool. The teeth will clean just like how the archaeologist clean those ancient scriptures.
German 3
I finished my 8 lessons of German 3. This is a semi-private course at the teacher’s place. I think it is much better than the classroom course offered at the Vancouver school. The class is smaller, each of us get more time. The environment is less formal, that encourage us to speak freely. The level 3 of German stop at after introducing the pass tense. My pronunciation is still not very good, but I am getting better not to pronounce the words in the English way. I understand all the grammar rules taught so far, but sometimes forgot when to use them. The vocabulary is my weakest area, unlike other students who has a German speaking other half to practice with, I know no Deutche speaker around me. There will be two more extra classes before I go to German. I’ll decide whether I want to continue the lessons after I come back. I couldn’t find too much of use of learning German, but it’s kinda waste giving it up after a year of learning. Language is something you quickly forget if you don’t use it every once a while. I had set up another rule for myself that if I decide to travel somewhere, I will at least start learning the basic of that language a year ahead of time.
42
I haven’t done a table topic in the toastmaster meeting for quite a while, so I volunteer myself today. Today’s toastmaster meeting is more special than usual, because it is the club got chartered. We invited the district governor to present us the certificates, and PMC provided free lunch. The topic I got is a quote from Pablo Picasso, “Computers are useless. They can only give answers”. I think I did ok in the table topic, except that I totally forgot to mention 42 until I went back to my seat. For those who had read the Hitchhacker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you should know 42 is the answer to all the questions of life and universe, except that the question is not known. Later on when I mention that to my colleagues, almost everyone agree that I had totally missed the point of that quote. One of them haven’t read the book and seems puzzled about the importance of 42. The rest of us question his identity of being an engineer, we even threaten to take away his iron ring. I think I should download and watch the movie version of that book to reinforce my engineer nature.