Tag: Vancouver

Beautiful British Columbia: Our BC Backyard

6 Comments

Hey all,

That’s a lot of “b”s in my title I now realize.

I recently took up hiking again, since Summer’s just around the corner! I was itching to go explore nature again, and luckily, my boyfriend was super on board! Since we don’t have a car, the bothersome thing about hiking is the commute. Getting away from civilization takes at least an hour or two. Then getting back sucks because you’re tired, but you’re not home for another two hours.

I think spring is the best time to go hiking. The air isn’t muggy, but crisp and fresh. Mosquitos aren’t roaming for human flesh. And students are still mostly in school, so there’s slightly less people hiking the trails.

There are times when I cannot believe that we have views like this right in our backyard:

IMG_0421

11090925_10152953010274748_741714139476337600_o

Pack a sandwich, grab a fruit, fill your water bottle. It’s nice to escape away from the city. Something about knowing that the snapping of twigs you just heard was made by nature, and not by something man-made. If you live in Vancouver, go out there and seize what you’ve got! (Believe me, having lived in asian countries where they’ve ran out of natural land to develop and had to turn to land reclamation, having natural trails within arm’s reach is a blessing.) I’d recommend using Vancouver Trails to figure out which trails to go to!

– Karen

You win some, you lose some

2 Comments

Hey all,

So I had my toughest interview two weeks go. It all started at the beginning of March, when I got a preliminary email in response to my resume and cover letter submission. Microsoft wanted to interview me! They said they were intersted in getting to know me more. I was thrilled!

The one pic I took from my time there :P

The one pic I took from my time there 😛

I did the interview and I thought it went pretty well. My interviewer held the role I was applying for and was very nice and friendly. I got to understand the role more and he got to understand why I was here. I think my interest in the IT industry really shone through, especially in the question where they asked where I wanted to be five years down the road. Without a doubt, in the gaming industry, in a community role.

I remember signing in at the front desk before the interview and spied a name of a classmate of mine– her achievements were amazing so my confidence fell. They also had interviewed numerous candidates for the week.

A week later I got another email! They wanted me to come back for a second round of interviews! Now the candidates were cut down to 4. The email also outlined how the interview process would go. I was to be interviewed by 5 managers I would be working with in the position. FIVE! I was pretty nervous, but in the end what caught me most off guard was how taxing the process was. Imagine being at the Microsoft office for 2 1/2 hours (there were breaks in between to match the manager’s schedules). You’re trying to make the best first impression. Five times. To five different people. You feel your energy start to drain, especially after the second interview.

The managers who interviewed me were all generally nice! One was extra encouraging, and I really liked her. One was a wild card one, who asked you the randomest questions that would catch you off guard. Then there was one who was technical, and in my opinion had the hardest questions. I’m glad I had the opportunity to go through the interview process. I didn’t get the job. I learned you can never be prepared enough, but try to be genuine and let that shine through.

Now comes the terrible part where I have to scramble to find a job for my next co-op work term before summer begins! I’ve got about one more month. Oh gosh. I need a job.

– Karen

Play all the games!

6 Comments

Hello y’all,

I built my own PC! It took about a year of planning and gathering parts, but it’s finally done!

A lot of the rush came from looking around for deals on the parts that I wanted. I would first compare parts and then when I decided on something, I’d be on the lookout for when it goes for cheap (or just cheaper is fine). The process took quite a while. I bought my SSD almost half a year ago and it was the first piece of my new PC that I got. Then came my CPU about 2-3 months later. As you could see, I was in no rush….

That was until last week when I went to pick up my RAM from NCIX(8GB for $58!!). I was only missing my motherboard, power supply, and case at this point and my boyfriend convinced me on a power supply, and we ran to get the case I had wanted at Lansdowne Mall (they had 1 left). On the 10th of January, I finished buying my parts and started building the PC.

IMG_9898

Luckily, my boyfriend built his own computer so he gave me plenty of pointers. Mainly, it was a lot of watching this video and following along:

All the steps are broken down, and of course, just skip the steps that don’t apply to you. I’m not going to lie and say I loved the process, and there were quite a few times when I had to undo all the hard work I had just done leading to much frustration (I think I said “Kill me” at least ten times during the process). I was also sure that a part would not work and I would have to send it in for repairs. But miraculously, we finished building it that night. At around 1AM, I finished downloading League of Legends and I played my first game on my PC! The whole process took around four hours? That included installing the OS and such.

IMG_9902

Wish it would assemble itself

The whole thing felt very rewarding, and it feels nice knowing I paid for the whole thing. Makes my summer job seem less of a chore when I see the rewards!

My parts list below.
Solid State Drive: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
Central Processing Unit: Intel Core i5-4690K
Hard Disk Drive: Western Digital Green SATA3 2TB
Video Card: ASUS Geforce GTX 770 1110MHZ 2GB
RAM: G.Skill Ripjawsx 1x8GB DDR3
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 DDR3 Xfire/SLI USB3 HDMI
Power Supply Unit: Corsair CX Series CX750 750W ATX 12V 80 Plus Bronze
Case: NZXT H440 Blue/Black (I will add blue LED light strips to this at some point to give it an underglow. Need to install them but I didn’t want to open up my case again T.T)

And I bought two LED monitors so now I have a dual screen setup!

wpid-20150113_010113.jpg

A cellphone pic of my setup, thus the quality

If you’re looking for parts, I’d suggest giving it time so you don’t overpay. Look out for deals. Everything goes on sale at one point or another. The only thing I bought full price on my list was my case because I wouldn’t settle for anything else and it was a limited edition case sold at one place. They probably won’t be putting it on sale in the near future. Also, if you find a cheap Canadian retailer price, just go to Memoryexpress or NCIX to price match! That’s what I did for quite a few of these parts!

Funny how I told myself I’d cut down on gaming in 2015.

– Karen

Automatic updates enabled. If only.

3 Comments

Hey all,

Don’t you wish you had an update hub so everyone can just be filled in with what’s going on with your life instead of you having to repeatedly tell people or different groups individually? But then again, I guess that wouldn’t make for much conversation or seeing each other I suppose.

Not being in school this term was a big change for me. Never have I ever missed a term of school and done something else, but here I am doing co-op while I see pictures of everyone back at UBC. Do I miss it? Yes. But at the same time, it’s a nice change. Plus, work is letting me get a glimpse of the real world— it’s not the most exciting and makes me wish I can stay in school forever, but it’s manageable. Or maybe I’m still waiting to find something I’m uber passionate about.

Working also means that I’m no longer just seeing my friends randomly around classes or on campus, and I realize it meant that I had to reach out in order to see people. I’m glad I realized this sooner rather than later, because I’ve got many dear friends that I would hate to lose contact with! The past few weeks have been me filling my schedule up so that we could check in on each other’s lives and also just talk in general! It also meant that I got to try out lots of new food places 🙂 It’s Vancouver and it’s currently fall/winter time. If you’re not at the movies or in a restaurant, where else would you be?

http://instagram.com/p/vATyXzzcSl/?modal=true

I finally tried Gyoza Bar with my friend Amy. Heard about it over the summer when it first opened, but never got a chance to go! I must say, their ramen broth really is something else! It’s thick and really flavourful! The egg isn’t as good at Marutama Ramen’s, but everything else was quite nice! We also ordered their special which was a chickpea karaage. It was very interesting since the chickpea was soft and warm on the inside, with its crispy karaage exterior.

http://instagram.com/p/uerasiTccv/?modal=true

Carmen showed me this dessert place near where I used to live in Marpole. It’s relatively new and it’s called Doolami Dessert. The mango pomelo sago was delicious and my friend got the durian one. It’s not easy finding Chinese dessert places in Vancouver, especially in the Vancouver West area, so this was great to know about! This place also makes their own pints of ice-cream (I know it’s winter, but hey, ice cream) with interesting flavours. Carmen got a pint of durian ice cream and I was contemplating the blueberry lavender. But apparently, the blueberry overpowers the lavender and I’m more for the lavender.

http://instagram.com/p/uzTO59TcSu/?modal=true

I also met up with my ex-supervisors from work (they had both moved on to pursue other opportunities!), and we went to Bella Gelateria’s new location in Yaletown! I ordered a meat-filled pizza (I remember salami on it, but don’t remember its fancy name), and one of the other girls ordered one with eggplant. I never liked eggplant, but thinly sliced then stone oven baked made it delicious. This may be a turning point between me and eggplant’s relationship. Overall, the place is kind of expensive, but you can get away with sharing 2 pizzas between 3 people.

wpid-20141016_201532.jpg

Doesn’t this look super artsy? A shot from the interior of The Greedy Pig. My hand shook when I took the photo and it blurred. So pro.

Last but not least, I met up with C, a fellow blogger here! Well, technically no longer on WordPress since he actually has his own domain now and blogs from there, but it was through WordPress that we had met. Talking to him made me realize that we had actually known each other for three years. I had first started my blog when we came across each others’. He had also moved away from Vancouver for a while, but now that he’s back we managed to meet up and chill. He had suggested this place called The Greedy Pig. Sadly, my appetite was crappy that day, but their mushroom soup was still good! C chowed down his mac and cheese fairly quickly, so I’m going to assume it was good. I’ve been by that place before, and was even going to eat dinner there once, but the line up was so ridiculous my friends and I ended up going elsewhere.

Of course, there’s other updates in my life. Another first for me was updating my Facebook relationship status. Never done that with a boyfriend before, so he’s something special 🙂 But that’s probably another story for another time.

– Karen

Game of Thrones Exhibit at the PNE

6 Comments

Hello all,

Yesterday I visited the Game of Thrones Exhibit at the PNE! It comes free with your park admission, and it’s right by the Renfew and Hastings entrance. 

My friends and I arrived at 10AM and waited for the gates to open at 10:30AM. We were 2nd in line outside the exhibit, since although the park opens at 10:30AM for its soft opening, everything else actually opens at 11AM. Once they let us in, I made my friends rush to the Oculus Rift bit of the exhibit. I tried the Oculus out at the Evolution of Gaming exhibit a few weeks ago, but this was a different experience altogether. They incorporated 4D aspects such as the floor rumbling below you, as well as wind blowing at your face. 

10599287_10152404130219748_5832653016382462612_n

The Ascend the Wall “ride” lets you take the creaky elevator up the wall. It’s windy up there, and you get a sense of unease as the elevator isn’t the sturdiest of things. Not going the spoil the ending for you, but they do warn you to maybe sit out the ride if you have a fear of heights. 

Seeing the costumes in real life was so surreal. They’re even more beautiful up close. For example, I never noticed that Margery’s wedding dress had small barbs amongst her roses, or that her train was completely covered in roses. 

Of course, everyone lined up for the throne. 

10373719_10152404097639748_3359227504723368397_n

Since it was the first day, Sibel Kekilli was there for a Q&A. For those of you who watch the show, you may know her better as Shae. My friends and I also managed to catch her before she left for a selfie 🙂 She’s really nice and bypassed her security guards in order to sign stuff for fans and such. 

10376717_10152404102489748_6012369813700971900_n

No trip to the PNE is complete for me without checking out the BBQ section. I usually refuse to fill myself up on other fair food until I’ve had a pulled pork sandwich there. This year I got a ribs + meat combo. 


 10557219_10152404104479748_7849784780093611575_n

Followed by a visit to the Safeway Farm Country. That probably wasn’t the best idea when you’ve stuffed your face with meat. 

If any of you guys are going, I highly recommend you also check out the Get Animated! exhibit! You can play some old school arcade games, look at the production process of several cartoons, and there are lots of interactive bits for you to explore. They also had some neat photo areas! 

10524732_10152404115449748_6539902260251694879_n

Leaving PNE at the end of the day reminded me as to why I am hesitant to visit every year. The transit home truly is the worst 😦 

– Karen