This is a research report that I wrote for one of my fourth year engineering courses. We are supposed to choose topics that are related to renewable or distributed energy, and I chose to write my report about Stirling engines and micro-cogeneration, two topics that have a connection with one another. It’s not the longest report I’ve written, and probably not the best either, but I got a decent mark in the course so the report can’t be that bad. Keep reading if you feel like wasting a couple minutes of time.
Year: 2010
Trip to China
I’m finally back from my three-week vacation to China. I come from China, but I haven’t gone back to my homeland for a long time, so you could say the trip was long overdue. During the trip, my family and I visited a good number of places, and this post is primarily a photo dump of sights and scenery that I saw over my three weeks in China.
Tatakau Shisho – The Book of Bantorra – Final Thoughts
Here’s another long overdue final thoughts post, and this time it’s for Tatakau Shisho – The Book of Bantorra, a 27-episode anime based on a series of light novels and animated by David Production. I picked up the series on a whim because I thought the promotional art was nice. Luckily, Bantorra turned out to be surprisingly good and is one of the better series I’ve watched recently. To keep things short and to the point, I’m going to use point form for this post. As with most my final thoughts posts, this post contains major spoilers to the series.
UBC Botanical Garden and Nitobe Memorial Garden
As part of my effort to visit all the notable attractions at the University of British Columbia before I graduate (or my bus pass expires), I visited to the Nitobe Memorial Garden and UBC Botanical Garden. As a current student, I can get into both of these gardens for free, but for some reason I never thought about visiting them until a few weeks ago. Here is my post on the visit accompanied by lots of photos.
Dance in the Vampire Bund – Final Thoughts
It’s been a few weeks since the end of the winter 2010 anime season, and I’m finally getting around to writing some final impressions posts on the series that I watched but didn’t blog. Blame the lateness on my laziness and my finals. As a “Final Thoughts” post, this post just contains some loosely organized (or unorganized thoughts) I had for the show, so don’t expect to see a well-structured review. Anyways, this post is about Dance in the Vampire Bund, a Shaft production that didn’t turn out to be what I expected.
Post contains spoilers.
UBC Museum of Anthropology
Having been a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver for the better part of five years, it’s rather sad that I haven’t visited some of the notable attractions within my university. This is especially sad given that, as a current student, I can go into any of those places for free. So before my undergraduate career at UBC comes to an end, I am going to make an effort to visit all of the notable attractions at UBC, and I’ll start with UBC’s well-known Museum of Anthropology (MOA). The museum just recently completed a renewal project, so it’s the perfect time for me to visit.
Got My Ring
There is still a bit over a month left until I’m finished with this school term and my undergraduate career, and I have to wait until June to get my degree, but today I (along with many other graduating engineering students) took a step towards my graduation and got my Iron Ring. For those who don’t know, the Iron Ring is a tradition for Canadian engineers and it comes with accepting an “obligation” to do good work as engineers. It’s not required for graduation or professional practice, but most of us get it because it is a tradition and it’s something to show for (other than our degrees).
The ceremony for taking the obligation and getting the ring was a formal occasion. Since it’s supposed to be “private”, I’m not going to reveal any details about what went on. Instead, below is a picture of me wearing my new ring. For a big guy, my hands are kind of girly, but my hand seems wider and less feminine in this photo :lol: .
Movie Review: “Avatar” (2009)
I finally saw Avatar. Actually, I saw Avatar about four weeks ago, but didn’t get around to writing about it until today. I actually wanted to see it in January, but I wanted to see it in IMAX 3D and the theaters were packed back then. As almost all of you probably know, Avatar is James Cameron’s latest mega-budget blockbuster that is now the highest grossing film of all time. This post is just a collection of my thoughts on the film, so it’s not really a movie review per se, but I’ll put it in my review category for organization’s sake.
2010 Winter Olympics Wrap-up
The 2010 Vancouver Winter Games is finally coming to a close after two weeks of world-class competition. Despite the shaky start with the protests and the unfortunate death of the Georgian luger, plus the persistent weather problems (it was more like the Spring Olympics), it’s been a good Olympics games. Canada has done a good job as a host and also in the games. We didn’t exactly “own the podium” as the Americans and Germans have more medals in total, but Canada did win more gold medals than any other country this time. Canada’s 14 gold medals set the record for most gold medals won during a single Winter Olympics by any country. The total haul of 26 medals is also Canada’s best showing at any Olympics, summer or winter. Canada really came on strong during the last few days, capping it all off with a dramatic 3-2 overtime win over the USA in men’s hockey. Congratulations Canada!
Olympic Break and School Term Impressions
I turned this website into a blog a month and a half ago in order to encourage myself to write more, but that hasn’t worked out so well. Anyways, for next two weeks, I’ll be spending nearly all my time at home. This is because of the Winter Olympics, which prompted my university to extend our usual one week break to two weeks. The break is by no means vacation though, since I have three projects and a couple of assignments to work on. Still, not having to commute to school and go to class should free up some time for me to watch the Winter Olympics… on TV. Having lived in Canada for so long, of course I’m rooting for the Canadian team, and also the Chinese team as well since I’m Chinese. I certainly hope Canada’s “Own the Podium” program will produce great results, but if that doesn’t work out, many of us Canadians will probably be happy if Canada wins the men’s hockey gold. GO CANADA!