Headphones

I have some sort of awful track record with headphones. Or at least earbuds, or whatever you call'em. I go through a pair pretty much every half a year to a year. They're not necessarily expensive... but it's still a price I don't want to pay since all I want to do is listen to my music in (relative) peace.

Of course, in order to listen to my music in said peace, in-ear headphones are much better. This is the result of two things: (1) it cancels out external sounds and (2) you don't have to blast up the volume so you can hear your music over everything else (and save your ears). I guess those two points are technically the same... but whatever.

Lastly though, something that's always irked me about in-ear headphones despite their sound barrier capacities... is their ability to transmit sound to my tympanic membrane. Not the sound of music though, but rather all the bumps and taps and grinds that the cords of the earphone contacts. Sound transmits better through a solid medium, and those cords are a solid medium straight through my ossicles. It's very irritating... especially when I wear something with zippers. I digress.

In other news...

I felt sick today. Sick is not good. So I skipped class. I don't like skipping class either. So that's not good. But two 'not good's make a good... right? I guess in this case: yes, yes it would. But only because it was Nans599 and I'm set for the term. Heading home early was a good idea, but it also meant not getting any work done... which is not good. I mean... two weeks till my first final. Scary scary.

Two really interesting articles I read today. One dealt with the shifting demographics of 200 countries over 200 years with regards to lifespan and income. Its visualizing is pretty neat. Not to mention, the show's title is The Joy of Stats. It doesn't get much better than that. The other video talked about how it is not possible for us to travel in a straight line when we have no point of reference. Never knew that. It's something I wanted to try out sometime XD.

Started playing Donkey Kong Country Returns and Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. Both are difficult in their own ways. DKCR is difficult because the controls feel a bit 'floaty' and my OCD with collectibles makes me suicide just so I can go back to grab something. Recettear is difficult ... or I just suck at shopkeeping. More when I beat'em (or give up).

Shopping was fun. Lack of shoe size for Converse was disappointing. Watches being expensive was also disappointing. Yay Arby's. Haven't had that in a while. Nom. Also hurray for hotpot and for little kid. As bubbly as always, that one. Feisty too XD.

All This Reading

Throughout the whole semester, one of the things that keeps bothering me is that 'I haven't been reading a lot lately. Sadness'.

Except. That's completely not true.

I do a lot of reading. A lot.

I keep up with more than 10 weekly updated mangas.

I check Kotaku / Gizmodo / Lifehacker pretty much daily. There's lots of reading there.

I read up on papers for my papers and also for presentations.

I edit other people's work.

I look at the nutritional value of products I consume / avoid.

I scan the advertisements on billboards and on public transit.

I chat on msn and text quite a bit.

... are a few examples. So... I am technically doing a lot of reading. Or perhaps it's not in the sense that it is a physical book in my hand that has nothing to do with my studies.

But even in that case, I actually am reading something of that sort as well.

Odd.

In other news...

Finally got my own Steam account. Because of some weird wishlist promotion thing. Or y'know, was tired of having to bicker with my brother for accidentally logging him off or vice versa. In any case, already bought 10 games. I should clarify that the 10 came from two game packs of 5 games at $4.99. Furthermore, it was mostly for the purchase of Recettear and VVVVVV, which both are usually $20.

But if you really think about it. It doesn't cost Valve anything to sell these games out. There's no manufacturer or distributer of the games, so the only cost for the game would be the servers and the publishers of that game. Ridiculous really. Another thing, since it's a digital copy, you can necessarily lend the game to your friends. So if that game is fun and it's relatively 'cheap', you'd be selling more of that game anyways.

Never got a chance to discuss the whole Calgary Transit problem on Tuesday. Apparently, a bus got stuck on the tracks leading out of downtown, so no trains could leave or enter the NW region which I was stuck in. What that meant was that everyone would be stuck either on a train or at the station.

Now couple that with morning rush hour and freezing cold, and you get a potent combination for no one being satisfied. Was lucky enough that I was with a friend and she got her sister to pick us up on the way to school, otherwise I would've been stuck there for ages. I'm glad I wore two pairs of pants that day.

Oh right. Speaking of VVVVVV, I beat it already. Took me about 2 hours, and I've collected most of the 'shiny things' except for about 4. The game centers around your ability to reverse gravity (e.g. falling up / down). Using this ability, you navigate through rooms filled with spikes and dangerous pixel things. Because the whole game is pixelated.

In any case, the level design in the game was top-notch, and there were a few moments when I played where it was like "omg, that's so sweet" kind of deal. The game is pretty difficult though; my death count was upwards of 300? They were nice enough to include checkpoints generously... otherwise I would have given up.

Now that I think about it. Nans599 is practically over. All I have is to attend a few more talks, and I'm good to go. Looking back, despite the relatively low workload of the course, I've learnt quite a bit in terms of how to give good presentations. From just the amount of work and detail going into your work and watching everyone else's presentations (~51?), you start to see trends and patterns in terms of what is a good and what is a bad presentation.

Still a bit iffy in terms of the grading scheme because as it stands now, I think I'm looking at a B+? That'd be sad, especially for this course. But I've been talking with the prof more and there's still the participation mark with questions... so I might get a bump up. An A would be nice. Haven't had one of those in a while.

Asian Inter-Club Dodgeball Tournament

I'll be honest. I haven't played dodgeball since ... grade 10? That was quite a long time ago. So playing dodgeball again was a good dose of nostalgia that... at the same time reminded me of how much older I am now.

For one thing, one of the recent trends I have with sports, namely hurting myself, was prevalent while playing: a scraped knee, a twisted ankle, and I pulled my right arm. Scraping was bound to happen from ducking / dodging. Twisted ankle was from a bad step. Arm... was from not knowing how to whip the ball properly.

Other than the hurting myself bit, it was really fun. The Japanese Students Association (JSA), although newly formed and insufficient in roster count, managed to place 3rd amongst 6 teams. Against the trickery of the TSA and the might of the KSA, we beat the odds and won quite a few matches.

Dodgeball was always something to look forward to in PE. Now I really want to play again.

But I should really stop hurting myself. Lol.

In other news...

The lack of work done this weekend was... unsurprising. It is also depressing. I also realized that obsessive gaming runs in the family. I think my brother's been playing Tetris non-stop for the past 3 or 4 hours now. My mom's been playing Critter Crunch for the past 3ish hours at least.

My Scrabble pride was regained today after crushing my opponent by 49 points. A much greater difference than the 5 point win in the previous match. However, if we played with a timer... I'd probably lose pretty badly since I take way too much time with my turns.

It's already the 22nd of November? When did that happen? I vaguely remember the month just starting. That's scary. 3 more weeks of classes... then it's going to be finals. Two whole finals. Oh noes. Will have to start hardcoring. Next week. Or at least from Thursday since my paper and presentation will be done by then.

Urge to play boardgames since we haven't played in a while. Killer Bunnies, Small World, Zombies!!!, Munchkins, Gloom, Dutch Blitz... blah.

Anyone read the article on being Too Asian from Maclean's? I don't even know where to begin... or if I'm coherent enough to begin. Regardless... there's a lot of personal opinion here without some hard facts. I want some statistics if they're going to say that Asians are doing better or that we're taking up their spots or something.

Also, I like how the basic argument is mostly "they study harder than us and took up our spots, it's not fair." Furthermore, when did the focus of university become partying? I thought the purpose of university was to attain a higher level of education. Silly people. It's a balance between 'life' and 'academics'. If you choose to party and study less... than your academics is going to suffer.

Of course, there's always the 'genius' people that don't need to study, or seem to require less time studying to understand things. I'm a bit envious of those people.

Seriously... “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots”? That's hilarious: The world is too difficult right now; lower the standards so my lazy child can do well without having to do any work.

Or perhaps their child has disabilities and/or family issues, and they're trying their best, so the grading scheme should be more lenient. Or perhaps they need to also take into account how much partying you can do?

...or perhaps I'll save the discussion on how the school system and its focus on number and grades for next time.

My eyes hurt. Good night.

The Princess I Couldn't Save

I had another one of those weird dreams this morning. It's sort of hard to explain... but here goes

This dream involved a princess. However, I couldn't save the princess because the targeting system was out-of-whack.

Yes. The dream was like an RPG. The princess I think would be a random encounter, and I was supposed to save her. But I couldn't target her when I wanted to use the 'save' ability. Or something. It was rather frustrating because the encounter seemed to end before I could do anything (e.g. I woke). Then I'd go back to sleep because I had this urge to save the princess.

So I ended up drifting in and out of sleep for about half an hour trying to save a princess that I couldn't physically save. I was a bit disappointed.

I also wonder how I knew that she was a princess. No connection to other princesses though.

In other news...

Still still trying to get a grip on all the Faculty Rep stuff that I'm supposed to take care of. There's a lot of things that everyone else seems to know that I don't know about, and I'm not too sure how to go about handling everything. Regular meetings, figuring out which committee to join, working out the tentative SAS, pseudo-planning out the newsletter thing, other random meetings... it's... a bit overwhelming. Gah.

Speaking of meetings, attending the Faculty of Science Council meeting was neat. The Dean and Associate Deans went over enrollment numbers, new policies, and the ever popular budget in science. I didn't know whether to laugh or die a little when I saw that the Nanoscience department was allotted zero dollars in the budget.

Lots of familiar faces there though... Cramb, Walker, Trudel, Prenner, Zaremberg, Turner, Barette-Ng, Edwards, Donev, Russell, Hansen, Wong, Flynn... which is actually daunting. Sitting in a room with all these PhD people. Daunting daunting.

Didn't help that I fell asleep a bit during the budget part. Couldn't help it. Room was way too warm.

I realize that I text using emoticons so much that when I stop using them, I feel like my texts are inherently angry. They're not inherently angry. They're just emoticon-less. Which essentially makes them blank slates for you to project your current emotions on... which turns out to be a bad thing most of the time.

Winter finally arrives in Calgary. Snow and wind and coldness abound! Thin jeans and dress pants do nothing against their might. At least the new jacket fends them off like a champ. Although overall I'm still freezing from hips down.

Have I mentioned that I've been eating out more lately? It's slightly taxing (actually, very taxing) on my budget, so anything that I've been earning goes back out. It's also taxing on my mental well being because I haven't been exercised as much lately... and I feel really bloated / disgusting. Sadness. Also, the past two nights I've eaten dinner at home (yay!), and I've overeaten both nights. I think it's a combination of deliciousness and habit, but one bowl of soup and three bowls of rice and a mass load of meat and vegetables is excessive. And mind you these are not small bowls.

It Always Comes in Waves

Ever notice how things like commitments, work, exams, assignments, appointments, shoppers, always arrive in waves?

For some things, it makes sense. It's a midterm for a reason. It comes in the middle, so of course all your midterms would be around the same time. Finals would follow the same reasoning.

Shoppers at malls and grocery stores seem to always arrive in droves too. It either is really busy, or not busy at all, never in between. Grocery stores could be correlated with people getting off work and buying their groceries, which would correlate with the 9-5 schedule that the average person follows.

Restaurants is obvious enough. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at set times. Of course it'd make sense that those hours are fraught with more people than others.

So then confusingly, why is it that our workload / homework / assignments and whatnot, seem to come in waves as well? Well, maybe it's not that they come in waves, but that they overlap one another, like sets of sinusoidal waves that are each shifted pi/3 over.

What happens is that we make one poor choice after another (e.g. procrastination), and what ends up happening is the period of each of these waves shortens. Each thing we're supposed to do no longer seems like it's far away, it's due in a few days, then the other thing is due in a week, as with all those other other things too.

That's just the first wave.

So we finally conquer the first wave. Vows are vowed. "I'll stay on top of things!". But of course, we're also exhausted and we believe that we deserve a break for all our hard work. So what happens? The cycle repeats. The break you took compresses all your other work together, and the second wave arrives.

Repeat.

For the rest of your academic life.

It sure feels that way for me right now. It's another wave. Let's climb it. Maybe I won't make the same mistakes like I did for the past 2.5 years. Maybe. Maybe.

In other news...

I've been styling my hair less and less these days. Although the word 'styling' would imply that my hair had some sort of style. Not too sure about that. The factors to that I think were: having to wash it every day before going out, laziness, the hair wouldn't stay right unless I used enough clay, it was windy really often and it just wouldn't hold, and I can't seem to style it in a way that I like. Probably more to do with a change in taste that I'm having trouble defining.

Forgot to mention that I finished watching Medabots the other day. One of those old school animes that I use to watch back in elementary or junior high (I can't even remember). Rewatching it sure gives off a different vibe than what I recall. I noticed how crude the animations actually were and how poor some of the voice acting was. Yet at the same time, I realized that those points didn't really matter as Medabots was more of a gag / comedy anime anyways. It was still very enjoyable to rewatch. Especially the takoyaki episode. So awesome.

Been sleeping without music more often than I use to. It's a combination of laziness and a change in thought. I'm constantly surrounded by noise wherever I go. Music on the bus, professors chattering, other students laughing, my own music blaring again. My ears could use some rest.

Some silence is nice.

3D Dot Game Heroes

Sometimes... I'm really glad that I don't blag right away. Feelings might get in the way and something monstrous would be born.

Anyways...

3D Dot Game Heroes is a huge homage and throwback to not only the old Legend of Zelda games, but to games in general. The story goes something like this: evil villain is sealed away using 6 powerful orbs by your ancestor. When the world makes the transition from 2D to 3D, the villain grows stronger and breaks free. It's up to you, the descendant of the hero to traverse the dangers of the lands to retrieve these 6 orbs, save the princess, thwart evil, and save the world.

It's. Awesome. The transition from 2D to 3D meant that the game's visuals would all be pixelated. But 3D pixelated. Which looks really neat. The game also comes with an editor that allows you to create and animate your own hero, or to download those made by other people. Not being very creative nor artsy, I could only come up with a pot of stew that spills over when you attack and an invisible man with a professor Layton top hat.

Gameplay-wise, it definitely reminds you of Legend of Zelda. Dungeons, boomerangs, bombing cracked walls, dash boots, empty bottles, fairy fountains, a hookshot... It's all very Zelda-esque. Except for your huge sword. That thing is huge. However, I'd still say that LoZ was better made. Level-design and how the game played was just better. Or maybe time has made me idealize the game more than I should.

Probably the thing I enjoyed the most about the game was all the references it made to other games and popular gaming culture. From the loading screens that mimicked other games to random quotes like "A hero is you!", the game really tickles our inner nerd.

In other news...

I finally got work done today! Although just the Nans511 paper. Or at least my portion. Which was only about a page long.

That's... about it. Haven't really done much this long weekend other than sit around and chill. And y'know... beat 3D Dot Game Heroes. Need a new game to play on the PS3. Although there's still a bunch of games I haven't played on the Wii, and still that FF game I'm playing right now... and the anime to watch and manga to read... hmm...

The Informal Guy at the Formal Thing

I can't believe I became one of those. The horror of it all.

To be honest, it was not my fault. I was not informed of the situation, so on the day of the meeting, everyone's all fancy-like... and I thought "Oh shi-, are we meeting Elizabeth Cannon today!? I thought we weren't meeting her till the 23rd".

Well, apparently we weren't meeting till the 23rd. But we were taking the group SU photographs and our individual pictures.

Great.

My failure is now also immortalized in ink on paper.

While on the topic of standing out and whatnot... it still feels weird to be on the SU. Everyone's already connected and got their thing going. They're all familiar with the process and the lingo, and I feel like I'm floundering just to keep up.

It's an awkward feeling. But it's not the first time I've been the odd-one-out at an event or situation.

In other news...

Two days ago, I unfortunately started reading a new manga called Psyren. That was a bad idea because reading it was the only thing I accomplished in the past two days. Caught up with all 142 chapters that are currently out. I couldn't stop. It's a bad habit of mine... anyways. Maybe'll write about it later.

The wings at The Den are not as good as the ones from Jameson's. Sadness.

Still making mistakes here and there. More sadness.

Played Badminton yesterday. Well, seeing as how I haven't played since the last time I mentioned it, it's still something that I fail at. I want to get better though... although the infrequency of play would probably make improvement difficult. There's so many things I want to get better at... Squash and Badminton are just two of them.

Gummy Frogs!?

Yes. That craving was satisfied. Thursday. I believe. Momentous day.

In other news...

Most of the things I set out to do on Tuesday (?) was not accomplished. However, I am not surprised. The lack of a deadline for anything always makes it seem like there is much more time than there really is.

What did I do today? Woke. Tutored. Home. Surf net. Build Lego + watch Medabots. Accompanied brother to Uni for his notes. Went to Costco for food (we were rather famished). Went to TD and DQ. Home. 3D Dot Game Heroes for the next 5-6ish hours.

Not exactly healthy... and I should get some sleep, but... meh. That's the way my mind seems to work.

Friday morning rescue was successful! Sort of. Until I had to go to class. Then it was well again. Then I didn't go to class. Oops.

Frustration and irritation tend to mount whenever he tries to carry out some sort of 'plan' thing that he has. Although to call it a 'plan' is an insult to the word as very little if any planning is ever involved. It honestly doesn't help that communication is always lacking. I'm supposed to translate 'there' to 'go stand at that point and face this specific direction'. Yeah. I don't speak your language. Please calm down before I blow up.

The Mech Engineering building, while having windows, has extremely narrow corridors. Being poorly lit, it manages to make the building rather creepy. Especially at 11 / 12ish at midnight. Glad I'm not there that often.

All midterm marks are out. Nans went fairly well. Docked on random things. Bcem, I did well considering my understanding of the course, but it's still not a mark that is satisfactory. Zool, was destructive, but it's still salvageable if I do well on the final and keep up my lab grade.

Finally got around to beating Half-life 2: Episode 1. It's a continuation of the Half-life series following a theoretical physicist named Gordon Freeman. His trademark weapon is a crowbar. He also kicks ass. A physicist kicking ass? Doesn't get much better than that. Anyways, the reason I never beat the game the first time was due to reaching this point where all the lights are pretty much off, I'm waiting for the elevator, and I'm being assaulted by a horde of head-crab variants and their respective head-crab-zombie combos. Not fun. And really really creepy. Same situation happened in Half-life 2 when I reached the infested town of Ravenholm.

Going for wings on Wednesday was interesting. Another person from our Nans class came along that none of us really knew (maybe except for Sun?). In any case, he's a pretty cool guy. He's also a big zombie buff. And... he refurbished a discarded emergency fire extinguisher case into a 'In case of zombies break class' type box with a machete inside.

I'm in an article in The Gauntlet. Picture and everything, including the telephone interview. Not awkward at all... sorta.

Also updated LM. Haven't done that in ages. Poor child.

Should sleep.

234

Last midterm done today.

Despite the much easier workload this semester, I still somehow manage to fall behind work and become exhausted with sleeping less and whatnot.

Well, taking a step back, there are new things on my plate that weren't there last year. Tutoring is one of them. Reading and related events is another. There's the Faculty of Science Rep stuff going on. And well... other people. Heh.

Or perhaps it was the rush of things in the past few weeks with labs and proposals and midterms and campaigning.

Or I'm just making excuses for random days being wasted. Well, not wasted perse. Just energy not put towards an academically-oriented path.

In any case... the last midterm. Kind of rough. Many of the hormone questions were fill in the blanks... except 3 or 4 per question. Which meant knowing several components to answer one question. For around at least 10 questions. Luckily the other questions on that exam weren't as bad... although that doesn't guarantee I god them right.

Should rest more this week without falling behind with other things. Or at least attempt to.

In other news...

Last game of Ultimate was pretty fun, although not as challenging as the other team's skill level was lower than our team's. Felt like I was getting better with each game played, although I'm not doing as much as I did last year. Managed a catch from sliding on my knees. Those catches feel extra epic for some reason.

First SLC meeting tomorrow, I wonder how that'll go. Also, squash! Haven't played squash in a week and a bit. I'm looking forward to it.

Also satisfied my wings / bbt craving the other day. Seems like I'll be getting more of that on Wednesday though. More wings is never a bad thing. Whee.

Hmm, my student just sent me his story thing to be edited. Quite sure I instructed him to finish it by Sunday and to text me after he's emailed it. Looks like it's not going to get edited because I'm kind of sleepy.

I could use some s'mores right now. Also gummy frogs. Why does Superstore and Costco not have gummy frogs?

Hopefully I'll be able to drag myself to clean out my file folder as well as the random binders from years passed sometime this week while the work load is subsiding for a while.