False Alarm

I had a bit of a scary experience leaving work today this evening. Currently, I am teaching an evening class on Mondays until 7:30pm. I am usually the last one to leave the school so I had to lock up. Normally when I lock up I have to arm the alarm system on the school's front door. Well, I pushed the wrong button on the control pad and didn't arm it properly so when I left the building, the sirens came on and within minutes there were police cars at the scene.. I had to explain to them that I was an employee who was leaving late and had punched the wrong button when leaving. The police called the principal of the school and she confirmed to them that everything was alright and that I really was an employee. Fortunately, nothing bad happened but it was scary there for a few moments especially when the cop cars came.
I'll have to be more diligent in the future...

Illness

It seems I've been getting a bit sick lately. The second time in the past week or so that I've felt ill. This time it seems to be worse though. I've got the worst headache and I have almost no energy. I feel I can barely walk. It all started this morning.. I woke up and felt like crap. I ended up spending most of the day in bed.. I just didnt have the energy to do anything. I hope this isn't a continuing trend. I think I've been eating relatively healthy lately so I don't think that's the problem... Maybe it's just bad luck at the moment.. oh well no big deal I guess.
I think I'll go lie back down....

Forgot the URL

I forgot to put the URL in my last entry. Here is the URL

Nationally Ranked

I just found a website which has all masters swimming times ranked according to age group and gender. They only rank up to 20th place and it's for all short course times done in the year 2005 (January 1-December 31). I was surprised to find that I actually ranked 13th place in the 200m backstroke from the time I did at the UBC meet in December. It was a shock to me since I know the time I did wasn't that fast. It's true that only 16 people swam the event but still, it's surprising. A few other people that I swim with also ranked for their age group:

Ian 18th in 100 back, 10th in 100 fly
Katrina (who no longer trains with us) 19th in 200 breast
Doug 18th in 100 back, 13th in 100 fly

It looks like we're not doing too badly as a group.. a couple of other guys just missed the rankings only by a little bit... hopefully next year we'll get more people on there.

Until next time...

Birthday celebration

Well... I can say it now.. Happy Birthday to me!

I'm officially 28 years old. A lot of people may not think that is old but it just seems like yesterday that I can still remember when I was in high school. It's pretty frightening actually. Sometimes I feel like I just want to relive my childhood all over again and maybe learn to appreciate it more. I think a lot of people feel that way though.

Anyways, I didn't do much on my birthday. I was planning on going out for dinner on Friday evening but I ended up staying late at work because one of the other teacher's was sick and I had to fill in for her as they had nobody else.. and they were begging me to stay. I couldn't really refuse because it would look bad. So, I ended up staying until 8:00pm that night and didn't get home until almost 9:00pm because I had to drive back home from Tsawwassen where I teach.

Anyways, my girlfriend and I ended up having a good dinner as we went to Milestones and had one of their great pizzas. It was totally awesome! My girlfriend liked their pizza too and she said it was by far the best pizza she's had in BC so far. After that, I went home and opened some gifts that she got for me and also some that relatives sent in the mail. I also got a lot of phone calls from family and friends that I wasn't expecting wishing me happy birthday. I thought that was pretty cool...

I also have some other news... it looks like I'll be moving at the end of this month (until the beginning of July anyway). I'll just be moving in the area here in Burnaby. I'll be moving to a smaller place on a quieter street near Metrotown. It looks pretty good. My girlfriend hasn't seen it yet but I'm hoping that she can see it tomorrow. Based on what I know, I think she'll like it. It's certainly a lot cheaper than what I'm paying now. One of the reasons I'm moving is that my landlord here has raised the rent immensely and now is starting to charge me for things that he didn't initially...it's too bad. I like this place.. but it's getting to be too much of a hassle and besides, my girlfriend has issues with our privacy here. I hope it will be better at the other place.

Anyways, I'll write more details as I know them... Until next time...

New Language

As you may know, one of my other hobbies is creating "conlangs" and "conworlds". It's basically a form of creative expression for me in my spare time. Some people like to draw pictures, some like to write stories, I like to create languages and fictional countries. One of my most recent projects is "Antarctican language" or "Napaakisu" in the local language. I've devoted a website that I've created to the project. Here is the link:

http://www.geocities.com/napaakisu/

I have about a 16,000 word dictionary and rudimentary grammar on the website as well as a bit of a description of "the Antarctica of an alternate universe".

Here is an example of text from Antarctican. It is Article #1 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (the most translated document in the world apparently)

NAPAAKISU TRANSLATION:

Kifefu hehupa uo haxoha uu penuxu panuno nupa pahepa lukiko tipopi nupa lukiko pepanu ai. Ia nihote faso kosifu nupa xuxuno, nupa ia sosa xuto mumi lukima mesoki fakoso kakoli faso papena ai.


Here are translations of the same document to other languages:

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


FRENCH TRANSLATION:

Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité.


GERMAN TRANSLATION:

Alle Menschen sind frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren. Sie sind mit Vernunft und Gewissen begabt und sollen einander im Geist der Brüderlichkeit begegnen.


SPANISH TRANSLATION:

Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros.


RUSSIAN TRANSLATION:

Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своем достоинстве и правах. Они наделены разумом и совестью и должны поступать в отношении друг друга в духе братства.


CHINESE TRANSLATION:

人人生而自由，在尊嚴和權利上一律平等。他們賦有理性和良心，並應以兄弟關係的精神相對待。


JAPANESE TRANSLATION:

すべての人間は、生まれながらにして自由であり、かつ、尊厳と権利と について平等である。人間は、理性と良心とを授けられており、互いに同 胞の精神をもって行動しなければならない


ARABIC TRANSLATION:

يولد جميع الناس أحراراً ومتساوين في الكرامة والحقوق. وقد وهبوا عقلاً وضميراً وعليهم ان يعامل بعضهم بعضاً بروح الإخاء.


INUKTITUT (ESKIMO) TRANSLATION:

Inuit tamarmik inunngorput nammineersinnaassuseqarlutik assigiimmillu ataqqinassuseqarlutillu pisinnaatitaaffeqarlutik. Solaqassusermik tarnillu nalunngissusianik pilersugaapput, imminnullu iliorfigeqatigiittariaqaraluarput qatanngutigiittut peqatigiinnerup anersaavani.


SWAHILI TRANSLATION:

Watu wote wamezaliwa huru, hadhi na haki zao ni sawa. Wote wamejaliwa akili na dhamiri, hivyo yapasa watendeane kindugu.


HINDI TRANSLATION:

सभी मनुष्यों को गौरव और अधिकारों के मामले में जन्मजात स्वतन्त्रता और समानता प्राप्त है। उन्हें बुद्धि और अन्तरात्मा की देन प्राप्त है और परस्पर उन्हें भाईचारे के भाव से बर्ताव करना चाहिए।


HAWAIIAN TRANSLATION:

Hānau kū'oko'a 'ia nā kānaka apau loa, a ua kau like ka hanohano a me nā pono kīvila ma luna o kākou pākahi. Ua ku'u mai ka no'ono'o pono a me ka 'ike pono ma luna o kākou, no laila, e aloha kākou kekahi i kekahi.


SWEDISH TRANSLATION:

Alla människor äro födda fria och lika i värde och rättigheter. De äro utrustade med förnuft och samvete och böra handla gentemot varandra i en anda av broderskap.


FINNISH TRANSLATION:

Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.


ESPERANTO TRANSLATION:

Ĉiuj homoj estas denaske liberaj kaj egalaj laŭ digno kaj rajtoj. Ili posedas racion kaj konsciencon, kaj devus konduti unu al alia en spirito de frateco.


In any case, these are just a fraction of the languages that this document has been translated in. The last one I put up there, Esperanto, is actually a constructed language in of itself. It was created in 1887 by Dr. Zamenhof, a Polish doctor who had a vision of creating a neutral language for global communication that wouldn't favour any one ethnic group over another. It was definitely a lofty goal even if it didn't match up to expectations. Esperanto is by far the most successful of the constructed languages we have today and as many as a couple of million people can speak it fluently in the world.

As you can tell, I'm a linguaphile and I probably will be posting lots more linguistic tidbits here in the future...

Until next time...

May 1st...

Wow.. May 1st is here. I can't believe it. Summer is just around the corner it seems..and you know what that means.. outdoor swimming at central park! yay! Although, I must say one thing about outdoor swimming. It sucks for backstroke which is my best stroke at the moment because the glare of the sun always gets in your eyes and it's harder to swim in a straight line. Perhaps I should invest in a pair of tinted goggles.. we'll see...
Also, another important date is coming up soon as well. My birthday is less than 2 weeks away. I'll be 28 years young... wow how time flies. I often find nowadays I feel nostalgic for my childhood. I would say that I had a pretty good childhood. There were certainly a lot of happy memories. I must say that oftentimes I wish things in my life were different.. but I guess you have to deal the hand you are dealt with...

I hope that my gf does something special for me on my birthday. She hasn't said about anything she is planning. Hopefully it will be a nice surprise. I'm hoping that we can do some travelling this summer. It feels like I haven't taken an extended vacation for ages... There might be a possibility later this summer to take a trip for work to Taiwan for a couple fo weeks where hopefully I can spend a bit of extra time relaxing as well as doing work of course. I'll have to see how it goes.

Swim practice was alright tonight. We did 16x25 - 4 on 40, 4 on 35, 4 on 30 and 4 on 20. The last four was basically a sprint and I didn't even stop at the wall but instead did flipturns and kept swimming. After that, we did 3x100 backstroke on 2:00 with fins for time. I did a 1:17, 1:12 and 1:09. I was fairly happy with that. Then, we did 4x75 on 1:40 where we had to equal our 100m backstroke time with fins doing a 75 without fins. I didn't have much of a problem with that. I did about 1:03 or 1:04 for each 75 without fins which is about 1:24 pace for the 100m backstroke. So that's not too bad. We did 4x25 of backstroke drill after that where we did one arm and then the other arm and then catchup drill.

After the backstroke was finished, we did a timed 100m breaststroke negative split. I surprised myself and did about a 1:40. Chris killed everyone and did a 1:28. Man, that guy just loves to race...We finished off the practice with 4x50 free where we did the first one on 40, then the next one on 50 and the last 2 on 1:00 (to warm down I would imagine). I didn't have much problem making the first one and then the last 3 I just really didn't try very hard. Overall, it was a fairly short practice but definitely fairly high intensity.

In any case, tomorrow won't be as hectic as it was today. Monday's are always pretty hectic for me as I have to get everything organized for the upcoming week. I think I'll have a nice rest now....