'Tis the season of freedom

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

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

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

|-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

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

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

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...

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.

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

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!

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....

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

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

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

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

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？

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

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…”

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

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。

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.

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。

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.