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an interesting night out Wednesday April 28
listening: dj shadow - stem-long-stem
reading: my btw 250 group's final project draft
feeling: shellshocked
tonight started with long aim conversations i couldn't seem to get out of. certainly, i didn't want to get out of them; b&tw writing assignments are far less interesting. i knew that i would do it eventually, but i kept delaying. delaying, that is, until katy picked me up for a quick jaunt at murphy's.
right before i left, todd said something about this summer. he indicated that regan had located (perchance, not intentionally) a sublet for the entire summer for $120. i was going to charge her $420 for the entire summer. i think her choice is clear, despite the fact that i don't know if i'm going to be able to go to new york city long-term now. i'm pretty distraught about it.
paying money to feel dumb Tuesday April 27
listening: candlebox - far behind
reading: everyone's away message
feeling: far behind
riho and i have been writing letters back and forth every now and then for the last two years. she's one of the old modus vivendi crew that i worked with in new york. and she's hella cool.
(oh, and mike, she told me mami-san kekkon shita... go figure. demo, mada kodomo ga inai. anyway. i apologize for the japanese digression.)
riho doesn't have real e-mail; she's only got e-mail on her cell phone. as a result, i have to send these short two-line messages that don't really get me anywhere. and while writing japanese may get me somewhere, my speaking and listening is far behind. you know, like the candlebox song. but i digress.
thus, i asked for her number over e-mail and told her i'd call her sometime, and that's exactly what i did tonight. we talked for about 20 minutes about various things, mostly about me because it's easier for me to practice speaking spontaneously than listening. especially on the telephone. but it was a good and bad conversation: good, i'm trying to maintain a friendship; good, i was practicing my spoken japanese, which i never do; bad, i should be way better than i am despite her chiming in telling me that i've improved.
but i figured that if i have one 30-minute conversation once a week or so with her, i'll get way better and more comfortable at speaking. more importantly, imagine if i had such a conversation every day. man, now i'm getting greedy. but this is an opportunity japan can afford me. i'll get there eventually.
paper Sunday April 25
i have a 12-page paper to write, and i've known about it for weeks. and truly, for weeks, i've been sitting down an hour at a time and doing little bits of it. but i've never started the draft itself. and then he gave us a week-long extension. yay. so i procrastinate even more. it's due tuesday morning, and i'm tired of having it hanging over my head. i'm going to write the damn thing right now. no more internet browsing...
the mandelbrot set Thursday April 22
i'm starting to realize the real utility of my undergraduate education. certainly, i am more familiar with issues relating to electrical engineering and east asia than the average individual, but that's not saying very much. compared to the experts in either field, i know relatively little. however, i am aware of my insufficiency; in other disciplines, i am not aware of what i do not know. therefore, i think that the real purpose of these four years is to show me the depth that i do not know about a particular subject, and that makes me (a) realize that learning in that field is never finished, and that i am just beginning, and that (b) education is like the mandelbrot set: you can keep zooming in, but you'll never arrive at the base case.
mark receives +2 nerd points for referencing the mandelbrot set in a post.
side note about math. liz at foellinger asked me how to integrate a function of e the other day, and i remembered how to do it. and suddenly, i missed math. hard sciences are great like that, there's a right answer sometimes. maybe that's why i still program.
summer Tuesday April 20
i'll be in new york city this summer and in champaign next fall. i'll be working for my brother, and for myself. yet, the process of how i arrived at these conclusions is far more noteworthy than the facts themselves, so i will detail herein:
since november, i have assumed that i will be in champaign for next fall. i need to take two 300-level ealc courses, and there is no way around that. if i am going to be in champaign for school, i might as well take a full load: there's no reason to be at a fine university and not try to explore other interests. thus, my fall schedule includes beginning mandarin, but i couldn't make ice skating fit.
when i decided to go to new york this summer, i knew that i would live by myself. i would not live with michael. that is what i did two summers ago, and i have grown since that time. i am opting for a more expensive route of going it on my own because i believe that a key step in growing up is being able to fully support myself. this summer will be a good litmus test, and i can return to loans in the fall if necessary. for tuition, i am sure that it will be necessary, but i would like to think that i can sustain my living expenses otherwise.
as i looked for apartments, i found many that would not accept short-term (i.e., summer) leases. these were year leases. they were nice, close apartments, and i could afford them. this began turning gears in my head, and it occurred to me at the end of last week that returning to champaign is not my only option.
when i registered for fall, i noticed that a couple of the 300-level ealc classes are individual study courses that are privately arranged with a professor, and such classes do not require campus residency. thus, completion of two such classes could enable me to graduate away from campus, and i thought about the possibility of signing a year lease in new york city. then, i began looking at jobs. full-time jobs. programming positions.
enter mass confusion.
do i stay in champaign and take the easy semester, using that time to find out what i want to do for nine months before going to japan for the JET program?
or do i stay in new york city for a year, get a cool job, make a lot of money, graduate, and then go to japan for the JET program?
the latter certainly sounds cooler. but there are a lot of variables in that equation that aren't as good as they sound. for example: mark's sitting in a job interview 3 years from now. "so, we see that you left xyz company in new york city and worked in japan as an english teacher. why?"
what am i supposed to do? lie? say, "because i'm young, and i don't want to tie myself down to any company or anything yet, so, uh, i just quit and moved on"? i don't think that'll score me the job. but there is one job i can just quit and pick up again: my own -- and so i've decided to continue with pitchpipe in lieu of a full-time job in new york.
there's a host of other issues, too, but that's the gist of it. oh, and it's hella cheaper in champaign.
'tis official
just purchased a one-way to new york city on may 19th. so i'll be there. for sure. more to follow about the past few days when i get done with japanese midterm #2 today.
tests, tests, and a couple more tests Wednesday April 14
finished the psych exam monday morning. verdict: probably a mid B.
finished the ealc exam wednesday morning. verdict: probably a mid C.
have an oral exam in japanese on friday. verdict: probably an A+. she grades easy.
have a written exam in japanese on tuesday of next week. verdict: probably an A-/B+. they always get me on the grammar sentences.
have a 12-page research paper i've barely started due next thursday. verdict: the professor liked my midterm a lot, so i'll just give him more of the same. except, longer. A-.
apartment hunting Monday April 12
i've begun new york city apartment hunting. based on prices, it seems that i'm going to pay approximately $450-$500 per month. in some cases, that includes utilities. at first, i used the "official" searches, but they all wanted $40 to join to get contact information, so i opted for craigslist instead.
and i've found a cornucopia of locations, including one that's a three minute walk to the store. yet, every ad, or at least, 90 percent of them, are female only. hell, there's even ones where two men want a third roommate...but she must be female. women want to live with women, and men want to live with women. no use for a young, white male.
reboot! Sunday April 11
every now and then, i get a little stressed out about the amount of schoolwork that i have to do. however, the level of stress let into my life by such schoolwork is not properly adjusted to the level that my grade will be reduced if i fail to complete it satisfactorily.
we start with the amount of schoolwork, ﾟ.
let us define the level of stress over schoolwork as α. α can then be expressed as
where κ is a coefficient accounting for factors of weather, work, and personal issues. for the purposes of this problem, assume that κ is finite and is larger than 1.
one important factor in determining κ, though, is the relative importance of ﾟ in the final grade of the course. if the proportion of paramount to trivial workload is slight, this coefficient can also be quite small. thus, κ can also be expressed as
where ε accounts for the other factors such as weather and personal issues and γ is the ratio of importance of ﾟ in the final grade.
combining the two, we learn (not surprisingly) that the stress varies exponentially second-order to the workload:
thus, if the workload is reduced at all, the induced stress can easily be brought to controllable, acceptable levels. time for a reboot.
growing out of myself
i don't think it's possible to create anything "for" myself that persists for any length of time. when i listen to mix cds i made for myself in high school, i pity my own musical taste. when i look at things that i've written just years ago, i realize where i've changed.
and when i look at the design of this site, i realize it's not really serving me anymore. certainly, this is the challenge of any designer: create a design that lasts as long as possible. and i have not failed in creating one that lasted a year and a half, but i definitely need to reconsider.
i've got a lot of other things to do these days, though, so i'll probably do it this summer. todd and i can race, maybe.
sickness Wednesday April 7
last night i came down with strep-like symptoms, and so i'm holed up inside my apartment until tomorrow when i will (hopefully) feel better. i'm going to see eternal sunshine tomorrow, finally, and lastly, it's basically for-sure that i'll be in new york city this summer.
rock out.
ben folds Tuesday April 6
impressive. i finished uploading the ben folds bootleg from last night's show at 10am this morning, and by 10pm my 25GB bandwidth limit had been reached on pp-dev.org. this is a problem.
