Downtown Oshawa

As I left the Regent theatre yesterday, I roam around the downtown area for a whole before heading back to campus. I was thinking of getting lunch there instead of going back to that expensive campus food. As I walk, I noticed beauty in many things that I have never realized before.

The streets are amazingly clean and the decorations for Christmas are slowly taken down. There were not many pedestrians on the road, I must have looked like a freak as I was enjoying the cold yet not freezing weather. The buildings in downtown Oshawa must have been built over the last several decades, one can easily tell the age of a building from the design of the building’s exterior wall. It is not like downtown Toronto where brand new modernized buildings are everywhere. Toronto have gone so far that the SkyDome is hardly visible from the harbor view.

Honestly speaking, I am not sure if that is a good sign or a bad sign. It is always difficult to find the proper balance for a city, as modernized buildings means prosperity for the city, but city planning for the sole sake of monetary gain really paints an impression that the city’s residence are mostly nouveau riche. The fact that new city planning covers a glorious landmark such as the SkyDome and CN tower is slightly bitter to my taste.

On the other hand old buildings paints an impression that the city have at one point seen prosperity, but the failure to continue with building addition would sour the impression with a possible fact that the city is poor.

If only it is possible for us as humans to not judge what others do or not do, we would all have a peaceful life. Simply enjoy the views for what they are and express yourself freely without worrying about how others might judge you.

A typical bus stop in the heart of Oshawa.

Old buildings on Simcoe street.

Tags: building, bus, downtown Toronto, heart, impression, oshawa, SkyDome, stop

Visiting Oshawa downtown

In preparation for the faculty of Education conference on social media and teacher learning, my coworker and I went to the Regent theatre located in downtown Oshawa for a second time. This time we are on premise to meet with the audio specialist at UOIT and Durham college’s media services department. Our goal was to discuss in details the audio portion of the event.
I parked my car in front of the Faculty of Education on 11 Simcoe street north. Paid the city of Oshawa a dollar and twenty five cents and ran into the Faculty of Education building at extreme speed. The reason for my sudden change of heart and rerouted to the Education building is primarily due to the extreme cold of today’s weather. It must have been -25 degrees Celsius or lower in Downtown Oshawa. It was so cold that I literally felt the outter layer of my jacket stiffens. After warming up for a bit, I headed back in to the cold and walk around the block, trembling from the cold wind that greeted me head on. What normally took less than three minutes of walking time felt a great deal longer. I haven’t felt this cold since my elementary school days, walking across a massive snow piled field when i was heading home.
The part I dragged the most during this visit to the Regent is the part where I have to go back to 11 Simcoe to “feed the meter”. The amount of time I initially estimated was around one hour, so after an hour, I must purchase more time to refrain from receiving any parking tickets. This means I have to walk in the cold to and from my car, the thought of the cold send shivers down my spine already. Luckily there were parking space right outside of the Regent theatre. The security guard told me normally these spots will be taken up by the students, there are many parking spots available now only because the university students have not returned to campus yet.
Armed with this knowledge and the warm sun shining in the sky, I actually started to enjoy walking in the cold and windy city! I started taking pictures to!

It really doesn’t look that cold, but in reality it is very cold. The building where of Canadian Imperial is the actual center of downtown Oshawa. It is Simcoe st north and King st. This city center is built like the more traditional city centers, a style that are no longer apply in newer city planning such as the downtown of Richmond hill. Simcoe and King are both divided in to two road, both single direction. Which means there are two King street and two Simcoe street at downtown Oshawa. To ensure there are zero mistakes when it comes to addresses, the east bound King street is renamed to Bond street and the south bound Simcoe street is renamed Centre street.

Here is a photograph of cars traveling north bound on Simcoe street north.

Tags: building, car, city of Oshawa, Faculty of Education, hour, King, oshawa, Simcoe street, street

Faculty of Education

“….by the way, our meeting with the Dean is at 9 am!” was a message I received just before I depart from my last day of AdobeConnect training.

A colleague and myself have been attempting to get a hold of the Dean at the Faculty of Education for quite sometime now. There is a conference in the new year he is planning and part of the conference would be on one of my systems, AdobeConnect. I have been administering this system for approximately two years now and have finally received Adobe approved training. This training have enabled me to understand the system more in depth from a user’s perspective and allowed me to recommend usage of the system more accurately.

The Faculty of Education is located on 11 Simcoe street north, Oshawa. It is in the heart of downtown Oshawa and is near the Oshawa bus terminal. The building is rented and there is a security guard at the front door asking for identifications whenever people enters the building. This was primarily to protect the students and to keep the drug addicts outside.

The event I am asked to help out with is an Educational base conference, topics surrounds social media and teacher learning.

The goal is to pull teachers into the current century and use some of the modernized tools in everyday teaching.

It sounds really interesting and I am glad I can be a part of this event.

Tags: AdobeConnect, building, colleague, faculty, Faculty of Education, oshawa, way

Another year, a new begining

Wow, it’s been so long since I last updated this thing! Well, if you have been here before, you’ll notice the page changed alot. I’ve updated the basic wordpress blog system to the latest 2.6 release. Due to this, all my old changes were wiped! Thank God I was able to preserve the database, if not, everything linked to this site will be a 404 error .

Tags: gas prices, life, market, oshawa