Has it already been a month? Seems like August came and went to be honest. It's been an extremely interesting and fast-paced month. Lots of good things happened and if anything not so great happened I've forgotten about it already. :p I'm usually the type to say that change is good or whatever...but all the changes I've experienced in the last month have just been...I don't know. I'm not sure if the change is good or bad yet I guess.

小病是褔 is a chinese saying that means having a small illness is good fortune. The meaning behind that is you'll feel loved and cared for. :) You're lucky that it's just a small illness, but you're even more lucky to have people around you who think about you and care about you. I've felt so horrible these last couple of days. I've been sick with some sort of cold. While my body's going through terrible pain though, mentally...I've felt so warm and fuzzy. :) One of my sisters, Betty, brought me congee today.

So a friend of mine, Renjie, will be leaving Ontario very shortly; I'll miss you! Honestly, when I went to Toronto last night to say goodbye, I thought that I'd never see the man again. Then he tells me that he's still doing TEDxWaterloo...so I guess I'll see him in 2011 at the very least. :) I think I've known him for a year now...I think we met during Canada 3.0 in 2009, but I can't quite remember.

So, not much has happened since last week. Germany won their 3rd place match against Uruguay, which I expected. I'm still kinda upset that Netherlands lost to Spain. Oh well, I've been trying to make myself feel better by telling myself that if Germany HAD to lose to ONE team, of course it'd be to the "best" team. Yes, I used quotations and put "best" to describe Spain because I still think Germany is the best team. :p

Whoever started the saying "you gain some, you lose some" was definitely right. I was actually quite upset on Wednesday when Germany lost to Spain 1-0. The team I so strongly believed in and invested so much time and energy into watching their games actually lost. Luckily I was pulled out of that misery quickly when long-time family friends called my family over for a BBQ at their place that night. After several games of Monopoly Deal, I felt a lot better.

I guess I should've blogged about ideaCity 2010 a bit sooner, but it's been a crazy week of playing catch-up. Anyways, so I volunteered for ideaCity this year and it was an interesting experience. Not only did I get to listen to more than half of the talks, we were also invited to all the after parties. :) To be honest, I was kind of disappointed at first when I saw the speaker line-up. I expected more tech-related talks.

I volunteered for Net Change Week this past week, but didn't gain much from it. The talks were good, but all things that I've heard of before from other tech conferences. It was nice bumping into @karensd though! She noticed my #ncwk tweet and asked if I was at MaRS too. Maybe it was the red hair, but somehow she recognized me from behind and called my name.

So this past weekend was EPIC's 2nd Annual Fun Fest...and it was definitely truly EPIC! :D Before I get started on that though, part of the EPICness actually started before meeting up with the team.

I guess I should've blogged after Canada 3.0. I really enjoyed it and well, it was nice to go back to where it all started. I love telling the story of how I got so involved. When people ask me how I got involved in EPIC and TEDxWaterloo, I tell them it's because I got to meet Renjie at Canada 3.0 last year when we volunteered. Canada 3.0 is also the reason I started using Twitter.

So my Joanna Week has finally come to an end. It's been 2 weeks of just...pure torture for everyone around me. I mean, how often is it that the usually oh-so-happy and easy-going Joanna becomes well...the exact opposite? I've had fun these last 2 weeks, been very selfish and taking time just for myself. I just needed that bit of time to re-charge and re-energize. :) Oh...and to study of course.