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it's the rainy season here, rains almost every day for a month or two.
i'm heading off to kyoto for a long weekend to check out Gion Matsuri, a big annual festival they have over there. Unfortunately, there is a typhoon (aka hurricane) barreling down on the area, and forecast to arrive on Saturday ( ^^)/~ <-- I saw this smiley used on an email at work. pretty strong one too m(._.)m
Will be fun! |
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I bought a guitar, and joined a band with the the company music club. our first performance is a jpop song. pretty easy stuff. except that the performance is at the beer festival. so i have to learn this song well enough to play drunk, because i probably will be. |
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twang!
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Jun. 3rd, 2007 @ 09:38 pm
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I finally got a guitar. it feels good playing again after a month. went with a japanese friend to the tokyo instrument store district and got a cheapo guitar and amp. but when i put some new strings on it, it'll be pretty good to play with. i'll pick up a good guitar later on when i have more money saved up. |
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hello
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May. 10th, 2007 @ 09:20 pm
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in japan, my japanese blows, thank goodness for sign language and patient japanese people
no internet yet, but there is a manga cafe, which is alright, if a bit of a walk away.
they started me working right away, so far just reading journals, but experiments should start as soon as i comprehend what is going on. i have a feeling that this will be one weird and wonderful year.
good beer here
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Coop Japan training week is finally over, and now I have lots of free time (a whole day!) to spend around Vancouver.
Wednesday night: arrived ~10 pm, took a taxi to UBC, dropped my stuff in the room and went out into the dreary rainy weather in search of food. The only place still open was a Macdonald's.
Thursday: training, japanese lessons, information sessions. went to dinner with Frances and then to her goju-ryu dojo and trained for a class with Uchiage-sensei. didn't break a sweat after warm-ups were over.
Friday: more training, then a formal farewell luncheon with some foreign affairs bigshots: the consular general here in Japan, some officials from JETRO, and this dude from DFAIT who worked Japan. Met Frances downtown for dinner and quick Vancouver tour.
Tomorrow: relax and check out vancouver
sunday:morning flight to seattle-->tokyo |
| » FREEEEEDOM |
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finished all my exams
finished packing and whatnot
am now in vancouver
this campus blows. can't find a bar around here.
May. 3rd, 2007 @ 12:28 am
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| » i just learned a new song |
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called i will follow you into the dark. it was one of the most popular songs on ultimate-guitar, so i figured it was pretty easy to play.
i lowered the whole thing by 2.5 steps so the vocal was in my range (more or less). original is supposed to be capo 5.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3247721410905361760
i have so much trouble getting the extremely simple chord progression right since i keep skipping chords and play the wrong one.
Apr. 10th, 2007 @ 11:48 pm
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| » fun few days |
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thursday: G3 Concert. Fucking awesome. Petrucci, Satriani, Gilbert, LaRue, Portney. last set of all three guitarists soloing together was amazing.
friday: went to karate camp. it was cold.
saturday: 3x2 hours karate training. the dojo was freezing in the morning, so we trained in the bunkhouse then moved to the dojo for the second and third trainings. only ~18 people came, so there was enough room. It snowed literally the whole day.
sunday: 2x2 hours karate training. it was still snowing and windy. we trained in the bunkhouse
food was pretty good, and training was pretty exhausting. they call it "Spring Camp," and i guess it's technically spring right now. but this one was more like winter camp. my legs are still a bit stiff, but it's not so bad now. after my first summer camp (same thing but an extra full day), i could barely walk for a few days afterwards.
well, now i have 4 assignments due this week, and nothing done over the weekend. wooo, this will be a fun few days.
Apr. 9th, 2007 @ 11:43 am
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| » today |
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Today I:
finished data acquisition for my TEM crystal diffraction lab (involved sitting in a dark room working with a 30 year old TEM (remember those analog days?), then sitting in a dark room manually developing photos (remember those pre-digital photography days?). i feel four shades paler)
finished a crossword in my communications lecture (this is how i communicate disinterest)
finished filling out my tax return and sent it in to the government. my income's low enough that they'll be paying me a refund (score!)
finished writing my formal lab report (due in 2.5 hours, i'm slacking in my procrastination)
Mar. 27th, 2007 @ 09:36 pm
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| » this can't be good. |
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i was walking to the post office this morning, and came upon some construction. There was a backhoe, a hole in the sidewalk, a bunch of construction workers standing around the hole, and the smell of natural gas. I looked down the hole and saw a crooked pipe. I then quickly vacated the area.
Mar. 21st, 2007 @ 04:53 pm
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| » dandelions |
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i watched curse of the golden flower tonight. that's one dysfunctional family. that's a lot of cleavage. the only and most cleavage i've ever seen in a chinese and any film, respectively. almost like they're making up for lost time. now i'm watching a japanese film called versus. Zombies versus Yakuza. just that concept alone makes it worth watching.
Mar. 15th, 2007 @ 01:14 am
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| » conferencing |
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I went to a nanotechnology conference yesterday. Pretty amazing speakers. Of note was Don Eigler, who does atomic level manipulation of atoms at IBM. His talk was on using a spin cascade of ferromagnetically coupled atoms to create logic circuits. Basically taking what would normally require 4 transistors and doing it with just 3 lines of atoms. Not that they're anywhere near that yet; he brought along his data that showed he could cause a measurable cascade in ~10 Mn atoms. impressive stuff.
Mar. 12th, 2007 @ 12:17 am
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| » what the hey |
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So I skipped 2 lectures today to review for a polymers midterm that was supposed to be at 5 today. I have been cramming for this thing for days; I memorized all this polymer stuff that if I ever had to use again, I'd look up in a reference book, but the prof is forcing us to memorize anyways. I was using my time to study for this midterm instead of the one i have tomorrow. or rather, today, since it's already past midnight. So now i'm cramming for my quantum mech midterm. which also has a lot of memorizing results because the prof is also a bitch who trusts his memory too much (i say this because he often screws up during lectures - I never bother to correct him and interrupt the class like some annoying smartasses; I simply write down the correct notes instead).
And then there was an itty bitty blizzard at ~3 pm. And the University closed down. And my polymer midterm was canceled. And I was ready for it too. Oh well, it's time to digest and forget what I had learned, and replace it all with physics. Thankfully we're going very slowly in QM. The prof goes on all these useless physics tangents on the QM results that any person in the room could derive for themselves in half the time. I do believe I slept through half the last lecture... and I was phasing out during most of the other half... and what was left seemed to go unbearably slowly.
I got a 88 on my accounting midterm, or at least that's what my friend whom i asked to pick up my midterm tells me. the grade report website says i got a 90. more than ever now, i realize what a great decision it was to come here to study engineering, instead of piddling away my time at utexas doing business. sure business would be easy, but whenever i have to attend the lecture or complete an assignment/project or write a midterm on the subject, i feel like i'm in a continual stupor. I think i've found a viable solution though: i've attended maybe 6 hours of lectures this entire term (this was in january), during which i completed 2 crosswords and 2 sudokus (3x2 hour lectures, one of which i forgot to bring my entertainment); there are only 2 projects and thankfully they're short and easy; and the midterm could be finished with a mediocre effort. So it's been over a month since i've been to lecture, ~3 weeks since I turned in the first project, and ~2 weeks since the midterm. I think that if i ended up at mccombs, i would pretty much never go to class. and then there's my communications course. haven't been to a lecture in a month, but we have a mandatory seminar where we give presentations. too bad i'm learning absolutely nothing in it. it's sort of like my accounting course. another thing they have in common is that they're both required for accreditation, assigned by the morons on the provincial accreditation board. who probably have degrees in education. which means they have degrees in teaching garbage to idiots and dragging everyone down to the lowest ability level. am i being elitist here? yes. arrogant? yes. too bad the truth is that some people, ok, many people don't have the ability to process science. and the government pampers them too much in education. thank goodness the majority of them have dropped out after one year in my program, so i have to deal with them a lot less, saving me a lot of annoyance. it is a great pleasure and privilege to work with intelligent people.
i'm realizing what a slacking, cynical, college student i've become. Thank goodness i'm taking a break in 2 months. only 2 more months of this crappy term, and i'll be out of here for a year of sweet sweet vacation, solving real problems instead of being forced to do time consuming, mind numbing crap. maybe i can be a good student when i come back. well, courses next year look to be much better, especially since most of it will be a thesis project. which is pretty much research anything you can get a prof to supervise you for.
Mar. 2nd, 2007 @ 12:35 am
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| » i didn't know it was this bad |
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So I got an email today from my materials characterization prof, telling us that our atomic force microscope is out of commission, and all labs for it have been canceled. This has to do with me because my lab group was the only one that managed to use the AFM; it broke during our lab, and apparently it was nearly fatal. oops.
( email )
Feb. 28th, 2007 @ 11:27 am
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| » OH SNAP |
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oh crap, i shouldn't have blown off my reading week.
Feb. 28th, 2007 @ 12:56 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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I found an interesting article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070214.wblacklist14/BNStory/National/home
I'd like to say, I did my part in earning this distinction.
Feb. 14th, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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next year i'll be working on "development of powder processing technology including experimental and analytical work"
most likely in this building:
( picture )
Feb. 13th, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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i can feel this accounting course sucking the life out of me. FUCK YOU ACCREDITATION BOARD.
Feb. 11th, 2007 @ 06:46 pm
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| » oh snap. |
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my data analysis has concluded that my ybco sample superconducts at 103K. now i have to go back and figure out where the systematic errors are. ybco is supposed to superconduct at 92K. and that is only for the pure crystal.
Feb. 1st, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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oh crap. i just realized that i forgot to turn off the he gas.
Jan. 25th, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
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