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Now that I am sitting back in rainy Vancouver, I thought I would give another update of a post. My term ended on the first week of December and I had exams right after the regular term was over. This is unusual for UK students because they have all the exams in May (including first and second term) so my professors made specific exams for me. The exams went well in general but I didn't spend as much time as I would have wanted to study. The last week was all about having farewell parties (my last hurrah!) and saying good bye to my good friends. Let me recap what happened over the past month or so.

On Nov 7, I had the amazing opportunity to go to Google's London office for a celebration in womens in computing event called Google CodeF. I got invited through an application process done online and the top 50 applicants were selected to attend! It was a day filled with talks, group activities to a slight programming challenged,  grilling a googler with questions and some drinks toward the end of the night. I had my taste of what the Google lunch was and it was delicious! I felt the event was more guided towards showing why students should apply to Google and I slightly wish it was more towards the technical aspects and challenges of Google. I would have been very interested in learning more in that aspect. Oh well, all in all a good day in meeting lots of really great female computer scientist. The programming challenge was challenging in the short time span but wasn't hard. The challenge was to create a website that intakes a input form to search for users with the Google+ API and display the results by using JavaScript to manipulate the HTML elements on the webpage. That was the basic part but there were 3 extra challenges that were to display results instantly without having to press enter, have pagination (the Google+ API didn't really support this and had to use ways to hack around it), and to use Google Map API to display a map with where the users are from. Strangely, only one other group (we were randomly assigned in groups of 2) managed to finish the first challenge and my group got through all 3! :) It wasn't quite bug free as I wanted and the code was really messy. But that's the problem when you're under time constraint (under 2 hours) and it was either messy code or less features.

Last post I mentioned that the womens ultimate team at Birmingham won regionals and it was the first regional win in club history. Adding to that, I was playing on the mixed team two weekends after and the team managed to bag another regionals victory! It has been a breakout year for the club! I was pretty happy with how the team responded with a pool-play loss and only to win the finals against the same team uBu has lost to earlier. The team also faced some slight adversity at the start by going down early but found a way to will the win. The womens team also attended nationals in Cardiff, Wales and finished 5th which was the highest finishing for an England team. First time in club history for a womens team to attend indoor nationals. I can not say how proud I was of the team to bring the same type of intensity and grit throughout the tournament and always wanting to win. On top of that, everyone believed that the team could win. I totally believed the team was good enough to take the crown that day but it didn't fall in our favour that day unfortunately. I'm still so proud to have the opportunity to be part of uBu even if it was a very short time. Thank you!

On some more exciting news, I have been selected on to the Canadian U23 Womens Ultimate national team and I will be competing in the Worlds u23 Ultimate Championships in July this upcoming summer!  I'm really excited and hope to perform well at the tournament. Lots of hard work to do starting now and gotta love working out. :)

After I was done with exams and saying good bye to my awesome British friends, I took off to Paris for a few days before taking the train to Belgium. I took the EuroStar (oh, wallet destroyer) for the first time and I have to say it was really cool to be in two very different places with a simple 1.5 hours train ride. Paris is an actual really pretty city to go to but oh boy, it was really sketchy. There were scammers everywhere and I felt my pockets were under target at all times. I met some really nice people from Argentina (Martin, thanks for the gloves), New Zealand, Australia and Finland. I then learned from Martin that Argentina does not import Kit-Kats. He filled 1/4 of his suitcase with Kit-Kats! I did most of the usual Paris attractions such as Louve, Les Catacombes, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Trioumph etc... I saw a few more Christmas Markets (I saw 9 in total in about 7 days) and found poutine! It wasn't done correctly. :P

I went to Belgium to meet up with my cousin, Jess, whom I have not seen since I was 5. I wouldn't even believe that one day I would take off on my own to go on this long journey and seeing her. I cannot thank her enough for the awesome hospitality! I finally got to meet Davis and Kris! Davis is the cutest 2 year old ever and always has lots of energy. I got to see Bruges and Antwerpen and I highly recommend those cities. Really really beautiful! I never saw trains the same after seeing how much Davis adores them. I'm very sad to have to leave Belgium but I hope they come visit in Canada sometime soon!

My Exchange Term in Birmingham

It's more than than half way through my exchange term at the University of Birmingham and I am seriously too busy to update this blog because I have too much going on! That leads to the point that I also have too much to write about. Every single day has been a new experience for me and I am trying to make the most out of it.

I really enjoy my life over here in England. I find life here much more relaxing and simple than what happens back home. While some of it is simply just a different living arrangement (ex: living in a dorm with short commutes instead of bussing 3 hours each day), I find people here much more laidback and never seem to be in a hurry. Canadians are known for their constant apologies but from what I have noticed here, the English are polite and apologize just as much for non-valid reasons.

Academics has been fun! I am taking 4 modules (they call it modules instead of courses where courses mean something completely different) that add up to 60 credits which is the full load. I decided to take all Computer Science modules because the universities's website is a complete mess to find what modules that are for other departments. For UBC students, you will never appreciate CWL/UBC's course registration system until you are away. To register for modules, I had to hand in the module registration through paper which then the head office of my department messed up. Very smart of them to not automate the system. :)

Because England undergraduate degrees are 3 years in length, I did not find much challenging modules for me to take because I am in my 5th year of my undergraduate degree and have plenty of working experience for an ugrad. I decided to take 2 graduate level modules, Computer Security and Cryptography with master students and 2 undergraduate courses in Operating System in C/C++ and Compilers. I have to say that after taking the compulsory modules for the Master program for Computer Security, I am tempted to do a Masters in Computer Security. It is a very fascinating field with lots of potential and I learned how insecure majority of the web and software applications are. I have also learned how many bad mistakes I have made in the past too. So far, I have been finding almost all my assignments really easy.

Ultimate. One of the main reasons why I chose Birmingham was because they had an Ultimate Frisbee club here and it has been one of my highlights during my time in Birmingham. The club has roughly 70-80 members and consist of open, women and mixed teams. Usually at practice (they call it training), both genders practice together. For fall, Ultimate is played indoors where indoor regionals and nationals is held and outdoors start in spring. For the first time in my ultimate career, I got a chance to play on an open's team to compete at Midlands Open Regionals. It was frustrating at moments due to my inability to defend against stronger, faster and taller male opponents but I played with extremely supportive teammates that cheered for anything I did. The following weekend, I competed at the Midlands Womens Regionals where the university's womens team qualified for UK Ultimate Women's Indoor nationals for the first time in club history. Not only did the team qualified, but the team also won the region by winning a whooping 8 games in one day. These wins include over teams from Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, University of East Anglia, Oxford-Brookes. It was really mentally exhausting and the focus of the team was to stay mentally ready. This was also the first time in team history that a team of any division won a region. There were some strong players from other teams that are going to compete on the GB u23 squads so hopefully I'll get another chance to compete against them. By winning the finals, I was selected as the Finals MVP by the tournament director. While these ultimate tournaments have taken time away from my time to travel, I much rather spend my weekends with the people I like than going to museums by myself. The endless laughters I had with the team during road trips or silly moments during tournament play are only partial reasons why I enjoy my time in England so much. What is better than getting to teach Ultimate to a group of dedicated, developing players and contribute back to the Ultimate community in something that I am very passionate about?

I've got much more to talk about which includes the trip I made to the Google London office yesterday but this post is getting just a little long. Stay tune for more! :)

Backpacking Europe

Almost 3 weeks ago, I left my home to embark on a new journey. For those that haven't heard from me, I decided to do a study abroad term at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This is my real first time leaving home for an extended period of time and so I was really excited. However, it also came with a lot of responsibilities but I was ready for them and planned for months in advance. Before I started school in the UK, I decided to go backpack Europe for 2 weeks. I thought I would talk about that in this blog post.

I arrived into London 7am and I was dead tired after a 9 hour trans-atlantic flight because it was now approaching midnight in Vancouver time. Instead of wasting my day sleeping and getting more jet-lagged, I decided to venture out in the city. London Victoria Coach and Train station were really hard to navigate if you have never been there before. There were so many people there and the roads all went in their own direction. Getting to the Astro Victoria hostel was another challenge with my heavy backpack and my big luggage. First time hostel experience and it was awful. Astro Victoria was small and it wasn't very clean either.

My first impression of London was pretty bad. Cloudy skies and lots of really rude tourists. I don't think the locals were that mean but I met lots of very uncourteous tourists that would blow smoke in my face and generally think the pavement belonged to them. I didn't know how the metro system worked so I walked around Buckingham Palace, British Museum, Trafalgar Square and London Eye. After a good night of sleep, day 2 in London was much better. I bought the Big Bus Tour where I could jump on and off this tourist bus that goes to tourist locations. I visited a few other locations (can't remember all) and was very impressed by beauty of Regent Park. Such a big and beautiful park in the middle of the city. The next morning, I flew out of London Stansted to go to Vienna.

At the London Stansted airport, I had a weird encounter with a Southeast Asian lady. I was near a vending machine and I was approached by this really smiley lady. She was probably high 40's to low 50's and was dressed pretty well. She said something in her own language but I couldn't understand it. I tried communicating with her in Mandarin, Cantonese and English and I found out we didn't share a common language. She kept mumbling on but I didn't understand any of it. I knew she needed some sort of help though. Smartly (so I thought), I took out a pad of paper and a pen and gave it to her. She wrote down "TICH KE TOURS". At this point, she kept pointing to a queue of people lining up at a boarding gate. I thought she was crazy at this point trying to buy a ticket for a tour? I don't understand at all. Afterwards, she dragged me gently to another gate and pointed at the TV at the boarding gate. She took the pen and drew an arrow pointing towards the word "TOURS". I still don't understand why she wanted a 'tour'. I asked for her boarding pass and she didn't have one. That didn't make any sense either because we were both standing in the terminal where we already passed security. I was getting really confused that she might be up to no good at the same time. At this point, already 10 mins has passed and I still can't figure out what she wants. We both gave up on each other and I said by good byes to a hand gesture.

Upon walking away from her, I randomly glanced at a TV of a boarding gate where they were calling for final boarding. Looking at the screen, it said "TOURS". Aha! Apparently she is flying to the city 'TOURS' and she doesn't know where her gate is. Since it was final boarding, I ran back to where she found me in the first place and dragged her to the gate. Mystery solved! When we got to the gate, I saw her face lit up when she found her son. Her poor son had spent the last 15-20 mins trying to find and somehow her non-English speaking mom just wondered off. Her son thanked me and apparently they speak Vietnamese. She didn't thank me in words because we don't share a common language but she gave me the biggest smile ever. I smiled back and waved good bye and started to head in another direction. I turned around and she was still looking at me smiling and waved good bye again. It's always good to know that you helped someone!

Without further problems, I flew to Linz and took a WesBahn train to Vienna. I stayed at the Wombat hostel and it was a 5 star hostel for sure. It made my stay in Vienna that much better. Vienna was a small relaxing city that I really enjoyed. I went to the usuals such as visiting the Ring Road, a few museums there and the SchronBrunn Palace. It was hot there! Haven't not eaten much Chinese food, I visited a Chinese restaurant ran by Hong Kong expats. Nice to meet a few waiters that spoke my mother tongue! They had a lot of really old Andy Lau pictures on the walls too. Apparently, Andy Lau visits Vienna quite often.

After spending 3 days in Vienna, I took off to Salzburg where the movie 'Sound of Music' was filmed. I went on the 'Original Sound of Music' tour and apparently the locals don't know very much about the movie because it wasn't translated very well into German and was very unpopular. Anyways, the movie was 47 years old and therefore, the tour had mostly older people. I met a Chinese student studying in UK, Jenny and we were both younger than others by a lot. The next day, I took a cable car up the mountains and went for a small hike. The hike was great and the view was beautiful but I didn't bring any good shoes and I hiked in my birkenstocks! Ahh! I was lucky that I didn't stubb a toe but all the locals were laughing at me! :)

After spending 2.5 days in Salzburg, I took off to Italy for Florence. Florence and Rome were both beautiful in their own ways. The architecture was definitely a lot different from the rest of Europe but travelling by myself, I had a sense of uneasiness while I was there. For example, lots of time, I felt like people wanted me (the person!) or they wanted my money and possessions. The train ride to Florence was rough because I took a stuffy night train and didn't know when to get off. I felt asleep in a squatting position in my chair because I was so afraid of losing my stuff! The highlights definitely were eating gelato, going to see Duomo and the view at Piazzale Michelangelo. The hostel wasn't the smoothest but I met 2 good friends in Yolanda and James who made the trip even better!

I took off to Rome shortly after and stayed a whooping 5 days which consisted of me walking in random directions on most days. On one day, I almost walked myself off the map I was given because I messed up my directions by 180 degrees. Whoops! I had a compass on me but it was completely broken. Everytime I shook it, where ever the needle landed, that was North according to it. I saw the usuals such as Vatican city, the museums, Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Roman Forum, Coliseum etc... Nothing too special to report here in the blog because you have to be there in person to experience how amazing they are. At first, I stayed at a womens only hostel but I found it too lame after 3 nights. Afterwards, I took off to the Yellow (famous party hostel according to HostelWorld). It was definitely a great decision because I ended up meeting Camilla from Brazil, Alyssa and her boyfriend James who are south of the 49th parallel neighbours from Seattle! We had a great time meeting Camilla's friends and friend's friends and had an amazing night out. After probably having way too much gelato, pasta and pizza, I finally returned to the UK!

The trip to Birmingham was a super long one. I flew into London Gatwick again and this time around, I used the automated passport gates for EU passport holders with biometric passports. So cool! I then picked up my massive suitcase that I left behind at ABC Storage and got on a National Express bus to Birmingham. The bus ride was 3 hours long because it took 1 hour to get out of London. Yes, the traffic was that bad. On the bus, I met Sharif who was also going to UoB. My first experience with the Brummie accent was with the taxi driver and it was awful. :P At about 10 pm, I arrived to Pritchatts House reception to pick up my keys. After some really tiring stairs, I made it to my dorm!

Built My First Computer!

I've been meaning to write this post for quite a while but now I finally got to it. After a long time of shopping for computer parts, I have finished building my own computer! When I was young, I thought that this would be quite a difficult task but turns out it was much easier than I thought. One of the most annoying parts was that it was very hard to pick out the parts to buy since there were so many in the market! On top of that, computer stores like NCIX and MemoryExpress always have items on sale luring you to buy them asap. With some help from my good friend Brian, I ordered majority of my parts online at those 2 stores and picked them up in person. In general, the instructions in the manuals are pretty easy to follow. I bought a Silverstone Raven 3 case which was very roomy and easy to assemble. While I am making it sound like a walk in the park, the process was not without hiccups. For example, I did stupid things such as screwing the wrong screws and using a screwdriver that was way too small for my task. During the moment of truth when I turned on the computer, I was relieved that it didn't explode. (Yes I know, exploding doesn't really make sense). It actually turned on but I was not able to go on the internet. After 10 hours of frustration of being unable to connect to the internet and exhausting every single possibly, I was convinced that I had a defective motherboard. I bought the motherboard back to MemoryExpress and they agreed that something is wrong with the onboard ethernet. Without much hassle, they exchanged a new motherboard for me. Fortunately, everything has gone smoothly since.

Aside from this, my internship at Demonware has been getting better by day. I am much more comfortable with Python and the Django framework. I am starting to love Python so much more than Java these days. During lunch time at work, majority of the interns would be hiding in the test lab playing CoD MW3 together. It's definitely a nice way to chill during lunch time!

Summer Update!

Yikes! I haven't updated this in a while. Last month, my UBC Womens Ultimate team wrapped up the season by competing at the USA Ultimate College Championships in Boulder, Colorado. We finished at 11th place which was definitely not as high as we wanted but nonetheless, probably the most competitive UBC team I have played with in the last few years. When the team was determined and believed in winning, I saw extreme shutdown defence leaving the opposition with no options available. In one of my our pool play games against Michigan, we were down 11-13 only to storm back to win 15-13. While it can be disappointing to not do as well as I hope, it's even worse when you don't learn anything out of it. There are so many ways to improve whether it means being more fit, working on the throws, improving commitment and much more. As of this Summer, I'm taking it easy to enjoy other aspects of life outside of Ultimate. For once, I feel so much more free!

I started my new Web Developer internship at DemonWare in May. So far, I have really enjoyed working at this company. While previously I got to know a bit of Python and Django with the UCOSP term I did with ReviewBoard, I am getting a second chance to spend 4 months learning more about web development. I feel it very refreshing to be working on web technologies as oppose to all the software applications I am used to writing in school. Nonetheless, I am learning lots at work and I hope to keep working hard in order to make the most out of my time there. For students or grads, they're hiring! Check out here: http://www.demonware.net/jobs/

I found out in the past few months or so that there are lots of opportunities to learn or take university classes online. Did you ever had trouble fitting some courses you want to take in your schedule or you were in a rush to graduate? Well, this is for you! Udacity is made by the same professor who did the Intro to AI at Stanford. Udacity is great in a way while it lets you do the course at your own pace and have lots of hands on exercises. The course is not so much about lectures but consist of many short videos with many quizzes and exercises (if you would like to complete them). Couresa (or http://www.class-central.com/) is the other one. Class Central is more about providing course lecture videos from different universities in the US (ex: Stanford, Princeton etc...). They're both good in their own ways and I really recommend to check them out!

End of a Term!

Another academic term as ended! With all my exams done, it's time for me to give another blog entry. CPSC 319 (the Software Project Course) is done! If you have followed my previous blog entries, my group was creating a desktop University simulator game called Universium with the LibGDX framework. I actually quite enjoyed this course as it was quite different from the usual UBC CS courses. For the most part, the group was free to create whatever game we wanted but the major problem was the time constraint. After some late night battles, our team has handed in the game. While we handed in for submission, it is not fully done yet. For example, there could be way more features and better balancing of the game. After playing on it for a while, the game is definitely too easy so we got some work with balancing. On the last day of the term, we had a demo night where students and people from the industry were invited to check out our games. It was definitely great to be able to get some feedback! In the future, we can potentially deploy this game as a Facebook App. Instagram has been a popular topic lately due to the 1 billion acquisition by Facebook. It definitely is a motivation to build a very simple product that can be monetized or bought out. I hope to spend some more time developing on Universium and possibly working on a game with the free Unity license that I've got.

First Hackathon

While Week 10 of term 2 is almost over, it's time to give another update on this blog. Even though I've been very busy lately, I attended the White Day Hackathon hosted by A Thinking Ape and Silicon Sisters. In the past, with all of my Ultimate commitments (weekend practices and tournaments), I never had a chance to go to a hackathon. Being a hackathon rookie, I learned from a few mistakes that I've made during the event.

Since the theme was "White Day", Bessie (my friend from UBC), along with Candie and I decided to make a Chocolate Shops/Restaurant review web application using Google's GWT framework. We decided to name the app "Chocolate Lovers Unite". One of the first mistake was that I didn't choose a framework that I was familiar with. I've heard of GWT a few times but I've actually never used it before. During the day, I spent a lot of time doing all the front-end stuff which made development slow. With that, I've learned that it would be smart to work with people that know similar technologies (languages, framework, platform) and people that have similar goals. Second of all, because this is a one day event and there are judges judging the application based on a short presentation, I should have made a better first impression of the application during the presentation and have made the app more fun. Thinking back, during the planning phase, I should have spent extra time in coming up with more creative ideas and theme instead of rushing straight to development because of time constraint.

Nonetheless, I had lots of fun at the hackathon. I've got to meet and talk to quite a few other developers and artists and the food provided was amazing! A Thinking Ape also has a very nice office. For example, there were meeting rooms with glass walls, bean bags couches and etc... The overall layout/style of the office made it feel unique. I can't wait to get another chance to hack at another hackathon!

Reading Week!

I've been meaning to update this blog for a long time but I haven't got a chance! Can't believe it's reading week already and roughly 7 weeks before the regular term ends! Time flies!

What have I been up to?

I have been doing well in school and keeping up with all of my courses so I haven't been stressed out. Computer Graphics has been quite interesting to me and the database course continues to be more of a review for me. For the Software Development course, my group totally welcomes the reading week. If you haven't noticed, I have been making an University simulator game on Android. While we have changed several game engines, from Unity to AndEngine to now LibGDX, we have settled down and started producing some code. I've been quite surprised how easy it is to create a game with LibGDX. For some games like Space Invader, it would take less than a day to write from scratch! I have some new ideas to create games. Hopefully once I have some time after this term ends, I will create some of my own games.

On an exciting note, I have accepted an Web Developer Intern offer from DemonWare in their Vancouver office this summer! I am quite excited to have another chance at doing some web development work since I quite enjoyed the time I had with ReviewBoard. I also hope to continue hacking on ReviewBoard once I have time (seems impossible).

Transition from Work to School

With 2 weeks of school already gone, I should update on how I've been doing. So far, I have been really enjoying school. While the benefits of work consist of no homework, school is relaxing in the sense that I don't work 40 hours a week. In fact, during my last co-op work term, there were weeks where I was working around 45 hours a week (excluding lunch), studying an online course (EOSC 116) and playing ultimate on UBC's team on top of a long commute to work everyday. During that time, I felt like I never had time to do anything. Since the number of lecture hours are not that many, I have many choices of what I want to do on my hours whether it's studying, reviewing, or working on projects.

CPSC 319 (Software Development Project) and CPSC 304 (Database) are my favourite classes so far. For CPSC 319, my team has decided to make a university simulator game on the Android. I am in a group of 5 and we have some serious learning to do. None of us has developed any mobile applications and we are developing this from scratch. For more updates of this project, my team is providing updates on the blog, http://ubccs319team8.wordpress.com/. Nonetheless, we are really excited to tackle the crazy challenges ahead.

For my database course, my team is making a events/tasks scheduler web application. The course is a bit of review for me since I've learned quite a bit about database on my work terms. CPSC 314 (Computer Graphics) has been interesting so far but can be challenging at times.

Importance of Internships

Happy New Year everyone! I wish everyone a safe and healthy 2012!

Back on topic, I wanted to discuss about how important internships are for a student. For whatever reason, many of friends think that with a Bachelor's degree from UBC (University of British Columbia), it would automatically qualify them for a 50k and solid stable job f or life. Unfortunately, that usually doesn't happen in most cases unless you're lucky. I don't know if this type of belief of getting a Bachelor's and you're set for life is based off of that kids these days don't have to work very hard to get what they want. For many, if you don't need to work to get what you want, why work? Just go have fun in the sunshine all day!

Even though a Computer Science degree is one of the more practical Science degrees, I still don't think it's practical enough. At UBC, the curriculum teaches a lot of theory stuff which is great for a good basics foundation but so far, it got me no where prepared in the industry. For Computer Science, the field is consistently changing and I feel that the courses at UBC don't necessary teach the latest technologies. For example, they don't have anything on web or mobile programming and these are proving to be pretty important in the current industry. I don't think it's possible for UBC to keep changing its courses fast enough to suit for whatever new comes up. Also, I'm not sure if the CS degree is meant to teach all these topics but more so to teach you the basics to engage students to learn on their own and to set them up to do research in academia.

After first year, I enrolled in to UBC Computer Science co-op program. The co-op program is great in many ways in that it teaches students many career skills from how to find and apply jobs and it gives easier way for students to land internship/co-op placements. I think the program is excellent for someone who has no technical experience but some of the restrictions can be not in a senior's student's best interest. However, I'm not here to discuss about the co-op program in this blog post so I may talk about it another time. During these 4 work terms, I have gained a lot important skills to make me more employable that are not taught in school. On top of that, in most work terms, students get a supervisor or mentor which can further improve the technical skills of a student on a 1-on-1 environment. Also, what's better than learning important skills and getting paid at the same time? For CS/Engineering/Statistics internships, they pay REALLY well and can really help to pay tuition. For even other disciplines, they usually pay at least 12 bucks an hour. Not too bad for a student!

I've been to a few career fairs to meet recruiters before and I think one of the most important ways to attract the attention of a recruiter is to show them how you're a good fit for their company. The simple definition of good fit would be having the skills, being passionate about the job/industry, understanding the company and being a culture fit. Some may think it's all about the school you go to and the GPA you obtained are the best ways to show off to a recruiter. However, from my experience, the one factor that keeps a recruiter interested in me in a very short span of time is based on that I have 16 months of technical industry experience. At the Grace Hopper conference, I saw quite a few surprised recruiters hearing that. This may not always be true though. In some parts of the world, like Asia, companies value highly the institute you got your degree from.

Inspired to look for an internship for Summer? Don't wait till it's April! Now is a great time to start looking for upcoming Summer!