World Record Time

3000 words essay in 7 hours? A record to me.

I had massive writer' block last night.. so I woke up this morning at 7am. to finish my 12 page essay. The problem was that it was due at 6pm, and I was looking around youtube until 10am to seriously start.

Timeline:
10am: Introduction done without thesis
2pm: Thesis + first main point
4pm: two main points complete
5pm:rushed my last point + conclusion in one hour along with references..

Handed it in at 6:20pm. =]
I'm quite proud.. and the essay wasn't half bad either!

Well, I'm going to go have a break now!

P.S. Drak's font sucks!

R.I.P. Assassin's Asylum

I'm waiting infront of my anatomy lecture rite now...

Should be studying for tonight's exam but i checked the blog just because my blog senses were tingling. And they were tingling for a reason.

We will miss you Assassin's Asylum.

And yes... it is an alliteration. Mmm.... rhetoric devices.

I’m Just messing around here

Does this font look like segoe print? And in how many places? as this font is only available in vista and up? and yeah, i changed the name of the title hacked together a title image in paint….. if you have a problem




then just say something, i’ll switch it all back…. Assassin’s asylum had good alliteration (i think that’s the one), but Prodigy’s Omen is so much of a slicker and more imposing name? yes? no? maybe so? this has the makings of being Legen…. wait for it….



screw you, never saw a single episode :P

Posting to Catch Up?

Dang... for the first time in many months I feel pressure to post because everyone else is posting. It kinda makes me all teary eyed.

In other news, I shouldn't be posting right now coz i have an exam... today... haha. Although I think I know my stuff... I probably don't. I have Exercise Physiology at 5:30pm to when i finish which is no later than 6:45. So here is how my day looks.... some of you may beat me... but... whatever:
12:30 to 2:30 -> Basketball ( I will rant about this later)
2:30 to 3:30 -> Anatomy Lecture
3:30 to no later than 5-> Anatomy Lab (looking at abs for this lab... yay cadavers)
Lab finish to 5:30 -> last minute review of exercise physiology exam
5:30 to 6:45 -> ex phys exam
7 to 10 -> Children's Literature

All in all... about 9 hours on campus doing actual class and not just studying. And to start off the day, Basketball.

I don't know what image you have of me in sports, I am in no way, shape, or form good at basketball. Volleyball is nice... tennis is kool (yay i can play tennis now! i challenge u!)... but basketball? Ok ok, swimming was PRETTY horrible. But I can understand that, water and I don't mix well; plus, there were other people who weren't that great at swimming too. But basketball??? I think everyone in Kin is actually good at basketball... like wow... of course there are those who aren't as "experienced", but ahhhh! My stamina... does no exist. I think my heart is like the size of a pea... I go on for 5 minutes and i'm done. It's actually very annoying and frustrating. I'm not super competitive, but I don't like to feel inferior to everyone else... even the girls man. I like to be not superior, but good enough that I can play pretty decently and help out the weaker players. I guess it's another eye-opening experience to see how it feels to be a weak player... ever since i've been playing volleyball and tennis I've just taken the sport activities lightly. Perhaps a build up of hidden pride? Time to be humbled and actually have to try to get good marks.
With that aside... somehow the instructor of the course knows my name... and just seems to only know my name. I don't remember what his full name is... but maybe his first name is the same as mine. I'm just sorta weirded out how I'm always hearing "good job Gary" (but to me, i'm actually doing a bad job... but that's not the point). Yah... don't know what's happening there.

Anyways, maybe i should get some studying done. Maybe I can do some studying whilst posting. Exercise physiology. Basically going over the respiratory system and cardio. So, the lungs and the heart and how it reacts to exercise and influences exercise as well. First off, learning how the basic system works. How blood gets oxygenated and deoxygenated. Knowing why and the processes that help blood get oxygenated and deoxygenated. Having high partial pressure of oxygen in the alveoli and low pp. of oxygen. Yay diffusion. Knowing what tidal volume, vital capcity, expiratory reserve volume, inspiratory reserve volume, etc... is... when we exercise what happens in our bodies that let us compensate for the lactate generated and the oxygen usage and carbon dioxide production.

ok you know what, this is kinda getting boring. Hopefully, one of u readers figured out how boring that paragraph was getting and skipped to this one. Even I got bored. Ok. Time to study. Hopefully.

Squash was surprisingly fun

Just played my first game/hour/session of squash today, with a few friends and i do have to say, it is not as lame as it looked before. It was like tennis, but only you get to hit the ball more frequently, and no more chasing of dumb balls that go astray. So it has been decided to go play squash once a week with this group of people. Now to attempt to hunt more lame sports which will become fun when I actually play them, like... curling, and darts... etc.

Edit: so all in all, i recommend this. Raquet, ball, court, game face, done.

Tangent

The Elegant Universe

If your bored, and you don’t mind watching documentaries (or an entire season of one), the above link will give you a pretty good idea of the current popular physics theories on the fundamentals of the universe.

Sigh, I have the last three episodes of House downloaded on my home computer, and no time nor the patience to actually see them through, and you people want me to watch all these other “great” shows and movies…. maybe on the morning/afternoon commute, somehow.

*Edited for clarification...

Quick Post

Another essay for my awesome history of china is due in two days.. and I do not know my topic yet.
I welcome two sleepless nights without lucid dreaming!

So quick post before I get started on reading my history text, nothing too interesting in my life. I am however trying to email some profs on getting a volunteer position in a research lab so I can both work and volunteer during the summer and won't be bored out of my mind! I'm hoping this summer will be legend.... wait for it =P DARRRY!

I watched way too many eps of HIMYM lately, please forgive!
Alright, Peace Out "Bros"!


P.S. UU! I do have imob, but i'm never online due to the lack of wifi around me!
I am around lvl 9? I tend to forget, but I wasn't very good. I was a mongol I think! Complete opposite for a kid studying in life sci.. but that's how I roll not in RL!

March 3, 2009

Having finished my midterm era, I now move on to the calmer parts, or "filler"s of my life as some might like to call it and find myself with some time. Where I hopefully will be able to complete one post. As an add-on to posting today, I've compiled a small list of things to hopefully get done during this 1 or 2 week period free from exams. So technically this my reading week, free of reading. I'm never actually free, a "light" day such as today consists of probably at least 4-5 hours of studying to catch up from falling behind during midterms.

- Make a few cell phone ring tones, I've got a couple that I have in mind, but just never having time to sit down and find a music file editor, AND find where i misplaced the usb to phone connection, unless i wanted to go into bluetooth between my laptop and the cellphone, but that again would take more researching.

- Sort music, put in ipod, listen!, i've been listening to things from months and months ago because I haven't done this in so long. So difficult to keep things ordered and i haven't found a music program that I like.

- Day 1 of using a planner, please let it continue...
This list was alot shorter than I anticpated, I think was just the "official" version of it but anyways onto the next topic, not as formal as everyone else, I did listen to the fray's new album and I actually did like, it is true that many songs did sound similiar, but i felt like they kept true to their original album which worked out well for them the first time around. Lately though, two albums which have been on repeat for me have been akon's "freedom" album and kanye west's "808 & heartbreak" album. A slight change, but throwing in different genres here and there do help me to get that mix from when i lazily play through the whole albums rather than stay with a comfortable playlist, in the attempt to get more albums lsitened to, however bad they may be, I tried scarlett johannsen's 2008 album recently, i believe its a year old. To be blunt, it was very strange and she sounded like a man.. i had never heard her sing before but pictured the type of genre i thought the album would fill, it didnt. I'll probably give it another attempt another time to make sure I wasn't biased but it did not leave me wanting to go back for another listen.


30 second Rant section (not really wanting to use proper grammer, although not like my grammer was very good anyways): What's twitter, i keep hearing about it, -m&m go get imob, its fun. if you do friend code, now., - note to self: stop playing tetris on facebook, sprint mode is addicting, - I do agree with standardizing our blogs title with the url name. It has always confused me, someone post a story of what it meant. Although i'm sure someone already did, Repost!, - People say 30 rock is good, i should find out for myself, as are - slumdog millionaire, waking life, and...

Finally...

It's friday... or saturday now, but it was friday when I started writing.
Finally an end of this chaotic and hectic week that it has been.

To start, I apologize for not updating and posting on the blog for the past year or more. Frankly, things got in the way, however I have not forgotten about it. I do in fact check this blog regularly.

Let's just start off by what happened this week with my 2 midterm, 2 prelab/post lab, and a couple of quizzes during this week alone. Despite all the time I had in reading week, I still ended up exhausted from studying. I probably slept about a combined good 15-20 hours this week? Averaging around 3 hourish from 5am to 8am or sometimes I get lucky (overslept) and wake up at 10-12 in the morning to realize how truly screwed I am. [/sarcasm] I manage to do okay on my labs and tests without too much difficulity for once my attempt to study did not end up as an epic failure.

You would think after high school, you would be used to cramming, and the way I go through high school and 1st year definitely made me think quick on my feet. Some of the techiques I am about to share are top sercet and 100% animal tested!

1st - Since you have been skipping for quite some time now, 12 hours of lecture awaited my cramming session. Solution? Speed up the lecture recording by 3X, 12 hour lectures in 4 hours? Simple and efficent! However requires 120% focus and mental concentration!
2nd - Further expansion from the pervious point, do some work during commutes. I was able to listen to the equivalent of 12 hours of lectures in similar two round trips on the subway.
3rd - This point is rather abstract: invent a time machine and go to the future when you are done the exam. No more cramming!
4th - Probably the best one yet, one must understand that reading week is called reading week for a reason!

Furthermore, let's look beyond this depressing life of mine and into the summer. Stupid winter, why does it seem it lasts forever! That's it, I am moving to vancouver! Then I do have to wear my fcuk scraf which I had lost recently. I know, just my luck. However if unknownuser manages to find it in the back seat of his car then please tell me =]. My memory is foggy about its location, prehaps it's from the lack of sleep. Running on with this, did you know? (family guy music/eps) that infact people tend to make up fake memories when they don't sleep very well. I guess that is probalby the reason I tend to fabricate my own theory on test and protest about it after I get my test back! Oh I forgot, this was suppose to be my summer, hopfully I can find some other interesting job other than tutoring, but what I am looking forward to is to finally travel to china!

Hopfully, I will learn and fix my whitewashed/broken up chinese! However, I did order at bubble tea in chinese! Amazing indeed! During my time in china, I hope to post here more often and label my posts as Peter Finally Goes To China Day X!

To continue, I saw drak recommending a few albums, I will definitely check some of them out (the electric/pop one), I thougth I would give reviews to some of the new albums that I have listened to recently!

Let's start with
The Fray - The Fray 3.5/5 - I know that drak has been listening to this album as well as u.u, but I must say.. it's a disappointment for me. Their last album was way better.. one hits/album wonder? We will see

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You 2.5/5 - Only amusing song on this album is "Fuck You", youtube it.. I find myself smile-e-e-e at this. If you didn't catch my drift there.. listen to Smile - Lily Allen from her old album

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Lonely Road 4.5/5 - It's similar to the Fray's album, but with more style and vibe rather than the monotone stuff you heard on the Fray's latest album.

John Legend - Evolver 4.5/5 - This one is for some of you guys that might not listen to alternative rock, pop rock or just regular o' rock.. John legend was always one of my favourite artist, and his lastest album is something worthwhile to check out..

Gym Class Heroes - The Quilt - And lastly, a hip hop album but with a twist. Just listen to some you guy will see even though I know you guys arn't big fans of these.

That's it for now, I might add more later. I have been sampling alot of main stream music, I will dig up some indie band later!

Btw, I got twitter! It's boring but add me if you have it =]!

It's 5am, I am too tired even though this is my regular sleeping time noadays anyways, hopfully I will make a new post soon enough..

Until then.. Enjoy this insightful paragraph concerning M&Ms
http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=SurvivalofthefittestMMs.

P.S. What's with my username? Maybe I should change it... any thoughts?

Blog Renovations

This takes me back to the Year 2005 when we just started out and had to think up of a name and template that would represent this blog. Countless hours on photoshop and trying new layouts... those days...
...
ARE BACK

oo... colourful. since Drakonen won't post up his post about his proposal I'll just post it in for him so when we all read this we can actually get the train of thoughts going. Basically, as great as the name "assassins asylum" is..., and it's pretty nice... aliteration + the word assassin ftw, it boggles the world when our URL for the blog does not match our title. Are people in the right place? Who knows.
So what Drakonen is proposing is we:

1. Change our blog name
Maybe to match our site address? Prodigys Omen. Or maybe if you can think of something else that everyone else would agree with.

and what I'm also proposing is we:

2. Change our blog layout/template
We may possibly have a meeting about this but for now, just something different than what we currently have? Perhaps something that represents what this blog is about/reflection of the blogs name.

This may or may not keep us busy for the next few months... maybe.
Anyways, I'm out for my 2 in a row.

Stepping in Before the 4th in a Row

Drakonen seems to have gotten himself a streak of posts that I never would've predicted. Though I am both shocked and pleased (I was shaking from joy) I shall now break his streak because i'm evil like that.

So yah, my birthday was a few days ago and it was spent studying. I basically woke up, went to class, got a hair cut, and then studied. It was pretty sad, but I'm antisocial like that too. Though this may get some depressed, my birthday was celebrated the next day thanks to a friend. It was a relatively nice Tuesday, eventhough I do miss my movie tuesdays. The reason I don't watch movies on Tuesdays anymore is because I don't have time =(, but for a good reason i guess. Let's explain (otherwise this post would fail in comparison to Drakonens).

Tuesdays used to consist of one class in first semester, Anatomy. That was from 2:30 to 3:30. Then I had all the time I needed to buy a ticket, go back home to relax, then go back out for the movie. Buying the ticket ahead of time saved me the trouble of the long line ups during the evening. Now, my tuesdays consist of a sports class from 12:30 to 2:30 which used to be tennis, now has changed into basketball. In the afternoon after Anatomy, I have a bit of time to relax until I have Men's Cell. Fellowship (talking about the Asian Christian Fellowship) at school is pretty big and it's pretty hard to get to know one another. That's where smaller groups branch off, one of them being Men's Cell which is basically a group of guys that meet about once a week to talk about manly stuff... just to put it vaguely. So far, we talked about purity and how to stay pure and currently we're going through a series on leadership. It's pretty helpful and I'm learning a lot. Putting it into action i find more difficult. We'll see what the results are soon I guess. But yes, this currently takes up the time I would normally take to watch a random movie for ONLY $5. So I an now currently not collecting scene points... therefore no free movies anytime soon.

Just to somewhat follow along the lines of applying the field of study to the posts, this was a thought that lingered in my mind since last year when we were learning about the reproductive system. I don't need to explain what that is because everyone should already know unlike Drakonen's very technologically advanced friendly speech was found to be very confusing to me... although I got the gist of it. But when we attempt to reproduce, one egg is attacked by thousands of sperm. Out of those thousands of sperm that swims up towards to egg, a few make it to actually try and break through the egg and get inside. And out of those few who gets the privelege of attempting to break inside, only one makes it. You and perhaps your life could have been so much different if it had been a different sperm with a different combination of chromosomes broke into that one egg and fertilized it. Perhaps one sperm was just micrometers away from breaking through that wall... but another sperm was just one micrometer ahead of it. You are who you are now because that one sperm made it through, and the others didn't. Way to go.

Anatomy is also pretty interesting. It just makes you realize how fragile the human body really is. So many things can go wrong inside your body that it just makes me thankful that I'm healthy (at least that's what I think) or relatively healthy right now. There are people around the world who are constantly battling some form of disease caused by genetics or some alien virus or mutation. Don't take life for granted, it can be so easily snatched away from you any moment. So sad.
Perhaps when I'm desperate someday, I can go into a little more detail.

In other news, I just finished my anatomy bell-ringer today. Basically had to go around to each station and either identify a structure or identify its function. If people hadn't told me some answers, i would've totally failed. Obviously though, I had to be able to know when those answers are appropriate, but still. I need to study a lot harder. =S.

Edit: had to take out a prefix... i remember doing edits and actually putting the edit in a post... so useless but awesome

Wordle

A list of the top 150 words on this page, with size representing reoccurrences. Click the picture and it will link to the website I used to make it… now back to studying…

Two in a row? yes, this is a collapse of a time space continuum… by 1/10^100092 of a second…. so you didn’t notice

Err…. this will be short, but I find that Jon and Gary have comparable tastes in music, and they always drop band names, but at times when no one has an opportunity to listen (another excuse to get a data plan). So I have three albums I've been listening to lately, since I get my music in album form, instead of individual songs. So without further adieu:

Empire by Kasabian

Coming to Terms by Carolina Liar

The Fray by The Fray

I’d post video of a song, but that's too much of a hassle as all the official links don’t allow for embedding, and the unofficial ones might be pulled down at any time… so yeah…

Also, I’m writing this inside a program called Windows Live Writer, which was one of the optional downloads when you installed the newest version of windows live messenger…. its a better editor then the default on on the blogger dashboard, but you more clicks away from the internet….. maybe there’s a Firefox plug-in that can do just as good a job?

will figure it all out

from square one

I'm going to go ahead and start from scratch and try to get past all the deserved criticism that I should be getting but hopefully won't be. I've decided to posts things that I find myself thinking about randomly to myself, but get frustrated over when I find I have nobody to share them with. Whether I need someone to reinforce my train of thought or someone to criticize and hopefully clarify them,at least this way I can look back on them and wonder what I was wondering when I wondered about wondering.

Well, I'm not sure how I got to technological singularity, but I basically found the real name of a concept which I’d kept onto the back of my head as soon as I had the slightest idea of the theory of evolution and the concepts of artificial intelligence. In short, the idea of the singularity basically defines a paradigm shift that will occur when man created artificial intelligence, one which is self aware and is thus capable of not only understanding itself but learning. The entity will be able to learn exponentially beyond the capabilities of its creators, and thus be able to create a better version of itself. In other words, the point in our future when we create a robot that is able to create a superior version of itself within its own power. How this is accomplished or when it will be accomplished is debateable, but the general consensus is that is it leaves considerable discussion towards the state of humanity. Still following?

Finding the article was like finding a lot of the discussions I’d had in my own head on paper, which ends up being a fairly unnerving by ultimately cool experience. It also made me wonder if the reason I decided to move away from Life sciences and into software engineering was in fact to aid in what I feel as an inevitable outcome of our species, maybe to get sympathy point from our robot leaders? I don’t know, or rather, don’t want to know as I’m might be found accountable to such thoughts in some time in the future.

This is made that much more complicated when you realize the limitations of our current understanding of our universe. For example, mathematics is a tool of standardized logic that we use to define things. But it is only as useful for this were there is cause and effect, or in other words, a problem and solution. Mathematics are used to describe the changes that take place to allow us to go from the state of a problem, to the state of a solution. Its a finite loop. That leaves out all the problems without solutions, and solutions which are not finite. I came across an idea that if people have learned how to do computations before mathematics, then we’d have a very different understanding of our universe. Why? Because the universe appears more and more like a computing structure, and less like a random bunch of arbitrary laws.

So to bring that random dump of nonsensical information together, can we create computing artificial intelligence within a computing universe? If that's possible, how many layers in are we already, and can you dig yourself out? This just makes me wonder….

So that was some of the things I’ve had on my mind today, and it actually feels good to put it out on in words in front of me. Hopefully, I can actually do this again sometime soon….

P.S. Consider this my birthday present to you Gary, err, a continual one....

P.P.S. I’ve changed the theme of the blog back to something basic, because I had trouble reading it (sorry Gary) and also… its time to retire Assassin’s asylum…. Prodigy’s Omen is so much better…

The 2nd Backtrack Memories

I don't usually post these kind of posts mostly because it started as pretty informal and now we're not posting much anymore. It's ok though, we're all so busy with school that we just don't find the time to write down our memories anymore.

I've just been looking back at our past posts and I found it very amusing and eye-opening. I discovered that I was a real jerk. But I think it all worked out somehow in our friendship chemistry. I'm still on January 2005 only because we posted so much in the beginning and it's taking me forever to read through them all. Also finding myself fast-tracking to potential future posts that I remember and laughing at them too. It's just sad that when I get to 2008 or even 2007, that the posts will start slowing down at an exponential rate... and then I won't be able to be entertained by our childhood anymore.

On a more serious side, I do apologize to you guys. I was a jerk back then man. I look and read and I just wanna slap myself. Complaining about Nimalan when he has a perfectly legit reason to not post so often. I don't know what his reason is now... I'm pretty sure (i'm hoping) that it's pretty legit too. Just goes to show how crazy awesome my friends are; to be able to put up with me is a task not to be taken by weak souls.

So I wanna apologize and thank you for just being so kool. I hope this blog will make it to its 1000th post eventually. However slow it may be. This is probably the sappiest post I have ever written in my life of posting. Time to find out if it is =)

I can't fall asleep...

2009

the year we all turn 20

dum dum dum

how many posts will we be able to squeeze in this year? who knows...

will drakonen post this year? who knows...

will m&m even have a brief moment of remembering something about this blog? who knows...

2009 everyone.

first to post.

A woodstock weekend.

So it started snowing, alot. With snow actually on the ground now, and more seeming to be coming everyday, its starting to feel like winter all over again. With all that summer that we were spoiled with, I've totally forgotten what a canadian winter feels like. Actually its not just the winter but like latefall,winter, earlyspring. There'll be alot more cold coming, and somehow i'll have school right when all the snow is hitting the most. As i've never experienced waterloo in the winter, it'll hopefully not be too bad of an experience, walking from class to class, i'm sure there'll be many more people making use of the fact that the majority of the buildings are in someway connected through some sort of underground, ground, over ground passage way linking them together. Now getting to and from school is still unshielded and i'll have to face some cold. And i sense terribly messy and wet lecture halls and floors everywhere, which will be something new to me. Long walks to get to the gym may be reduced as winter probably will bring out the laziness in everyone. Maybe it'll mean i'll study more?

Mysterious Blogger?

Wow... someone other than me posted something!

some... unknownuser.... he's unknown...

Exams coming up. Should study harder. Just went to an all mens all beef hot pot. It was disgusting, but amaaaaaaaaaazing!
Obviously we were responsible so there was rice and veggies and noodles that people brought. Everyone just chipped in 10 dollars. Amazing.

sleepy... almost 2 o'clock now.

First blog in a while...

So its been 3 months already that i've been doing a co-op term over at a manufacturing plant in Woodstock, Ontario. I Should have a ton of time, and yet I haven't ever posted... honestly maybe not even last term? I really don't remember, I just know its been a while. Living in a small town, like really small, like I thought waterloo was already a small town... has been interesting. It does have its ups and downs, which I'm probably too lazy to list, possibly will do in another post, if I ever get around to doing this any time soon. But to sum it up, it hasn't been bad. Compared to many people who are in the same position as I am with co-op this term, i'm doing above average. In both work, development and excitement, i've found that this term has met my expectations.

Travelling back and forth between Woodstock and wherever the weekend takes me has taught me a whole new thing, "highways" before this term, i'd be the local all the way driver, but now it seems so much more efficient and plus it saves gas! not having to stop for traffic lights, and accelerating again which takes up the bulk of the gas. Anyways I ended up getting my G this term as well, and then my flu shot, and then I even picked up a bit of school work for next term... I do have too much time on my hands.

Getting back to the comparision between others in my situation, i do need to point out that it Has been strange having only such a limited number of other people with the same situation who I can relate with. It'll be something i'll have to live with for the next few years, but its just a minor damper on my mood this term. The general fun on weekends does make up for it. There could have been many routes that I could have chosen to taken this term, Some friends I know who live away from home have gotten part time jobs, to kill time. If I was anywhere futher, I might possibly consider taking that route. Work has been a nice fit for me, but I do have some free time daily which I've worked to fill, whether it be catching up with shows, hitting the ymca, or just having dinner with roomates. I've never really found myself in a crazy bind of boredem... Well A few times, but few in comparsion to the time i've been here... Not sure exactly what topic I was on before, now I seem to just be rambling about one point and forgetting about what I was writting previously. So... 12am, time to sleep. Bye.