Back to civilization

Hi all.  I finally arrived at Ivvavik National Park on the 29th of May.  I was suppose to stay in the park until the 10th of August.  Unfortunately, due to poor management from Parks Canada office, my field season was cut short and I came back to Inuvik yesterday.  My field season was completed, but it's a rushed bittersweet moment to leave the park.  I will have many photos and stories to share in the near future.  Until then, take care.

Visiting Algonquin this weekend

More than a year ago, I was in Algonquin. When the trip ended, I wished for another chance to come back again. Then grad school happened and now I am going there again. Life is full of surprises sometimes.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Giant Eastern Crane Fly and other thoughts

So the second day of teaching assistant training came and went. It wasn't as helpful as the first day I found because a lot of the materials were repeated (at least twice). The most useful point was probably how to handle the icebreakers, especially on the first day, or what to do when the students are not as responsive as you like them to be. It seems that Trent puts a lot of emphasis on providing a good learning atmosphere for the undergraduate students. I wonder if the graduate students in UBC went through similar trainings as well.

Anyways, that was yesterday. Today I mainly stayed in my office, finishing up paperworks, meeting other graduate students, etc. However, the most interesting thing that happened today was probably finding this cool-looking (but dead) crane fly outside the building.


It wasn't too difficult to find the identity of this distinctive critter. It is a Giant Eastern Crane Fly (Pedicia albivitta) with the distinct patterns on its wings. In my field guide, it strangely points out that they have very long and brittle legs, which I thought was a no-brainer (unless the legs are even more fragile compare to other crane flies).

I checked out some of the other graduate students' offices and they had amazing wildlife photos, drawings and artwork on their desks while my (and my office-mates) had empty desks. So I decided to pin this insect as a memorable first insect pinned here in Ontario (actually it is my first pinned insect ever).

Quite a memorable day, I suppose.

Skywatching Monday

Rained almost the entire day.
I stayed home and packed.
Leaving for school in two days.
Sun came out in the afternoon.
Crazy day at home.
Glad I am leaving soon.

Hello from Peterborough

A quick post about what went down today.

Original plan:

1. Woke up at 3:15am

2. Go to airport with father at 4:00am

3. Catch flight at 7:00am

4. Arrive at Toronto at 14:20pm

5. Get to Peterborough at 16:20pm.

This was what happened:

1. Woke up at 3:15am

2. Go to airport with father at 4:00am

3. Flight delayed until 8:17am

4. Arrived at Toronto at 16:04pm; waited for baggage and left the airport at around 16:50pm.

5. Arrived at Peterborough at 18:54pm (or something like that...I forgot to look at my watch by then).

Anyways, I am dead tired now but I arrived safe and sound.

Visiting Trent tomorrow. Hopefully I will have a picture or two tomorrow.

Edit: Saw the full moon as I was leaving the house this morning. I wanted to take a photo of it as I finished checking-in at the airport but when I went outside the moon was on the other side of the building. So I took this photo of the dawn instead. Cloudy here in Peterborough, so no moon photos from here.

Posting before leaving

So the time has come for me to leave BC and head to Ontario for about 5 days to check out the school and establish the details of my project with my supervisors. Afterwards, I will travel to Inuvik, NWT first (via Edmonton) where I will get settled for another few days before heading to my field site in Sheep Creek, Ivvavik National Park.

This will be very different from my previous (field) seasons. No more comfort of living with relative, no more straightforward directions and responsibilities, and most important, an extended away-from-home experience for more than two years. Sure, I will come back during holidays, but they will be short visits and things just won't be the same. Nevertheless, clocks continue to tick and life goes on, for better or for worse, and I have been waiting for this opportunity to prove my worth on this planet and now that it has arrived, there is no way I am giving it up!

However, with my new responsibilities as a graduate student, I fear that this blog which I had maintained for more than three years now will take a back seat of my life, along with my passion for photography. This blog and my photography will continue but will probably occur more sporadically now.

This is one of my ranting posts, but hopefully I will post again when I arrive in Peterborough.

Heading to the airport in less than 6 hours. Going to sleep now. Good night all.

Sky-watching from London Landing

The sky cleared today and in the afternoon, I drove my mother to Seafair and Steveston to do some banking and grocery shopping. Afterwards, we went home via Dyke Road.

Stopping at London Landing to watch some birds.

Busy day, little done & Raynox 250 test photos

This is what I did today:

4:15 am - Went to the airport with my father (where he works and when his shifts begin).
4:30 am - Drove the car back and headed back to bed.
9:15 am - Woke up.
9:45 am - Went to the airport to pick up an acquaintance from Taiwan who received a working visa and will be looking for work here.
10:45 am - Acquaintance arrived and drove her to Burnaby where she found housing.
12:00 pm - Drove back to Richmond and had lunch at Richmond Public Market and bought groceries there.
2:00 pm - Arrived back home and dead tired.

My acquaintance brought me my new photography toy - Raynox Microscopic Lens DCR-250. An addition that I have been looking for quite a while to improve my macro photography.

It's not exactly a lens, but an addition in front of the lens that magnifies the image captured. To my best of knowledge.

Ranting

If you are visiting popular tourist attractions in downtown Vancouver, especially near Gastown, (next to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside a.k.a. "Canada's poorest postal code"), be prepared to have people involuntarily come up to you and want to tell about the history of the landmark and take your pictures. In the end, they will probably ask for donations.

Not that I am not compassion but it just leaves me with a disgusted feeling towards the neighborhood, the city, and the people.

Tourists (and naive locals), you have been warned.

Thoughts of a sleep-deprived brain

Note: This will be a pictureless post, so if you are someone like me, who doesn't like long posts without any photos, please click away. This is also a very self-centered post, so no comments will be allowed for now.

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Foreword

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It is quite amazing how your brain operates at a sleep-deprived state - when you go to sleep at midnight, trying to fall asleep despite the loud walking and guitar playing from your neighbor above you, and waking up when your father has to go to work at 4am in the morning. After that, when you want to sleep, your brain decides to work at this time of the hour and your body can't do anything except toss and turn. At this time of the day, your brain processes things strangely and it becomes quite an interesting journey of self-discovery.

My new bins: Vortex Diamondback 10x42

After relying on work binocular for the last two field jobs and my own cheapo bins at other times, I decided to improve my observation equipment and got myself a nice, useful and quality bins on this Boxing Day.

Behold my Vortex Diamondback 10x42 binocular! It's a beauty - costing me almost $280 (after tax, from Lens and Shutter). I was originally going to buy the 8.5x50 but it was out of stock, but this is just as good.

I was debating (and did researching) among other brands (Bushnell and Nikon) at similar price ranges, but Vortex seemed to receive the most positive comments, perform well against bins at higher prices and the attractive feature of the unconditional lifetime warranty.

Can't wait for the crappy weather systems to stop visiting B.C. so that I can have one (or two) decent days to test it out.

Other than getting this, my mom and I just wandered around the stores in Richmond Centre (after returning from Vancouver) and bought some after-Christmas chocolates. Man, is there a lot of shoppers today!

Hope everyone had a relatively relaxing Boxing Day.
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Have a Merry One!

No snow here in Richmond, instead we have been having gray clouds and rain for the last three days now.

My family doesn't really celebrate Christmas, but to those does, have a merry one!

Cheers!

Pooped on by a Bushtit (or two)...

I was pooped on by at least one Bushtits this afternoon when I was out photographing during my lunch break.

This is probably what it was trying to express...

Had a nervous moment when I thought my new lens wasn't focusing. Turns out it was switched to MF mode. Phew...

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Maple, pigeon and waterworks in the rain

The weather in the morning was decent, so I figured I would go out for a walk and take some photos during lunchtime. But when I got to the lobby, it was raining!

Oh well, I am not heading back to the office to stare at the computer again.

I found a nice dry spot outside a building with this golden maple tree. Without the structural backgrounds, it is easy to forget that I am in the city. The image didn't come out so well, so I made it into a soft focus image. Definitely going to come to this spot again when the lighting is better.

A break in my cloudy future...

This past weekend had been quite depressing. I tried to go out, and then it started to rain. And then when it looked it was going to rain, it never did. Being coup up at home sucks.

And right now, wind is blowing outside my window rustling the trees, I imagine it is raining but not heavy enough for me to hear it.

I went out during lunch break today to take some photos. Not the best condition to take photos when it was pouring, and I tried to take photos best representing the rainy weather while holding the umbrella.

This was probably the best shot of the day. I used soft focus art filter on my camera, and it was at a weird angle so I leveled it, but then I like the tilted framing and so I kept it and added a frame over it.

Now the real reason for this post. Long story short, I had been applying for many summer jobs lately, as well as contacting potential professors (which I think I mentioned more than a few times). Anyways, one of the research projects I applied for was this. I had a phone interview last Wednesday, and today I received the e-mail saying they would like to offer me the project position! So I am in the process of figuring out what kind of information I need to the formal application, but if everything goes well, I will be in Algonquin next summer studying bees and flies and butterflies!

There is a break in my cloudy future and I can see the sun through it!
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What happened on SkyTrain this morning

The woman sitting next to me on Canada Line folded one of the many free newspapers on her lap and stuffed it in the crack next to her seat and the side of the SkyTrain. And then she opened up the next newspaper and began reading the front page.

Sigh, aren't they all the same? I thought, and then I returned back to reading my novel about the journey of a young African woman being captured in Africa and brought back to America to work in indigo planting.

...

Twenty minutes later, when we approached the Vancouver City Centre station, I returned back to reality and put my book into my backpack when...

An Asian man standing beside my seat said, "Excuse me, you should take the newspapers away with you."

"Huh?" I thought and looked up to him and then realized he was talking to the woman.

"What?" The woman did not seem to hear the man as she was getting ready to stand up.

"I said, you should take your newspapers with you," the man repeated in a calm manner. Oh man, I thought, this is not going to be good, especially with me stuck between them.

"Hmm, the newspapers were already there when I sat down," the woman answered with an irriated tone. Unlikely, I thought, but I can't say for sure since I wasn't paying attention when I sat down next to her.

The train door opened and people started to rush out of the train.

The woman stood up and I shoved my backpack aside to make room for her to pass, but the man put his hands on adjacent bars and prevented the woman from leaving.

The woman gave the man a light shove, but the man resisted and pushed her on the shoulders.

"Hey, don't touch me!" The woman yelled.

"Take your newspapers with you!" The man insisted.

The woman pushed away his hands resting on the bars, or something like that, and passed successfully but without voicing her frustration one final time, "asshole."

The man walked away from situation but also replied, "bitch." I wonder if the woman heard.

And me? I stayed in my seat waiting for the final station to arrive. But also thinking about what just happened.

What a way to start the day.
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New lens (70-300) & testing it out at Yaletown and UBC

Today, I completed a deal with a seller on craiglist and got a birding-lens for my Olympus E-620, the Zuiko Digital ED 70-300 f4.0-5.6. It's a dream come true, because it can reach 600mm so I can take much closer photos now. It's a much bigger, heavier, and beautiful than I thought but it's definitely going to make my photos better.

The seller is at Yaletown so I met him there this morning. Before he arrived, I took some photos of the people and dogs walking by.

This was the cutest dog.

Another of its own.

After the deal, I couldn't wait to put it on and try it out by walking along the Granville Seawalk! Even though it is not a macro lens, it takes pretty good close-up photos of flowers too.

Delicious Lamb Chop Lunch

While it was sunny on Wednesday and I had a nice walk during my lunch break, I felt uninspired taking pictures of people and buildings.

The weather was nice again today, and my co-workers and I had a group lunch at Voya restaurant - the same restaurant that I have been to for the last three seasons that I worked here. Definitely a wonderful treat!

I chose the "Daily Chop" which was a delicious Lamb Chop. Yum!

I took a few photos, but this turned out to be the best (and most delicious-looking).

Weekend tomorrow. I shall look forward to it.

PS - I am in a discussion with a potential seller of an used Olympus 70-300 f 4-5.6 lens. Hope everything goes as planned and it is in good condition and then I will have a new toy to play with!
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Worries away in RNP & Zoom!

Today is the first day of October. Five days from today, I will return back to my temp office job in downtown Vancouver for this fall season.

Lately, I have been in a slump. Work-searching in my field has been unproductive (as usual in the winter season) and grad-school searching has been unsuccessful - not many openings and with my just average grades in my undergrad years, I imagine professors are probably hesitant to take a student without any scholarship support. So my future is unclear as muck and it frustrates me everytime I think about it.

With my new monthly bus pass, I visited Richmond Nature Park today. And when I step on the ground that's not made of cement and surrounded by trees instead of buildings and people, all of the sudden, my worries are gone. I am in the moment of just enjoying birds chirping and watching the leaves changing their colors. And photographing - it just takes time away and makes it all worthwhile.

Watching the frenzies in the bird-feeding area. Many chickadees and squirrels on the feeders. The sparrows and juncos on the ground. These are probably my first decent shots of a Dark-eyed Junco because most of the times, they are too fast or too difficult to photograph.

Dark-eyed Junco

Strong wind = stay indoor

I did not go out today because the wind was way too strong! I did want to go outside at one point in the afternoon, but the rain started to pour as soon as I was getting ready.

Tonight, my parents and I went to a restaurant for hot-pots. As we were heading home, we saw a road sign and its street pole bend to the ground. That's how strong the wind was today.

That's all. Thought it is worth writing about it today.

Enjoy the nice long weekend, everyone, and stay safe!

Edit - Wind Warning from http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/ at 8:23 PM PDT Friday 02 April 2010:

"Winds southwest gusting to 90 km/h over Vancouver Island..Southern Gulf Islands..Sunshine Coast..Metro Vancouver and the southern sections of Howe Sound will ease near midnight.

Winds will rise to southwest gusting to 90 km/h over Fraser Valley - west including Abbotsford this evening.

This is a warning that potentially damaging winds are expected or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements.

An intense low pressure system crossing the south coast is producing strong southwest winds gusting to 90 km/h over most of the south coast regions. The strong winds are expected to ease near midnight as the low moves into the interior. "

366 days ago (2009-04-01) ...
365 days ago (2009-04-02) ...
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