28 Days of Western Town College

Well, great news for us came in the form of a phone call just three days ago.  I have been accepted into the MBA program that I have been trying to get into.  It is such a great thing for us!  It is going to be a lot of hard work for 1 year.  I will be studying a lot, while my wife will be working a lot!  It begins on September 8th, and runs until the end of August, 2010.  I’ll post more information as I get it!

It is a little sad though, at the same time, as I am forced to leave the school I have been working at since Christmas 2007.  I will be finishing my teaching on August 28, so that leaves me with 4 weeks of teaching left!  Who knows what will happen after my degree is finished; therefore, this may be the last 4 weeks of teaching for a long, long time.

Here are a few pictures I took from a couple of weeks ago.  We went to Steveston, about an hour south of where we live now.  It’s a fishing village in the city of Richmond, so we (of course) had to have fish and chips, and we bought 5 pounds of shrimp for $10.  Not bad at all!

Cats and Brigadeiro

I have some more pictures of the cats (and a few from their new tree).  We are so lucky that they like each other this much!  Right from day one, they have been inseparable.  The other pictures are from my attempt to make a Brazilian dessert, called Brigadeiros.  They are very, very, very good, and very, very, very easy to make.  That night, a friend and his Brazilian wife came by…  My brigadeiros passed inspection, and even received a complement!  Well… I suppose it was a complement.  Apparently mine were 3-4x bigger than normal.

Recipe:

1 can of Condensed milk

3 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 tablespoon of butter or margarine

Directions:

Combine everything in a pot, and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Continuously stir for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture pulls away from the edges of the pan like a dough.  Let it cool (about 30-40 minutes), then you can either eat it straight from the pot, or using a little butter on your fingers, roll it in some crushed candy or coconut flakes.  Or anything else you want!

고구마?? Korean Sweet Potato (Goguma)

Well… We discovered tonight that our two kittens have an extremely large craving for 고구마…  Eunjin was eating one on the bed… the two kids not only jumped up with her, but actually completely climbed over her in their attempts to reach it.  I had to physically remove them so she could finish her meal…  No more kitty treats for them: it’s Korean sweet potato all the way.

Anger… Rage… Hulk SMASH!

Woke up Sunday morning… went to drive out to Ikea.  Felt something was missing when I got to the car.  Looked behind the car.  Our bikes were gone.  Some scum of the human race has stolen our bikes.  I was so incredibly mad, not helped by the attitude of our resident care-taker.  The bikes were chained together, so whoever took them must have just picked them up together, and walked out.  They weren’t able to roll.  I can’t decide if I am more mad at whomever didn’t check to make sure the garage gate closed behind them, or the ba*****d who took the bikes.  I’ll tell you that I had some very choice words for both people, plus the caretaker.  Either way, now we have two helmets, a fancy bike jacket, repair kits, and spare tire tubes, but no bikes.  What makes me fume even more is that it is now summer, and I was SO excited to be riding to work.  If I see someone riding around North Van on a lime-green mountain bike, I’m not really sure what I’ll do.  It was a very unique bike that I had, and can only be one of them around.  Anyway, no pictures, as IT HAS BEEN STOLEN…  GRRRRRRRRRRR.

Mia (Hia’s Sister)

Finally, I get around to posting some pictures of the new kitten.  The vet asked if she was Hia’s girlfriend or sister…  to which we quickly replied sister.  There will be no babies coming from this pair: in about 5 weeks Hia will become well acquainted with a pair of scissors in the hands of our very capable vet.  Without further adieu, here is Mia

That was fun, wasn’t it?

Just go away!

Which one of you called me?

Why do you look funny?

I love my pink monkey

So tiring destroyingi things

More destruction

Bed was used too much; we took the chair.

OMG What happened?

Please let me go!

You know we did something bad.

Other Vancouver Attractions

The day after the bridge and mountain, we headed downtown to see some of the other touristy things.  We made it to:

* The Bill Reid Art Gallery

* The Vancouver Art Gallery

* The B.C. Sports Hall of Fame

* Science World

* Granville Island Ferries

* Vancouver Maritime Museum

* Vancouver Museum

* H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

It was quite the day ~ lots of walking, boat riding, and bus riding.  At least it was a beautiful day – I even got a bit of a sun-burn!

At the Vancouver Museum

Who says only foreign countries make strange signs?

Capilano Suspension Bridge / Grouse Mountain

Last week, Eunjin and I headed  up to the twin tourist attractions in North Van.  She’s got this fancy pants tourism pass that gets her plus a guest in to all of these places free!  Here are the pictures.  Oh, one more small thing…  Eunjin convinced me to get another kitten.  Pictures coming soon!

Rainy week

We just had a terribly rainy week…  Wasn’t fun at all to ride to work.  I avoided riding on Monday, but did it Tuesday, Wednesday, and this morning.  Coming home yesterday, I have never been so wet ~ it wasn’t pleasant, but at the same time, was strangely satisfying.  Today after school, I met Eunjin and we went up Harbour Centre’s viewing deck.  It’s a big building in the middle of downtown, with a 360 degree view.  Unfortunately neither of us had cameras, but I did snap these pictures on my phone!

Stanley Park and Cypress Mountain in the background

Construction at the old Woodward’s place

BC Place in the background

The H building is the Canada Post building

Weekend

Nasty weather right now ~ supposed to have thunderstorms… .  .     .

Saturday was beautiful though, as was the morning today!  I was lazy though; studied for a few hours today and ran some errands.  Didn’t get around to finding any new pictures though!  I’ll do my best tomorrow or the next day.  Ok, probably not tomorrow.  Important hockey game to watch.  I have a really good feeling about it though ~ I’ll be eating Chinese food with the folks, and when I have eaten Chinese (and the Canucks play) in the past, they win!  If they lose though… the season is over, and I can stop eating Chinese food

Hia again

So we have given our second cat back to his rightful owner now.  I’m looking forward to having a good sleep!  Hopefully Hia doesn’t keep us up tonight   Tomorrow I’ll be trying something new: cycling to work.  It’s just over 12km, so I’m not really worried.  I did it last weekend, and everything was easy (with the exception of the Lion’s Gate Bridge). I’ve been studying for that GMAT exam a little bit as well.  Two practice tests are done, and I’ve identified my major weakness: math.  I’ve forgotten almost all of the old formulae, so I have had to start re-learning everything.  What a pain!

Here are some new pictures of Hia:

His new scratching post. A good idea!

If you can use a computer, so can I.

Sleeping, which is not very common

Gimme that camera! No more pictures!!

It would appear as though he wants to go for a trip somewhere

Tiger is trying to pretend there is no little cat