this goes with toyota echo

found this when browsing google images looking for random shit.



brilliant.

please be on time

my DA account has reached over 4000 hits, but i have yet to make a thank you deviation since the 2000th. 4000 is not anywhere near impressive, but whenever i see people making a thank you deviation per thousand hits, i feel obliged to do the same thing, just to not look like a total jackass.

so here's one.



my robin and nami drawing is getting shitty. i need to stop making comics and start my fanart streak again. the cool guy holding hand with robin is, of course, yours truly, drawn to look cooler and taller than he actually is. besides, it's a bishounen manga; everyone looks bishie in it. =P

and yes, those are the silhouette of kaku and lucchi enjoying music from their ipods. they decided to ditch spandam and the government after someone bribed them with ipods. apparently all the loyalty to the government they've shown for years earned them nothing. not even anything as simple as an ipod.

when nature doesn't get to screw me over,

it screws over someone else. like sam.

caedere: mother fucking shit
[e1n]: ?
caedere: the fucking buses are only on time when ur late
[e1n]: ha ha ha
[e1n]: isnt that good?
caedere: FUCK THEM ALL
[e1n]: i mean, if you're late already, and then the bus is late too
[e1n]: then you're even more screwed
caedere: no i came to the stop late
caedere: and the bus was online
caedere: *on time
caedere: so i missed it
[e1n]: ha ha ha
[e1n]: oh, that's waht you m eant
[e1n]: yeah, that's how nature works
[e1n]: AGAINST YOU
caedere: when i'm on time
caedere: it's at least 15 to 30 minutes late
[e1n]: ha ha ha
caedere: AT LEAST
[e1n]: dude
[e1n]: you have a CAR
[e1n]: use the damn thing
caedere: i just got a ticket parking at la jolla shores
[e1n]: HA HA HA
caedere: 2 hour zone
caedere: they never check that street
[e1n]: never, only when YOU parked there
caedere: and i was the only car that has a ticket on the wind shield when i got there
[e1n]: ha ha ha
[e1n]: that's awesome
[e1n]: since im not in SD
[e1n]: nature decided to screw YOU over
caedere: yes
caedere: i got ur yellow luck
[e1n]: sorry dude
[e1n]: gotta pass it on to someone
caedere: at least 10 gallons of extra gas wasted on stop lights
[e1n]: ahahhaha
[e1n]: that's lovely
caedere: come back
caedere: so ur the one who gets screwed over
[e1n]: 7 more weeks
[e1n]: just wait for it like i do
[e1n]: that's awesome sam
caedere: man

and sam still says the stupidest thing that just silenced everyone. some tall asian dudes just never learn.

[e1n]: btw
[e1n]: i got god of gamblers 3
[e1n]: flirting scholar
caedere: niceeeee
[e1n]: fight back to school 1, 2, 3
caedere: yeah i saw it on ur blog lol
caedere: wow
caedere: stephen chow marathon
[e1n]: oh yeah
[e1n]: seriously
[e1n]: im downloading these right now
[e1n]: tricky master
[e1n]: royal tramp 1 and 2
caedere: actually i prefer mara-thong better...
[e1n]: ..........
caedere: ha!
[e1n]: guys dont wear thongs, sam
caedere: no....i mean lots of lots of girls wearing thongs
caedere: 30 miles of them
[e1n]: oh....

how the hell are you supposed to respond to a statement like that? i feel like nero when franky decided to lie on his back.

comment this out

energy resolution plot is done, now i can start on my event scanning process. seems to be easy stuff so far, but that can just be because this is still training session. we'll see how this neural-networking process works out once i actually scan the raw data.

it is interesting how i find myself actually doing work during the day this week. it is quite some accomplishment that i decide to reward myself by leaving the lab at earlier times.

i want a red hooded sweatshirt with big stencil letters in the front side that says O HENRY. god of gamblers III is such a cool movie. gong li was really pretty back in 1992. she still is now, but she's quite old. image-google her name and you'll see a picture of her from 2004 film festival in cannes. trust me, she looks a lot prettier when she was young.

what was the commercial that had a slogan "treat yourself to some of life's simple pleasure"? was it a commercial? or was it on a card?

oh, right. it's on a homer birthday card that burps when you open it. i gave that to tin on her birthday last august. silly me.

right now, the life's simple pleasure that i'd really love to treat myself to is sitting on my mesh chair, behind my $30 wooden desk from officedepot, enjoying a cup of hot sumatran coffee in my moo cup, looking out the window at the bright, lonely, sad full moon. ah, that is the best feeling in the whole entire world. not even a nobel prize could beat that.

but then again, there are lots of things a nobel prize couldn't beat. like getting a parking spot with your name on it.

oh, bonnie

now you've got a cellular phone
i should feel closer to you
you leave me at home alone
it's not fair, you have me glued

i won't ring it anyway
just to find you're out of range
just to see it's useless
just to feel so limited

you don't know how much i miss you the whole day through
you don't know how i close my eyes after the sighs
you don't know that you are the one to bring me the sun
please tell me that you're coming home
please tell me that you're coming home

oh baby, please don't even try
to open the cocoon
you will find a butterfly
doomed to shrivel like balloons

was i supposed to step outside
just to find your fragments everywhere?
just to breathe nevertheless?
just to feel so empty?

you don't know how much i miss you the whole day through
you don't know how i close my eyes after the sighs
you don't know that you are the one to bring me the sun
please tell me that you're coming home
please tell me that you're coming home

why do you make me expect it when you know you won't make it
honey, before you say anything, be home, be right next to me

you don't know how much i miss you the whole day through
you don't know how i close my eyes after the sighs
you don't know that you are the one to bring me the sun
please tell me that you're coming home
please tell me that you're coming home

please tell me that you miss our home

please tell me that you're coming home

noel oy

it is just not natural for an 18-year old to have mastered the art of seduction. it's just wrong. wrong i tell you.

if every woman is like that, they would have ruled the earth a long time ago.

come on, barbie

came across some of AQUA's songs in my ipod this morning. i've had their songs since back in middle school, but this is the first time i actually paid attention to the lyrics. they go somewhere along these lines:

i'm a barbie girl in the barbie world
life in plastic, it's fantastic
you can brush my hair, undress me everywhere
imagination, life is your creation

i'm a blonde single girl in the fantasy world
dress me up, take your time, i'm your dollie
you're my doll, rock and roll, feel the glamour and pain
kiss me here, touch me there, hanky-panky

make me walk, make me talk, do whatever you please
i can act like a star, i can beg on my knees
come jump in, be my friend, let us do it again
hit the town, fool around, let's go party

is it just me, or there is a shitload of sexual innuendoes in there? not just ordinary sexual innuendoes, but sad, pathetic ones. and i think they totally hit the spot. woah, brilliant.

and i didn't realize this until 8 years later.

ramen bowl carriage

nothing beats an undergrad-drawn ramen bowl carriage. jorge cham is awesome.

rainy again today, even though it was hot as hell earlier. actually, it's still hot. it's just now you've got to add wet to it.

i eat a lot three times a day, but i'm still hungry like a starving bum. i think something has gone wrong with the digestion system.

entering fourth week. it's unbelievable how fast time went by. i have done barely anything and i'm almost halfway done with this REU. the CORRECT plot was finally produced today. it is also unbelievable how it took two-and-a-half weeks to produce ONE plot. not because it's hard to plot, but because i kept being given incorrect data and was too stupid to realize that something wasn't right with it. in the end the professors solved the problem that's been keeping me from producing a plot for 2.5 weeks, and in the end i am still just a lab rat doing all the dirty work for the professors.

i wonder if defending thesis is uber-nervewracking. i know at least one graduate student in my lab is defending his thesis in the not-too-distant future, and the only word that's been coming out of his mouth is "GODDAMNIT." i guess a "maybe you should chill a little" would not be a good advice. judging by his apparent temperament, the improbability for all hell to break loose once those words are uttered is infinitesimal. in other words, it is highly unlikely to not happen.

the chow

finished downloading fight back to school 2 and 3. ah, what awesome movies. despite the lack of english subtitles, stephen chow still managed to crack me up every single time. all the jokes in his movies are so classic. if you ever happen to come across a movie called FIGHT BACK TO SCHOOL, i suggest you check it out. all three of them are awesome beyond all imagination. where else would you find 4 aces in a poker game got beaten by 5 aces?

ah, so classic. cheung man is really pretty. i guess she was still quite young when they made these movies in the early 90's.

if you happen to come across any of the movie on this list, check them out, and then send me a copy. that would be greatly appreciated.

all for the winner
fight back to school
magnificent scoundrel
fight back to school 2
fight back to school 3
god of gamblers III: back to shanghai
fist of fury II
royal tramp
royal tramp II
king of beggars
flirting scholar
king of destruction
hail the judge
god of cookery
sixty million dollar man
shaolin soccer
kung fu hustle

god of gambler III: back to shanghai, flirting scholar, and fight back to school I should be finished within couple of days. ah, the classic tofu punch.

sam, you and i are going to have to watch every single one of these when i get back to IG.

cost efficient

this one is for our beloved friend sam. and even though he might be big and cheap, he certainly is not stupid. congratulations on scoring 33 on the MCAT test after only one night of studying.

i won the bet. you guys owe me dinner.

minus twelve

field trip to soudan mine today to see the infamous minos and cdms. how was it? simply put, aside from the team america along the way and the nice seven-hour nap (total), it was a complete waste of time.

i'm beginning to realize that experimental physics is just not for me. some people consider it fun to fiddle around with shit, but fiddling around with shit that takes about a good fifteen to twenty years before it is up and running is just not fun anymore. and the scope of knowledge one would need to have is ginormous. a high energy physicist would have to deal with more than just simple quantum mechanics and high-energy related stuff; he would have to know error propagation shit, how the detector materials react, whether they would buckle, expand, contract, gets annihilated by anti-matter, which material is best for what process, where to build, who to ask funding from, and after all these and many more other things, then he would have to wait for a good five to fifteen years before this thing is built. at this point, the physics is lost, and it's mostly engineering.

but that's just me.

of course, one can always pick up side projects to do while waiting for these massive, gazillion-dollar projects to get built, but my brain can't function that way. i am not a woman, so i have a pretty darn good excuse not to be able to multi-task. i don't know how a theorist life would be YET, but i think he would be able to focus on something that he would like to figure out and then spend years on it until he finally figure it out or just give up on it. of course giving up isn't a good option, because then he would never get tenured, but at the very least he would not have to wait fifteen years to finally do what he wanted to do without having to first do the preliminary work.

procrastinator's creed #11: i obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

yeah, i think that would suit me better.

it's not ignorance if i don't care how the electronics work. my brain is just not good enough to handle all the information. like i've said many times: i decided to do physics not because i'm smart enough for it, but because 1. i suck at everything else, and 2. it is somewhat enjoyable, to a certain degree. i am not one of those smart-ass that everyone envies. i'm just your average joe trying to survive in a field that i think is survivable. it's like back in high-school. i only took two AP classes and two AP tests because i know for sure that i will be able to pass them. i'm not one of those smart-asses who would take a classes without knowing with any certainty whether or not he would pass it, and then either drop the class or put in a lot of work to survive.

i am a lazy-ass. i am in physics because i know it is the only survivable field that requires the LEAST amount of work. can you imagine how many hours i would put into studying if i were to be a chemistry or a biology major?

none. because no matter how much work i'd put, i'd fail anyway.

mr. dent, have you the slightest idea how much damage this bulldozer would have taken had i just let it run over your body?

how much?

none at all.

wittiest book ever. i thought my rants are long enough, but douglas adams is just amazingly brilliant for being able to rant about a towel for a good page-and-a-half.

i have the small hardcover version of the first of the series. anyone wants to get me the other four for independence day gift? they would have to be the small hardcover version though. i don't like reading big books, feels like reading a textbook.

and a textbook is something that i could do my summer withOUT.

wontons are here, time to enjoy.

dear miss fukada,

ah, i've forgotten how beautfiul kyoko fukada is. came across a website dedicated to her today and the old memories of searching all over the internet for her rare pictures came to mind. i have 14 of her songs in my ipod. interesting, i did not know i have that many.?for those who have never heard of her, she's a swimsuit model slash singer slash actress. just like every single japanese idol you've ever heard of.

you may think i find her attractive just because whenever you google the name, pictures of her in swimming suit pop out, but i assure you it's not that. she's got nice legs, sure, but i don't find girls in swimming suit any more attractive than they are when they're fully clothed. in fact, i think girls look most attractive when they are completely covered up in winter clothing. coats, scarves, boots, gloves. why, you ask? simple. winter time is the time you can easily tell whether a girl knows how to make herself look good without having to be slutty. a girl who knows how to dress is, i think, very attractive.

like this:



and besides, i think kyoko looks a lot better when she dresses casually.




and this, this is just cute. super cute. who doesn't melt when a girl gives you this look?



she is at the top of my most-beautiful-actress list, along with van tomiko, ayumi hamasaki, lee hee jin, zhao wei, kan mi yeon, yuki nakamura, and rena tanaka.

ah, miss fukada (or simply anyone on the above list), will you marry me?

dreams aside and back to reality, the plot below that i thought was the one i have been looking for was apparently INCORRECT. but that is alright, because i'm getting the hang of plotting and i can plot anything i want now. fitting a function to the plot, however, isn't quite so easy. and you can tell that the lack of post until this one was due to this whole fitting crap.

but all is well, and i finally accomplished the task i was given last wednesday: plotting the resolution of the detector. some things went awry with the simulation, so i will be investigating what is going on in the next couple of days. learning is a painful process.

chapter 372 came out. link is in the forum and ocean made the translation already. franky is uber wacky. who the hell would have thought that he can transform into a backwards centaur? that one was hilarious. and sanji. holy mother monkey, if i were gay i would probably start making yaoi about sanji. i guess oda can be forgiven now for not bringing sanji into scene for twenty or so chapters, because now he's just going on a rampage kicking everyone's asses. this is much much more asskicking than what zoro did at whiskey peak. 100 bounty hunters? that's nothing compared to 75 government agents and two CP leaders. but the last scene when sanji kicked the hell out of wanze all the way into the next car just made me jump off my couch. not because of the awesomeness, but because he is now face to face with the 4 main CP9 agents. he is in a deep deep deep shit. luffy better come soon.




low quality, but better than nothing.

sleep time. soudan trip tomorrow. hopefully i can wake up by 0630 so i can go shower and grab something to eat for the 4.5-hour trip.

by the way, if you can find sing a love song for me and into the light, you'll know why i love kyoko fukada.

tears in heaven

never in my life have i ever seen anything so magnificent.



in the words of my good friend mr. brian maertz: "that's it guys. i knew it. this has got to be the right one."

WHO'S YOUR DADDY NOW?

oh yeah, baby. all information extracted. who owns who now, huh? take that, beeotch.

enu = 2.98037
iact = 1201
asymmxy = 0.265922
idel = 200
ph_unusd_code = 7.21669e-43
enem = 122617
enmu = 0
enhd = 18170.7
enpi = 2450
enbk = 688.568
enfidxy = 0
enfidz = 0
ielec_cod_xy = 11
etrlen_hit_x = 37
etrlen_hit_y = 34
ehit_avg_x = 1.99678
ehit_avg_y = 2.32218
eph_avg_x = 1526.27
eph_avg_y = 1817.85
eph_avgfrnt_x = 2201.98
eph_avgfrnt_y = 8343.58
eph_frhf_x = 0.634719
eph_frhf_y = 0.643329
efrac_ph_x = 0.80724
efrac_ph_y = 0.895202
ez_gap_x = 0
ez_gap_y = 0
egap_nrvrtx_x = 0
egap_nrvrtx_y = 0
egaps_code = 2.85865e-43
erms_code = 2.61847e-41
ecurv_x = 0.509534
ecurv_y = 0.641609
imu_cod_xy = 0
trlenmu_hit_x = 12
trlenmu_hit_y = 12
phmu_avg_x = 674.026
phmu_avg_y = 940.578
muhit_avg_x = 1068336596
muhit_avg_y = 1065055981
mugaps_code = 0
murms_code = 0
curvmu_x = 11.4858
curvmu_y = 5.89545
trlenga1_hit_x = 0
trlenga1_hit_y = 0
angga1_wrte_x = 0.660102
angga1_wrte_y = 0.0768746
phga1_avg_x = 634.864
phga1_avg_y = 491.94

this deserves some dynamite hack's boyz 'n tha hood. i literally reached back like a pimp and slapped the ho.

BOOYAH, BABY!

now all i've got to do is program some shit that will plot the resolution.

what the BLEEP do we (k)now?

gotta love the greeks in the title.

it's all gray to me

there's a long history between white people and black people. i don't really care, to be honest, because i'm supposedly "yellow." i was about to say BROWN but the indian people have already claimed that color. but yellow is for the chinese, which i am not, but all asians are chinese descendant anyway before they start evolving into many different shapes, so i guess i'm yellow-ish.

this post is in no way meant to be racist, so if you consider this a racist post, then that is your own problem.

people keep talking about black people and white people. all in all, what's the difference? they're people. segregating black people from white people or any other races from other races, in this case, is like segregating sam from david and i because he's a tall hongkong dude. of course we do it anyway, but that's because sam is sam, and he always manages to screw himself over or get other people to screw him over.

it is somewhat comforting to see that here in minnesota black people are mixing well with white people. on many occasion too i see black girl dating white guy, or black guy dating white girl. good to know that the world really is mixing.

three thousand years from now, if we survive, there will be no more white people, and there will be no more black people. everyone's gonna be GRAY. not beige, russell. gray. that's my hypothesis. you can go tell your great great great great great great great ... great great grandson to check back to this blog and verify whether my hypothesis is correct. and yes, that is an ellipsis.

what's the basis of this guesstimate? a squirrel i saw today on my way to tate. it's not an ordinary squirrel; it's a BLACK squirrel. most of the squirrels you see these days are gray, or brownish-gray, and not everyday you see a black squirrel. little does one know that in the past, long before the link was missing and human beings popped out of thin air, there were two kinds of squirrels: black squirrels and white squirrels.

yes, they have gone through all the segregation crap that we had only discovered about eight decades ago. the black squirrels were forced to pick acorns for the white squirrels, and were given the shitty trees to live in. this went on until one day a black squirrel lead a revolution which overthrew the white squirrel king. many squirrels regarded this one black squirrel as a hero, but really he would not have succeeded had it not been for the white female squirrels who were sick of their husbands and decided to form a female squirrel coalition and helped the black squirrels kick the asses of the lazy, ungrateful white male squirrels. after their successful revolution, the black squirrels proposed a term: that they all should just live in peace, with no segregation. the white male squirrels were too lazy to think so they accepted the offer because "it sounds good." and that's when the black and white squirrels started mixing.

three thousand years later, there were no more black squirrels. there were no more white squrrels. they've all become gray.

the above paragraphs contain no implied political or racial statement. if you think there is one, then you're just being paranoid. get over it.

eDIT:

bobby bought wine. wine i like. ah, lovely merlot. haven't had one for a while now.

creed

procrastinator's creed #11: I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

after some work over the weekend, the 6-page code is now understood. now i can plot whatever the shit i want, and things are looking better. but the reward to accomplishing some amount of work is, unfortunately, MORE work.

as if 300-line code isn't hard enough for a person with no programming background to understand, now there is a 2000-line code, 78 pages printed out, that i have to work on before next week. peter came back from his week-long trip to italy and was in his office today, but will again be gone until next monday to madison. i thought he had some meeting to attend to, but from his conversation with dan today, i think he's gone to play bridge with his colleagues.

great. i could use a week-long vacation too. cruising down the 52 on my corolla. ah, how i missed that sensation. the cove, the seals, the overcast weather, the thick fog creeping in at night, the cup of hot coffee on my desk, the music coming out from the speakers, the solitude, the breeze, the love.

eight more weeks. just eight.

when plots prove your hypothesis wrong

you give up and go to bed. there will be another day.



this shit's supposed to have a NEGATIVE slope. wtf?

and there were plots!

and so i got these to plot.





but what in heaven's name do they mean?

the revival

again, nature kept its promise to keep things in balance. i lost my keys yesterday by chance, and now it popped out by chance. i passed by the information desk this afternoon on my way to starbucks and i thought i'd ask if anyone had turned in any keys to them.

and someone did. i wish i have the finite improbability generator here with me so it can calculate for my how improbable it is for such a thing to happen.

well, i have my keys back, and i have my coffee. i am happy now.

blogging using txtedit isn't quite so bad. i wouldn't have resorted to this stone-age method had it not been for t-mobile charging $6 for the first hour of internet use. why can't they do things like how they do it up on the bay area? free wi-fi everywhere. that'd be nice. guess i'll just have to walk across to village wok after this to enjoy some free wireless.

guah. the mocha affogato is too sweet. never again will i order this one.

brazil fell to mexico. interesting. 21 shots for brazil with 0 goal, 5 shots for mexico with 1 goal. way to show off efficiency.

and japan beat greece 1-0. i guess not everyone can keep the spirits high up for eternity.

missing superiority

if superiority is determined by the number of keys one has, then i am no longer superior.

my keys are gone. they disappeared. vanished into thin air.

this might very well be one of the things caused by the infinite improbability drive. i guess all i have to do is wait until i get back some normality.

a keychain with a malfunctioning compass from the CIA, two glendora house keys, IG apartment key, IG laundry room key, IG mailbox key, SPS room key, 2BL lab key, tate 243 key, dorm room key, mailbox key, two spencer's member card, ralph's club card, albertson's club card, all gone. gone.

i've always thought as those keys as my life. or at the very least, they represent my life. places that i live in, places that i visit to meet people, places that i visit to hide my existence, places where i grow up, places where i learn many, many things that have shaped me into the person i am today. and they're all gone. just gone. i've kind of expected them to be gone someday, since i'm a firm believer of 'there's always a first time for everything,' but i never thought that the day would come this early.

i had the keys with me when i left the dorm to go to the library, that i'm very certain about, but when i got back to the dorm, the keys weren't in my backpack anymore. the only place i might have dropped them is the library, but they didn't have them when i checked back today.

a wormhole must have appeared out of nowhere and sucked in my keys. to that bastard in the parallel dimension who now has my keys, you better take care of them, or i'll hunt down your sorry ass all the way to the end of the universe.

i've never been to the library before. not here, not san diego. until yesterday. and then i lost my keys. so that's it, no more library for me. first impression is all that matters. why would one want to go to the library anyway? there are other places where one can sit more comfortably to do one's work. like a coffeeshop. or denny's. or the bed. or my mesh chair in my room in san diego. ah, i miss that chair. the only thing that keeps me rather happy here is the anti-fallback chair i stole from the lounge, but even that is not as comfy as the one they have at clics.

chapter ten

i learned today that if you take all the vegetables out from a veggie pizza, with a little imagination it will taste almost like a pepperroni, sausage, ham pizza without the pepperroni, sausage, and ham.

the infinite improbability drive is a wonderful new method of crossing vast interstellar distances in a mere nothingth of a second, without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace.

it was discovered by a lucky chance, and then developed into a governable form of propulsion by the galactic government's research team on damogran.

this, briefly, is the story of its discovery.

the principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in strong brownian motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood---and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess' undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy.

many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.

another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they encountered in trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the mind paralyzing distances between the farthest stars, and in the end they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.

then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way:

if, he thought to himself, such a machine is a virtual impossibility, then it must logically be a finite improbability. so all i have to do in order to make one is to work out exactly how improbable it is. feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!

he did this, and was rather startled to discover that he had managed to create the long-sought-after golden infinite improbability generator out of thin air.

it startled him even more when just after he was awarded the galactic institute's prize for extreme cleverness he got lynched by a mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass.

someday i'll be saturday night

someday, not today.

two hours well spent in the library figuring shit out, and now after downloading some shit, with X11 being one of the most essential, i can run 95% of my job from this little mac. i actually think it's 100%, but my pessimistic subconsciousness just reminded me that nature always screws something up, so let's give her the 5%.

got my physics webspace claimed. i think i will use that to store logs of my progress. or lack thereof. that way i can keep my professors updated, if they are even at all interested.

getting a little bit more used to the unix commands. i hate taking time to learn stuff that everyone else in the free world already knows, because that just makes me feel stupid. so rather than learning i'd rather not know about them at all, and pretend that i DO know, because i'm sure one day the answer will just pop out of nowhere by chance and then i will be as knowledgable as everyone else. like what just happened about half hour ago.

just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or happen. like dark matter. or creation by chance.

i think a world where things happen by chance would be an awesome world. you walk around and suddenly a sperm whale fell off the sky. ah, the lovely infinite improbability drive. human beings should strive for that. i'll explain how it works later after i get back to my room.

e nough

i'm tired of playing games with women. for some reason whenever you try to trick them into something, they're always one step ahead of you already. always. accept it, fellow male sentient, we just can't win against them.

i wonder why some people can't leave things alone. i'm not arguing that ignorance is a bliss, but i hear people talking shit about other people all the time. he picks his nose every five seconds. she leads a guy on and then tears him apart. he's a loner and he doesn't like people around him. he wears the nerdiest shirts ever. she shouldn't be wearing purple and green at the same time. he should not have been this successful. she is a fucking brownnoser.

so what?

we all have our bad habits. the he's-a-loner-and-doesn't-like-people award goes to me, and i'm sure some of the other categories (including the ones not mentioned) go to you. but you don't like people talking shit behind you. of course. we all don't. then how about you stop talking shit about other people behind them?

this world might be a better world if there is no judging. and that is not just negative judging, but also positive judging. a world without he is so cute, she is so fucking hot, nice dress you've got there, nice haircut dude, can very well be a more peaceful world. not necessarily better, but definitely more peaceful.

angry flower

all you physicists (especially quantum physicist) should appreciate the schrodinger's fridge. otherwise you deserve one good beating in the ass.

friday comes early

for the first time in my life, i did not realize that it's friday already, and that another week has gone by. if the statement "time flies when you're having fun" is indeed true, then it is rather sad, because all i did was spending 15 hours a day in the lab. maybe i should give in to the research. give in to my destiny. like mike.

the athlon running linux i'm currently using just popped up a screensaver that continuously types "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" with one typo per sentence. interesting.

figured out some more stuff, but apparently the more i know the harder things get. at first i thought it was just total energy minus neutrino energy vs neutrino energy, and total energy being all the energy at the end of the track added up altogether. with a little scanning, ID matching, parent-child matching, and plenty of trees killed, that can easily be done. but apparently that's not what total energy is.

fuck.

talked to jeremy today and he said one can only get the detector's resolution if the total energy is the energy detected, not the energy of the particles at the end of the track. that means five stages of error propagation due to energy loss in the scintillator, in the fiber, in the photodiodes, in the ADC, and in the quantum efficiency of the detector. this one is indeed not easy. can't i just stick to the original idea? it's audacious and it's all wrong, but at least it's easy.

starbucks on washington avenue closes at 11, so that means i can go grab some coffee tonight. the only problem is that if i go grab coffee close to 11, i won't be able to enter tate when i get back because the building will already be locked. i can't do work in my room either because my internet seems to be down and i need to ssh myself to minos-pc1. i guess i'll go stock up on coffee and chips after dinner, then head straight back to tate and spend the night here. or at least until the mosquitos start attacking.

grades came out. one A+ from branson, a B in 120a and another B in 154. not bad, i guess, considering i put almost no effort in 120a past the fifth week, and i didn't do two out of eight homework assignment and the entire last lab. 154 was just plain hard, so i don't mind a B. i learned enough to not make me look stupid in front of these people i'm doing REU with, but not enough in comparison to what i could have learned had i taken it after finishing quantum.

chapter 371 came out. check out the forum. badass shot of the week is zoro cutting the train in half and kicking admiral t-bone's ass with one critical strike. i love luffy: "oi zoro. it's in the way. cut it." with a huge smile in his face.

i haven't changed the blog song in a while, and i guess i won't change it for awhile. not that i don't have a new song i want to put up, but mp3 to rbs converter does not work on my mac. i really think it's about time i name this thing.

note to self

when put inside void XXXXX() {}, a variable does not need to be declared properly before assigning a value to it.

not using void may result in a three hour long frustration and mental damage.

day nine: flowers

i have been spending somewhere close to fifteen hours per day in the lab in the past four days, i no longer feel inappropriate to be in my boxer while doing my work. that is IF you can call this working.

after a good two days staring at a 389-line, i finally figured out that a good 70% of them is some junk shit that i don't even need to read. my efficiency rate is way below average, it even surprises myself how i can get things done.

the following is meant to be a note-to-self kinda thing, since i am currently too lazy to get off this couch to walk five steps to a desk where there is an unlimited supply of paper. i have the pencil, just no blank piece of paper to write this down.

and don't diss. this is what is going on after two days inside the mind of a person with no programming experience who has to read and try to understand a code that a gazillion professors use to do actual scientific computing.

usage: displayta.c("[rootfile]", [event#], [some#], [someother#])

loon that shit and you get a track with a truth table. ist=0 shows primaries, ist=11 shows the target nucleon, ist=1 shows final state particles.

in the code there's a function, or method, or object, or class, or whatever the hell you computerscience bastards call it since they all mean the same to me: run this with some specified parameter and it'll spit out some shit, named displayta(). first parameter will be a ROOT file because a ROOT file is where ALL THE FUCKING DATA IS STORED. ALL. yes, ALL. second parameter is EVENT NUMBER. pick one because each root file holds the data to 9999 events. third and fourth parameter is only known to god and whoever the hell made this shit.

TFile *myfile = new TFile(infile) takes the root file specified above and creates a new TFile onto it, whatever the hell TFile is or does. then it assigns it to a variable (or whatever) called myfile. a little googling up gives some info on TFile. i should link that shit here so i don't have to google everytime. i never retain information, so i have to look it up everytime.

TTree *tree = (TTree*)myfile->Get("GEVT") does whatever it does to myfile (which was that root file) and grabs something, probably a folder, called GEVT from it, and assigns it into a variable tree. maybe GEVT is like a subfolder of root that contains some data. TBrowser shows that there are two folder in the root file: GEOM and GEVT. googling up TTree does not help much, but scroll down and there will be some shit to read. unlikely to be useful, but i'm linking it just in case.

TBranch *branch = tree->GetBranch("REROOT_EVENT") does, again, whatever the hell it does, then grabs what is probably a folder called REROOT_EVENT and assigns it into a variable branch. googling up TBranch gives something to read also. i swear, these physicists are trying to be punny with the root, tree, branch shit.

TClonesArray crates array of clones (duh?). in this case HITS, DIGITS, NEUKINS, STDHEPS. std is supposed to stand for standard, but the thing that keeps going through my head is sexually transmitted disease. i've been in here for a little too long. google gives some stuff on TClonesArray.

i just fell asleep, reading is boring.

green+white

makes my day.

first REAL cute asian girl i see in eight days. and she just passed by to order vanilla frapp with whip cream.

green tanktop and white shorts make good combination. pretty.

that, plus baked chips and sandwich and hot coffee made this the best lunch i've ever had so far.

by the way, i know doonesbury brought this up, but i feel obliged to talk about it here. why do they name small TALL, medium GRANDE, and large VENTI? it's counterintuitive. tall is not in any way related to small, and grande is BIG in italian. and what the hell does venti even mean?

bytes

it amazes me that mosquitos know to aim for the legs. not that it's our weakpoint, but they seem to know that if they fly around the legs, the uglyass giants with tasty blood are too lazy to bend down and kill them. and they don't even need a histogram to be able to tell that.

or maybe they do.

maybe somewhere, inside their main headquarter, they have the full statistics of how many mosquitos got killed attacking which part of the body per capita.

the first

branson emailed back.

you got an A+ in the class and got 73/85 on the final.

there's always a first time for everything. this time it's the A+

day eight: oh so totally active, dude

hope someone gets the pun in the title.

decided to not get to lab until ten today. cellphone alarm woke me up at 7 but subconsciousness talked me into going back to sleep. hence one morning with no breakfast.

talked to dan this morning about the stuff i figured out last night, and apparently i wasn't supposed to go there, YET. but most of the things i figured out was correct, so that was worth the many hours spent in this one corner of tate hall.

will be working with an incoming grad named tom for the next few days. he knows root and i have a one night experience of loon, so we should make a good team. note the sarcasm. guess i will have to try figure some more stuff out tonight so i don't come out looking like an idiot tomorrow when i start working with him.

went to a seminar by prof. yuichi kubota today. funny old man. spent quite some time talking about "who should go to physics grad school," and end up concluding that if you possess the following traits, then you should definitely go to a physics grad school:

1. enjoys tinkering with stuff.
2. gets bored of doing monotonous stuff.
3. doesn't mind spending countless hours to solve a problem.

first trait is definitely a no for me, since i'm a firm believer of "if it's not broken, don't fix it." but i think that applies only to the dilligent experimentalist. lazy physicist like me will eventually be a theorist and let the non-lazy bastards do all the dirty work for us. second trait is a yes, and i experience this first-hand. the dissecting-fishies-and-weighing-them job i had winter of sophomore year is a good example of how i hate monotonous jobs. grab the fishie, dissect, dissect, collect eggs, weigh, write down weight, toss away the eggs and fish, grab the next fish, and the cycle repeats. seven hours straight of doing that every tuesday is a good enough evidence that i made the right decision not to follow my mother's path to becoming a biologist. third trait is also a yes, but only for physics. it's got to tell you something if a lazy bastard like me would start quantum homework on saturday, and it's not even due until wednesday.

we had sandwiches for lunch today, and apparently there was an extra one. maureen asked if anyone wants it because otherwise it'll just get tossed away, but no one responded and left the room. i figured the sandwich makes a good midnight snack, so i went to claim it. maureen's comment: woah, we have a graduate student in making.

apparently the rumor that graduate students always go for the free food is true not only in california, but also here in minnesota.

dan just stopped by and assigned tom and i a task. it seems that what i've done so far (nothing) is considered a slacking off and it's about time that i'm being focused. he wants a plot of energy difference (total minus initial neutrino energy) vs initial neutrino energy. this should give the resolution of the detector, and the expected behavior is that resolution goes bad with smaller neutrino energy.

the big question is now: how the hell do i plot things?

actually there's a bigger question: how the hell do i even get the energies?

those mosquitos better not come back tonight, or i will have to declare war with them. i need as much time in here as possible, because i'm uber slow at figuring stuff out.

speaking of mosquitos, i managed to kill three today, and all three of them are white mosquitos. what the hell? even with the gazillion mosquitos in indonesia, none of the ones i've killed was white. well, not exactly white, but more yellowish white. or whitish yellow.

google images brings this up:



apparently there are people stupid enough to consider using these mosquitos as a symbol for the state. who in their sane mind would want to be associated with funky-ass mosquitos? wow, minnesota, the mosquito state.

nedi just called to notify me that he is currently eating roast duck. well, good for him. i'm going for scallops and mussels tonight. i'll call him up and inform him how tasty it is, just to return the favor.

plenty to learn, young grasshopper

this is not right. everytime i get an enlightenment and finally figure something out, it's 10pm already. i seriously should just shift my work hour to start after three.

being in the lab at night is rather scary. not the lab itself, but it's scary when you look out the window. the wind is blowing hard and tons of mosquitos are crawling all over the window, trying to find a way in so they can have a taste of your blood.

this is the time i wish i were a cyborg powered by coca cola.

i keep calling this place a lab, but this isn't really a lab. there are five computers, six with my powerbook, but there is no lab equipment whatsoever. so i guess this isn't a lab. an office? can't be. this place is way too messy to be an office.

sad. i'm here starting from 8am and i don't even know what to call this place. "the little dirty insignificant corner of tate hall where i can be found," maybe?

oh shit, one of the mosquito found a way in.

if i don't survive from mosquito bites tonight, avenge my death.

YAWN

got to lab a little bit early today. 0830am. half-hour improvement.

i think san diego is the place i would call HOME. my parents own a house in LA, but that does not make it home. and here, definitely isn't home. indonesia? i don't know. i've lived there for sixteen years, but somehow sandiego feels more like home than jakarta.

that got me thinking: what should i do after i graduate next year? i'm not ready to move anywhere else, yet. sure, eventually i'll get used to the new place, but i am not ready to leave san diego. and somehow, it feels like even after i get used to the new place, it won't feel the same. people talk about the excitement of moving to a new place, about the adrenaline rush from not knowing what will happen, what new experience, other shit like that; i'd rather stay in san diego. i'd rather stay home.

because home is where the heart is.

cliche, but it's true.

hope i can get in to UCSD gradschool. that way i don't have to move anywhere.

day six: quack

woah. best roast duck i've ever had in my life.

note to self: when you don't hear the sound of the pouring rain from your room, that does not mean it's not raining.

the one thing i've always thought weird is the rice they give out at village wok. it's always so dry, like a day old rice from the fridge. but today i figured out why. you're not supposed to eat the rice by itself; you're supposed to put some of the sauce and seasoning from the entrees onto it. for some reason the duck seasoning today revived the rice and made it taste super good. now i can sleep with a full stomach.

garnet crow's [CALL MY NAME] is project arms' 2nd ending theme. that's interesting.

so this is a working person's life. you go to work, you come home, you have nothing to do. i guess that's why sometimes people go to work and never come home. i guess i should read for grinstein's project, but then that would make me a nerd. not that i'm not already one.

ah, houshin engi. that can be my last resort.

david called today and told me the funniest thing i've heard since i got here. apparently sam gave his apartment key to jim, who was supposed to make a duplicate. but both are lazy bastards, so they've been postponing making one. well, now the key is lost. there are three people who own a key to the apartment: david, sam, and myself. i am in minnesota, there is no way i'm going back to san diego just to open the door for sam. so sam and jim's last hope is david. but guess where david is?

san fransisco.

congratulations, sam. you've just managed to screw yourself over again.

come to think of it, sam has probably gotten the world record for the number of screwing oneself over unintentionally. sam is like the living proof of mark twain's no good deed goes unpunished. i bet our dear mr. twain is laughing his ass off at sam right now from his grave.

sam, i don't think you can read this since you probably left your laptop inside the apartment, but remember: always know where your towel is.

let's see what the guide has to say about a towel:

a towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker (or a locked out college student) can have. partly it has great practical value. you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of jaglan beta (or sleeping in the nearest park bench); you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of santraginus v, inhaling the heavy sea vapors (or if you decide to sleep on the grass; careful with the poo); you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of kakrafoon (which is what you'll be doing tonight, although not as exotic); use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy river moth (read: sewer); wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat (read: bumfight); wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the ravenous bugblatter beast of traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, i t assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you-daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough (watch for the water sprinklers).

more importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. for some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit, etc., etc. furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost." what the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length adn breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

this post is for you, sam. enjoy the moonlight.

L00n

monday of the second week. things are looking a little bit better. just a little.

went to machine shop class today, learned how to drill. like always, they showed you the a safety video at the beginning that was intended to be useful, but always ended up being lame. no open-toe shoes. that means i can't be wearing my flipflops to lab tomorrow. i guess i'll just go home and change to flipflops after the class. my toes need to breathe, and being the selfish bastards that they are, i think they'd rather get crushed than having to wear shoes. that's not me speaking, that's my toes.

got back from the lab at 9pm today. finally got the hang of making histograms with root. not much, just a little. but hey, that's a little bit of progress. and like this was not enough, professor hennessy (temporary advisor, mine is gone for a week) asked me to learn loon. what is it with these people and names? root, loon, cint, can't they come up with a cooler name? something like... like... like aphrodite.

yeah, pulled that one out of my ass. but that's still better than loon.

loooooooooooooooon.

as in looney tunes.

loonatic.

looner.

shit, that word's stuck in my head. i should use it like david's "ish."

dude, you're so loon.
you look loony today.
don't loon me!
loon you!
what the loon is this?

missed dinner, didn't have lunch. i am now starving and in need of food. the original intention was to walk to village wok and have some nice dinner there, but then it rained. not only that, there's lightning everywhere. thank god i'm short.

sound of rain just stopped. better dash before it rained again.

jabberwock

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

so i finished all 25 episodes of project arms. cheesy lines, too many flashbacks, but it's awesome to see the white knight and the white rabbit finally came out. i can't wait to see kei transform into the queen of hearts. jabberwock is so angst, but i guess he's the main character. it's rather surprising to see griffin got destroyed by the white knight and not by jabberwock. poor bastard.

and come on now, what the hell kind of an idiot torrented 25 episodes of an anime and LEAVING OUT the last episode? fucking piece of shit. i want to see the conclusion.

i guess this is only season one. there's more to come, since katsumi is still missing. takeshi is still my favorite character, and the white knight is my favorite arms.

i don't get what is wrong with japanese people. can't they for once make an anime where the characters don't have to be naked when they transform into some beast? it's somewhat disturbing seeing takeshi flying around the world naked.

wait a minute.

ooo. can't wait for kei to transform into queen of hearts. that's got to be an interesting scene. =P

you just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is

sunday, and i woke up at 0810am to get breakfast. something must've been wrong. i've never woken up that early on a sunday.

but i did, and that totally messed up the balance of the universe and wiped out all the living creatures in the planet krygonzatubatoliere, somewhere in the proximity of beta z-seven xx three zero one.

it is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.

the westbank holds more interesting places to go to, like a cafe called the HARD TIMES cafe, which i came across when i took a walk to finish a roll of film in the 35-mm camera my dad equipped me with.

i have not had good coffee in the past four to five days, so i decided to waste some green pieces of paper on what i crave. cafe elixir, a mix of double shot espresso with condensed milk over ice was the first drink i had, and it kept me up for about a good hour. keep in mind that i was trying to finish my twenty-nine-page worth of physics journal on passage of particles through matter. good coffee, and was definitely worth the three-bucks i spent on it, but that's not enough. i put down the article, came up to the barrista and asked for another drink called the cafe-something-miel. french, i supposed. it's another double shot espresso, only this time it's mixed with honey and milk over ice. tasted rather exotic, but definitely worth the extra three bucks i spent on it. this one kept me up for another hour.

then i came to a conclusion that i am helpless. if two big glasses of double shot espressos cannot open my eyes, i don't know what can.

i glanced through the coffee menu and i saw some interesting witty sentences. like the large is bigger at the bottom of the HOT DRINKS list, and dumb questions ........ $25 at the bottom of the COLD DRINKS list. then i saw a sticker next to the menu that says HUSBAND ABUSIVE? TRY POISON.

these folks really know how to make my day.

i took some shitty, pointless pictures of the scenery, buildings, and other shit like that along the way, and now i'm down to 6 more shots. interesting how i thought 24 wouldn't be enough, but now with 6 more left, i'm already out of shit to take pictures of.

i need to go learn root, so tomorrow i can actually start being productive.

cerebellum catastrophe

i'm beginning to dislike my head. it thinks too much on unnecessary things, and it's malfunctioning on necessary things.

i need someone (or something) to be the planck to my raleigh-jeans.

day four, let's rewind

twelve-hour of sleep was good, but i did miss the mall of america trip. no great loss, though. steve told me it was just like a regular mall, only bigger. i guess in a way it's like a supersized M&M.

going into a chinese restaurant in MN does not imply that one will see asian girls, let alone the cute ones. i guess all the cute asians packed their bags and moved to southern california.

my cream chicken cornsoup and assortment tray have just arrived. finally something of quality and quantity.

tin, kristin, loi, jim, katelyn, thanh, and maybe some other people went to the seal harbor last night. if it wasn't for this REU, i would be there with them. kinda sad, because usually at the end of finals week i always go hang out with everyone before they go home, and usually i don't even get to do that because sometimes they finish finals early and go home early. this is the first time in three years everyone stayed around until finals week ended, but this time it's me who's gone. one of life's simple irony.

watched project arms up to episode 12, so that's almost halfway. i'm getting used to the dub, but the cheesy lines are still bugging me. thank goodness i found out another way to fast forward in VLC, since regular fastforwarding doesn't seem to work with .ogm. at least not with these .ogms.

i should walk around and take pictures tomorrow, since i don't have any church to go too. it's rather funny because usually my sunday is always booked. church from 1230 to 2 and tutorial center from 3 to 6. but now i'm wondering what i should be doing on sunday.

still have not found a coffeeshop nearby that opens after 9. bummer.

reading isn't going too well. i'm on page 22 out of 29. you'd think i'm almost done, but i have almost no idea of what i've been reading, let alone the next seven pages.

i have not had a proper cup of coffee since i first got here. and by proper i mean hot, black, super sweet, in my personal moo coffee cup, at midnight, sitting on my desk, facing out the window into the night sky, with a cool evening breeze, and a quiet room.

woah, that eggroll was good. too bad i'm rather full already. maybe i should eat slower.

village wok

cheap, tasty chinese food is something that i did not expect to find in minnesota. and to top that, a teapot full of delicious hot tea and a nice cozy atmosphere. this is probably one of the very few places where i don't mind giving 25% tip. not that my purchases are more than $5 either. and the wireless from (i'm suspecting) starbucks makes this place a perfect hideout for me. i wish the owner would let me stay here after the sun goes down until the place closes.

watched the first four episode of project arms. not bad for a dubbed anime. there are some cheesy lines here and there, but actions are mostly good. i think it would have been a lot better had it not been dubbed. it's funny how they encourage kids to read, yet they dub all kinds of anime that got in here and take out the subtitles. japanese audio with subtitles. that's the way to go.

quantity over quality today went awry. never try to use food to relieve stress. food is never a solution. alcohol probably is. ah, i miss wine. too bad i'm not legal yet.

my 7th cup of tea. amazing how this teapot never seems to run out of tea, and it stays hot, too. keep in mind that i have been here for the past hour.

mall of america tomorrow. hope i can wake up for it. i wanna buy some stupid shit. something big and stupid that i can't carry home. that way i can drop it off the bridge into mississippi river. i wished those two lead blocks that brian and andy found were here; it would be so much fun dropping them. or the steel ball. i wish i could carry a 100-pound steel ball with me all the time. that'd be nice.

we should have bowling night with the 100-pound steel ball. and use faculty members as pins. or grad students.

UMN day three B

shit day. second day of working and still have yet to make any progress. the only thing that finally worked today is the damn root. and that itself took eight hours.

i miss san diego. i miss the fun in sandiego after finals. i miss doing nothing and just chilling with friends. and no, rubbing in all the fun you guys are having down there isn't helping. it just makes it worse.

sorry for being grouchy, but it's been a long shitty day for me, and no one seems to have time to listen to my complaints. but i guess i have no right to complain since i'm not a girl. =/

it's 914pm here and it's still not dark yet. wtf. die sun die. DIE.

UMN day three A

i really need to think of a more creative title.

tatsuya ishida is still brilliant. seven deadly sins in twenty-three seconds.

and jorge cham is a genius. helping someone move is a debt payable by blood.

it's friday, so i thought i'd better get some work done before the week ends. well, what heppened this morning can be best represented by this.

when graduate students go take ultra long coffee breaks, you'd think they've got nothing to do, or they're too lazy to do their shit. well, has it ever crossed your mind that maybe they do have lots of shit to do and are motivated to do it, but the situations do not permit? situations like when one is supposed to log in to an account, but is never given the password to access it, and the only computer that one can use without logging in is inside a lab that is still locked at 11am.

then the only two computer labs i have access to are shit. one of them is uber hot, and the other one seems to be flooded by the air conditioner. and it took me about an hour before i realized that my backpack (which i put on the floor) is wet. and this is not an hour spent getting work done, but an hour spent napping because the reading is extremely NOT amusing.

the weather here is much more ridiculous than la jolla. it was super hot last night. then this morning when i woke up it was super cold. i went to take a shower and headed out to the lab, and it was pouring. so i went back in to grab my umbrella, but when i got outside it stopped pouring already. it was overcast as i was walking to tate hall, and as soon as i stepped inside (about 5 minutes after i left the dorms), the rain started pouring again. then i tried to get some work done (which ended up being an hour nap) and the first thing i saw when i looked out the window was SUNLIGHT. bright, yellow sunlight. clear blue sky. what the hell? if it were to snow later tonight i wouldn't be so surprised.

so here i am, at starbucks across the street, enjoying my java chip.

an old lady just took out her camera, aimed it at me, and took a snapshot. what the hell? do i look like a tourist attraction?

wireless is working again, hence the entry.

i still have not gotten my chips. i want chips. i see chips at three o'clock. vini, vidi, vici.

ciao.

MN day two B

this is beginning to look like startrek's captain's log.

hansford (my cousin) and i decided to explore around a bit today after dinner. we took a little walk to dinkytown, which turned out to be as dinky as expected.

peter assigned me to this one grad student named bernie. has anyone seen weekend with bernie, or weekend at bernie's, or something like that? basically a movie about two dudes and a dead man named bernie? if you have, then this guy is wackier than the wacky guy who made the movie. apparently he's got a bunch of ideas in his head that he's sure will work out, it's just that he hasn't got two weeks of time to do it out. so he wants me to do all these wacky crazy things because all the HEP people will be gone for a week for their week in the woods meeting, because peter thinks i need to be kept busy.

paar's homework is all bullshit. i wonder how i'm gonna survive in this field?

how the hell do i take the mean of a distribution function? feels like my brain is fried.

sleeping at 1230 is weird, because it's still 1030 in california. i'm still jetlagging, and last night i didn't even sleep that well.

who the hell eats dinner before 7? it's pointless because by the time midnight comes, you're hungry again already.

i need chips. dammit, i need chips. i'm so craving chips right now it's not even funny.

MN day two A

girls here are rather pretty. too bad none are asians.

chapter 370 came out, but haven't had time to check it out.

it's interesting to know that an ACTUAL group meeting that was scheduled for 30 minutes can turn into 2 hours. and that has yet to end.

it seems that in HEP, two-hour long simulation is considered fast, and 10-second long simulations are considered to be surprisingly super fast. it's rather ironic knowing that the world's smartest people spend about 20 hours a day waiting for a simulation to run.

if you think dorm food at UCSD was bad, you should try here. kristin was probably right. i am downgrading myself by going here. but it's all good. i found wireless all over campus; all i need to do now is figuring out how to actually get myself connected, because airport is acting all weird.

week in the woods meeting next week, meaning that my advisors and the gradstudents are all going to be gone for about a good week. time to slack off. haha.

i'll write some more crap tonight. i still have to finish paar's homework. ~_~

MN day one

three and a half hour flight isn't bad. it's worse than what i thought. cramped seats and crying babies and punk stewardesses. thought i could get some NOvA reading done during flights, but the pressurized cabin worked better than a sleeping pill. a well-planned three and a half hour intensive reading turned into a three and a half hour nap.

none of my luggage were missing, so that was good.

the plane arrived at 6pm local time, and the first thing that came to mind as i walked out of the airplane is the international airport in indonesia. hot, humid, lots of mosquitos. well, i have not really seen the mosquitos at all, but i figured the hot and humid made it reasonable for them to camp out here.

everything here is air-conditioned, so that's a good thing. jeebus, this really feels like jakarta, only not.

dorm rooms are small, but that matters not. i'm sharing a room with a guy named bobby from rice university. i've spent a good three hours in the room, but he has yet to show up. this shows that he either: 1. has a life and is currently exploring minneapolis, or 2. is a nerd and is currently stuck in a lab running experiments.

as the plane was descending, i looked out the window and noticed that there's more trees than buildings here. that's nice. maybe i will like this place after all. maureen showed me a park in the middle of the city that has hiking place and is basically a jungle. that is beautiful. i could really use some trees and grass since i don't get to see them that often in sandiego. well, there are some, but it's hot as hell because it's almost summer and the grassy areas are never accompanied by trees.

heat radiation falls like 1/r^4 right? because right now my teapot is about half a centimeter away from my ice water, and i don't want the tea to get cold, or the water to get warm. and no, increasing the separation distance between the two is NOT a solution, for it requires effort.

i do not have an internet in my room, so i don't think i will be in there most of the time. apparently the dorm rooms does not have wireless as well. i guess that's something i have to get used to, living in a suburb like minnesota.

that, and the fact that food places close at 7. double you tee eff? i had to get off campus on foot and find some place to eat because apparently i fell asleep on the bed and didn't wake up until 9.45pm. it's somewhat funny because you'd think, oh man, i have to go to downtown to find a place to eat, and i have to walk. so there you are, walking, and then two blocks away from your dorm is already the downtown. convenient, i say.

the receptionist in my building told me about village wok, a chinese food restaurant that she said "super good." so i went there, ordered a wonton soup and a roasted pork fried rice. while waiting i took out my laptop, thinking i could do some more reading, and guess what i found? WIRELESS. NETGEAR. THREE BARS. and so here i am, blogging and eating fried rice.

gonna walk around some more after my stomach is full. maureen said peter want to see me at 9 tomorrow, so i better not sleep too late.

check out PHDComics's new strip. the fall of mike slackenerney.

cute asian girl at 3 o'clock. glasses, skinny, ponytailed. yummy.

.02

off to MN tomorrow noon. hope i have time to blog after work kicks in.

if i don't come back alive, know that i love you. yes you.

got a new leather jacket. and so did tin. i'm happy, she's happy. life is good.

it's either a cup of coffee, or two cans of coke before bed. bad for teeth, but good for sleeping.

i'm bringing my scanner along with me to MN. just in case i have time to doodle.

checked out weather forecast. 79F and raining. wtf?

cousin said there's a thunderstorm in minneapolis. great. will the umbrella survive this time? last time there's one in sandiego it almost died.

electronics final sucked. no way i'll be fiddling with electronics for the rest of my life.

driving home gives off a nice feeling, the feeling of going home (duh). but staying home kills all the pleasure. it's almost like how growing up is much more fun than actually being adults. it's always about the process, not the goal.

370 is coming out soon. franky is the shit.

neutrinos, here i come.

for those who still have finals, i wish you luck. and please know that i am currently laughing my ass off because i am done and you are not. sucks for you.

cheers,
e

the rollercoaster ride has ended

again, i'm too stupid to do what the old saying told me to: "some things are better left unsaid." this fucking mouth acts before the brain does.

an interesting topic was brought up last night. when a person moves from places to places, this person loses the feeling of having a home. not only that, but living such a life also requires one to not get too attached to anything, because it is inevitable that one will be leaving everything that surrounds oneself at that moment. bring whatever is within your ability to bring, physically and mentally, and this usually means spending a night segregating the important ones from the non-important ones.

why would anyone want to live such a life? the excitement one gets from the uncertainties? the hope of finding something better? the valuable experiences one can have along the way? possible, but i do not see any reason why this couldn't be had by NOT living such a life. a person can still experience all these without having to be a nomad.

the twists and turns one experiences by living a wanderer's life is precious, and not one you could find anywhere else. they make you stronger and they teach you more about life than anything else, i was told. that might be true, but then this would be a subjective case, because the lessons of life a wanderer gets, might not be applicable to a non-wandering life. when a wanderer decides to settle down and stop wandering around, he/she will realize that living a settled life has its own lessons that can be learned only by living it. each path has its own twists and turns, and which one is more worthy to pick, is a question without answer.

for now, i shall pick a settler's life. i think it suits me more. i'll switch to a wandering life later after i retire.

the anticlimax

some things have now been reconciled. glad that everything is working out well. glad that i can finally let it go. it's not easy, but dwelling on it means more instability, and such a thing is something i could really use less as of this moment.

i'm still hoping that our path is intertwined. maybe sometimes in the future?

two more days. let me live these to the fullest.

got another perfect score on my second quantum midterm. but the final is scaring the hell outta me. it will all be over after 1pm tomorrow. hope everything goes well.

wish me luck. lots of luck.