Wonderings

业章

2011-05-26T16:48:00.004-04:00

正午勉习，问君何行
三年时逝，然居此景
彩屏纷纷，击指锵锵
须臾飞矢，所往何疆
内有佳琦，灰墨安之
神之所向，修之齐之
东谣环梁，心泽澜澜
罢此措辞，习我业章

We toil in this earth

2007-09-18T19:40:00.001-04:00

Whisper not to the common man
the designs of his earth.
For he has sketched his plan
to toil for all his worth.

Point not to the gentle lad
the tower of ancients overbearing.
For he still callowly clad
dreams of his Ziggurat standing.

Care not the dashing salmon
the trail of his watery enemy.
Worry not the arduous man
the plans of his unbound misery.

Whisper not to the common man
the designs of his earth.
For he has sketched his plan
to toil for all his worth.

秋飔

2007-09-13T13:49:00.005-04:00

九天炎日意未尽，十月清风寒孤心。稚稚初生惊千象，白鬓陈迈意冷轻。机车琳琅贯大道，行人争先秋飔迎。昨日悲欢赴东逝，今日悠悠旻天新。

雨夜城

2007-07-05T03:20:00.000-04:00

微微季雨飞，朦胧都市夜。
与友论世情，惆怅心又生。
忆欲得四臂，惬与伊怀袖。
惊觉岁如矢，相逢盼无期。
世事何无常，碎心东风扬。
七月霖雨城，凄凄靡靡光。

お茶

2007-06-20T00:50:00.000-04:00

ええ、何って言うか、突然に日本語で何かを書きたくなった。

僕はもう日本語を勉強続けるつもりがないので、これからも日本語をだんだん忘れになるはずだろう。長い文章を書く理由もうないかもしれない。

日本語はいつも自分の気持ちをはっきり伝えられる方法だったな～。周りにこんな文章を読める人は少ないなので、人が自分の気持ちを読んで、恥ずかしくなることはならない。読める人もいるんだが、そんなに近い友達じゃないなので、かまえないんだよ。

あの人は静岡のお茶がくれた。そのお茶を全部飲むと、あの人のことを全部忘れられるっていうのを自分と約束したけど、お茶はたくさん！一年かに毎日ほど飲んだけど、今に残っているのはまだ半分ぐらい。それに毎日飲んでいるので、毎日彼女のことを思い出している。ぜんぜんわすれられへんやん！

そう言っても、彼女の想い出は毎日このお茶のように、だんだん薄くなってしまっている。どうして素敵な夢でも、目覚める日もあるだろう。

靜心

2007-06-18T01:44:00.001-04:00

揮寒刃兮，操戚矛。
舞長劍兮，鑄拳腳。
擧千斤兮，習賢道。
身力竭兮，心尚擾。

雨霽

2007-06-01T06:08:00.000-04:00

縴風拂髮，鵲戯楊枝，
瑩珠垂卉梢。

雨霽嫻陽，紅顏相映，
士爭悅子嬌。

初芽方茂，南風已至，
靈雀雙築巢。

碧空浮雲，參差車人，
我心何飄渺。

山鳥君

2007-05-26T08:32:00.001-04:00

秋月挂兮霏雲，澤流淌兮潾浚
容君兮心之瑞，子思兮時弗摧
尋覓兮昨日韻，顧盼兮惆夢醖
女之思兮已絕否，復不可兮夏日緣

Waking Dream

2007-01-16T14:37:00.001-05:00

CUTC came to a close over the weekend. Thinking back, the whole thing was a blur. We were cooped up in the Toronto Hilton hotel's basement for three days, listening to seminars, eating catered food and meeting colleagues from other universities. Oh, and the partying, can't forget the partying. I'm never one to go to clubs, but given the circumstances, it was as fun as one can get after alcohol was downed.

It wasn't all fun and games. There were tech-shop competitions where we could win laptops. So my team of five( read: Jane and I ) stayed up all night working on the presentation slides. This was after I had a gruelling two hours of practice, and then three more hours of dancing. Needless to say, I was a walking zombie the next day, and had to run home and sleep after the presentations. No, we didn't win. As crazy as I thought we were, the group from Carlton went batshit. They stayed up for two nights working on this, ignoring all forms of entertainment around them. They did a banged up job, and I say props to them for winning, they really deserved it.

I suppose that's the difference between people. Those who commit and are diligent will come out on top, and those who run around the city trying to get three things done in one day will not.

It's been a few days after the event, but my head is still in the clouds. The events themselves are still replying in my head, as well as some of the people I met. It's like a dream in a far away land, sweet, and lovable. The kind that lingers in the heart long after waking.

待たされたとき

2007-01-08T02:42:00.000-05:00

生活で待たされることはきっと避けにくいです。時間通り友達がばかりいっても、病院や銀行で待たなければなりません。その場合、いつもイライラしていることの代わりに、緊張なテンポを一瞬だけに止めて、そんな大切で暇な時間をゆっくりしたほうがいいでしょうか。

はっきり考えたら、私には待たされた場合が少なくないですが、本当にイライラしたことも怒ったこともあんまりありません。すぐ終わりたい事はともかく、でもほとんどの時間は心が落ち着けていいです。人を待つと、暇な時間があります。そういうとき一人でどこかで座って、周りの景色を見惚れたり、いろいろなことを考えたりすると、なぜか心が静かになります。忙しい人込みの中で不思議な静けさが持つ、そういう気持ちが大好きです。

そう言っても、私は限度もあります。待っていた人は二時間ごろ過ぎまで来なければ、怒るはずです。銀行と店で半時間ぐらいだと思います。病院では長い時間を待たされるかもしれないのがわかります。昔に５時間も待たされたことがあります。その原因は１２歳のとき友達と遊んで、高いところから落ちって、両手の腕が骨折してしまったことです。あの時母さんにつれて行かれた救急病院でずっと待っていってしまって、腕がもう自分で治ったと思いました。

そのうえ、好きな子を待っているとき、心がイライラじゃなくて、どきどきですね。

始めの一歩

2007-01-07T01:11:00.001-05:00

冬休みがもうそろそろ終わるまで、日本語のテストは新しい学年の始めにあることを発見してきた。まずい！先年から日本語で話すこととか読むこととか全然していなかった。今から勉強してももう遅いだろう。まあ、とにかく日本語で何か書こう、日本語の考え方を思い出すのために。

今年の正月は疲れた。家族は最近引越している。なので今年はパーティーでもなくて、父さんといっぱい家具を動いた。僕は家族と引越ししない。今住んでいるところで一月ごろ残って、あとで友達のところを貸すつもりなんだ。今回は初めて家から出ることじゃないので、別に気が立っていない。これから家族と住むことに戻らないと思う、せめて戻りたくない。自分はもう大人だ、将来にどうなるかどうかよくわからないけど、でもこれは真剣の第一歩だろう。

世界はそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ

2007-01-02T21:08:00.001-05:00

世界はそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ
The world calls it love
-Sambomaster

Densha Otoko really is a mediocre show at best. However its ending song is impressive, and through it I got to know the band Sambomaster.

The rest of the song isn't very remarkable, but the beginning lyrics really resonated with me:

涙の中にかすかな灯りがともったら
君の目の前であたためてた事話すのさ
それでも僕等の声が乾いてゆくだけなら
朝が来るまでせめて誰かと歌いたいんだ

昨日のあなたが偽だと言うなら
昨日の景色を捨てちまうだけだ

新しい日々をつなぐのは　新しい君と僕なのさ
僕等なぜか確かめ合う　世界じゃそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ

If a faint flicker lights up in your tears,
I will appear before you, and tell you warm tales.
Even if our voices dry up,
At least until morning dawns, we have sang with someone.

If you say that yesterday's you was but a lie,
Then I will just throw away yesterday's scenery.

What ties the coming days, is the new you and me.
Somehow we are sure that, the world calls this love.

歌声よおこれ

2006-12-29T01:48:00.001-05:00

歌声よおこれ
O Singing, Rise!

今僕等が誰かに望むのは
多分本当の事を話して欲しいだけ
愛しさなんて僕等が知らぬなら
誰か感動の歌を聴かせておくれよ
涙流れて雲の上
汚れきった僕は今から
あなたに逢いに行く

歌声よ響き合って言葉も越えて
にごった僕の罪を砕いてくれ
愛しさ知りたいだけなのさ
そして夜を越えてあなたと逢って
悲しみなんて今夜で終わらせて
歌声よ響け　今僕に

想い出なんて僕は捨てたハズなのに
なぜか思い出すのはズルく笑った自分
いまだにきっと僕は愛しさを知らぬ
だからきかせておくれよ本当の事を
涙溢れて君の影
走り去って時は後から
僕らを責め立てる

歌声よ響き出してウソをも抱いて
僕等の泣いた昨日を消してくれ
夜風に僕等は歌うのさ
そして夜を越えて二人になって
あなたのために声を震わせて
歌声よおこれ　この夜に

涙こらえて横顔冷たく光って
砕け散った夢は
それでもあなたと探しに行くよ

歌声よ響き合って僕等の罪よ
祈りとなって明日を変えてくれ
このまま僕等は歌うのさ
そして朝になって二人笑って
哀しく歌う世界を止めてくれ
歌声よおこれ　この胸に

What we desire from others these days
Is perhaps just for them to tell the truth.
If we know not of love
then someone let us hear a touching song!
Above the clouds with tears flowing,
my unclean self will now
go and meet you.

O singing, resonate, overcome words
smash the sins of my impure self.
Love, I just want to know what that is.
Pass through the night to meet you,
Whatever sadness, let it end tonight.
O singing, resonate now, to me.

Whatever memories, surely I have thrown them out.
Why is it that I remember my slyly smiling self?
Certainly I know not of love yet
So let me hear the true.
The sight of you running away with tears
from then on still torments us.

O singing, resonate, embrace even the lies
and erase yesterday's sorrows.
We will sing to the night breeze!
And so pass through the night, we are together.
For you, let my voice tremble.
O singing, rise! Into the night.

Fighting back tears with my profile lit coldly,
even if our dream is broken and scattered,
I will go look for it with you.

O singing, resonate, O our sins
turn to prayer, and let tomorrow be changed.
We will sing just like this.
And then morning comes, and we smile.
Let the sorrowfully singing world stop!
O singing, rise! Into this heart!

Kendo's Gruelling 8th Dan Test

2006-12-19T16:19:00.001-05:00

This is perhaps the best video I've seen on YouTube.

This is what it's all about. The sweat, the tears, the things that drive men with frenzy, and to endure all to walk down the lonesome path.

Why reinvent the wheel

2006-12-17T18:57:00.001-05:00

Not long ago I realized that my site won't scaling very well with the amount of content I want to add. Somewhere along the road my patchy PHP back-end just won't hack it anymore. The solution of course is to migrate it onto a more automatic content management system. 'No problem' I thought, nothing a little elbow grease won't fix. This was before the end of the summer.

I did manage to write up a framework of a simple CMS I called "uCMS" or "microCMS". I worked on it off and on during the work term, whenever I had no cases to work on. By the end of August, the back-end code was completed, and I left the code behind and went to Japan, gleefully thinking that all I need to do was to finish the front end UI.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I finally had some time to return to the project after exams, and was suddenly overwhelmed at how much I had to do. The Phrame framework that I based my code around was now looking tedious and clunky. The thought of redefining mappings multiple times inside the system just gave me a headache. Extremely unsatisfied with my previous design, I wanted to redo the whole system from the ground up. However the base frame was already working flawlessly, and I heeded the ominous words: "Never revamp unless absolutely needed". However, thinking the road ahead, I realized that there's a lot more to be done. I had no user management system, no gallery management, no search capability, not enough content type, no AJAX ( *grin* ), etc etc.

I decided that it's not worth the effort to develop my code any further. Instead, I turned to existing open source CMS for solution. I did use Joomla while at Autodesk to implement their support docs repository, so naturally I tried to adopt Joomla first. What an exercise in frustration. As sparky as Joomla's multiple awards are, I just found its organization to be awkward at best. Not to mention it's limited menu system that made category automation impossibly difficult. In short, I needed to do substantial amount of tinkering in the system for it to work for my site. A workload that's not unlike what I was trying to avoid at the very beginning. Certainly using the CMS for Autodesk took quite a long time too. Funny how I didn't seem to mind it that much when I was getting paid for it.

Looking elsewhere, I stumbled upon CMS Made Simple. Not the most catchy name to be sure, but it is the most intuitive Open Source CMS out there for me. The admin UI is simple and clean, and all the inner workings of the system are presented in an organized fashion and well documented. There are some areas that left something to be desired for sure, such as the inability to display sub-contents in a section out-of-the-box, and the fact that they save template and CSS code in the database, but the experience has been much better than Joomla.

I finished migrating my site into the new system in less than 10 hours. As I always say after each major overhauls, I sure hope this is the last time that I gotta do something like this.

In Japan: Hiroshima

2006-08-23T22:43:00.000-04:00

Hiroshima is a beautiful city, full of trees and rivers, like a city built upon a garden. The atmosphere is leisurely, and the people are few. It's a first for me to feel so relaxed in Japan, and what a relief it is.

Of course, there is the dark past about the city, everywhere I go I was able to spot some charred remains of trees that people had refused to take down, in order to remind others of the bomb. The rivers were beautiful and pristinely green, it's hard to imagine so many people died on their shores.

Kie was not her usual self this time. Having just broken up with her boyfriend, I'm sure she's in no mood to tour the city with me. I am however glad to see her. Somehow she's much quieter around me, it makes me wonder which is the real Kie. The energetic girl I met in Toronto, or the quiet lass that I faced in Hiroshima. Perhaps even she had to cover up her cheerful self in Japan.

I met a nice old lady working in the hostel. She was eager to chat about the war, and the relationships between China and Japan. It was a pleasant chat, so much so that I forgot the time and was late for meeting Kie. Tonight I was able to have a long discussion regarding society and war with a high school boy in my dorm. He traveled by himself to Hiroshima, and is in love with clouds. Japanese are just like any other people, generally good natured, and just wish to peacefully go about their lives. They care little about politics, and are often confused why the rest of Asian dislike them. Even having been to Yasukuni, I cannot bring myself to antagonize them. Is so much hate really necessary?

I spent the rest of my day climbing Ushita mountain after parting with Kie. It was the most pleasant time I had in Japan. There wasn't a soul on the trail except for the singing of the cicadas and the dancing butterflies. I suddenly felt really Canadian, hiking in another country. Ushita mountain was 230 meters high, not very tall, but certainly a lot more interesting than Mt. Fuji and it's truck loads of people.

I'm glad I came to Hiroshima, even if it was just an afterthought. If I ever have to live in Japan, Hiroshima would be my first choice. Here or Okinawa, their food seems to be the only thing that I can stomach in Japan.

In Japan: Day 6

2006-08-19T05:34:00.000-04:00

Went to Nara yesterday. Met a nice couple from Vancouver. They just graduated from UBC and took a year off to travel. They've been on the road for 6 months now and have been all over Asia. What is it with people and traveling for such a long time?

We walked around Nara Koen, and fought off the persistent deers. They left for Osaka yesterday night, and left me their contact. Maybe I will be able to meet up with them again, as I'm heading for Osaka tomorrow.

I got to know two Korean guys in the hostel that I'm staying in, and then drank the night away with them and two other Japanese guys from Osaka. The manager lady joined us too. Listening to them chatting in Kansai-ben was a delight. The Koreans headed off for Aomori today, and are going up north to Hokkaido. The Japanese guys are here for a track-and-field competition for medical students. I've found that so far everyone I've met are involved in medical science some how. Melissa was a doctor, the Vancouver couple was in micro-biology, and this Japanese guy is an acupuncturist and a medical student. Either this is a sign from god, or the medical field is very popular.

Youko suddenly emailed me telling me that she wants to meet me after all. This just threw my plans into a jumbo. Now I suddenly can't think of anything else.

Nara was good I suppose, and I spent today visiting some other temples in Kyoto. But really, they are not anything I've never seen before. I'm a little tired of temples now, well starting tomorrow, I will be meeting people in Osaka, Hiroshima and Tokyo, so it should be a nice change of pace.

Paul Newell emailed me to thank me for my help during my work at Autodesk/Alias. I'm a little touched, that he remembered me at all, and actually bothered to write me an email in his position and schedule. My internship has only finished less than a week ago, and yet it feels like years ago, and the life in Canada feels so far away.

In Japan: Day 5 - Osaka

2006-08-18T22:05:00.000-04:00

Osaka is a pretty horrendous city. As soon as I stepped off the train I knew that I was not going to like it.

It's a maze of shop upon shops upon neon signs of some kind of dystopia's concrete jungle that came straight out of Blade Runner. Here everything felt run down. At night people prowl the streets in distasteful fashion to seek physical companionships, truly a city of decadence and greed. I'm thankful that I needed only to stay for a day.

Meeting Jenny took a little longer than I anticipated. She too shared much of my frustrations, but decided to like the city nevertheless. I'm sure I'm in no position to make a justified judgment of the place after only a day's stay, but the business nature of the city just turns me right off.

In Japan: Day 4 - Kyoto

2006-08-17T09:44:00.001-04:00

I met a girl yesterday in the Kyoto tourist information office. Turned out she's Australian and has been traveling around the world for a few months now. I suppose calling her a girl is inappropriate. She's actually a fully fledged doctor, having recently graduated from medical school. We decided to watch the Daimonji fire together, and trekked all the way east, and found some obscure temple on the top of a hill behind a web of houses and alley ways dotting the far corner of north east Kyoto. Well at least the place seemed to be obscured to us foreigners, all the Japanese seemed to knew that it was a good spot to watched the fire, and showed up en mass.

We split up today and she's off to Shirakawa for beaches and Onsen. I'm on my own again, and went temple hopping.

I wasn't able to reserve a hostel for yesterday before I left Canada, so I had the JR office reserve a hotel for me to stay for yesterday night. The hotel was nice, if not a little too expensive. Today I moved to the hostel that I had reserved, and the place is very nice. The woman managing the place is very nice, and the place is kept clean and professional. She lives alone though, but she doesn't seems to be too lonely, with all the travelers coming in and out. She doesn't seem to speak a lick of English though, and occasionally throws out her Kansai dialect when she gets happy, which always throws me off.

Kyoto is not at all what I imagined it to be. It's a rather small city, humid and is littered with little traditional houses. However at the center of it all is a twisted mess of steel and concrete. Especially the over-sized Kyoto station, which hugs the landscape with its monstrous size, and sprawls out its aging rail ways from the center of the city. It's like a cancer that eats away at the city from its heart. It seems that Japan is full of such contradictions, industrious but full of anachronisms, automated but stuffed with manual labours, with an incredible infrastructure that one cannot help but to admire their engineering prowess, but at the same time showing a lot of questionable designs.

So far I've found all my sight seeing destinations to be average at best. Japan seems to be one giant tourist trap that almost everything they build are designed for tourists. The most enjoyable part of the trip has been the trek between the destinations and the people I've met. I've just walked all day to day to find Gingakuji, finding my way through little alleys and unarmed streets only to be total underwhelmed by the little wooden "temple".

Tomorrow I'll take a day trip to Nara, and see if it will impress me a bit more. I have to admit, I miss the grandness of Chinese architecture.

In Japan: First 2 days

2006-08-16T00:58:00.000-04:00

I've arrived in Japan 3 days ago. Ran into some troubles and took over 4 hours for me to find my hotel. Got in contact with Justin and visited Yasukuni with them on the 15th, the same day Koizumi decided to pop in for his visit. It was a very eye opening experience, basically Japanese at their worst. Afterwards we visited the emperor's palace, I then took a stroll through University of Tokyo on my way home. Thus far the trip has been very surreal. I've arrived at Kyoto today, and is staying at a hotel beside the Kyoto station for tonight. Tonight is the Daimonji, looking forward to it. I'm typing this in the Kyoto visitor's information center. The internet rate is a killer right now, good thing I'm writing down a journal on a notebook as I go along. Using a computer really is the last thing on my mind right now. Perhaps I will type up my journal when I get back to Canada.

In Japan - First Day: The Hostel

2006-08-14T22:50:00.000-04:00

When I exited from Hongo Sanchome, the sky was already dark. I couldn't read the map that the hostel had provided since it didn't have street names. After asking various passer bys, I managed to find the little alley that leads to the hostel. However walking alone in a dark alley after three screw ups in a foreign country doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a person. Nevertheless I had no real choices but to follow the darkness ahead, clinging on to the words of every sign posts, hoping that the name of the Hostel would jump out at me. Suddenly I overheard the oh-so-familiar English behind me. They were two teenage Japanese girls just chatting away in perfect English. Thinking that they were tourists like myself, I asked for directions. Turned out that they lived right beside the hostel, and happily showed me the way. After a bit of introductions, I found out that they had both stayed for 4 years in England previously, thus explaining their flawless English. I had asked for their names, but regrettably for the life of me I can no longer recall them. They were like angels that came to my aid when I was lost and confused, and led me to light ( well, the hostel ). I am forever grateful.

The hostel people were expecting me for a while. After informing that my actual location of stay is in a separate residence a block away, the overweight woman who came out to greet me showed me the way to th Morikawa residence. She insisted on carrying my heavy backpack, even-though she was sweating and panting profusely. She seemed to feel that it was her duty to carry my bags. Like a soldier, she forged on even-though it's clear that it was too heavy for her. A man from Morikawa *ran* out to meet us half way, and took over the guide duty. He led me to the hostel, and showed me the facilities in broken English. I in turn replied in broken Japanese. Nice people.

The hostel is a traditional Japanese style ryokan. With tatami rooms and futons. It's very clean and orderly, even-though its wooden halls do show its age. The smell of wood permeated the place, it was a very enjoyable atmosphere.

By this time, I was tired and starving. Japan was much hotter than Toronto, the temperature was around 30 degrees C. Personally I found it rather comfortable though. I was too tired to go out and sample the local delicacies, I had more than enough new experiences for one day. Instead I bought some instant noodles and some breakfast for the next day, and called it a night.

In Japan - First day: Arrival

2006-08-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

Arrived in Japan. It was a long and uneventful flight. Being cramped in such a small space for 13 hours certainly doesn't heighten one's spirit. When it was over, I was too fatigued from the time differences and my throbbing ass to be excited about the arrival at all. Everything was strangely familiar, but different. People still dress about the same, the buildings are not all that different, but there's a constant feeling that some dark alienness lurks in the shadows. It was a strange feeling, to be somewhere I've never been but yet so intensely familiar with. Everything from the sound to the way people behave are so familiar to me, but so alien at the same time.

The trip from the airport to my hostel wasn't exactly smooth. I arrived at 3:10pm, but only managed to reach my hostel by 8:30pm. First I managed to miss the express train to Tokyo. The train seat was reserved by a polite lady in the Narita JR service center. I managed to miss it because the train was so early that I didn't believe that it was mine. Not certain if I needed to reserve again for the next train, I decided to just get on and pretend all was well, only to have the true seat owners arrive. At this point everyone was staring at me weirdly. I'm sure the idea of an unreserved seat taken was unfathomable. I escaped to the walkways between trains to avoid the stares, and just when I was breathing a sight of relief and started to enjoy the Japanese country side that rush past the window, a ticket checker came up to my face to ask about my reservation. Luckily with some explanation with my rusty Japanese, I was in the clear, and was told to find a seat.

The train ride from Narita to Tokyo took an hour. The whole time I had my eyes wide open to absorb as much scenery as possible. It struck me that the vegetations and geography was actually very similar to China. The bamboo forests, the rows of rice wafting in the wind, the green mountains that dominated the landscape were all too similar to that of SiChuan. So much so, that if people were to remain silent, and take away the Shinkansen, I would no doubt believe that I am in China. The city was a strange 80's land. Drab sign posts and buildings overflew this uniformly gray concrete jungle, extending it as far as the eye can see. As if time had stood still, and Japan still revels in their golden days, with only the occasional rust neon signs and metal frames to give away their age.

I ran into a bit of trouble going from Tokyo station to Hongo Sanchome. I needed to change to the Marunouchi subway line, but my Japan Rail Pass couldn't be used on subways. I was a little stumped on how to get a ticket, as I had nothing but 10,000 yen bills on me. Luckily I ran into a nice girl from San Diego, who cheerfully offered to pay the 160 yen for me, and pointed me to the direction I should go. I was later that I realized that the direction she gave me was incorrect. Since she was going the opposite way as I was, I suppose she went the wrong way too.

Before that, there was another incident. I bought a bottle of tea for change in the station. While I was about to pay, my train ( the one going in the wrong direction ) pulled up. I rushed to take out what I thought was a 5,000 yen bill, and got the change from the sells lady, and hurried into the train. When I checked for change, I realized that the change I got was for 1,000 yen instead. The sells lady did see me chatting with the San Diego girl, did she try to pull one over me -- the hapless gaijin? A little miffed, I decided to go back and confront her. 5,000 yen is a lot of money. She insisted that she was correct of course, so I asked her to check the bills, since the money I paid was old and ripped, it should stand out from the rest. Then my eyes almost popped out when I saw that the bill was indeed 1000 yen. Now with my face blushed with embarrassment, I apologized profusely, although probably not as politely as I should have. All my grammar thoughts went out of window at the moment. When I went on the train again, she gave me a bemused smile and waved me goodbye.

So there you go, I've been in Japan in less than 4 hours, and I've already fucked up 3 times.

八月游

2006-08-11T06:23:00.000-04:00

昂头瞻，星空茫茫。
翌日别卯时，
单骑走扶桑。
昂头瞻，碧空苍苍。
男儿志在何方。

Bee's Knees

2006-08-03T18:54:00.001-04:00

My Knees are messed up.

I've been having dull discomforts below my kneecaps for a few months now. It's only recently that they start to hurt. At first I suspect that it was injury to my meniscus plates, since I do quite a bit of weight transfers on my legs in low stances when practicing Baji. I thought that I might have twisted my knee sometimes in my practice when I was still doing thing incorrectly, and that worried me quite a bit. Meniscus injuries are no walk in the park, all my researches came into the conclusions that it probably requires surgery. Well my knees don't feel THAT bad, and I seemed to recall that my knees started worsen after my 5 km run June. So I looked up runner's knee, and it seemed to fit my condition. However without a doctor's diagnostic I can't be certain.

So I went and got professional opinion. After I told my doctor that I ran the 5 km on concrete with my only pair of crappy shoes, he gave me a dirty look and simple said: "Those are not running shoes" ( no shit Sherlock ), I'm pretty sure he was thinking "What a bloody idiot!". After he manipulated my knees a bit, he came away with the conclusion: Patellofemoral Syndrome. Patello-what? It's basically irritation below the kneecaps with improper tracking of the Patella bone. Supposedly to be a very common problem, probably from over-use and improper running form and footwear ( ding ding ding! ).

The moral of the story? Footwear is important, especially running. I ran out and got myself an open knee-strap, as well a new pair of shoes. Now my knee feels pain feel with them! I will need to give them sometimes to heal, and then everything should be ok. It's a good thing I caught this before the trip. I can't imagine what I'll do to my knees backpacking around Japan in those shoes for two weeks.

七月风

2006-07-24T23:55:00.000-04:00

生为何物，情亦为何物。

方才相识，骤又分飞。

花已谢，忆于风中舞。

We are but puppets

2006-07-05T23:55:00.000-04:00

Absolutely surreal clip a the Horseguards Parade.

http://www.devilducky.com/media/46655/

Do we really have more freedom than her? Or is all just an illusion?
She is more free spirited than most who claim to be free.

Ow my arm

2006-07-05T21:32:00.000-04:00

I've managed to hurt myself yet again.

It's been a while since I had a relatively more severe injury, so I suppose I've had it coming. My left arm got hyper-extended while doing randori in Judo yesterday. Went against that tall green belt whose name I do not recall. I was trying to close my range so that I can actually reach him for kazushi, so I went and grabbed his right pant leg with my left hand, attempting to trap his feet to off-balance him. Unfortunately at the same time he decided to try uchi-mata on me, and kicked his left leg into the back of my left elbow. There was a nice loud crack and my arm just went limp. I can still rotate the arm, so it's not broken or anything, but there's a constant dull pain in my elbow, indicating that the tendon has been sprained.

I iced it and bandaged it as soon as I got home, and today am walking around with my left arm in a sling, trying to explain to people at work who went through the trouble of feigning interest in my well-being the cause of my misfortune. I'm going to be out of commission for three weeks or so. I need to rest the left arm, there's no much I can do about that. I hope that it won't become too weak after almost a month of inactivity. Meanwhile, this could be a bless in disguise. Since I was able to identify the problem with my baji fajing to the alignment of my lower body just before this injury, now I'll have tons of time to work on it whether I like it or not.

Lessons learned:

1. Getting arm hyper-extended sucks.
2. Don't grab the opponent's opposite leg when not in range, and when the opponent still has balance.
3. Doing arm locks with both legs can be potentially very effective.

Japan here I come

2006-06-23T22:40:00.000-04:00

I have received confirmation from my manager, and I'll be taking my vacation at the end of my PEY session starting August 14th. This means I will have almost a month worth of free time before school starts, so it's a go ahead for my planned trip to Japan.

Well the original plan was to stay two weeks in Japan and do some sight seeing. However circumstances have changed, and I no longer have reliable lodging in Tokyo anymore. I'm never one to change my mind easily, so I'm instead going to go for a backpacking trip in Japan. I'm should able to just meet the start of the Obon festivals by the time I get there. The thought of foreign places, culture, and being the lonesome traveler ignites the wanderlust in me. I will also get a chance to check out daimonji gozan okuribi(大文字五山送り火), which I've been dying to see since I was in high-school.

My purpose of taking this trip was to 1. experience for myself what the fuss with Japan is all about. 2. Get a chance to look closely at the only surviving Han and Tang dynasty architectures and artifacts ( read: swords ) in the world. and 3. put my Japanese to the test in its natural environment. However three weeks of free time is quite a lot. I'm not sure if I will want to spend more than a week and half in Japan, after all it's only the size of California. Originally I've never intended to take a detour, but now with all the time I will have, maybe I'll go to China as well to visit friends and family, and maybe even South Korea to meet up with a friend as well.

All this is still more than a month away, but the thought that my wish to backpack through Japan will come true fills me to the brim with anticipation. It seems that a restless July awaits me.

Fortune brings Al Gore?

2006-06-02T21:53:00.000-04:00

All of a sudden Al Gore is marching at the forefront of environmental protection.

How did this happen? He came across as an awkward figure that paled in the cowboy-esque charisma of G.W Bush during that U.S. election. Who would have thought that he was capable of presenting an entire documentary, one that is not preachy nor boring from what I heard.

In actuality, this guy has a great sense of humor, and is highly intelligent. ( Unlike a certain someone ). How did it happen then, that the American public elected someone who is less intelligent, and with no more personality than Gore? Would the world be a better place had Gore won? Would he act more swiftly to stop 9-11, thus preventing the current war? Would he really dedicate more resources to fight global warming and "do no evil"?

I doubt it. As a politician I don't believe he would have enough room to do as he please, however good his intentions might be. Large corporations of all types ( oil, pharmaceutical ) are the truth wielder of power, and the politicians will only appease their sponsers' wishes. It is then perhaps our fortune that Al Gore had lost. He now has the freedom to climb the moral high ground and contribute to the greater good.

That is, if he doesn't intent to use his current position for the next presidential election.

5 Kilometers in the rain

2006-06-02T12:54:00.000-04:00

5 Kilometers in the rain,
originally uploaded by sinkpoint.

At the insistence of David Lau, I joined the YMCA Corporate Team Challenge on Wednesday.

It was a 5 km run around the Exhibition Place per person. relay style.
This was to be a challenge for myself since I've never ran that far before. The furtherest distance I've ever ran was about 2 km, and that was when I was 9 years old.

The weather seemed great when I accepted the invitation. However the day of the run turned out to be humid and overcast. The rain started to pour as soon as I started running, and I was absolutely soaked.

The rain actually helped quite a bit. I would've drenched my shirt just as much with sweat, and the rain helped to cool me off. I just wish they didn't block my vision so much.

I finished the 5km in 24:58 min. Not bad for my first time I suppose. I have to admit running was actually more exciting than I had previously imagined. I think I will actually start to run more regularly.

This does not sit well with me

2006-04-18T12:10:00.000-04:00

There is something wrong with the image of two grown men, and I do mean *grown* men ( as in > 35 ) having a serious discussion about Full Metal Alchemist. Tell you the truth I know nothing of the title other than the fact that 1. It's an anime series, and 2. It probably involves alchemy, may be metal. My mother has been having rather serious problems with her shoulders, so I've started teaching her Yang Taiji as well as Bagua Xiao Zhou Tian. I have my doubts on how much benefit they will really have on her shoulders, but anything that gets her to exercise more is bound to be good.

The sky is falling! IE7 will suck

2006-03-24T05:58:00.000-05:00

Category: Webdev According to Eric Meyer, IE7 beta 1's rendering model is final. Which means that all sites that appear to be broken in it ( including yours truly ), will be broken in the final release. Putting the fact that it strangely resembles a broken version of FireFox aside, my site rendered horribly. For some reason IE7 rendered my inline buttons vertically. I will have to fix the problem eventually, but I really don't want to install the ghastly thing on my system again. The install overwrites IE6, it would make compatibility test on IE6 a problem.

Sure sign of Spring?

2006-03-13T05:08:00.000-05:00

At work, everyone are dropping like flies from sickness. We had at least 6 guys calling in sick on Friday, and my team had to guard the fort with just the 3 of us. I'm still healthy as heck though, which I attribute to my daily practice of Baji and Taiji. I don't remember ever seeing so many people getting sick in one group before, so I guess it's the flu season now. Hence only next logical conclusion is, Spring is here!. The temperature has shot up to above zero recently, the forecast of this weeks has spring written all over it as well. I'm still cautious though, Canadian winter always dies hard.

Valley of the tire crushers

2006-03-08T05:47:00.000-05:00

This is the last time I'm riding a bike down Sherbourn street. My bike's back tire got punctured, again! To think that I had just pumped the tire at 4:40 in the morning, this pisses me off to no end. What do the bums do around there? Smash beer bottles onto the road for fun? What's up with all the glass sheards on that road? It doesn't help that I can't see them in the darkness either. Rant rant rant, vent vent vent, etc.

we are not butterflies

2005-12-30T12:28:00.000-05:00

Yoko has gone back to Japan. It was heart wrentching to watch her striding towards the boarding temrinal, away from me and the world that we shared. I am glad though, that she's back with her family, in a place where she doesn't have to feel too self-concious about her language skills to speak to anyone. All of a sudden, my life returned to its previous tempo. Wake up, go to work, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. Was the last two months but a fleeting dream that I've just awoken from? Or am I dreaming now, and when I wake up, she'll still be in my arms? I have no choice now but to look forward with my life, and embrace what the future will bring. Oh yeah, we decided to keep the relationship going despite the distance. So it really isn't as bad as it sounds.

Obligatory Status Update

2005-11-07T07:56:00.000-05:00

Really nothing much new with life with me. I started working at Alias for my PEY term. Well, I've been doing that for the past 3 months already, so I guess it's not really "starting" anymore. Work is pretty routine. I get up at around 4:30AM, go to work, check email, work on customer cases, debug their code, reproduce problems in Maya, log bugs and think up workarounds. Sometimes I get to work on some side projects like working on fixing the Alias website, and write up internal web-based solution viewers for the Alias Support. I've grown quite tired of web app development though. It's simply not challenging anymore, I feel like a robot always going through the same coding process, but I digress. I think I've grown tired of games. I bought a bunch of them 2 weeks back. Got F.E.A.R, Quake 4, Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion, The new Falcon 4 version, and Pacific War out of obligatory contribution to the developers. I haven't touched any of them yet, I tried Quake 4 a little, but was bored out of my mind even before the game started. I kind of dread playing F.E.A.R, simply cause it freaks the hell of of me. I just have no real desire to play any of them. I think this will be the last time I will buy any games ever. The most exciting thing so far is to be involved in a new relationship. I'm very happy with how things are progressing right now, but she's going back to Japan in a month, so I really don't know how things will work out. Hm, ok, so there are actually quiet a few things that are new. :)

Keats couldn't have said it better

2005-09-29T13:25:00.000-04:00

Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer; Let me a while thy sweetest comforts borrow: Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head! - John Keats "To Hope"

"That's right ma'am, we get up before the chickens"

2005-07-07T15:51:00.000-04:00

At work, group bonding time, co-worker cracks a joke.
Little old English lady, upon hearing that we work the 5am shift, said in the dearest possible way "Oh my, you must get up awfully early", "That's right ma'am, we get up before the chickens."

Everyone laughs, I stood there blinking my eyes for a full minute before the joke hits me. What can I say, it's been a while since I heard the cry of a rooster. I actually fully remember, in techno colour, roosters crying in the morning in my grandmother's house. I must've been 2 or 3 years old then, the apartment we lived in was long demolished to make way for new residences. I actually remember the entire floor, the stairs, the balcony, the old concrete kitchen and of course, the crying of the roosters. There would be virtually no electronic appliances. We used unscented soaps, cooked with coal stoves, and entertainment of the week would be watching my grandmother gutting fish.

And there I stood, still smelling the fish soups, and realized that I'm working in goddamn Alias. Surrounded by computers, 2 feet away from me there's a blazing 64bit computer with 4 gigs of ram, I got 2 computer on desk and we are calling people around the world with a few mouse clicks, and I had just answer a question in goddamn Japanese.

The amount of change in the world that I experienced is pretty extreme. There are generations these days who can't even imagine a world without TV or computers. People of my generation is funny. We are brought up without much technology, and yet we are comfortably immersed in it. We are the generation that bridges across the technological divide. Our sons and daughters will have no comprehension of the world of their grandparents, not only their lifestyles, but also their morals and ethics. This worries me. It'll be up to us to transmit such ideals and build characters in the next generation. However in this age of mass media and overwhelming competing sources for attention, have us learnt such ideas well? Have I?

Two worlds

2005-06-12T00:21:00.000-04:00

No kungfu practice today at the Taiwanese Cultural Center. With the whole day free, I decided to check out the English-Japanese language exchange in ISC for JCSA. Aside from the fact that I'm always busy with kungfu on Saturdays, I was also a little unsure of attending such event as well. I've heard some horror stories from Alex, and kind of doubt the sincerity of the Japanese participants. With the PEY job though, I won't have a chance to study Japanese for at least a year. I need to continue to practice it or my Japanese will definitely start to fade. Well anyways, it turned out to be alright. The people are friendly enough, and the girls are as cute as one would expect. It's an encouraging environment to say the least. :D At the end of the day, I found this detour from my usual routine to be suprisingly invigorating. It's strange, seems that I have a choice of two completely separate world on Saturdays. One is the traditional and physical world of Chinese martial art, and another is the unexplored and mentally stimulating world of the Japanese connection. ( The historical and political implication of the choices is best left unsaid. ) I wish to balance these two choices, hence I'm considering maybe attending both events interchangeably. Alex, Jenny and Justin are all going to Japan in the coming months. Whereas I'm still staying in the big smoke for 2 more years. I envy them, we've all worked towards the same goal, and now I feel like I'm being left in the dust. I am of course very happy with my chance of working in Alias, and understand this course of action is indisputably the best. However, a part of me really want to simply say "screw it", and pack it up and head for Japan. I say to people that I plan to go to Japan once I graduate, but I wonder if I'll have the determination to carry out this endeavor, or will I go for the easy way out and get a job. A man's goal should lie not at home, but in the far reaches of the world.

I love May

2005-05-28T00:15:00.000-04:00

I'm going to buy a new bike. I just spent 3 hours replacing brake lines on my bike today, only to have it go kaboom because of an over-inflated tire. I'm tired of fixing it, the wheels frames are unbalanced, the brake pads needs adjustment, the back-wheel needs fastening, it's literally falling apart. My application for Alias' PEY position was accepted. I'm starting my orientation next month, and will officially start to work in July. I'm ecstatic over it. All of a sudden the next 5 years of my life just came into clear focus. I now know exactly what I need to do, and where I will be going. This new sense of direction life is refreshing to say the least. This month is really going my way, today Guo laoshi took me aside and actually began to teach me Bajiquan privately for half an hour after practice. Seems like my effort of building the basics finally paid off. Now onto one more year of deligent Bajiquan basics.

Problems

2005-05-05T13:50:00.000-04:00

The storage partition on my second computer gave out. I have no idea what was the cause, it just suddenly became inaccessible. It would've been a simple task of finding a diagnose tool online, but my internet connection somehow dropped as well. The problem was obviously corrupted partition information, but it had heavy impact on the system performance, as the OS tried to read the partition in vain again and again. In my frantic effort to alleviate the performance hit, I deleted the problem partition, and made a new one over it. I didn't format the new partition, since I still want to be able to recover the data. When my internet connection came back the next day, I got Active Partition Recovery, which managed to recover my old partition, but it appeared as RAW to XP. Then I got Partition Table Doctor, which fixed the boot table in a jiffy, but the partition returned to its previous state and became inaccessible again. In the end, I gave up and just created a new partition in its place. I lost my 40GBs of data. All the backup programs I had, all the Japanese dramas, all the K-1 fights etc. I now suspect all would've been well if I didn't delete the faulty partition at the beginning, and instead fix it directly with partition Table Doctor. Let this be a lesson to you, don't delete partitions on a whim.

Whoa, Ominous

2005-05-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

We are fearing for the safety of our store tonight. Some dude came in today close to closing time to "check out" our store for sacking, or so my dad said. He was pretty freaked out, and we promptly moved all our tobacco stocks upstairs for safekeeping. Our security system had being malfunctioning for the past week, so we are staying on our toes tonight. While dad was arguing on the phone with the security system support, I decided to string together my shinai, which I had previously taken apart for maintenance. Just in case I needed something to wack with you know. That's when it happened, my shinai handle's support string broke. I suppose it was just obeying the laws of physics, it was pretty old, and had taken ton of abuse. However, you know how in all the stories, when bad things are about to happen, strings break, porcelains crack and all hell breaks loose? That's when my heart sank. By the way, I have my last exam of the year tomorrow. I'm sitting here trying to study for it, and all I can think of is how to react in case bad things start to happen. How am I supposed to study like this? Maybe the omen is really meant for my exam, rather than the fate of our family security? I sure hope so.

Song translation

2005-05-01T01:49:00.000-04:00

I can hold your hand baby - Brilliant Green

赤く空を燃える丘でその涙を拭いてあげる

ここにいるわ baby always you love you
そばにいるわ baby always you love you

I can hold your hand baby
I will lead the way oh yeah

夜に触れた唇で今せつない夢をあげる

二人を引き裂く朝日よ
別れの光など月の手で
籠へと捕らえて閉ざしてしまうわ
愛してるここへ来て

I can hold your hand baby

広がったオレンジの闇の中に
創り出す永遠の夜をここに

On the hill that burns the sky red, I'll wipe those tears for you

I'm here baby, always you, love you
I'm by your side baby, always you, love you

I can hold your hand baby
I will lead the way oh yeah

On the lips I touched at night, I now give you painful dreams

Oh the morning sun that torns us apart
the light of our parting, with the hands of moon
into the cages I'll catch and trap it
I love you, come over here.

I can hold your hand baby

In the spreading orange darkness
here we'll create the eternal night

Exam season

2005-04-26T23:38:00.000-04:00

Got Japanese exam tomorrow, naturally I'm here blogging away instead. With the release of MSN Messenger 7, suddenly everyone and their dog have a blog. I give it 3 months before everything die down again. I really have nothing against MSN Spaces, except it's slow, its interface is butt-ugly, and there's no API so synchronization between my stuff in Blogger and in the Spaces is possible. I was looking to streamline my Saikano site's code, and that's when it hit me: I should take advantage of the stream of visits I get and make money off of them with Google AdSense. However UT's webspace usage guideline indicates that the spaces cannot be used to generate profit. This means I'll need to move the site somewhere else. I'm considering actually just get a web host, it's not that much money.

The best news I've heard this year

2005-04-14T21:21:00.000-04:00

The world certainly is becoming a happier place. Click and see the glory that be!

2005-03-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

For quite a while, I havn't been keeping up with myself, and especially lately, my life seems so absurd and meaningless. So meaningless that I have nothing to say about them other than "Oh another game!". Perhaps, I should encourage myself to step out of this sickness and regain my youth... I know that's gonna take lots of effort, and I have been trying ever since the beginning of this school year...

XMLHttpRequest, the way of the future?

2005-03-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

Recently, the impressively responsive interfaces in Gmail, Google suggest and A9 is attracting a lot of attention. By effectly separating presentation logic and business logic, not only does it gives a better user experience, its logical clarity is amazing. Finally, web applications can compete with traditional applications in interface response time. Not only that, it can even go above and beyond traditional application interfaces in customizability and design. It's all held together by standard compliant methods. XHML + CSS for presentation. Javascript, XML for presentation logic. These are all clientside. Then we can have serverside scripts take care of the business logic. I can't imagine a better use for PHP in this case. It's all held together by something called XMLHttpRequest. It enables the browser to send request to the server without having to refresh the page each time. For people who do web app development, this is huge! Now we can use javascript to send requests to the server, get the response back in nice XML, and then process it and display the contents clientside. If we can do this, why not take it a step further? We can in theory completely separate interface logic and server side data processing. Then why not do that? Put the server stuff elsewhere. This is not a new idea, but what's new about it is the ability for faster interface prototyping. Seriously, if we can do this, who needs flash for interfaces anymore? This sounds amazing, I plan to develop a web-based calender/organizer with this method to learn the ins and outs of it. Stay tuned.

I sold my soul on eBay

2005-02-06T19:20:00.000-05:00

Here is something I read while surfing the net about game pad making... "I dont mean that metaphorically, or anything. I literally sold my soul on eBay. Sometime, around late 1999, I was extremely bored, and sitting around looking for things on which to waste my money on eBay. As I was looking through their fine selection porn, old computers and cool boots, an idea suddenly struck me. I didnt have any useless crap laying around the house that I was willing to part with, but I did have one thing that I could sell. The age-old and eternal currency. My soul. So, I went in, chose the catagory "Antiques," and started the bidding at a dollar. I emailed a link to a few of my friends, chuckled for a moment at my extreme wit, and went off to do something else. So, the next day, I decided to check it out, and see how my little auction was coming along. I was quite pleased to see that it had gotten up to the respectable amount of a few hundred dollars. I was quite happy about this, so I went on to brag about it to a few of my co-workers. That was when things got interesting. After being up for a couple of days, the amount on the auction was getting quite high. I began checking it periodically and obsessively. It was getting into the thousands. Did this many people really want my soul? Were they bidding for real? Or were my friends just messing around? I was never to find out, though, as, shortly after seeing it pass the $10,000 mark, the unthinkable happened. I refreshed the page, and the auction was gone. After a little while, I got am email from eBay administration. After reading through their explanation and enclosed guidelines, the real kicker is the actual reason they gave for taking it down. eBay does not allow the sale of human organs or bodily fluids. You see, this was shortly after the whole kidney selling fiasco, and that baby selling thing. I had offered a contract as proof of the deal, which was to be, as you'd expect, signed in blood."

Ganbatte Kudasai

2005-01-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

A discussion with an acquintance is making me contemplating the validity of my corrent direction in life. She had caught me speaingk in Japanese to another, and to my suprise started to chat with me with possibly the most fluent Japanese to come out of a non-Japanese person that I have ever heard. Although studying computer science now, she had spent much of her time with Linguistics, and particularly that of Japanese. She had also spent time in Japan for graduate studies. However, she has given up all her accomplishments in her previous area of study. The reason was that in her heart, she feels that her accomplishments will never be acknowleged. No matter how much she loves it, no matter how hard she works, she will never bridge the social gap, and will have no chance to compete with native Japanese. That is why, she reasoned, computer science is useful. There is no cultural or social barriers to it, as long as one works hard, success is within grasp.

I can't imagine the frustrations and disappointments she must've had experienced, to have had worked so hard single-mindedly for one thing, and to give it up so completely, that is truely tragic. Did she make a wrong decision? She choose a path that she loved, and yet the choice didn't give her the same love in return. Life isn't a fairy tale after all, having faith means nothing in the face of harsh reality. To work at something one loves doesn't guarantee happiness and contentment.

Am I more fortunate then? To have choosen such a "fair" path to begin with. Up to now I have always treated Japanese as just another skill to have. I have always heard of the horror stories of the xenophobic nature of Japanese. Only now I had sat face to face with someone who had been scarred by it. To have abandoned someone's hopes and crushing someone's dreams so completely, I am filled with rage and contempt for the individuals and the society that are the cause of these misfortunes. Yet there is nothing I can do to change it. I am powerless to even make a difference in the person's life. The only thing I could offer, was in all irony, a "ganbatte kudasai". But words are just merely words, empty and lifeless.

Why am I studying Japanese? Everytime I hear the overly polite and scripted conversations, I am always reminded of some vaguely sinister intentions possibly buried underneath a mask of culture and social harmony. I look at the society's impressive social discipline and rich functional traditions, and it pains me. My fellow countrymen, who were born out of the same soil as I did, had forgotten about the richness of our own culture. Nothing remains of them except soul-less husks of tourist attractions and novelties. They had forgotten about our great thinkers, and have no unification of purpose. Without purpose, how can there be social discipline? I am by no means a Chinese nationalist. I have no blind loyalty to the country, and I can find no place for myself with my generation of natively-raised Chinese. That is however where my roots lie, and it is my responsibility to be a torch-bearer for what little of Chinese traditions I can carry. Why am I studying Japanese then? Is it solely for interest? Is that enough?

'Tis the season of freedom

2004-12-18T23:44:00.000-05:00

Well my exams are done. The weekend before my exams though, I went to Ottawa. It was a short trip wtih the guys from my Kungfu club. ( Should I call them Kungfu brothers? I'm not sure if we are that close yet ) We were invited to sparr with the people at the Ottawa WuTan Center. We trained really hard in the weeks before the trip, and everyone really looked forward to it. Of course the timing of the trip couldn't be worse, my exams started the day I got back. Needless to say my parents gave me hell for it, but I had already studied everything in preparation for the trip, and I was curious just how much better I've became. So I went anyways, and it was really fun. The people there weren't as strong as we've thought, I'm proud to say that we kicked ass and took names. I was happy with my performance too, I totally and completely dominated my fight. Now is no time to gloat however, after seeing the high level guys do their things, I saw that I have a lot to work for. The exams turned out to be pretty good too. Most of them were easier than I thought they would be. Too soon to judge how well I did in them though, we all know how untrustworthy feelings about exams are.

Snapshots of my life

2004-10-25T01:43:00.000-04:00

Photography is magical. It's like a time machine, forever trapping slices of life in its frames. That's how I always viewed the photos I took. They are like bookmarks, allowing me to flip back and reanimate my memories. It's sad really, to think that they depict states of the world that will never be again, and only lingers with promises of places we can never return to. So why is it that I have yet to take a photograph for so long? Was my life during the past half an year so uninteresting? I have to admit my life had falling into a nice routine. Wake up, school/work, kungfu, rinse, repeat. The excitment is deafening isn't it? Maybe I should pick up the camera, and seek out all the excitment around me again.

Happy Birthday to Dav

2004-10-22T19:13:00.000-04:00

as the topic. ... somehow ppl don't post on your blog any more. eh, I'm talking about dex and crystal. Anyway, you kungfu freak, computer nerd and japanese fan, have another fun year then. :) YOU BETTER LOVE MY PRESENT!!!

Week from HELL

2004-10-07T22:43:00.000-04:00

|-rant- This week has got to be the sickest week I've ever had amongst my sorry times spend in this ridiculous institution. I had 5 assignments plus a test. I have a total of 6 courses, and the only reason one of them is so forgiving is because it's Japanese. And there's homeworks and quizzes ::everyday:: from that class. So there I was in school, sitting all day in the computer lab doing algorithm analysis, double-precision float point calculations, and other horrible stuff. I sat in the germ infested study room until almost midnight, and then had to wiggle through the poorest excuse for a street in the unholy bone chilling "autumn" wind, only to find myself bag-eyed the next morning, apologizing profusiously to my Japanese professor and trying to come up with a workable reply to "doushite okuretan desu ka" in Japanese while my brain is still passed out from the wind the night before. How can I not love computer science? -rant-| I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a professional programmer. There was a gradschool fair in BA today. I picked up a number of brochures for Sheridan. I've going to return to the computer animation field. My brain can only take so much greedy approximation algorithm after all.

This cluttered mind of mine

2004-08-21T00:29:00.000-04:00

I have the urge to draw, to express my thoughts on canvas. Alas, I can find no topic I'm satisfied with. My mind is filled with cliche symbolisms and preconceived notions. Every idea I explore end up being a subset of someone else's work. It's as if I am not capable of anything original. I am no longer fully confident in my naivety.

Punching bags are cool

2004-08-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

Tired of the lack of heavy bags in school, and not being able to find people doing resistance training with me, I went and bought a punching bag. I couldn't use a hanging bag cause there are no solid beams to hang them in my house. The structure is almost 100 years old, and I'm sure hanging something like a heavy bag on its wooden ceilings will bring the whole place down. Thus, I bought one of those free-standing bags. It was a little weird walking down the street with a big free-standing bag on my shoulders. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was staring at me. I had to smile at the little old lady waiting to cross the street beside me, and explain just what in the world is this big red thing that I was carrying. I sat it down on the back porch, and filled the bottom container with water. People say it's better to fill it up with sand, but I'm quite a trip away from the beaches, and I can't see myself fighting kids half of my brother's age for sand in the nearest sandbox. Besides, you never know what's in those boxes, those damn dog walkers. It's pretty heavy once it's filled up, about 250lbs. Despite its weight, I still find it pretty easy to shake this thing around. Although it's a real mother to relocate it once it's filled up. I also find the hitting surface a little soft. It's really comfortable to hit, but I want something that'll punish me when I hit it with bad form. All in all, it's very cool. I can finally have something to kick and punch at really hard without worrying about "accidental" collateral damages. I'm putting a garbage bag over it for protection. I don't want to the elements or rabid racoons damage its hitting surface.

sad news

2004-07-05T09:16:00.000-04:00

yo man sorry this is the first time I got access to a computer since I'm gone to chengdu!! too bad I'm in xi'an now...wahaha sorry I didn't get your mail on time...but the chinese charcters you typed aren't readable, so, meh~~ and , one more SAAAAD THING happened in chengdu which gave me a very bad impression of that city: my camera got stolen!!! ahh god I just put my purse beside me and next time I looked at it my camera and money were gone~~~...sob sob sorry man I did take a lot of pics (it's a hard job!), but they are all gone now. wail to my camera.... btw, food in chengdu is ssooooo good I love the spiciness there :P and, cute girls too.... me going to beijing tomorrow, hope can see you online soon.

Whoa...

2004-07-03T23:20:00.000-04:00

Seeing almost my name on another website of similar interests is almost too bizzard to believe. I salut you, Pinging Knight!

Everyone else are talking about it.

2004-06-30T22:43:00.000-04:00

Farenheit 9/11 is not one of those movies that can make me respond with a resounding "Yes, that's fucking awsome!" statement. Whenever someone askes me "so how was it?", I usually respond with a mild "it was good". It's not that I didn't enjoy the movie as much as others did, it's simply that the movie made me think more about the events that it depicted rather than the movie itself. So the response is more like: The movie? Oh it was alright, but what the movie TALKED about, that was amazing. Many thinks the topic of interest is very controversial, and it is. I have read plenty of articles though, that in comparison would make Farenheight 9/11 more like Farenheight 12/25. There are those around me who refuse to see the film because it's anti-republican propaganda. What I don't get is that we are in Canada, I can safely say that most Canadians are no more Republican as they would be a Democrat, in the American sense of course. The movie naively portraited Bush as a bumbling idiot. Something I consider to be giving him too much credit. No politician is really stupid at heart I believe. How else can he have enough personal chrisma to gather all those votes? 50% of votes are still votes people. I suppose having an ex-president for dad do help though.

pretty pretty backgrounds

2004-06-28T02:54:00.000-04:00

I've been working on the UT E-studio website (warning: still in process of development) for the past few days. I've finally overcame my creative block, and made something that I'm quite happpy with. So happy that, I think I went a little overboard on the header images. I created 8 different headings that rotate pseudo-randomly by javascript. They are so pretty. :D The photos arn't mine though, I found them on stock.xchng. Royalty free stock photos, yeah!

First privately manned space flight a success!

2004-06-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

Amid little fanfare and hype with the general public, the world's first privately funded manned space flight was a sucess. This is a great day for mankind indeed. Much like the first flight of a passenger aircraft, the possiblities that this event can bring is endless. Imagine cheaper and much more accessable ways of getting into space, that right now is no longer a dream, but a reality. I can't wait for private corporations to compete for space travel, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi and the likes are investing billions into robots that can do little more than walk for 20 minutes at a time, imagine them putting that money into developing better space faring vehicles. Looking around though, I see people going about their everyday lives, unaware of this history making event. Most people will just sit at home and go "X-what?". It's unfortunate that our attentions are diverted to conflicts across the ocean over petty human greed, that we are unable to see the truly remarkable things in life. The engineers and the pilot of the project are the real giants. Although we can't see it yet, I believe they've already made the world a better place. More details of the event can be found here: X-Prize Scaled Composites, the project site Mojave airport MSNBC

2nd place....

2004-05-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

I went to the Lancing Competition Saturday morning. Not a lot of people showed up, the competitors were all the students within the kungfu club. Although it was an open competition, the turn out was pretty low. A group from Ottawa apperantly attended past competitions, as did a group from Taiwan, but they didn't show up this year. Despite the low attendance, there were actually still quite a few people. Most of them were in the A category, where us beginners were in the B category. Although a lot of people signed up for the B category, only 4 of us showed up. The competition was point based. Each match last for 3 minutes, any clean thrust to the head or upper body was 3 points, and any slashes for strikes to the appendages were 1 point. The maximum points was 12. Whoever accumulates 12 points first, or has the most points at the end of the match wins. I was too defensive in my first 2 matches as I didn't know what to expect. As a result, I mostly blocked and hardly scored anything. I was really unhappy with my performance, and thus attacked much more fiercely in later matches. Turned out my accumulated points became the same as some other guy, and we had to fight a sudden death match ( were slashes don't count, and match is win by first clean thrust to the head/upper-body ). I won the match, and was placed 2nd. I'm pretty happy about the result though. Although I didn't score enough points to get 1st, I was able to dominant most of my matches, and I beat the 1st place guy 12-3. :) More photos can be found under Photos

Six harmoney lance

2004-05-15T19:09:00.000-04:00

I'm practicing Six Harmonies Lance (六合大枪) in kungfu these days. The sifu have been trying to promote traditional Chinese lancing for years, and have developed a competitive sport centered around it. They have an open lance competition next week, and I'll compete in the beginner's level. I've just been introduced to the basic techniques for 2 weeks though, so I'm sure I'll get my behind handed to me. Nevertheless, the sport seems to be very fun. I'm starting to like a lot. Six Harmonies Lance is one of the fundamental training tools for Bajiquan. Because the lance has to be at least 10 feet long, it's not practical to use. But it really trains body coordination, explosive power, and waist strength. The only real inconvient for practicing the lance is that the lance itself is hard to come by. They are custom made, and cost about $200. Or I will have to make my own by rounding off a 2x2". Doing this to a 10' long block sounds like a lot of work...

Open Source Conference

2004-05-11T18:24:00.000-04:00

I volunteered for the Open Source Conference. The conference itself cost around $500 to listen to all of the seminars. Being a volunteer though, I get to sit in on any one seminar of my choice. I listened to "Open Source Busines Model". The point the seminar raised was that although the name "open source" immidiately conjure up images of free software, the real selling point of open source software is not in their cost. Take China for example, because of the rampant and uncontrollable piracy industry there, the cost of software in most cases is not a strong point of concern. The Chinese government however, still choose Linux as their main platform of development ( See "Raising The Red Flag", Red Flag Linux ). The draw of open source is in the fact that it permits the user the freedom to modify the software to suit their own needs. Notice the key word here is "permit", since 99% of the users won't even look at the source code in most cases, let alone modifying them. Take Bittorrent for instance, how many people know it's written in Python? How many more actually tried to look at its file sharing algorithm? I know I didn't, reading the code that is. I like the car analogy that is used to describe open source. Imagine a car that has its hood wield shut, and any simple changes such as having the windshield wiper fluid refilled can only be done by Toyota. Ridiculous isn't it? However, this is the state that the software industry is in right now. Open source software simple opens up the hood of the car to the customers. Most customers will never have the need to replacing the engine or to modify the transmission, but the option is nevertheless there. This kind of freedom is the norm in all the other industries, with the software indutry being the oddball. Open source then, is simply a natural way of software development and distribution that puts the right of usage and content creation back to the user, enabling a more free exchange of information and knowlege. It prevents the formation of monopolies, and permits a more free economy to florish. It's clear that the IT software is not finished. We are at a crossroad right now. The old methods of doing things have taken us this far, with open source, we will continue to mature the industry towards a free market democracy. This is all begining to take shape right now, and people of my generation, the ones that are in university right now, will take part in it. How can one not become exciting when they hear of this? The future is bright indeed.

There's a certain truth in martial arts

2004-05-03T19:00:00.000-04:00

Everybody looking to find their inner peace. Some drink tea, some do yoga, others prefer ikebana. I have found my inner peace in martial arts. It's the momments during an engagement that fascinates me. It's when the body contract and expand, and like an explosion, the shockwave of energy travels through the body from the abdomain to the extremeties. The mind would be silent, and I would be like an observer, watching as my body unfold as the punch or kick is thrown. At that specific moment, I would be at peace. My mind would be aboslutely tranquile, while I could feel my force shooting through my body like an arrow. I'm at a losss for words to describ the beauty I experience with this paradoxal combination of mind and body. I do love this type of 物の哀れ ( mono no aware ) aestheticism.

That's it for this year

2004-04-30T23:43:00.000-04:00

My exams ended today. Figurativly speaking, this years exams ended for me with the Algorithm Analysis exam. It was one grueling, hellishly bitchy exams of the year. Nothing else came close to rival its twisted greatness, greatness in being a complete pain in the ass to write that is. Well, I guess today's Japanese exam came close. No, I mean it wasn't hard or anything, just unfathomably long. Well, i did alright. Now that's out of the way, it's time to focus my attention to the better things in life. Things like relax, watching J-dramas, draw cute girls, practice kungfu...etc. Not that I wasn't focusing my attention on them before or anything, just more so. The best part is, now I can sit back, and do absolutely nothing. Why? Because I can, and with a clear consciousno less. People have suggested that I should start a separate Japanese blog. I think will, I have more than enough time to do it. Wahahaha~~~

ぼく？早い？

2004-04-30T08:19:00.000-04:00

今日は期末試験の最後の日だ。試験が二つある。朝九時の一つと午後二時の一つ。だから、朝までもう寝なかった、六時に起きた。朝の空を久しぶりに見なかったな。今朝ぼくは公園へ武術を練習に行った。公園の草の香りはよかった。気持ちはよかった。ぼくは長拳のかたを一回練習した、そして太極のかたを二回練習した。元気になった。今もう八時ね、学校もう行かないといけない。試験のことをがんばる。

練習だよ、練習

2004-04-27T22:32:00.000-04:00

金曜日の午後、日本語の期末試験がある。試験は二時、そのまえにcsc258のfinalがある。日本語の試験が終わったら、この学年全部のfinalが終わる、楽しいな。 Algorithm Analysis の期末試験はきのうだった。この試験は難しくて、問題がたくさんあった。だけど、想像したようよりやさしかった。金曜日の試験は、この試験よりきっとやさしい。とくに日本語の試験は一番やさしい。最後の期末試験が終わったら、友達と食べに行く。楽しみにするよ。

”誰かの前だけで、いいです…”

2004-04-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

A conversation from Long Vacation captured my interest: "Sena-kun, you are a very sly person, You will never admit you are lonely." "I don't know about that" "Yes, I know. I can tell by listening to you play the piano, The whole world may admit loneliness but you never will, You are a very strong person." "That's not true" "You're strong, that's why you're kind." "You are overrating me, sir. I'm......very cowardly." "Cowardly? That's fine, what's wrong with that? To be cowardly means to be sincere. Listen Sena-kun, you must be be more sincere to yourself. If it's hot, open the windows, let the breeze in. If it's cold, turn the stove on and heat your hands. Of course, you don't have to be that way in front of everyone. Just for one person, just be that way for one person, just one..."

I'm Sick

2004-04-06T16:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been sick for a few days now. My throat started hurting since Wednsday, but the symptoms really hit the roof on Saturday. I had to stay and work on my assignment in BA till 4:00am on Thursday, and I'm sure that's what lowered my immune system enough for the bacterias to take advantage. ( I'm pretty sure it's a bacteria infection. If it's viral, I'd have high fevers ) Well, it's horrible, I had to miss the csc343 test on monday. The prof said there are no make up, so the best he could do to use my first 2 tests are the test marks. That's all nice and dandy, except my test marks arn't that good to begin with. I've missed Japanese class for 2 days in a row now. My temperature have stablized last night, but I decided not to go today anyways. Partly because having a big germ colony such as me sitting in that tiny class room sounds really unappealing. Also, I havn't took a bath for 4 days now! I feel disgusting! You know how they say you shouldn't take a bath when you have a cold, cause it'll make it worse? Well, I don't want to make my symptems worse, but I'm don't think I can take many more days of this, yeech. I still have a Japanese Oral Exam tomorrow, I plan to go..I guesss.

Random Thoughts

2004-03-12T11:22:00.000-05:00

What is a man's place in history? Why do so many try so hard to leave their mark? To be remembered for generations to come, good or bad, for better or worse. In a way, isn't this the true form of immortality? What is the existence of a man? Can we really say a peasant, who toiled the earth two thousand years ago truly existed? What if he left no trace of records, no pots, no mudhuts to prove his existence? What if he had no place in history? We do not doubt our own existence, nor do we doubt the unexistence of anything until we have found their imprints in the sand. Generations later, who will remember me? Two hundred years later? Two thousand years? Two million? Will the human race even be remembered? If the human race was to be never discovered once we are extinct, then did we really exist? Is existence really just a concept that really is the creation of our minds. Maybe anything we can imagine, speculate, and cannot disprove of, exist. How can a worm ever know the existance of the seeds of an apple until its has reached it.

Goodies

2004-03-01T02:50:00.000-05:00

My midterms are done. I did pretty badly on the last midterm, but I guess 2 out of 3 isn't so bad. I retreated back into my room again this weekend. It really isn't healthy, but I feel the need to make up for all the lost slacking time of the midterm week. I have a suddenly interest in Win32 programming, as everything I'm done up till now really don't feel like "real" programming somehow. Plus I really want to understand enough Win32 stuff to make some games. Venturing out into the chaotic soup of Win32 lingos seems to be a step in the right direction. I found some interesting articles while searching for win32 API tutorials online. Check out the Bartosz Milewski's explanation of Microanthropic Principal for a very detailed and fascinating possible explaination of our physical reality. I've read about most of the theories he talks about in the article, but he connects them up nicely, and actually states the big picture in an understandable fashion. A number of problems I bumped into while working recently had again made me question the usage of javascript rollovers in websites. They are such a mess to implement and maintain. It's one of those archane methods that really just need to die. The same effect can be achieved in CSS relative easily, and is way more portable. Check out This Example. While we are on the topic of CSS, here are some neat things I came across: Custom Underlines and Faux Columns. Some live examples of custom underlines can be found at CSS Zen Garden. Maybe I'll write up some little tricks I used with CSS design in the future.

Uh-oh

2004-02-10T00:08:00.000-05:00

I got tons of work due this week, which isn't all that suprising considering it's the week before Reading Week. Everyone are having their ass kicked by schoolwork, I'm no exception. I have a test on wednsday, which I need to study for. All I'm doing though, is sitting around and staring at the monitor blankly, hoping the course website can magically come up with some answers to the test.....or something like that. If I actually sitting down and studying, I'll be out cold in 15 minutes flat. The lethargic property of database relations is truely astounding. You know that state between "I don't understand jack-shit." and "Elementary, my good man."? Yeah, that's where I am right now. That, and avoding actual studying by writing up a blog.

It came back to me!

2004-02-04T20:16:00.000-05:00

My wallet came back in the mail, yay! I thought I had lost it for good, but someone found it, and dropped it into a mailbox. For a moment, I had lost faith in Torontonians, but now I've seen the error of my ways. Canada Mail even sent it to me without charge. Considering how bulky and heavy my wallet is, it's really nice of them. Thank you so much, whoever you are!

Blank Slate

2004-01-22T18:55:00.000-05:00

It's Chinese New Years, and I've lost my wallet. I'm blaming it on the lethargy that creept onto me after that gruellingly dull Database tutorial. I'm sure I've dropped it somewhere between Sydney Smith and Robarts, after I pocked it carelessly when my withdraw request was unsuccessful at the Sydney Smith ATM. Ironicly, only my bank card remains now, since I decided to hold it in my hand rather than put it back into the wallet. There wasn't any money in my wallet, the only thing with immidiate value was my metro pass. All my ids are lost though, health card, driver's liscense, student card.... you name it. I walked all over today, went to every lost and found offices I could imagine. Alas, no luck, I'm afraid the wallet is forever lost. I have to replace all my ids now. I wanted to go the computer lab to distract myself from this predictment. When I got to the lab, I suddenly realized that I can't get in without my student card, ouch. Losing virtually all my ids on New Year, is that an omen of some sort? Symbolically, my ids are everything that identifies me as who I am isn't it? Maybe it means I will break my ties to the past, and become a new me this year, for better or for worse.

Protection from sharp sharp teeth

2004-01-17T17:48:00.000-05:00

Being tired of keep getting cuts inside my mouth when Matt knees me or elbows me in the mouth, I finally broke down and bought a mouth guard. I picked the $20 kind over the $5 made in China brand. Since this thing is gonna be put inside my mouth, I figured I better be safe than sorry. It's actually pretty cool, featuring all kinds of high techy stuff like holes in the guard for breathing ( Although it's under my teeth, does this mean my teeth breath? ), shiny semi-transparant rubbery surface that gets molded to the shape of my bite, and other cusion things that supposedly protect me from everything from lacerations in the mouth to having my brain turned into jello. The guard does makes my mouth look swollen, plus makes me look like one of those serious wrestling types. Now I'll have no excuse to slack off during randori. All of the sudden, my martial art practice have gotten so serious. I found out that the Fencing Salle is opened on Fridays. This means I'll be practicing some sort of martial art on tues, thurs, fri, sat, ( and possibly monday ). That's 4 times a week, woosh.

2004-01-10T17:59:00.000-05:00

今日の武術クラスはすごかった。とてもとても疲れたけど、楽しかった。今からもっと頑張る、本当の武術家になるよ。

2004-01-05T19:06:00.000-05:00

It's a sure sign that I've been cooped up inside too long when I'm attracted to virtually every single girl I see ( minus the really heinous ones of course ). Thank god school started.

2004-01-03T19:27:00.000-05:00

木曜日に高校の友達と映画を見ました。 "Cold Moutain"を見ました、おもしろかったです。友達と久しぶり会わなかったから、なにが言っていいのことがわからなかった。だが、友達に会ってだけで、幸せですよ。

2004-01-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

I think I just did something really stupid. It was around closing time for our store whe this guy came in. He asked me to help him out with cab fare cause he needs to get to Toronto Generals. He claims that his aunt got sent to the hospital for some reason, and he doesn't have enough money on him for a cab. We actually kind of know his aunt, so to make a long story short, I broke down and gave him 20 bucks out of my own pocket. He was getting frantic, and started trying to let me keep his coat and everything. It is the holidays I suppose, so some generousity seemed like the thing to do. I have to admit it went against my better judgement. There are a lot of sketchy people around my neighbourhood, I probably shouldn't be so trusting with a stranger. I normally don't. I'm a cynical bastard, remember? Anways, happy holidays people.

2003-12-18T13:58:00.000-05:00

Well, that was that. Finito, owatta , done. now I can catch up on my life! Model building, movie watching, kungfu practicing, the whole shabang. Life is good.

2003-12-17T01:41:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it. My old "Mighty Site" is still online. It's even got my old email address! ( which I've abandoned a LONG time ago ). It's been years since I've even glanced upon it. I've lost my harddrive copy of it years ago. To think it's been sitting on a corner of the web collecting dust, I'm at a loss for words. Looking at it now, it's design is so immature and ugly. What was I thinking? Ah, the follies of youth.

2003-12-17T01:22:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 100th year since the Wright brothers took flight for the first time. Yay for mankind. I have my last exam later today. 頑張りましょう！

2003-12-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

Whoa, I can't believe how cryptic the csc236 textbook is. Comparing it with the lectures, it's hard to imagine they are talking about the same thing. I'm not touching the book anymore, it's only going to screw up what I already understood about the course. Yup, 236 exam tomorrow morning. At 9am no less, kill me now~~

2003-12-11T04:14:00.000-05:00

I spend most of my time sitting on my ass all day. So to compensate, I decided to get back at "it" and do suburi ( kendo sword swings ) everyday before I sleep, just like how I used to do when I was living alone. My goal was 500 on the first night, but my hand didn't agreed with me very well. Blisters formed on my hands, so I had to stop at 260. It's only been a year, and I've already become so soft. Oh well, I just have to keep doing it until my hands get use to it again. Computer Science isn't good for the body. ( Reader:"Or games, or BBS surfing, or..." Me:"Ok, shut up already." )

2003-12-08T01:53:00.000-05:00

土曜日と日曜日に全然勉強しませんでした、とても悪かった。来週の金曜日から期末試験が始めますよ！まだ勉強しません！なにやってんだぼくは。人がBBSに会いました。あいつも中国拳法がとても好きですから、ぼくに会いたい。あいつの期末試験は来週の木曜日に終わります。いいですね… ああ、もう二時ですか。寝なければ、なりませんよ、お休みね。

2003-12-05T19:13:00.000-05:00

Had a horrible week. I had everything stacked up on Friday. Both csc209 and sta247 assignments were due, and there was a csc236 quiz as well. I worked pretty much all nighter on Wednsday and Thursday. Absolutely exhausted. However, I got a notice from Millenium Scholarship that I'm getting $3000. Plus Macross Zero episode 3 finished downloading. I just finished watching it,. It was breathtaking. The mech battles were simply poetry in motion. Of course, my exams are starting on the 12th. Bring it on.

2003-11-24T01:33:00.000-05:00

Statistic Analysis is unfathomably boring. Who likes to look at little dots on the monitor day in and day out anyways? It's like watching paint dry, except paint doesn't blast radiation in your face. Now, if you haven't read "THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY", you should. It just may save your life.

2003-11-21T02:38:00.000-05:00

This Unix programming assignment is driving me very close to the brink of insanity. I simply can't direct the programs to read stderr. What really gets me is that I'm probably simply missing some very tiny segments of code. Code that the prof talked about in lecture apperantly. God help me that I just happened to miss that single lecture, and there are no notes about it anywhere on the course website. Typical. This, coupled with the Japanese written assesment tomorrow, plus Stats assignment due on Monday and Computation Theory assignment on Tuesday. I say I have my work cut out for me this weekend. When I'm done that, I'll get to learn how to manage PHP system stacks, yay~ *fjfs8**#&$*

2003-11-17T14:53:00.000-05:00

Saw Fran in NC library at work. Hi Fran. ... ... Maybe I should say hi to dav too. Hi Dav.

2003-11-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

I'm having a love/hate relationship with my computer. I am undoubably spending much more time with it than before. I suspect ( actually, I'm very very sure ) it originated from the fact that I just upgraded it. Ok, so it's not all that fast, and it's still got really slow RAM ( PC133 when I'm seeing >400Mhz DDRs, goddamn technological advances ), it's still obsolete, just less so. Hence, I'm acting like a giggling schoolgirls these days, eager to test out its new abilities day in and day out. Not to mention of course that, I slaved over my work on it, a lot. Both factors combined, equals most of my waking moments. I hate it, I want my time back, I could be doing so many other things with it. Studying on the top of the list of course. ( well... ) But but, my computer is so much facter than before! Watch it startup Photoshop, so cool!!! *giggles like a little schoolgirl*

2003-11-06T22:29:00.000-05:00

突然心血来潮，想写中文的blog。这个星期过得特别的颓废。虽然星期二废寝忘食，在老板的虎视下工作了一整夜，别的时间全浪费在游戏上面。明天又有midterm又有quiz, 可我却在这儿写blog。说是因为学习枯燥乏味所以休息吧，其实还不是一个懒字。说到懒，我真的得把自行车的轮胎修好了。以前一拖再拖，理由是应为没有适合的内胎。没想到Jane那家伙还真送我盒26圈内胎作生日礼物。再不修好的话，就彻底毁灭我荡然无存的“新世纪优秀青年”形象了。当然，如果内胎尺寸与我自行车框架不合的话，我又要偷笑了。

2003-11-05T18:54:00.000-05:00

今週、とても忙しいです。今日、朝６時まで働きました。とても疲れた。ボスはわたしの仕事を昨日の晩に終わりたい。だから、頑張りました。まだ金曜日にテストをあります。ぞれから、かのじょに会います。はい、おもしろい日になります。

2003-10-31T01:55:00.000-05:00

C is definitly much more satisfiying to code than Java. With Java, the code is a mess as the program gets larger. With C, it's still a mess, but at least it's my mess.

2003-10-30T02:03:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on 天地英雄( Warriors of Heaven and Earth ) WHE ( The acronyme the article will use, since I'm a lazy bastard :P ) is the latest big budget Chinese movie to hit the Chinese cinema scene since Hero. Like Hero, it's a pseudo historical drama. The similarities between the two films end there. WHE describes the story of a band of retired soldiers in their voyage to protect a caravan across the Gobe desert and to reach the Tang dynasty capital of ChangAn. They later realized however, that the caravvan brings with it an extremely important religious artifact that can tip the balance of power in the outer west rim of China. Of course, a band of bad guys chase after them for the entire duration of the movie. I must confess I liked the movie, but I don't love it. The movie did everything by the book, but the story flow was very mundane, and there weren't many memorable moments. I guess my biggest peeve about the movie is the costumes, I'll go into details about that later. The characterization of the movie is rather 2 dimensional. All the standard characters are here: The good hearted and seasoned veteran, the comical relieve, the girl, the hatable antagonist. The cast are obviously able to breath much more life into the characters, too bad the script didn't allow them to. The dialoges are very natual, and at most places well written. I could really do without Zhao Wei's voice overs though, the situations of the characters should be felt, not told. The connections between the characters never grew strong enough for me to care much about their fate. There are many scenes hinting LaiXi and Lt.Li's bonding, too bad they are mostly trivial and short. Once the characters do start to connect, the movie was over. Zhao Wei's character didn't do much either. She hardly ever spoke, and it was hard to detect her emotional attachment to JiangWen's character to anything beyond a simple crush, as they hardly ever interacted. The historical inaccuracies in the movie was staggering. First, the costume. It's hard to put my finger on what period exactly the costumes are from. They are a mixture of Japanese and European design. They feature helmets and shoulder protectors not found in that historical period. Also, why does JiangWen have short hair? The costumes are made of cheap leather, and looked like they can't block anthing. Is this an attempt of the director to cut budget? With such amazingly historically accurate movies as Hero and The Emperor and Assasin, there's no excuse for Chinese directors to have such sloppy background research. It's inevitable to compare WHE with the Korean movie MUSHA, as a result of their similar locale and theme. Although MUSHA was released first, WHE started shooting before MUSHA. But upon comparison, MUSHA beats WHE in almost every category. The accuracy in costume of that period is amazing, MUSHA simply had the best looking Asian armor in all the movies I've seen. The characters were strongly depicted, especially the general, who grew from his inital arragance and selfishness to finally fighting along side his men as equals. The fighting was much more gritty than that of WHE, and many scenes captured my imagination. ( Rushing down the hill, fighting in the forest... ) Hm...it seems like WHE isn't really that good. I didn't even get a chance to talk about the suprising super-natural element yet ( which made no sense ). the ending was also very sudden, and left much to be desired. Oh, and the final castle siege felt very tacked-on, as if there have to be a castle-siege in this kind of movie or something. If the movie ended with the old guy, I would be happy, as that was the only impressive scene in the movie IMO. The production of the movie feels a little rushed, and the scenes were mostly hurried along. Well, I actually thought the movie is ok, despite what you might think after reading this article. I actually have many more bones to pick, but I should do some research before I make them :P

2003-10-28T01:03:00.000-05:00

I managed to recover the data on the old back-up CD that I thought was lost. Which means I got all my digital camera originals back for the older pictures. Plus all the original files for my sketches. Whoohoo! What does that do for you dear reader? Aboslutely nothing.

2003-10-26T20:06:00.000-05:00

Yup yup, 22nd was my birthday. So I'm officially 20 years old now. Although it doesn't mean a damn thing. As for my computer, seens that the processor have a static multiplier of 7. Hence requiring my Motherboard FSB to be 133MHz to achieve the advertised 933MHz clock speed. Well, that problem was that my RAM are of only pc-100, so my computer locks up on me on FSB settings higher than 120MHz. I went and bought 512MB pc-133 RAM by exchanging my old RAM. The processor is fine now, but new problem arose. My motherboard doesn't recognize high-density single sided RAM ( fuck ), so it thinks it have only 256MB. I'm gonna exchange them for double-sided ones tomorrow. Ugh, so much work. I should really just buy a new computer, if only I'm not so broke... On the other hand, everything are running beautifully fast on my computer now. Things are popping up faster than a nest full of rabbits. I can actually play the likes of Halo and Homeworld 2 and Medal of Honor and Bridge Commander and....... So good!

2003-10-25T18:51:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah, since I am here I might as well put down, Happy Birthday David (for four days ago) :p

2003-10-25T18:45:00.000-04:00

Oh god this few days went by so fast, is already Saturday, and I felt as if I slept through the entire time. With so much work laid up, I think I am gonna have to work super hard now. Two of the toughest includes the learning of two new programing language in three days, and that dose not even including all the other assignments and projects. Later on tonight, I have to go work again for the mid-night shift, because I switched it from the day shift. Due to the fact that a friend ask me to goto a BBQ, but ending up cancelling it, hence I switched the shift for nothing. Now dispite of the fact that I am getting sick, I think I am gonna be even worse after this night. Worst come to the worst, I'll just goto hell. *cough* *cough*

2003-10-24T16:19:00.000-04:00

Poor David, but perhaps you are getting something good out of this accident, lol.

2003-10-20T18:25:00.000-04:00

My computer's power supply exploded in my face I was cleaning the dust off of it. I guess I must've cause some static discharge while I cleaned the ventilators. It must've been trapped inside some dust bunnies that I unintentially stuffed inside the power supply as I whiped it with a tissue ( I'm never wiping the inside of my computer with a dry tissue again, helllllo rubbing alcohol! ). After I plugged it back in, the fan came on momentarily and everything looked fine. Next thing I know, there was a loud BANG! A few chucks of stuff flew out of the power supply, leaving a puff of bluish cloud circling above the computer. If the computer isn't mine, this would've been hilarious. I bought a new power supply and installed it today, everything works fine. I decided that if I'm gonna go through with such operation, I might as well upgrade my processor. I went and bought a PIII-933Mhz today, but my cranky old motherboard is fighting it, only recongnizing it as a 700Mhz. I'm heading home to continue wrestle with it right now ( I'm in UT typing this up ). Fight the good fight I shall.