Author Archives: AJung

Summer is Not Complete without a visit to the Richmond Night Market

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Summer is not complete without a visit to the Richmond Night Market.

It’s true.

As gloomy as Vancouver gets during the Fall/Winter time due to its never ending series of liquid precipitation, Vancouverites know how precious the summer time is. When the sun starts to come out, even if it’s April and a bit chilly, people head to the Wreck beach and find die-hard nudists, and go to Waterfront and find people reading outside under the could-be-warmer-sun. But when the summer actually comes and you can feel the sunshine tickling your to-be-copper skin, Vancouver gets filled with festivities. There’s the Celebration of Lights, which is a competition consisting of three epic nights of fireworks lasting about half an hour each. The key to this is that you watch the fireworks with lots and lots of people by the beaches with a radio on, so that you can listen to the synchronized music along with the fireworks.

Mind you, I missed a couple of these this year, except for the one I catched with MEGA.

But one place that look forward to in the summer is the Richmond Night Market. It’s a place where you can truly feel how multicultural Canada/Vancouver really is, taste the things that are so common in different parts of Asia but not so common in Canada, and blend yourself in the hustle and bustle of Asian style street markets.

I almost missed it this year due to my hectic gotta-finish-thesis-asap schedule, but finally had the chance to go and enjoy some of the authentic foods from Korea/China/Japan/Philippine including Toppokki, Takoyaki, SiuMai, Bubble Tea, Pork skewers… (I missed the Korean Hurricane Potato Chips though!)

For those of you currently arriving in Vancouver, and have the time to explore the city before the semester begins, do try and check out the Richmond Night Market (12631 Vulcan Way) which is accessible via Canada Line followed by a designated Night Market shuttle at the Richmond Bridgeport Station.

And just so you know, the night market doesn’t last forever. It only runs throughout the summer until mid September every year. So go quick, before you miss it!

(Just to give you a feel for what it’s like, check out the YouTube video)

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Housekeeping? Labkeeping?

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When you walk into someone’s house, there’s one thing that you automatically notice. And that is whether the house is cleaner, messier, or just about the same level of cleanliness as your place.

And at messy places, you know that the place is either occupied by a group of people who pretend to genuinely cherish messiness, or a group of people who just don’t get along with each other because of their differences in housekeeping rules.

I mean, no one wants to be always on duty to clean other people’s mess and no one wants to always do other people’s dishes. But everyone wants to have not-so-overflowing garbage bags to throw your garbage into whenever you are in need of disposing not-so-desirable items, and everyone wants a clean set of dishes and utensils for those sensitive times when you are hungry enough to kill someone for a bowl of instant noodles served in a bowl (not a plate, and not the same bowl with your roommate’s last night’s instant noodles in it).

At these sensitive times, I often find that people reach a level of anger that either explodes, or gets bottled up and transformed into a series of revenge against roommates (i.e., a whole bunch of dirty dishes left in the sink for the roommate to use, and your clean dishes stacked away and hidden safely in your closet for only you to use).

It’s kind of the same for labs.

There’s always housekeeping (or, may I suggest, labkeeping) things that can get annoying.

What about the CARIS lab (the lab I call home these days)? Well… my lab is not an exception. Although my labmates don’t really reach the gotta-revenge type stage of housekeeping problems, we recently did have a sensitive issue surrounding an organic compost bin we implemented at the beginning of the summer. I guess trying out the compost program in the summer was a bad idea, since the custodians stopped emptying the organic compost bins nearby, and so, we stopped emptying the compost bin in the lab… But… that didn’t stop us from continuing to throw stuff into the compost bin… until… until the amount of courage required to open the lid of the bin exceeded all labmates’ maximum willingness to be environmentally friendly.

The compost bin that contained food waste from the lab for months over the summer.

This resulted in a family (and, might I add, its members’ extended families) of fruit flies happily moving into the lab and joining the lab’s robotics research. Now that we have so many new brains literally surrounding us, we should be able to do much more creative and innovative research… right?…

Anywho, we’ve decided at the last week’s lab meeting that we’d decommission the compost bin. And I got pulled into the job. Yuk! But as the person who brought it into the lab in the first place, I guess I am responsible for getting rid of it.

The compost bin had been sitting at a corner of our lab, right next to a robot that was decommissioned a while back (even before my time). By the mere picture of the bin, you probably don’t understand the fear I felt when I lifted it, and realized how full the bin was (and has been for the many many months).

Luckily, while I finally had the courage to empty it of its guts — the food waste that potentially has become a complex mixture of bio-hazards — I ran into one of the ICICS custodians. Oh man, the custodians at the ICICS building are so nice. They always say hi to me whenever they see me at the lab or in the hallways, and they are always so friendly.

And today, the custodian helped me empty the guts straight into a heavy duty black garbage bag even without me asking. He even took it to the custodian room and cleaned it for me at one of the wash stations where they have a magical hose that pumps out warm soapy water on demand. I was prepared to be the martyr of the day, and had prepared myself a wimpy plastic grocery bag. But before the cleaning process begun, I had not realized that I may have needed an extra bag to throw up.

I really could not thank him enough. And since he totally saved my day, I will extend his generosity to the blog’s audience by not posting pictures of what the compost bin really contained.

Now that the compost bin is clean and empty, I am ready to call ‘Not it!’ for further labkeeping duties for this month.

Cleaned and cleared of its bio-hazard containment duties...

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Brown Guys are Hot

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“Brown guys are hot” is indeed the title of this post.

Random? Yes.

Does it actually talk about brown guys? No.

Today, I randomly talked about my blogging career with a good friend of mine, Abhijeet Sarkar. A writer and engineer himself, he decided to take on the quest of being a guest blogger for iMech blog — he likes to talk about his opinions of most random things thinking people actually care, jkjk. Anyway, here is what a non-academician has to say to newly starting graduate students.

If you like this post, and kind of dig his writing style, check out his latest short story published on Amazon.

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Why are you here?

I do enjoy writing for newbies. Why? Well because my few years of experience makes me feel that I am not only qualified, but also obliged to do so. But I would take that with a grain of salt were I you.
The other reason why I write this article is because, having firmly decided NOT to pursue graduate studies, it gives me an outsider’s look in on what grad life is like. Think back to high school, when the University reps came to visit you and preach on and on about how amazing their school was. Trying to convince YOU to apply. Trying to tell you that your university years will be the BEST years of your life.

And then you got to Engineering undergrad, and had something else entirely. Countless late nights spent in the lab. Studying endlessly for quizzes and assignments that were maybe 10% of your grade. Dealing with the unique mosaic of social abilities that were picked from all corners of the country and placed in one room, ranging from suave and savvy, to just downright idiotic. And once the dust and sand had settled and you were sitting in the plastic chairs of the Physical Activities Complex, your parents cheering you on from the bleachers while some dignitary you never met gives a speech, you stop and wonder – where did my University experience go?
So I ask you again – why are you here? Is it for UBC’s state of the art labs? Is it for scenery and the lifestyle of Vancouver? Is it because you’re here for a second chance?

The smart answer would be all three, but the foolish answer would be any that left out the last. I know a few grad students. And by few I mean it to be an understatement. I know grad students who came to Vancouver for a fresh start and with an open mind, completely turning their lives around. Grad students who found themselves, their TRUE selves, here in Vancouver. I’ve met grad students who pushed their boundaries, who reached beyond their limits, who had done more in their first summer here than in five years of engineering undergrad. It seems that they wanted so much to escape their engineering undergrad experience, that they did anything and everything that surprised not only those around them, but suprised themselves as well. And then I’ve met students who did the opposite.

There are grad students who go into research because they are afraid of the real world. Who don’t know what to do once school is over. There are students who have no passion, no drive, and no energy when pursuing their research. Grad students who want nothing more than to have a do-over of their undergrad which, quite frankly, epic sucked. And then there are those who truly LOVE their work. Who wake up thinking about it. Who eat breakfast, lunch and dinner running data analyses over in their mind, and who fall asleep with their MATLAB script running in the background.

But in the end it doesn’t matter which of these categories you fall under. There is something my father told me which has stuck with me a long time. He said, “Time is the great equalizer.” Coming from someone who grew up with only one shirt and no money, who went on to graduate from IIT engineering and IIM MBA (schools more elite and difficult to gain entrance into than MIT or Harvard), that is something that makes you sit up in your chair and take heed. At the end of the day it’s not going to matter which school you went to. It’s not going to matter what your grades were. School is not the real world. There are things waiting for you out there that you are just not going to learn being in a lab, running metrics and analyses. The wonderful thing about school is that it lets you come up with a lot of theories on life. The bad thing is that a lot of those theories aren’t going to stick when you get out into the real world.

It’s a staging ground for what’s coming. It’s the perfect sandbox for doing something you have never done before. If you want the university experience you didn’t get in your previous school, it’s entirely under your control. The world works by the laws of attraction. And you cannot spell Attraction without “action”. If you want something you have never had, you must do something you have never done. I can go on throwing reused platitudes at you, but I think you get the point.
When it comes down to it, you made your choice to be at UBC for many reasons. You made your decision to do grad studies for many reasons. Some of which had to do with the University, some of which had to do with the lab, and some had to do with the city. Whatever your reason, you can’t help but have a slight giddiness in the pit of your stomach. A little nervous spark as you embark on a new place.

Capture that feeling. Hold on to it. And fuel it. You’re going to need it if you want to get through the next two years (give or take a few months) with a pHD potentially on the horizon. Because that slight bit of nervousness, that little bit of apprehension means you’re doing something right. There is a skill to be learned from this, a small nugget of knowledge buried here, which I hope you picked up on. And if you didn’t then I’ll just say it outright for you.

The ability to take risk is one skill they will NEVER teach you in school. It’s a lesson for the real world, learned in the real world. You’ve already taken a risk by coming this far, don’t be foolish and stop. You’re clearly here as a decision for your future. But I think that you know from that Bachelor’s on your wall (or in your drawer like mine is) that the degree isn’t enough. It’s what you do, with what you have, that determines where you go, and who you will become.

Abhijeet Sarkar(guest blogger), Picture by Branden Pritchard

So start small. Go to socials. Take classes you normally would not. Find enjoyment in things you’ve never tried. Push yourself to do something outside your comfort zone. Learn to take bigger and bigger risks. Learn to stand out in a crowd. And do it now before you settle into a routine. At the end we only come as far as we do by learning to take risks. Not stupid risks. Calculated risks. Measured risks. Facing failure head-on unflinchingly. And, more importantly, getting back up after we do fail. Otherwise time really will level the playing field, and in thirty years no one’s going to know or care where your degree came from if you never learn to leverage it against a wager in life.

To have never risked is to have never lived.

A.

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