Welcome to my website. Here you’ll find my photos, links, and personal blog (scroll down!). I started this website because I wanted a place to document snippets of my life, interests, or simple thoughts. The idea originally came to me after viewing Adam Parkzer’s website, who has been adding posts to his blog since early 2009, when he was only 17. Along with the fact that I also wanted a place to practice my writing, I just thought it’d be a great opportunity.
I use Instagram for talking with friends, if you’d like to reach out to me casually, just DM me on there. I don’t have a secret “spam” account. Please don’t send money to people on Instagram claiming to be me (surprisingly, it’s happened before). For professional inquiries, contact [email protected].
i wish i could blog and write more but i dont have TIME. i’ve been doing physics and math the entire summer and this is surprisingly the first time i’ve actually felt drained
anyway this is a casual post i just wanted to log how i’m feeling, we’ll be back with the epic blog posts in like a day or two. and maybe the library will get me my book soon.
here’s a song ive been listening to
Books are boring.
That’s the mindset I’ve had for about the past 6 years of my life. I still remember the last time I read a book that wasn’t for English class. It was a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Big Shot to be exact. That book series (and maybe Dog Man) was realistically the only time in my life I’ve ever enjoyed reading. Not because the stories had much depth, but because they were funny and relatable.
Now that I’ve grown past my preteen years, I’ve inevitably gotten a lot more conscious of my health and well being. Unfortunately, reading just so happens to be incredibly good for you, so I thought I might as well start now and pick up a book. The problem is, where should I even start?
That was a trickier issue than I expected. I asked my only reading friend, Jack, for a book recommendation. He tells me that all the books he’s read are boring and probably wouldn’t interest me, but still gives me a couple titles. Us Conductors was one of them, which really didn’t seem interesting to me when I looked it up. The other titles didn’t seem very intriguing either, so maybe he was right about me not liking them.
This led me to my second option of just finding books people recommend on Reddit. This is where I’d always go for a human answer when I didn’t want to read the AI overview at the top of the search results. Unsurprisingly, I was suddenly drowning in book recommendations on the appropriately named r/booksuggestions subreddit. I really didn’t want to look up every suggestion to see if it’d interest me or not, so I more or less grabbed the first title I saw and went with it.
That’s how I chose Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck as the first book I’ll be reading. It’s not a long novel by any means—just about 110 pages—but I’m really not trying to overwhelm myself here. I’ll turn to reading longer titles once I finish this one. It’s also meant to be an extremely emotional book, which I do enjoy in media, but I guess there’s no way to know until I get my hands on it.
After a few chats with Gemini, I finally have the website up and working. I originally bought the domain on July 27 from Cloudflare for a price of about $10 USD. Not bad. Especially for a .com domain.
If it wasn’t already obvious, I know absolutely nothing about hosting or creating a website. In hindsight, it would’ve been a better idea to ask any of my more tech-savvy friends, but I digress. When I was first looking for a domain to buy, I looked through loads of websites—GoDaddy, NameCheap, Porkbun—all the big ones. I eventually landed on Cloudflare because it had about the cheapest yearly renewal rate.
I had all sorts of ideas when it came to the actual domain too. I first had a brilliant thought: alexc.ao. Unfortunately Angola was gatekeeping that one. Eritrea wasn’t letting “caoalexand.er” slide, either. This left me with no choice but to choose a more boring domain ending. “alexcao.net”, “alexcao.ca”, and “alexcao.blog” were all solid options. However, when I first saw that alex-cao.com was miraculously available, I knew the choice was obvious. Sure, the hyphen was kind of annoying, but it still has a great ring to it.
After another hour of trying to figure out what an SSL certificate is, the website is finally up. Sure, I still have some fixing to do, but this’ll be good enough for now.
I tried picking up Persona 4 Golden at the beginning of this summer. I played it for a couple hours, getting through the beginning of the story. I absolutely loved it. I’ve always loved the Persona franchise, as I previously played and finished Persona 5 Royal a few years back in grade 9.
But there’s a problem here. I used the word “tried.” I tried picking the game up. It’s been sitting in my Steam library with 5.1 hours for about the past 3 weeks now. What happened? I ask myself that question too. This is just something that happens to me whenever I try to pick up a story-driven game longer than 10 hours.
Surprisingly, this hasn’t just happened to one or two games. Yakuza 0, Horizon Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk 2077, Disco Elysium. These are all games that I tried to commit to playing, but I guess I just didn’t feel immersed enough in them.
One might think “What if you just didn’t enjoy them?” Well… maybe. I played Yakuza 0 as my first beat-em-up game. Wasn’t really used to any of the controls yet, nor was I super interested in the gameplay. But I was pretty excited to play the other three games, and even enjoyed the first few hours of gameplay.
Yet, over time I began to stop playing these games and eventually abandoned them. Surely this wasn’t an issue with time. I had as much time as I could’ve ever wanted, as I hadn’t even entered grade 11 yet.
Nowadays I realize that I certainly wasn’t the same person I was back in grade 9. I mentioned earlier that I previously finished Persona 5 Royal, which happens to be an 100 hour game, the longest mainstream title out there. Back then I also had enough commitment to play Red Dead Redemption 2, which is also quite a long title to beat, taking roughly 50 hours. It still remains my favourite video game.
I recognize now that the main problem I have is commitment. I find it so ridiculously difficult to commit myself to something fun or entertaining now. When I was big into video games in grade 9, I’d often be itching to play a specific game, just because I was into it so much. I could spend weeks or even months on just one game. I find it hard to even fathom that happening anymore.
I like to think that it’s all simply a consequence of my goals as a person. When I was 13-15, all I really wanted to do was have fun. I’ve gradually become more self-conscious over the years, subconsciously creating new goals, which are really just to take care of myself and to get a good career. This comes at a price—it becomes harder to go back to that life of fun you had before. This relatively satisfying answer reveals an unfortunate truth: Maybe I’ve just grown up.
This summer I’ve been doing tutoring for physics (SPH4U) and it’s been great. Until we got to the third unit, appropriately named Gravitational, Electric, and Magnetic Fields. This is the first unit that has served as an actual roadblock.
The previous units, Dynamics and Energy & Momentum, honestly weren’t a problem at all. These units focus on the physics you can see in everyday life. Like how a moving car has momentum (p = mv) or how you get thrown the opposite direction when that car turns (centrifugal force). However, once you get to the fields unit, you start to realize that you’re about to leave the realm of everyday life. You can’t visualize an electric field the same way you can visualize a block sliding on an incline due to the force of mgsinθ.
Part of the reason why I believe physics is so much harder to study for compared to math is because there are two components to it: the math, and the physical concepts. There is no science behind learning how radians work, or graphing the vertical asymptotes of a rational function. You simply learn how the math works, and you apply that knowledge to specific problems that your teacher may give you.
For physics, you need to understand the physical concepts before you’re ever able to apply the mathematics. For example, before you’re ever able to touch a problem regarding a two block pulley system, you need to understand Newton’s third law of action-reaction forces. I feel that this is especially true for the fields unit, as not only do you need to know a lot of new concepts, they are completely unfamiliar to your everyday intuition.
This doesn’t mean I don’t find the unit interesting, it’s cool to learn about the physics you can’t see. It’s just much harder. And I’m sure I’ll have this experience over and over again when the physics gets more complicated in university.
I’ve always felt podcasts have become this type of niche piece of media slowly dying out. Yet, Google tells me that they’re actually reaching an all time high in popularity. This is surprising to me because I’ve never met anyone else who would ever admit to listening to podcasts.
Either way, I wanted a place to talk about my favourite podcasts, and it might as well be on my website. These are my top three, saving the best for last.
Reply All was one of the first podcasts that I ever listened to, and it’s still one of my favourites for short episodes I can listen to on the go. The podcast itself tells stories about the internet, internet culture, and how people have shaped the internet over time.
One of my favourite episodes (that I can think of off the top of my head) is one of the very first ones, named We Know What You Did. The episode begins with the host introducing the hypothetical scenario: What would you do if someone knocked your door and told you, “I think we both know I’m here. We know what you did. Let’s go.”
I love this hypothetical scenario. Anyone who answers that door would confess to something, and I think everyone has that one thing they’ve gotten away with in life. The episode goes on to tell the story of Ethan Zuckerman, and the consequences he’s faced due to his creation of the pop-up ad in the late 90s.
I won’t go into the specifics of the episode, but it’s a prime example of how the internet has evolved over time. This is exactly what the podcast aims to convey every episode, and it’s why I enjoy it so much.
This is another one that I love, and it’s definitely up there with Reply All. It’s created and hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, who helps people resolve past conflicts and regrets. This is exactly where the title of the podcast comes from—the heavy emotional burdens that some individuals hold their entire lives.
I honestly don’t know why I enjoy this podcast so much, but the blend of good storytelling, narration, and humour from Jonathan Goldstein make every episode worth listening to.
It’s also worth saying that everyone has a regret in their life, something from the past that you just wish you could change. For some people, these regrets can snowball into bigger burdens that shape them into who they are. Jonathan Goldstein’s handling of these peoples’ past conflicts is what really draws you in. He acts like both a detective and therapist, and always manages to bring closure to these problems from the past.
This my favourite podcast of all time, and the funny part is that I never even knew I was a fan of true crime before I discovered it. Casefile manages to portray each case like a story, which is really what pulls you in.
My favourite episode from this podcast is the episode detailing the case of Jennifer Pan. This story is incredibly heartbreaking, and what made it even more tragic was the fact it happened in GTA, where I’ve lived my entire life. The episode begins with a frantic 911 call, where you can hear a young girl panicking and screaming for help when three armed intruders break into her house. After demanding money, the three men took the girl’s parents to the basement, and shot them several times.
Throughout the episode you learn about the life of 25-year old Jennifer Pan, who had lived her past lying and deceiving her oppressive parents about her grades. She was the one who initially called 911, and throughout the episode you learn the horrible truth of the case: Jennifer had paid people to kill her own parents.
This of course, is a merely a short summary of the case. The case in itself is an extremely interesting one, and goes much deeper than my explanation. You can research online for more information, but it really does show the toll that bad parenting can have on people.
Many episodes from this podcast make me very interested in the psychology of the perpetrator. Human nature is an interesting subject, and true crime often takes a deep dive into it. When you listen to the stories and doings of disgusting, awful people, you’ve ought to wonder, “what could possibly drive someone to do this?”
I flew out to Hawaii back on July 12 (way before I had any thoughts about making a blog) for a family trip. We usually go on trips once a year, and I was pretty excited for this one. It’d be my first time on a US state outside the lower 48.
We had two flights—one to LAX and another one to HNL. I’ve been on many connecting flights in my life, but this one might’ve been the most infuriating. Our flight to LAX was delayed by over two hours. Not only that, our other flight to HNL, was also delayed by about an hour.
Despite the long journey, we did eventually make it to Oahu. The morning after the flight I managed to take some pretty decent photos of the view of the hotel. It was pretty surreal to see mountains, since the landscape in southern Ontario where I’ve always lived is about the flattest region in the province.
Throughout the trip, I had plenty of different foods, but one of my favourites was probably an acai bowl from a local store called Island Vintage Coffee. The only picture I have of it is this impromptu photo that my mom took. Unfortunately, I found out recently that these don’t even come from Hawaii.
That same day we went to Diamond Head State Monument and hiked to the summit. This hike wasn’t anything notably difficult, but the scorching heat did make it seem like it was. Although the view was spectacular, the views that I saw on Big Island (scroll down!) were objectively a lot better.
On the third day of being on Oahu, we flew to Hilo, Hawaii. Hilo is the most populous city on the Island of Hawaii, which is often just called the Big Island. This is where most of the incredible sightseeing took place on my trip.
We had a rental car and drove to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which is where we saw Kilauea, an active volcano. It turned out to be erupting right when we arrived, which seems to happen every 11 days from a quick Google search. We got pretty lucky with our timing. I didn’t even think it was real when I initially saw it. When was the last time you saw a volcano, let alone an active one?
We drove around more of the national park and saw more incredible sights. These views were about as incredible as when I went to California almost three years ago now.
Another day on the island and I received a text from my friend telling me about Kona coffee, and how it’s a specialty coffee only grown in Hawaii. I had never heard of this coffee, but it’s apparently extremely well known around the world. I’ve never been much of a coffee connoisseur, it’s often just something I drink for the energy. However, upon writing this blog, I realized that the coffee I drank from Island Vintage Coffee was made with Kona. That probably explained why it tasted better than any coffee I drank at home.
While still on Big Island, we managed to find a pack of 100% Kona coffee at Costco and bought it. It was definitely expensive, but if it’s world famous, why not get it while we were still there?
The last couple days on Big Island were spent doing more sightseeing. I got the opportunity to go to the top of Mauna Kea, which is the highest point in all of Hawaii. This volcano is actually the tallest mountain the world, if you measure it from the ocean floor to the summit. Being on a peak this high might seem cool, but unfortunately the atmospheric pressure up there is about 40% lower than at sea level, making it a lot harder to breathe. We were originally up there to see the sunset, but lack of air made a lot less enjoyable. Fortunately, I did get a good view of the top of the summit.
The part I was excited for was surprisingly not the top of the mountain, but the bottom of it. The visitor centre of Mauna Kea is famous for its stargazing. I’ve always lived near the big city, so seeing stars has always been something I wouldn’t be able to do. Even though the stars were phenomenal, I learned that unfortunately the naked eye isn’t able to see the majority of the Milky Way like the photos on Google Images. Only a good camera is able to capture that.
Shortly after that day, we flew back to Oahu and did things like snorkelling and swimming with fish, which I don’t have any photos of.
To wrap up this blog post, here’s a picture of a cat that was sitting somewhere in the Dole Plantation (pretty boring tourist trap, I wouldn’t bother going there for anything more than a quick stop).
It’s the year 2026, why would I start a blog now, out of all times? When was the last time I even used the word ‘blog’? I certainly don’t remember. To be frank, trying to figure out how to use WordPress was quite a frustrating process. It might not even be worth the effort to make a blog that I could abandon after the first post. But, despite the learning curve, I think that it’s good to write about your day every now and then. I imagine it like a time capsule. Ten years from now, I’ll thank myself for starting this journey of documenting my life and maybe even laugh a little at my stories from my late teenage years.
I hope that my journey of this blog may improve my horrendous writing abilities. Writing paragraphs has never been anything I’ve been good at, and I might as well get better at it while also writing about my thoughts. I believe that anyone can get better at something they truly enjoy. Why not have that be writing about my life?
Throughout the years I don’t think I’ve ever had the idea of blogging or creating a journal. I just didn’t feel like something that I would find enjoyable. Only recently have I discovered why people enjoy it doing it in their free time—Documenting your thoughts and how you’re feeling to the world can simply make you feel better and rid your anxiety. It doesn’t truly matter if you’re the only reader of your blog; as long as your thoughts are out there, you might feel a little heard.
And so, this is officially the first post of my blog. My friends also liked the idea of starting a blog, and the title of this post is what one of them responded with when I first introduced the idea. For my future posts, expect to see anything ranging from my high school experience to just random thoughts that I might have.