updates

ok so haven't written a post here in a long time. life has been incredibly busy again with finals and projects coming up. i'll make this short and to the point. about three weeks ago i did my first presentation during group meeting. i think i did fairly ok. was a little nervous of course. but advisor didn't grill me too badly. the preparation for the talk was the most difficult part. essentially i had to present something that was already proven to be np-hard most of the time. =\ anyway, i'm glad that i got to do that. finally feel like a grad student officially.

last week i skipped out on group meeting for the most part because i had a class at the time. of course on monday i was told that advisor made one of the visiting students cry. and this week she was missing from the group meeting. i think she's still pretty shaken up. words got around pretty quickly, think my advisor is going to get a reputation of making girls cry during group meetings. haha. but to be honest, i don't think it was his fault. the girl was never very well prepared during her previous talks. and also, it's obvious that her mind wasn't sat on doing the necessary work. so maybe crying is a bit too extreme, but at least she can use the reminder that she's here not to enjoy life, but to put in some hard work like everyone else.

last week i finished the project for dsp with my group. it was actually a very interesting and practical project where we took a wav file and converted the sound into readable notes. i thought that was pretty cool. at least much better than the stuff i have done before. now i just have to focus on doing the last two hw assignments and the two finals.

in terms of research, i'm back to where i started last semester. the problem is again taking a symmetric matrix and decompose it into two rank 1 matrices. i wasn't able to do that last year. but i'm thinking maybe i know how to do it now. hopefully the code i wrote before will still be useful. anyway, we shall see.

last week marks 6 months since ruby and i got together. =) were supposed to go to dinner last weekend, but both of us got really busy, so hopefully tomorrow night, we can finally go out to get some quality food. =)

ok back to work now.

ok so here is an update on how the last two weeks have gone.

had a midterm for digital comm class in which i came in #3 in the class. that was over all pretty satisfying. made a stupid mistake on the quiz for wireless comm. =\ was pretty mad at myself for that. but over all, i'm pretty happy with where i am in my classes.

research was actually going pretty well. i made a few breakthroughs in the over all progress. but the worst thing that could actually happen happened yesterday. during our weekly meeting, advisor raised one question about the results in the two sensor node amplify and forward case. he asked huang zheng to check why the optimal power allocation graph looks exactly like the equal power allocation case, when intuitively they should have some difference. after checking, it turned out huang zheng's original model formulation had errors. and everything we have done up to that point was wasted. =\ to be honest, i had doubts about it myself. but my job wasn't modeling and formulation. i was only to do the mathematical analysis after the formulation is completed. and what was even more emotionally damaging is that we were one small proof away from being able to maybe publish a small conference paper, in which i was going to be the second author at least. but now we have to start on a different topic from scratch.

had curry chicken from chef cao's last night. thanks to my baby. it was really good actually, but for some reason, i couldn't really eat even though i was hungry.

anyway, time to get back to work.

optimism.

so last week was spring break. i didn't do much studying throughout. probably deserve to be smacked for that. only got to write some of the code for the lab for digital comm and did some reading for that class as well. think hw and lab are both due on wednesday.

a few things happened over the spring break that deserve to be mentioned. one of the good things that happened is that i got to go to the rec center and play bball almost every other day. that definitely helped in terms of getting my body in shape and staying physically healthy. i realized that exercise is essential if i want to take on more difficult tasks mentally. there is definitely a strong connection between the mind and the body.

on wednesday, my advisor invited all of us to go eat dinner at this new chinese restaurant. i met this other master student who just graduated from UT austin. he also studied telecommunications. he just finished his program and was on his way to cupertino to work for apple. that made me feel pretty good about my future job outlook. i'm pretty sure he only did a master of engineering, which means no thesis. so that's something to be optimistic about.

for the second time ruby went to the rec with me. she went swimming while i played basketball. =) that makes me happy. think it'd be nice when we find an apt together, kinda tired of not having a place of our own.

totally going to focus on school again starting tomorrow. going to finish the year on a high note. + oil!

Do you take him to be your husband – to live together after God’s ordinance – in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon him your heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him as long as you both shall live?

confusion.

while walking by msc today suddenly i heard the song boulevard of broken dreams by green day. kinda suit the mood i guess. reminded me of back in about 2004 when i was addicted to that song. the lyrics is a bit emo i admit, but i guess it depends on the time of the day when you listen to it. billy joel armstrong is a freaking genius though. anyway, here are the lyrics:

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

-- boulevard of broken dreams, green day

also when i was walking down that long hall way in msc, i heard this really beautiful song being played on the piano. and the whole time walking up to it, i was wondering who was playing the piano. i mean since it's spring break, there's like no one on campus. and that lounge is completely empty. so when i finally walked to the end of the hall way, i saw this black guy playing the piano by himself. the funny thing was, i think this is the second time i have seen him playing the piano there now. i really wanted to just go up there and talk to him and ask what's his story. but then i didn't want to disturb his playing. i totally have a lot of respect for him though. i think someday i'll just go to msc and listen to him play, and maybe even talk to him. that'd be good.

call your mom.

worst fucking day ever.