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HHHiryuu's Journal
Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.
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2007.08.14 15.24
you can stand under my umbrella
this post brought to you courtesy of a conference paper deadline in two hours. i am trying not to doze off while my advisor does some final edits so that we can submit it and i can go sleep. i've been meaning to make a post for awhile because this summer has been crazy (i just wrote "hella crazy" and then judged myself for it...sigh). anyways...
beachweek was highly chill. i was well pleased by the combination of getting to laze around with exploring a more unusual locale. the beach was absolutely gorgeous, the water was warm, and the jerk chicken was delicious. a high point would probably be making everbody play drunk set as pregaming for midnight beach skinny dipping. oh the dorky indecency! i also got a 4 of a kind in texas hold em. probably one of the most relaxing weeks ever...
the roadtrip was successul but strenuous, even though we took a two day break in dallas. george relearned how to drive and i considered never driving ever again. we listened to 'tiny dancer' like 50 times for some reason. we stopped at a dinosaur museum in new mexico on a whim. we saw a sign on a wendy's which said "THE BACONATOR! SIX PIECES OF BACON! IT CAN SENSE FEAR!" which i thought was the best advertisement ever (we did not get one though). the grand canyon was breathtaking in the most literal sense, but we werent equipped to go hiking or anything unfortunately. in vegas we spen $0 on gambling and $150 on sushi (i love us). the last day was hellish because the outer casing of one of my tires melted due to pavement heat. i did not even know that was possible. we also got stuck in traffic in the desert, wtf. all in all a great life experience but i have no plans to do it again any time soon.
since then i have divided my time between being an apparently productive researcher and having fun going out in the city and environs. ming ming, michael's mom and caitlin all came for visits, so i've done nice touristy things like alcatraz and napa valley in addition to trashy gay clubbing etc. alactraz was really interesting, but the best part is the awesome awesome view of the city you get from on top. napa valley seemed really pleasant, though we didn't have time to go winetasting. i also went to a comedy club with tim & co, which was fun but a bit expensive. with michael's mom we had delicious delicious tapas including the best grilled cheese known to man....mmm hungry.
the weekend of george's/my birthday was really great as well. caitlin was still here, and the three of us went to the rufus wainwright concert, which was AMAZING. the more i listen to him the more i like him, and especially live his voice gives you the shivers. ahhhh so good. he also did judy garland covers in drag which is awesome you must admit. usually i like him best when he's solo with a piano, but the cover of 'across the universe' he did with sean lennon was probably the best part of the show. so yay for that! george and i also had a birthday party, which a lot of people came to. it makes me happy that we've already got a big enough network of friends here to have a party with. on my actual birthday there was also a free vienna teng concert in palo alto, which was sweet though full of children and gabby old people. thanks for all the birthday well wishings!
orientation is in a week, which will be dumb other than as a chance to meet my co-incoming grad students. classes also start, which doesnt really change anything (thanks gradschool!). oops, time to go finish this paper up.
in conclusion, i love SF, this summer is awesome, and everone should come visit!
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2007.06.05 20.18
woo woo i am an internet ghost
hello from california! erika and i don't have internet yet but we realized we can poach wireless from our porch so here i am. our new apartment (which george will also be living in come july) is quite spacious, surprisingly well furnished, three blocks from the cs building, four blocks from bubble tea, and has a nice view of the bay (and the GGbridge too on clear days)! it is quite sweet.
i spent the last 5 or so weekdays at retreats for two different labs (parallel computing and adaptive databases) both of which were awesome. the later is the one i am actually working for this summer, and i think i have figured out my project for the summer (generating syntheic traces of proprietary datacenter workloads via workload characterization), so that is good. the man paying my way this summer and hopefully advising me in the future is totally awesome, and i've met some other professors i wouldn't mind working with as well. for now i will sit on the fence and do stuff with both labs, heh, since radlab has lots of money and cool projects now, and parlab will hopefully have money and cool (cooler in my personal opinion) projects in the future.
also, the large number of retreats etc has led to lots of going out with the grad students i just met, and adding on top of that time spent with my undergrad friend tim and his friends means going out basically every single night so far. haha, so, that's way more partying than undergrad, though i haven't been drinking too much (mostly). yes... but now everyone is starting work/going home/etc so things should be calmer. i'm going to a bachelor party on friday though, so that should be interesting
we've gone into the city a few times to go clubbing, which is pretty awesome since we've always had a ride (rather than having to use the subway). but i havent had a chance to sightsee or do refined things yet, heh heh...
anyway off to a movie... you should all come visit, this place is the shit
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2007.03.22 05.22
it is 530am but things are going well!
at this point i should just stay up all night probably. so i will take a break and write an update to stay awake, and also because significant things have been happening recently!
so, item number one is that i got into UC Berkeley's PhD program in computer science. (i also got into Princeton, UCSD, UWMadison, and UVA, but upon visiting most of those over break last week i have decided conclusively that it will be Berkeley). So, on top of the awesomely fun time i had at visit day, the school is just the most kickass in nearly every way. It's top ranked (tied for first), in the bay area (i.e. silicon valley connections like whoa), the professor that essentially got me in to the school to work with him is actually probably one of the top 5 most famous CS people still living (Dave Patterson), there is tons of money and collaboration and sweet research (RADLab), i like the climate and love the locale, and plus george and erika will probably be going there too! so yeah...all around a great deal, which is good, because i'm probably gonna be there the next 5-7 years. oi. i've also been invited to go out there to start early in the summer (for pay), and will probably do that as it sounds more fun and actually more beneficial to my career in the long run than an internship. i'm pretty psyched about it in case you can't tell. also, this justifies every C in calculus i have ever gotten and every boring lecture i have ever slept through...booyah
in related news, i finally finished the data collection/testing part of my thesis today (the paper is due on wednesday) and my technique has been validated! as in, it is just about as good as the work that got some actual researchers published this past october! it was pretty amazing when i got everything set up right, and realized that this thing i've been slaving away at off and on since the fall ACTUALLY WORKS. And because I'm using exactly the same base data as this other group, i KNOW it works, for real, and i can PROVE it. most of the projects i've been involved with end up in some fuzzy gray area of 'it may be better sometimes i guess', but this is the real deal. having that direct comparison and coming out more or less on top feels damn good. i guess this post is all about me feeling vindicated, huh?
tomorrow afternoon i'm off to richmond with the wushu team, and friday morning we fly to berkeley (coincidently) for a competition. a competition i am not particularly ready for because of all my traveling and the zillion hours (40?) i put into the thesis project this week. i'm not too worried about the competition really though...it'll be fine whatever happens. the scary thing is that my thesis report is due on wednesday (final draft on monday). but at this point i have great results and only about 10-15 more pages to write, so i think it'll be okay.
whew, i'm about done. i'm glad lots of people came to visit us during their breaks! soon we'll have to fly to see each other...which strikes me as both sad and cool in way. hopefully we'll have some good parties at the end of the semester though. anyways, what's new with you?
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2007.01.14 17.32
Graduate school visiting adventures #1
So, this is mainly for my own benefit like three weeks from now when I have to look back objectively, but... (just in case anyone is out of the loop, I've been accepted to a couple of graduate schools and am using spring break to go visit them. The last two days I was at Princeton, wednesday and thursday I'll be at UCSD, and friday to monday I'll be at UCBerkeley.)
People (students):
The grad students seem chill and intelligent, much as I would expect. I love that technical discussions are busted out over lunch in that natural way when you have a whole bunch of people really into something. At the same time they seem to be pretty well rounded... sports/music/go outside sometimes, etc. Also no hint of elitism, unlike the undergrad stereotype(?).
I was actually a little more into my fellow visitees, perhaps because we are all in similar "oh god big life decision" boats and therefore bonded rapidly. Actually our 'systems' (architecture, compilers, networking) group seemed to be the most social as compared to e.g. the programming languages or graphics people (this was confirmed by a PL person who jumped ship to come to our party), but all the incoming people seem friendly and smart. Most, like me, seem to be picking between one of the big names (Berkeley Stanford MIT CMU), Princeton, and a couple other top 15 schools. Hopefully some of the contact info exchanged will actually result in some continued contact, and I'll see a few again at Berkeley this weekend.
People (professors):
Ha, should I use code names? Well I have only nice things to say. Going in I was most interested in the work of David August (synergistic compiler/hardware design) and Margaret Martonosi (dynamic thermal/parallelism scaling), and coming out I can say that YES I WILL HAVE THEIR RESEARCH BABIES. They both struck me as totally on top of things, communicative, skilled at expressing their ideas and excited about their projects. August is a rising star (risen, but still going, I should say), whereas Martonosi is well established but very active. They both made a really strong impression on me as people that would be good to work for both career-wise and personally...August's students seem very pleased with him, I didn't get to talk with any of Martonosi's because she is mostly EE. They both have tenure but are really active (ISCA chair-ing etc.), and sometimes work together, and if I go to Princeton I will probably try to work with/be advised by both (ambitious but done previously). Impressive.
Locale:
Most of Princeton campus is some whack harry potter shit. gothic, arched windows, stained glass in the dining hall, the gym has what can only be described as a freaking bell tower, and most of the grad students live in what is basically a castle. The CS building is modern rather than gothic, but gorgeous and spacious and
ours is basically a shack in comparison. The town is both pricey and small. To convert from Cville, stick half the downtown mall on the corner, and then get rid of the rest and all of the 29 shopping centers. ethnic food is not plentiful, though there is a good microbrewery (god I had so much beer on saturday). You can take the train to NYC for cheap, and this is often done for clubbing etc. Cultural stuff is okay as it is a common stop between NYC and Philly. Cville part II-ish, I'm pretty sure there is actually little or no variety short of new york.
Graduate Life:
It's hard to rent in town (because it is so small...) so like 90% of the grad students live in university housing. This takes the form of crappy singles in the castle buildings (sweet, but crappy unless you get lucky) that require you to share bathroom/kitchen and buy a mealplan(!), OR nice 1/2/3 bedroom apartments elsewhere. catch22 is that if you get a nice apartment you don't meet many people at first (ever?) because the other 80% are living in the damn shared-bathroom/mealplan castle. renting is cheap neither in the town nor in university housing (closer to bay area than cville, sad to say) but the stipend more than covers it anyway so it is hard to be concerned. this housing catch 22 was my least favorite aspect of the school, and it would be survivable just not optimal.
Academics:
6 classes in four areas or test out of said before the first two years are up. Also some kind of oral in your area, no biggie, 95% pass first go. Everyone gets fellowships first year, so no big push to find an advisor early (I'm funded at least 4 apparently anyways). Course selection isn't huge anyway though.
Research:
I am SOOOO into what Martonosi and August especially are working on. Not just awareness of, but also delight in playing with the hardware/software boundary. Informed hardware design based on small improvements to aid dynamic compilation techniques, power scaling, reliability. Automated parallelism coupled with dynamic response/optimization. Computer architecture is being revolutionized and they are in the right place, IMO. They are working on problems that NEED to be solved. I want to help! Compiler studies will also fill my personal gap in this area. The department is small, but since there's a group I really want to work with and a few I could fall back on, I could reap the benefits of a lot of faculty attention without any of the usual risks.
Things I learned about other places (i.e. rumors and opinions):
UWisc, Princeton, and UMich are the top schools for architecture in terms of current activity. (maybe in that order?)
Stanford cuts 2/3rds of its admitted PhD candidates out by means of quals.
Princeton, Berkeley and UWash especially purportedly have the happiest grad students out of the top 10.
MIT is grim.
General:
The first day I was kind of like "eh, this place is like UVa but smarter," which was nice but not particularly revolutionary. Interviewing professors the second day really made a big impact, because it got me really excited about the research that they do there. I can see why it's becoming highly recognized, and how it's leading edge, challenging, and fits with my interests, past experience and future plans quite neatly. Working there would really be building on the work i've done so far, rather than transitioning to a new area (at this time i see that more as good than bad). Princeton is not berkeley however, in terms of both location and clout... i find myself wishing for a magical ideal cross between them...sigh. Also, writing personal statements led me to state repeatedly "I really want to do X!", and now it seems like princeton is turning out to be better at X than berkeley, just berkeley is both more famous for X anyways and also has Y and Z.
HELP. oh well, it was a fun weekend, and now that i've gotten this out of my system I refuse to do any more comparing until I actually go visit the other places!
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2006.12.18 03.22
bring it on bring it on yeah
well i'm back at home after the most stressful semester so far. the highlight of the trip home was cville public radio playing the veronica mars theme song... chris and i were seriously rocking out. that show makes me unreasonably happy, even when certain characters do silly things (i'm looking at you season 3 episode 6, omg)...
anyways, interesting things that have happened this semester im case we haven't been in touch:
i got to go to san jose for a comp sci conference on processor workload characterzation, even though the paper we submitted didn't make the cut. i ended up being there for a week because i spent a few days in berkeley partying with my friend tim...that seriously rocked. since then it's been nothing but work (especially grad apps, good lord). speaking of them, i am applying to about 10 schools, all of which are reaches, and half the apps were due this past friday. i got an honorable mention for an undergraduate research award, but did rather badly on the subject test, so i'm not sure how things are really going. god, seriously all i did this semester was freaking work all the time. joe and wushu got the short end of the stick, sad to say. next semester will be another story however...heh heh.
things maybe of interest to do over break (and who to talk to if you're interested):
Casino Royale @ tysons on the 21st - we so shouldn't be going to tysons then but i haven't been to the new theater yet and honestly still need to get some shopping done so i'm not gonna complain. (talk to karen)
battlestar galactica/daybreak/icecream party @ chris's friday the 22nd - best shows on tv (talk to me or chris)
ice skating on that friday or maybe the next day? - i just made this up right now. maybe reston since i like the outdoor one. or maybe later in break if noone can go then (talk to me)
gloria's esca marathon sometime after christmas - we are seriously making those cookies (talk to gloria)
Gay clubbing on the 29th/30th? - since nation is closed we must find a new locale...maybe apex? Also we could also do not-so-gay clubbing at some other point... (talk to me)
Erin's traditional NYE extravaganza - as per usual..good lord this is like year 9 (talk to erin)
cosmic bowling in here somewhere! also more BSG/daybreak/icecream goodness
Thara's ultimate dance recital on Jan 13th - after her performace she will be transformed into a beautiful butterfly (talk to thara)
one final thing, chris and i were working on planning some kind of beach week for the end of may after graduation. probably somewhere more exotic than delaware, but probably somewhere beach rather than not-beach. still taking input... and he might have a financial report coming out soon.
okay that's all i got. let me know, and if we haven't hung out seriously give me a call and save me from putting snes roms on my xbox and reading cyberpunk novels all day (there are worse fates, but still...). cheers
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2006.08.07 00.01
happy birthday to me!
yay! now there is nothing to keep me from blowing my hard earned savings on frivolous drinks etc. (or perhaps letting other people buy them for me...yes). also, time to stop aging? this weekend i took the GREs, saw joe (recently back frm china), and went out to dinner with my family...i got to have wine even though my birthday wasn't until midnight, but since it was my family afterall i was well behaved.
anyway, mainly this is just a gentle reminder that george and i are having a birthday party this next saturday in cville, so you all should clear your schedules and sort out rides and stuff so you can come down (or up) to chill out with us. i forsee telephone pictonary: the drinking game edition, but who knows? and fraz is mixing the music so you know it shall be hottttt. let me know if you need a ride and i can try to help...
back to your regularly scheduled internet ~
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2006.05.21 02.49
dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
some notes:
gay-clubbing is exactly like the part in family guy when stewie thinks about where he goes to relax and the "i know the guy who owns this place" "what?" "i said i...oh nevermind i love this song" dialouge ensues. i kid you not. it's really just like that. also this summer's batch of r&b-turned-gay-anthemy-house-remixes is awwwful (yes moreso than usual) making it a relief when they take a page from last year (see title).
bacardi razz is soooo good, i could drink it all day (dont worry george i saved you some).
i'm going back to cville on tuesday for like 2 weeks, coming back here for like a week, and then going back to cville foreeeever.
by popular demand the weekend of the 11-12 of June has been nominated for our housewarming party. so there it is. granted none of the other guys other than chris have okayed this plan but yknow, they like it. so plan to travel to cville that weekend if you are able. we'll make it worth your while!
worrrrrrrrrrd
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2006.05.14 14.07
well, another semester down the drain! there really aren't too many left...
this semester:
i took lots of research for credit and grad classes, which worked out well for both my work ethic and my grades. my favorite professor is leaving, which makes me sad, but my other ones all seem to like me a lot and have offered me grad reqs. one told me in a friendly way that i had "better go to grad school or else"...no, it really was friendly! other than that the major thing of note was that i competed in a few wushu competitions...i got medals in the local one and didn't get last in the national one in california. i felt like i really bonded with my teammates; ironically, many of them just graduated. however, as i and my contemporaries assume power next year, i'm getting more excited about what we can do with the club. wushu is seriously sweet. anyways...
this summer:
i'm in nova now. we had to move all our stuff out of bice, but can't move in to our house until june 5th, so the majority of my wordly possessions are in my car at the moment. on the one hand i want to settle down and not have to move all my crap every year, but on the other i don't want to be stuck somewhere for a really long time when i've only lived like two places (i.e. all my graduating cs friends from nova who go back to nova to get jobs...). anyways, the rest of this summer i'm doing research in cville. on on-chip processor interconnect fabric design in case anyone cares (lol). but i'll be back up here occasionally. also we have a sweet house, so we'll probably be trying to have parties in it! joe is going to china for most of the summer :( i also have to take the gres at some point....
future:
next year should be more of the same. grad apps in the first half, more slacking in the second. i feel like next year has to be the Best Year Evar, but i'm unsure how to make that happen. next summer i'll prob try to get a job with IBM or google or someone who does cool research. then off to grad school... looking at Berkeley, Stanford, UTexas, UMich, UMD, other UC schools because i have some irrational desire to live in california at some point, maybe CMU and amherst, uva as backup...blah. this is lots harder than finding a place for undergrad :(
parties:
so yes, we want to have a housewarming party, which would involve travel to cville for the weekend, much as was done for my/george's birthday party last year. we're talking after erin's bday, and after we move in, so either June 10-11, or 17-18. interest? preferences?
also we should go bowling or ice skating or something this week. maybe some non-uva people are home? oh well...either way. i'm just feeling sociable... call me if you want to hang out
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2006.03.02 12.04
the stars are aligned in our favor
wow, yesterday was a really good day for our apartment! my day inspired me to to update, but i forgot to before bed. and ryan had an especially good/fortuitous day too, i know. actually i haven't even talked with ted yet, though i saw his post. somehow everything yesterday went right...
well firstly the day before yesterday i found out that my research proposal with the neuroscience professor didn't win me a UVA research grant for next year. somewhat disappointing, but... i actually wasn't that sad, because i figured out that while the grant is relatively prestigious, it would only cover housing expenses. whereas if i do an REU with the cs department (and two professors have offered me such jobs), then i would probably make ~5000. which is way more than housing costs, and still doesn't look that bad on the resume. Also, the research both professors are doing is pretty hot and more relevant to what i want to do in grad school. so yay money and professors apparently liking me.
so i woke up at 8 yesterday to go to the uva surplus auction. early for me, but i hit my sleep cycle just right so it felt pretty good. anyways, basically every two months uva auctions off piles of crap that the school doesn't want anymore. we're talking everything from junky computers to couches to bikes to huge microscopes to cars. it's really sweet, and they have a guy doing the whole fast auctioneer patter thing, and there's all these random people bidding on random crap, god only knows what it does. it's definitely a should-be-experienced-once-in-a-life-time thing. i ended up buying a 15" HP LCD monitor for $60! it not the greatest, but i looke donline and they still retail for like $310, so it was a damn good deal.
oh that reminds me, i also bought an xbox on ebay to mod in an anindo-ish fashion to be my linux-running emulating/movie machine. someone already modded it and installed a hard drive too, so i paid about 1/2 the cost of buying all the components separately. the powersource or the bios is broken, but the first should be an easy fix and the second i was going to reflash anyway. hoorah for people selling things they could fix for $15 and a screwdriver...
so, money was spent, but in a awesome way!
then i had class, which involved a really good discussion. then erika and i finished our OS project, turned it in, and played crossword puzzles with dhruv. i feel like OS is going really well, because erika is a great partner, and the labs haven't been hard for us. yay cs major bonding time. then i went to neuroscience research, which also was really productive. then i came home and managed to finally fix ryan's computer! but then his windows product code wont work so we couldnt finish reinstalling it...wtf bill gates? still, a good day for computers. i felt up chris's laptop's ethernet port, but i don't think my magic touch will do much for that poor baby.
dive practice was better than usual, and in a slightly strange coincidence i made friends with ted's winter league ultimate captain, who it turns out used to coach diving. the weirder part of the coincidence is that they ran into each other when ted, she, and i were coincidentally all at the afc on monday, and so i heard this story from both of them, but i was there too and didnt know... i don't know if that made any sense, but it's weird. anyway. she's really cool and i hope she keeps coming to practice because she's really interpersonal and generates a lot more conversation between everyone.
finally i came home, ate dinner, cuddled with joe, and went to bed and got eight hours of sleep! what a sweet day.
upcoming i have a wushu tournament on march 11th at UMd! i'm really nervous about it since i'm competing a sword form i only have learned in the past month. pressure.... but i have all spring break to practice. also my spring break is next week, so if you too are home, give me a call and lets hang out sometime! peace
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2005.12.22 19.45
Plans part the second
Hello, so things are looking good planningwise... some clubbing ride details need to be worked out.
Here is the list of clubbing peoples:
Henry
Fraz
George
Jo
Sophminister
Tatekuni
Nattie
Ruth
Manjoe(?)
at a minimum. clearly this mandates two cars. having been to nation twice and driven once, i can assure whoever else drives that it is not very hard. it requires about 3 turns, all of which are easy to find based on the website's directions. also, the best plan is to get as many cars as possible to one place beforehand so as to not have people driving people home late at night, but since we're seeing the movie first this shouldn't be too hard. ruth and george no worries though.
Also, from George:
If you do option B, then you have to emair Tairs at tails at fawxie dot c00m with your name (as it appears on your ID) in order to get on ze reduced or whatever list. Tell him I sesnt you. :D
So do that. I guess that's about it for now
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2005.12.22 01.08
x-posted friday plans
Together gloria and i have concocted plans for this friday's amusements.
1.
3:45 pm Bareb...er...Brokeback Mountain at the Cineplex du Lux in Fairfaxish. hope that link works :P
Its conceivable it could be a sellout, since there are only about 10 theaters that have it, so you might want to get tickets online. It's possible to maybe meet at gloria's beforehand if you have to be dropped off or something like that.
2.
6:00 Dinner at "somewhere" :D. prob @ that TGI fridays or whatever
3.
Go back to gloria's and chill for awhile
4 Option A
9:40 pm showing of Memoirs of a GAYsha (as ted would say) at the same theatre
4 Option B
Go to Nation with henry, fraz and george to listen/dance to Tails's live set. may be free or $10, open bar too. between him and the other djs this will probably be mostly house music of some kind i am guessing. also, it isnt exceedingly-gay-night so no worries ted. if you're interested in this def let me know cause rides could get sticky. or just meet us there.
A & B are mutually exclusive unfortunately.
So. Let us know the status (of your Einhejriar?). Buy tickets if you are the studious type. Hoorah!
p.s. there could be a post clubbing/geisha magical sleepover manparty if people are so inclined?
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2005.11.27 00.28
let's do this again next year
i love how three years after highschool we can have a post-thankgiving dinner get-together reunion and still have over 20 people show up. that is just so damn cool. hooray for charades, braids, gay cowboys, cheesecloth hats, erotic cakes, awesome food, and us.
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2005.11.25 00.07
hello again. nothing specific is happening, but if you're looking for a good time come by my house at ~3-4 tomorrow (friday). there we be lots of hot naked coeds and beer! by which i mean... dinner and bowling? or movie? or something like that. comment or call if you think you might appear.
also josh, i am calling on you to be our mode of transport sat morning. you can probably sleep over if you come here on friday. (that may apply to the rest of you too...but itd be at chris's house and i havent talked with him and dont know if they have relatives over so its not a sure thing)
i guess that's it. feel free to call and let me know if you're coming or not. seeya!
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2005.11.03 07.01
this post brought to you courtesy of ece435 and the number lol
god damn it i had to pull another all nighter in the stupid stacks (i.e. eschool computer lab/den of despair for those of you not in the know). fuck. i just now finished my lab which took like 10 hours and i honestly have no idea why it works. as far as i can tell it shouldn't but then it does, i think. except i'm pretty sure i didnt change anything between it not working and it working. and i have a 930 class so i cant go to sleep and hence this update. shitass.
basically this semester consists of me having decently good classes which occasionally shaft me in hilarious ways. namely ece435. i also humorously skipped the one day of Defense Against Dark Arts (specifically viruses-and-worms dark arts, but still such a sweet name) where he told us we were having a test next time, so i got a pop test when i showed up on tuesday. thank god we get to drop a test in that class because i literally got a 28/100 on an average 80 curve. lololol as ted would say. but spanky who also skipped that day got a 26 so nyah nyah to him. my research with the neuroscience dept is cool but i am still just a lackey mostly. i am taking too many credits to accomodate the job/wushu/dive/astro stuff i've done in the past, so the job and astro bit the dust totally and the other two are suffering. sad :(
some of the most fun i've had this semester has been travelling, namely to kelly's farewell party, to see george in pittsburgh, and up to UMD for lauren's birthday. all of those events were quite rockin and i hope to repeat them and keep seeing everbody. highlights were beating chris and george at magic while drunk off my ass, and meeting ian and all of lauren's friends, and seeing erin and lauren and george and kelly of course. in related news we got a /totally/ sweet house for next year. it is unique and huge and just basically the best we could possibly have hoped for. so you all have to come and visit and we can have a party! (pants party?) odds are good i'll be in cville for the summer, as i basically have three lab jobs + one other job any of which i could choose to take on. i'm really thinking about grad school at this point, probably even up to phd. top choices are mostly west coast schools...but we'll see. that wasn't tangental at all...
next sem i may be taking only two large normal classes, then three small seminar/research thingees plus random shit. sweet! one of the seminars is more like a research group that the professor (my advisor) actually recruited me for (as in he came to me not i to him) which made me feel pretty good. there are also medium odds of me being on the collegiate wushu team, meaning i get to go and compete in the spring. oi... my wuhsu is getting better though, i finished another form with my private instructor which means only one more until weapons, and i've also started working on tai chi. also randomly tonight at dive practice i did a 2 1/2 which makes me think i dont entirely suck at that nowadays. wow, actually today was me being aweosme up until the ece lab kicked my sorry ass. damn.
joe and i are still together (for those of you who i reaaally havent talked to in awhile). we live on the same floor of the same building but see each other sadly inoften in spite of that. this is probably the hardest semester of college class-wise for both of us so i guess its not surprising, but its still frustrating sometimes.
mkay well i feel somewhat less grumpy now. off to get food. god damn all nighters. if i havent seen you in awhile, uva has week off for thanksgiving so let me know what you're up to...
in conclusion, damn you e-school.
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2005.08.04 01.27
birthday business
hello batmen. forecast for the weekend is extreme birthday. however people keep showing up to take away all the furniture from our house, loool. so:
ITEM A: The main party thing is saturday [evening], but feel free to come down friday if you like.
ITEM BATMAN: Bring enough money, preferably in cash, to eat out or help pay for ingredients for as many meals as you plan to eat. Maybe a little for snacks too, unless you only want popcorn and plums oO. Also contributions of drinks or some vague amount of $$$ if you plan to have more than one drink would be nice, as george and i aren't made of money
ITEM C: REALLY bring something to sleep on or in. Preferably sleeping bags etc. We have lots of pillows, 2 bean bag chairs, 1/3 of a sofa and 1 bed. was not kidding about people taking the furniture away!, and theres no guarantee the replacements will arrive by the weekend. BRING SLEEPING BAGS
ITEM D: Seeing as this is a 20.5 birthday there will be alcohol present. just to be clear. As usual drinking is in no way mandatory to have fun, duh. But certain people will be partaking ;) If you want to contribute bring something that tastes yummy.
ITEM E: ( Directions )
ITEM F: If you get lost or have questions about stuff, you should probably call gloria's cell phone or send me an email. my cell phone is currently being retarded again. If you plan to come down on friday, either leave before rush hour or long long after. unless you like 2 hour drives that take 5 due to traffic :D
RIDES: I know some people are driving down. I.e. Sophie, Lauren, Joe....ummm. Erin, you said you were interested, but I don't know if you got off work, or if you can drive. George is riding with sfofz i hear, and i'm not sure what's up with kim, fraz, yulin, ruth, ted, jo?
whew, i know thats a lot guys... let me know whats up
P.S. Paul van Dyk at Nation Aug 19. Word? Hot men/Dancing/4am/Move-in-Day the next day? any takers? oh yeah
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2004.11.05 13.29
No Words Can Say
So. I haven't posted here in awhile, but that's normal. I very much wish I were doing one of my periodic "Hi everyone! I miss you and just want to let you know everything's great here," posts, but unfortunately that just isn't going to be it this time. Actually, things have been really quite nice here at UVA so far this year. I really like living in the apartment with the guys, and feel like I've been making a lot of new friends and connections too. I've been doing a lot of wushu, and that's been really great. And finally, having Joe here has been the best.
Up until now. Because this week he decided it would be best if we took a break and thought about seeing other people. I find myself more or less dumped by the guy I'm still totally in love with. It's indescribably bad.
The situation is mitigated somewhat by the fact that he still thinks we have a deep connection, isn't sick of me, still wants to be friends and in my life, and there's still hope it will work out in the long run. He just wants time to figure out what he needs in terms of relationships right now. He says he isn't ready to be 'married', which is how our relationship has started feeling since school started. I do understand that, especially since neither of us have had a serious(or not-) gay relationship with any other men. It just sucks, because I know he's the guy I want, and I finally have him here with me. If we get back together after this, I'm sure our relationship will be a lot better; but in the meanwhile I don't look forward to being jealous of whomever he finds, or constantly measuring up whomever I find against my significantly heightened standards. It makes sense to trade in some cards to see if you can do better, but not when you got dealt the fucking royal flush. But that's just how I feel.
In the meantime, we seem to be in some kind of weird gray area. He says he still loves me. He's still being his usual caring self, looking out to see if I'm okay. We can still hang out with reasonable comfortness. Originally, when the focus was more "I need time to decide" I was gonna be okay, but since then we've talked more and it sounds more like the situation is "We should try seeing other people", which is awful. I keep hoping he'll just change his mind, decide he wants me afterall, but as the last few days have passed it doesn't look like it will be that easy.
All this makes me confused. Do I try to move on, or try to wait for him to decide? I don't think I'll be ready for another serious relationship for a long long time. I almost feel obligated to look for a light one, just so I in the end can say to him "Now that I've looked, I'm even more certain you're it." Honestly, if I have faith that our love is true (I hope I still do?) then I should be confident enough to just give him time and wait. Or trust that we will work out someday and go with the flow in the meantime. Or was the whole thing based on only my feelings, and I should just run far away to keep from being hurt more? But I WANT him, in any way I can have him in my life. Friends? fine. Lovers? better. Are we something more? Can we be?
Right now, is it imperative I let go and see if he comes back on his own, or imperative that I don't let us slip away so easily?
I don't know anything anymore.
I feel somewhat guilty, because I haven't talked about this with anyone at all yet (except for my mom and Ruth just now cause she called me while I was writing this. *hugs* thank you). So all the UVAers will be surprised, cause I haven't said anything to them, and at most probably just acted kinda inexplicably funny this week. Sorry guys and gals, you're all so important to me and I do trust you a lot, but this has just been too much for me to talk about face to face. Also, since it's so undecided, I haven't wanted to tie it down with words, to make it real by telling other people. The same goes for all my friends far away... I just didn't want to make it real. Ironically, I'm probably only posting this because I'm going out of town for a dive coaching clinic this weekend, and so won't have to talk about it with anyone for at least a day or two.
I'm just not good at being too open with people. That's part of what's so special about Joe... I can tell him anything. But I want you all to know, cause you deserve to, and also because I need help. I reall don't know what to do with all those questions I listed above. Comment or call if you want. I may not want to talk much, but I'd appreciate any advice you have for me. I feel so lost.
So. I don't know what to say. This has been the worst week ever. I'm not sure how I feel, or what to do. I don't want you all, especially you me-defensive female friends of mine, to dislike him, as I know he counts a lot of you, my friends, as his own. It's just...
God dammit, my stupid lj icon is making me cry.
I'm gonna have to be done now. Sorry for posting so much heavy stuff here. I don't remember how to lj cut it either. But this probably one of the most important posts I've ever made, so I hope you all understand. Love you all.
And yet, -- I am not sure. I am not sure,
Even, if it was white or pink; for then
'Twas much like any other flower to me,
Save that it was the first. I did not know,
Then, that it was the last. If I had known --
But then, it does not matter. Strange how few,
After all's said and done, the things that are
Of moment.
Few indeed! When I can make
Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!
"I had you and I have you now no more."
There, there it dangles, -- where's the little truth
That can for long keep footing under that
When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?
Here, let me write it down! I wish to see
Just how a thing like that will look on paper!
"*I had you and I have you now no more*."
O little words, how can you run so straight
Across the page, beneath the weight you bear?
How can you fall apart, whom such a theme
Has bound together, and hereafter aid
In trivial expression, that have been
So hideously dignified? -- Would God
That tearing you apart would tear the thread
I strung you on! Would God -- O God, my mind
Stretches asunder on this merciless rack
Of imagery! O, let me sleep a while!
Would I could sleep, and wake to find me back
In that sweet summer afternoon with you.
Summer? 'Tis summer still by the calendar!
How easily could God, if He so willed,
Set back the world a little turn or two!
Correct its griefs, and bring its joys again!
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2004.08.23 01.22
"Cheeseburger in paradise, cheeseburger in paradise..."
hello everyone. i am back from hawaii and rather jetlagged...or something. the time zones are too confusing and sleeping on airplanes is the suck. excuse me if i am rather punchy, and i apologize to ben for the rambling comment i just left him..
anywayyyy, the trip was awesome! hawaii is paradise, albeit very crowded. absolutely amazingly beautiful scenery, warm water, perfect weather, great food, surfing!!111, and just this overall nice happy feeling everywhere. i spent approximately... 380 hours with my boyfriend, whom i love and adore at least as much as ever but probably more, and thank for putting up with me in close quarters for a straight fortnight and some. he's absolutely the best. wow. i so don't deserve him.
well, clearly, this vacation kicked total ass. i would like to write down details of the all the stuff we did, cause in some ways thats really the point of keeping a journal, but i'm tired now and will maybe just wait til i get some fo the digicam pictures tomorrow.
in brief:
2 weeks in waikiki (in honolulu on oahu, for clarity). one week while my family was also there, second by ourselves.
the beach is not like the atlantic. warmer-than-pool water, with low waves that crest for hundreds of feet without breaking. hotels right up to the very beach edge, and lots of crowding, but much better if you just walk a little.
i spent a couple hours learning how to surf, which is the freaking awesomest thing. it's not really that hard, esp at waikiki... like bodyboarding and then standing on a balance beam. and even at my simple basic level, sooooo fun! you all should try if you get a chance
japanese people everywhere. nearly all the signs/menus/airport announcements were bilingual, which was pretty fun. never seen so much katakana in my life. also a lot of engrish - "Sungrass cases" signs, "Mezz Guitar For A Pretty Girl", "Super Up!" shirts etc. it all made me happy. we also went to see this beautiful buddhist temple reproduction in the mountains...
good food. gooooood food. gooooooooooooooooood fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!
went to big island to see the volcano, which was more or less sleeping, but we did get to wander around on old lava floes and see some pretty waterfalls. and yummy kona coffee icecream...
oh, and snorkelling, which was largely a bust due to leaky equipment and a (according to joe, as i wouldnt know) very poor reef. but i saw a sea turtle! pretty!
i got a few presents for people and a pretty picture and a lamp and some wallscrolls for me. did you all get my postcards??? i sent out ones to people who have to go away to school first... but everyone should have theirs by now or in the next day or two! i sent chris the prettiest one. let me know if you got it!
anyway, wooooooo...flying is tiring. oi. trip was awesome. yah...
are we partying this week, or is it only uva people left? jesusfuck i can't wait to go to school. its gonna be so fricking awesome...i just cant even say how much i'm looking foward to it. having my boy, and OUR apartment, and cars!, and new peoples!!! life is honestly too good to be true right now...i don't want this feeling to stop. love to all, and especially you know who. miss people, so i might actually be online! nightynight then
*thud*
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2004.05.08 01.18
real folk blues
well, here we are. the end of my first year of college. it's been pretty...spectacular. good and bad and great. i feel like i have too many memories to hold on to all of them. the last few weeks have been an insane amount of work, but i survived, and this last week has reminded me of all the ways that i love this place. its surprising how big a goodbye this feels like.
honestly, i'm not really looking forward to summer break. while i can't wait to see all my friends, and family, and boyfriend...i wish it were more like winter break. i feel like the thing this year has taught me the most is "everything changes, but nothing ever does". people, places, they leave or change, and who knows what you'll be able to remember. my friendships won't have changed, and i take a lot of comfort in that, but leaving here just reminds me of how much i'd sometimes like to live in the past.
of course, some changes are good. next year...is going to kick total and complete ass, without any doubt. joe natalie and fraz join team uva squad, and with the advent of our own apartments and better classes, everything will be so awesome. but i wish i could just fast forward right through summer to get there.
even though i'm still a coach, diving feels increasingly like a part of my past. i can still be involved, but that really is a part of my life i can't have back. and as we all leave here, i realize that i depend on my uva crowd a lot more than i ever did on my family when living at home. this summer is going to lean heavily towards the nostalgic.
...
TOTALLY JUST STREAKED THE LAWN. when it was 6am light out too. and i was sober. we win.
...
anyway, college rocks, and i'm gonna miss it a lot. but at least i get to see everyone. especially joe. mmmmmmmmmmm... and if things change, they'll be for the better.
*yawns* time to crash
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2004.04.28 07.42
Heut ist mein Tag
ever stay up all night? and you start out totally screwed. everything sucks, and you hate being here, and you hate being you, and fuck it all. you don't sleep, but even so, suddenly you feel like you've woken up. you haven't done any work, but maybe you've had a long long talk and gotten to know someone a lot better. and everything is different, even though nothing has changed. life is beautiful, and you are one lucky sonofabitch, even though you forgot that for a little while.
and you jitter around your dorm room grinning like an idiot for no reason, but you have to go for a walk at 6 in the morning, because to be honest some feelings are too big to be indoors. the sun is rising, and your school is so very pretty, and you have some awesome walking music, and it's the best you've felt in weeks. getting to know people is awesome, and you have to admit the friends you already have are just the best, and you are so fucking in love with your boyfriend that you can't even find words.
euphoria is about the right word. who needs a reason? it's a new day, and you've got a new beginning. you don't even know what you were missing before, or why the hell you just found it again, but here it is. you smile at the world and it smiles back.
it's kinda like that. love you all.
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2003.10.03 02.08
"..and I always will remember all the strength you gave to me..."
so, a pretty off week. not like, as in bad things happening, but as in i am lazy and dumb and sleep through my classes and am anti-social for no good reason. and the weekend was so fun, too =/. but i think everyone got a little boned workwise..so social activities are on the low end...or maybe it's just me. i mean, like now everyone is off playing not-magic-the-gathering-never-we-do-not-know-what-that-is-at-all-no, but i'm actually feeling content just listening to music here by myself. i think the content-ness is what's bothering me...this is not a state of affairs i should be content with with. what's the deal?
oh well, in any case, my boyfriend is amazing. i mean, of course he always is, but now he wrote me a really sweet letter. watch me sparkle, really it's scary. siigh, i love him so much. i dunno what i did to deserve him, but it must have been good. still have that fuzzy confused feeling of something big missing following me around a lot, but i guess i'll learn to deal. and egregious amounts of cell phone usage help...well, them an romantic letters ;). plans are in the works to visit ny in a few weeks, although coincidentally we'll both be home this weekend. and then hardly be able to see each other! score, irony again. but any time is better than none, so what else can i say? oh well, i was originally planning to go to homecoming single anyway, so i'll just be satisfied with the original plan, and then get a bonus on sunday ;) hehe
oh, so yes, speaking of this, i am coming home this weekend, along with several uva compatriots. and i know yulin and fraz are too. so, currently plans involve crashing homecoming in un-dress clothes and a party at someone's house afterwards. so all you underclassmean better go to the dance, so i can see you!
actually i'd also be really happy to see some alum-types who are in the area or in town that i haven't seen at least since the end of school, or maybe otakon. namely kat and jo! so you should definitely both come to the dance, so i can see you *nods* wow, it occurs to me suddenly that you two are extremely similar, in a somewhat frightening way. well, regardless of how much trouble you'll get the rest of us in, you should come! and anyone else in town, too...but i think everyone coming from out of town knows what the deal is, and most of them are from uva anyway =P
well, i'm done, i guess. the search for good music on kazaa continues...oh yes, i haven't told my parents i'm coming home, just to surprise them. hehe. and my brother is due for some wrath, as his aim profile clearly reveals that he's been going through my files on the home computer. death comes for you, william. hehe, see lots of you soon, i hope!
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2003.09.28 18.28
"..I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach when feeling out of sight..."
what to say? i feel like i have a lot i want to get off my chest, but at the same time don't even know what i want to say about anything. i can't tell if this post is gonna be short and vague, or long and ramble-y.
college life has stabalized into a decently predicatable norm. like high school, except a million times better. the antics of the group slowly reach new heights of stupidity and mahem. classes are generally easy, if mostly boring. everyone is trying to find the balance between skipping and getting good grades. i always thoguht it was unfair to have to go to classes you could get an A in anyway, and here, you don't. the tricky part is figuring out what kind of grade you have at all. still haven't talked with my parents, but i send them emails sometimes.
having all the out-of-town people visit the past two days (and erin and all the W&M people before that) has been quite the party. it's nice how even though everything changes, really it all stays the same. as usual we end up with a giant group that wanders around to get dinner in the rain, hangs out in the language house lounge geling everyone's hair until it stands up, is really loud in the middle of the night, stays up til 6 am playing magic, and then has lotus-position races down the girls' hallway. so fun. it's hard to believe that now everyone is leaving/has left, because it just fits so perfectly to have them here.
my other visitor, of course, fit perfectly back into his place as the better half of me. unfortunately, his parents were Not Pleased with the bait-and-switch routine of three weeks ago, so rather than friday afternoon til saturday evening, all i was allowed this time was saturday morning to the afternoon. to me, it's such a paradox how six hours can be more time than i ever could deserve, and at the same time so little it leaves me wanting to scream with the unfairness of it all. actually, i wasn't hugely surprised by this developement, and figure it's kinda what i get for making him do all the travelling. still, my secret worry is that now that they've broken it down to this point once, he'll never spend the night here again. oh, i dramatize... but on the other hand i can't think of a single thing i would ever want to spend money on more than going to see him, so there you go. i'm guessing i'll be heading up to new york in two weeks, when i have fall break...
anyway, seeing him again was...surprising. that sounds odd, but what i mean is that i was just almost unbelieving that he was actually here. and that i was surprised how much of him i'd...forgotten, i guess. it's one thing to just know how intense you feel around someone, but it's completely different altogether to feel that way again. and stronger, if anything. god, as soon as i saw him, it was like a shock right through every part of me. you get feeling on the on the phone, caring, desire, empathy, love... but it just doesn't even come close to how i feel when he's actually by my side. it wasn't like i forgot him, in these last few weeks, but more like i just can't hold on to the feelings he gives me. even now, that intesity feels like a dream, because without him here i'm dropped back to the normal plane of life. that's just a perspective though...really i think it was yesterday morning that i was alive, and now i can feel myself falling asleep again. truly, i must have lost something in all those interim hours, because yesterday morning he gave so much of myself back to me. i've always loved those things that make you feel alive, but after the such intense feeling of life i share with him... i know what living is really like, and right now this isn't it. i don't think i've felt it more before; you can be both happy and sad at the same time.
college has been good. on the surface, it's been totally totally awesome. but on the inside, i'm feeling like i'm having trouble finding my balance. which is weird, because balancing myself is usually one of my best traits, and the freedom of college makes it so easy. but i really know now, the problem is that the biggest part of my self is just a vacuum now, and i'm having a hard tome convincing myself that all the other little bits really matter. coasting along the status quo is survivable, but i know life could be so much more. i just have to wait until all these hours in between pass away...
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2003.09.22 00.07
"..you'll understand what I mean when I say there's no way we're gonna give up..."
well, getting back to business as usual here. everyone's feeling the relief of being connected back up to all their electronics =P. hehe, i did indulge in taking advantage of the university's broadband today by downloading a ton of new mp3s. classical, electronica, more world fusion stuff. jeez, i get more musically eclectic with every passing day. i like it though. genre-hopping is so much more entertaining.
other than homework (ha. die engr die.) my accomplisment of the day was that i went running. i actually used a treadmill though, much as i vaguely dislike the things, just cause i got curious about how much better i've gotten, and they are handy for giving you an exact pace/distance to match. so, the result? one mile, 5:29. yeah, that's right, 5 minutes 29 seconds. holy crap, i remember in pe a few years ago trying so hard to break 7:45. it was the burning, and i dunno if i could have done it without the treadmill's "keep running fast or i will throw you off" impoetus, but still...wow. normally i like doing distance more than sprinting, so after this i was totally totally wasted. i came back to my dorm room and died for half an hour or so. eating dinner was bleh, and now i have a headache, but muscle-wise i'm not really sore. definitely had hit the end of my endurance at the end, but that was really the point, afterall. so, yay, i guess i'm proud of myself. certainly am not going to do that again for awhile, though. oi. i wonder if i should be thanking the ddr...
blah, i'm getting this everyone-is-getting sick feeling. i hope i escape...
friday. why is it not here yet?
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