Sigh

Today was utter failure. Spent $30 on some fangs, which weren't the right color and no one recognized. Spent another $40 on a long sleeved shirt, which is nice but way over priced. And lastly spent $20 on The Gathering Storm, which I don't know when I'll ever have time to read. All this spending took up my afternoon which could have been used for work. Spooky Skates was the only fun part of today (but man... ice skating is tough on the ankles). And ADP... well let's not talk about ADP because nothing happened there that's worth mentioning. So screwed for tomorrow...

You lost the game.

Don't worry, you didn't (rules says you can't lose in this manner).

But I did finish The Game. Let the transformation begin?

Limbo

So I'm skipping recitation and class for the rest of the day. I feel a little sick (in the stomach) probably due to the greasy ass stir fry I had yesterday. Next dining... I don't know where to begin.

Anyway I got lots of shit to do, but I'm blogging instead. I should probably take a nap.... after reading some of the The Game. That book is addicting, in the manner of Harry Potter. I dunno if I trust the "advice" in the book though. Anyway it's a good story. I need to learn how to kiss-close and f-close lol. Anyone want to sarge with me this weekend? jkjkjk

Argh I live for the weekends... weekend please come sooner.

Still feel sick QQ

Ok peace.

Sleep

Tonight I sleep.

Fuck you 6.005.

6 hertz.

P.S. freshmen year goals: check

Work

started today. I fucking hate my UROP. Ankur is a jackass.

Update: I slept until 12 today... and missed work :( I'm really behind in Media Lab stuff. It's like I'm putting it off because I don't like it...

Random Thoughts

This is going to be short because I just want to get some thoughts out there.

First, the reason why I went to see Epik High was because they made great music, but mainly it was because they're Epik High. They're a huge group in Korea, and Map the Soul was their first world tour. So yea, Epik High ftw.

Second, omg summer break is so chillax. Like you sleep knowing you guy have no commitment the next day (not yet at least). It feels so good and so strange. It's also kinda boring, but it's so nice to away free from MIT's chains.

Third, Anton's and my awesome programming project is starting up. We just met this afternoon to discuss plans and lay out somewhat detailed design specs. We know what we're up against much better, and it's pretty daunting. Like one year ago, I would have said impossible; now, I say fml, this is so gg.

Fourth, planning your courses suck. I decided to revisit on schedule after hearing that some classes changed times. It turns out I have no conflicts. yay. Julian was saying that he's going to hold off 6.042J until fall 2010 for Prof. ___ (founder of Akamai) to teach it, but I really can't wait that long. That would also mean I take 6.042 after 6.006 and at the same time as 6.046. No fucking way is that going to happen. I would not only have to kill myself during the semester, but also cut myself up into pieces. Anyway, I also want to take 6.034 (AI), and I heard that the Prof. during the fall is teh pwnage. Again, that would mean I push back 6.042, and I just can't do that. In this case, I'll be taking 6.042 with 6.006 and 6.004, and that's just too much work. I really couldn't handle it. Looks like the original plan is still the best. Btw it's awesome/hilarious how Anton's considering taking 3 course 6 classes next fall. LOL. I knew he would be back.

Fifth, we are such nerds. I was just fb chatting with Anton, and he's watching 21 right now. He was saying how this one MIT student was rating chicks in a bar and rated her 7.639. That's like what Julian, Anton, and I do when we're bored... lol fail... yea. We're nerds. Asian guys to top it off. But we go to MIT, so we defy odds (or do we... actually MIT probably hurts the image even more >.<).

Ok. Signing out.

Bohan and Feng go to White Castle

Legend--- wait for it...


---dary.

So here it is... finally (sorry for the delay, my house internet sucks)... the story Bohan and Feng go to White Castle (for literally just 15 minutes, but I'll get to that later).

The adventure began early Friday (5/22/09) morning, when Anton, Julius, and I headed to Anime Boston 2009 at 8:30 (anytime before 10 is early). I wanted to register and get my badge before I left for New York, and I also got to meet up with Nate, who I haven't seen since last fall. Nate showed up in all brown, like all brown (corduroy, hat, everything). As ridiculous as it was, it was nowhere near as crazy as the plethora of flamboyant Anime costumes. Anyway, I digress. Point being, I went to Anime Boston and was back at MIT at 11:15. The bus left at 12:30.

But there were still things that needed to be done. We needs Bawls to fuel our journey. To get Bawls, we had to go to Microcenter, and our plan did not leave us much time for error. Against my better judgement, I ran to Microcenter and left Bohan to print our tickets and maps. After running in the sweltering heat for 10 minutes, I finally got to the goods.


2 g33k b33rs and 2 normal Bawls. There are only three in the picture because I couldn't resist drinking one on the run back to MacGregor. And then we were off (after I quickly set up my fridge for defrosting). It was 12:00 when Bohan and I got to Mass Ave. At first, we waited for the 1 bus to take us across the river to Hynes, and then we could walk/run to Back Bay, but when it didn't come for 5 minutes, we were desperate and hailed a cab. And...we got there on time. Crisis averted.


And we were off to the Big Apple.


Although we made it on the bus on time, there wasn't time for us to get food, and missing both breakfast and lunch (in the case of Bohan) was not a good plan. But Bohan made due with what he had a granola bar and Bawls.


What do you get when you put the busiest city in the United States together with Memorial Day Weekend? A buttload of traffic. What was supposed to be a 4 hour bus ride turned into a 5 hour one, and we got there a little after 6. The concert started at 7:00. We proceeded to rush from 31st and 7th to 36th and 8th, where White Castle was located. Now I know what the Jews felt, when they finally reached the Promise Land after wandering through the desert during the Exodus. At that time, Bohan and I was literally a bit delusional and lightheaded because we were starving. We had nothing in our system but caffeine. We needed this. And we got what we came for. White Castle.


But time was not on our side. We finished eating at 6:30; 30 minutes left until the start of the concert (or so we thought). Irving Plaza/The Fillmore was located next to Union Square. That was on the far end of Broadway. We were on 36th and had to get to 17th, so we sprinted amidst the bustle of New York City on a Friday night for 19 city blocks, and we got to the place, only to see this:


The ticket suggested that they were going to let people in around 6, and since this was general admissions, we thought we were going to be fucked. But instead, the line was wrapped around two sides of a city block, and they didn't let people in yet. Fail. But the line in itself was pretty epic. I have never seen so many asians together outside of China, and I have never seen so many Koreans period. Bohan and I were in the last 10% of the line, but nevertheless we came this far, and we were content to wait while finishing the last of our Bawls. The line started moving around 7:30, and by 8:00, we were in at last.

The place was packed, and even before we got in, the security was saying the place was filled to the max. But that did not matter. We were there. The Fillmore apparently also does not have any air ventilation system, and it was hotter than Megan Fox's body in there. Actually Tablo put it best, "I've been in hot countries... in hot venues... in the hottest time of the year, but I've never done a concert in a place as hot as this before. It is literally hot in here... physically hot too." But that did not matter. We are here.

The concert started off with Dumbfoundead (you can find a pretty good video of him rap battling on youtube) MCing the place, but we missed most of it. The first guy to come on was Kero One. He was this Korean rapper (surprise surprise) with a cute chick called Dolores as backup vocalist.


He was aight. His rap was mellow, but not as soulful as Epik High, and overall it was not too impressive or exciting. Oh well, opener are always not very good.

Then next group of the Map the Soul tour was Far East Movement, and these guys were hilarious.


They were this techno group and dressed up in outrageous spacesuits and claimed to be from 3008, when music had died. They wanted to revive music back in their time, but they needed to harness the energy from 2009 to help them. Basically, their set was ridiculous, but they had good beats and pumped everyone up for the main event.

Actually there was one more act before Epik High, and it was this dude called Beatbox DG (that's probably not right, but whatever). He was baller and did this awesome version of Sexyback. Meanwhile, Bohan and I got separated as we were scooting forward to get closer to the stage. Bohan ended up in the front right, and I was almost dead center. We both had amazing views. Crushed up against a sea of Korean fan-girls, I was ready and waiting. It was time to get the show started. I'll let the pictures do the writing.





Yea, that's right. Feel jealous. It's ok. I would be too ;) Basically Tablo was the man, and Epik High just pwns face. After 3 hours of watching these guys perform, my neck was sore. After 3 hours of jumping to the music, my legs were dead. And after 3 hours of screaming and cheering, I was fucking dehydrated (remember all I had prior to this was 2 bottles of Bawls and White Castle). My body was ready to shut down, but it felt so good. Seriously, Epik High was totally worth the bus ride, the running, and the starvation and dehydration. After buying some water at a nearby Starbucks, Bohan and I took a cab to Penn Station and boarded the bus back to Boston. We passed out immediately.

But this story isn't over without a classic Harold and Kumar moment, and someone was saving it for the last. So as we got off the bus at 4am in the back entrance of Back Bay, we realized that we only had 6 bucks for the cab ride back. The fare was $8.75 the first time. Fuck. But that was nothing right? Just had to find an ATM. And that's what we did or tried to do. We wandered around the dark streets of Back Bay looking for an ATM, until we realized that we were being followed. That's right, a freakin' black homeless guy was following us at 4:30 in the moring. Jesus fucking christ. I was scared shitless. We could have been shot. Anyway, Bohan and I took the nearest corner and sprinted for our lives. It was bad. Then we hailed the nearest taxi, even though we didn't have enough money...GG. I just told him to take us to Mass Ave, thinking we might as well get as close to campus as possible. But have no fear, for during the ride, Bohan managed to find 2 dollars in coins in the depths of his wallet. We were going to be get back in one piece. And this was us at 5am, back in Macgregor:



What a trip. I'll write about Anime Boston some other time. For now peace out.

T: -2 weeks

The ring delivery ceremony looks so sick... omg all the food... cheesecake popsicles... ddroool... (click the title for Snively's blog)

Here's pix from today's Ecuadorian raft launch:

Bonus Pic (corruption at Next House Housing Lottery):

Ouch 2.0

Anton just keeps burning me :(, but it's ok, I'll beat him in 6.01.

So PSets are over with... until September, but I still feel really swamped... It's not over until it's over at MIT.

Ouch

I just got publicly burned by Anton: http://omegaxmk2.xanga.com/701089036/feng-syndrome/

But I can't deny its truthery. I have this problem with recognizing people's faces if I don't stare at it for a few seconds, and you just don't have that time when you're hurrying to class or just like to walk fast like me. I actually went to http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/fgcfmt/fgcfmt_intro.php to take its facial recognition test, and I scored below normal, but not low enough to have a "problem". I have a hypothesis that nerds are just wired up differently inside their heads. Maybe it's just me. This really hurts my abilities to meet new people and make friends on the fly :(.

Like if I meet a nice girl in class, I would probably not recognize her while walking through campus, and just saying hi or waving is really basic yet integral to nurturing a possible relationship. That sounded way too vulnerable and touchy-feely. It sucks how one has to choose between vulnerability/sociability and nerd shield/stability/predictability. But the latter just leads to a rut... but it's so much more comfortable to do.

The Dalai Lama

I'm blogging because I promised Anton that I will tonight. Also the comment on the last blog was kinda funny since I say that all the time even though a blog really shouldn't be for the sake of another's entertainment, but it often turns out to be true, so that's why I say it all the time, half-jokingly. Phew.

So the Dalai Lama visited MIT on Thursday, and I decided to attend his talk (via telecast since the tickets were sold out super quick and without any advertisement too). So I was doing my regular fast paced walk without a care at all for my surroundings down Dorm row, and as I approached Kresge from behind, what did I see? A train of 5 or 6 black SUVs preceeded and proceeded by lots of police motorcycles. So as oblivious as I usually am, I'm like wtf, and continue walking. Then something clicked, and I'm like so fuck, that's the Dalai Lama train! I quickly ran to the back of Kresge to where they parked and here's what I saw within 10 feet of me:



Yea, the Dalai Lama himself, his Holiness. You see, I normally take the anti-free-Tibet stance, but I threw away his bias, because he seemed really friend and nice, as I walked to 10-250 to listen to him. And he was phenomenal. He was at the same time absolutely hilarious and super zen and wise. He was the grandpa you wished you had. He talked about human nature, inner calm, the global community, the economy, etc. It seemed like the usual stuff, but it was nevertheless really interesting. I still can't believe how chill he was. What an awesome person. How the Chinese government call him a devil, I really don't know. FYI, I'm really nationalist (mainly to combat the rampant anti-China sentiment), but I can't help but agree with him that the Communist government is narrow minded. In fact he said he himself was a Marxist. Didn't regret seeing him at all.

Another thing he said was that to succeed in the real world, one had to be realistic (I'm probably butchering what he said, but I believe that was the gist). That was the reason, he disapproved of Bush even though he loved Bush's personality; he thought Bush's policies were unrealistic. And in many ways, what he says is true. But he does leave out the satisfaction part. Could one live all his life as a complete realist and be happy and not feel shallow? There are also counter-examples of what he said in the short term. Let's talk about Friday.

This Friday was probably one of the toughest Fridays yet. I had 18.03 pset, 14.01 pset, 18.06 test, and UROp work all due on Friday. And in the end, I finished everything, and despite only studying for about 3.5 hours for 18.06, I think I did well. How did I do it? I don't know the complete answer, but I think one part comes from what I call the stupidity/ignorance factor. The factor that's anything but realist. Basically I had some stupid fantasies (not that kind) and wishful thoughts that were unrealistic. Yet I think it was those that gave me that last bit of resolve and push to complete what I had to do. Like my usually motivation-lacking self would have fucked up really bad on Friday and been in both mental and physical anguish. But instead I'm just sleep deprived and mental sound (relatively speaking).

But in the long run though, I think one ought to aim for realism. Let's be blunt, this past school year has been painful. I really didn't accomplish anything significant academically or socially, and thus I almost feel like I wasted 1 year of my "prime" (maybe I'm a late bloomers, who knows?). And I know this can't keep going for 3 more years. I really need to grow up, or else I don't think I can acheive true satisfication or success. Like one thing I need to do is find a non-mtg related, girl filled extracurricular. Yea... MTG is such a huge money sink :(, but so fun and a nice escapism mechanism (read: it keeps my sanity).

So... this is my first decent/content filled blog in a long time. I should try to keep blogging a weekly activity.

btw congrats to Sandra on being off the market, sorry I didn't get to meet the lucky/unlucky (jkjkjkjkjk) guy today, was busy cooking leftovers.

P.S. There are a bunch of crazy drunk girls yelling and singing loudly outside. wtf. Seems like they're having fun though, but kind of obnoxious.

Update: I just won the Alara Reborn Release party hosted by Yang. Got 8 packs; no good rares though :( but it was really fun. I think I have had enough Magic to last me a while...

Glimmer of Light and Technical Intellectual Shit

I was talking to Anton about needing to hold on to that glimmer of light, that last piece of hope in order to survive MIT, and it's never been truer these past weeks. Every week since spring break has been rape after rape, but I've fought to survive, and I think I will still keep fighting. If you don't, you've already lost.

So far this weekend has been such a blessing. THE WEATHER HAS BEEN AMAZING! It was alsio nice to get some weight off my shoulder on Friday. And Saturday has probably been the best day in weeks. I went to the regional prerelease of Alara Reborn at the Hynes and had a blast. The new set is a lot of fun, and I WON THREE BOOSTERS! I think this might have been the first time I won something at a competitive MTG event (I don't go to many...). Dude, after the prerelease, I was skyHigh (starcraft reference guys... search TLPD). I then went to the Benfold/Sarah Bareilles. It was awesome. The set changes were soooooo freaking long, and the opening act almost put me to sleep, but the main attractions totally made up for it. Sarah had this fun spunky attitude and has such an amazing voice. Ben Folds might be the best showtime/live concertist I've ever seen. And he is so talented at the piano (and even turned it into a synth with Altoid tins and a distortion pedal). I just love bands that are actually TALENTED in music. My feet, thighs (wtf? but it's true), and lower back were fucked and my voice somehow became hoarse after the concert even though I didn't do any shouting (at least I dont think), but I had just a wonderful time.

I am so fucking thankful for this weekend...oh man... Let's see what Sunday brings...

P.S. Is this the return of the blog? (don't get your hopes up ;))

I dunno why I'm blogging so much now...

Note to self: When your throat itches the slightest bit, DRINK A FUCKLOAD OF WATER.

because having a cold sucks... and ruins your game (ok.. bad joke)

Usual progression of the common cold through Feng Wu's body: itchy throat, sore throat/mucus in throat, mucus travels to nose/nose get clogged, nose becomes runny, booger dries up and blocks nasal cavity, boogers get removed, Feng is free again
addendum: occasionally, inset coughing pre-nasal, and fever post-nasal (the two are independent)

this methodic treatment of the symptoms of the cold makes me wonder if one can apply linear system analysis (read: linear algebra) to medicine

First Impressions

So I had this really awesome girl as my partner for 6.01 today, but I 1. had a cough/sore throat and my voice was somewhat hoarse 2. didn't have time to shower in the morning 3. in the rush to make it to 6.01 on time, grabbed the shirt I wore yesterday. First impression fail.

Stuff

As I procrastinate more and more... I decided to do update my blog. Here are three lumps of gold I found today when sifting through the sands of the Interent on the river of time:

Many male gamers approach the opposite sex with the same poise, grace, and tact as Gollum going after the One Ring.
- Pfisiar on the official MTG under the thread "Women in Magic"

To the depressed
Everyday you're beaten. Tossed into the ground. Forgotten. Unloved and unwanted.

Everyday you wake up. You go through the motions of the day. You strive toward being a better person, and shedding your ugly shell.

Maybe you just want a little. Maybe you want a lot. Maybe you want the whole damn world to beg forgiveness at your feet.

Do you deserve that? Do you deserve what you have now? You answer solemly, "no, I don't."

But you don't stop trying. You don't stop breathing, or kicking, or screaming every step of the way. You want the little things.

You want the special things.

You dream. You feel yourself enveloped in your desires. You keep reaching out to grasp it, but it's always too far away.

But you don't stop. No matter how far away, how painful, how frustrating, you keep reaching out.

Here is to impossible dreams, and chasing them anyway.

-Chef, Apr 22 2009 on TL

This is what I want to do you

You worm. You scum.

You with the fake smile, the ingenuine complements. The half-assed sentiments and who straight facedly misrepresents.

Why do you haunt me? Torture me? Send me into fits of agony?

Does it give you pleasure? Is it your self worth's measure?

Maybe it's not your fault. You're so sheltered in your ignorance vault.

But I hate you. Hate you and love you. Because you are me. You are my creation.

You are my wanton desire, my unstoppable temptation.

Fuck.
-Chef, Apr 22 2009

FML

I WANT TO DO WELL IN SCHOOL, I WANT TO SLEEP, I WANT TO GAME, I WANT TO SOCIALIZE AND NETWORK! BUT THERE'S NOT ENOUGH FUCKING TIME!

New Logs, Old Logs, and the Chorallaries

This is the blog that should have been. Last weeks has just been horrible, and I really had no incentive to blog. Nothing really happened... And even if there were stuff to blog about, I would rather choose to keep up in EVE than "waste" time blogging or sleep. No, not sleep.

There were 3 points of interest from last weekend. The first was the 60th anniversary Logarhythms concert. The theme was alumni reunion, and I thought the combo was for the worse. They weren't bad or anything, but it wasn't as entertaining as their past concerts. It might just be because of the music. The old alumni (like really old) sang a bunch of old songs that didn't really pique my interest. The highlight of the concert was definitely the beginning when the alumni from the 2000s sang, and one of them did Float On by Modest Mouse. Then on Friday, the song was woke me up (my alarm is the radio) was Float On, and I was like omg, that song is so good. Been hooked ever since. I'm going to post a shit load of pix after the text.

The other two highlights are more ephemeral. The first one was an epic (yes epic, epicness does not have to correlate with fun) Magic game. It was Emporer format with me, Anton, and Amber vs. Nathan, Bohan, and Anthony. But it turned out to be more like me and Anton vs. Nathan with some support from Bohan. The seating made it easy for me to transfer my creatures to Anton for him to pound Nathan with. We played three games. Nathan changed his deck every game. The first two was rape. The beatdown from two beatdown decks (my Naya and Anton's Nathan's Progenitus) was just too much for one deck to handle. The third game was a fucking marathon. At one point, I though Anton was going to be screwed, but we fought back and first eliminated Nathan. Bohan at this point was a good repertoire powerful creatures, and Anton and I were being really careful on each of our turns because both sides had more than enough firepower to kill each other in one turn. At the same time, the games have been really straining on the other team, and they were really on edge. Until at one point, while Anton and I were planning out our attack, Bohan was like FUCK IT. "I SCOOP! ALRIGHT?! YOU GUYS WIN! I'M NEVER PLAYING MAGIC AGAIN!" Four days later, he was back. That game really showed the dark side of Magic. Magic can be fun, but in its core, it's still a competitive game. And competition can really push buttons. Nathan was really sad and Bohan was pissed after those games. I made me wonder if we truly liked playing Magic, or it's just an easy escape from other harsh realities. Some people drank, party, smoke, etc., maybe our heroin is Magic.

The last "highlight" was a late night AIM chat I had with Anton Monday morning (before classes >.<). We were talking about group dynamics again (mega >.<). And well things weren't so optimistic in the conversation, and lots of sensitive shit came up. I hate stagnation. Anyway I think I got more mad than I should have in the chat and maybe said my bad stuff? I apologize.

So yea, last week SUCKED. Like one of the worst weeks of MIT so far. Like I just felt overall really antisocial, so I tried to play a Sandra and actually tried to be productive with the antisocialness, which just lead to more and more epic fail. Like my school work even decreased in quality. I just pwned on the 18.03 test (I don't know my grades yet, but I'm certain I got -20pt out of 100; there were just too many damn direction fields to draw; fuck I hate 18.03). I even skipped class to study for it and got a good sleep... Shit. 18.03 makes me feel shitty. So I tried to bury my pain in Magic and went to the draft. And had the worst draft ever. I got shitty cards and made a shitty deck. When it pours, it rains, right? Went back to MacG to play some EVE (which is pretty awesome, and I wish I made more time so I can do corp stuff instead of just missions and farming :'() and then started 6.01 at 1AM. Not good. I half-assed the last few questions, so I could watch Savior vs. Zero in the MSL ro8 at 4:30, so I didn't get perfect even though I could have. Yea, I'm continuing to let myself down. And to pile more shit on, Savior lost to my noob. Game 4 was just embarrassing. Savior, where are your mutas? Sigh. I got 3 hours of sleep that night.

Thursday was when the light started to peek out of the dark clouds. I was paired up with someone called Luis Pena for 6.01 lab, and he was actually not a retard! My first partner was nice and all, but not too good at comp sci. My second partner was just dead weight. Finally, I got a competent partner. And we breezed through the lab in 2 hours (labs are 3 hours long) and even spent 30 minutes looking for the concept questions. After class, I returned my Hyperstudio keys to Belinda. It signified the official termination of my journey with the team. I can't say I learned much, but it was fun, and I made good money. Belinda is also awesome. If you are into web developement, web design, or Shakespeare, and need a summer or spring job, I can recommend you to Belinda. Awesome person to work under. After that I was just too exhausted for the rest of my classes and take a loooooong nap back in MacG. Worked on 14.01 later that night. And earlier Friday morning I watched Stork advance in the OSL tiebreakers baby! Birdtoss is gonna get gooollld.

We had Joe Jacobson come over to speak for MAS Friday breakfast. He helped design the e-ink display for the Kindle, so I thought the talk was going to be really cool, but instead it was about complexity functions and was boring as hell. And I fell asleep right in front of the guy, but he really didn't deliver his worth imo. The class were like normal. Nirupuma made fun of one person asking a question... It was a legit question, but when the TA asked if anyone else was confused, no one really said anything, so she basically said that the girl asking the question was either need to grow up and learn some study habits or she's failing at being funny. It was really harsh, and I think she realized it too. Yea.. she's intense. I wasn't prepared for my meeting with Ankur because of the horrendus week, so I did some intense programming after classes to "catch up". This lead me to be so late for the meeting that he left. >.< I felt really bad. There's also a flood after the downpour... But Friday night was awesome. Anton, Nathan, Bohan, and I went to MacG to do some Rock Band. It was SICK! Normally when I do vocals, I do put in any effort, but last night when I sang Float On and The Hand That Feeds, I really sang. It's like letting out angst. It felt good. After 2 hours, some other people came, and we let them take over because we were tired. They were INSANE! Like this one girl just pwned up the drums and guitar on expert. And one guy got 100% on expert guitar! WTF!!! We then went back to Next to watch Slumdog, which I dled from torrent in 20 min (I FUCKING LOVE MIT INTERNET!). Nathan wasn't impressed... But watching it again was still really good. It's not a technical "good" movie, but I felt like it had great mass appeal, and really good story telling. A top notch movie (when Nathan said the the Da Vinci Code was just as good, I was like NO FRACKING WAY). insert: I need to stop doing so many caps. After that, Julian, Anton, Anthony, and I talked. It was first about Julian's problems, which I'll write about in the next paragraph, and then Anton and Anthony talked about religion... so a long time. I wasn't too interested and fell asleep on the couch. Eventually so did Anton and Anthony. Then I woke up at 5AM because of neck pain, and was like WTF? Where am I? Julian, the douche, left us sleeping there and went to bed. Anton and Anthony were also passed out. LOL. Friday night was good.

Ok to be continued.. waiting at Bad Taste Concert from the Chorallaries. It's going to start soon. It's got lots of hype :D.

The Rounds

omg too much to do, don't feel like blogging, but must blog... must keep it up to date. shit.

random thoughts that i'll expand upon later: magic outburst, late night aim chats, sister mister, eve, 18.03, hugh jackman, slumdog, missing classes, tiredness/boredom/stagnation/shits, grilled cheese, blister, magic draft, escapism, life, drug cartel

lol the list turned into more of an word association

i could write a 5000 word blog on all that shit.... but i'll spare y'all and myself the pain.

P.S. The original title of this blog was going to be New Logs, Old Logs, describing the past weekend.

Bonus pic:

from 3.094 lab last week, we made an ingot of silver(25%)-copper(75%) alloy. yea, our own personal bling

OMG Fridayz

What a hellish week. The latter half of the week, I literally got 12 hours of sleep total. And next week doesn't look too good either >.<

I actually went to 18.03 lecture this week, and it was as boring as fuck. 18.03 really sucks so far, even though last week's pset wasn't too bad. After that I went back to MacG and spent 2 hours reading about Eve Online, before going to my UROP meeting at 5PM. Instead of dancing around issues in our previous meetings, Ankur and I actually got to work this time, and actually started to analyze the bank data. Yes progress! What was suppose to be a 30 minute progress report meeting turned into a 2 hour MATLAB fest. Things are finally moving? I hope so.

Anton, Anthony, and I initially planned on playing Rock Band in MacG that night, but the lounge was already taken. phail. Next time we want to use it, we gotta stake it out early. So Anton and Anthony trudged back to Next in the cold weather, fruitless. I stayed at MacG a bit longer to put together my second legal Magic deck. It's a simple Naya beatdown deck that originated from the draft on Wednesday. I think it's actually a pretty good deck. It seems like I'm starting to get back to Magic after all these years. Is this a good thing?

Once I got to Next, I saw everyone just sitting there doing work... It's a Friday night, why can't we have some fun :(. When I pushed for watching Cowboy Bebop, everyone except Nathan had to be persuaded, and even then they agreed halfheartedly. It was really sad. Our family is losing its spice. Anton think we're getting bored of each other. If so, we need to take action. Like right now. We need each other, and that's just the fact. Anyway the Cowboy Bebop version we watched was subbed. It felt really different from the dubbed version I watched years ago. The pace seemed really slow, and the soundtrack music, which was changed, felt strange. Faye's voice really bothered me, but the plot and humor made the viewing worthwhile though.

After the movie, people just chilled. I tried to convince Anton to check out some of the epic Eve stories, I've been spending my time reading recently. One can be found here. Apparently, he's not impressed. Eve on the surface seems like the best game ever. In fact its depth is breathtakingly epic. It's economy and freedom is better than any MMO than I've ever read up on. The downside is that, it requires a HUGE time commitment to get most of the time. Running a corp is literally like another job. I'm almost afraid to go anyway near this game. But as I'm writing this, I've already started my 14 day trial, and its installed on my external. If a teamliquid corp gets started, I might seriously consider playing regularly. But how I'm going to balance this with RL and Starcraft, I have no idea.

At least, the work week is over.

P.S. This blog entry feel like weak sauce
P.P.S. Blogger is being buggy again. I always wondered what website do during downtime and maintenance.

Suspensions

Suspensions are heterogeneous mixtures containing solid particles big enough to settle. The key word is settle. It seems like things are settling back to "normal" for better or for worse...

Saturday
Woke up late on Saturday. Did D&D with my party (all of whom are upper classmen) on Valentine's Day. Hung out at Simmons for a bit. Ended the night with Braveheart. Didn't make any That's What She Said Jokes. Something's changed/wrong.
/Saturday

Sunday
03:55
(3:59:46 AM) westinggame738: what happened on sunday?
(3:59:58 AM) westinggame738: besides the movie
04:00
(4:00:08 AM) uPoNeMeRaLdWiNgS: nothing
(4:00:13 AM) uPoNeMeRaLdWiNgS: literally

Yep. Sunday was boring. Mainly work. Don't even remember what I worked on. But on Sunday night. Julian, Anton, and I arrive 2 hours "late" to Zack and Miri Make a Porno and missed the entire thing. But we did not want to feel that we walked from Next to 26-100 for naught, so we stayed for Twilight. Yes, Twilight. The vampire sex book/movie franchise that has enchanted 14 year old girls all over. The movie basically sucked. The conversation was painful. Isabella, the main character, was as emo as fuck and should cut herself. The only person creepier was her infatuation, the guy who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Now that is a quality movie. Anyway the best part of the movie was the vampire baseball game, which was actually really sick until three rabid rogue vampires showed up and ended the fun. Sigh. Afterwards, Julian was trying to be all philosophical about the movie... maybe it's to make up for the lack of vampire sex.
/Sunday

Monday
Monday was another workday. The only interesting part (which was actually really interesting) of it was when I was walking to Anna's to grab lunch, and I saw Anton and convinced him to eat an actual meal. So we had lunch. During we talked about random shit as we ate and walked back, but somehow group dynamics popped up. And when offered the opportunity, I cannot resist theorycrafting about group social interactions. I fucking UROP is based on that lol. Anyway 2 hours of discourse passed super quickly. Well... the conclusion was kind of grim... But that's not to say everything's going to fuck up. If you think about it, something is kind of grim is analyzed in depth (even your mom!). But the best course of action is still to look out for yourself and your friends. Don't jump ship too early. In fact, why am I evening blogging about this right now? What kind of group has its own members talking about the nature of the group? WTF that's like metasocialogy. Nuts isn't it? But still some things should just be let free to grow and mature on its on. Yea... Though it would be really refreshing if the crew got together and did something fun on a weekend. I bet everyone needs a break. The long weekend really did not feel like a break. Maybe we can do that bowling thing from SaveTFP on Friday... or some Boston trip. When's St. Patrick's Day? South Boston should be hella fun. If we look further in the future, we need plans for spring break. Roadtrip/traveling is out of the picture... So expensive. We could work on our crazy band idea? Youtube video anyone? Camping? Just throwing stuff out there. We need a meeting. You know what, since we're so close to being a frat anyway, we should have weekly meetings lol. Ok this whole paragraph has been some ridiculous rant... One thing I got from my talk with Anton was just I'm good at interrogating people. Maybe I should be a lawyer? Criminal justice sounds fun... Damn I've been watching too many cop shows.
/Monday

So not much work got done over the weekend, so that means I'm hosed. After lab two days ago (10pm), I had to finished all of 18.06 due yesterday. Last night, I had all of 6.01. Tonight will be 18.03 AND 14.01. FML. Strangely enough though.... being busy as fuck feels sort of good... gets the blood flowing... keeps you alert... Savior vs. Upmagic is coming up!! w00t!

P.S. Click on the title. They're usually linked to something cool.

P.P.S. Went to a DCI sanctioned MIT draft yesterday. Shouldn't have though because of all my work. Turns out that it was Yang who organized it. Damn he's nuts. He single-handedly is bringing together the MIT gaming community, not kidding at all... The draft itself was good and disappointing. I had some epic games, but in the third round, when three people were fighting for second including me, I was matched up against Nathan. The first two games were just bad luck on both sides, leaving the score 1-1. The third game, Nathan got out his exalted mythic rare card that gave any creature attacking alone double strike. He also had an unblockable creature (unblockable+exalted+double strike). GG. What a shitty way to lose. Like that combo is just imba. And my deck was legitimately good. Got to over 90 life one game. Damn it. I deserved second. Nathan probably came in first. Killing a bro like that... not cool. I need to either pick Starcraft or MTG, not enough time for both...

P.P.P.S. Apparently html tags (to add a nerdy/geeky zing to the blog) just disappear when I publish.

Hell, It's About Valentine Part 2

Oh love songs. Here's a less innocent love song.

Stay tuned. More to come.

Update:
Who knew blogging was such a burden? Jeez, the only reason I'm updating today is because I need to kill an hour before Savior vs. Upmagic in the MSL Round of 16. That sounded horrible...

Let's see.. where did I leave off... oh yea Valentine's Day...

So on Friday night, Nathan, Peter, Bohan, and I decided to check out Pi Lambda Phi's Communist Party (hahaha get the pun?). It wasn't so much of a communist themed party as it was a normal party. For some reason, whenever I'm at a party, I feel really out of it, uncomfortable, and bored. It's like I'm dulling my senses to avoid being sucked into the sea of debauchery. We met Darren and Ben (from 3W) there. Didn't get to talk to them much... couldn't really actually. The music also blew. Not the the songs, but it would frequently just stop completely or switch to another song. DJ fail. Now I think of it, I probably should have gone to the ZBT soiree with Anton and Shankari because at least there I could hang out with the cool ZBT bro's. Get to know them better. wtf it sounds like I almost want to rush... I need to figure that shit out. On the other hand, it's a fracking soiree! A SOIREE! It's meant for the girls, and I just wouldn't feel right going to one without a date. Of course this is just pure speculation. When we got back from the party, I got really worked up about parties in general. They all seem so pointless. The sole aim is to get laid, and if you're too shy to try to seduce a girl, why be there in the first place? Anyway I said some stupid shit about, just sticking to academics from then now and being a complete, yet successful nerd. It sounds logical actually.

To remedy a night wasted, Bohan and I had this epic game of Starcraft. It was as if I vented my frustrutations into the game, and I played that game so friggin well (so did Bohan). I don't remember the last time I played that well. The key to Starcraft success is to get really worked up about seducing women? What? Que? Se ma? что?

Hell, It's About Valentine Part 1

Yes, I'm still awake. Before I talk about current affairs, let's go back to last Friday. I wrote that the ZBT after-party was disappointing. That was and is true, but I did get something out of it though. David Zou was playing music from his laptop, and one of the songs that came up was One by Epik High. Now, I am normally not a fan of Asian and Korean music, but this was one damn good song. You can find the youtube video here. And I really want to learn the piano part. A video tutorial can be found here, and the sheet music is here (mediafire blows, but deal with it).

Now, you probably don't want to read about the boring daily routine of weekdays and classes, and I can't remember enough right now to make it worthwhile, so I'll just give a brief overview of each class.

6.01:
Ahh computer science. 6.01 is Introduction to EECS 1. The first part of the course is about basic programming, especially object oriented stuff and modularity. And it's done in Python. Python is pretty cool, but the syntax can be annoying, and I can't see how a huge programming project can be completely done in Python (maybe I just don't know enough about Python yet; these are initial perceptions). The lectures are ok. I really like the instructors, and they have a good amount of energy. However the lectures themselves are somewhat mindboggling. What I mean by mindboggling is that they try to teach the EECS stuff through a new angle (modularity), and that can be at times confusing or just plain boring. I don't particularly look forward to lecture. But I do look forward to lab assignments. Notice how I write "lab assignments," not lab. This is because the lab activities are super cool and fun to do. But the concept of going to a huge computer lab to program by yourself does not make much since. It's supposedly so that you can ask for help, but in the real world, there won't be TAs to bail you out of programming bugs. I think they should let the students figure it out. The excercises are too long to finish all of in one lab anyway, so why go to lab at all... I am talking specifically about Design Labs (on Tuesdays) where you work alone on programming excerises. Software Lab on Thursday involve working in teams and doing a small programming project. That I kinda like.

18.03:
18.03 is Differential Equations. It's taught by Professor Jerison. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like the guy and think he lectures pretty well. Though, as I mentioned in a previous post, he tries too hard to be funny. But I like lectures. Recitation and Psets are another story. I have this tall, nervous German grad student as my recitation leader. She is not very good at explaining things. But nice and friendly. Not much to say. Psets are just a pain in the ass. The problems themselves aren't too difficult, but understanding them is half the battle. The problems are worded in the worst possible way. Thus it's likely Friday mornings will be spent finishing up this bitch. As for the subject matter, diff eq's are interesting, but can easily get annoying.

18.06:
18.06 is Linear Algebra. Despite despising matrices and everything to do with them in high school, 18.06 has been really interesting thus far. It's a bit easy right now, but still engaging. This might be due to me having to use MATLAB more now. Professor Johnson is relatively young and seems like a really cheerful guy who knows his stuff, but he fu-fucking stu-stutters so much. It's quite bothersome. I can't pronouce nor spell my Russian TA's name. I think he can be a good TA, but he's also shy and nervous. Math TAs suck in general.

3.094:
3.094 is Materials in Human Experiences. By "Materials," they mean metal and fiber, and by "Human Experiences," they mean native Central/South Americans. This class is a proejct based classed, so there will be a lot of hands on labs, which is awesome. The first part of the course is on metals and is taught by this badass old lady who still travels to metal mines and studies up on metalworking. My most recent lab was on smelting copper from malachite. We got to work in the furnace. It was long/tiring, but really cool. Need to ask Nathan for the pix. However the lectures are dense, and they're about the archaeology of Andean cultures. It's hard to tell whether I should be taking notes or not, but lecture is basically a lot of information force fed to you. Not my idea of fun. The second half of the course is on fibers, and one project I'll be working on is building a raft from balsa wood shipped from Ecuador. Fun labs, boring subject matter.

14.01:
14.01 is Principles of Microeconomics. This class makes me question if I'm really into econ or not. The lectures are really convoluted, and there are often equations and graphs that aren't explained well. At the same time, the lectures seem really disconnected, as if every lecture was a completely new subject. The professor has an annoying voice too, maybe it's because he's straining it by not using a mic. And the pset does not seem like it's connected to the lectures either. Sigh. It's a clusterfuck. It is however seemed by the most badass TA I ever had. She's like super energetic and super serious Indian grad student. She goes through subject by subject at bullet train speeds and manages to explain things with clarity as well. She basically covers up and repairs the wreck caused by lecture. Awesome TA. But intimidating as well. Yesterday, I was busy copying down notes, when she called one me ("you, with the neon green shirt") to solve a Lagrangian as part of a derivation. The problem was that I didn't quite remember how to do Langrange multiplier problems and was somewhat embarassed. But after a bunch of ummms, I made it through. Phew. This class will be really important is helping me decide on my major choices.

That about summarizes my classes thus far.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for actual Valentine's Day/Eve coverage.

Picture Dump

Battlecode Finals

the finalists watch intently...

gtg ice skating lessons wins!

Spenser and co. get awards

Forward 1 or 2 weeks...

Sandra dancing? and having fun?!

Now to Valentine's Day...

The Logs rickroll 18.06. I have a feeling that they randomly chose a girl in the class...

FLASHBACK to first semester:

Working Hard (not!) and Out

The result of sleeping at 5AM is being really tired and out of it, so when Jenny woke me up today right before the track meet, I was like "FML." But I got up anyway.

Never been to a track meet before. The MIT track on top of Johnson ice rink was huge, and there were a lot of people. And people there were pretty intense about track. They would be cheering like madmen when the runners finish a lap and do the crescendoing clap thing whenever someone's about to do a long jump. And people cried when they didn't do their best. Apparently I don't know where to stand and ended up standing at the very end of a race multiple times and have exhausted people run past me and sometimes cry as I just mentioned. I never knew MIT has such a huge track team. Anyway I watched Nathan do a couple of pole vaults. The pole wasn't as high as I had envisioned, but it still looked really hard. I decided to leave around 1PM, and for some reason, tried to leave by some back exit. The stairs I went down led to the basement, and when I tried to backtrack, the doors were locked. I had to call Jenny to rescue me >.<

The afternoon passed by slowly, as I either did nothing or laundry or watch 18.06 lecture, or nothing. Then Bohan and I headed to the ATS Lunar New Year celebration (which was one week late...). We got there kind of early, and the food wasn't ready, so we just sat awkwardly. Then Bohan just abandoned me for his cool fobulous friend Jay. Wtf man... So I just started talking to Geza about Microsoft, Linux, and programming languages. Sometime later, Bohan returned (Jay was too cool to wait?). We then met up with Julian and waited in line for our food. Julian for some reason felt confrontational with Geza as he was saying how 6.01 was easy. A verbal duel took place. But the cloud of awkwardness ended the fight before any blood was drawn. Geza can be really cool sometime; you just have to look past his layer of pure CS (to use Anton's awesome phrase). The food was good, and the performances were better. The all asian acapella group Sycopation was really good. And Julian found the love of his life in the hot lead singer. Peter looked exhausted by all the preparation that went into the event.

I left the event around 9:15PM and decided not to go to ZBT for the CSL showmatch. I really wanted to, but travel was a bitch, the weather wasn't that nice, and I wanted to work out and do work. Are they excuses or did I make the right choice? All I know is that I felt great about the work out. I did simple excercises with cardio and weight training, but a bunch of them. And I felt really good. I was calm and relaxed, and also kind of tired. Now I'm at Next. Haven't started 18.03 pset part b yet. I really should. Hosed already.

MIT won the CSL match!! w00t! though one of our guys is C+, a bit unfair.

Random tidbits: Bohan and Julian saw Nathan and a bunch of track girls heading to a party earlier (what a player), Sandra said she wouldn't hang out with us anymore... wtf (fun quota is filled I see... :P), and I got my first serious comment to my blog (really appreciate it)

Tomorrow will be painful.

Food and Liquor

You see food and liquor stores everywhere. I guess that makes sense. Food and liquor is the staple of an average Joe's diet right? Today was sort of a test of that hypothesis. Food and Liquor is also an amazing album by Lupe Fiasco.

The day started out late. Note to self: Try to sleep at 2AM; MUST sleep by 3AM. So I ended up sleeping until 11:30, missing MAS breakfast and 18.06 lecture. Then for some reason I thought my next class was at 2PM, so I went back to sleep. Turns out my 14.01 recitation was at 12:00PM; I could have made it (conclusion: I haven't gone to a single 18.06 and 14.01 class yet). At 1:45PM, I briefly went to lunch with Bohan and Anthony, and then went to my first 18.03 lecture. The teacher was ok, but he tries too hard to be funny -_-. Math professors are not funny. After that I went went back to MacG and chilled until 6PM.

Bohan and I sat in deep 3W just wasting our time until Nathan and Julian came back. Apparently the Koreana plan failed (I still don't understand why... it's in the direction of Harvard Square and Korean food is good). Then we went our separate ways to change. At first I planned to wear jeans and a button-up shirt, but the way Julian, Bohan, and Anton made the Salsa Party sound, jeans wouldn't cut it (and boy were we wrong). So I ended wearing what I wore to TechFair dinner (stripped blue shirt with the top button unbuttoned and my jacket with the pants that went with it). I really need to buy clothes that's in between formal and casual, like casual shirts and khakis (slacks?). And what do you know? I turned out to be the most dressed, and Robert wore cargo pants.

The trip there and the dinner was very frustrating. We decided to go to Harvard Square for dinner, so we took the 1 bus there. The bus was pretty crowded and stayed that way because whenever a seat opened up near us, no one would take it. First of all, to the girls reading this, SIT DOWN when offered. This avoids the fucking penis length competition that us guys have to go through to decide who is the first to sit down. Everyone is satisfied when the girls are seated. If there are open seats and the girls have been seated, whoever that's closest, SIT DOWN. Christ. Standing up != being man. Anyway after we got off at Harvard, everyone told me to lead the pack to a food place. I decided on Crazy Doughs because that place is awesome, I haven't been there in a long time, and they also have awesome veggie options for our lone vegeterian. When we got there, most people seemed happy with the idea of ordering 3 pies (2 meat, 1 veggie). But the next thing you know, some people were scheming in the background and were complaining about what we were ordering without actually saying what they wanted as topping. It was retarded, so Bohan and I were like fuck it and ordered our own slices. At the same time, the girls and Robert were standing a circle bitching about the friggin' pizza joint. If you didn't want to go to a pizza place, SUGGEST SOMETHING ELSE before we order our food. Whatever happened to eating together. VOICE YOUR FUCKING OPINION, before your start conspiring in the background. But luckily I found my cool again after finishing an awesome meal of 2 buffalo chicken slices.

Our group showed up WAY too overdressed for the Salsa Party. But it seemed like no one cared, and I didn't give a shit after a few minutes. The class was taught by the Harvard Ballroom Team. They were pretty good. And demonstrated pretty well. But it was annoying how they spent the same amount of time on each "lesson." The basic step was not too hard to get, but I definitely needed more time to learn the spins and stuff (I don't the name for any of the moves). It was really fun learning the steps. I got paired with Jenny, then a girl named Olga, and Sandra, which was nice because we were all beginners. Then the "party" started. And well... I immediately resumed my uptight nerd mode. Like I practiced some salsa with Jenny, but didn't have the balls to ask anyone to dance. And then when I finally got into the feeling of the party, the beginners all left (because they lived down the street, and if they had no incentive to stay, why stay?), and the only ones left actually knew how to dance salsa. I learned that the hard way, as one girl just schooled me. After that, I guess I felt really intimidated by everyone because at an event like this, girls expect you to know how to dance (do they? I dunno... maybe I was psyching myself out). So I just proceed to practice salsa some more with our girls. But overall it was fun. Nathan and Peter are just pimps. Anton got mad moves, but he didn't really share it with the pretty ladies :(. And Sandra had way too much fun than she's willing to admit (fun quota for the month is fulfilled? jk).

We left early because Nathan had a track meet the next day, and everyone was getting tired/bored. Bohan, Sandra, and Shankari went with Robert to his room because he's hosting the afterparty for some ZBT party. Everyone else took the Saferide back to Next. I picked up my stuff and then managed to convince Julian and Jenny to come with me to Robert's place. The "party" was weird. Like when we got there, we immediately split the room in half. The Deep 3W and the ZBT group. Yea... We played a game of BS to do something other than sit awkwardly on the other side of the room opposite from a bunch of people drinking. Bohan and I had a cup of some fruity cocktail that was really good. Then this Coke+rum mix that tasted much like Vanilla Coke. Good stuff. Somewhere in there, Yifan and Robert went up to me and were like "Take a shot with us." I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. Turned out to be a practical joke, and it was actually water. I offered Julian a sip of the fruity cocktail, but he vehemently refused. It's sad how taboo alcohol is. A little bit doesn't do shit to your body and mind. And I'm sitting in MacG blogging like normal (though a "drink and blog" would be really funny). When it was close to 3AM, the Next crew bounced. Julian and I were somewhat disappointed and started making bad sexual jokes and just fooling around. On the way back, we were talking shit about our girl deprivation. Shankari and Jenny quickly left us in the dust. But seriously though Spletz and Tim Peng were fucking annoying. Those guys make me sick. They're probably nice people, but I can't stand them. So ends my long day. It was fun, but below expectations? I wonder when I can finally loosen up. Will alcohol do it? And even if it does work, is that really the solution? People like Yifan drink way too much... Shit, this sounds bad, but maybe I sound experiment and find out what works. I just need to grow a pair in those social situations.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to go to Nathan's track meet. Seeing pole vaulting live should be interesting. Then I should go do laundry and watch 18.06 lectures while waiting. Then move on to 6.01 and 18.03? Probably go to ATS's Lunar New Year celebration at 6 and then head over to ZBT at 8 to cheer on the MIT starcraft team (technically I'm an alternate, but I should start training... I need more time QQ). Let's see how tomorrow pans out. Now should I sleep or watch the MSL ro32 Group D match?

The Flow of Things

Woke up on time today! Well barely. I was actually 5 minutes late for 6.01 lab and missed the nano-quiz, which made the 6.01 guys think I dropped the class. The first design lab assignment was to create this polynomial class that added, multiplied, and found roots of polynomials. I actually thought it was really cool and helped me get the flow of Python, but apparently I'm the only who thinks so. Anton was bored by it immediately, and Julian was just frustrated. And they were right in saying the Tues-Thurs morning lab is crowded. Barely got a seat.

Then I ate lunch (by myself QQ) and did some Hyperstudio stuff before going to 18.03 recitation. My new TA is this Swedish lady who spoke way too soft and had this tedious teaching style. She tried to get us to work together on this sample problem, but most people didn't know where to start, and others just kept quiet. The recitation was filled to the brim with fail. Most boring class I ever took, no joke.

I had to skip 3.094 today to go to the last glassblowing practice session (which also made the 3.094 guys think I'm dropping...). My first piece started off great. Awesomely shaped and on center and shit. Great color, and I was actually satisfied. But when I tried to transfer the piece to the punty, both connections broke, and the piece shattered on the floor :'(. I then had to do my second piece in 20 minutes. It started out ok, but not great. This time when I transfer, I pushed the punty a bit too hard to try to get it to stick on better, but instead it pushed the bottom in too far. It held though. It kind of messed up when I was opening up the lip of the cup, but alas my second cup was finished. At the cost of $120 in lab fees.

For some reason, the two hours between 6 and 8PM flew by like there's no tomorrow. Next thing I knew, I had to rush to Next before dining closed. I was also surprisingly chipper too. But that soon changed as Anton and I slaved away at 18.03. My brain was mush after 3 hours of that. I'm going to hate that class...

Tomorrow I get to go back to MAS breakfast w00t. Lucky Anton doesn't have class until 2 fucking PM, so he's going shopping in the morning... wtf? Anyway I'm going to try to sleep by 2AM tonight. 2AM is a good sleeping time. Also tomorrow is the dressy group dinner that Sandra organized but isn't going to and Harvard salsa night. How did Robert hear of it? And why did he want to go? He doesn't seem like a dancing type to me... Who knows? Maybe there's someone he knows at Harvard. *wink wink nudge nudge* Just kidding guys. Tomorrow night could fun and awkward... We'll see.

P.S. Jenny is being awesome right now and letting me use her laptop for 1 hour. Thanks.

Collecting Shits

Woke up at 2PM today. Missed all my classes. Spent the next 2 hours doing nothing. Then went to Mr. (or Professor?) Holtzmann's office to give him a copy of my reg form and got food on the way back. My one and only meal. Slept an hour. Tried to do 6.01, but the next problem looked convoluted, so I gave up and went to Next. Not a good start.

Things got better at Next though. I really wonder if I'm more productive at Next or MacG, but Next is more fun hands down. Used Anton's book to do all the Part A book problems. Supposedly this is a "short" pset. Short pset, my ass. I can see that 18.03 is going to be a major bitch :(.

We had Julian's birthday party today because his DEECS crew was busy yesterday. Ray bought him an ice cream cake, which was pretty good, but definitely not big enough for like 20 people. Julian was really surprised and quieter than usually about these kind of things. Maybe it was him on the receiving end, or school's getting to him already. MIT gets to people really fast. Anyway we then got the climax of every party. The showering! Except it was anticlimatic because Julian was tired, and he didn't really resist. It happened really quickly. Funny thing happened when I was chatting with Julian, and his girl back home fb chatted, so I said "I'll leave you alone now." And Julian took it the wrong way... Like cybering? Come on, I wouldn't joke about that with someone's real gf...

This is going to be really emo, but I feel like I'm in a rut right now. Feel underappreciated :(. Like no one ever calls me up. Fucking A. Need to start collecting my shits. Need to get in the academic, socializing, and hopeful mode.

Update: Julian and I just released some pent up anger in deep 3W, while I blasted California from my laptop. That felt really good.

Advantage of public blog: people can read it
Disadvantage of public blog: people can read it

Back to School

Back to the daily ritual once again!

My schedule is fucked up. The current schedule is actually pretty awesome, but the last hour of 6.01 lab on Thursday conflicts with 3.094. So I had to get that changed, and I'm not sure if that's even possible with the crap load of 6.01 students, and if it does happen, I have to change all my recitations. Bureaucracy blows.

Started the day with 6.01 lecture. The professor started off by approaching CS from this weird modular point of view, which I thought was pretty cool. Then she got into basic Python, and I fell asleep. I can't say that I know Python, but the only thing I don't know about it is the syntax. During lab today, I got to experience it a bit more. And it feels really structured (this is coming from a Java developer). The lack of syntax almost makes some stuff ambiguous, though I'm in no position to comment on Python right now... 18.03 recitation was boring. Today's 3.094 class was all introduction. We're going to learn in detail about metals and fibers and the archaeology behind them throughout the semester. It's extremely hands-on (we're going to smelt copper next week), which is just badass. And we're going to build a raft from imported Ecuadorean balsa wood. Sounds like a sweet class.

I finally got/ordered by books today. Going to cost $350 QQ. Turns out that the COOP is out of used books. Oh well. I don't have the time/effort to do some serious bargain hunting. Oh yea, I almost forgot, I have a pset due this Friday! But I have no books -_-. Argh classes are a bitch and undeniably useful and essential.

On the bright side, Next dining is open again! No more starving nights (tbh IAP wasn't that bad...)! Gonna head out now. Peace.

P.S. I might update my blog from 6-7PM everyday now. Seems like a good time.

Update:
I ordered a Grilled Chicken Caesar Wrap from the Grill today. Jose unfortunately wasn't there, and there was a new guy. He messed up my order to start off. Why is it that I'm so bad with cafeteria people? As for the food itself, I was impressed that he actually grilled chicken breast and chopped it up for the wrap, but the Caesar dressing was pathetic, the croutons were stale, and I literally got ten french fries. Please bring Jose back (he's getting back surgery; get well soon!). I'm hungry right now as I type.

In other news, it's Julian's birthday today. Ray and Kevin came over, and I had a good chat with Kevin about future academic plans. He's an awesome guy, really chill and helpful. Jenny's getting really upset over the mysterious food thief that takes food from her room at random times. To make things worse, her door is half broken and one of her friends had a scary encounter with some drunk guy walking into her room. She should follow my suggestion and install some webcam program and use her laptop as a security camera to catch the prick. She's seems reluctant for some reason. Either she doesn't trust me/take me seriously or she's afraid of the truth. Stop speculating and just do it already. Bohan also wrote a really good Facebook note about motivation and life goals. A 5/5. He should consider blogging.

Second day of classes is approaching. I feel sucked in already.

Tech-Super-Battlecode-Bowl-Fair

I need to keep my blogs more up to date...

Saturday:
Woke up super late. My hair was getting long, so I went to TechniCuts with Julian. Sort of got my regular style cut, but the guy was really cool. Julian got rid of his crazy Hawaiian look and went for a cleaner cut. I guess I'm satisfied.

Then it was time BATTLECODE. There was pizza beforehand (free food ftw), but I might have ate too much... I wonder how Julian felt after eating 8 slices (an entire pizza). Crazy. Battlecode was awesome. Everyone's codes was insane. Though I felt the Bro Code and Positron7 were somewhat lacking. When I Wish Upon Astar (all freshmen) came in 6th and was very impressive. I felt like we tried to do what JIT in My Pants did (turtle and mine), except they had the best stacking code in the tourny and they could actually defend... Good stuff. JIT actually beat gtg ice skates in an upset and sent them to the loser brackets. Eventually gtg came back and beat "I for one welcome our new team 207 overlords" (one guy from New House, what a beast) in the finals. Go Spenser! And damn there were a lot of prizes. First got $5000, second got $4000, third got $3000, fourth got $2000, and fifth to eighth got $1000. It's funny how it's actually financial sensible to do nothing but Battlecode during IAP.

When we got back to Next House, we started our Lord of the Rings series at 1AM... Fell asleep for a bit I think

Sunday:
Conflux pre-release! Nathan, Eric, Anton, and I got to Pandemonium 15min "late" and then had to wait again 30min. Events hosted by nerds always start late for some reason. We played in the sealed format (6 boosters + infinite land). Nathan managed to pull a Progenitus (lucky bastard; both Anton and Nathan got two super-rares). The best card I got was Blood Tyrant (which is a monster, but not imba good like some cards), but a foil version of that comes in a starter pack... Despite my lack of good cards, my deck was decently strong. I went 1-2 before dropping out and heading back, but the two losses were really close and fun matches. Five hours of Magic breezed by. Went to Falafel Palace for lunch :D. Haven't been to that place in ages...

The crew headed for the ZBT Superbowl party at 5:45PM; we were suppose to be at the van stop by 5:30PM... Julian's fault. The Superbowl party was a load of fun. I think the ZBT lobby area got moved around a bit; it looked different than orientation. The guys at ZBT were really cool. I had some pretty good conversations with Rajeev, Matt, and Yang (the first CSL match will take place at ZBT). Makes me wonder if I should have tried to "rush." The wings made by Karen the chef were amazing... The game itself was pretty good too. The Steelers dominated first half. They scored a field goal in like 2 minutes and then made a 100 yard interception-touch down right before halftime. The halftime show was pretty awesome. Bruce Springsteen played. I didn't recognize the first song he did, but then he did a really long rendition of Born to Run. Quality. The Cardinals made a good comeback in the second half, and the Steelers had only 3 minutes to score a touchdown, which they did. GG. The Cardinal QB didn't look too good, but what do I know about football. During the Cardinal resurgence (you tricksy bastard), Julian wanted to bet with me that Cardinals would win. The stake was to ask one of the girls in the back out or get a number. I refused. They were pretty hot (8-9/10), and looked like upper classmen because they were flirting/snuggling/chilling with ZBT upperclassmen. Turns out they were freshmen from Wellesley; figures.

After the game, we went to J.P. Licks and then went back. Watched the Two Towers. This time I fell asleep through most of the movie. Two down.

Monday:
Reg day/the day before classes. Fuck my life (click the post title). Woke up at 1PM. Went to Tech Fair at 3PM. Turned out they close at 3PM, fuck. Then caught up on the Office and blogging. Bohan was awesome and signed me up for the Tech Fair dinner. The 30 minute mingling time was boring as fuck. Talked to some small web development company rep; it was boring, and I wasn't interested, and he could tell. Yea. I was the first to sit at my table (3) when the doors finally opened. Some sophomore girls sat next to me (can't remember names). They were attractive, but no one spoke, and it was definitely somewhat awkward. The Mathworks rep was really awkward as well and didn't say much. I ended up spending the time before food talking to the girls about scheduling and advising... yea.. lame.. can't get numbers with that kind of conversation... Then spent the rest of the time eating food. The girl to my girl right left after the entree, didn't wait for desert. I had a chicken entree, which was ok, but the desert was amazing. I want to say it was pecan pie, but there were more variety of nuts than just pecan... After desert, the girl to my left and her friend said they might have to leave early. The funny thing was the the Mathworks rep left right after that, making up some lame excuse. It was obvious she didn't want to be there :). Then girl soon followed suit. Those three actually missed the best part of the night, which was this "high-tech" magician, who worked at the Media Lab studying the emotions of "wonder." He did some awesome stuff that involved "reading" minds via popular search sites. Crazy shit.

Back to Next. Watched the Return of the King. LoTR was finished. Stayed fully awake the entire time. Great trilogy. Now I need to find time to read A Game of Thrones. And buy books. And do UROP. And get my shit together. Fuck school.

P.S. Apparently I'm the "bad" one in our group. And Julian doesn't like my swearing -_-

The End is Near

Reg day is Monday QQ (I already handed in my forms yesterday).

I finally made my first "good" cup on Friday. It has a translucent green body, wrapped around with an opaque dark green spiral. It's still off centered, but let's not talk about that. For lunch I decided to get some sushi and clam chowder; a few hours later, I realized why I had stopped getting sushi and chowder from non-sushi and non-chowder shops. I did some UROP (Hyperstudio) for a couple hours before going to 6.470 awards ceremony. Let me first say that although Expresso had some functionality issues, I was impressed. But the final 8 sites for the 6.470 were RIDICULOUS. A bunch of them looked professional and is easily better than half of the Web 2.0 community websites out there. It's crazy what some html/css/js can do, and then add some Flex and Silverlight, and g fucking g. High quality stuff.

(insert 45 min MASLab trip; SELECT * FROM disfunctionalBots)

Julian and I were planning on treating Anton to dinner for all his work on 6.370 and 6.470 on and off for a week now. We decided do it Friday. Along the way it somehow turned into a boys night out (mainly to stick it to Sandra), but it didn't turn out that way. Anthony was busy on resume/cover letter stuff, Bohan has dinner with his good looking 8.01 table mates, Robert had a retreat, Chris and Peter is afk somewhere, and Nathan had late track practice. Anyway Anton, Julian, and I managed to catch the Cambidge West Saferide (and almost got ran over by a bunch of cars running to the bus stop). Apparently Cambridge West != Tech Shuttle. The bus went past MicroCenter and did a loop around the residential area of Central Cambridge (Cambridgeport according to Anton). I was like I don't know where we are, and Anton and Julian was like "wtf mate?" Then I saw that we were really close to Central Square, and I asked the bus driver if he can just drop us off on the spot. The super nice driver did :D. Julian for some reason wanted a super $$$ restruant to take Anton to, and I obliged him by planning on going to Z Square (not $$$, maybe $$). It was closed (luckily?). Since it was a cold wintry night, Anton and I had a craving for some hot Pho, so we went to Li's instead. Each of us got a bowl of Pho (Julian had to be persuaded and I got the extra-large bowl T.T) and then ordered, chicken skewers, ginger chicken, and catfish for some family styled grubbery. Pho was nice and hot (not super good, but very suitable for the climate), and the entrees were delicious (the fish was somewhat lacking in quantity though). All in all super awesome fest without leaving a gigantic pit in our wallets. After dinner, we talked around the square for a while to walk off the uncomfortableness of such a big dinner. We ran into Julian's Hawaiian friend (Feng and Anton approved) from Harvard. Apparently they were both talking about each other right before we ran into them, karma right? Harvard has a formal that night, and a bunch of people were heading there including Julian's friend and.... VARTIKAR. Somewhat weird chance meeting. For some reason I thought I gave a bad impression, but why the fuck should I care what he thinks... weird. On the way back, the three of us talked about girls (what else lol?), and how it's been a long time since we've been in the game (or attempted to). And it has, but school makes me tired. Why spend that extra effort when you can hang out with friends? But then again, I don't know what I'm missing out on...

Once we got back to MIT, I stopped by MacG to grab my "portable" entertainment system (aka laptop+HD+cables). Went to Nathan's some asap and hooked everything up. Next thing you know, I got this 720p version of my desktop on Nathan's 30-something inch HDTV, and music from my computer was blasting out of Nathan's Z-5500 sound system. It was a sweat setup. And then it was Ip Man time. Ip Man turned out to be a badass kungfu movie (Julian was watching the Canto version on his laptop simultaneously). It was much better than the 1000 trashy kungfu/supercop movies out there. And like most Chinese movies, there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment. The scene where Ip Man owned 10 Japanese soldier/kungfu students was friggin' epic.

Reality Hits Hard

Wow, it's been almost a week since I last blogged. Life's busy, but luckily I found some time this early morning to archive a little piece of it.

Saturday: (note: I had to read Anton's blog to remember some stuff lol)
On early Saturday morning, we had a half-birthday party for Anthony and Robert. And Jenny made some IMBA cakes. Like those are ridiculously well made with different layers and shit (special cake for a special someone maybe? at least I remembered that that's what I thought at the time...). Robert got a strawberry vanilla cake, and Anthony got a chocolate strawberry cake; both are amazing. And when you have birthdays, you have showers :D. Anthony was the first to go down. He was in the bathroom, washing a fork or something, and we just ambushed him. After he got showered, he immediately went for Robert, and that started a chain reaction of showerings. The girls (Jenny and Sandra) came next, then Julian, and lastly Anton (yes!!!). Julian was also slapping random people's asses during the heat of things... rofl control yourself... I managed to stay relatively dry throughtout the ordeal. I wanted to get showered because I kind of felt left out of a group bonding experience. It was mainly because of a bad arguement Robert and I got into at the beginning of the year, when I dared him to shower me with Jenny and Anton. So he tried, except he got Julian to help, and four vs one small 135 lb Chinese nerd ain't fair. Apparently he refuses to shower me since then :(. I think we need to mend our friendship.

I woke up at noon on Saturday, and went to Next to do some coding on Battlecode. We didn't get much done within the three hours before Anton's Lunar New Year party (sigh), and our archons liked to spin around randomly. Around 5pm, me, Anton, Anthony, Nathan, Julian, Sandra, and Jenny crammed into both of Anton's parents' cars (Latifah, who lives two doors down, and her mom went with us too). The car ride was somewhat awkward as I crammed into with the girls, and no one spoke at all (wtf, not my fault I hope). When we got to Anton's house, all of us caught up on some good old television, and then had some kickass food. Fried shrimp is soooooo good. Then we went back to the tube, watch some Cops and then Crusoe (both are kinda bad, but it was chill). And then we said our goodbyes to the lovely Nguyen family. I decided to ride with the guys on the way back, switching spots with Anthony (sry). When we got back, Anton give us all red envelopes, which was like DUDE WTF!! YOU JUST INVITED ME TO YOUR HOUSE AND GAVE US FOOD AND NOW YOU WANT ME TO TAKE YOUR MONEY?! lol yea... but I took it reluctantly because arguing in the lobby would not have been cool (now I think of it, I still haven't opened it). On the way to 3W, Julian and I had a semi-serious arguement on who get Anton for the next few days (I rightfully deserve to since Battlecode was due Monday...), and we had a scuffle which resulted in this:


Don't ask how Jenny ended up on the bottom.

We got back at around 9:30PM, which is really early for us college students. Jenny, Nathan, Anton, Anthony, and I had a sudden craving for a movie, and I suggest City of God, which was a damn good movie. After we watched it, everyone was like damn that was intense, raw, and of epic proportions. We were like we don't know what to say... Funny thing that happened during the movie was when Shorty's wife was talking to another woman about sex and bananas, Nathan was like "wtf are we watching?" We still had a craving for movies though, so we watched Superbad, which was hilarious in the beginning. Sometime in the middle, the pace slowed and, since I saw it before, I flew asleep. I woke up during the "sex" scene at the party and was woah, and then I went back to MacG because I was exhausted.

Sunday:
I was woken up by Shankari at 12:30PM telling me that our truffle making class was at 1PM. WTF Sandra said it was at 3PM, just a day ago... (she lies too much). So my breakfast turned out to be 10% water, 5% cream, and 85% chocolate; sweet (literally). Robert and I partnered by and started off with a batch of dark chocolate. We tried to go for the breakfast beverage theme by adding coffee and raspberry and cherry tea. It tasted pretty good in ganache form, but later turned out to taste like medicine cherry (too much tea ftl). Our second batch was based on white chocolate. Since we started out semi-conservative, Robert and I decided to go all out. I really wanted to make something hot and spicy, so I wanted to put in cumin, paprika, and chipotle chilly pepper powder. Robert wanted garlic for some reason and also chose coffee to balance out the taste. In the end, we added everything. Sandra was like wtf, you're chocolate sux balls, eww. When the ganache was finished, everyone had a taste, and they were like wtf. It wasn't a bad wtf though; it was just genuine confusion. Too much spice; taste bud overload!!111!! Later on, after being rolled and shit, the truffle would start out like a punch of spice and fade into the silky smoothness of coffee. It was a masterpiece.

After the class ended at 3PM, a bunch of us went to the student center for lunch; I need a mini-meal of chicken noodle soup ($4.99 wtf man, it's soup). And then dropped my stuff off at MacG and headed back home for my own Chinese New Year dinner. My parents made dumplings, fish, and duck, and there was so much food... We then had a chat with my uncle and grandma via MSN. The next thing I knew, I was getting driven back to MIT. Got back around 10:00PM, I made Anton read them Rekrul threads on TL.net just to procrastinate. Then we worked on Battlecode until 4AM. Not much improvement. Archons spin and get trapped, workers still don't work, and my mini standing army was pathetic.

Monday:
Monday was all Battlecode, from 3PM to 10PM (ok I lied, I went to Dating Etiquette at 1PM sponsored by Charm School; it was boring as fuck). After hours of hardcore coding, Anton and I got our shit together and finally managed to get navigation and defense to run somewhat well (this was revision 116). The weird thing about r116 was that it couldn't best rushplayer... Then Geza came in around 8PM, which is about when we got shit working and decided to pimp our workers. The next two hours flew by super fast, and after some minor tweaks and a supposedly A* worker algorithm, we got revision 122. Except that the workers were as bad as ever, and the tweaks somehow made us lose to refplayer. So we just went from beating 3/4 computer ai to beating 2/4 to beating 1/4. WTF!!!! progress FTL. Argh after some minor panicking, we just uploaded our newest code and said fuck it.

I was glad that Battlecode was over (for now...) and not completely satisfied, but didn't want to think about it anymore. Went to 3W, and rewatched the Matrix. It was still as good as ever. Hello Mr. Anderson.

Tuesday:
The day of reckoning. Tuesday was the day of the Battlecode qualifying tournament, aka Judgement Day. Woke up super late (1PM) after a really exhausting Monday and checked the Battlecode website for the brackets. They weren't up for some reason, so I decided to go anyway since i got nothing better to do. I first went to Anna's for some grub and met Jenny there, and we went to 34-101 soon after. We just there just after we lost to Must Need Energon, so I didn't get to see how we lost :(. After watching Cathy's lose too, Jenny had to go back to Next, and I went to Media Lab UROP. Ankur said it was possible to get a MySQL database on rufus.media.mit.edu except I didn't know any Unix commands and didn't have permission yet, so I was like wtf. And then he said that I should get a basic visualization for the loans and bids tables by the end of the week. Yea.. I'm screwed. Doing too much during IAP unfortunately leads to half-assing a lot of stuff QQ. I then went back to Battlecode and saw that we were matched against David Chen and Darren's robot g fucking g. Yea, went 0-2 after all that hard work. God damn it. Both the teams we faced went pretty far, so I kind of felt cheated. But.. excuses are excuse.... damn. Later that day I talked a lot of trash about other people's code who went farther than us in the tourney, like Bartlet For America, but I was being a sore loser... I decided to take Tuesday off as a mental health day. And spent the night at Next House, don't remember doing what.. maybe Magic. Went back to MacG and caught up on some The Shield w00t.

Wednesday:
Wedneday was when shit started to rain. Early in the morning, my mom called and reminded me of my citizenship interview the next day. SHIT. Didn't do any preparation at all... I went to meet with Mr. Holtzmann in the early afternoon to discuss my schedule. He basically said my courses (14.01, 6.01, 18.03, 18.06) were all really good, but I had to do some HASS's and biology. I asked/tried to persuade him that I should try to petition for 3 more credits to add on a full HASS class (I was looking into Rhetoric, which is both a HASS-D and a CI-H), but he told me frankly that it was pretty much impossible (like you had to get the dean involved and shit... not worth it).This whole sophomore standing thing is complete BS. It's kids with sophomore standing that the Institute should worry about taking on too many classes... People who didn't have 1000 APs in high school are either sane or slackers. Fuck the system. He also gave a good arguement about how taking biology later is going to be a bitch because the other classes are only going to get harder. Scheduling sucks. I then went to the Hyperstudio and did a 4 hour programming sprint and launched the "launch clips" website. It's simple to do, but tedious, and some of the clips didn't work. It snowed/rained get a bitch that day. There were some epic puddles... zizi yo boots. At night I went to J. Crew with Anthony, Bohan, and Sandra. Before the event started, I dropped by Borders to get A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, the first book in the A Song of Fire and Ice series. It's supposedly epic like the Wheel of Time series, but I need to allocate time to reading... MIT just sucks away time like crazy. The J. Crew event was somewhat interesting (more interesting that I would like to admit), but still superficial, and I gots no money for fashion BS. Bohan needed to go to the bathroom, and the rest of crew did their disappearing act, and 5 minutes later called me in the middle of the talk. Not very cool. By the time I got back to MacG, my boots were soaked, so Next was out of the question. Watched more of The Shield and legitimately studied for the easiest test of my test. "What do the 13 stripes stand for?" Jesus fucking Christ, every resident in the US should know that...

Thursday:
Citizenship internship. Woke up early (10AM) actually and met my mom at the Z center to get my Selective Service shit, which wasn't even used. I walked to Government Center from Charles/MGH, and for some reason automatically assumed it was in the city hall building, but it turned out to be in the big tall white building across the plaza called the JFK Federal Buiding. I had to wait one fucking hour to get tested by this "i-fucking-hate-my-life" immigration officer. Easiest shit ever. I had to read "Where is the White House?" out loud, laughing out loud! Took only like 3 minutes. Then I had to wait in another room for my real interview. That wait was worse because I ran out of reading material and was hungry. I hate bureaucracy... My interviewer was a nice lady in her thirties. The "interview" turned out to be just a review of my naturalization form. Just a formality really. And then I was done. I'm going to be a citizen. Getting naturalized on March 4th at the Hynes. It's a Wednesday, so hopefully there won't be a test or something. Waiting is tiring, no joke. When I went to the Hyperstudio to fit in a hour of work, I just slumped in on the comfy revolving chair and wanted to sleep. Went to glassblowing next, but basically I fail at making cups. The first one I made last week had a cracked bottom, the second one which I made today collapsed, and my third attempt was pretty good actually, until I had to take it off. I shifted my left hand to grip the blow tube more firmly, but the pipe was really hot, so I immediately jerked away, and the cup was knocked from the pipe and bounced off the again. Luckily Katy(Katie? Katey?), the TA, reacted fast and put the cup into the annealer quickly. Apparently, the cup didn't change deform when it hit the ground wtf. Anyway, when I went OH SHIT, my hand rested on the hot jacks, and now I have a semi-big burn mark on my hand . GG.

I headed over to 6.270 competition next to support Peter, Shankari, and Kristin. There are so much more people there then at the 6.370 qualifying tourny :(. Hopefully people show up to the Battlecode finals. It's going to be epic. Go Spencer! The competition cool and fun to watch and really easy to understand. But pretty all the robot except the top eight failed. They didn't move at all... Including my buddies' robot. Peter was a bit upset. There's some tension with Shankari... She's been acting a bit weird lately; kinda worry for her. sigh. Then when I arrived at Next House, Jenny told me that Anton and Julian went their website to the wrong person, so technically they didn't submit yet, and Julian was breaking down. Shit 0-3, fail. As we approached 3W, it was kind of funny how me, Bohan, and Jenny were walking quietly and whispering, afraid to disturb the hornet's nest. Then all of the sudden we heard Julian's hysterical laugh from Jenny's room. Uh-oh, he's lost it. NOT!!!! JULIAN GOT AN EMAIL SAYING THAT THEY WERE SEMI FINALISTS!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!! (I wished Anton spent that much time on Battlecode QQ). Yea, today was intense.

Now that I finally caught up on my blogging. I have to do Media Lab UROP (aka learn MATLAB and MySQL in the next three hours). I also have buy books and register for classes. Shit. Reality hit hard and fast...

P.S. w00t, Bohan's learning Starcraft.

P.P.S. phew, my first epic blog

P.P.P.S. I BEAT ANTON'S LONGEST BLOG RECORD BIATCH!

P.P.P.P.S. Last day of IAP T_T