盧建亨life record in edmonton(fourth week)

8/14/2019 Life Record in Edmonton(fourth week)

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Fourth week (11/30~12/06) Temperature 2~-15℃

The temperature was going down every day when it started

snowing. It’s freezing cold if you stayed outside and forgot your hat

and gloves. This week was also my first week in Canada alonewithout Dr. Chang’s assistance. I needed to do everything alone. I

was getting familiar with the city transit system in only few days.

Although the fee of taking bus is expensive (CAD$2.5), it is still

worth than walking in a snowing day.

I read papers regarding “knowledge map” this week and I try to

integrate them into my research. The authors of these papers apply

different methods and knowledge structures to build their learning

systems. For instance, there are several kinds of knowledge map

likes hierarchy, taxonomy, network, and so on. Knowledge map not only

presents knowledge or concept in learning system but also describes or sorts the

relations of the concept and knowledge. One paper inspired me in the

design and development of systems because the author applied

knowledge awareness map to generate personalized knowledge

according to the learner’s location and interest.

Another point in these papers is that a successful learning system

should include some characteristics such as curious, challenge, and

fantasy to interest learners. However, how can I present learning

objects and related knowledge structure in my systems? I need to

read more papers regarding to knowledge map topics in order to do

research and develop systems.. In addition, I also complete a

timeline to describe every components and tasks that our research

project may need and when I should complete which tasks. There

are many tasks on the list and it is the time for me to catch themup.

Beside the researches, I also have some interesting experiences this

week. I went to a gym with my friend, Fluvio. He is an enthusiastic

Italian and now pursuing Ph. D here, he is also working in the iCORE

project. I find that we have same interests and sport habit, and he

introduces me a sport and wellness center belongs to Grant Mac

Ewan University.



The sport center is really cool and near to my place. It has gym,

swimming pool, places for different ball games and so on. It is a nice

place to do exercise after working. The entrance fee is CAD$7~9

depends on whether you are going into the center at the peak houror not, and the monthly membership fee is CAD$40~50. I decide to

join as a member in second, because I believe that I will have fun

and enjoy my life here.



The cars were covered by snows

Outside the apartment, the road was gone due to the

snows.

The Parks and River Valley.



North Saskatchewan River

This was a parking place, can you tell it right now?

Every mall has Christmas

adornment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Saskatchewan_River




Fifth week (12/7~12/13) Temperature -13~-35℃

The weather forecast this week was never higher than zero. The

lowest temperature even went down to minus 35 Celsius! I neededto protect my exposed face with scarf. Although the weather was

cold, I still had fun everyday. Usually, I went to ELC (Athabasca

Edmonton Learning Centre) from Tuesday to Friday. After work, I

went to the gym either alone or with Fluvio. By the way, because

the daytime became shorter and shorter, the time we got off the

duty was around 4 p.m. As I said, “life style in this city is relaxed,”

thus, sometimes I worked at home in the morning and went out in

the afternoon to find new interesting places of the city

In this week, I also met two students came from China. They are Ph.

D students and do the oversea researches here. They told me that

China government has serious plans to send their best students to

foreign countries and support them in the financial, so that they can

stay here and to do researches for either half or a year.

I realize how big the world is and we need to compete with talents

from the whole world. Perhaps Taiwan government will allow the

students from China to work in Taiwan in the future, we have to

study harder otherwise we might have trouble in competing with

them.

Of course, the wellness is the most important thing to all people. I

keep the sport habit and go to the gym at least twice every week.

This habit not only makes me feel healthy but also bring additional

benefit to me. People in the gym are friendly and I chat with them toimprove my conversation skill. We always start with “how are you?”

and end with “have a good day.” Sometimes we have longer

conversation and sometimes we just greet with each other by

saying hello. Anyway, it’s really interesting to me.



Fluvio, a friendly and funny guy.It’s freezing cold outside.

We went to the gym after work.





LRT station. There is no manager and staff inside the station, but

people still obey the rule and buy the tickets from the machine.

One day, we ate dinner in an American style restaurant; it costs me

CAD$20…



Sixth week (12/14~12/20) Temperature -10~-18℃

After last week’s storm, I feel the weather this week is very

comfortable. I even want to use the word, “warm,” to describe it.Next week is Christmas, so everyone works with a good mood, for

example, some AU employees have lunch in the kitchen and they

bring guitar and harmonica to sing songs. They are delighted and

enjoy the holiday’s atmosphere. It’s really an important day for west

countries. As a new friend told me, the really good things for them

in Christmas are: (1) they can stay at home and enjoy the time with

their family; (2) they send gifts to each others; and, (3) they can

have a wonderful dinner with the ones they love.

As usual, I work and do exercises during Tuesday to Friday this

week. The iCORE project announces a group research meeting will

be held on January 15, 2010, and each research group has to do a

progress presentation. So I work on our project and discuss with Dr.

Chang to make sure that our presentation will have high quality in

the meeting.

On Saturday night, I go to an Italian restaurant to have a dinner with

Fluvio and a friend of him. The dinner is expensive but it is so good;

the pasta is different from what I ever ate before. The wonderful

dinner and good service costs me CAD$35, the price includes tips. I

think cooking at home is a better idea for me, but sometimes,

having a dinner with friends is also interesting.

William will come here from Taiwan next week. I know many friends

concerning if we can survive here and preparing a lot of stuffs forus. It is so sweet; I deeply appreciate that and look forward to see

his arrival. Anyway, I hope next week’s weather will be good and he

will have a nice flight.



Snows on the outdoor tables and chairs, they look like ice

cream~~

Minus 11 Celsius, it is warmer than last week…



Seventh week (12/21~12/27) Temperature -9~-21℃

William came from Taiwan on Dec. 23 and it finished my single life

here. To express my welcome, I planned to rent a car to pick him up.Unfortunately, but the plan was rejected by both of our families.

They suggested me to find another way instead of driving on the

snows. So I went to Edmonton International Airport by taking “Sky

Shuttle” and came back home with William by taking taxi. It was

safer and cheaper, although I lost an opportunity to have experience

of renting and driving out of Taiwan.

William brought a lot of stuffs that friends sent to us, it made me

feel warm and I appreciated it so much. So many friends supported

us in studying abroad. But these warmest gifts made him pay an

overweight fee. Anyway, we were still glad to see each other and

thanked to all for these.

I took him to purchase something he needs just like Dr. Chang

helped me when I arrived in November. He was lucky because his

arrived on Christmas and New Year holidays, it meant there are a lot

of on sale promotions and we got our essentials for lower price. I

also introduced this beautiful city to him and helped him to get

familiar with her quickly. On Christmas, William’s supervisor, Dr. Tan,

brought us outside with two students from China and his two

daughters. We took a walk in a park which has a small descent that

people can slide with a board. The view was so good and many

people had fun there. In the evening, we went to Dr. Tan’s home and

had a bountiful feast. It was a wonderful Christmas!

This week is the last week of 2009. People have holidays and

welcome to the New Year. I also try to catch up my work in order to

make a perfect ending for this year. To prepare January 15’s

presentation, I need to complete several tasks according to my

timeline: (1) database schema and infrastructure; (2) basic agents

and functions on mobile devices; (3) reading papers; and, (4)

reporting progress and schedule in works I think these tasks train

me to be a person who can manage his time well.



Finally, time flies so fast. It is amazing that I have been here almost

two months! I wish that I can do better in the next year and all my

friends have joyful and fortune. Merry Christmas and happy New

Year!

A small beautiful park.

William feels so exciting…



On our way back home, we saw a beautiful house, the

owner must be rich, just kidding :p

Crazy boxing day on Dec. 26, everyone goes to

shopping!

The weather is cold but we are cool~



New Year’s Eve, we went out and joined others to do

final countdown.

盧建亨life record in edmonton(fourth week)

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