8 days have passed?!

Wow. One blink of an eye, and... another week has passed. I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or bad, but damn time passes quickly.

Anyway, some quick ``bullets'' because I'm too lazy to write a full post today:

• I've experimentally confirmed that I definitely need 7 hours of sleep at the very least to maintain cognitive abilities beyond mere ``programming''.
• I can actually run fast---I just need to push myself more.
• There are several things that I need to adjust ``in my head'' before I can truly shine; I just hope it doesn't take too long to get these adjustments in.
• In spite of trying to be a hermit, it turns out that I'm much more susceptible to company than I dare to admit.
• Peanuts are awesome snack food.

And that's all I have for now. Sorry for the cop-out.

Till next time.

又是一篇无聊的文章

你好。不，我不打算完全用中文来编写这些博客文章。说来也有点奇怪，最近总觉得中文比英文更有亲切感，仿佛是多年不见的老朋友似的。想当年因为某某中文老师的因素而对此语言残生恐惧，我觉得有点遗憾。可能是我开始老了，有点儿成熟了，所以会对母语残生新一轮的兴趣。

当然，我人在美国，能用中文的机会也不多。即使周围的中国籍学生都很多，我其实不大爱在公共场合里里用中文来沟通。我不知道这是否是自己害怕被歧视的反应，或者是别的因素而导致的。其实我也不管这么多，多学个语言往往是个好事。

可能有些中国籍同学无意中发现我这微薄的博客，看了这几篇文章，会因为我的用词不当与简单的表达方式而笑破大牙。对这些读者，我只能说请见谅小弟我超烂的中文水准。

罗嗦了老半天，该会去干活儿了。后会有期。

Every Breath You Take

Ah, something a little different.

Every Breath You Take------The Police

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you

O can't you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart aches with every step you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you

Since you've gone I been lost without a trace
I dream at night I can only see your face
I look around but it's you I can't replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby please

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you

Lyrics courtesy AZLyrics.com.

Funereal #3

Ahem.

In a dark corner of the room, I lay there in a cheap plywood coffin that some kind soul finally decided to donate. It was a strange place to be, the hidden corner of the crematorium where the destitute dead were temporarily kept before being cremated during the off-hours of the crematorium by the State in one last act of kindness to its citizens. But I suppose it cannot be helped, considering everything. While I was still alive, it was always an uphill battle trying to be what I was to be. But that incident not too long ago, it just took away all that I had. My name, my reputation, my money, my family, my life. But it is all moot now; I am already dead, and just waiting to be finally returned, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

嘿

嘿。最近心情总是不太好，感觉上好像少了些什么。或许是压力，也可能是天气，或者是二月的关系，每天醒来的我总是有点无精打采。有时我怀疑自己可能患上了忧郁症之类的怪病，但由于自尊关系的缘故，我不敢找个专家来诊断是否真的患上了什么怪心理病。

研究工作其实是蛮好玩的，不过不知道是自己太顽固或愚蠢，每当开会时都会觉得自己好像做得不够似的。当然开会的结果谁也能够想象的出来。可能是因为工作了太久了，被赚钱的诱惑给迷上了，头脑也变得笨拙了，也就因此导致这样的结局。

嘿。

再难也得熬下去。路是我选的，再难走也得走下去。若是失败，至少能给自己一个交代。但失败从来不在我的想象范围之内：这经历只能成功，不许失败。

读者，若您是信仰什么宗教的话，请为我祈祷，让我风风光光的走出一个春天来。

Oh?

You know how people keep telling you that life is meaningful and that you should always cherish it as much as you can and all that feel-good stuff?

Sometimes it is really hard to remember that. Really, it is hard.

I have a confession to make.

Gurer'f n ernfba jul V'z nyjnlf fb qrcerffrq, fb fpnerq, fb svyyrq jvgu nakvrgl. Ab, vg'f abg orpnhfr V'z vapbzcrgrag. V uvtuyl qbhog gung V nz gung hfryrff jura vg pbzrf gb erfrnepu, ohg ernyyl, gurer ner whfg fb znal... fvtaf gung znxr zr srry qrcerffrq. Vs lbh'q xabj zr, lbh'yy haqrefgnaq gung V nz n zvk bs gjb znva glcrf bs raretl, obgu vagebirefvba naq rkgenirefvba (ZOGV zrnavatf orvat hfrq urer). Bs gur gjb, V unir n fyvtugyl zber graqrapl gbjneqf rkgenirefvba, fb V yvxr pbzcnal, ohg abg gb gur cbvag gung gurer'f n uhtr pebjq---V pnaabg gnxr gung bar ng nyy.

Naljnl, onpx gb zl nakvrgvrf. V xrrc frrvat znal guvatf nf fvtaf---bar ol bar gur crbcyr gung V xabj ner tvivat zr gung ``lrnu qbvat tenq fpubby vf whfg gbb zhpu sbe zr; V pna'g gnxr gnxvat lrg nabgure pynff'' be gung gurl ner univat gebhoyrf qrnyvat jvgu gurve fhcreivfbef naq gur yvxr; vg trgf gb zr. Vg ernyyl qbrf trg gb zr. V xabj gung jung unccraf gb bguref unir abguvat gb qb jvgu zr, ohg vg vf uneq gb funxr bss gung qvfpbzsbeg. Ernyyl. Naq gung'f bar bs gur ernfbaf jul V xrrc srryvat engure qrcerffrq naq nakvbhf.

Vg'f dhvgr onq npghnyyl, abg greev-onq, ohg fgvyy onq abarguryrff. Abjnqnlf, ncneg sebz fyrrcvat, rngvat (naq bayl orpnhfr V'z whfg gbb uhatel), tbvat gb pynffrf, ehaavat/genvavat va whwvgfh, nyzbfg nyy gur erznvavat gvzr vf fcrag ba erfrnepu. Naq vg sehfgengrf naq fpnerf zr rnpu gvzr V jnyx vagb bar bs gur guerr zrrgvatf rnpu jrrx srryvat nf gubhtu V unq qbar nofbyhgryl abguvat jura gur erirefr vf gehr. V ab ybatre fbpvnyvfr (abg gung V qvq zhpu gb ortva jvgu), naq gur byq ``jbnu V fubhyq trg n tveysevraq be V'yy or sberire nybar'' abafrafr gung cynthrq zr zbfg bs zl haqretenq lrnef unf fcnerq zr pbzcyrgryl abj. Fher, gurer ner n srj avpr tveyf jubz V'q yvxr gb unat bhg zber bsgra, ohg gurl vagrerfg zr bayl gung gurl ner avpr tveyf gung V'q yvxr gb unat bhg jvgu---gur vqrn bs qngvat arire ernyyl pebffrq zl zvaq.

Gnyx nobhg n pbzcyrgryl fperjrq hc yvsr.

V qba'g trg gb cynl zl syhgr gung zhpu gurfr qnlf. Gur svatref ner fgnegvat gb or n yvggyr fgvss, ohg gunaxshyyl V unir gb glcr fb zhpu naljnl gung gurl qba'g ernyyl ybfr gurve qrkgrevgl. Gur rzobhpuer vf fgvyy ubyqvat, ohg nyernql V srry sng-yvccrq. Lrg V fgvyy fbyqvre ba. V yvxr jung V'z qbvat, V whfg arrq gb xabj ubj gb qb vg orggre, be ng yrnfg, pbzzhavpngr vg orggre. Xabjyrqtr gung vf va gur urnq vf hfryrff nf n fpvragvfg orpnhfr ab bar pna inyvqngr jung lbh ner guvaxvat.

V'ir nfxrq zlfrys guvf dhrfgvba znal gvzrf. Jul vf vg V qrpvqrq gb trg vagb guvf cebtenzzr? Jul vf vg V nyjnlf jnyx vagb n jrrxyl zrrgvat gb trg zl nff xvpxrq, bayl gb cvpx zlfrys hc fbzrubj naq gel ntnva sbe lrg nabgure nff xvpxvat gur arkg jrrx? Jul? Jul obgure ng nyy? Lrf, vg trgf nyy qrcerffvat gurer.

Ng svefg V gubhtug nobhg vg va gur frafr bs zr abg jnagvat gb qb gur zhaqnar. Gung fgvyy znxrf frafr, ernyyl, ohg vg vf abg rabhtu. Gura V ernyvfrq nf V ernq naq gevrq gb frr gur cnggreaf naq gur geraqf gung V npghnyyl yvxrq qbvat guvf. V whfg qvqa'g xabj gur cebcre fxvyyf gb fubj jung V unir orra qbvat nyy jrrx orpnhfr jryy, V onfvpnyyl xvyyrq zlfrys va grezf bs gvzr ol orvat fb jbeevrq naq sbphfrq nobhg fubjvat fbzr qrygn-punatr npebff gur guerr qvssrerag zrrgvatf npebff gur jrrx gung V xrcg chggvat hc unys-nffrq fghss ng rnpu zrrgvat. Gnyx nobhg fghcvqvgl. Gung onfvpnyyl zrnag V unq bayl sbhe qnlf gb guvax nobhg guvatf orsber V senagvpnyyl chg hc unys-nffrq svefg-qensg fyvqrf gung V qvqa'g znantr gb ybbx guebhtu naq nygre nppbeqvatyl, guhf yrnqvat gb gur nff-xvpxvat. Guvf jnf gehr sbe gur jubyr gvzr gung V nz abj jbexvat njnl sebz rirelbar.

That's quite a lot for one confession, but hey, I'm not counting. I guess I feel a little better for putting this out here to the few people who actually still drop by to read what I have to say, not counting those from that weird spam site (yes you, I know who you are), and those folks who came by from searching for ``hanging stick figure'' on image search (you guys are sick).

Anyway, till next time I suppose.

February Fantasy

Hello February, you have arrived rather quickly this year. I wonder why.

Will you treat me fine? Will you treat me well? Will you be kind enough to let me survive and succeed?

Or will you let me down?

33 Day Look-back

I know that this entry is definitely too late compared to the usual time that I put this up, but bear with me. This time period has been quite difficult. The year that just past me was one that was fraught with many difficult decisions that needed to be made, and really, I am still in many ways trying to get to come to grips with all that I have to deal with.

But as always, I think that I have diverged greatly from the intention of this post. This was supposed to be a celebration, not a rant, and so here it is.

Just a couple of days ago was yet another birthday anniversary of mine. It was a decent day where I allowed myself to take a little break for once and just do things that I liked doing as a way of pampering myself. I mean, I'm not really that big a fan of drawing a huge bunch of attention towards myself on a day like that, but really, sometimes it was just a nice thing to treat oneself to some of the simpler pleasures in life. I played a little flute in the morning, messing about with some Chinese New Year-themed pieces all from memory before settling down with a nice Korean-styled spicy instant noodles. John grabbed me for some light geocaching in the early afternoon before we joined up with 3 of my other good friends over here in UIUC for a special dinner over at Mandarin Wok.

The funny thing about it all is that my birthday happened to co-occur with the Chinese New Year's eve celebration, and thus it was, in many ways, a dual celebration of sorts. Unlike the time when I was back in CMU, I'm not really that close to the local chapter of the Singapore Students' Association, which meant that if they had some kind of reunion dinner event, I wasn't really in the know for it. Taking matters into my own hands of course, I just organised a strange one for myself.

I think that overall, it was a nicely organised dinner, even though I wasn't really the kind of guy who hosted events like this on any extended manner. We splurged a little, ordering nice foods like braised sea cucumber and even fresh steamed sea bass, a rarity for this part of the world considering that we are really fairly landlocked here in Champaign-Urbana.

So, what are my thoughts about having reached yet another milestone in life? Not much, really. I'll be happy to just obtain my license to research and move on to doing great things with it, and at the same time, attempt to live and love life while it still lasts. Funny how I don't really have that much expectation now; I wonder if I'm just getting a little too old that my cynicism was starting to get in the way.

YT actually sent me an early birthday gift some time back, thinly hidden with the excuse of using my size estimate for a ``friend who was roughly the same size''. It was a T-shirt from Cafepress with an 8-bit compass and the cute epithet of ``old school GPS''. That was pretty awesome.

RX had gotten me Batman: Arkham's Asylum over Steam for my birthday. In the first incarnation of this post, I've almost forgotten to write about it here! Arkham's Asylum is a fun game, and I managed to put a couple of hours into it, but well, time is starting to go a little crazy here, so the next playthrough will be a while.

As for my traditional gift to myself, I got myself a nice nyan cat perler. Why a nyan cat perler of all things? Mostly because it is cute and lively looking. I put up the perler on the wall directly in front of me at home, and it serves as a nice colourful motivation to help me relax a little, acting in many ways like the role that the soy bean plushie that my other sister gave me on my previous birthday.

All in all, the celebrations were of a more tight and simple setting, just the way that I like it. Never was really a fan of elaborate procedures and stuff, so the get-together and the gifts of YT and myself were a good enough conclusion to the one day in this year that I can really and honestly take a day off just because I can.

Fading into the Darkness

I think... that time has never been on my side. I have known this for a while now, but I think I have been living in denial for a little too long. Running, hiding, trying to escape the inevitable.

The time to confront it is now.

The time for change... is now.

It's time to discard that fake-happy side of me and sink back to that morose persona that had served me pretty well for quite a long time, until that weird day that I decided that I was better off being happy.

If ignorance truly is bliss, then let me be as melancholic as possible so that I remain un-ignorant. It is when we realise that we don't know anything, have a looming deadline to get things done, and the realisation that life will never ever be the same again that we step out of that safe zone and get things done.

In view of what I just said, it means that my overall web presence is going to shrink significantly. No, I'm not suicidal, I'm not going crazy [yet]. I think that I have to forgo what is effectively a normal life to succeed at this---there is no other way.

Wish me luck and skill, and hopefully I will prevail.

To the few who still care about me, keep in touch with email. That ancient technology works wonders since it allows a batch processing and doesn't demand any instantaneous response, qualities that I think are most apt at this point. Hell, even leaving a comment or two on my blog entries will work too, since their existence is made known to me via email anyway.

Alright, enough of drivel. Time to hit the grindstone. Hard.

No pain, no gain.

Pre-sleep Rambles

Alright, now that I am feeling sufficiently light-headed from reaching that partially awake/asleep state, it is time for another round of automatic writing where I end up ranting whatever that comes to mind without actually trying to preprocess of censor it [much].

It has been a strange fortnight. Even though there are no classes, there's always research to be done, where I spent my time reading up papers, trying to think, writing down my thoughts on the papers, writing down thoughts on what I have seen, wondering about the problem we are solving, wondering about its relevance, wondering about how I can get some tangible results as opposed to a lot of theoretical idea slinging, wondering if I have been working too hard but not smart enough, wondering about my own abilities as a research apprentice. So many ponderings, it is no wonder that I end up in this semi-zombified state where I just sleep late, wake up early, and am generally having a helluva screwed up sleep schedule, among other things.

Geocaching has been fun, cathartic in fact, more so since there hasn't been any jujitsu training for a while due to the horrible hours of the gyms that we go to to train in, and partly because, well, this being the US, the time period from Dec 23 to Jan 02 are traditionally time periods where people would go for their extended holidays or something. Geocaching allows me to get some of the rather limited sunlight, and of course, makes me use all those muscles, from my core down to the calf muscles from all the hiking and climbing that inevitably comes with these.

It's kinda odd to realise that in another two weeks, the next semester would have begun, and the entire rat race cycle will begin all over again. I am uncertain if... well I zoned out there and lost the train of thought. This probably shoes how sleep-deprived I am feeling heheh.

Alright, enough of the autowriting---it's starting to make less sense now that my cognition of the events are clearly starting to be dissociate from the general sleepiness I am experiencing.

Quick Summary

So, a quick summary of what I had written in 2011:

1. 70 poems posted here
2. 79 essays/rants posted here
3. 6 prose/stories posted here
4. 1 NaNoWriMo winning entry available here

And thus the grand total here is 156 articles, down from the 214 articles in 2010.

That's an average of 0.43 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.59 last year. Again, we see a general downward trend in the amount of leisurely writing I do, partly because I have been writing so much daily for my work/studies. Every day I write anything from 400 to 1000 words about the research work that I am doing, and really, at the end of it all, I just don't feel the need nor energy to write even more things.

Compared to last year, I have almost no emotional roller coasters. Things that had happened in the past stay in the past without any further ramifications, and I have been so work-oriented that I have almost no time to mull about all those odd and interesting relationship issues.

I don't interact with a whole bunch of people any more; mostly interacting with the few who are actively involved in geocaching, aikido/jujitsu, and more recently, the NaNoWriMo crowd in Champaign-Urbana. 2011 is a bumper crop year for Geocaching for me, having gotten a grand total of 300 finds by the last day of 2011, which is quite cool, considering that I had never thought of going for more than a couple of caches every few months. I suppose one of the best things that I had done was to introduce YT to geocaching, and to get involved with a small local group of new-ish geocachers. So many adventures all over Singapore, and in the last few months, all over the cities of Champaign-Urbana, Normal-Bloomington and Peoria. I think geocaching is more therapeutic on my psyche than anything else that I had done, partly because it required me to go out there and take a walk/hike through interesting terrain.

2011 was also a rather tumultous time for me, when my general jadedness was starting to feature a little too strongly, almost completely masking what was essentially the me I fondly remembered before all the cynicism got to me back in 2009 and reduced me to a husk of ``dumb adult-hood''. I have been too disillusioned for a little too long that I have started to lose heart. Well, like all things in life, it will change, and in this case, the change is now. Hopefully this change from ``dumb adult-hood'' back to ``inventor fun!'' will be fast enough that nothing terrible will happen. I really don't want to lose this rather hard-earned fight that I have been doing for the last couple of years.

Something rather random though... over the last three days (including today), I had visited at least three different cemeteries in the day time. I've never really walked through a cemetery much, let alone three, but all in the name of geocaching I suppose. Anyway, those cemeteries invoked a strong sense of respect in me---there lay many of those who walked the earth ealier than I. I never knew how their lives were, but what I know is that the world today, for better or worse, was consequent of their actions, directly or not. It reminds me in some sense that whatever I do now will affect the world, for better or worse, directly or not. A very sombering thought. And of my own mortality---life is really short, can't really waste it over trivialities.

I think I've side tracked much from my original intent of this post. Maybe next time.

Anyway, onwards through 2012, a better year than the last.

I am a Rolling Stone [Gathering No Moss]

``A rolling stone gathers no moss.''

I suppose that's why I am the way I am now. While many might be happy with the lot of life they are given, I'm never one to accept my fate as is, always wanting to fight upwards and onwards, even if this means that I have to leave behind communities of people just to take on the next step of my journey. Maybe I'm more mercenary than I thought, maybe I'm more introverted than I care to actually confess to be; while I lament about how old friends no longer keep in touch with me because of how life turns out, sometimes I too forget how I drop contact with some of the people who are no longer that relevant to me.

Clearly I have been ruminating too much about things. That's hardly new, considering that I had not stepped out of the house for 2 days now. Unsecretly, the starting quote for this entry is also the reason why I am still not in a committed relationship---I still have unfinished business and cannot settle down just yet. Maybe I'm not as ambitious as those entrepreneurs with their start-ups, but I still have some goals in life that I need to achieve, and at this point, that seems much more compelling than the whole ``get settled down and have children'' bit. But who knows what the future might bring?

Okay, enough of random rambling. Back to work.

Inspiration for NaNoWriMo 2011

Alright, the inspiration for NaNoWriMo 2011. Unlike the previous two stories (A Slice of Life with a Twist of Lemon and Towards Cacophony) that formed a series on their own, this one is of a completely new flavour. The major difference here is that there is only one very obvious protagonist, as opposed to the two different people (Heng Kar and Kah Hao) of the previous novels. I have kept the first/third-person narrative styles like before, only to add some variety to the story, giving first-person perspectives on story parts that are less action based and third-person for the action-y stuff.

Anyway, here's the dramatis personae (wow it has been a while since I used that term) for Modern Office Warrior as gotten from my idea file:

Duo-zhuo

Duo-zhuo's the one true protagonist of this novel, and everything that we are talking about is about him in this story. There are still interleaving storylines at play here, but there is no separation between them with regards to what he is doing. The name ``Duo-zhuo'' was designed with a pun in mind; it shares an almost similar phonetic spelling for 多做, which is Mandarin for ``doing a lot''. I wanted to evoke this notion of how Duo-zhuo is doing a lot of things, yet not really having much of an outcome. His life story is pretty much the ``corporate warrior'', doing thinsg within the company and loathing how his psychotic boss keeps causing havoc for him. Of course, this story is about how he found an outlet for that to make life more bearable...

Jimmy Zhan

Not much of a main character, really. Jimmy is more of the ``adventure man'' that I wanted to introduce to give Duo-zhuo a reason to get his ass out of his office and dreary life and get out there to do stuff. And the stuff I've chosen for them to do is Geocaching.

Dan

Not much is known about Dan, since some time after the first third of the novel, he gets fired for doing some rather questionable things. Dan represents the overachieving recent graduate who will stop at nothing just to be the best that can be, from the best ``team player'' to the ``best performing employee''. Not necessarily a bad thing, but given the way things turned out, yeah.

FunnyBoy and FunnyGal

Minor role characters that feature in the first major Geocaching adventure, they are an amalgamation of a few real life geocaching people that I know. I put them there mostly to make the first Geocaching activity that Duo-zhuo takes part in less awkward.

And as usual, there are quite a few minor characters here and there that help advance the story and provide hooks that I will not go into detail.

As for locations, I drew inspiration of the layout of my old office for the corporate scenes, embellishing where necessary, while the outdoor stuff is based on several real-life locations that I had been to on some of the most crazy and insanely fun Geocaching trips that I had done. The whole ``oh no walk into mud'' theme features strongly in the second extended Geocaching adventure in the story because I found it funny to just put Duo-zhuo and Jimmy into situations that I hope to never have to deal with in Geocaching. Also, the extended adventure is completely fabricated---it is technically impossible to design such a Geocache within the current rule set for the real game.

So, why Modern Office Warrior, why isn't it some corporate work-centric story? I believe that ``warrior'' here is meant to evoke a more general feeling of taking on life and all the complications surrounding it, as opposed to ``fighting'' the bureaucracy that is within the corporate environment.

Alright, I think that's enough of an insight to the inspiration for this year's NaNoWriMo entry. I'm still not sure if I can or should do NaNoWriMo next year, but we will see how that goes.

Duo-decade December

It feels like a while since I wrote anything here, and so here I am now.

This month is strange, in the sense that in the beginning of the first half of the month, I was rather existential, wondering about a lot of things regarding why I was here and all the usual things that being existential entailed. Then when things seem Worst, a light shone upon the path that I should take, and now here I am, taking that path.

I think I'm starting to appreciate the type of freedom that I am getting, now that the ``honeymoon'' first semester is over, where, to my utter regret, I probably spent more time trying to get used to the place and notion that I was in graduate school as opposed to being in undergraduate classes. Now that that is over and done with, I can finally focus myself on the things that matter the most.

But enough of the depressing stuff! November was NaNoWriMo, and I think I'm a little obliged to shed some light on the inspiration behind this year's novel, which can be gotten from here, like where all the other novels are. I will do so in the next post just to not mar it with my own rantings.

This month marks the continuation of my geocaching adventure, and completed my first 5/5 cache (The Journal) with my caching buddy here johnayuen. That one was a little nasty; it took us three trips (including the one that he took nearly a year ago) and lots and lots of hiking to get through in order to get to the final location. I will probably put that tale up some time later, so keep your eyes peeled.

Meanwhile, let me write up the inspiration for NaNoWriMo 2011 first. =P

Trapped

Funny how when I'm ``trapped'' in my apartment/room I actually have so much to talk about on my blogs. Actually, come to think of it, it isn't really funny but quite sad, and is probably systematic in terms of what it entails. It is not that I don't want to be in the office/lab to get stuff done---it's cold out, I'm running out of clothes because of a lack of laundry time and I have a nice set up at home that allows me to work from the relative comfort of the apartment. The only caveat is that I don't really get to exercise my vocal cords nor social skills, but it is a small price to pay compared to having to dress up and cycling in the cold towards the office/lab.

My place suffered a drop in power yesterday, which promptly knocked out Elyse since I didn't load a battery in her. Eileen worked fine only because her battery is always inside, so I can't do what I usually do with batteries---take them out so that they don't ``overcharge'' (note: lithium batteries cannot overcharge because of the protective circuitry in place). So now, as a type of UPS, I stuff Elyse with the bay battery when she's on. Weird that such a thing happens though.

With the shortening of the daylight hours and the relatively horrible positioning of the dinner table/work table with respect to the only light in the living room, I'm so glad I bought a desk lamp. Now I can actually be up and do things and hopefully make progress.

Anyway, sleepy time. Till the next rant.

粉雪

It has begun:

粉雪------レミオロメン

粉雪舞う季節はいつもすれ違い
人ごみに紛れても同じ空見てるのに
風に吹かれて似たように凍えるのに

僕は君のすべてなど知ってはいないだろう
それでも一億人から君を見つけたよ
根拠はないけど本気で思ってるんだ

些細な言い合いもなくて同じ時間を生きてなどいけない
素直になれないなら喜びも悲しみも空しいだけ

僕は君の心に耳を押し当てて
その声のする方へすっと深くまで
降りてゆきたいそこでもう一度会おう

分かり合いたいなんて
上辺を撫でていた（なでていた）のは僕のほう
君の悴んだ（かじかんだ）手も握り閉めることだけで繋がってたのに

粉雪ねえ永遠を前にあまりに脆く
ざらつくアスファルトの上染みになってゆくよ

粉雪ねえ時に頼りなく心は揺れる
それでも僕は君のこと守り続けたい

粉雪ねえ心まで白く染められたなら
２人の孤独を包んで空に返すから

Lyrics courtesy Anime Lyrics. And the translation:

Konayuki (Powder Snow)------Remioromen

Season of snow powder always come
Although we are mixed up with a mass of people
we are looking on the same sky
Blown by the wind, and we are chilled by it

I may not know everything about you
Nevertheless, I've found you among 100 million of people
There's no proof but I'm very serious of it

It's impossible to live in the same time with no single quarrel
If we can't be honest, happiness and sadness are just meaningless

If the snow powder may whiten deep to our heart
Could we both share our loneliness?

I would press my ear near to your heart
And go down deep into the place where I hear that voice and meet you once again

We want to understand each other
It's me who softly brush the surface
Just by tightly gripping your numb and cold hand
We are tied to each other

Snow powder is too fragile
In front of us, keep on leaving stains on the rough asphalt forever

Snow powder does not rely on time, moving our heart
Nevertheless, I'd still like to keep on protecting you

If the snow powder may whiten deep to our heart
It will cover both our loneliness and return it to the sky...

Translation courtesy Anime Lyrics.

You don't really need to know the translation to be affected by the meaning of the song. Feels a little apt in view of winter that has just arrived.

English Assessment...?

What a week of self-doubt. I can never understand why I am such a walking paradox---on the one hand I have a pretty good idea of what I want to accomplish, yet on the other hand I find myself seemingly faltering and failing at every opportunity. So awkward and weird.

At times I start wondering, am I really as smart and as hardworking as I think myself to be? Are the methods that I'm employing actually efficient enough to allow me to push forwards with minimal wastage? It almost feels as though I'm just trying to tread water at the edge of the abyss, which itself is quite deep to begin with. So contrary...

Anyway, something amusing. I went for an oral English assessment test recently as a part of my research group's effort to strengthen everyone's presentation and conversational skills. It has been a good long time since I took any sort of oral test like this (probably a decade by my estimate), so the thought of undergoing an oral English assessment just tickled me to no end. If you had known me before, you would know that I was among those who were particular about enunciation, never scoring less than an `A' for any oral examination. So, when I met up with the examiner and read a passage out loud for an exam for the first time in a decade, she was quite surprised at how well I sounded. Heheheh... we didn't really have to continue much after that, preferring to have a nice chat about some of the issues that non-native speakers of English face when confronted with the reality of using their second language to converse with American native-speakers. It was an interesting discussion, inconsequential of course since it reinforced what I already knew from my own dabblement in linguistics myself. If not for the fact that it was recorded, I would probably troll the examiner a little by starting with a faux non-native speaker accent before changing into something more appropriate in the most abrupt manner possible.

That's all the amusing stuff for this week. Winter has finally made her presence felt, with consistent sub-zero temperatures since Tuesday. There was a small snow shower sometime yesterday morning, but it thawed out when midday came along. My apartment thermostat is set to a not-so-toasty 60°F (around 15°C), but so far, the heater hasn't been triggered yet because the apparent ambient temperature is nearer 64°F (about 18°C), thanks to what I suspect is a much higher thermostat setting from my neighbours---thank you thermodynamic laws. Why set it at 60°F? Gas is expensive, with 1 unit costing nearly USD0.618, and last month, I used 16 units of it as compared to the 6 previously from the water heating. Besides, it feels more cosy throwing fleece blankets all over myself to stay warm than to heat the whole apartment up when I'm using only a really small part of it at any time---one doesn't need to heat the whole apartment to stay warm, one just needs to keep oneself warm to stay warm. I would set the thermostat lower to 50°F, but a circular suggested a minimum of 60°F to prevent pipes from freezing and breaking.

Okay, enough idle talk for now. There are things that I need to do. Till the next update I suppose.

And I Become Awesome Instead

Of course history's patterns are starting to reveal unto themselves once more. Maybe I'm too cynical, maybe it is an early onset of SAD, but whatever it is, I am somewhat rudely reminded about things that happened here and there.

Today was a nice day out, I met up with the Champaign-Urbana group of NaNoWriMo-ers for lunch at a nice TGIO party before heading for Jujitsu training for the belt test. Things like these always put me in a good mood.

Then of course contrasting this with waht I saw in the evening, when I looked at the pictures taken for the TGIO in Singapore for the NaNoWriMo-ers there, I get rudely reminded about some of the events that happened a few years back. And also the fleeting types of friendship that I seem to be good at cultivating.

In almost all of these cases, I have not really managed to maintain any form of long-lasting friendship with anyone. Somehow the ``out of sight, out of mind'' action is in place, in spite of the presence of technology that would, in theory, allow us to connect with others better.

So lonely walking down this path. I'm not really depressed about it yet, but sometimes when I stop to think about it, it does bear down on me a little. I wonder some times if I were some kind of rolling stone of sorts, always moving from place to place, finding new things, meeting new people, that I don't really ``gather any moss''---accumulating a core group of really close friends. Maybe this is part of growing up, maybe this is part of being a man (you know, the dangerous loner type). Or maybe I'm just plain doing something wrong. In any case, it is quite hard to tell, really.

Sometimes when I sit around alone in the empty room, I wonder if I have been making the right choices. Then I realise that it is not correctness of the choices that matter, it is how I roll that will make the difference between me being happy in my state against me being sad for no damn reason.

And so, I become Awesome instead.

Blankets and Slankets/Snuggies

Ah the cold. Having previously lived in Morewood Gardens the last time I was in the US, the internal temperature had always been kept at a toasty 75 degrees Fahrenheit (~23 degrees Celsius). Now that I'm living on my own, the cost of the heater is starting to sink in. At the current rate, the cost is roughly 0.618 per thermal unit, and for the last month, when the external temperature is keeping at around 0 to 10 degrees Celsius, I've kept the heater running and holding at around 20 to 22 degrees Celsius, it consumed 16 thermal units.

Hell, gas is more expensive than electricity here.

So I'm switching tactics here. Instead of relying on the gas heater, I'm just slapping on more blankets even for working at the desk. Saves gas because all I need to do is to keep myself warm and not heat up the damn room. There, problem solved! An added bonus is that the blankets are all soooo soft and comfy, so heheh good times.

Okay, enough senseless mumblings for now. Gotta get some other stuff done before I unwind due to it being Friday.

Free from NaNoWriMo

Ah. Now that the tyranny that is NaNoWriMo is finally done for me for this year, it is time to relieve a little stress from it all by bitching a little bit more about life here.

So, what has happened in November other than NaNoWriMo? Lots of things. I came to several realisations about my own nature, and have come to terms about some of these rather startling properties. Being the curious l'il reader you are, let me fill you in on some of these startling properties.

Many times in the past I had bemoaned the fact that I was a nice guy and that all the girls didn't like me because I was a nice guy and other random crap like that. Man, that was belly-aching, quite nauseating when I looked back upon what I had written. Here's the thing---upon reflection on who I truly am, I realised that I am no nice guy. No way, not by any degree. If anything, I'm quite bad actually, considering the things I have done, the things I have thought about, the things I have thought of doing, well you get the idea. And no, bad does not mean evil; as far as I'm concerned, there's a distinction. One can be bad and good or even nice and evil---I blame such semantic problems upon the overloading of the term ``good'' and ``bad''. But what I mean to say is that I'm a badass, one who does not take shit from others, willing to hold my ground and fight for the end, though usually I eschew the whole violence aspect and go into 後の先 mode, where I will react when something happens. I think this is what it means to find oneself when one is in one's twenties.

I think I value my independence and freedom a lot. It is not that I dislike human company (that is utter bullshit because I have tried going in isolation---I went quite mad), but that I am more comfortable with me running my own life away from distractions that are not effected by me. Living in an apartment alone with only my brain, my computer, the Internet and various books about seems to be enough to keep me happy---that's good enough for me, really. I crave intellectual stimulation, and most times, am a little more happy with taking part in things actively than to sit around in a passive way.

How do all these factor into this whole person that is me? So far, I don't have a complete answer yet, partly because it is late and I am in need of sleep (I've been up all day), and partly because I do not have an answer yet. Some say that going into research is a way of coming up with new ideas that can benefit mankind, I say that going deep into research has been a getting to know myself better exercise as I figure out the optimal way of expending my energy, effort and work habits to improve the overall efficiency in the way I think. That is the objective function I'm trying to optimise, and that will be the major goal of my life. Everything else is just to make sure my body stays fit enough to support my brain which does all the thinking I want to do.

Alright, I'm starting to ramble again. Also, Blogger is starting to act up, with random 503s appearing all over their website. I hope that it is not something completely terrible that will make me lose this writing. If it did make me lose stuff, I would be exceedingly annoyed.

Till next time.