So what's next?

I am currently looking for an apartment to rent in Ohio. I have a handful of places shortlisted and will be checking them out in person by the end of this month.

I'll then be moving down to the US at the end of the summer.

There will be a lot of new experiences.

Life is slowly transitioning into a whole new phase. It's exciting and things definitely seem to be moving faster.

And oh cool, I'll get to shop from the American versions of NewEgg and Amazon.

After five years of study, I have finally been awarded a Bachelors of Applied Science. After returning home from the convocation ceremony, I spent some time cleaning out my closet. To my interest I found my acceptance package from the University of Waterloo. Inside the package was an offer letter welcoming me to the Systems Design Engineering program.

Looking at the letter, I noticed that it actually contains a rough description of what Systems Design encompasses (it is always an on going joke among Waterloo engineers that SYDE students don't know what they do). The description reads as follows:

You will find that Systems Design will allow you the opportunity to explore systems where it is essential that electrical, mechanical and computer components are designed or analyzed simultaneously as well as investigating the business aspects of products.

In some sense, almost every modern engineering project requires these key disciplines.

The letter is full of promise and speaks nothing about the academic challenges that I would encounter during my five years in Waterloo. Nor does it speak to the innumerable amount of good times and friendships that I would form through vibrant campus life.

The five-year old letter looks just as bright as the degree certificate that I now hold, which equally promises an exciting future.

It's been a good five years over all, and I'm excited to see where the next five years of life brings me.

For amusement, I took a snapshot of my degree and offer package side by side. It's all together an end-to-end scene.

It's like a redux of my transit in Shanghai Pudong International Airport enroute to Singapore in January of 2009. Only I'm now in Taoyuan International Airport enroute to Toronto via Tokyo. And I'm at least not alone this time. But it's still a tiring ordeal.

We arrived in Taipei at 10:45 PM. Our flight out of Taipei is at 8:20 AM the following morning. The check-in counter only opens two hours before the flight departs.

So here we sit in the airport. Waiting for the check-in counter to open.

At least there is free internet access here, albeit very slow and patchy for anything other than basic browsing.

This six-week trip has been both exciting and tiring all at the same time. By the end of the fifth week, I was already ready to go home. But the stop in Hong Kong was a nice one. Our group kind of split up to see different things and people. For myself, I had the opportunity to meet up with a few UWCCF people in their native Hong Kong. It was a very nice change of pace from the previous five weeks. Rather than being worried about sight seeing, I for once was just able to chill without worrying about time.

Looking forward to arriving back in Toronto. For various specific reasons

I'm currently in the middle of a 22 hour train ride from Guilin to Shanghai. It's been a long trip, and there's just under a week before I arrive back in Toronto on June 4. Mobile internet access here is relatively inexpensive compared to Canada (88 RMB per month gives me 200 minutes, unlimited incoming and 30 MB of internet access, that's roughly $13 or $14 CAD). So I'm happily tethering my notebook to my phone over Bluetooth right now

The trip has been a lot of fun and we've seen a lot of things. Overall China feels more haphazard than Canada. But there's so much rich culture and scenery to see here. Plus the food is awesome and relatively inexpensive when compared to Canadian prices.

Having grown up in Toronto with Singaporean parents, my Chinese food exposure has been primarily Cantonese-style and Singaporean-style. But having traveled to various regions across China, I've been able to expose myself to some different types of food such as some foods in Haerbin and Chengdu, to name a couple.

It's been good! But I'm looking forward to getting home. We'll stop in Hong Kong for a couple days before taking the long flight back to Toronto.