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Ranting alert.

Zool paper's taking forever to write. It's not that the material is difficult or hard to write about, it's just finding the information and condensing it into what want it to be. Working on it. Projected completion time should be tomorrow. But that won't include refining it and whatnot.

It seems like at least once every week where there's a moment where I feel abject failure. Like nothing I'm doing is right. Nothing is correct. I can't satisfy anyone. I can't meet anyone's standards. I'm not productive. I haven't exercised at all. Grammar fail. It's... doubtlessly unhealthy, but... well, this lack of confidence is not entirely new.

More data crunching. Another 2.5 hours.

Realized that I spent a good 5 -6 hours on Tuesday for SU stuff. 2.5ish hours deliberating on scholarships (a reminder of how little I'm involved with on campus) and then the rest of it was a very very uncomfortable SLC.

CRO's post-election report degenerated into some sort of hate circle as the CRO, having to stand at the center of the circle to present, was bombarded by questions from all sides of the circle. That must've been ridiculously rough and to be honest, rather unfair. Personally, she didn't do an amazing job, but she did do a satisfactory one where she did do everything within her job description and powers. It's a shame that the issue with the joke candidates came up, but it's being played out to be something much larger than it has to be. By-law ambiguity doesn't help, nor do vague answers and aggression-fueled responses.

You'd have to wonder though, there really isn't much the CRO can do other than a small slap on the wrist. There isn't anything in the by-law that represents a strong enough punishment that will actually deter people from violating the rules. The rampant campaigning in MacHall and around the voting booths spoke to that. The CRO can only tell them to go away, but the damage is already done, no?

The excusal motion later in the meeting also didn't do anything to lighten the mood that evening. Basically, for each semester, you'll get in trouble if you miss either 4 meetings overall or 3 meetings consecutively. These non-excused absences are there for random instances (i.e. non-SU or academic related events) wherein you can't make the meeting such as being slightly sick. If of course, you were so sick that it warranted going to the hospital or being able to obtain a doctor's note, that's a different story and would be acceptable for excusal as well.

However, this is poorly thought-out by the former Arts Rep. Having missed two unexcused meetings due to 'sickness', then having missed a third to attend an event, you're completely out of space for anything that may suddenly happen. Was the event important enough to lock yourself into such a hole? Probably not. Risking being impeached so late into the term is not the way to go out. The wrong bang if you will.

A shame that despite having missed probably 6 or 7 meetings due to illness that you didn't learn to at least get a doctor's note of sorts, or probably to the point where you're sort of on the fence for acceptable or non-acceptable, but too many enemies were made.

But... her email doesn't really put things in the correct light: "It is my regret to inform you that I must end my term early as a Faculty of Arts representative due to missing a meeting for having the flu last week (and having missed additional meetings due to illness)." Sigh. Some people.

Movies on Tuesdays

If I haven't mentioned this, did you know that movies on Tuesdays are practically half price?

On a Tuesday, each ticket is around $6.40 some?

On any other day, a general admission ticket is around $12.75.

Also, it would seem that there's less people that go to the theatres on Tuesdays despite this half price deal. Or rather, b/c there is so little people on Tuesdays, they made it half price to at least attract some people and at least break even on a Tuesday? Who knows. But it's cheap. Ridiculous cheap.

So the two movies I watched were The King's Speech and Limitless.

The King's Speech was a fine movie and definitely deserved all the awards that it had been nominated for (and won). The story revolves around King George VI who needs to overcome his stammer as it is difficult for him to communicate and inspire his subjects unless he speaks with confidence. This comes necessarily with the looming start of World War II on the horizon and the whole country is at the brink of war.

To overcome his stammer, George VI, having failed with many other 'doctors' and 'therapists' of the time received help from Lionel Logue. Their developing friendship between one of royalty and one of common descent as well as George VI overcoming his stammering problems was humorous and slightly bitter at times. I enjoyed it lots.

Limitless on the other hand focused on a miracle drug of sorts that allowed one to access 100% of their brain potential, allowing them to recall things they've learnt before, learn things at an incredible rate, the ability to think at a heightened pace, and powerful analytical abilities. However such abilities come with awful side effects if you don't continuously have the drug. Although the plot itself wasn't anything spectacularly, the basis of the story is at least intriguing. Probably the neatest thing about the movie was the color palette change of all the shots between when one has the drug and when one hasn't. Everything is visually brighter and sharper when the drug is taken compared to the dull and bleak shots when without.

It'd be... amazing to have that sort of brain capacity. Even if not for the brain capacity, but the ability to completely focus on the task at hand would be great. To work without procrastination and to ignore all distractions? That sure would come in handy. Perhaps I'd be able to finish my paper by last Sunday like I wanted to instead of still working on it now. Being able to write a test and recalling everything you've learnt without having to worry about forgetting anything, that too would be so so amazing.

If only if only.

Multiple 'Dead' Things

If this was Jeopardy, then your answers would go along the lines of :
- What is Dead Nation

or

- What is Dead Space: Extraction

I don't know where I find time to game amidst all the work / studying that goes on, but it somehow still happens. Or perhaps I really am trading away sleep and stress-free-ness for gaming. But if I don't game, there'd also be quite a bit of stress (that and I'd fall behind on games and then I'd never catch up... not that I can now).

Dead Space: Extraction is an on-rails shooter in the Dead Space universe. The main appeal of this survival horror game is that general conventions of shooting games (e.g. headshots = instant kills) are gone. Instead, they focus on something known as 'strategic dismemberment', where you have to cut off your opponents limbs, tails, etc. in order to properly defeat the foes. 'Twas fun, if not too short of a game. Still don't think I'd play the original Dead Space though, not very good at horror games if I have to play them by myself.

Dead Nation is a twin-stick shooter zombie apocalypse game. The game uses its lighting system to good effect as you can only point the light in front of you (therefore having to maintain constant vigilance behind your back) to survive. I don't know if I'd be able to beat the game by myself, but playing alongside my brother for this game was loads of fun. It's been a while since I've been able to play a game with him where we worked together (instead of backstabbing each other). Also a relatively short game though.

And finally, I've also been playing Trauma Team lately. It plays a little differently from the previous titles in that instead of playing as one doctor, you play as six in different fields: Surgery, First Response, Orthopedics, Endoscopy, Diagnostics, and Forensics. Each of the characters has their own back story and character flaws that they overcome throughout the course of the game. Their different play styles also add a lot of variety to the mix. My biggest problem with the game is probably my shaky hands. It's hard to perform a surgery or cut bones properly with shaky hands. >___>. Also, the music in the game is surprisingly good and matches the situations that you're thrown into. And surprisingly, this game was long: it took me around 26ish hours to beat.

And.. you know... too much Tetris.

OriginPro7 Data Crunch

So this is what I basically did for 10+ hours:

1. Ctrl+K
2. Select data set
3. PgDn x 5
4. Highlight first 3 columns
5. End
6. Shift + click
7. Ctrl+x
8. Right Click
9. D
10. Add new column
11. Home
12. Paste (automatically adds two columns, saves two presses)
13. Highlight first line of column 4-6
14. Right click
15. D
16. High light column 4-6
17. Select Line graph
18. Minimize graph
19. Select first 3 columns from x=0.01
20. End
21. Shift + click
22. Ctrl + y (pulls up scatter line graph + fitting menu, saves a click)
23. Double click x-axis
24. Change to Log10
25. Start at '0.01'
26. Ok
27. 1Iter
28. 100Iter
29. Copy D1
30. Alt+Tab
31. Paste
32. Alt+Tab
33. Copy D2
34. Alt+Tab
35. Paste
36. Alt+Tab
37. Select coordinates cursor
38. Click lower y-intercept
39. Right click + copy coordinates
40. Alt + Tab
41. Paste
42. Alt + Tab
43. Click upper y-intercept
44. Right click + copy coordinates
45. Alt + Tab
46. Paste
47. Alt + Tab
48. Close fitting window
49. Ctrl + s
50. Click old file
51. Double click number
52. Enter new file number
53. Enter
54. Ctrl + O
55. Enter
56. Repeat steps 1-53.

Slight alterations to procedures if lab partner forgets to average cross correlation data. At Step 19, you must select first two columns, paste into excel, grab their average data, paste it back in OriginPro7 into a new column. Then select only columns 1 and 4 instead of 1 through 3. Of course, you'd only need one D and one Y-intercept value.

Short cuts include opening a previous file in the folder you want to save in so every time you save a new file you'll automatically jump there!

Save time by inputting all file names into excel before hand so you can spend less time in lab!

Lol, at some point this was at slightly more than one data set per minute? That's more than 60 APM!

Too bad I don't play Starcraft.

I also hope I don't get Carpal.

Double Blegh

The lack of posting often reflects the amount of time I've placed into other endeavors.

Sadly, being sick is one of them. Studying, midterms, a presentation, and data crunching took up the bulk of the other bits of time.

That, and gaming. Possibly just a bit too much Tetris. But also Dead Nation. And... I think there was something else? Although it escapes my mind at the moment. (Ah! It was Dead Space: Extraction.)

I'll delve into all of these in due time.

Firstly, academics stuff.

The two midterms last week reminded me of a few things. The timing of how I study is rather important. Although I got my sociology readings done a head of time, come time to review the materials, most of it seemed rather unfamiliar. That is not good. My grades on the midterms also remind me that I'm rather not that good at biochemistry. It's a sad thought, but I'm not going to back out of the course not. It is rather interesting despite its difficulties.

For Zool, me and my buddy's presentations have already passed as well. Having to submit the presentation 48 hours beforehand, and starting at 10pm Saturday, I basically had 11.5 hours to force something out. Luckily, things turned out alright, presentation and questions and all. It's surprising how useful the Nans599 (seminar giving course) was. The whole process, from creating to presenting, from speaking to answering questions, has become much easier? Or perhaps I'm a bit more confident with how to go about making and giving them. Who knows.

As it stands... I'm working on my Zool paper. Can't work on Nans paper till we finish the last week of data next Monday (of which I'll have to crunch afterwards). A Zool lab report that we can't start on till later when we receive all the class data. Then 3 finals to (start) studying for. It's going to be an intense final few weeks to get things done.

*Cough*

*Hack*

*Blows nose*

... Ugh. My nose is stuffy enough without all the mucus. Please go away.

Exuding the Gay Vibe

Apparently, according to one of my friends, they thought that I was gay in first year. Hilarious, I know.

But then taking a step back, I'd have to wonder, what qualities are masculine or feminine? Does a male doing something that we believe is 'feminine' automatically classify them as a person that is gay?

The things that I did that somehow linked me to being gay was:

- I liked to dress nice (coordinating my clothing)

- Something about multiple pens and neat notes

- I knew how to shop for things

- I am 'sensitive' (or whatever that means)

But there's plenty of people that dress nicely and like shape their hair in miraculous ways that I would never have the time nor patience to do so (I'm talking about some of the fobs I see on campus / in high school.

I thought taking good notes was important / crucial to helping me study.

Shopping... I guess so? I do rather enjoy shopping every once in a while, if just to look at things rather than to buy (i.e. window shopping). But I still wouldn't know how this correlates.

Sensitive? Yeah. I guess so?

Actually, I've lost my train of thought. I was just going to talk about it, but now it seems like I'm trying to counter these points to prove that I'm not. Or something like that. But honestly, all you would need to do is ask An-Sis. Right? Right.

While on the pseudo-topic of homosexuality (or I guess what sparked this topic in the first place) was attending the Coming Out Monologues on campus.

It was entertaining and interesting at times. At other points, there were moments where there were tears in my eyes (sensitivity, right?). I can think about their perspective as much as I want, but to be in their shoes? To be experiencing everything they have to experience, all the questions, the social stigmas?

I certainly wouldn't know how to deal with it.

But having people supporting them, knowing that there are people out there that you can rely on? That can help.

March on proudly.

Incumbent

So the 2011 SU Election has just passed and I've been re-elected for the Faculty of Science Representative again *fanfare*.

Of the 6 people running, I placed second with 654 votes, running behind first place by 30 votes and ahead of third by 107 votes. Shocking. My two partners are capable people and it's definitely going to be exciting to be working with them.

That aside, there were obviously a few things working for me:

- Incumbent (i.e. I'm already in office and re-running)

- Bad ass posters (thanks in part to Karebear's awesome skills and them being epic partner posters)

- Other reps had terrible posters (maybe? maybe.)

Basically, our poster campaign consisted of me and Jho making posters with nearly the same pose, same content, and same design. Because we're not both on the same poster, it allowed us to put our posters beside one another. This makes it much easier for our posters to be eye-catching. At the same time, given that the other posters were rather poor, it'd be easier for the population to choose us.

Subsequently, we won. Aw yeah.

It'll be interesting to see what can be done this year. Most of the focus has been shifted towards the faculty associations stuff, so I don't know what else will happen since that should hopefully be dealt with by the end of this semester.

Also, huge voter turn out this year due in part to the epic campaigning of the Mat&Pat slate. According to one of the current Haskayne reps, they've basically been leading up to their running since last year's BSD. That's pretty wicked. Their campaign was so strong that they both had more votes in their favor than did the president position (although the president position still had more votes overall and it was split between two candidates more evenly..).

It was also because of how strong the Mat&Pat campaign was (alongside the ignorance of the student population) combined with being placed earlier that allowed the other Matt to win the VP External position. I've read his platform and seen his campaigns, and I wasn't really impressed. Nor was anyone else for that matter. When his name was announced, barely anyone cheered (and apparently some booed). What happened was that the VP External position came up on the ballot first, and all the people voted for him thinking it was the Matt from Mat&Pat. A truly unfortunate turn of events.

We'll see what happens from here on out. It'll be interesting for sure.

In other news...

Crushing stomach cramps kept me up past 2am last night. The coughing didn't lessen the pain to any extent and just made things worse overall. Ugh. Terrible night. Had great company to keep me going though. Whee.

Blegh

It's definitely turning out to be a bad two weeks after Reading Week.

I've gotten through my Sociology textbook for the midterm (not the class notes) and I've barely started on the materials for Bcem.

Lots of papers to read for Zool in terms of my own papers and other peoples' papers.

There's a backlog of data that I'll have to crunch through for Nans sometime.

And I'm lacking sleep.

Annnnd, I'm also sick. Ugh. I haven't had a cough in a long while either.

More to do. More to whine about.

$6000

What is the amount of money the HK government is giving away to its adult citizens?

That's right, for $6000.

Apparently the HK government is giving all of their adult citizens (those above 18) a tax break to the tune of $6000 HK. Something about how they have a surplus this year and how the people are demanding that they get it instead of having this money placed in some sort of fund.

But... is that really a good idea?

Whatever happened to saving for a rainy day? Not to mention, the government changing its decision a week afterwards due to citizen dissent kind of damages their integrity and shows that they yield too easily.

At the same time, the government is planning to give them a 75% off their income tax as well for the next year. I wonder what'll happen or who'll be to blame if the government comes out with a huge deficit next year.

Also, it seems that, since I am an HK citizen (yes I am), I should be eligible for this money as well. However, the government hasn't seem to have settled on how this money will be distributed (to the people that do not live in HK). This essentially gives us two possible scenarios.

In one case, HK sends out the money to everyone that lives elsewhere. That's not only going to be troublesome in terms of having to organize / print / send everything out, but it's going to mean HK is giving out a lot of money to other nations.

On the other hand, if HK makes it such that the people must return to HK to get that sum of money, there would be several possibilities there too. For one, it would mean that HK would most likely be giving out less money than they have to because not all the people would actually return. However, for the people that would have to return, it would just bring HK more money since our mindset would be akin to us having 'gained' money, with which we would most likely spend it all.

Mhmm, an extra $6000 would be nice.

In other news...

Studying is a bit rough still. There's just a lot to plough through in Soci, I'm not looking forward to Bcem because none of it makes sense now (and it feels like it wouldn't make sense even if I tried), and there's that presentation that I have yet to start research on.

Despite not feeling very confident after the Zool midterm, I came out surprisingly alright? Surprisingly.

My face is, again, posted up everything on campus as I run again for the third time within pretty much a year. Poster-wise, mine (and Jho's) are again one of the better ones out there. Platform-wise, everyone is pretty much on similar ground. There's the advantage of being an incumbent, but at the same time I know that there's a lot of opposition for the faculty associations that we're trying to establish, which will work against us (unfairly, really).

Made the Gauntlet this year with their article on making fun of candidates' posters. Luckily we weren't really slandered, but they did point out our pseudo-strategy of having incredibly (and obviously) similar posters for double the exposure and advertisement space.

Also attended the Presidential Forum this year as it was the only one I could make... not to mention there were the two joke candidates. Rather hilarious with all their responses. Especially when Mr. Tiddlywinks pointed out the couple making out on the 3rd floor. Their obliviousness was amazing.