Fear of the Weekends

I have an irrational fear of the weekends. I simply... loathe it. It's dumb, seriously, but I'm starting to totally not like the weekends. Well, there are so many reasons why this is so, the main reason is that there is so much homework to do, and so many other administrative tasks that I want to do, and that almost everyone around me are like having a great time with... well, other people. Those who go to the bar to get drunk, those who get to make out, those who get laid, those who just chill out. All I can see is just me in front of a stupid wall wondering how in the name of hell am I still stuck in this godforsaken place.

Aye. It's gonna be a long time before I'm back to normal all right. All the bad feelings are still there, it's just that they are happily squirrelled away under yet a few more layers of stuff. Why o why is this still happening? I have no idea. Perhaps it's because I just yearn what I have not managed to get, much like how people are jealous of another person who has things that one wants, but just cannot. So, I've more or less transcended the issue of materialism; I don't covet the material objects that people have that I don't, simply because I think that materialism is kinda pointless. But I cannot forget the fact that people are able to seek close companionships with their significant other while I still cannot; I yearn for a day to come where I actually have someone who is willing to be with me forever. Idealistic? Perhaps, but one day I know that it will come; what I don't know is the form in which it will take, and how it will be taken. Maybe all these sudden lucid moments are just another layer of things hiding myself away from the realities of the problem; I cannot recall when I first started to turn turtle and hope that someone will come and help me.

Call me arrogant, but I know that I do not lose out to any other person. I'm as smart, as strong, as wry and as capable as any other person out there. I do not need to have lots of money, neither do I need to be the best in everything; I just need to be good enough. And for the issue of a significant other, well, that's something that only time and karma will tell. *shrugs* Oh, if you only knew what I witness every day...

Enough of emo-explosions; it's starting to get a little boring. Well, this week is a really complicated one. As said earlier, I've started on a new regime of swimming early in the morning, and so I did on Friday. Man, it was invigorating, despite the fact that I had only 4 hours of sleep while working on the crazy Combinatorics homework. Sleep is even less now, considering the fact that there is suddenly so much more to do. In fact, the latest assignment for the amazing Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science is one that first penalised the people who start later. The problem set was hidden away somewhere, and not unlike the old treasure hunt that I was grumbling about in January, we needed to do something to be in order to re-obtain the data. That's a pain. And now, pure hard core coding; and I have a paper due on Monday. This is so gonna suck so bad...

I think that my behaviour confuses a lot of people. On some days I'm as happy as a lark, always ready for a quick quip. Yet on others, my mood is so dark that it puts those emo people to shame. Well, to put it bluntly, that's roughly the way I am, always stuck at the extreme polarities, very rarely having some form of restraint in either forms of emotion. Good or bad, you decide, particularly if you've met with me before. I'm still not calm enough in general, particularly now, considering the fact that I'm still trying to get over a lot of things. Among other solutions, the one that heeds Hannibal Lecter's advice of "What do we covet? We covet what we see everyday" seems to be the most applicable. If I'm feeling all lost and lonely when I see people behaving intimately with each other, well, I can do one of two things. I can just leave them, for good perhaps(?), and then keep myself occupied with other stuff. Or I can just make them leave. Either way, moving the object of covet away from one and then burying oneself with loads of work will appear to be a good way of helping one recover from the issues of life.

Anyways... I think that I need to crash out and sleep. It's already 3am here (the blog clock runs on SGT), and I need to head out to the Waterfront to get some shopping done (I need new clothes, particularly pants) early in the morning. Aside: I need to be much more assertive of my feelings to people and be more consistent in how I react, otherwise people will be so fscking confused with what I do that they will not react. Another aside: Inner calm comes only when one can forget the critical points in time when one has a really bad experience. Unfortunately, with my elephant memory, I just can't seem to forget certain things.

Last aside: Girls here (or anywhere else, I presume) will not like me because I'm starting to seem to be too old and staid for their taste. Sadly, this is not an observation from me, but from a person who is... in the middle of the controversy. Perhaps controversy is too strong a word, let's say... issue. That's right. She's in the middle of the issue. So, ageism does play a part here. I have no idea what I was thinking when I thought that girls will like someone who's a little older than them (come on, 3 years is hardly too old). Apparently I was deluding myself. I think that I'm so running out of stuff to write about, just probably the fact that it is late and perhaps also the fact that I'm trying to refuse to be seduced to the dark thoughts.

How does one maintain calmness if the one thing that one covets is always under one's nose everyday?

And oh, being totally exhausted means that one doesn't have any recallable dreams; a good way to run away from the nightmares too.

Another weekend gone, another weekend closer to leaving this place where I feel so tormented. It's almost like National Service all over again.

New Regime + New Age

All right. New regime. The treadmill programme has to be cancelled, because they've recently installed a spanking new plasma television mounted on one corner of the room. That means that there will be lots of people who will be using the gym, since it is less boring than before to work out in there. Argh.

So, the new plan is to go swimming early in the morning at 7am for three times a week. That's right, swimming three times a week in the wee hours of the morning. That'll be the new plan till it is decided that even the pool is too crowded for my taste ha.

Due to the recent bad bad and bad state of mind that I am in, I'm now switching over the Kitaro's music once again. Sorry Teresa, not that I don't like your songs anymore, but I need something different to prop up myself while I sort out the internal conflicts. Your songs touch deeply within my heart... and it is my heart that is in need of introspection and healing. Please forgive me...

Check out the Buddha Bar compilations. The music is suitably chill and does not evoke extremely strong emotions of any sort. Pretty good complement to the New Age style of Kitaro.

Back to the grindstone. :-(

Just for today...

Just for today I will give thanks for my many blessings,
Just for today I will not worry,
Just for today I will not be angry,
Just for today I will do my work honestly,
Just for today I will be kind to my neighbour and every living thing.

Core tenets to Reiki (霊気). Quite an interesting energy manipulation technique.

And yes, I have completed a workshop on this, and am able to channel some of this energy. (=

Okay, back to real work now. Probably some rant tomorrow or later, depending on whether I actually have the time or not to do it. There's just so much to do for this week, so I'm not guaranteeing anything.

Oh, I've decided to re-invoke the powers of my Tiger's Eye bracelet. It's a time of great peril for me, and the use of this gemstone is probably the most effective now, metaphysically. Well, it is a bit unwieldy to be wearing a bracelet around, so I've gotten a Tiger's Eye Ring instead. Seems like it's properties make it very very useful for me, particularly in the times now. Why it never dawned on me earlier, I cannot remember, huhuhuhuh.

Ta-ta for now.

Old man never liked by younger girls

Old man never liked by younger girls.

Enough said.

Dead-of-the-night Words

Well, it is 0526hrs over here in Pittsburgh, and I'm still awake (yes, that's right, I am still awake: meaning I didn't sleep at all, so there). Almost everyone is asleep (well, except for me), and thus it seems like a great moment to really sit down and say some stuff.

As posted earlier (before I was totally sidetracked), my main problem is loneliness. And jealousy. Oh, you have no idea how strong jealousy is. It takes a normally rational me, and turns me into a complete emo-exploding person. Powerful emotion, jealousy is, rivalling even loneliness in trying to tear my psyche apart. It's always there, lurking beneath the surface, looking for moments where my emotional status is particularly fragile when it strikes, crippling me completely.

There are, of course, lots of things to be jealous about: other people's grades, or even the fact that people around me are getting hitched while I'm still sitting around. Well, I dunno... making all this monologue seems so senseless; I know that there may be many eyes who might glance and maybe even read what I've written here, but how many will be able to offer a useful remedy for the problem? That, I have no idea.

And so, the traumatic week has passed. Great, and now it's the weekend, where things really start to go haywire. Yes, this is negative thinking, but hear me out. I just can't help but think all these very very strange things; it's not deliberate, it just comes like that. I wonder why is it that all these appear now; could it be because that I'm no where near my family? Even when I was still in Singapore, I think I didn't really interact much with my family, but being in their presence has always some kind of a calming factor onto me. Now, almost half-way around the world, I find that if there's something that I really miss most, it is the silent camaraderie I get from being a part of a very close-knit group. Social integration has never been my strongest traits, and being so far away and in a totally different culture doesn't really help. At least, when I was back in Singapore, I could just put on a facade to the world just to live, and then go off home and relax; and by relax, I mean truly relax. But here, in the dorm and out, I'm always the same person that I present to the world; I cannot seem to be able to let my hair down even for a little bit. Sadly, half the stresses that I face here are mainly from the fact that there is no place where I can just chill out and just do what I like to do. It's always academics and work, and trying to maintain cordial friendship to all.

Cui and Xiaolu are now actively trying to help me in my predicament. They are just so... nice. Such nice friends, only pity is that they are no where near me, otherwise I'd figure things would have been more easily resolved. I have only one thing to think deeply about: what constitutes me actually? Why have I been so mighty screwed up in the head for the whole year of 2006 till date? More and more mysteries, and fewer and fewer answers. Contradicting statements: it's okay to feel jealousy, but then one can choose to ignore it because there's no reason to be jealous. How am I supposed to do all these? Everything (well, almost everything) in my personal life is in turmoil now, and how am I supposed to do anything about it? Am I being driven on the verge of madness through the tremendous amounts of stress that I am facing? Is there something even deeper that I am missing? Even more questions, and even fewer answers.

YT, if you are ever reading this, help me. Please. I think... I think that I need all the help that I can muster during this period. I'm really scared that I might just... end up in a tail-spin and go really cuckoo.

*frustrated*

So, one moment I'm emo-exploding, the next moment I'm just plain detached/analytical. What the hell is wrong with me? Why this split? When did this happen? How did it happen? I once thought that I was among the wisest for my age, but now everything seems to be going horribly wrong. Why? Why? Why? Even more hard-to-answer questions. I want to have close friends, and there are some who are close, and I seem to have problems with my definition of what a friend constitutes. So muddled, all the realities versus the fantasies of my mind. How did it all began? I'm really wondering deeply how come I'm turning into this uncomfortable state.

Yes, yes, I'm fully aware that this is a rant, but what else can I do about it? All I have is this blog to vent up pent-up discomfort, in the hopes that people who really care can see a public version of what is going on inside me, and perhaps help a little in guiding me back to the normalcy of normal life.

*cries* I can't figure any of these anymore... this is getting too much for me. I cannot understand why... nevermind. There's much that I don't understand anyway. *resigned sigh* I'll guess I'll head back to proof-me-land and try to seek solace in there, while hoping that my mind will sort itself out (if it doesn't, I have no idea what will happen...)...

A Burst of Spring

A decently nice day, in comparison to a really traumatic week. Lots of crazy stuff happened this week, most of which have thrown me into a deep emotional tar-pit from which I'm still trying to climb out of. I'm slightly happier, and am starting to appreciate the fact that I am, really, a talented individual. Hahaha, I even managed to do an Ocarina solo today. It started off a little wonky, lots of bad notes as I was nervous, but after the first few notes of the first song, things got a whole lot smoother. It was a wonderful hour, when I was playing the Ocarina. While no one literally stopped to listen (well, except for one campus police officer on the second floor of Kirr Commons who stood there and looked on as I played), at least no one was actively boo-ing me. And when I finished the final piece (aptly, "Auld Lang Syne"), there was a rousing applause throughout the entire Kirr Commons. It brought me back to the good old days when I was with TGCO and was performing with them at all sorts of functions/events.

Oh, and anyway, back to my little rant. (= So, there was this gradual build up of pent-up emotions over the past fortnight, partially from the double blow of rejection from someone and partially that almost everyone around me is starting to be all attached and stuff. There's also the tremendous amount of stress that I felt during the entire Spring break when I was looking at my less-than-stellar grades and wondering how in the name of everything that I am able to maintain the GPA 3.8 for this semester (it will be done, hahaha, no pressure lol). And for Spring break, I was practically holed up in my room for the most part, rarely venturing out due to the really bad weather. It didn't help that I was watching mainly dystopic quasi-violent films (like The Silence of the Lambs, Kill Bill, Battle Royale, Red Dragon, Doom among others), so it kind of added on to the sombre atmosphere in which the negative thinkings just flourished.

I broke down totally on Monday, as an accumulation of all those complicated feelings and the complete lack of sleep on Sunday. The details to what happened on Sunday... is something that I don't really wish to talk about publicly. Suffice to say, it is still something that I'm trying hard to live with.

So, I'm done in by Jung again. Hahahaha... latent subconscious versus the conscious. I'm starting to develop an aversion of being alone in my room, especially after the whole build up during Spring break. Well, to think of it, the biggest problem that I face today, is nothing about academics (it's hard, but still not completely impossible). It's the subconsciously self-inflicted preference for loneliness to run away from the people who had hurt me before. To think that that is the root of all my problems, is not something that I made on my own. Suffice to say, it'll be a long while before I can resolve this, but I guess that the first step that I can take for myself is to avoid staying in my room for prolonged periods of time and to really get out there and have real fresh air (and needed sunlight).

Nasty things have happened between me and Cui. Suddenly, there seems to be no reason why we might be talking with each other. Could I have gone too far that time when I had an emotional outburst at her? Or is there something else that I'm not picking up on?

In other news, the Quake II game that I ordered (original and under $15) had arrived and I realised that I do miss the First Person Shooter genre. I got Quake II because I was starting to get really irritated with the single dimension that Doom was offering—Doom is a great game, but it's time to move on. And the book on digital art techniques just arrived today, which means that I now have too many tons of books and have more stuff to study on. Homework is starting to come fast and furiously, and I'm starting to typeset all my mathematics homework (that's right, typeset with good old LaTex). That's because the homework nowadays is not like before, which required only simple computations; there's a need to write proofs for almost the whole assignment. And the art of proof writing is not unlike writing an essay; there are drafts and drafts of it to write, with revisions upon revisions to make. Writing out proofs on paper means that most of the time will be spent in the rewriting process, something that I wasn't really willing to do because it cost a lot of time and also cost a lot of resources in the form of paper. Besides, editting all such stuff in digital form just means that I can easily fix a proof that I think is errorneous and thus be able to provide a much more complete proof than I would ever achieve from normal writing alone.

All right, I'm spent from writing. That's all for now. Hopefully, I'll feel much better over the long run. Can't wait for the sun to actually start shining hahahaha.

Broken Down and Rebuilt

How much stress can one take before breaking down? Quite a fair bit, I suppose.

Suffice to say, after a certain... episode, I'm more or less calmed down by now.

Time to move on.

Deluding myself after all?

On second thoughts, am I just running away from reality by just adopting a smiling persona?

*sigh*

Maybe it's time to pay a visit to psych and counselling...

Smile! Smile!

I must remind myself of this:

Mun Thye, you don't belong here. Just do what you need to do, and then leave. Meanwhile, Smile! Smile!

If I don't I think I might just be driven insane with each day that I stay in the US, and that would really suck.

In case people start wondering where the heck that line came from, it is in response to the sad fact that my personal life is getting totally screwed over here.

Not Psychologically Unstable

And no, before anyone claims anything, I hereby declare that I am not psychologically unstable. Life's a pain, yes, but it will never affect me to the point where I lose my rationality. As long as my rational mind is still standing strong together with determination, I will never succumb to the darker sides of human nature.

So, it was quite a quiet week. Some programming was done, new ideas have formed, and I managed to do some packing; am likely to start sending packages of stuff back to Singapore. I am determined to return home with only one piece of luggage; no sense in bringing all my clothes back, for instance. Edythe has been reconfigured into a more mobile form now; the 120GB hard drive is forever portable, and the Wacom graphics tablet is always nicely packed so that I can just grab and go. Battery packs are always kept charged, and the bluetooth emitter is safely tucked away with the USB hub. The modular bay DVD-writer/reader is kept safely in a static-free bag complete with bubble wrap and slipped into the carry case, ready to be used when the unlikely event of needing to read an optical disc arises. The mouse is on semi-permanent retirement; it will only see use when I actually have the time to sit down and play a game or two that explicitly requires it. Just went to Radioshack to obtain a US-type transformer cord; so I can just plug Edythe into any US power socket without the need of having to lug a universal adapter. Oh, and I finally managed to get hold of a grounded adapter for my power brick (with grounding and fuse) to the mains. Still waiting for the screen protector to arrive; checked with the sales person and she said that the distributor will take up to mid April to send it. *shrugs* Shouldn't be a problem, I guess, in the meantime I just need to make sure that I keep the screen well cleaned always to avoid the weird markings caused from pressure of the centre of the LCD onto the keyboard.

Managed to finally get a more decent sketch pad that will not fall apart with insistent erasing; will be proceeding with the plan of a sketch-a-day-before-I-sleep, in the hopes that my drawing skill will improve fast enough for me to carry out my little summer project. Will probably use the old one for really throw-a-way works, the kind that one cannot use an eraser (simply because the damn paper will just get rubbed off as the eraser is used). Bought a small mannequin to aid in human figure studies; originally wanted to get Stikfas due to the ease of poseability, but the cost was too prohibitive and the proportions just weren't right.

Ocarina performance is on Mar 23, and I don't think that I have enough practice. Hoping deeply for a miracle to happen, or else I'm going to end up making a fool of myself. Speaking of Ocarinas, I think I should actually start epoxying my flutes (again), and follow the trick of using orange peels to humidify the bag, just like how they use to protect clarinets from the same fate.

Set theory is starting to fall into place. Suddenly realised that one of the books that I bought from the old books store contains interesting constructs that are directly pertaining to the problem areas that I have in set theory; very interesting and will probably dedicate Sunday to explore it in detail.

Japanese studies are almost grinding to a halt. I think I should work on perfecting the recognisation of the kana first, before I even try to do anything else. At least, I think that it is much easier that way than to try to do so many things at one go (considering the fact that my mind is constantly being blown away by the new material that I am learning from all my courses).

Probably have a quick scan through the GRE book to see what the whole shebang of GRE is all about; will devote more time to it during sophomore year.

Attempting to gather thoughts on the long delayed book on basic techniques for surviving programming competitions. Hopefully, I will actually have time to work on this. Original plan to publish on Lulu may not be that feasible; I think I'd just LaTeX the book and publish it online as a pdf file for download.

Teeline shorthand learning process remains unstarted; will probably first write a program that will generate arbritary words written in Teeline.

Linux kernel sources are downloaded and unpacked. Am reading through the 233MB of C source; very painful process. Some things don't make sense now; hopefully it will be clearer a little later.

The Palm Z22, very tempting price. However, I have no idea why I might want a PDA for, considering the fact that I actually store all my meeting information/schedule etc in my head or on paper. However, it does look good, and maybe I might buy it, if I can convince myself that it is indeed necessary. Well, anyone with experience with PDAs can help by leaving a comment or two on the actual uses of a PDA.

Fractal Transforms seem interesting, especially with regards to the ability to resample pictures without the usual artifacts from Lanczos Sinc or even the Bicubic or Bilinear Interpolations. Maybe I can make something good out of it... for compressing my digitised notes perhaps?

Okay... it's 5am now, and my mind is drifting. Time to sleep.

More Pain and Sadness

As the days go on, I cannot help but feel that my sense of sadness is ever increasing. It is an almost hopeless affair, trying to maintain some form of sanity that is left in my rapidly degrading emotions. Already, I start to laugh, cry and yell uncontrollably for no reason whatsoever, and even to punch the walls until my knuckles shake from the blunt trauma and the skin bleeding from the tears. Why? Why is this happening to me?

I look around and find that almost everyone is happy in their own little way, yet all that I see of myself is just a miserable being tortured by its mere existence. I hate this way of life; I hate this way of living. To live and see others enjoying the thrills and pleasures of life while I am stuck in a solitary corner is among the worst things that one can ever experience. There are so many times where I look in the mirror, and even though my reflection is what shows, all that I see is just the shadow of despair reflected back at me.

It's a pain everyday to wake up in fear and sadness, trying to make sense of what my meagre life has left. Everywhere I go, I feel as though I am being mocked at by the very people surrounding me; they seem to mock me for all my dumbness and overall badness. It seems then that I am just as I was, a social misfit of sort who never had the chance to figure out how life really is like, or how society is to be run.

To my horror, I realise that I cannot bear to be alone. Despite all my assumptions that I am a loner, I discover that in reality, I cannot stand to be alone. Even being with someone who doesn't speak a word, I am content. I just cannot be in a room all by myself, with no one talking to me, no one holding me; the walls just feel as though they are going to cave in at any moment, or that some strange and ugly monster of sorts will suddenly appear out of nowhere to attack me.

Misery; why is misery always dogging my every move? Even now, as I am evicted from my dwelling on campus by the pure jealousy that I feel when I'm in it and my room mate talking to someone where they have a mutual liking for, I still clamour for the moment where I will never be alone again. A futile thought, I guess; some people want security in a relationship, others want other things that may not seem to be too similar. Looking at myself vicariously, I find in me nothing that might inspire someone to actually befriend me. Most of my friends do not last; those who do, I trust deeply, but there's always a nagging feeling that one day, they will abandon me in exasperation, just like the legions of people before them.

I fear abandonment. I cannot stand being alone. Being obsoleted is among the worst deaths that I can ever forsee myself having. It is such a cold and scary thought that I dare not even contemplate the aftermath of the whole shebang. I should break away from it all, away from all this pain and suffering, away from all these unnecessary torture.

But how am I supposed to do this without resorting to a drastic measure like suicide?

Kinda Sad...

In reference to this poem:

It's kinda sad. Really. Spring break means that I am stuck here in Pittsburgh alone; pretty much a good festering ground for the spouting of all kinds of sad visions of myself. And no, I'm not contemplating suicide; thank goodness for that. It's just that, it is so hard to come to terms with myself over a lot of things. The last year has been a real pain in the ass; so much has happened, so many sad things have occurred, and so many more to come. Seems really sucky to be me huh...

It's been almost a week since she rejected me. I'm supposed to have gotten over it (actually I have gotten over the particular instance), but it has triggered yet another one of those deep-felt responses that I have no way of controlling. What am I doing here? What do I want in my life? Fundamental questions like these haunt me everyday whenever I am not doing anything that will distract me (read: homework). It's sad.

There are some girls whom I might want to know more about, but have not had the chance to really get close to them to. But that is not the point; the more fundamental question to ask is, what do I want, really? What do I see if I approach the said girls? What is the real aim that I have behind all these "I want a girlfriend" rants?

From a logical front, all of these are just... frivolous. I mean, I am after all a foreigner of these parts, and it is almost unthinkable that I can start (and maintain) a relationship with some local girl; it is likely to end in tears as she won't want to follow me when I need to return to sunny Singapore. Besides, no one really cares about me in this part of the world; the sooner that I am dead or otherwise removed from the rat race, the happier everyone will be since there will be one less competitor. It kinda sucks to think of things this way, but I guess that it is somehow valid in the current context.

Even close friends turn away from me. Phil is so engulfed in his girlfriend that he seems to be actively trying to assert his capabilities by putting me down as much as he can in front of her; Mo is starting to hang out with a different bunch of people and also starting to kind of put me down as much as he can; and Linda is getting more and more indifferent. I guess if I just went up to the cathedral of learning and leap off (and thus die), no one will really care. *shrugs*

*sighs* What else can I say? This is just a monologue of mine, and from the looks of it, my writing abilities are starting to get really hampered with all these emotional baggages. Why oh why am I still retaining human traits? If I am just a logical machine of sorts, all these contradicting feelings will not happen as I can just apply logic to the whole thing and things will kind of work out right. But it is never to be; I'm still human after all these years.

Perhaps I should stop exposing myself to the world and thus reduce the exposure of my human side. It seems to be doing more harm than good to me. Perhaps being a loner is the best thing for me after all, never mind what people say about people who "go it alone".

Modular Battery Rules Supreme

Interesting day. My new modular bay battery gives extra juice to Edythe; instead of the theoretical limit of 4 hours of battery life, I'm now looking at a cool 8 hours of battery life! Like most things in life, there's a trade-off; with the modular bay used for the battery pack, I can't have the DVD drive attached to the same modular bay. Not that is is going to be a really big problem, considering the fact that most of the stuff that I need nowadays are from online instead of from some disc source; anyway I just bring along the DVD drive if I know that I might want to need to use it or something.

Yes yes, I know it costs money, but I'm now turning into a real mobile code warrior. That battery pack is going to save my butt again and again as I trudge around the campus trying to buy time to get things done. In that regard, I've just ordered a screen protector to keep the LCD as blemish free as possible. Bringing Edythe around in my backpack means that the central portion of the LCD will often undergo quite a fair bit of stress, which means that the display can get kinda "scratched" by the keys on the keyboard at that region. In line with my new "mobile code warrior" image, I need to ensure that the screen is well protected, so that I don't need to rely on crazy cleaning stuff in order to make the screen much more visible (since I usually set the brightness to the absolute minimum and thus a dirt mark on the screen appears as a very big blob of stuff).

Hmm... now for some stock take. Edythe has:

1. Extra modular battery
2. 1 External 120GB hard drive on USB
3. 1 Wacom graphics tablet
4. 1 External 500GB hard drive on USB/Firewire

Guess that it should be enough for now.

Edythe is so powered up now that I have no idea what else I might want to add. Mobility is such a powerful concept...

To the ladies of my life...

To the ladies of my life, I'm sorry for disappointing all of you time and again. There's so many things that I could have done right, for the sake of no one but myself, but it seems that my internal state has never had enough capability to get out of the rut hole that I have dug myself into over the years.

I've infuriated you all on more than one occasion; to those who got too frustrated with my stubborn ways and have left the scene, I apologise deeply. To those who still hang around putting up with my nonsense, I thank you deeply. While my ways may be antagonistic, I really appreciate that you all still stick it out and provide me with the much needed advice.

To the ladies who could-have-been in my life, I apologise for not being able to make it happen. It could have been my insensitivity to your needs, or it could be bad timing, or even overall bad decisions that I have made. I apologise also for the potential scarring that you have had from the bad experience that you had from me. Hopefully, you will find your true happiness from someone else; I don't believe that I'm a good provider of such happiness, given the brooding nature of my character.

To the ladies who might-want-to-be in my life, I apologise for not being astute enough to sense that you are interested in me. I know that despite all the gender equality that we are propounding, there are still some girls who prefer the man to make the move. I apologise for not being the person who takes the initiative; I've underwent far too many missteps to really have the courage left to "make the first move". Forgive me, and if you think that I'm too much of a wussy for your taste, do go on and look for someone more worthy of you.

That all said, Cui has been berating me with the same question over and over again. What am I seeking in life? What things make me happy? Well, the one true thing that makes me happy is to have a close and intimate partner in life with which I can share my thoughts, my feelings, my triumphs, my failures, my epiphanies, my silliness with. Unfortunately, this is never going to happen due to one reason or another, so I guess I should stop casting my hopes so high up. I should really just stick with my lot in life and do what I really can do; no sense seeking things that I know I will never be able to reach. People like me do not deserve to be a part of the gene pool; socially inept people are just never meant to be a part of society. Perhaps with a good enough contribution to society will I be able to integrate well.

I said this once, I shall say it again. A*STAR will be proud that they have one driven and un-distracted scholar who will slave away his life for them forever.

I'm "fine"

I'm fine. At least on the outside. Internally, this is how I feel:

Pink Slip

If you can pick some colour to describe your life, what would it be?

The colour that best describes my life, is the colour of black. Like black, I'm unknown, foreboding, mysterious. Like black, a certain elegance, a certain melancholy, a certain incomprehension of the lightness beyond. Like black, uninviting, disquieting, mourning.

Life's a bitch. Long hours proving lots and lots of theorems, falling sick time and again from all the stress, learning new abstract concepts everyday. And now, another new thing to make me go down to hell all over again—another rejection.

How much fun it is, to be rejected, time and again, not because of some reason over cheating, or over some misunderstanding, but because one is just oneself. Apparently, honesty is something that no one ever treasures in this world; you see crooks getting away with eloquent lawyers, girls being attracted to "bad" boys, and cheaters of all kinds gaining all the advantages from the cheating they do. There is so much that happened in the recent few weeks that I think that I've not treated well enough in this blog. Most of my words are incoherent and incomplete, and are in general, just full of short, punctuated words with hardly any meaning.

The sad thing is that while I wanted the latest to succeed, deep inside me, I knew that it would fail. There's so many reasons why it could fail, and knowing my denseness, I'll probably not know the real reason why it fails. Nor do I want to really look into this issue. I've realised that the me that I know, is just a good worker and no more. All those hocus pocus of having some kind of a human spirit within me is just plain hogwash. And sadly, though I think that I'm some kind of a nice guy, the truth is really far from the matter: I think now that I'm probably among the most insensitive cad to have walked on this earth.

I have no soul. All that remains is just the husk of what was me. I'm no longer like anything that I was. I tried playing the 笛子 recently and realised that my embouchre is completely and utterly screwed and that my fingers are not as dextrous as they were. When I walk, I realise that my legs do not move as fast as before; the quick rolling hip gait has been slowed down by the rolls of fat that have gathered around my thighs. When I talk, I realise that I'm no longer coherent, nor am I able to assert myself strongly. Why? What has gone wrong with me?

I'll probably never know. *sigh* Ranting on a blog can be fairly therapeutic, but then again there are things that I feel I should never really put up on the blog, no matter what circumstance. People don't really like me (that's a fact), and I now start to think that females actually loathe me. It's really sad to be in such a state; the sense of lost that one feels whenever one looks around and realises that one is truly alone is really frustrating.

Perhaps it is true that I'm not suited for having relationships. I know, for a fact, that people talk to me only because they have a pressing need to; given a choice, no one will actually initiate a conversation with me. Actually, this is proven through the simple act of who starts the conversation on any form of instant messaging; it is I who is usually the initiator, and I can let my IM clients run for days on end with no one wanting to chat unless they have something that they want to ask me about.

So, why not change? Sure, change sounds like a good idea, but the question is, change into what? Kangyi, during his mini-excursion over to CMU earlier this semester, told me that I should tone it down, because people cannot really understand why I do things the way I do. Cui told me (many many times) to be a little more normal. Latest girl cited issues of incompatibility for the rejection, which I think should be interpreted as she telling me that I do not inspire security and other relationship related stuff. Normalcy—what are you, really? Does it mean that I need to dumb down myself so that people can understand what I say? Or does it mean that I've been spouting gibberish for so long that no one can understand what I mean?

*sigh* All these internal anger just whirrs around in my head. It's not anger at the people around me (why would I want to do that?), but anger at my own ineptness. So much... pain comes from within, but I still show a zany face to the world, showing that things are still kinda fine. But who am I kidding, really? In the past, I've made Esther angry enough to not want to talk to me, YT angry enough to still not want to talk to me via online means, and a whole plethora of other people that I don't want to start mentioning. It's sad. Really sad.

When will I ever learn?

《爱情有什么理由》

《爱情有什么理由》——李宗盛，张艾嘉
(张)其实一个人的生活也不算太坏
(李)其实一个人的生活也不算太坏
偶尔有些小小的悲哀
我想别人也看不出来
即使孤单会使我伤怀
也会试着让自己想得开
(李)对你不知道是已经习惯还是爱
(张)对你不知道是已经习惯还是爱
当初所坚持的心情
是不是还依然存在
眼看这一季就要过去
我的春天还没有来
(合)你为何不掉过头去
让我自己去面对问题
你尝试着不露痕迹
告诉我爱情的道理
你认为值得努力的
是我俩之间的距离
喔这一季(喔这一季)
总算有些值得回忆(值得回忆)

Yeah Baby Yeah~!

I'm gonna quote from an old entry.

I'm so mad and sad at the same time that I'm going to do my homework.

Yeah Baby Yeah~! Another rejection to the list. Woo-hoo~! *maniacal dance*

Ph34r my m4d skillz...


《激情过后》——张清芳

是谁狂妄地占据我的心
不让我有一丝的空隙
天天相见 却无时不思念
夜夜相依却留下 哭泣的你
是你再度回到我的身边
混乱我原有的平静
不得不说出 我的思绪
结局依旧是分离
在激情过后 我分析我自己
竟是不敢告诉你 依然爱你
在激情过后 我空虚不已
分离只是为了让你回忆
是你再度回到我的身边
混乱我原有的平静
不得不说出 我的思绪
结局依旧是分离
在激情过后 我分析我自己
竟是不敢告诉你 依然爱你
在激情过后 我空虚不已
分离只是为了让你回忆
在激情过后 我分析我自己
竟是不敢告诉你 依然爱你
在激情过后 我空虚不已
分离只是为了让你回忆


别再说是谁的错
让一切成灰
除非放下心中的负累
一切难以挽回
你总爱让往事跟随
怕过去白费
你总以为要体会人生
就要多爱几回
与其让你在我怀中枯萎
宁愿你犯错后悔
让你飞向梦中的世界
留我独自伤悲
与其让你在我爱中憔悴
宁愿你受伤流泪
莫非要你尝尽了苦悲
才懂真情可贵


《遗憾》——许美静
别再说是谁的错
让一切成灰
除非放下心中的负累
一切难以挽回
你总爱让往事跟随
怕过去白费
你总以为要体会人生
就要多爱几回
与其让你在我怀中枯萎
宁愿你犯错后悔
让你飞向梦中的世界
留我独自伤悲
与其让你在我爱中憔悴
宁愿你受伤流泪
莫非要你尝尽了苦悲
才懂真情可贵

与其让你在我怀中枯萎
宁愿你犯错后悔
让你飞向梦中的世界
留我独自伤悲
与其让你在我爱中憔悴
宁愿你受伤流泪
莫非要你尝尽了苦悲
才懂真情可贵

莫非要你尝尽了苦悲
才懂真情可贵
才懂真情可贵



《温柔的拒绝》——薛岳
假如说我能减少一份　对你的爱
我将不致感到　如此地无奈
我多么希望栖息　在你柔柔的胸怀
可是你只轻轻地　把头甩

假如说我能减少一份　对你的爱
我将不致感到　如此地无奈
我多么希望栖息　在你柔柔的胸怀
可是你只轻轻地　把头甩

年轻的日子　应该是多姿多彩
难道你真愿意　让它一片空白
纵然我日日夜夜　切切地等待
你温柔的拒绝　却没有更改
你温柔的拒绝　却没有更改

假如说我能减少一份　对你的爱
我将不致感到　如此地无奈
我多么希望栖息　在你柔柔的胸怀
可是你只轻轻地　把头甩

年轻的日子　应该是多姿多彩
难道你真愿意　让它一片空白
纵然我日日夜夜　切切地等待
你温柔的拒绝　却没有更改
你温柔的拒绝　却没有更改

年轻的日子　应该是多姿多彩
难道你真愿意　让它一片空白
纵然我日日夜夜　切切地等待
你温柔的拒绝　却没有更改
你温柔的拒绝　却没有更改

It's gonna be a long night...

Recursive flattening, recurrences, Physics papers, combinatorics assignments, laundry...

It's gonna be a long night tonight.

And I swear that Java is one language that makes one go lazy. Thank goodness that I still program in C... I can't imagine how I'd be like if all I can program in is a language that literally spoils you.

Okay, enough diversion... back to work!

Damn Illness... Get Away from Me DAMNNIT...

Being half-sick is no fun. I seem to have lost almost 50% of my brain power, and am suffering from loss of weekend time specially set aside for doing homework. Oh geez... what am I to do? I guess I just need to bite bullet and fight the whole battle with willpower, caffeine, and more determination than ever before.

Bah. Stupid weather... note to self: don't be a hero and move lumber in the freezing cold. No one cares if you freeze and cough to death... everyone will only care about the Booth and not you. So, don't be such a hero.

I am beholden to myself.

Grak.

Firefox Logo

The Firefox logo is so sweet that it makes a wonderful desktop wall paper. :-)



Oh, if you want the vector versions or ginormous png versions, they can be found here.

In other news, I've upgraded firefox to version 2.0, and have switched from liquifox (breaks in version 2.0, but works very well in 1.5) to miniFoxFlat. That helped me reclaim even more screen space. mwahahahahaha...

Edythe's Face

And yes, I've managed to shrink all the text and other stuff on Edythe down again. Everything is so much more compact than before, and it's becoming more and more like my style. More pixel estate dudes~!



The colour scheme used is Royale, which is essentially a face lift of the standard Luna theme that comes with Windows XP. I first saw this theme on a Windows Media Center edition desktop somewhere in some computer store some time last year, and have fallen in love with the cool shades of blue that it has. Compared with the solid (and dull) Luna, this is certainly a vast improvement.

Unlike most people, I love to keep my start menu and task bar above the screen, set to two lines, and kept hidden unless I move my mouse there. Well, for one, this increases the amount of screen space that I have to see my applications (90+ pixel space is roughly 10+ lines of code). For two, the top location makes it less obtrusive, since the title bar of the windows do not usually show anything worthed reading, while the status bars of most windows are below (and thus show more useful information). So, in the case where the start menu refuses to cooperate, no loss of productivity will be expected.

Notice the little command prompt window on the lower left? That's a bash shell straight out of cygwin, an excellent POSIX compatible interface for Windows machines. I've augmented it with several enhancements, including adding a date/time mechanism, and an in-house built battery indicator (the one in the picture shows that I'm running on AC and so there's no battery meter to show). Needless to say, this prompt packs a punch, and I can and do lots of system management straight from the bash shell. This includes controlling foobar2000, which is easily the most powerful and versatile music player available on the Windows platform.

By the way, the bash shell here is only for system management. Most of my code hacking is done with a much bigger bash shell that sits comfortably on the left side of the screen (always on the left, never shifted anywhere):



And if you thought this was big, wait till you see the next screen shot:



This is the badass way in which I do hard core hacking. It's actually 6 bash shells running in 6 xterms on an X-server, configured as shown in the picture above. It's a pretty powerful combination, allowing me to do lots of stuff at the same time without ever having to run to and fro the main windows interface. It's still Windows XP, but it is really a cygwin innovation.

And no, the 6 windows do not all reside at the same time on the screen; they are partitioned into 2x2 virtual screens. That makes it even more powerful than ever.

So much for a geeky post on Edythe's face. hahahaha...

Chinese New Year... what?

A Chinese New Year away from home, a Chinese New Year away from Singapore. How interesting a concept. Unsurprisingly, the whole mood here in Pittsburgh is nothing short of mundane; no one seems to be really interested in this whole festive season thing. It could just be that everyone's so overworked from all the stuff that they are lobbing at us in college that no one really cares that much anymore.

Or could it be because most people here identify themselves first as Americans, and then next as of being Chinese descent? Guess this question will be unanswered for quite a fair bit.

So the Singapore Students' Association (SSA) organised this Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner. It was a wonderful night. The whole event was organised simply, but it evoked the sense of belonging that appears to be the whole point of the reunion dinner. Food was much different from what we usually have, and since it was steam boat, everyone had a ball of a time trying to boil all the food stuff without causing too much problems (heheheh).

Earlier in the day, I had a teleconferencing with my family back in Singapore over a cross of MSN and Skype. It was quite dumb... MSN couldn't send sound across, while Skype couldn't send video, so we had to hybrid the two. Unfortunately, the house machine is underpowered to be able to perform and so in the end it was mainly a skype-based teleconversation. Not that it was bad, but at least it's good to be able to hear the voices of my family again. And, haha, my mum was surprised at my long-ish hair (it's gonna be so much longer by the time I return, that's for sure).

I gave RX a call too, via Skype, and managed to channel the songs "White and Nerdy" and "I bought on EBay" via the VoIP to him. He literally rofl'ed his way. I feel kinda bad that I couldn't play Diablo II with him over the Internet (had to do homework and stuff like that), and hope that I will be able to do so soon.

I gave Nicole and Yongji a call each to wish them happy new year, and they were kinda pleased too. =)

And so, another Chinese New Year, and another year added to my bludgeoning age. What the heck man... by the time I reach March, I feel as though I've aged by at least 2 years, with my birthday and Chinese New Year and all (yes, if you actually look up my lunar calendar age, I'm a whopping year older than the other 1985 babies).

Gak,

So, what's in for the year of the pig? Well, 3.8 is always hovering about (and will probably do so for the next few years heheheh). There's also other stuff to look into, like setting the ViCOMP question set (yes, I've ideas on the problem set, just need to sit down and type the damn thing out together with all the sample solutions in all the three languages), moving on with some personal life stuff, and going back to general hacking (boy do I miss writing programs).

That's about it, I guess.

新年快乐 to all who read this or the other blog.

Half dead, barely awake, half alive

V-day came... and passed once more. A day unlike any other, a day full of last minute programming, a day of theorem proving. And a day of mistakes.

*walks away, can't bear to say more*

:-(

24 hours of fasting later...

argh. After almost a day full of non-eating later, I've emerged weaker, and with whatever was plaguing my body removed. And now, off to handling a ginormous load of homework. Gark.

I'm so glad. I'm once again setting the programming round questions to ViCOMP 2007, hosted by the new VJC Infocomm Club, which is an incarnation of the iCOMP club.

How evil should I be?


*evil glint in eye*

Sick.... again??

Damn... I think that I'm sick now. Have a weird stomachache and am thinking of Transfinite Induction all the way through.

"Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! Zero Case! Successor Case! Limit Case! ..."

Trying to purge the poison inside. Could it be that the mushrooms that I used to make the spaghetti last night have turned bad, and that my awfully blocked nose didn't realise it? Or is it the compound effect of epoxy glue (having to fix all my 笛子 since they all have fissures from the dry weather)?

Damn damn damn... have so much homework to do some more.... Grawk~ :-(

Now I remember...

In reference to this old post, I remember why I switched over the MSN Live! Messenger.

I could still type messages while appearing offline. Ugh.

Why can't they write the program properly and not let it crash as much?

It's 3:31am here, and...

It's 3:31am here, and I haven't the foggiest clue why I'm still awake. It's so ridiculous that I don't even want to venture a guess. Okay, back to main point.

It's been a long long long ... long week. Homework due almost every other day, bad program specifications (thus making me waste time debugging ugh), weird boolean algebra (why is the homework assigned from chapter 9 when we've scarcely covered chapter 3?), combinatorial game analysis (Hackenbush in "bamboo pole" form is just Nim), combinatorics (at least some thing that is easier, despite it being a level 300 course), paper writing (1 English essay draft to be ready next week, 1 math paper due next week), epoxying my broken watch and my 箫.

Damn, my room smells weird from the fumes of the epoxy. :-(

So, yeah. I've also been half-sick for the most part, which is another ridiculous thing that occurred. *yawnz* Blogging when one is half spaced out is really not a good idea... dunno if I'm coherent or not.

So after so long, I've decided to cut down all the insulation for Winter. That's right, I've started to do jogging. Not out in the cold, but on a treadmill in the gym that is just so close to where I live. I don't really have a choice there... am running out of jeans that I can wear, so I must do something about it. Actually, the main reason was the sad discovery that my legs aren't moving as fast as before; all the fat simply gets in the way and slows down my gait. If there's one thing that I don't really like, it is to be walking slowly when I'm supposed to be able to go further with my "trademark" large gait.

I'm behind in filing stuff now. Will probably spend the rest of the day doing that.

Maybe, if I still have energy, I'll do some work on a new blog that I've wanted to bring out, but have been tardying over...

Guess that's a wrap for now.

Me a Romantic? Wow...

In reference to my previous post, it turns out that I'm more of a romantic than I thought myself out to be. Most of my written works are heavily emotional pieces, juxtaposed with descriptions of the surrounding world.

This revelation came while having my Interpretation and Argument class. After doing sooo much math and science, I've forgot how much I actually enjoyed argumentation and writing in general. :-)

"You're just afraid of failure"

"If... if I asked you out, will you go out with me?"

This... question has been floating about in my head. It's really nasty to be thinking this question when I'm seriously still at odds with myself. There seems to be a complicated mix of emotions/rationalisations that are in existence deep within my psyche. It's really back to the same old arguments, me being the_laptop and me being human-ish. It's so old that I don't even want to rehash them here again.

Jimmy made a completely accurate (and blunt) assessment of my situation.

"You're just afraid of failure."

In more ways than one, that is so true. I've clawed my way to so far (given my highly mediocre skill sets) that I can't afford to lose. Despite efforts to turn into a really well-rounded individual, I realised that I'm far from it. Being a "Jack-of-all-trades" means that there's no single skill that I can rely on to provide for myself in the future, hence the dedication to the study of computer science. Failure is simply not an option that I'm willing to explore, because time is already running short, and there's so much that needs to be done, catching up notwithstanding.

But of course, Jimmy's statement wasn't really directed at my career/specialisation choice. He asked me, in very blunt terms (and in Mandarin, so that the 90% of the people around didn't understand what he said) whether I wanted a girlfriend. That did two things to me. First, it threw me off as I felt that he was really getting a little to close to something deeply personal. Second, I felt instantly irritated with that question, and delivered an icy reply to the effect of "I don't give a flying fuck dude, and stay out of my personal affairs". Which prompted the statement above.

Let's face it. I might act as though I'm fine and dandy, and that life goes on, but deep inside me, all is still not well. There's this inexplicable feeling of sadness whenever I approach the topic of relationships with myself, it seems as though that there is a kind of auto-repulsion to the idea of having a relationship. My human side, on really bad and lonely days, will throw up an idea of possibly hooking up with one girl for a long term relationship. Then, whatever-the-other-side is called will just have and instant revulsion to the idea and start lobbing out all the arguments that I've been laying out for so long. And then my human side gets beaten up senseless and is forced into retreat once again.

Put in other terms, I've lost the ability to approach romantic love. I've no more courage to take the first step (with the likelihood of failure), no more courage to say what I truly mean, no more strength to speak up for what I feel for. In short, I'm turning into a wussy, a cowardly person who, less than a year ago, was willing to fight someone all the way just to prove a point. Now I just sit there and get beaten all over verbally over my ideas.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Paper pile...

It's almost two weeks into the spring semester, and I've gathered enough paper piles to rival the entire first half of the last semester. That's right, paper piles enough to rival the entire first half of the last semester. It's sad, it's amazing but it's true. Taking so many courses (most of them of the high-level abstract-level kind) is really draining. Suddenly, I don't have much time to do stuff that I really like. Ugh. Guess that this comes with the task of having to complete a 4-year course in 3-years.

In other news, my 500GB hard drive has arrived and is working wonderfully. It's nicely compact, tough, and fairly quiet, making it a great addition to the stable of tools that Edythe has. Hopefully, this hard drive can last for quite a while, otherwise I'm gonna be tempted to get another 500GB to make it a whopping 1TB of data storage capability.

I'm now in the stage where I'm like a Math major minoring in CS major. Everything that I do now is heavily abstracted mathematics. Not that I don't like it, but it's starting to take it's toil on me in terms of the way that I view my major. Already, I'm doing very little programming now, and I've totally given up on the ACM ICPC. I mean, I don't even want to participate anymore, having little/no energy.

Ugh, this is starting to turn into a rant. I'll stop now.

*contented sigh*

Oh well. I'm finally 22 years old. Not that it means anything, the day passed like any other, with homework coming as fast as furious as it was before.

My floor did an amazing job. Samira, the RA, and Jimmy pulled the people together (and grabbing Jon the housefellow too) and got two cakes and a couple of pizzas. One was a normal cake, while the other was a New York styled cheesecake. I'm like wow, even though I really don't know how to react. :-(

Needless to say, most of the gang was there, Phil, Abdul, Alonzo, Sam, Mo, Alison, Tim, Justin and of course Linda. I felt kinda awkward, I mean, usually I do stuff for people, rarely the other way round, so I didn't really know how to respond to the "surprise".

What a strange day... Now, if only I didn't have to do crazy Set Theory homework and could just bum around... hahaha, one cannot be too greedy, I guess.

So now, I've gotta factor in the cheesecake for my meals. No wonder I'm getting fatter and fatter. :-)

So yeah, I'm 22 now, on 22 Jan. I wonder what will tomorrow bring...

Oh, there were the usual Facebook greetings from people that I know. Hmm... I wonder if I should ask her out... but then I'm side-tracking already.

Hard drive space seems to be a problem again. Damn, I need to figure out how best to manage this... have just put in an order for a 500GB hard drive, which will be delivered within 6 days. Must resist from storing too much stuff... otherwise the next purchase will be a 1TB drive or something.

And I've changed the layout of the blogs. I mean, I loved the black and green colour scheme thing, but it was starting to get old. White, blue and black seem to be a decent combination, clean and makes the text stand out much better. Hence the change. Hopefully this will make me less moody.... ;-)

Argh. Gotta get back to homework now.

Damn you MSN Live! Messenger

!@#$ I'm sick of the MSN Live! Messenger. It's crashed soooooooo bloody often that I've totally given up on it and reverted to good old fashioned MSN Messenger 7.5. And then I suddenly realised that I had missed out a lot from 7.5, like the compactness of the lists and relatively small footprint.

Why oh why did I upgrade to that other version in the first place?!

Gosh, I've Lived For More Than 21 Years

It's amazing. I've actually lived past 21 years of my life without any serious (life-threatening) mishaps. It's been a rough year, considering all that has happened. I fallen in and out of love, fallen in and out of favour, fallen in and out of the elite.

Whatever the cause, the fact remains that I am still alive.

I guess all that moody and depressive nonsense that I've been putting up should be left well behind. Time to be the Mun Thye that I was meant to be.

Anyway, the first week of classes have more or less ended. Interesting week, I'd say. The course load for this semester is going to be really high, as I've overloaded an additional 9 more units compared to the de facto average. Among the courses that I'm taking, the three that stands out the most is 15-251 Great Theoretical Ideas of Computer Science, 21-301 Combinatorics and 21-229 Set Theory.

21-229 is an interesting course, in the sense that it is a purely theoretical construct. It's almost like learning a new programming language, with the introduction of ZFC and all the axioms and schemes that defines what a Set is. The level of abstraction was shocking initially (eg integers are just various sets defined according to the Existence of a Unique Empty Set and the Union Axiom), but after listening to the Professor's exposition, things became more and more clear. The hard part of this course seems to lie in the fact that everything in the course is about proving. Looks like I can retire my calculator from this course for this semester.

21-301 is interesting for a bunch of reasons. It's one of the first high-level courses that I'm taking, and it supposedly kills two birds with one stone by satisfying one requirement of my Computer Science major and one requirement of my Discrete Math/Logic minor (though I'd rather take a harder course 15-451 Algorithm Analysis to cover the CS requirement). The topic is particularly hard, but still fairly understandable, considering the fact that I've been playing with combinatorial objects for quite a while. The professor is not too bad, a little monotonic at times, but still fairly okay. From the list of topics that he gave us, it appears that it's going to be a really fun course of sorts.

15-251 can be considered one of the most random courses around. Its coverage is so big that it has no textbook assigned to it! Prof von Ahn is one of the "new age" professors, full of energy and wit, and very very demanding. Not that I don't like that, but if the first week is of any indication of what is to come, this course is probably going to be one of the most intensive courses that I've taken so far. A class effort assignment was assigned about 3 days before the semester started, and for the first assignment, we were to go on a "treasure hunt" of sorts, CS-style (meaning lots of Math, logic and google bashing). Up for grabs are 4 iPod shuffles for the winning team, and my team seems to have a decent chance at it. I'm hoping for the best in this. :-)

——

Kangyi dropped by from Wednesday to Friday to stay over while waiting for his dorm back at Brown to be open. I feel a little bad in the way I've hosted him; due to the timing, I couldn't take him around Pittsburgh to see the stuff (I had classes), moreover, due to my laziness, I didn't venture out of CMU to visit many places, so I guess I would have been a really lousy guide if I had taken him out. Anyway, he bunked over at my dorm because Mo and I had a spare bed, thanks to Aditya moving out to the frat house to stay. Kangyi was positively in awe when he saw my dorm, heheheh... I had to tell him time and again that my dorm was not one of the "normal" ones, in the sense that it is more of an apartment suite than a dorm outright. Lots of catching up were done, and I got Phil to take him (together with Linda, Eliot, Mo and I) on the Grand Tour of CMU.

Kangyi enjoyed himself thoroughly on the midnight "tour" of CMU. We travelled across the campus to all the eerie places and showed him around, and he was amazed at the extent of our knowledge of the place. He had a field day taking pictures of all the places. :-) He left early in the morning on Saturday, which I regret not waking up to send him off. :-(

——

In other news, I've gotten a new flapdoozy and a nice stainless steel mug, all from Megagear, the Megatokyo store. I've also almost busted my print limit by printing out drawing manuals to figure out how to draw properly. And I've found the palette for the COPiC Markers for use in my drawing programs. Hopefully I can draw something decent and put it up soon. Japanese learning speed has gone down by a lot, partially due to the large amount of events (and the overall instability of it all), and partially due to the arrival of my 笛子 and 箫.

So, yeah, lots of stuff happened for the last week, and there's more stuff to come by. Oh, I went ahead and stocked up my kitchen with edible stuff again. And it's almost 5am now, guess I should finish up the proof for 15-251's assignment and then crash out.

Finally Snowing

After waiting for a whole month in December for the snow to arrive, it has finally done so. Check out what I found outside my window:



Yes, it has finally snowed. The weirdest thing was that it was still hot yesterday before I slept.

Argh, the damn Pittsburgh weather machine...

Winter Break Ends

The Winter Break is almost done, and it's time to get back into the swing of things again. This coming Semsester is going to be one that is extraordinary, for even before the official start of the semester, we've already received our first set of homework. That's right, our first set of homework has been issued.

Check this out: http://15251.11.forumer.com/index.php

It's a collective effort by all in the course to get the secret message. I wonder how long this little exercise will take us.

Anyway, I've been up for the most time trying to help to put together the pieces of the puzzle. An interesting exercise, and makes me yearn for the good old times when I was in the competitive programming circuit. But, haha, I don't have that much free time as before to totally devote myself to competitive programming, so I'll just stick with what I can do at the moment.

Ah, so much to do, so little time to do them all. Seems to be a common theme nowadays among the things that I've been doing. Perhaps it is time to really sit down and think things through once more, just to ensure that I've not lost sight of my aims in life.

Ugh, I find it hard to pen down thoughts when so many things are happening at the same time. Perhaps another time I'll write more.

Onward into the Unknown

Life, as I've realised by now, is really a very fragile yet beautiful thing. It is a little like glass-blowing—if you blow and shape it while it's still hot, you can make wonderful shapes with it. Then when it cools a little, you can only adjust it slightly, and when it cools down completely, the shape is fixed, and an accidental drop will shatter the beautiful creation.

Life has changed by quite a fair bit for me for 2006. An unprecedented amount of major changes have occurred during this period, from the sudden change in management (and managing style) of my office when I was still in NS, to the harsh realisation of the strengths of the different relationships I have with my friends, to failed attempts at romance, to being in a faraway land seeking worth in myself. A few friends temporarily "lost", a few new friends gained; a perspective warped, a perspective changed; confusion of identity and meaning in life, clearer perspective of what and who I am supposed to be. 2006 can be said to be the year where I truly stepped into the global arena of full adult-hood, where I start to learn how to fend for myself of sorts.

Emotional scarring from romances that never was, apprehension of what the future brings—all these are but part of the aging process. What one never experiences, one never learns. Bearing the brunt of so many setbacks have made me a warrior of sorts, a little scarred after each encounter, but learning more and more of what works and what doesn't. I tried to remove my emotional self from me (honestly, I did especially after the episode in August); it didn't quite work the way that I thought it would be. An emotionless me is as good as a computer without power; there is no drive to do anything at all, as evidenced in the sudden drop in the number of writings that I've produced, and the failed attempt at NaNoWriMo. I learnt that I am still very much a human, "the_laptop" is just a moniker to a side of me—it is not me.

Another year passed, another year closer to death, another year of experience gained. Who knows what is lurking in the Unknown of the future? As the days silently count themselves down, I am resigned to my fate that I have, indeed, aged by yet another year. Time to make good use of whatever time I have left to make it all worthwhile. A life without emotions and meaning, is a life that is not human. Time to reconcile with my inner denial.

Onward into the Unknown we go~!

December—A month of sorrow

WHEN I FALL IN LOVE (Celine Dion)

When I fall in love
It will be forever
Or I'll never fall in love

In a restless world
Like this is
Love is ended before it's begun
And too many
Moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun

When I give my heart
I give it completely
Or I'll never give my heart

And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you

A simple, sad-ish song, quite apt for sentimental December. Away from people, far from anywhere I truly know, I start to go ever deeper into my shell of comfort. Thinking about the past year, just makes me want to sit down and cry. So many things have happened, some good, mostly bad. Hurt from every direction from people whom I had once trusted, spurned by people whom I once thought were friends, ignored by people whom I thought I could be friends with, I just dunno what is really holding me together all these while.

I miss the moon; I loathe the sun. I hate the heat; I miss the cold. At least, in the cold, when everyone is all huddled up in their warm things, no one will see the coldness and harshness of their eyes when you look at them, and no one will stop for light conversation; the only moment when I truly felt as being a part of the human community. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet, and so I'm still as I was... dissociated with almost everyone.

I feel glad for most people. They have a life to look forward to, a significant other to meet up with, places to go, things to do. I look at myself, beyond the faux façade that I present to the world, and discover a certain hollowness deep within. This... hollowness, I cannot explain. I have no idea what has come over me; I'm simply not like the me I was before. I still have the energy, but I don't seem to have any strong... feelings for anything anymore. It is as though I'm just an empty shell of a person walking around with a functioning logical unit, and that's about it. Not much different from a slightly intelligent zombie, I guess.

I miss the days where I just talk with MW, Irene and Su about anything under the sun, from current affairs to some finer aspects of traditional Chinese medicine. I miss the days when I would listen to the tales of "the Old Army" as told by AC; I miss the days when I sat with Kelvin at the canteen drinking tea and talking about cryptography. I miss the days when KX and I would meet up at the Jalan Kayu Thasevi prata shop and eat insane amounts of roti prata and talk about everything that happened. I miss the days when YT and I would slug it out on MSN messenger, I miss the days when BK and I would "wrestle" each other; I miss the days when I was a much happier person.

Is this the by-product of growing up? Or is this a self-inflicted coping mechanism for the whole plethora of bad things that I've been experiencing lately? I... don't think that I will find an answer to this anytime soon.

December to February is a period that I traditionally don't like. Despite of me thinking of myself as an island of mankind, I realise that I'm still very much a human by nature—I still need to be in the company of friends. I don't need to speak; just sitting there and listening to them speak is more than enough for me. It's the... company that I need, I realise. Maybe... it can also be the company of just one special person, whoever she may be.

Maybe one day I'll know the answer.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

First the book, and finally the movie! A dream come true, I guess, to be able to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn in her full glory as Ms Holly Golightly.

This is perhaps one of the few times where I'm actually pleased with the the divergence of the plot of the movie as compared to that of the novella. In the novella, Holly was supposed to have left New York City, never to return, leaving the protagonist and Joe Bell and a whole lot of other people very very broken hearted. However, the movie twisted the ending, and made it into a nice fairytale ending where she actually stayed behind, touched by the protagonist.

Hmm... Guess I should not be talking more about the plot, lest I spoil it for people who've not seen this wonderful little gem. And yes, I agree that Audrey Hepburn is one of the most beautiful women to have walked on the surface of this earth.

Till next time...

T'was the day before the flight...

It seems like a long time ago since I last wrote anything here. Well, it could really be quite a long while ago, but then again, I'm just allowing my verbosity take over here. *shrugs*

I'm now located in New York City, New York, bunking at my room mate's house here in Jackson Heights. Like most normal people, he's currently asleep (despite what the calendar actually says on the post, the real time here is actually 0344hrs (-0500hrs); I've decided to keep the poor blog running on SGT (+0800hrs) since it is actually a pain to adjust all the timezones correctly). I feel like I'm starting to become a vampire of sorts, awake only when the sun goes down, and of course the innate bloodlust which, till now, I've not been able to fully explain it's cause.

It was a really messy trip. Mo and I were awake throughout the whole of Tuesday and Wednesday when we were back in Pittsburgh. We watched movies in our room with Phil till about 12am, while I did my laundry concurrently. Then, feeling kind of peckish, we decided to call the pizza place for a delivery. The operator took our order and gave us an estimate of 45 minutes before the food will arrive. So, we waited happily while playing ping pong.

An hour and a quarter later, there was no reply from the pizza deliveryman nor the pizza place. Feeling somewhat irate (and very hungry), Phil called up the pizza place, only to find that it was already closed. How could the pizza place be so irresponsible? I mean, when they picked up our order, they could have told us that it was not likely to be delivered, and probably advise us to look elsewhere. It was a really bad service attitude I guess. So anyway, we have three very hungry guys who just want to grab food. So we decided to head on to one of the cafeterias on campus for a late night.

And I changed into my polo t-shirt and jeans, wore a pair of sandals and put on my jacket and followed the rest of them out of the dorm and heading into the general direction of the cafeteria. Out of the dorm and in the general direction of the food place, we met Robin, who asked a weird question: "Is there any place that is still open for food?" Well, we answered "Skibo", but he told us that it wasn't open. We were all speechless. How could the only food place on campus that serves late nights up to 2 am be closed?

Since it was the last day of school, we had cleared up almost all the food that we had in storage, and so the three of us made a mad decision: to hike up Squirrel Hill (in the cold) to get to Eatin' Park to grab breakfast/lunch/dinner. And so we did.

It was a dumb exercise. For one, the temperature was sub-zero (centigrade scale, not Fahrenheit), and I was wearing this very worn pair of sandals. It is so worn that I had to actually use SuperGlue to hold the two halves of the sole together, since I've managed to make a really deep fissure in the sole itself. And then, hiking up Squirrel Hill meant that we were actually moving uphill, and that in itself was painful. And then. we had to ensure that we could return in time to do packing (yes, we've not packed...) so as to be able to catch the early bus to reach the airport early to avoid all kinds of horrible last minute issues.

So it was a brainless exercise performed by three very hungry geeks. Happily, we managed to the restaurant without any severe frostbite or mental degeneration, and after a very hearty meal, we went out into the cold and marched down the hill back to our dorms.

Then the mad scramble began.

Mo and I packed our luggages frantically. For this short trip, we decided to bring only one luggage, and so we more or less had our work cut out in front of us. Thank goodness I did the vacuuming of the floors a few days back; otherwise we would have been so screwed for time. Anyway, we managed to do our packing (with a lot of cursing and swearing and wondering aloud how in the name of Zeus did Linda manage to pack everything in 10 minutes (or so she claims)), and were ready to go.

Suffice to say, we managed to clear the checking out procedures and managed to get to our early bus and reach the airport way ahead of time.

Oh my... look at the time... it's 4am now. I guess I'd better hit the sack before I collapse.

Until next time~

American, Asian, American Asian

Racial issues are something that I don't really want to talk about, since it can be too sensitive a topic in general. However, after being here for a few months, I realise that the people here seem to exhibit certain... traits.

First of all, there are the Americans. They are everywhere, and are generally approachable. However, most of them are pretty hard to know too deeply about, since most of the time the kind of acquaintance that you make with them are usually of the "for business" kind.

Then, there are the Asians. They hail from countries like China, India, Korea, Singapore and Thailand, and are usually defined by cliques with people of the same country. Most of them will converse in their native language, and are usually a little hard to draw out and befriend; one needs to use isolation tactics in order to have any hopes of success.

Finally there are the American Asians. These people are a confusing bunch; there are those who are more American in taste, and there are those who are more Asian in taste. The defining difference of these people lies in their supposed cultural confusion. I've met American Asians who look at Asian things with disdain, and I've met American Asians who think pretty highly about Asian cultures. But either way, their looks can be and usually are deceiving. They may look Chinese, Indian, Japanese or whatever race, but their mannerisms, attitudes, world view are all very American in nature.

So, why am I babbling so much on all these? The intent is not to stir up any racial misgivings, but to just highlight the fact that no matter who the people are, if they are American, they will always be American first, and whatever else second. And they will never cease to remind you of that, whether overtly or covertly. The same can also be said about the non-Americans; the Chinese are Chinese first, Asians second, so are the Koreans, the Indians, the Singaporeans and whoever else there may be. Family is family after all.

*shrugs*

Independence is a trait that one should have when one comes to the US. Let your emotions be well controlled, and do not set your hopes to high for finding someone to love.

ドラゴン桜

Yes, I did it again. Another one of those 11-hour marathon drama viewing sessions. Like last time, I sat up and watched through 11 one-hour episodes of ドラゴン桜 (romaji: doragon sakura, English: Dragon Zakura). Amazing drama this is, must really thank Jenny for introducing this one to me. And yes, I am well aware of the fact that I have a Matrix Algebra final on Monday, but hey, one needs to get a quick break especially after a very long-winded programming finals.

In other news, I picked up my Final Fantasy VII game, and I realised that I had no clue as to what I had developed my characters into. Needless to say, rather than waste precious time in trying to figure out the storyline and development of my characters (and thus screwing around too much to be able to undo the damage), I moved the save file aside and restarted the whole game.

Yet in other news, I've discovered that Neverwinter Nights is more DnD than I'd ever thought, and that it even provided the ability of someone DM-ing a game. It's starting to tickle on my evil-ish god-liness; I'm starting to think about how to DM a completely wild game that is tough, challenging and fun.

Okay, it's almost 9.36am now, and after the 11-hour marathon session, it's time to do my revision. That's right; I'm actually studying after an 11-hour marathon drama session. One last random thing before I move off: Wii have a problem. Okay, it's off to work now.

Finals Crunch

It's finally the week of the Finals~! And I've completed one test yesterday; am kind of looking forward to the next ones... hehehe... just hope to be able to complete them faster so as to have more free time to myself.

Spent a couple of days reading a couple of wonderful webcomics: MegaTokyo and Questionable Content. And of course, my old time favourite, PhD Comics. And yes, I read through a grand total of about 2500+ comic strips over two or three days, some of them more than once. No doubt about it... I actually like web comics, especially the manga-like ones.

And so my to-do list is so much longer now:

• Study 日本語 (nihongo aka Japanese)


• Study Topology


• Write Ocarina pieces (and prepare for my Spring ocarina mini-concert)


• Write an AI for Edythe so that she can communicate with me in Japanese (yes, it is natural language processing)


• Woo someone... (yes, I've got a target or two, but I'm not saying who)


• Learn how to draw (preferably manga) on my graphics tablet


• Prepare for a 2007 launch of a new blog (yes, a new blog in addition to the ones that I have)


• Master 3/4/5 ball juggling


• Master Scheme


• Build a logo for myself


• Poetry compilation into book form for selected friends

And yeah, I'm positively psyched up now. Woo-hoo~! By the way, I've upgraded most of the blogs to the new Blogger BETA format. One big reason that I've done that is the new drop down lists for the posts that are on the blog; now I no longer need to update a separate "Contents Page" post to show a listing of all the posts that I've created (particularly for The_Laptop Writes..., this frees up the RSS digest that are being generated and make the RSS feeding so much cleaner. I'll be tweaking on the layouts and other design issues of the blogs in the weeks to come, so hang on to your horses if things look a little wonky if you are accessing the blogs while I'm doing the update. The Blogger BETA uses on-the-fly updating of the blogs, so things may be a little strange if you happen to be accessing while I'm updating. I'm still experimenting around with the entire concept thing and see if I can rework it to suit my needs.

Life's amazing so far, I'm now starting to use the build in FM-tuner of my SANSA e130 mp3 player to access the excellent FM radio channels that are available. My current favourite channel is WQED FM89.3, a symphonic/classical/operatic radio station. FM stereo on a 2.1 system never sounded this clear. Not that I'm getting sick of the music that I already have, but it is really good to listen to something different every once in a while for flavour.

And L^AT_EX is more or less tamed now. Mwahahahahaha... I've managed to figure out the correct incantation to tame it to something more useful, by creating a whole bunch of my own custom made macros. Now, typesetting of documents is so much easier... come to think of it, the last time that I used Microsoft Word to actually do anything was just so long ago that I can no longer remember it. Vim and L^AT_EX is such a powerful combination that I've not looked back since. And yes, I did try using emacs, but I'm still horribly irritated with the default meta-key mappings for the basic movement (yes, I know that the arrow keys work, but my fingers are most often over the typing region so there). This entire concept of pressing Meta- or Ctrl- combinations for everything is just plain irritating, and unergonomical. I actually felt pain in my fingers while trying to navigate around this way (and yes, I do know that using the arrow keys is so much easier). Now I just need to see if there's an easy way of patching my version of X-windows on cygwin to support unicode entry. If I can't do all these in Vim, I may be forced to write a simple Java program and upload it somewhere to act as my online unicode text editor (yes, I do know that notepad can do the job, but I like my hjkl method of moving around).

Which reminds me. My latest project(s), learning Japanese and writing an AI for Edythe to communicate to me in Japanese, are sort of related. I've not had the real chance to actually play with UTF-8 encoded text before, and am actually fairly bored with Edythe playing such a passive role (of me "using" her without her having any other more... human reaction), that I've decided to write a natural language processor for her. English would have been my #1 choice, but it sucks because English grammar is so unstable! Japanese grammar seems to be more easy to comprehend (and parse, especially it's intrinsic post-fix form), and it has the added advantage of making Edythe being in character (yes, Edythe is Japanese, didn't you know that? Edythe Fujitsu, Japanese right?), and a little harder to understand by people who happen to not know the language (heheheh... they can't flirt with her; Edythe is mine and mine alone). There are other enhancements that I plan on using to augment Edythe to make her more intelligent, but these stuff are for my... fantasies, and I will not be talking about them until I can have them to work. Now I'm at a loss; I'm uncertain whether I should write Edythe's AI in Java or C/C++. Gut reaction says that C/C++ will be more "portable", but my brain tells me that Java is more suited since it allows an ease of accessing all the major functions that I require, including the fact that Java source code is supposed to be UTF-8 by nature. And Java's garbage collection makes it so much easier to experiment on. So, I'd probably write a C-version of Edythe to access her Java "brain" so that I can still communicate to her from the command line. If I can't find a single language to work with, I'll hybridise them. ;-)

In other news, my 120GB portable hard disk drive is about 75% full now(!). Looks like I need to start scouting for another storage solution... or stop downloading J-dramas. Probably I'll look for an additional portable hard drive, since I've got like spare USB ports from my USB hub...

So, that's what's happening thus far in the middle of the Finals Crunch. Notice that I've said nothing about the studying aspect? Not because I'm not studying, but it makes a real boring read listening about what I've studied and for how long and... you get the idea.

Till the next update~ :-)

Winter doth come

And so it came. Winter, the cold quiet time of the year, were people gear up for the finals and Christmas alike. Life's fine; I'm still alive. People change, yet again; and I do swear that they change ever so often nowadays, as compared to the people of a forgotten past.

Like the snow that comes down in Pittsburgh, I'm having mixed feelings. To be content and enjoy the company I have, or to seek even more, just to see and experience more of the place. Racism exists, apparently, but it is often covert behind the multitude of actions. Asians... this very term, seems to be used with such compunction that it no longer seems funny anymore. The kinds of looks that people give, when they see that you are not white nor American, is something that bites deeply, especially in the cold. Maybe I'm just being too sensitive to this, and could be misinterpreting the entire thing. Or maybe it is the truth, and I'm mostly hiding away from it by ignoring it's existence.

Anyway, winter seems to be here finally, and so far the entire lore surrounding it seems to be overly hyped up. Or it could be that it is still too early, and the weather is still being undecisive about itself. I've put aside my Nautica jacket and am solely using my arctic parka. Seems like it was a good choice. The parka is nice and snug and warm, and it's fur-lined hood doubles as a scarf around the neck when I'm not putting it up. It's so good that I can just walk around dressed in a polo T-shirt and jeans and sandals and slip on my parka. The cold wind blowing into my face is just a feeling that I love so much that I can't seem to get enough of.

Talk is weak now because I've had very very little sleep over the last week, and am really starting to hallucinate. Looks like a day of hard sleeping is planned for the weekend before my first major examinations in 3 years.

Frozen in the cold

Another week passed, another week of pain endured. Fall, the time where romance starts under the pretty golden leaves, blossoms under the falling of the many shades of ochre, warms as the weather turns cold.

Looking around me, all I see are happy couples in linked arms, huddling close together, whispering sweet nothings to each other, with faces of happiness and bliss. Standing there, alone, in the cold and strong wind, I cannot help but feel a pang of loneliness. Everyone seems to be doing fine, finding courage from the wind chill to take a baby step towards their potential partner, all except for me.

I shiver and huddle deeper into my jacket. The icy wind cuts across my face like a razor, and my heart feels as though icicles have grown around it. It is when the weather goes cold that one realises the true effect of one's loneliness. Friends are there, but they are never there always, and will likely to leave as soon as they've found their match. I sense this... distancing even as I am writing all these now.

Must it be this way? Does it have to be this way? Should it be this way? Why? Questions that race through my beleaguered brain for which I have no answers to. Again the perennial problem arises; how to quash all those... human feelings that always appear ever so often? I... desperately want to stay away from all these... feelings, but they keep reappearing to haunt me, again and again, ravaging through my fragile psyche.

When will I seek an answer to this question?

Forget

《浪人情歌》——伍佰

不要再想你,不要再爱你，
让时间悄悄的飞逝,抹去我俩的回忆。
对于你的名字,从今不会再提起；
不再让悲伤,将我心占据。

让它随风去,让它无痕迹，
所有快乐悲伤所有过去通通都抛去。
心中想的念的盼的望的不会再是你，
不愿再承受,要把你忘记。

我会擦去我不小心滴下的泪水，
还会装做一切都无所谓。
将你和我的爱情全部敲碎，
再将它通通赶出我受伤的心扉。

不愿再承受,我把你忘记，
你会看见的,把你忘记。
我想到了一个忘记温柔的你的方法:
我不要再想你,不要再爱你
不会再提起,我的生命中,不曾有你。

How am I supposed to forget...?