There is no place like 127.0.0.1

3 years in China
16 years in New Zealand
4 months in America
29 days in New Zealand

Home changes all the time. The longer you've been somewhere, the harder it gets to leave; the human tendency to 'settle' and colonize a certain area and call it 'home' is inescapable. It's so easy to get used to routine and often we're disturbed when we have to move. Of course there are prolonged travels, there are nomads and gypsies -- but in the end, we all come from somewhere and in the end we end up somewhere.

A certain kind of emotion is stirring in me again, not nearly as potent as it was when I first left this place but definitely the pain of severance rears itself against my nerves these few days. I will be gone for a longer time than I was before. Lots of things happen in a year, people can change a lot in a year. Maybe it will be interesting in the end.

So, where is home for me now? Maybe it is exciting to always be moving around at this age. Never really belonging anywhere, always darting between this place and the next and making new discoveries? Or perhaps... Home is where the heart is; home is 127.0.0.1.

(btw, does anyone know why pictures of the internet visualized are always blue? what's up with that)

Whoever I need to call, whenever I miss them -- these days we can be connected through the internet. This is the home that has never changed through the years for me. I was first exposed to the internet at the age of 6 or 7 by my dad, who gave me a personal computer in my room at the time. I set up my first email address at 9 and started using MSN. This was the beginning of a beautiful 10 year relationship that put me in contact with more people than you could ever imagine. Then facebook came along, naturally, and nowadays it seems anyone I want to keep in touch with is only a few clicks away. Whether in the northern or southern hemisphere, regardless of the miles that separate us, the simple act of logging in is enough to teleport our hearts closer together. I think there's something very homely in that, as if there is some virtual country where we can just appear and disappear from whenever and we feel close to the ones we love.

It's like a town right? You can go to the pub and catch up with friends (Facebook), hang out in a variety of places (MMOs, dota/sc2/lol), go to the library (Wikipedia), or to school (edX, TED), go to the movies (YouTube), go shopping (asos, amazon, ebay), do dodgy back alley drug deals (craigslist)...the list goes on. Honestly it's almost like an idyllic society where the only thing you don't do is eat. It's a utopia where people escape from their daily lives, but it's just as real as any other environment -- and because of that, we should aim to keep it accessible for everyone. It's almost more equal than the physical world in this way, since on the internet everyone starts off equal and everyone has an equal opportunity to resources regardless of where they are from.

Therefore, the death of Aaron Swartz is of course a tragedy -- one of the leading activists promoting open-source and free knowledge and information, purportedly driven to suicide by an arbitrary lawsuit. The upcoming and already-existing cyber warfare is probably only going to grow in the next few years, with governments repeatedly trying to instill more control and censorship, in an effort to create some kind of hierarchical system within the web. But let's think about this -- what we currently experience is perhaps the true democracy; the internet is truly run by the people. Anyone can become revered, and tossed aside again in a matter of seconds, depending on what the majority want or say, regardless of who they are in real life or what kind of background they come from. It's fast paced, instant, and absolutely addictive. And yet, the internet seems to be running generally smoother than the real world right now. Maybe we should let it be and see where it ends up, if only as a simulation model in a study of interest?

Obviously more complications come by in the physical world, but there's no need to instill the same level of control we have there into the virtual because of that, right? For some, it is the only remaining voice they have to voice opinion, and the access to free knowledge grows a better educated population not only within countries that can afford it but for the entire world -- we learn so much about people in places we have never even heard of, all within the time it takes to read a single forum post. For many, it is but an invaluable tool, and that is enough. But for me, it is one of the places I can truly consider home, the home I have grown up in and have relied on to be the baseline support that never changes. I'd like to keep living in this home with all my friends please, so let's try to keep it that way.


3 years in China
16 years in New Zealand
4 months in America
29 days in New Zealand
For everything else, there's Mastercard the Internet. :)

Keep in touch guys, I'll miss you kiwis in the next year eh.

The strange phenomenon of suddenly not having enough time in the day

There is something about primary school, intermediate and even early high school summer holidays that all kid suffer through: an overabundance of time and nothing to do with it.

Actually though, time is the most precious resource of all. And now that I'm old and wrinkly (I'm turning 20 this year, oh gosh), for the first time in my life I feel like I don't have enough of it. Only about a month ago, when Chencake was talking to me about his winterbreak plans, he mentioned that he had so many good ideas and things to do and there was just not enough time to do them. I couldn't work out at that stage how that could be possible; in my mind things always have a set time and it's always possible to do what you need to do in a day. But lately, I've discovered that sometimes that's just not the case. Between going out and meeting old friends, working on Rover and my own personal projects and surfing the net to dip my toes in some other learning opportunities, I've discovered sooooo many new things that I want to do and learn and the simple impossibility of doing them all.

And yes, I totally realize the apparent irony of me blogging right now even though I have so much other stuff to do (theoretically), but the thing is none of this is stuff I have to do -- rather, it's stuff I'd like to do. I guess blogging comes into that as well, my writing as of late has been boring at best and there's nothing much coming to mind about what to write about. Someone told me to write a book but honestly there's nothing I can think of to talk about (that's a lie tbh, stuff comes to me all the time but I just don't have the time or actual strong motivation to sit down and put it all in words). Though, I've decided that writing a book at some point in my life would be pretty cool. Getting published seems difficult though. If you took all the stuff I blogged over the last 5 years, it would probably equate to more than 50 000 words, so that's pretty much a novel.

It's gotten to the point where I try so hard to stuff as much as I can into one day, allocating mornings, afternoons and evenings separately to dedicated tasks instead of whole days like I used to. Actually I quite like this way of doing things because when I used to allocate days to certain tasks I'd end up procrastinating for half of it anyway. Also it's made a difference that I live further out from the city center now so that I'll drive out like 20km, come home and drive out 20km again later in the day. It's kind of weird because I'd never do that before, since I'd think wow it's so far away (even though it's closer than where I live now), I might as well just stay here and not go home. The fact that I live further way has meant more time on the road since it's more normal to have to drive everywhere (flawed logic it appears now that I think about it) as opposed to being used to only having to go 5km at a time so 10km appears further hahaha.

My break so far (menial. so menial. whoever's reading can ignore this, it's more for my own records):

Dec 19: last exam. invited out to go party with Arthur before he flew home but too tired so didn't go ``sorry arthur ):``

20: packing, played some guild wars, actually a rather large waste of a day tbh but it was good just to chillax

21: saying goodbye to everyone, went over to my cousins place, hotpot for dinner in chinatown. mum's birthday in nz. called but she was in a business meeting.

22: decided to learn vim in the morning. went out to boston for lunch and explored, was freaking cold, had 20oz ribeye steak for dinner which was amazeballs.

23: dimsum for brunch, sent to airport after that

24: disappeared somewhere between san francisco and sydney

25: arrived in auckland at 430pm. drove by the old house to see the renovations (looks like a wreck). Tony and Billy swung by to get their Nexus4s before I'd even gotten home properly. They went to KFC. I went home to shower. Had a nice catchup with the family after dinner at home. Realized I had no clothes (luckily i had 1 extra pair of underwear in my suitcase) because it's all covered in plastic under the renovations.

26: swung by the new warehouse on pah road to pick up some clothes and shoes for the month. went over to dressmart to do some boxing day shopping and see Ling Brian and Wendy. had lunch at nandos. Had L&P for the first time in 5 months (tasted great). drove out east to Brian's house and watched Rainman, had dinner at Kanda. Also ran into Kun at dressmart and made plans for Saturday.

27: Lunch in New Lynn with family. Coffee with Jamie and Billy at. Saw Angel to give her her wallet. Can't really remember what else I did hum.

28: One Tree Hill with the family, had lunch at the cafe there, pretty good. Mission bay in the afternoon after that, enjoying the nice weather. A lot of people out because of the nice weather.

29: Get together at Kun's at night, was good to see everyone again... cannot for the life of me remember what I did during the day. Oh yeah I think I went to the gym in the afternoon or something. I definitely saw Yujie at some point during these days. Went to KFC for lunch after gym. That's right I remember now haha.

30: Left for the road trip. Drove for half the day, KFC for lunch in Whangarei,  had water and pretty scenery thrust in our faces at Whangarei falls, arrived in Kerikeri in the afternoon, some ppl went for a swim in the brown water in the river next to the camping grounds.

31: Went snorkeling on Motuarohia Island. Sharp rocks. Cut my finger and foot, though many were worse off than me (used at least 15 bandaids out of my bag that afternoon). Got sunburnt. Saw cute fish though. Chased the last sunset of the year to a cute little bay and caught some fish. Entered new year inebriated back at the cabin after a shot of jaegerbomb and tequila. Slept at 1 or 2am though (relatively early).

Jan 1: Most people wanted to have a chillax day so changed plans of going sand duning. Drove out to Tane Mahuta. Took the wrong route and ended up in the wrong neighbourhood. Looked like the kind of place where murders happen in the middle of the woods. The flowers were pretty though. Stopped by a cafe for lunch, there was a pretty swimming hole nearby. Made for very nice pics. Didn't want to burn to a crisp after my sunburn which was now v. painful so didn't go swimming.

2: Sand dunes and Cape Reinga. Same old story, been there before (dat Cape. I've been there like 4-5 times now).

3: Drove back to Auckland. stopped by a beach in the morning but it was raining so kind of cold (suddenly -- was hot at first). Waves were good for surfing. Driving over the harbour bridge is nice. I like the view of the city from up there.

4: Met up with Ling to see him off before he flies back to Abu Dhabi. Gym in the afternoon, redyed my roots, dinner at Daikoku, saw Wreck it Ralph.

5: Started doing Rover stuff on a regular basis, mostly 1-2 hours every day from 9.30-midday ish. Went to the gym again because ppl about to go back to work and wanted to make the most of spare time. Lunch at Archie's. Went for a nature walk in the Waitakere Ranges because my parents felt like it.

6: Rover in the morning. Saw Daniel before he leaves for Taiwan/Korea in the afternoon. Had a good catchup and talk about medschool. Dinner with Shu, Steph and Laina at Portofino in Mission Bay.

7: Morning Rover. Gym around midday. Dinner out in Henderson. Games night at Dora's in the evening. Died first round 3 times in a row in a game of Mafia (even when I was the Mafia because narrator Jisu stuffed up haawww such is my life, obvs nobody trusts me)

8: Morning Rover. Working on my CS portfolio. Went to get a haircut though he just really layered it tbh, it's not much shorter and even I couldn't tell the difference lol, the front is a lot nicer now though.  Life of Pi at night.

9: Morning Rover. Supposed to go to the gym but Billy got cheap Heineken Open tickets so went to watch David Ferrer play. Was my first professional live tennis match, enjoyed it a lot and was apparently on TV during the coverage hahah. Had dinner at the Don. Was tempted to try the salmon sashimi on rice but in the end opted for the usual udon (i'm boring I know)

10: Little brother's birthday. Took him out for lunch at Bruce Lee's with grandma, went shopping (bought him a sweater and a pair of jeans) and froyo at the beach and we just chilled. Dinner at Thai Village, black forest birthday cake (♥), went to have coffee at Circus after that with a whole group of people.

11: Morning Rover. Lunch with Tom at Bruce Lee's, walked around Newmarket for a while with nothing to do cos Tom went back to work, had a coffee at 255 Cafe because they have 1 hour complimentary wifi, tried hotspot tethering for the first time (it works), found free wifi on top of 277 food court. Hillie got off work, went to dinner at Hansan with her, Ella and my brother, and then went to see Moonrise Kingdom by the Viaduct in Silo Park (pretty cool, there's like an outdoor cinema and they use a projector to show movies on the side of the Silo. a lot of people were there and the atmosphere was nice).

12: Rover Rover Rover. Deadline was soon. Went to iStorm with Cherry and Vicky and played Jenga, then went to the Thai restaurant around there to have their $13 lunch special (it was actually really nice though the restaurant looked really empty). Went Opshopping on K'road, some of the stuff they have there is pretty cool.

13: Finishing up layouts on Rover in the morning. Jessy and Maria's 18th in Mt Eden in the afternoon, pigeons ate the cake (no biggie), was good to see all the kids again. I was the oldest at the party oh sigh. Dinner with Yujie and her parents after that at Sun World, and then to Will's where we played pictionary and Jamie kind of failed at drawing a horse and Jamie and Laina show popculture illiteracy when they could not guess my drawing of The Big Bang Theory even though everyone else in the room could.

14: Lunch with Tian and everyone else at Nolbune (the main point was for me to see Tian, but I actually ran into him 2 days earlier when hanging out with Cherry derp. nonetheless was good to see everyone again). iStorm with Tony Laina Steph and Will, played Jenga, Will ragequits b/c of constant loss, I go to gym alone because I feel like a blob and find out I've gained even more weight (wtf is going on, I'm eating less here as well because it's so hot I don't need that much energy). And here I am now.

15: Going to go up north past Ruakaka to some family friend's beach house with the family. Drove 2 hours up to One Tree Point and spent a few hours there with a family friend. Then back again 2 hours. Had dinner out with grandma and brother at a pretty crappy taiwanese restaurant in newmarket (My Kitchen is much better on dominion road)

16: Beach with John, Sera and Sailesh, then dinner with the Mollies. Got chucked in the fountain and the ocean and had seaweed flung at me ): But it was fun. Also was good to catch up with everyone, had a nice chat with Angel in the car when driving her home. Had frozen yoghurt in town and failed at getting a sample lololol, tbh I wasn't going to buy one but then the stuff came out so fast that I felt bad and thought I should just pay for it ...

17: Orthodontist at 2pm, tea with Jack. Had a good catch up and talked about random stuff like we usually do. I quite like my sporadic Jack times. He had lovely nail polished hands, so pretty. :) Went to dinner at wooden board kitchen before Jamie leaves, was pretty freaking good for the price.

18: Applying for internships, had coffee with gur, went to the gym, dinner at Hansan and movie night at Wenbo's with the engineers, though turned out to be more like youtube night and we slept hahaha. Sleeping on the ground is pretty tiring... Felt sad driving away from the shore. Still love the sight of the city going over the bridge.

19: Got home, then got whisked out again pretty much straight away for a drive out to East Auckland/Beachlands with the family. I was just really tired so I napped a bit and walked around on the beach I guess. I was getting pretty sick of the scenery, missed college a bit because everyone was going back around this time. Dinner with family friends.

20: Coffee with MKD and the STCC art students, Florentine was closed randomly for inexplicable reasons so we ended up going to Rosehip in Parnell. Their eggs were good, though it was rather expensive in the end (as cafe food tends to be). I learned what skordalia and panchetta are. Drove into town and went to the gym with Yujie afterwards, where we did Pilates :) it was good, though broke my cardio lol. Had a good time just catching up with her one on one since I never really got her to myself when Jamie was here :P

21: Supposed to go to the beach with the EGGS girls and Yujie, but it looked cloudy so we ended up going to town and coffee instead. Had a good chat, eggs benedict at esquires, then istorm and played some dance central 2. I am horrible at copying moves on screen.

22: Actually went to the beach with EGGS girls and Yujie. Then Will organized a dinner with everyone at India Gate so I could see everyone before I left, which was nice of him. Because I wouldn't have done that myself haha. That feel when you know you're not gonna see someone for the next year :/

23: Went to see Les Mis with Karl, had a good catch up over lunch since I haven't really talked to him since I got back, out of everyone I think he's most different/changed the most in the last 4 months. Went to the gym, went to the orthodontist, bought $30 worth of chocolate biscuits and candy at the supermarket in preparation for America, came home for dinner and then went out for final coffee with the close friends... it was a good time actually, but I do feel a bit sad when we say goodbye and have our final hugs ..

24: Pack. Shower. Final clothes wash. Fly away!

I guess I'll update the rest as it happens. I think it's just good to have a full record of everything I did. Gotta find some time to apply to internships, brush up on algorithms and basic math, at least somewhat make a 4 year plan so I don't end up taking like 6 years to finish my degree due to poor planning, and prob apply to get involved with CS50 at some point hum.... werk werk werk. Also I want to play through the SC2 campaign sometime, though my laptop seems to overheat a bit. Oh yeah my Dad also tried to get me a SSD but the cloning isn't working very well, I've taken apart my laptop like 5 times in the last 3 days cos the thing just won't boot no matter how I try to clone it :/

Derp time for Guild Wars 2.

And here we go again. 2013

The Last Sunset

NZ is a lot more beautiful than I remember, if that's even possible. I just got back from a 5 day road trip with friends over new years, where I actually made use of my camera for the first time properly (took over 1200 shots over that time haha). The story behind that photo... we wanted to catch the last sunset of the year, we were trying to find a high point around Kerikeri and we couldn't get to the coastline, it was about 2 minutes until sunset and we hit the end of a road we had been going back and forth on (did 4 U-Turns!), we figured at that point we couldn't really do anything except go forward and lo and behold, we found the cutest bay with an awesome view of the sunset. We also managed to catch some fish there, and it was awesome for photos :) so that went much better than expected. Sometimes the best experiences are unplanned. 

Anyway the road trip was a lot of fun, I didn't have many expectations of it beforehand, to be honest I only really agreed to go because I had nothing else to do over new years so I thought heck, why not. It's the first new years I've spent in New Zealand since 2010. Northland is freaking beautiful in the summer, I don't even know how else to put it honestly, so here's a scenery picspam.

 That's what I've been up to lately :) It was nice after two years of Christmas and New Years in winter to come back to NZ and experience summer during this time of year again. Though I actually arrived on Christmas day so I didn't really get that this year, and honestly felt a bit out of place after getting home because of the change in environment (since our house is being renovated, I couldn't actually return 'home', I had no clothes or any personal belongings that I didn't bring back with me because my parents just left it all under a plastic sheet at the old house), but the nice weather brought everything back together and I suppose some things just feel the same. Should be interesting to see more people during the next three weeks and see how interactions change haha.

It's the time of year when I make my new list of NYRs and look back at last year's and see how well I've done!

2012:
1) do your best in uni. No slacking off even if other people say it's easy - get your grades first and then play around :) 

I didn't miss a single class this whole semester! And even at AU I didn't miss many lectures either. I guess I did reasonably on exams, could have been better but I can't complain about my grades. I also really enjoyed the rest of college this year as well, growing up and meeting new people and all that, so overall I think I did a good job of balancing work/play this year.

2) if you are in America by the time you read this again, you are the man. 

Ok so I'm in NZ right now but the general gist of this is HIGH FIVE PAST WINNIE you did a good job on your applications. 2011 Winnie I love you so much for putting in the hard hours so that I can live such an awesome life right now (ofc also thanks to family and friends for continued support haha, it was a group effort obviously).


3) try new things - especially in uni, look for the things that might pique some genuine passion. Find the spark you lack. 

I think I tried a lot of new stuff this year. Moving to a new country and reinventing the self, trying out archery, taking econ for the first time, taking a computer science class on a whim and discovering what might turn into a major. Wow actually if I think about the year, in January I had no idea what I was doing in uni. I applied to Engineering/Arts and nothing else because that's what I wrote on my Scholarship form, I disregarded Architecture altogether, in hindsight that might have been because of a subconscious thought that I would be leaving the country so I didn't take my AU applications as seriously which is probably bad, but it paid off. Actually a BA/BE would not have been bad for me anyway, but I was going to major in Film/Media Studies except none of the classes fit with the first year Engineering schedule, so I decided to take Compsci 101 and Econ 111 instead -- both things I'd never really tried before. I discovered I like programming and I learned a lot about the world in Economics (it's actually applicable to everything I swear, it's just too bad I'm not good at it haha but I learned a lot this year through Econ 111 and Ec10). I also tried new hobbies like Archery -- I was just walking around the extracurriculars fair and saw the stall and signed up. Actually, I was really into Archery when I was younger and always wanted to try it because it seemed awesome to be able to shoot arrows, and now I actually do it :D Oh also I went to an intro breakdancing session where I learned the basic 6 step and baby freeze which I am still useless at, but it was fun.Trying new things is pretty cool, I want to do more of that.

4) GO AND FREAKING. WORK OUT YOU FAT SLOB. 

Ok so Billy and Will somehow convinced me this year to start working out at the gym with them, which I never thought would happen to be honest but I really enjoy it. It turned out to be easier than I expected actually, just a little bit every few days makes you feel really good even if your body is tired. It's a pity my routine kind of broke when I moved to America because of other things, I really want to put more time into gymming actually in the next year since it makes you feel good. As a result though, I got fatter when I returned from the US compared to how I was at the beginning of the year even though I worked out more this year =.= Dedication is key zzz. And I gotta lay off the honey butter on Sundays at Annenberg clearly.


5) get a job and earn some money :) becoming more independent even when support is there 

Oh sup CNSST tutoring job. Oh sup NCEA Campus tutoring job. Oh sup HSA Rover. This year was a good year for job exp. Oh yeah and there was that one afternoon at Bakers Delight where I almost dropped a platter of pastries and realized those kinds of jobs just aren't for me hahaha. Man I actually did a lot this year now that I think about it, tutoring feels like soooo long ago but it was only within the last 12 months. Crazyyyyy.

6) be socially conscious 

I'm not exactly sure what this means ._. Sorry Past Winnie. I'm sure your intentions were good. If it helps, I gave $3.50 to a contact juggler the other day at mission bay? He was pretty legit though.


7) keep in touch with old friends 

I did, I think. Well it's been a rocky patch in terms of friendship since I moved countries. Hopefully things return (/have returned?) to normal. I met a lot of new people this year through uni and college as well though, its been cool. It's also been kind of hard to keep in contact with certain people from high school -- really made me realize that if you want to stay in touch with some people you have to put in the effort, and sometimes they aren't interested as well so that's kind of a bummer. I pretty much skype high school friends once a month though, and other close friends even more frequently than that. FB message is a thing. I stopped using MSN this September. It's been a cool 10 years.


8) again -- have more reasons to smile than frown :)

Well, it's certainly been an emotional year, that's for sure. Between the tears and laughter (both uncontrollable mind you), I've enjoyed both sides of life. Actually this is the first time I've felt something touch me on this level. Maybe I was just emotionally stunted before, but I think I've gained the ability to feel something real finally. Something like I'm no longer a robot. Someone told me once that Life is much easier if you just don't care, but I think it's more along the lines of, Life is easier if you care -- but not about yourself, about others around you to the point where their decisions become yours. It's not about being apathetic, but about being more easy-going and open to others' points of view, to be more accepting and less stubborn. This is still something I have to practise especially with my family whose intentions and mine seem to conflict a lot these days, but I'm learning I guess. 

Actually I'm not sure how that was relevant to the resolution at hand here ahhaaha, I just thought of it though. That's ok too. It's been an overall good year. I regret nothing; I've learned so much and though there was sadness it made me into a better person. So at the end of the year when I was watching that sunset, I was smiling. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful year.

This years NYRs??

1) The Usual Academic Resolution

2) The Usual Exercise-Related Resolution

3) The Usual Social Resolution -- New and Old Friends

4) Create a more comfortable self. Don't slip back into fickleness.

5) Be more patient with others, less self-absorbed, think of others' needs.

6) Gain experience in the field. Try get an internship, see if CS is the right path for you

7) Read more

8) As always, Have more reasons to smile than frown.

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I don't know where else to put this, too.

I don't know if you think of this at all still, but anyway on New Years day, I was listening to music on my phone and that song came up. It reminded me of you and a lot of memories came up and it made me somewhat emotional, but I realized that things weren't right at that time anyway. It's probably for the best that things happened the way they did, though I know I caused you a lot of pain at that time. Because I realized that you can't say you wrote this, you wrote this for me -- when you have sang the same song for others before. One day you will find someone for whom you won't repeat the same songs for. That person will be worth a new leaf in your story, a fresh playlist. I want that for you because you are worth it. I'll always be around, just not in that way. 

Don't talk to me about this, I just like to know that you've read it. I hope you understand.