Sh!ma

Get Your Boobs Touched

Today is the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Don’t forget to perform a breast exam every month.

My wreath is better than yours

So we put up our super awesome wreath on our door sometime last week. No one else on our floor had anything else… I came home tonight to find a really nice tangerine branch arrangement on someone else’s door (It just so happens to be the door right in front of the elevator, so naturally everyone will see it!) I really like the decoration, but I feel like who ever it is is trying to out do our super awesome wreath…

This reminds me of first year in Waterloo. Ghracie and I put up some awesome christmas lights up in our dorm as soon as we moved in. People walked by, and kept on complementing us on our fine taste. The next week there were at least three other rooms that also had christmas lights! That’s not cool! The war is on.. I’m gonna have to think of something else super awesome for our front door..

Design and Construction of the Vimy Ridge Memorial

I’m listening to the Between the Covers Podcast. The book they are currently reading from is called the Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart . Besides from the fact that they have officially turned me onto audiobooks, the story also got me interested in the Design and Construction of the Vimy Ridge Memorial

Vote By Proxy

If you wont be able to vote tomorrow, like me, then you can vote by proxy.

Here are a few steps to follow:
1. fill out this form
2. remember to have a copy of the proper ID information
3. drop off the form at your returning electoral office
4. cross your fingers and hope your party wins!

UW's Secret Science Dance 2007

So, yes most of you would have seen this on Matt’s site, but I feel like I need to have a record of it on my site. (Matt and my planning dance is ever so slightly less awesome..)

Water, Water, Water… Looo Loooo Loooooo…

America Speaks

Okay, Fine, the Americans are doing one thing right. But how do we ever get those darn ethnic minorities to get involved with planning? How I ask you.. How?!

Sterling Road, Toronto

Today’s blog is brought to you by the Road Sterling, located on the west side of Toronto. It’s a short street between Dundas Street West and Bloor Street that can be accessed off Dundas, but because it becomes a one-way street midway through can not be accessed off Bloor Street.

There is a beautiful terminating view on Sterling Road that shouldn’t be missed. Go ahead, take a trip to my hood. I dare ya.

Big Ideas

It’s no lie, I really like the podcast experience. Today I was listening to Big Ideas, a lecture by Simon Winchester on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I never knew the history of the dictionary would be that interesting, but it was. Did you know that in 1985 the University of Waterloo helped realphabatize the dictionary? and in 1995 they begun to work on the 3rd edition of the dictionary begining with the letter “O”. Twelve years later and they’re only on the letter “M”. The third edition will be 40 volumes, weight 1/6th of a ton, have 980,000 words in it and be completed sometime in June 2037.

Facinating stuff.

Pecha Kucha Toronto

For this weeks “Urban Adventure Friday nights in the City” event we went to Pecha Kucha on Friday. Adam had told us about Pecha Kucha a few weeks prior and made it sound like something every design/planning/architecture student/professional should attend. And so we did. Ram and I only stayed for the first half but Fadi and Mark (who was working at the event) stayed for the whole thing. Over all it was a good first Pecha Kucha in Toronto. Most presenters adhered to the 6 minutes and 40 second time limit but the majority were sort of rambling about projects their firm had completed in the past. There was really no substance. I liked the presentation by Plant Architects and Evergreen best. I have to ask Fadi how the other groups did. David Miller, a.k.a.my photo buddy, was present and concluded the first half of the event by talking about some of the projects he liked that were around the city. He’s such an energetic mayor. I wish he would stopped complaining though. Here are some pictures of the event Ram posted. I really like the interior of the Design Exchange. It’s a very pretty room. I was telling Ram I liked it more than the Carlu, but he wasn’t impressed with me! heh..

The Results of the International Nathan Phillip Square Student Design Competition

I received an email from the organizers yesterday. Unfortunately we will not be indulging in the $500 dinner! Sucks.

Here are the winners:

First place: Zachary Rood (Cornell University – USA)
Second place: Ramond Chau, Wai Yan Leung, Crispan Lo, Clarissa Nam (University of Waterloo -Canada)
Third place: Laryssa Stecyk (Cornell University – USA)

Honorable mentions:
T. Callaghan, X. Wu, K. Pinkerton, L. Chen (University of Guelph – Canada)
E. Chew, K. Wood, A. Revervzzi, X.X Yu (University of Adelaide – Australia)
D. Adams, F. Masoud, L. Lui (University of Waterloo – Canada)

Yay for all the Waterloo-ers!

Nathan Phillip Square student design competition

Today was the final due date for the Nathan Phillip Square student competition. I was in a group of four people, all which are current UofT students. Being the busy and lazy students that we are, we left the project till the very last minute. Although we met regularly to talk about our ideas, we didn’t put pencil to paper until Tuesday late afternoon. We finished it in two days, which is record breaking. I think so anyways.

We ended up driving the foam boards to University of Guelph today after we completed the project. After spending some time trying to navigate through the campus we finally came across the Landscape Architecture building. We were greeted by the schools dean, Maurice Nelischer. He is a real up beat guy that gave us a tour of the building and introduced us to the students currently there. From the looks of it the architecture program seems quite good!

Maurice told us that they had received over 40 entries and were expecting more, since 140 groups had initially registered. He also mentioned that there were some groups from as far as Australia, South Korea and Vegas. That’s real amazing!

They are planning on having a presentation on the student competition sometime in May and a website with all the entries. So I will keep anyone interested up dated!

Competition winners are going to be announced probably sometime in April. Our group is aiming for an honourable mention. heh.

Lower Bay Station

So I finally got to see the ghost station. It looks erie familiar. Did they intentionally make it look just like Bay Station? (I did a quick search and yes, in fact Lower Bay has the same architecture and tile scheme as the upper level.)

It was pretty exciting, but obviously not everyone in the subway car cared much. We were probably the only ones that were that excited.

The train actually slows down considerably between the trip from Museum to St. George, so you get quite a good view of the abandoned station. Lower Bay is one very dirty and decrepit station. I wouldn’t want to wait for a train there..ever.

I wasn’t too surprised about the station’s condition though. What surprised me was the subway ride between the stations. I didn’t notice the train making any noticeable turns, includes or declines. It was an unexpectedly very smooth ride. One minute we were on the green line, the next we were on the yellow line. The ride is nothing like the union loop! Maybe it would have been a little bit different had I been sitting at the front of the subway. I think next weekend I’m going to try to do just that. Any takers?

I must really commend TTC staff. I think they were doing a fine job of redirecting people and making sure everyone was going where they wanted to go. The TTC has yet to disappoint me when it comes to dealing with mass crowds during special events.

Museum Mayham

If you haven’t already heard the TTC is doing some construction on their Bay station and on the weekends for the next little while, they’ll be rerouting all their trains to meet at Museum.

I had to make my way from downtown to uptown this morning and I usually give myself an hour to travel the distance, but since I knew that I should expect some delays on the trains today I left 2.5 hours earlier*. I took the eastbound train all the way to Museum before the train I was on went out of service. Three lines converge on the Museum station during the weekends: a northbound train going to Finch (looping around union), a train going back west and another train going east. It’s not that confusing though. There are lots of TTC staff personal around directing people and there are constant announcements on the PA system as well.

I was looking forward to getting a sneak peak at the lower Bay before tomorrow’s big TTC trip except it didn’t happen. The trains were taking way too long to come, so I decided to take the northbound train to Finch from Museum instead. Hopefully tomorrow’s TTC ride will be more fruitful.

*(it took me just over 1.5 hours to get to my destination this morning)

A Letter from the City of Toronto Clerk's Office

I got a letter in the mail from the City of Toronto’s Clerk Office. A letter addressed to me! Imagine that! I feel like I’m a somebody. And the signature is an actual signature! Not one of those fake ones!

The letter isn’t anything that important though, it just acknowledges that they received my application for the Committee of Adjustments and they will be making phone calls on the 16th of February to tell you if you got an interview (they only call if you get an interview). Interviews will be conducted on the 21st and 22nd of February from 9:30 to 6:00 pm.

The interview panels will be:
Panel 1 Scarborough and Toronto and East York Panel
Councillor Janet Davis, Chair
Councillor Joe Mihevc*
Councillor Frances Nunziata
Councillor Norm Kelly
(* You think if I get an interview I should let Joe Mihevc know that I’m still waiting on a response from his office from two years ago?)

Panel 2 Etobicoke York and North York Panel
Councilor Cliff Jenkins, Chair
Councillor Paula Fletcher
Councillor Joe Pantalone
Councillor Adam Vaughan*
(*I hope Adam Vaughan recognizes me if I do get an interview with them! He totally said hi to Vince and I oneday before the elections as we walked on Bloor! But maybe he was just saying hi to everyone! )

I’ll let you know if I hear anything on the 16th! :o

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

I’m not a doctor and don’t plan on being one, but I know my share of friends who are in the process of being medical professionals or those that are aspiring to be one and a few of them had recommended Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. When I first saw the book at Chapters, I thought the book had stories about the medical world and miraculous cures. And then I remembered that a friend had mentioned that it was about a few medical students and the story was set in Toronto and the title was just a fancy title.

Reading the first two chapters reminded me of the conversations I have with this particular friend about not having enough time to date when you’re trying to get into medical school and not risking the distraction (My advice, which maybe isn’t the greatest advice, is to grow up and just date someone because med school may or may not happen). But then again trying to achieve your goal sometimes gets in the way of dating. For instance: how many Waterloo architect students do you know that are in a meaningful relationship? Some programs just don’t allow for you to have a reasonable relationship, so I see her point. (Though, I did hear about this architect student who was planning on getting married this summer during her co-op term!)

Anyhow, the book is a bit of a disappointment and I didn’t like the ending very much. But I have to mention that I read the whole book in less than 24 hours, so it was a good read.. or maybe I realise I don’t have time to spend reading and had to finish it tonight before I get busy again.

Yay.. School… :s

2007 Winter Schedule

I should have probably looked up my schedule before the first day of the new term. Anyhow here is the low down:

Mondays 1:00 – 3:00: PLA 1102
Tuesdays 9:00 – 1:00 & 2:00 – 6:00 PLA 1653
Thursdays 2:00 – 6:00 PLA 1653 & 6:00 – 8:00 PLA 1103

Happy Studying to all ye students back at school.

TA, no more

I’m hanging up my TA hat and hopefully not using it every again. Being a TA was nice and all, but I don’t think I want to do any more for a few reasons:

1. There aren’t any design classes I can TA for and that’s what I’d rather do.
2. I’ve TAed a few times now, and although the money is nice (three-times nicer when you’re a grad student), my resume is beginning to be clogged up with too many academic positions and I decided a long time ago I would never do a phd.
3. I enjoy teaching my kid’s Karate a lot more than I enjoy teaching school stuff. And if I don’t TA than that means I have more time for my Karate kids.
4. TA-ing is stressful sometimes.

Anyhow, marking the final exam was kind of fun. I got, what I think, was the easier portion of the exam to mark this time around. Here are some sample answers I got for one of the questions on the exam that asked the students to explain the contributions made by Ian McHarg to GIS that made me laugh:

• He was a digitizing monkey
• He surfs in Hawaii and pretends to work
• His house is made of points, lines and polygons
• McHarg showed us all that a little perseverance and hard work can let us achieve our dreams. .... Thank you Ian McHarg for contributing so much to the world of GIS

How does pedestrian walking speed differ in the Financial District vs. the Annex?

Vince, and I figured it varies quite a bit and decided to test our theory for our final project in Paul Hess’ PLA 1654: Urban Design Research Methods class, which is probably one of my top three favorite classes ever, including undergrad classes in Waterloo.

The goal of the assignment is to let us, students, use a research method that we’d studied in class to gather data that would be relevant and perhaps important for Urban Designers.

We decided to use a basic environment-behavior research method and did a literature review of environment behavior-research methods to begin things off.

We picked two locations: King Street West, and Bloor Street West. We had proposed to do 75 observations (25 at 9:00am, 25 at 12:00 pm, and 25 at 5:30 pm) on 2 days for each location, but our prof told us we were being unrealistic and should aim for something lower. So we settled on 80 observations (40 at 9:00am and 40 at 12:00pm) over 4 days (doing one observation per day) for each location.

We approximated a 20-meter distance for each location with an obvious start point and an end point. Our exclusionary criteria included children, mothers with strollers and the Handicap.

We also had a set of seven other subject specific observations we were recording on our observation sheet:

1. whether they were listening to music
2. whether they were using a cell phone
3. whether they were carrying something
4. whether they were alone, in pairs or groups
5. type of shoes they were wearing
6. general age range; and
7. their gender

We’re not quite done the project, but here is the preliminary finding from my set of observations and from some discussions between Vince and I:
(I did the observations for the Financial District… hot men in suits! oh yeah!)

1. the frequency of which women walked by was a lot lower compared to men
2. people walked marginally slower at lunch
3. there were a lot more people walking at lunch
4. more people smoked and walked during lunch
5. those who listened to music/talked on their Cell phone walked slower
6. the weather didn’t make much of a difference in walking speeds
7. pedestrians walked faster in the Financial District than the Annex

And because no one is perfect, a few flaws with the research design:

1. the path network that runs underground in the Financial District was never taken into account
2. because of the tall buildings no sunlight reaches the pedestrian realm, we could have picked a location with better sun access in the Financial District

We’re doing a presentation on December 6th and then handing in the final paper on the 15th so I’ll put more stuff up as we approach the deadlines.

And no time for everyone’s favourite: Tips for doing outdoor research:

1. If you’re doing the research in late fall, wear something warm, because conducting research takes a long time. Alternatively pick a location where you can move in doors if the cold gets unbearable.
2. If you’re working alone bring some music to make the time go by faster.
3. Don’t loiter on private property.
4. If you need to start at a specific time be sure to take into account travel time on the TTC (it varies from day-to-day).
5. Print an observation sheet with options to circle. Circling is a lot easier with mitts than writing.
6. Try to blend in, you don’t want the subject to know you are observing them.
7. Take time out from doing the research bit to enjoy the scenery! ;)

This is just a glimpse of what I’ve been up to in the past few weeks. We are also looking at the public participation methods used in the City of Toronto’s Coordinated Street Furniture project. I’ll write about that one another day.

Carboo Avenue, Toronto

What did you do on World Town Planning Day?

I was planning the revamping of Rosedale into a social housing project, similar to the Regent Park Revitalization project. I’m not doing it out of spite, though that would be one way to celebrate being a Planner. It‘s actually for our first year design studio project (PLA 1652H Introductory Studio in Urban Design and Planning). Could we do something more unrealistic than that? Nope.

I also went to a Ward 18 Candidates meeting with Ram. I thought it was very informative and unlike Ram, I think it was very well attended. I’ve heard horror stories where nobody shows up to public meetings (I’ve helped organize one where just 5 people showed up!). So good job Ward 18 residences. There was also a little bit of drama that had to do with a topic that hits home. Talk about applying academic knowledge to real life situations.

First person with a reasonable answer wins a prize:
For 35 odd years a few auto-body shops in the ward have been using the sidewalks of a dead-end street to park/store their vehicles illegally. Recently, the residents of a new townhouse development have taken notice of the lack of enforcement and have voiced their concerns to their local councillor. After numerous attempts to remove these obstructions (ticketing owners and putting temporary barriers haven’t worked) the city was called in to put up concrete barriers to stop the business owners from infringing on the public right-of-way, leaving a lot of angry shop owners. What rights do the shop owners have? What other ways could the city have dealt with this?

I talked this over with Vince today as we walked to school (we have a real awesome research project we’re working on that I’ll write about tomorrow), and we couldn’t remember if there was some sort of precedence for situations like this where x has been taking place for y amount of years without complaints from anyone else and therefore the law doesn’t apply anymore (if there is something like that, how many years is the minimum?)? I’m hoping Tiff will jump in and save the day, or how about any of you aspiring Planners-in-training. <- That’s what they call us here. I should tell them I’m already a Planner! hah..

it's in your hands now

I just came home from handing in my application for University of Toronto‘s Masters of Science in Planning program. I feel as though my 4 years 3.5 years at Waterloo is going to be put under a microscope and scrutinized to no end. Will it be good enough? Only time will tell. Anyways, I’m not as worried about getting in or not any more. Over the last 6 weeks of “vacationing” I’ve discovered that grad school is not the be all or end all. I don’t need a masters of anything to help people, and at the end of the day that’s all I want to do. Though I suppose you can argue that I could help people more effectively with a masters of something. hm… my “vacation” is extended yet another week.

By the way, I’ve finally succumbed to temptation and will be the proud owner of an alumni email address “in one business day”. All your future concerns and complaints can be address there as my old undergrad email address will be non-existent after June.

Vote on the 23rd

A good place for a lot of information on the upcoming elections is the Elections Canada‘s website, so please have a look at it.

I was trying to figure out if I am on the voter‘s list, since I‘m the only one in the family that hasn‘t gotten the voter‘s information card yet, and as I was looking under the frequently asked questions I came across a very funny one: Is someone allowed to eat a ballot? And the answer to that my friends is No! Shocking, I know!

If you‘re eligible please go vote!

Body World 2 at the Science Centre

A whole bunch of the Karate folks, which includes a few of our bright soon to be MED students (YAY), went to see Body World 2 at theOntario Science Centre. It was a pretty neat exhibit of the inner workings of once-upon-a-time-alive-bodies. It didn‘t feel spooky or haunted though, and if you tried to forget that the bodies were actually real human beings at one point, everything looked like it could have been plastic peoples.

I think it was definitely worth it, if only to see finally what a spleen and big blood vessel that runs through your arm looks like. My favorite humans were the “Yoga Lady” and the “Exploded Man” (he looked like a super human). Also there were a lot of bodies that were doing some sort of sport and it was real neat to see the muscles expanding and contracting. The only disturbing part I found was the fetuses and eggs they had on display and I guess the cut through the obese person.

Statement of Intent for Grad school applications

Most gradschools usually ask for a Personal Statement from their applicants. If that‘s what you need to do, you‘re lucky as there are many resources out there for you to consult. Finding information on how to write a Statement of Intent, on the other hand, is a little bit tricky.

Here is a list of useful websites I‘ve come across in my research:
1. Berkeley‘s Career Center has some tips: Graduate School – Statement
2. The lovely people (I actually don‘t know if they are lovely) at “About”: So you want to apply to graduate school?
3. The folks over at University of California‘s edition: Statement of Intent Ph.D. and Academic Master‘s Programs

There aren‘t any super good sites out there. If you come across any, please let me know.

Proposed Changes to the Planning Legislation

I received an outgoing email today from OPPI that John, Gerretsen, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, will announce proposed changes to the planning legislation that will affect the Planning ACt and Ontario Municipal Board procedures.

Christopher Hume warns that this wont be sexy stuff but it is vitally important to the future of the city.

We‘ll just have to wait and find out what the changes are!

Who knew planning could be so exciting? :P

6 years too late

The thesis I was hoping to write not too long ago.