struggles.

yesterday was shamefully unproductive. with two midterms coming next week. i need to focus. nough said.

rating for 02/27/08: 4

struggles.

so i'm sitting here in my office waiting for a 70 mb pdf file to finish downloading. and i thought why not write a quick entry.

so we got our midterm grades for digital communication. got an 88.25, which i think is at least a b+ probably more like an A-. there are 3 people who scored in the low 90s, and i think two people scored just a fraction above me. i'm gonna guess that the 6 highest scores are the 6 grad students in the class since the grade distribution falls off pretty significantly after that. so i'm glad at least i'm within the top 6. with that said, i could have definitely done better on that test if i was actually thinking straight about some of the problems. there were a few really silly mistakes that i realized right away after the exam. perhaps better preparation next time can eliminate those or at least keep them to a minimum.

two more midterms before spring break. really need to make sure i'm as prepared about them as i possibly can.

after class yesterday i went to help hksa people make the i-buffet stuff. together with vincent and ruby, we must've cleaned like 1000 chicken wings... it was pretty insane. i'm hoping they'd have left overs after wednesday so i can bring some home hahaha... also, thanks baby for buying me dinner after. =)

in terms of school work, i think i accomplished a lot yesterday, despite some frustrations along the way. during the day, i pretty much finished the matlab project for dsp. typed up hw for wireless comm. and after got home, i finished the code for digital comm, and the matlab code for wireless. still ahead this week, hw for digital comm, studying for midterm for dsp and wireless.

anyway, back to work.

rating for 02/25/08: 8

a recap of the weekend.

on saturday, i came to the office since ruby had class all day. after finishing hw for dsp and lab for digital comm, i went to the rec center and played bball for a about 2 hrs. then we had a nice dinner at red lobster and played monopoly for the rest of the night while having a couple of beers.

on sunday, i finished the hw for wireless comm and attempted to do the lab for dsp. pretty much had no idea how we are supposed to do the lab, since we weren't taught any of the stuff in it. =\ gonna have two midterms coming up one for wireless comm and one fore dsp. so, really need to focus this week and make sure i do well in those.

confusion.

so first of all google sent me an email about my blog which was really weird. read for yourselves.

Dear Blogger user,

   This is a message from the Blogger team.

   Your blog, at http://holden94122.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog.  For an explanation of what spam blogs are, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

   You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.  To request a review, please fill out the form found here: http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=9060803867779879076

   We will take a look at your blog and unlock it within four business days. Please note that if we do not hear from you within 20 days, we will remove your blog.  If this blog does not belong to you, then you do not have to do anything.  Any other blogs you may have will not be affected.

   Since you are an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not spam.  We find spam by using an automated classifier.  Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog is flagged incorrectly.  We sincerely apologize for this erroneous result.  By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to users like you instead of to spammers.

   Thank you for your understanding and for your help in our spam-fighting efforts.

   Sincerely,

   The Blogger Team

ok now that's done. some updates. yesterday during group meeting everyone went around and gave some updates on research. the problem was that when it came to me, dr. cui just kinda skipped me and went on to something else. even though i dont' really have anything to work on currently, but he assigned me to read some papers last week. and i thought i was going to at least give some feedback on the papers. so that kinda bothered me a little bit since usually he still asks me to talk about something no matter what. =\

today i'm in the office, the plan is to finish all the hw that's due next week, and then go to the rec center in the afternoon. and tomorrow i can read the papers that i was supposed to read.

watched butterfly effect and yesterday once more with ruby last night. =) makes me happy when we can just stay in and still have a good night. good times.

rating for 02/22/08a: 7
 

struggle.

last few days i haven't been able to sleep very well. partly because there's a lot of stress from school and parents, and also poor elvin has been sick so he's been coughing a lot at night. really feel bad for elvin though, because when he coughs he seems so sad. and it's been like this for almost a week now i think. trying to think how i can get some children's cough syrup... =\

talked to advisor about research the other day. he asked me to read some papers of sdp relaxation applied in communication. i found some literature on the topic. some of them are a bit old, but i thought i'd start off on the older stuff first and get a solid foundation. i know some of the general concept in this area, but there's always some small details that i didn't understand that well from some papers from last semester. so for this week, i'm going to read steven boyd and lieven vanderberghe's semidefinite programming and see if it offers anything new to my understanding.

last night's lab was rediculous. didn't get home till about 9:15. =(

rating for 02/20/08: 7

a recap on the past few days.

saturday was a good day. i went to the office to do some work during the day. and at night ruby and i went to dinner at pho john's with hksa, and then afterwards, we went ice skating at arctic wolf. i have never gone ice skating before. it was a lot of fun. i was happy that i didn't fall at all. and i was getting pretty decent by the end of the night. oh yeah also, before that we watched the third period of tamu vs. texas tech hockey game. i think 6 goals were scored by the two teams during that time. it was pretty nuts. then we went to play uno at wilson's. and when we got home, ruby's roommates were completely wasted and doing all kinds of funny things, which deserves to be told in a story of its own, but in the interest of time, we'll leave that off for now.

on sunday, i went to the office for a couple of hours, and then went to the rec to play bball. it was tiring as hell since i had to walk all the way from zachary to the rec, and then after bball, i had to walk from rec to msc to catch the bus. as a result my legs are basically made of jello right now. nevertheless it was good. i'm glad that i got to exercise.

today is off to a slow start. just finished doing the take home part of the exam for digital communications. and now it's lunch time. more later i guess.

yay! 4 months! =)

optimism.

during group meeting yesterday, no one gave a presentation. so we just went around and talked about what we have been doing this week. for me, that basically means nothing since anthony so hasn't gotten back from chinese new year vacation yet. to be honest i don't know if i really want to work on a project jointly with anthony basically because his work is very theoretical and i just don't know how far i can go with all the math and the theory. i think it'd be better if my advisor can find something more practical. so we'll see.

i realized that i haven't gone to the rec center in quite a while, and i think i really need to make sure from now on that i go on a regular basis. it's one thing to make sure that i continue to grow intellectually, and it's another to keep up in a physical sense. so with that said, i'm going to try to go to the gym at least once a week, hopefully twice.

rating for 02/14/08: 6

you had things that were yours,
i had things that were mine.
we put them all together,
and everything was fine.

but you stretched and you tore,
splitting it to two,
in one hand half of me,
the other half of you.

6:46

4:02

3:12am can't sleep still

haven't felt this shitty in a long time. funny thing is, i didn't do anything wrong, yet i'm still the one getting hurt...

i'm not a stone. i can't take a beating like that and still survive.

edit: the left half of me just died

edit:

there is nothing but a dead silence now. i think everyone left already. i don't think i have been this lonely before. ok, maybe that's not entirely true. come to think of it, that drive from sd back home was pretty bad especially since i almost fell asleep at the wheel. but this is definitely one of the worst ever. my family's far away. i don't really have friends here, and even those i know probably can't do much to help. i just want to dig a hole and get inside until everything passes. ever have that feeling where you see nothing but blackness in your future? that's kinda like how it is right now. this is why i totally understand people who are suicidal. even though, i don't endorse it, but at least i think emotionally and psychologically, i think i know what's going on there. it's a scary feeling though. it really is. i really didn't think i was going to come back to it again. even when i tell myself to block it out, i can't help but feeling the effect of it. like a hole is being bore right in front of you. something used to be there. flesh and bones with feelings, replaced. with emptiness. a walk might be helpful if i wasn't so tired and unmotivated. the thing is, no matter what, no matter how i felt before, it always always gives me that feeling like i need cry. and cry hard.

i wasn't going to be lame and post lyrics on this blog, let along lyrics that are not in english, but i really do like this song by 五月天 (may day), a taiwanese band. so here it is:

當　我和世界不一樣　那就讓我不一樣　
堅持對我來說　就是以剛克剛
我　如果對自己妥協　如果對自己說謊　
即使別人原諒　我也不能原諒

最美的願望　一定最瘋狂　
我就是我自己的神　在我活的地方

我和我最後的倔強　握緊雙手絕對不放
下一站是不是天堂　就算失望不能絕望
我和我驕傲的倔強　我在風中大聲的唱
這一次為自己瘋狂　就這一次　我和我的倔強

對　愛我的人別緊張　我的固執很善良　
我的手越骯髒　眼神越是發光
你　不在乎我的過往　看到了我的翅膀　
你說被火燒過　才能出現鳳凰

逆風的方向　更適合飛翔　
我不怕千萬人阻擋　只怕自己投降

我和我最後的倔強　握緊雙手絕對不放
下一站是不是天堂　就算失望不能絕望
我和我驕傲的倔強　我在風中大聲的唱
這一次為自己瘋狂　就這一次　我和我的倔強

我和我最後的倔強　握緊雙手絕對不放
下一站是不是天堂　就算失望不能絕望
我和我驕傲的倔強　我在風中大聲的唱
這一次為自己瘋狂　就這一次　我和我的倔強
就這一次　讓我大聲唱

啦啦啦...就算失望　不能絕望
啦啦啦...就這一次　我和我的倔強

this is really the only chinese songs i listen to, but i really think i should get more songs from them. the thing with music these days it that you rarely find creative and meaningful lyrics. everything is so homogeneous. so when you do find something good, you kinda want to hold on to it.

anyway, probably should get back to studying. FVD.

struggles.

haven't gotten a chance to write an update for a few days. been kinda busy. today i had my first midterm of this semester. it was in digital communications. i don't think i did as well as i had hoped since i understood everything taught in the class up to this point. from what i have heard about the teacher, he likes to give hard tests, but he's a fair grader. so we'll see what happens. it shouldn't be that bad.

just finished doing hw for wireless comm. gonna probably type it up tomorrow morning so i can turn it in at noon. took a while for me to do the derivation for the 2 ray model. but thanks to meng, i was able to finally do the approximation using the formula he gave me.

haven't read for dsp in a couple of days. really should make sure i read before the quiz on friday.

haven't really been doing research since school started. there's simply nothing really for me to do. in a way i think that is good, since it gives me more time to focus on the classes. but also, it makes me feel a bit guilty since i'm basically being paid for doing nothing.

anyway, need to file for degree plan this semester. thesis or nonthesis?? need to decide... soon.

rating for 02/13/08: 7

struggles.

yesterday was very inefficient. i did pretty much finish the group website, but unfortunately the group picture needs to be updated, so at some point i think we need to all get together and take a picture. as of now, the old group picture is on the home page. that's why i haven't put the site up yet. need to think of something to put on the home page other than the old group picture.

got to read for wireless a little bit. even though the channel modeling part is pretty difficult but since i have already gone through it once, and dr. cui talked a little bit about it, this time around, it made more sense. the mathematical part is so crazy though.

today is going to be a long day. 3 hours of lecture for two classes plus a lab at night. better get started on the work.

rating for 02/05/08: 5

confusion.

since i have about 4 minutes before i absolutely need to start working, i'm going to make this short. yesterday was somewhat productive. advisor asked me to fix the group website, so i got around to change some of the stuff. still need to do some photoshopping though. hopefully it will be up before the end of the week. i should post the link when it's done.

did a little bit of hw for wireless comm. and then spent about two hours on looking for a summer internship position. *crosses fingers*.

rating for 02/04/08: 6

optimism

yesterday was not very productive in terms of school work. but over all it was not bad. i finished doing the matlab problems for digital communications. think they should all be correct. in the afternoon i went to play basketball. it was the first time in a long time that i played for about 3 hours. afterwards i was exhausted, but it felt really good. i think a few people that i play with are going to start intramural soon. maybe i should participate. if i have some time to spare that is.

today is going to be a busy day. a lot of small things to work on. shouldn't be too bad i think. must go now.

struggles.

today over all was an ok day. i spent most of the morning reading this one paper that my advisor asked me to read for the past two weeks. it's a very difficult to read mainly because of some of the concepts related to graph theory and rigidity theory applied to sensor networks. as a result, i started reading these other reference papers to help me understand some of the ideas. but those were not very helpful either.

group meeting was scary. not because advisor asked me to give updates, but because he didn't say much after i told him about what i have been doing. he told me i might be working with anthony so on some problems that he has been doing. but since he didn't say much today, i think that might not be working out so much. and what's worse is that i don't know how much confidence he has in me about my ability to conduct research.

later in the afternoon, i got an email from him telling me to do the group website. that pretty much confirmed that i probably won't be working on any meaningful research in the near future. and that's pretty disappointing.

i walked by his office later and heard him talking to dr. liu tie about their respective students. i kinda wanted to stick around and see what they think of me, but decided to just not think about it and do the best i can in the task that is assigned to me.

after class, some of my friends went to carino's for dinner. they had some kindava special, so the place was packed. it took us over an hour before we got seats. but over all the food was very satisfying. it was also fun playing uno for a couple of hours after dinner. unfortunately, it's back to work tomorrow.

rating 02/01/08: 7