Well, looks like summer's officially begun. The weather's getting warmer, Wonderland is open full time, people are finishing classes, summer is definately in the air. I kicked off this first summer weekend with a good start.

Well, two of my friends, Ryan and Gus, came for a visit this weekend. I guess cuz it's a long weekend in the states, people had that extra day off work to visit. On Saturday I met up with Ryan in the afternoon. We got a chance to hang out and just hear all of his crazy stories from Conneticut. Well, it looks like he's doing well and doing a lot of good work at his new job, so I'm glad for him. I went out for dinner with Ryan and a bunch of his friends, it was fun. After dinner I met up with Jimi at a sports bar to watch the UFC match. It was a pretty good match. I've only started watching UFC, but I'm really liking it. I'm starting to recognize some of the faces and names in UFC.

Sunday was the first official beach volleyball of '06. We had a pretty good turnout. A bunch of Andrew's/Jeanne's friends came, as well as Gus and Eric. It was a typical fun day at the beach. Spent the day relaxing in the sun and playing lots of vball. Only thing was it got kinda cloudy in the afternoon, and actually got kinda chilly, but it was all right. After vball, Gus, Eric and I met up with Neeta and Ryan for dinner. Now, I love/grew up eating at Swiss Chalet (sometimes I just need a good rotisserie chicken), but apparently Swiss Chalet wasn't good enough for Neeta's pallet, so we went to a place called Montana's instead. After dinner, Gus, Eric and I watched X3. I thought it was ok, similar to X1 and X2 if you ask me.

Summer has begun.

So, the past weekend, my family and I decided to head down to the states to partake in my cousin's graduation from med school. There was a lot of driving going on this weekend. Thankfully it was all done by my older brother Andrew. My family are all spread across 5 states in the north eastern part of the states, so it took a while getting everyone together. Well, the graduation itself was really boring as expected, but it was nice getting together with the cousins. We mostly just ate out a lot and hung out like we usually do. One long weekend definately wasn't enough time to drive all the way to NYC and back, but it was fun.

On a different note, on one of the many car rides, my uncle put in a Burmese music video on the DVD player. First of all, I was really surprised when the song wasn't half bad. I guess Burma's adopted some of western pop music culture, and the song had a pop beat with Burmese lyrics. Very different from the Burmese songs I'm used to hearing at home that my mom plays. Second of all, since it was a music video, it kinda showed what Burmese people look like. Well, for me growing up, I've never quite known my nationality. My grandparents were all born in China, my parents were both born in Burma, and I was born in Canada. I've always considered myself to be Chinese Canadian, and definately not Burmese (that's now you say it btw, not Burmanese or Burmesium). Well, for my entire life, I don't think anyone's ever told me that I actually "look" Chinese. I tell people that I'm Chinese, and that's usually good enough, but no one has ever told me that I look like a typical China man. After watching that Burmese music video, it all started to make sense. The people in the music video just seemed to have a lot of similar characteristics. The eyes, the nose, the skin tone, it all looked very familiar in me and my family. All my life I've been rejecting the very dark skinned, kind of mix between brown and chinese part of myself, but maybe it's time that I begin to embrace my Burmese heritage?

Actually, the country Burma no longer exists. It's called Myanmar now, but it will always be Burman to me.

So yesterday, Neeta and I went out for dinner. I kinda had an itching for steak, so we decided to go to the Keg. Man, I haven't been to that place in a long time, but I don't remember that place being so pricey. Well, the food was really good, and my steak was cook nicely (medium-rare, nice and bloody) and the twice baked potatoes were really good. I guess when you have a full time job and starting to make money you can afford going to nicer places once in a while. Next step would be buying nicer clothes once in a while.

Friday was fun. Nat, Allan, my cousins and I went to Nat's fellowship bbq. It was fun, played some football and definately got my fill of hamburgers and hot dogs. We came over to my place after and played a little poker. Little Justin had a crazy night and took the pot.

It seemed like nothing was going right on Saturday. It took me almost two hours just to drive to Neeta's place. We had a whole afternoon planned at Eric's place, but I was so late that we ended only spending 1.5 hours at Eric's place before he had to leave. At least the mango smoothies were really good. Anyways, there was a lot of other stuff that pissed me off that day.

Well, today's mother's day. A shout out goes to my mom, who's always been there for me, but is always under appreciated by my brothers and I. I only hope I can be a son that she'd be proud of for today and for the rest of my life.

Well, it's been a pretty physically demanding week for me. Friday was football, Saturday was tennis and basketball. Sunday I had a break, but watched baseball. I played tennis with Allan Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for the tennis match of the century (Allan and I vs Nat and Jer). Played volleyball with Nat on Tuesday. Worked out my arms on Wednesday. Today I might start my 2nd weekly pass at Goodlife. My legs are so tired.

So, I had a fun weekend, this is how it played out. Jon came back from London on Friday, so we decided to play a little football in the evening. But, before playing football, there was a little match up in basketball that needed to be settled first. It was my cousin Mark and I versus the Rhee boys. I'm not too sure what happened, whether it was Jon's spring league training, or just my lack of skil in basketball, but the Rhees shut us out 3-0. Oh well, we'll have to have a longer game for a rematch. After basketball, a bunch of us played a bit of football. It was a lot of fun, except that my team lost something like 20 touchdowns to 5. Looks like it was just a losing night for the Kwas, and a dominating night for the Rhees. Man, I hate those Koreans!

On Saturday, Jon, Allan and I decided to play a little tennis in the afternoon. Tennis was all right, but it was kinda windy, so we decided to play basketball instead at my cousin's house. Basketball was fun. Some funny moments like Jon ripping the basketball from my 8 year old cousin's hand and taking it to the basket for a layup. Some people just don't know the meaning of sportsmanship. Played a couple of games, played a little HORSE, it was fun. After basketball, we went down town to meet up with KennyG for schwarmas and pizza. The schwarmas were all right, but nothing compared to the schwarmas in London. Didn't do too much at KennyG's place, mostly just hung out and watched some movies and stuff.

Sunday KennyG kicked us out for an early dragon boat practise. Jon, Allan, and I decided to go to dim sum for brunch. Dim sum was good as usual. I was an idiot and spilled my tea twice, Jon also ran into his future self about 20 yrs down the road. After dim sum, we picked up Cheryl and headed over to watch the Jay's game. It was a really good game, and lots of fun. Jays won 3-1. We got some free photos, got some free dolls that were supposed to be for kids under the age of 14. But it was all good cuz it was Asian heritage day at the SkyDome, so we could be as Asian as we wanted to be. After the Jay's game, I went out for dinner with some of Allan's friends. It was fun, we went to some Thai place. It was a good night except that Allan scratched his rims on the way home... sorry man, I know it hurts.

Yes! I finally got that retarded problem solved! And yeah, the problem was really retarded. But I guess with computers, the smallest problems are usually the hardest ones to find. Anyways, I'm actually pretty proud of myself for figuring it out. Throughout all of undergrad, I always took the easy way out with assignments. If I ever ran into any problems, I'd probably spend an hour tops trying to figure it out. I'd always just end up asking the T.A. or get a friend to help me out, and I guess I never really did anything on my own. This was the first time I was in a situation where I couldn't solve a problem, and no one was gonna bail me out of it. Well, I guess it wasn't that huge of a problem to begin with, and it seems like I'm making such a big deal over it, but for me, I guess it kinda is a big deal. I think right now I'll get something to eat and have a nice guiltless workout.

Holy shize, has work got me frustrated! It's just one of those days where nothing is working is working the way it's supposed to. I wish I knew how to fix this problem, it's really pissing me off... Man, and it's so nice out, I wonna play some football. Does anyone here use Resin for their web application and knows how to upgrade to version 3.0 and wonna help a brotha out?

Well, I didn't have an exceptionally exciting weekend, but I was pretty productive. On Saturday I was busy at home doing spring cleaning. Includes sweeping the entire house since our vacuum is on the fritz and cleaning all the rooms. I even finally dusted my room and tidied up all of my clothes. Yesterday was a nice day out, so my brothers and I were all busy doing yard work. For anyone who doesn't know this about me, I absolutely hate doing yard work. I dunno who's bright idea it was of filling our entire house with all these ugly plants. Honestly, for anyone who's been to my house, we've got trees just growing everywhere. They're not maintained at all, and they're just growing everywhere and they're so ugly. All I know is when I grow up and get my own house, I'm not gonna have any plants on my lawn, and instead of grass, I'm just gonna have astro turf. Anyways, that's just my rant on the ugly plants at my house. As I was saying, yesterday my bros and I spent the afternoon with a saw and hedge clippers and just hacked down everything. I hope they all die so I don't have to do it again next year. Well, I thought I'd just mention my labours this weekend since I'm sure that most of the people that know me think that I'm just a lazy slob and doesn't lift a finger when I'm at home. I also played some good tennis with Allan, and played a lot of great games of Warcraft with Dwight.

So, a couple days ago, Allan and I decided to play a little tennis. So we go there around 4:00, and when we get there, the tennis courts are just filled with about 40 kids around the age of 4 or 5. These kids are just screaming and running around all over the place, with like 2 or 3 adults watching over them. So, when Allan and I get to the courts, the adults tell the kids to keep off the last court to let Allan and I play tennis. We start playing, and these curious little kids decide to watch Allan and I play. Let me tell you, it was so much pressure playing in front of 20 ~ 30 little kids, all either cheering for you, or booing for you. Well, it started off with most of the little ones cheering for "the guy in the grey shirt". I was wearing a grey shirt, and Allan was wearing a white shirt. But after a couple bad hits into the net, and with Allan's natural charisma and skills with little children, how quickly did those kids go over to Allan's side. For the rest of the match, the kids were just chanting, "go guy in the white shirt, go guy in the white shirt!", and they were just booing me whenever I'd hit a ball into the net. Well, the adults told the kids not to boo us, cuz it was rude, but I could hear them all say "The guy in the white shirt is the fastest! He hits the ball super fast!" The kids even divided themselves up onto different sides of the court to show who they were cheering for. I had no one on my side. It really was quite the experience. I've never had an audience watching me play before, and boy were these kids vocal about it. It must be what Federer or Roddick feel like during the US Open. Or does anyone remember that match where the entire stadium was booing for Serena Williams? I now know what that must have felt like, and I really feel for her...

On Friday we had a surprise part for good old Ryan. For some reason I didn't think it was a "real" surprise party, and I almost ruined it by showing up 10 minutes late, and by parking my car in their parking lot. It's all good, cuz Ryan showed up an hour later, and a friend told me that I should probably move my car a bit further from the house. Well, it was a fun night, chilling with all of Ryan's imaginary friends. They're actually pretty nice for imaginary friends. Well, here's one to you Ryan, I'm really gonna miss you when you're gone, don't forget to let me know whenever you're in town. Stop just reading everyone else's blog and get your own blog so I know what crazy things you're up to.

On Saturday morning, Allan and I headed to London to visit Jon. We got there at around noon and had lunch at Wonder Sushi. It was all right. Well, Wonder Sushi's always good, but I think they were kinda sloppy with their rolls, and the really perky waitress wasn't there. After lunch, we headed over to the driving range. I think I'm getting worse at golf, I gonna try to work on my swing a bit more this summer. Jon and I also made a bet to see who could hit the ball closest to the flag. I lost this critical bet. Went back to Jon's place for dinner which consisted of a delicious schwarma(sp?). We mostly just chilled for the rest of the night. Played some poker, watched the Leafs game, watched the UFC. Oh man! Some really good fights!

Sunday we got up late and went out for lunch. Allan and I decided to go shopping since Jon had to "study" at the library. The guy lasted for about 15 minutes before it was time for him to pack it up and go home. Unfortunately for Allan and I, all the stores were closed, so we went to campus to meet up with some of Allan's Western buddies. With nothing to do, and with time to kill till dinner, Allan and I went back to Jon's place. Jon was already in his PJs and looking for any reason to get out of doing work. We watched Wedding Crashers, which was a pretty funny movie. "She was my first Asian!". Allan and I met up with some of his friends for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was good, I got some of the dirt on Allan during his undergrad. We drove home after dinner, but it was a good weekend.

On a different note, my little bro just got a job at Wonderland. I'm really proud of the guy, so I'll refer to him as Winner-J instead of the usual Loser-J for this post. Well, this is a pretty exciting time in my life right now, all three Kwa kids have a job! Wooooaaaahhhh Kwa!

Yesterday I had a great workout followed up with some fun volleyball. It's all coming together for summer '06.

So I had a pretty fun weekend. Friday was Care's birthday, so a bunch of us went out to celebrate. It was a joined party with Andrea, so there were a lot of people, and I didn't know about half of them, but it was still a lot of fun. We went to Alice Fazooli's for dinner, which was all right, except that it was pretty expensive with tiny portions. After dinner we went out to some lounge, I forget the name. We just hung out and stuff. I finally learned how to play that drinking game with the cups and die.

Saturday I went down town to visit Neeta and Eric. For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant called Il Pasto, or something like that. I had the escargot pizza, and it was so good. Not too expensive either, I liked it a lot better than Alice Fazooli's. After dinner we watched the Inside Man, Eric vetoed all other choices. The movie was all right. It kind of had an interesting plot, but at the same time the movie kind of dragged on and got kind of boring. I crashed at Neeta's place. We kind of slept in on Sunday, and pretty much bumed around the entire day. We literally didn't leave her room the entire day and pretty much watched a bunch of DVD's and listened to music. The one thing that we did end up doing was go for a swim, but that definately took a lot of effort just getting out of bed. But it was good cuz the swim was a lot of fun, and Neeta's definately showing great signs of improvement.

Today after work, I finally used the free week pass to GoodLife that Puja gave to me (thanks). Man, what a great workout! Did chest, shoulders, and tris. This will be an intense week for working out. I just got back home and had my second dinner. After I finish this blog, I'm gonna down a delicious protein shake.

So yesterday was a fun night. The gmail thread that's been going on with friends from highschool has been pretty entertaining. It looks like more and more people are joining this thread, which is good cuz it helps a bunch of us keep in touch with eachother even though everyone's busy with their own lives. It also gives me some interesting stuff to read when I'm bored at work. Anyways, last night Nat, Britta, Puja, Jib, my bro and I got together for some bubble tea and bowling. It was nice seeing Britta, Puja and Jib since I don't get to see them very often. Yeah, and I still can't get over how smart Britta and Puja really are. Sometimes I forget how smart they really are and I'll even start to think of them as average people. But then something will come up and I'll realize that I'm in the presence of something much more and I could only wish that I could be that smart. Well, at least I beat them in bowling. Dang, and I was only two points behind Nat. I haven't beaten that guy in over a year, it's really pissing me off.

So, I had a purdy fun weekend. On Friday, a bunch of us got together at Boston Pizza. Jon even made it back from London to join us for dinner, and to collect money for his cancer fundraising. But yeah, it was a lot of fun, Nat and I got to see all the Western boys combined with Erika, pure jokes. Afterwards, we went over to my place and played the Friends trivia game. Jason and I (and my cousins, but they don't count cuz they don't watch Friends) nearly beat everyone else, which is pretty impressive considering the other team had both Nat (watching every episode of Friends for the THIRD time) and KennyG (nearly killed himself rushing home to watch the series finale).

Saturday afternoon, I met up with Ryan to watch a movie. We watched the Ultimate Avengers, the animated movie. It was all right, I loved the X-men and Spiderman cartoons when I was growing up, so this movie kind of reminded me of that. Later that night, Jon and Nat came over to watch the Leaf's game, but the game was so depressing we decided to abandon that idea and go out for dessert instead. Puja's also in town preparing for interviews, so she joined Jon and I at Just Desserts. After, Allan and KennyG showed up and we went over to my place to play some poker. Puja's gotta learn not to go in for every hand, especially when KennyG's getting straights every hand. Unfortunately, Jon took home the pot.

So, yesterday was fun. Neeta, Ryan, Naomi and I went out to celebrate a number of things. Neeta getting even older, Ryan and I starting our jobs this week. We went to north K-Town and had dinner at a Korean restaurant. I had some delicious bulgogi and got a chance to see how Ryan's been doing at his new job. You'll be the next spider solitaire champion in no time! This is also the same restaurant I went to with Ryan a while ago where I happen noticed a large number of attractive females. Last night was a disappointment in that respect, except for the two lovely ladies in the same booth as me.

Best things about my new job include:
Not having to shower/brush my teeth before going to work.
Not having to commute three hours to work.
A free cafeteria with my own personal chef.
My own personal gym in the office.

It's pretty sweet...

So yesterday was a fun day. Neeta, Eric and I went for a little skiing adventure at Blue Moutain. Things were a little uncertain with the warm weather we've been having lately, as well as whether to ski or snowboard because of the different skill levels. In the end, Eric and I decided that we would board for the night, and Neeta was going to ski. Well for those who don't know about my boarding abilities, I suck. I've gone twice in the past, and everyone who's tried boarding before knows how much you fall and how much it hurts when you start learning. Well, last night was a lot of fun, I think I was starting to get the hang of it. I actually had a couple of runs where I didn't fall and felt in control the whole way down. True, we never left the bunny hill, but come next season, I'm pretty confident I should be ready to tackle the blues. One funny story. So, Eric and I had some troubles staying on our feet when getting off the chair lift. One time, Neeta comes up with the bright idea of giving me a second head start to get off the chair lift, and then get off in order to avoid collisions. Neeta ends up missing her chance to get off the lift and the chair lift turns around and begins to go down with her still on the chair lift. Yeah, so we had to stop the chair lift, the chair lift operator had to come out and take off her skis, and then we had to carry her down off the lift. I was so embarassed. It was a fun day.

I also start work on Monday. I'm pretty excited about that.

So yesterday, Nat and Allan stopped over in the afternoon for a small workout. Nat's working, but still manages to get to my place by 3:00 which I still find interesting. So we had a small workout, Nat and I later play some PS2. For dinner, I went down town to hang out with Neeta. First we played the "Friend Trivia Game". Even though Neeta would consider herself a "Friends Fan", and owns something like the first 7 seasons on DVD, I still took her down with ease. We then watched some Blind Date, "Dates From Hell" on DVD. Man, I love that show, it's so great! Afterwards, we talked about a bunch of stuff, it was pretty funny.

Today, Allan and I visited my cousin Helen at her clinic. Helen has her own chiropractor clinic, while Allan's still in 2nd year, so Allan wanted to what it's like to open your own clinic. They talked for what seemed like forever about chiropractics and stuff I knew nothing about, but it was all right. After a long discussion, I got a chance to get adjusted by a certified chiropractor with a real adjustment table. Boy was there a huge difference! Nat, you would have loved it! Allan, you still got a lot to learn to reach the level of cousin Kwa.

So, this is what my weekend's been like so far. On Friday, Eric and I met up for dinner at some Brazilian restaurant. The food was pretty good, and I think it was authentic since the waitresses didn't know how to speak English. Afterwards, we met up with Neeta at a pub called Madison's. It was my first time at this pub, but it was a really cool pub with a lot of people and a really good atmosphere. We watched/listened to some guy playing the piano. He was really good, and played a bunch of classic/popular songs that I know. It was a pretty fun night.

Saturday morning I got up early to go bowling with Nat, Tiff, and her younger sister Candace. I had a decent day of bowling, but props goes out to Nat for bowling two games over 200, and one game with no open frames (for those who don't bowl, that's pretty impressive). Afterwards, we went out for lunch at Nat's favorite restaurant for won-ton noodles. Nat came over afterwards and we hung out and played some games on PS2.

I haven't done much today, except that I just got back from a swim with Allan. I had a pretty good swim. There's a pretty funny story about a guy who absolutely reeked of BO in the pool, but I think it's kinda mean posting that on my blog. Hopefully Allan'll post a funny version of the story on his blog instead.