The Domain of Steven

My life has been marked by lack of ambition. There is simply nothing I want thoroughly and continuously enough to diligently work for it day after week after month after year. I want things that make me happy, but that isn’t the same as needing them.

The distinction between want and need was one instilled in me by my parents early on, when I would rarely get things that my whims decided they wanted. I learned that really, I don’t need much at all. Most things are wants, and I can do without them. I’ll live without them. Don’t fret if you don’t get it.

What if I have applied this rule too liberally to my life? What if, in my (successful) attempt to insulate me from the pain of dejected desires I caused myself to never really deeply desire anything?

I know that is a false statement, though. There have been things I have wanted and believed in with all my heart, but as scars are wont to do, the failures are the ones that make themselves constantly evident to me. I believed in them, devoted myself to them, was willing to do anything for them. I turned myself into things uncharacteristic and unimaginable for them. And yet those causes were wrong. Totally, utterly wrong.

When I now look at them, I recoil. They make me unsure of whether I can ever again really trust my judgment. I recall the certainty with which I elevated my position, and the ruinous falls that would follow. How could I ever be sure of anything again? How could I ever pledge myself to something again?

It’s not that I don’t, but I feel like it has become too easy for me to abandon them if I need to. That when they’re declared void, I simply don’t care. It doesn’t affect me.

I don’t know why I’m fine. In a way, the fact that I am fine makes me think I am otherwise. The absence of feeling loss is what troubles me. All I feel is that, well, you didn’t really need them. You may have wanted them, but the fact is that you already have all you need. You had no idea of knowing whether they would have been any good for you in the first place, and there’s no use pining for losing what was ultimately a gamble. You ought to just keep on rolling the dice.

Do I not invest myself in people and causes anymore? Have I reduced them to dice, ready to be followed or forsaken according to whatever result happens to show up? Because I think it should hurt more than this.

Only jetlag and final papers can cause me to be conscious for a sunrise, and final papers don’t allow me the liberty to walk over to the BU bridge, hop the construction fence and take pictures of the beauty.

Sure, I let the end of my junior year go by without a single word to reminisce. And my summer web development job. And my trip back to NYC.

But all of that was the prelude to the main event, my trip to Japan. I leave tomorrow (today, Friday, really) and will be gone for a week with my brother, mom and aunt. Thanks to the time difference, my 14 hour nonstop flight to Tokyo will effectively take a day to get there and mere minutes to return. I will be taking meticulous notes linking my pictures to their descriptions based on time and date taken, because it’s unlikely that after the week-long trip I’ll remember in what context I took that picture of Hello Kitty or what caption I thought up for that strange mechanical contraption that looks vaguely like a sex toy.

Things I definitely want to cover:

• Pachinko. I don’t like gambling…but this is less gambling and more Peggle/Plinko + cute prizes!
• Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This sounds incredibly dull but AHHH MODERN ARCHITECTURE! Should be right near our hotel.
• DrumMania. Fuck yea, drums. There is no way I am going to pass up the chance to try out the precursor to Rock Band. My brother may link up with GuitarFreaks, but I don’t think either of us will try out KeyboardMania…BeatMania was bad enough.
• VENDING MACHINES
• Maid cafe? None of us speak fluent Japanese so this may be more awkward than it’s worth. And we can’t take pictures inside them anyway.

And as for you, viewers, just pray that my shutter finger is itchy and I don’t collapse from the extreme humidity over there this time of year.

This year was the first time I really got my full share of Anime Boston. The past two years I went to the convention, I simply milled about the dealer’s room and Artist’s Alley, perusing the wares with the presence of mind to only pick out a few select gifts for friends. The convention was just such a big event, my natural instinct was to take it slow and enjoy the scenery.

However I had had enough of just getting my feet wet, and so this year I went to the early badge pickup in preparation for making sure I would be able to see everything I wanted to. Did it work out that way? No, because I’m a lazy bum who hates waking up at a reasonable hour. But I did mark out everything I wanted to see, and then followed that whenever I did get out of bed. (Since Anime Boston is held just a few T stops away, it didn’t feel like I was wasting massive travel + hotel expenses on sleeping in.)

As with any good con, there was a variety of cosplaying, from the intricate to the overdone to the creepy to the hilarious.

The last is my requisite picture with something cute yet slightly creepy, as I had done the year prior. Apparently the Hello Kitty dude is from an anime called Hetalia: Axis Powers, but I didn’t know that at the time. I had simply seen this random guy in a big Hello Kitty helmet all over the place, and finally decided that I should take a picture with him. Yes, anime conventions are the one place you can walk around in a school uniform with a giant Hello Kitty helmet and be considered awesome even if no one recognizes who you’re supposed to be.

Interestingly enough, my favorite parts of the event were not anime at all. Two charismatic personalities ran an alternative roleplaying system panel (titled Beyond D&D), which was entertaining in itself but also gave my friend Elliot a few new ideas and sparks of inspiration for future campaigns.

On the second day made it a point to see the Death Note live action movie, which I approached very tentatively at first, since I’m usually not a fan of the typical over-the-top acting in Asian live action media. I was pleased to find that it was over-the-top in all the right ways, and followed the plot of the anime/manga quite faithfully even when changing elements to better suit the medium. There was plenty of enthusiasm from the crowd that watched it, which can be both a blessing or a curse, depending on whether you can actually discern the movie’s dialogue over fangirl squealing.

Interestingly enough, Anime Boston also had a formal ball, dubbed the Black Orchid Ball. The dress code consisted of suits, ties and dresses, but also encompassed formal cosplay. This meant military uniforms, kimonos, princess gowns (not Sailor outfits though). What did this mean? It meant that everyone in the room would look absolutely delicious.

The other big draw of the ball was that the dancing was also formal. As in, ballroom. A part of me was like, “What, those ballroom classes finally have some application in the real world? Score!” This part of me was quite ecstatic, and as soon as I learned about the ball it became the one event I made a point to attend.

The actual ball itself was a bit of a letdown, not because there weren’t enough people but because there were people. They fit within the maximum occupancy limit but it was quite overbooked considering that people were not going to be standing around the room, but instead moving around in the dance floor. Our classes at BU have 25-45 people on a basketball court and people still bump into one another; this dance floor was half the size and tried to cram in a lot more. I’m usually good with floorcraft, but I was irritatingly unable to maneuver without looking like a football player rather than a dancer.

I still enjoyed the dances I did steal, got a refresher on the dances that I already knew, and finally learned how to waltz! (It really does feel like gliding.)

Junior year is a scant few days away from coming to an end. Three finals and a paper, and I’ll be a free man, facing a trip back to NYC that coincides with jury duty, some more rest and relaxation surrounding Anime Boston, and then an internship in Massachusetts.

God that paragraph makes me puke. Yes, it’s a status update, but it doesn’t really say what I want to say, what I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while. This and that, little things that I never dug up the resolve to post about. Mostly because I was just never in the right mood, the one that used to strike me a lot more frequently than it does now. But sometimes you have to write. And so to get it out of the way, pictures of what Boston is like right about now:

It’s warm, it’s humid, it’s rainy. It’s a Boston spring transitioning into a Boston summer. My favorite picture is the last one, of a canned food drive in the center of BU where the man is doing all the work while the girls lounge and socialize around him. We had a few freak heat spikes, including a sweltering day of 93 that caused me to seek refuge in the well air-conditioned basement where I am employed, but it has settled into a stream of low 60s that stay humid enough to make it feel hotter.

(Insert totally smooth transition to massive dance geekery here!)

I still doubt that my personality has changed, but the rest of me sure seems to have done so. The most drastic shift has been the one towards ballroom dancing. Yes, towards. My first foray was way back in CTY, when I experimented with swing dancing, one of the Sunday extracurricular activities. Total failure. I was quite dissuaded from dancing, convinced that I would be terrible at it if I tried again.

It took a summer overseas, sociable coworkers, and a drink for good luck to convince me to try again. Modern jive nights quickly became the highlights of my week, and although I was not able to find it in the States, I dipped my toes into a much bigger pool by joining a ballroom dancing class here at BU. We tried rumba and tango, which taught me that not all dances for me. Rumba did not click with me, but tango was worth sticking with for another semester, as I signed up for another ballroom dance rotation and a class specifically for tango. Which is how I ended up here:

We had an informal competition in our penultimate tango class, meant to give us a taste of what an actual competition would be like. Most dressed up, although it was not mandatory, and my partner herself eschewed such garb. Elizabeth suggested I wear a black dress shirt, as this was in line with her image of tango dancers, but I didn’t own one and had to make do.

We practiced for a few hours on the two Fridays before the competition, which was as much for us to become familiar with each others’ dancing styles and patterns as it was for me to teach her a few new moves. Every leader leads and every follower reads a little differently, and so we had to be sure that we were on the same page. I knew that neither of us were on the same level as the better students in the class, so I brought in a few new moves from my first tango class to give us a fighting chance.

And we fought damn well, ranking fourth out of the eleven couples that competed. The top three were phenomenal, so I am more than happy with fourth. We all danced in a preliminary round, then in a very Drumline-esque fashion the teacher walked around the room tapping the shoulders of those who had to leave the dance floor. Tense. You were already spoiled: we were not tapped. Us six finalists then danced a final round where the teacher and the classmates who did not compete voted on who they thought was best.

We had one particularly flashy move that I made sure to whip out whenever we made our way past the audience. This spot of personal pride was waxed several times afterward, as a fellow dancer asked me to show him the steps and it would later become the last move we learned in class.

Finally, these are just for fun. Way back when when I came back to Boston after Winter Break I saw these Pepsi ads in South Station.

My database project got full marks. I’ll leave it up for a day before I shut down the server. I got all the way to #88, Grimer, before I got tired XD . Credentials for existing users are firstname@bu.edu and password = password.

I incorporated a picture recommendation feature that looks at your pictures, determines the most common tags among them, and then returns five other pictures that include the most of these tags. This is most evident with Generic Trainer (generic@bu.edu, password) who has only uploaded Grimer and therefore is recommended purple poison Pokemon. Steven Li (steven@bu.edu, password) only uploaded Charmeleon and Charizard, so naturally he is recommended Charmander and to a lesser degree other fire, red, or lizard Pokemon.

All in all, it was a fun project that I should have started earlier. I had a blast just pumping out code, throwing it online and seeing it stick. I managed to whip it up in the space of three days, and while it is not shiny, I like how it turned out. And, you know, that it turned out at all. Debugging is such a time and morale-consuming unknown…

They [robots] operate based on programs which, no matter how complex, follow rules. As broad as the scope of these rules may be, they are unable to do something that they have not been programmed to do. Human responsibility is derived from our ability to act outside of our scope: to recognize what we are doing, recognize the rules imposed by society, and then intending (under no other rule imposed upon us) to break them. - My philosophy paper

Yet their strength and their speed are still based on a world built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong, or as fast, as you can be. -Morpheus

OH MY GOD I DID NOT MEAN TO RIP OFF THE MATRIX

In related news, the wild late-night birthday party the Spanish apartment across from me is having makes me happy and awake as I write the rest of the paper. They’ve played everything from I’m Shipping Up to Las Avispas to Free Bird and Wish You Were Here. They sing nicely for the Spanish songs and awkwardly for the English ones, though to their credit they know all the lyrics.

In class today, the teacher asked, “So what do you guys think? *silence* Well I guess you aren’t thinking, because you were up all night writing the paper. And so I guess you didn’t read the article either. *tangent*”

For my databases class we need to design a photo-sharing website, along the lines of Flickr. Users can register and upload photos, assign tags to them, search photos by name or tags, and have photos recommended to them based on the tags.

Someone asked whether we would be given stock photos to upload to our site. No, the teacher replied, we would have to provide our own. Well good thing I have something in mind.

I am going to upload the original Pokemon and tag them based on their type and possibly family. “Like Pikachu? You might also like…Raichu, Electabuzz, Voltorb…”

The chilly, moist air reminds me of English mornings.

You know you have been programming for too long when you end an English sentence with a semicolon.

(Semicolons are used to end a line of code or statement.)

Two days ago it was 50 degrees. Today it is snowing. I suppose Hell did take back its heat?

Both of my dance classes this week had more guys than girls. I’m going to buy a lottery ticket now, because if one statistically impossible event happened twice in a row, a third may just be the charm for me!

The only parts of my CS theory class I fully grasp are the random jokes the teacher dispenses that are vaguely related to the lecture.

God gave the three best possible merits to Russians. However, to be fair, he would only give two of three to any one person: honesty, intelligence, and party membership. [This was printed in a Communist newspaper, but with a very large end note, explaining that party meant Nazi party, obviously.]

Prior to World War 2, Russia had near-unlimited manpower and extensive funds, which were pooled with the intent to make Russia a bastion for academia. They gathered the best minds and set them to the task of perfecting weather forecasting. Yet even with all these resources, they were only able to attain 40% accuracy. They were thus astounded that a small town in Russia was able to predict the weather with 150% efficiency compared to their national weather forecasting center. The leaders of the center traveled to the town, eager to learn how they were able to achieve 60% accuracy. The town forecaster responded, “Easy, we just take what you say and tell people the opposite.”

Today in my databases class, I absorbed a programming concept by mentally comparing it to a Dungeons and Dragons combat mechanic. This is almost as bad as when I learned a Mahjong rule by comparing it to Magic the Gathering spell speeds. I feel like the biggest dork in the world.

(In SQL, you can create a trigger command that will execute when a condition is met, either before the event or after it. In D&D, immediate actions can be performed when a condition is met, either before the event if it is an immediate interrupt or after the event if it is an immediate reaction.)

(In Mahjong, you are allowed to claim a tile in order to form a set. If multiple people try to claim it, preference goes in order to: winning hand, identical tile set, consecutive tile set. In MtG, if you play a sorcery (consecutive), others can play instants that resolve before it (identical). Split second cards (winning) have priority over all other cards, however.)

ARGH FUCK YOU PEMDAS I WASTED FIFTEEN MINUTES OF MY LIFE TRACKING DOWN THAT BUG

This weather…where’s it’s cool enough to not worry about wearing too much, where it’s warm enough to not worry about wearing too little, where it’s cool enough to be active outside and feel great when your body responds, where it’s warm enough to feel cozy if it doesn’t…I like this weather. I love this weather. I want this weather for the rest of my life.

I learned my first dancing dip. God it’s awesome. It’s infinitely smoother and sexier when the teacher demonstrates it (either leading or following), but it still feels damn slick.

My pet peeve though? Spinning. I absolutely hate when I have to spin, because I get quite disoriented. I have a much greater appreciation for the followers now, and especially for modern jive followers, since just about every move ends in one or two spins. Thankfully, as the leader, we don’t spin unless I say we spin, and you know what? Maybe I’ll make you spin while I do something equally awesome that doesn’t leave me pointed in the wrong direction two feet away from where I should be.

Having finished A Song of Ice and Fire, a brilliant medieval series with a touch of fantasy, I find myself restless. Back in elementary school, middle school and high school I would devour books, my hunger a near-insatiable entity that usually lingered around the sci-fi/fantasy section of the library. I didn’t have a whole lot of people to talk to books about or glean recommendations from, and I was introduced to great authors like R.A. Salvatore and J.K. Rowling often by happenstance, but once I picked up the scent of something delectable I would quickly consume everything and anything I could get my hands on.

For a long time my mother and the people she knew had been the biggest contributor to my literary travels, and for good reason: book smarts come from reading books, and so they were all in favor of finding more books that interested me so that I would continue to read and absorb and think and learn. They weren’t deliberately meant to push the boundaries of my vocabulary, but the genres I gravitated towards: fantasy, science fiction, horror; they naturally had strong writing styles that facilitated their strong tones.

While the romance section was always located next to the sci-fi/fantasy section, I always felt awkward about approaching it, not to mention deterred by the over-the-top book covers. And so I’ve never read a romance novel, though I’ve always been curious. The closest I’ve come has been in Mr. Gern’s AP English class, where he read a couple pages of a romance novel out loud in order to illustrate the use of some symbolism that eludes my recollection. It probably got lost in the giggling that ensued when our normally calm, soft-spoken teacher started talking about the taut muscles that rippled across our protagonist’s chest.

So it is with some apprehension that I start reading Twilight. I know it has a following, I know it has a movie, I know that it would give me conversation material with girls, and I know that it wouldn’t be this popular without a good reason…but that doesn’t mean I’ll like it. LazyTown has a following, but I’m not going to watch it unless there’s a very good reason.

But I keep hearing about it, and it’s impossible for me to isolate myself and just ignore it. At the PCSC we started up some idle chatter on one side of the room, and somehow the female customer brings Twilight the movie into the conversation. No one admits to having seen it but the two consultants who have girlfriends, who use their significant others as excuses. One didn’t find the movie very interesting; the other was of the same notion up until the end, where someone’s head gets ripped off. He felt that the movie could have been substantially improved if there were more decapitations.

The rest of us start asking questions about facets of the Twilight universe, like the ability to read minds, and eventually one of us just caves in and details the plot of the movie. Yadda yadda emo vampire, yadda yadda vegetarians, yadda yadda female human gets bitten and will die from the contact. Male vampire love interest sinks his teeth into her to try to draw out the poisonous vampire blood, but finds the contact ecstatic and has to be yanked away by others. A pause while we digest, but I’m not digesting. I see it hanging in the air there, and I make eye contact with everyone to see if anyone else sees it too. No one. I can’t leave it alone, so I pipe in, “So the moral of the story is…pull out?”

So it is with some apprehension that I start reading Twilight.

Fuck, mambo is fast.

The old car smell in my Intro to Philosophy room is rather distracting.

Also, the lesson learned today: you can pick up chicks by being a Neo-Nazi. I like this guy.

Before I begin my awfully long rant, aka TLDR: I like Boston University, and think that the college and campus are brimming with options and opportunities. The problem with my opinion is that I use the word in the singular. Mine is one voice in thirty-thousand, a staggering number of students each with their own opinion. My set of experiences is singular, as are theirs, and as will yours be. So like the five-second rule, drinking milk without sniffing it, and using a public restroom in New York City, YMMV.

To hear more voices from those teeming masses that attend or once attended BU, head on over to the Livejournal community called BUnite. Its members post everything from upcoming events to discussions about prospective classes, but they’re especially vocal about campus life. Around admissions time in particular you’ll find questions about the quality of life and whether or not one should make the jump to BU.

This started off as a Facebook message to my friend Janice who asked me what BU was like. I wrote a couple whopper messages as she inquired about specific topics, and like all my essays, they ended up being a giant conglomeration of ideas that still somehow flows from start to finish without being planning in advance. Someone else asked me not long after her, and I fed them some copypasta. It wasn’t until I received a third inquiry a year later that I said you know what? Others will surely benefit from my impressions of BU, why don’t I post them somewhere more accessible?

God this intro is a TLDR wall of text in itself. Actual entry gogo.

It almost feels as if I will negate its power by putting it in writing, but serendipity has a habit of finding its way into my life. I applied for an internship at MITRE out of pack mentality; everyone else was applying, saying it was a good place, so I figured why the hell not. I had extra resumes, so I stopped by their table. After perhaps the awkwardest talk ever with the recruiter, I handed off my resume and left without a second thought. I still had a very vague idea about what MITRE was. They were lumped together with all the government/defense contractors, who all apparently did something noteworthy yet intangible.

When they contacted me about a phone interview, I still didn’t know who the heck they were. And given that they recorded my GPA when they took my resume, I was wondering why the heck they were still interested. But again, why the hell not, I’d never done a phone interview before and it would be interesting. Interview starts, interview ends, the haze over MITRE’s domain was lightening but I still barely knew anything about them. All I knew that was within a day, they had decided they wanted to see me.

MITRE’s interview process was similar to Microsoft’s: they pay all the expenses for you to come to their office and run an interview gauntlet with several members of one or more groups. Complimentary livery service, free range over their nice cafeteria, and interview experience wrapped up into one nice package. Sure, this nice package required devoting a seven-hour block of my school day to it, but my afternoon schedule was clutch and let me slip the visit in without missing any classes. And despite my small appetite, I always find some way to make the most of all-you-can-eat meals. I probably didn’t finish half my wide assortment of food, and walked out with a Naked, gummy bears and yogurt-covered pretzels.

The interviews themselves were a rollercoaster. I did horribly with some people, did amazingly with others, got valuable interview experience and found out somewhere around the second interviewer that this was actually one of my dream jobs. I would get to work on fresh, client-oriented projects that would see high use and had users interested in seeing them succeed.

That is unfortunately where the fairytale ends. A month later I received a letter from MITRE that was too thin, and suddenly I was back with the rest of the pack.

And so it is with my full determination that I enter my next interview experience, this time for a Program Manager position at Microsoft. Over the past semester I’ve come to also believe that it is one of my dream jobs. This one takes a different track than the one at MITRE: PMs are more architects and overseers than coders. They research a feature, convince management that it is worth pursing, plot out its development and interfacing and then make sure that the programmers get it done. A career without coding is perhaps not what I envisioned computer science to be, but I believe it would make better use of my skills (write well, play nice with others) and be less demanding of my flaws (actual coding).

I compared MITRE’s interview process to Microsoft’s, and the difference between the companies’ sizes also correlates with their interview process. I still run an interview gauntlet, but this time I am being flown to Redmond, Washington for three days and two nights with taxi compensation and a generous meal stipend. I have no clue what a $40 dinner looks like, but you can be sure that my camera and I are going to find out. Since I’m staying there for the better part of three days, with an allowance for each, you’ll find three posts to be in order starting the night of January 5th.

Yesterday had temperatures that felt like summer. It made me feel like a college student, rather than a little boy all bundled up in jackets and scarves.

They all warned me. Cider was different, they said. Fermentation process, absorbed differently by your body, yadda yadda. All I knew was that it tasted a hell of a lot better than beer. I drank the wussy cider, Strongbow, decried by just about everyone I met who cared about alcohol. I didn’t understand much about alcohol, and I wouldn’t say that it tasted good, but I could drink it without cringing, which was a huge step up from just about everything other alcohol I had tried at that point.

And naturally, it tasted better the more I drank.

We were having an after-office party at a pub as a goodbye celebration for one of the interns. I asked for Strongbow, and was handed a pint. Fuck. I wanted just a half-pint, but the omission of a size seemed to have told the bartender that I was so badass, it should not be inferred that I would drink anything smaller than a pint. The word pint implies that something is diminutive, but there was nothing pintsize about this beast. 20 ounces instead of the standard 16 in a pint/Solo cup, its massive presence bears down on you as you precariously balance the topped-up glass to your table.

Barkeep, I am not badass. I weigh a smidge over a hundred pounds, and am not exempt from the stereotypical Asian intolerance to alcohol. Everyone else at the table knew this, and were rightly concerned about my ability to finish such a drink and still be decent.

I ended up surprising both myself and my friends. I had no problem downing it, and wasn’t feeling too bad for having drunk more in one sitting than I had cumulatively drunk in my entire life. I was buzzed, happier, both mellower and more outgoing.

We left to find a pub with a kitchen still open to serve us up some dinner. One guy knew of a great place within walking distance with great fishcakes. Sure, I guess, I like fishcakes. We pay a nominal cover fee and then go get our grub. I try the fishcakes, naturally, and I get a half pint of cider. I’d feel weird not drinking anything, and besides, I’d process everything faster with food in me.

This is where the story ought to take the turn along the lines of, Steven didn’t process everything faster, he instead drank that drink, got totally pissed, and was kicked out of the bar. Otherwise it’d be a pretty boring story.

This story will not disappoint, but it climaxed a lot faster than I thought (that’s what he said!). I had barely had a few sips and a few bites before I started feeling nauseous. I’m wondering whether it was the fishcakes, as my eyes glaze over and I clutch my stomach. The English intern asks if I’m alright, and I shake my head no, which shakes loose the stars that are multiplying in my eyes.

I’m escorted to the bathroom: I stand up, I walk, and then suddenly I am horizontal. I have no recollection of falling or landing, and in fact it took me a minute to get my bearings and realize that I was actually on the floor staring at the ceiling. I know it’s the ceiling because it sure as hell didn’t look like the room I was just in. I was later told that I had fallen by a group of girls who thought they had tripped me, and cried out, “oh my god, is he okay?”

I was feeling…not much of anything, I suppose. I didn’t feel myself hit the floor, could barely feel my limbs as I was helped up, and didn’t feel the hands on my shoulder slowly guiding me down the flight of stairs to the bathroom on the ground floor. At the time I was pretty scared I’d fall down, but thought to myself hey, I’m actually doing pretty well! Then I ran into a wall.

I see the toilet, but I don’t feel like throwing up. It’s just nausea, not anything worse. Air? Yes please. My mind recalls its map of the pub, but it’s tough when the static in my eyes obscures anything past my hands. This is where I definitely know I’m being led, out towards the cool air and much brighter static of the outside world. We pass the gate fencing in the pub and outdoor tables, and my friend explains to the bouncers that his friend needs some air but he’d be back. A password is exchanged, and then he’s sitting down in front of me as I rest with my back against a wall.

The air feels nice. I’m still way out of it, but at least I can’t fall. Hopefully. He says he’ll walk me home, but as soon as he heads inside to tell the other guys, I start to regain my composure. The static clears up slowly but surely; I can make out cars and a building and the street. It’s still bright as fuck but within a minute I can finally see colors and shapes again. It’s no more than two before my friend returns, and I’m feeling no more buzzed than right after I finished that first pint. I’m fine, I’m fine, but he insists on walking me the few blocks to my home. I oblige him.

He’s dubious the whole trip back that I’m alright, but chalks it up to a fast metabolism. Hit me quickly, but left just as speedily. We part ways at my door, and I go upstairs to wash up and settle in to get some shut-eye. The only part of the experience that I missed was the hangover, and for that I am quite glad. I got away quite scot-free, just a few scrapes on my hand from when I hit the wall and a few sympathetic queries from those who learned about my experience from my friend’s Facebook status. Damn my boss for actually using Facebook, damn him.

The French intern at my summer job learned English through British schools, and while he could passably converse with the rest of the Brits in the office, he found our American accents to be a rather big hindrance to comprehension. This amused me to no end.

I miss England sometimes. The company, too.

Perhaps it was the attention I received, not only as an American-accented Chinese (actually a minority for once) but also as an intern from abroad (of which I was the first). People were curious about me, about where I came from. They wanted to know whether everything they’d heard about New York City was true, and though I barely know the other side of my block, I had plenty of things to tell them about it. God, I had conversation topics. And each conversation, delightful in itself, was made all the better by hot British accents.

I was talking with Chris about my time there, since he is interested in studying abroad, and conveyed this sense of celebrity status. I would be singled out for being Asian, and pegged for an American once I opened my mouth. They’d ask almost immediately, “are you American?”

To the disappointment of some, I did not come back with a British accent, but Chris noticed that I was imitating a British accent when I quoted them. I hadn’t done it on purpose, I was simply relaying what was ingrained in my mind. The “are” was pronounced more like a gentle “ah,” and American used a “meh” in place of the “mare” sound.

When we imitate the British we make ourselves sound haughty, but when the British imitate us they make themselves sound like redneck retards. No joke. I also found this endlessly amusing. In fact, endlessly amusing would be a recurring theme while there, provoked by places like Poundland (as in currency, not weight) and conflicting concepts like suspenders. Everything there was different, and yet familiar enough to keep me insulated from the worst of culture shock.

Best of all? Net profit. Also, apparently I am the British definition of Filipino, as evidenced by their consistency in guessing my nationality.

The funny thing is, I did everything right. I did not jaywalk in front of the stopped bus, because I would have had a hard time looking at the traffic. I did not start walking once the light started changing away from green. I did not cross before cars had pulled to a stop. I was not the first one on the street.

Yet as I take my first few steps onto the crosswalk, I notice a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye. Just a biker zooming down one of the newly-painted bike lanes. With all these people crossing on a red light, no doubt he’ll slow down and stop. Safety in numbers, the creed of anyone who has ever walked through a shady part of town at night or crossed a Manhattan street.

But the flicker isn’t slowing nor stopping. As I turn my head, the flicker is no longer just a figment, it’s a biker mere feet away cycling straight towards me. Headlights, check. Deer, check. I’m caught.

I said a big fuck you to Newton right then and there, because his third law causes the biker to stop and me to start. The front wheel hits the side of my calf and I’m finding that my legs have gone on strike. I’m thrown to the side, amazed that I was actually hit by something when I see the biker and his mount fall over to the side in front of me. He must have been in shock too, cause it was a pretty slow and hilarious descent. His side saves his bike from further harm, though I hear some things of his clatter and crack as they fall to the ground.

Now remember that I’m not alone on this crosswalk. In order to reestablish my faith in the “safety in numbers” creed, the rest of the pedestrians gather around us and make sure we’re okay. I wave them off and tell them that I’m fine. My leg responds, and it’s just a dull pain rather than a sharp pain caused by movement, so I doubted anything was damaged.

My main concern is the other victim in the accident. In the heat of the moment I ignored the red light and thought the collision was my fault. My inability to move out of the way caused the biker to fall. I was fine, but how was he? Would he be pissed that I threw him off his bike? What if he broke something?

Barely coherent apologies came out of my mouth, only to be met by a stream of apologies coming from him as well as he stands up. I help him pick up his stuff, then limp over to the bus before it leaves or I get run over for standing in the street (again). I plop down onto the bus and then look myself over. I was afraid that I had scraped my palms when I fell, but I was actually wearing a jacket with sleeves that extended past my palms, which kept them from getting scraped up. Instead, when looking at my calf I find a small cut. I was wearing jeans which probably deflected some of the bite of the bike wheel, but it wasn’t just a papercut that I could ignore. I immediately went into treatment mode, once again glad that I am a walking first-aid station.

I would be feeling that leg for the next few days, but I got out of it much easier than I might have. And hey, I learned a valuable lesson.

Written for Elliot’s Dungeons and Dragons campaign as a snippet of the backstory to my character, Rurik von Diesel. The campaign is set in Eberron, but it could easily have taken place anywhere.

In this campaign Rurik becomes a duskblade, an elite swordsman who combines sword and sorcery. His constant drills and focused training allows him to wear ordinarily restricting armor while casting spells, and practice lets him perfect his signature move: channeling a spell through a swing.

First day of Ballroom Dancing, and while the teacher explains the BOOM CHIK CHIK CHIK beat all I can think of is Patapon. I had to stifle many grins and laughs, which would have made me look a little silly in front of all the girls. I say it like I was on show in front of the class, but when you’re one of only a dozen guys standing in front of three dozen girls, “in front of all the girls” is a very valid term for your level of exposure.

I feel bad for the females, being just one of many, with so few guys to pair up with. BUT NOW THEY KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE IN COMPSCI. (And so do I. It’s good.)

Also known as, get your shit off of Mike’s side of the room before he moves in.

I broke three digits. Thank you, English diet.

I saw my first rainbow today. It was awesome. The weather went from a downpour to cheery sunniness within the space of five minutes, and we were treated with some welcome warmth as well as that marvelous arc.

The pictures today would have been of that lovely sight, but my camera broke about a week ago, the result of a sharp drop on the floor. The official fix is to send your camera in and pay 75% of the original price. The unofficial fix, which has a surprising number of success stories, is literally to smack your camera against a table. This is perhaps the only case I have ever seen where the correct response to a hardware malfunction is to give it a good whack.

Sadly, it did not work. (Though it was fun trying.) I still have enough post ammunition left for the few days I will still be here, including a particularly juicy post that I’ve been putting off. Tomorrow night is really the only full night I’ll have left, as Thursday night is a farewell dinner (at a pub, of course) and Modern Jive, Friday night is London, and Saturday night is a plane flight that will only set me forward one or two hours due to the time difference. They will be an exciting few days.

Pictures are from my aimless wandering through Bristol.

The strangest part about England? That a small produce store two blocks from my dorm has a perfect record of only having absolutely gorgeous women working their tills.

Pic unrelated, obviously.

This was at a work-sponsored event at the Hotel Du Vin in Bristol, where my BU hoodie stood out amongst the sea of business suits and dress shirts. During the event setup there was a lull in the preparations, so some people went downstairs to the bar to get some coffee and hot chocolate. I stayed behind as I wasn’t about to shell out any money for drinks that would be provided later. At least not until they came back and told me that it was free. *bolt*

There wasn’t occasion to have anything alcoholic, and I still don’t drink coffee, so I found out what English hot chocolate tastes like. Considering the bartender made it from a packet, it was not much different than American hot chocolate, but at least there was a good deal of cute foam on the top. I spent a nice few peaceful minutes sipping away, talking to my boss when he meandered down, before I headed upstairs for some networking as guests arrived.

“Rural Devon” is actually the term the locals use to describe Devon. Exeter is simply the exception to the rule. Travel just a few minutes away from the city, and it’s like you’re in another world.

Did I really just go jive dancing? More importantly, did I just enjoy it? Did I take up plenty of space on the dance floor, spinning my partner about? Was I really energetic? Confident?

It’s such a stark contrast to my behavior right now. The Steven who will contently sit in front of a computer for hours watching anime or playing games seems completely different from the one who will walk up to a random lady and ask her for a dance, full of eagerness rather than nervousness.

Coworkers had convinced the other intern and I to join them for a twice-weekly jive dancing night held at the oddly named ballroom The Corn Exchange. Not really a ballroom, really, more like a large auditorium with a sound system and big fans that kept the temperature to a barely tolerable level once we started dancing. There were plenty of chairs, and a bar outside. The two regulars didn’t drink and dance, but considering I was more eager to dance the last two times I had alcohol, I figured that a little insurance would go a long way.

Placebo or not, I was enjoying myself. I didn’t shake or feel nervous. My partners’ levels of experience varied, but they all great fun to dance with. They all danced the same moves a bit differently, and I’m sure my style varied as well. I tend to extend my arm fully when moving my partner around, I felt like I was bouncing a lot, and I always seemed to maneuver us in a clockwise direction during freestyle dancing. But nothing was set in stone: you can do the moves however you want, as long as you and your partner are on the same page.

The biggest lesson? The man leads, and the woman simply follows. The man decides where the dance will go and signals his intentions to the woman, while the woman waits for cues and reads the body language of her partner. I was told this early on and it felt a bit unnatural and pushy, but it was necessary, and by the time the lesson was over and a coworker had taken me onto the dance floor I had no problem with it. It was expected and appreciated.

Only qualm? Prospects are slim when most of your partners are old enough to be your mother.

No pictures because I didn’t want my camera jostling around while dancing. Given the lighting and the speed at which we were moving though, I doubt it would have amounted to much if I did bring it along. To placate you, I bring you an honest to goodness Royale with Cheese.

Does anything more need to be said? Found in a small pet store within a market in Bristol, an hour’s drive from Exeter. Randomly wandered there after an event at the very nice Hotel Du Vin.

Steven Li
James Owen Court, C303
Sidwell Street
Exeter, EX4 6SD

The other intern and I had been wondering whether the Fourth of July had any special meaning here in the UK. They told us that for them it didn’t, but they’d make it special for us.

Nothing but the best for the American interns.

While waiting for the obscenely expensive train to arrive, I stopped by a Vodaphone vendor to pick up a pay-as-you-go phone. It was expensive, and its minutes follow in that tradition, but I was getting used to the notion that everything in England was expensive, and I have yet to find any prices contrary to that belief. It was worth the price though, because its alarm wakes me up and the phone itself lends me a bit of safety knowing I can reach people and be reached.

I originally brought my own cell phone for that alarm and timekeeping purpose, but found that because it could not get a signal it couldn’t calibrate the time, and would not accept a manual setting. But that’s really just an excuse to justify my (not actually very) shiny new phone.

Right off the bat I discovered the first perk of business class: you waited on a separate, priority line to board the plane. It still took some time for the people ahead of me to file into the plane, but I must have spent a good half hour enjoying the cabin instead of being slowly herded through the airplane connection tunnel.

Right away, I was treated to a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice and a travel pouch complete with everything from toothbrush/paste, earplugs, skin cream, eye mask, lip balm, and even dark navy socks.

I thought a lot of money went into the dinner and the lounge, but these cabins definitely showed their polish. The middle aisle I was in contained four seats, with the aisle seats facing the opposite direction that the middle seats. There was also a large, opaque, collapsible privacy screen separating the middle from the aisles. The other intern and I got the middle seats, but the cabin was empty enough that he moved elsewhere after finding that his seat controls didn’t work.

Each seat could pivot, tilt, and eventually recline into a bed if you pulled down a footrest in front of you. With both privacy screens up, you really didn’t see /anyone/. As this was a “sleeper” flight that travelled through the night, they dimmed the lights and served food only at the beginning and end of the flight.

For an additional meal, the food was actually pretty good. There was a small salad, a choice of either a beef and provologne sandwich or provologne and asparagus and zucchini, and of course drinks (orange juice, teas, hot chocolate, etc). For such a simple sandwich, it was delicious. Even though there were a scant two hours between my first meal and this one, I gobbled that shit down.

They also gave us a hot towel, petit four for dessert, a bottle of water, and some salted cashew nuts for if we got hungry. Apparently there was more of the same available in another cabin if we wanted it, but I was alright. Since it was only a five-hour flight, and I would have a whole day ahead of me, I needed sleep.

Normally I sleep (or at least doze) very easily, whether in a car, bus, or even a train. But something about the plane, whether it was the loud roar of the engine, the occasional tilt of the plane, or the new surroundings, made it impossible for me to get any sleep. I tried, believe me. Insomniacs, I feel for you, I was bored as shit. I pushed the button to prop my seat up, flipped out the tv monitor, and started channel surfing. They had at least two dozen channels, and extra channels with foreign subtitles. I rewatched a bit of There Will Be Blood and some of Sweeney Todd, which was surprisingly good. Both had Chinese subtitles. I then flipped to The Other Boleyn Girl, which lasted me until the captain turned the lights back on.

We were nearing Heathrow, London, so the stewardesses walked around again handing out hot towels. They followed this up by a light breakfast of a croissant, some butter and jam, a muffin, some freshly-squeezed orange juice, and some fruit. I was offered a bacon roll, but upon my inspection it was Canadian bacon. Outraged, I flung it into the stewardess’s face and cried out, “What is this blasphemy? You call this bacon? Well I call it a complaint sent to your manager!”

Snapping out of my reverie, I set the sandwich aside and watched strange television shows featuring British-accented hosts until we touched down, preparing myself for the unending amusement that comes from listening to English pronunciation.

In the coming weeks, I would not be disappointed.

Okay, I figured that the keyboards here in the UK might replace the dollar symbol with the pound sign. I can fix that. What I can’t fix are the small physical differences in the keyboard that are totally messing with me.

When I trained to touch-type, I took into account that the enter key and the shift key were pretty damn big. No reason to reach all the way to the other end of the keys when you can just hit the closer end. Simple and practical conservation of movement.

But England is like no you lazy American, work those pinkies! For the first day and a half I put a # at the end of my urls and a \ at the beginning of each sentence. And the rightAlt key is bent on world domination, because instead of alt-left moving me back a page, it rotates my screen orientation. I have no need for practicing my ability to read upside down, but what I do want is to be able to scroll backwards in peace!

My only victory was changing the keyboard settings back to a US configuration, so @ is back on top of the 2 instead of where ” should be.

This report doesn’t contain any confusing lingo, and even those with no Warhammer 40k experience will be able to understand it.

I was excited to play my first real game of 40k, at a tournament no less, even though I did not have my army with me. I instead played with whatever I could whip up out of the case of Eldar that the store had lying around, which was to say that it was nowhere near what I wanted to use. Odds were against me, but I was willing to give it a shot.

I was facing off against an Imperial Guard army, and true to their nature they showed up with lots of men, a good number of big weapons in poorly-skilled hands, and a number of tanks. Now normally this would be okay, as my Eldar are superior to them in every way but numbers. Even my lowly foot soldiers are superior to theirs. I just needed to close the distance and bring my weapons into range.

This is more difficult than it sounds, as we were facing off on what was essentially an open battlefield. He could bring all his weapons to bear on me at once, and there was no way I could get around that. He would pound with artillery and cannon fire, which would get more intense as I came closer and he could bring more of his weapons to bear. But with such a short range on my weapons, I needed to bring the fight to him.

I made my advance, and despite firing an enormous amount of heavy weaponry in my general direction, I managed to reach safer positions with only a few casualties; in fact, during the first turn of bombardment I didn’t lose any men at all!

I was able to knock out an entire squad of ten men in a single volley from my Dire Avengers, just as they jumped into the leftmost crater for cover. I had kept taking potshots at his vehicles with the few heavy weapons I had, but I couldn’t manage to do any damage.

So far, I had been doing very well. I survived an enormous amount of ordinance with the blessing of my psykers, and was practically at his doorstep. My weapons were in range and I could probably assault his units with my close combat specialists on the right.

That’s when dice figured I had had enough fun, and now it was time to end this lopsided battle.

I tried to rush in with both squads, hoping with both of them that I would kill a good portion of them but not all of them. This is due to a rule that forbids units from shooting at units locked in combat, for fear of hitting their allies. If I could stay locked in combat during his round, I would be protected from all his return fire and would mop up the squad just in time for my next round.

But as I said before, this is where my luck stopped. I needed my footsoldiers on the left to do well, and my specialists on the right to do poorly. The opposite happened: the specialists obliterated the squad they were fighting, and the footsoldiers were routed before they could even take out a single man.

So on my final turn, my foot soldiers were fleeing in fear, my monstrous creature was nearing the end of its life after being pelted at, my specialists were exposed in the middle of way too many guns, and my grunts were wondering whether it was a good idea to wake up this morning.

Long story short, they all get blasted to hell. The holographic illusions that were preventing his men from targeting my specialists didn’t work up close, my grunts were taken out in a single, well-placed artillery shell that pierced the psychic shield their warlock threw up, a krak grenade blew a big chunk out of my walking battle tower, and my foot soldiers were being pussies and ran the fuck away.

We shook hands again, and I went on my merry way. His way was merrier because this was an attrition tournament, where you move onto the next round with only the units you have left. I would have walked out limping even if that round of close combat turned out the way I wanted it to, but as it stood he walked out fairly unscathed.

It was fun, and I’d love to do it again, but next time I’m choosing the battlefield. They hold gaming nights on Thursdays and there’ll be another tournament next Saturday with armies three times the size we were using, so I’ll take this army and pair up with someone.

And now for the more detailed battle report. Everyone who is not Jason, Alex or Mike can stop reading right about now.

The list is pretty much the same, but I swapped my Dark Reapers for the Wraithlord and an extra Harlequin.

First off, balls, this battlefield was way in favor of his army. I had few weapons that could reach him before turn 3, the craters provided saves that were no better than my Eldar’s, /and/ I had to spend a turn exposed to reach them. He could bring all his guess weapons and autocannons onto me from turn 1, and the rest of his mortars, grenade launchers, and laswhatevers from turn 2 onwards. I had no option but to run at him, and it was an uphill battle all the way. The mission was to kill everything, so there was no way I could rush to objectives before he did. He was content with his massive gunline staying right where it was.

I am surprised the beginning of the battle went as well as it did. By the end of turn 2 I had lost just one Dire Avenger and two Guardians thanks to fortuned saves, and the Veil of Tears of the Harlequins was impenetrable. I lost only a few more as I continued advancing.

I had been firing my Wraithlord’s twin-linked Brightlance as he advanced, hoping to get into shuriken catapult (12″) range of the guardsmen. I also kept firing the Eldar Missile Launcher at his Walker, hoping for an easy takedown with just AV10. They were ineffective for the entire game; I managed only two shakens.

By the time my last assault round finished, I had already lost. My two Harlequins with kisses took out eight guardsmen by themselves; my opponent did not ask that I roll to see if the rest of the squad was able to take out the remaining two guardsmen. I didn’t want to waste my time either. The Dire Avengers lost initiative because they were attacking into cover, lost half the squad in his attacking round, and was unable to land hits with their power weapon or witchblade. Penalties negated the Farseer’s Ld10, and they fled.

So in a big turnaround my Harlequins were in close range of two units, with only 5+ saves to protect them, and my Dire Avengers were routed after being reduced to a man, an Exarch, and their Farseer. My Wraithlord had gotten down to a single wound, my Guardians were being disgraces to their craftworld, and my War Walker had not yet come out of reserves.

That brings me to my tally list of mistakes:

• I put my War Walker in reserve. I wanted to use his Scout USR to come from the sides on turn 2, negating some of the guards’ cover saves. This was a bad, bad idea. He never came out, and would have been made contributions to the fight had I put him in. With his 36″ dual scatter lasers I would have easily reached any of his units while staying away from all of his largest guns, and I could have laid down eight S6 shots from turn 1 at the guardsmen. Granted this only lets me kill 1.11 guardsmen a turn…but I could at least have taken out his Walker.
• I kept firing my EML at his walker instead of using a plasma grenade to pin the several squads he placed together. The walker was really only a threat to the Harlequins who were already safe with their Veil and Fortune; I needed to suppress the rest of the army.
• The Walker probably would have been a 1-hit kill if I used my Wraithlord, since his Brightlances were twin-linked. But I was able to hit the side armor of his larger vehicle, and I had thought that the EML would suffice for the walker…
• I assaulted with my Harlequins blindly. With my 6″ move I was definitely within 6″ assault, and in my bloodlust I fleeted to make sure and then charged everyone in. What I should have done was assault with as few of my units as possible by keeping my non-kiss Harlequin within 6″ assault, another non-kiss within 2″ coherency, and the rest right behind him. I would have assaulted with just a single unit in base-to-base, and a single unit supporting it. This would have made my best-case scenario more likely: that I killed off enough, they wouldn’t flee, and I would kill the rest on his round.
• I shouldn’t have assaulted with the Dire Avengers. I bladestormed the first unit with the intention to go to ground when he started firing. Then I could get back up next turn, bladestorm the remaining group in the crater, and then charge in. What actually happened was that I forgot to go to ground, lost guys, and then lost more guys when I tried to make the best of things by assaulting.

This was probably the worst matchup for me, with bad terrain, an army I had to wade through constant fire to get to, and a number of vehicles bearing down on me. A Tau army would have done considerably better, with their pulse rifles being able to form an equally impressive gunline right from the start and railguns able to take down his vehicles, while still being able to make use of cover themselves.

I don’t know whether my optimal list would have done any better, as my Avengers would have had to make the same trek, my Pathfinders would have been foiled by cover saves, and his heavy weaponry would have just gone straight through my AV10 Walkers on turn 1 since cover did not extend high enough to protect them.

A second list I thought up, with my Walkers being replaced by a Wraithlord with an EML/Scatter Laser and a few small bike squads, may have done better. My Wraithlord would definitely have been able to have more of an effect, with his laser and pinning missile causing havoc one unit at a time, but the bikes were for objective-grabbing and would thus be useless.

So I got creamed pretty badly. It was still fun, interesting to see that many 40k players around, to have people spectate your game. If I drop by and borrow the army for either a game night or the Apocalypse tourney, I will drop the Wraithlord and get my Dark Reapers back.

Random things I’ve learned while here:

• If you’re cooking meat and don’t know if you’ve cooked it long enough, do not take a bite out of it to check. Squishy = bad.
• Rock climbing barefoot is an exercise in pain tolerance. Don’t do it.
• A sunny day can and will turn to rain soon enough.
• Don’t make a big pot of stew when your only dormmates are vegetarians and you have nothing to keep it in.
• With this many side streets and footpaths, there is always a faster way of getting where you need to be.

I was told to do something crazy. Well, this one’s for you, Jen.

Company took us out to the Beer Engine in order to welcome us to Exeter. Everything was on the house, and this was perhaps the safest place I could do it in terms of company and self-restraint, not to mention I was in a country where it was actually legal…so I got a half pint of Silver Bullet, made in the brewery right there.

Wow, beer tastes like shit. It reminded me of this bitter tea that my parents make when I’m sick. Fish and chips were well made though, and the mango-apple juice I had to wash away the piss was quite good. And none of it coming out of my pocket was even better.

Walked over six miles today. It’s 1.2 miles to work and 1.5 miles to the gym, much of it uphill. It’s 1.5 miles from work to the shopping center/centre, and another .5 miles back home. Home -> work -> stores -> home -> gym -> home. If nothing else, I’ll be more than prepared for the walks in store for me this coming semester.

The other intern and I had been planning to book a coach at the airport once we arrived, and take a four-hour ride into Exeter. We arrived an hour later than expected, but there were trains all throughout the day, so we figured we’d be fine.

Pshh, no. We walked up to one of the self-service ticket terminals only to find that all the buses had been booked into the evening. Yes, all into the evening. We couldn’t get into Exeter unless we wanted to wait several hours at the airport and then arrive past midnight.

We took the backup option: a train service than ran from London to Exeter. It was more expensive, on the order of four times more expensive (69 pounds, keeping in mind that a pound is roughly two dollars), which is why we didn’t choose it even though it was a bit faster than the bus. We took two intra-city trains (shown) to Paddington, and then a Amtrak-type train all the way to Exeter.

i

When at the cash register I realized something: with this new currency, I don’t know how to count change XD . Two pounds, two pence, one pound, one pence, ten pence, twenty pence, fifty pence, I thought dollar coins were bad but this is ridiculous!

I was a little nervous last night, but today I’m simply excited. Not for the trip to England, no, I’m excited because I’m going to be flying business class. A few years ago this would have been called “first class” but airlines thought that having to fly “economy” was too degrading so they changed economy to first class and first class to business.

The Terraces Lounge in the British Airways terminal is a high class, spacious, well-lit waiting area for business class and club fliers. Instead of sitting on the floor by the crowded gate, in the lounge you don’t have to hear babies cry and kids complain, every single chair is plush, there are English and American snacks (from Milanos to cheddar cheese to Walkers cookies), and in the corner of the picture you will see a sign that says Pre-Flight Supper.

This isn’t just some sandwich and chips deal, no, this is a ritzy multi-course meal. Adobo marinated flank steak, samosas with mango chutney, stuffed fish, salad bar, fresh fruit…probably the last good meal I will have in a while considering neither my roommate nor I can cook. They serve us in the airport so that they can give business class fliers a quieter flight, with no hubbub of a flight attendant delivering meals. Of course that’s not going to stop me from asking for a bottle of water and some peanuts for the four hour ride to Exeter once I get off the plane.

I keep hearing British accents around me, and I can already tell that it’s going to be fun in England. My flight may be delayed to a thunderstorm outside, but I’m in no rush considering where I’ll be waiting. More to come once I get a picture of the cabin that costs four times as much as economy.

Yesterday was my second annual visit to the Licensing International Expo. Held at the Jacob Javits Center, it’s a convention that brings together brand owners and investors interested in licensing them. It gathers businesspeople of all stature, from independent artists in a one-man booth to industry giants in expansive and elaborate showcases. The expo is brimming with money, with deals being made around every corner and exhibitors trying to catch your attention, hoping that you are their next big client.

But as a lowly college student, what am I doing at the expo? What people usually do when in New York City: see the sights.

Over 400 companies set up lavish displays in the interest of ensnaring visitors, and as such the expo is full of eye candy and free candy. Indeed, part of the reason I attend is the promise of souvenirs. But strangely, I mostly attend to soak in the atmosphere. It is a world that I would otherwise not have known existed. It’s exciting being around so many different companies, so many inviting exhibits and product presentations that make you wish you had a legitimate company so that you could chat them up and give them support.

As one without such financial backing, I choose not to waste their time and not to push my luck. This year I floated around with Sally, Mike, Simon, Kenny and Brian. The expo was a bit darker than I remembered, just as pretty, but not nearly as bountiful. Last year’s convention was marked by Viz’s anime-themed photo booth, free blueberry muffin bites, stuffed animal prizes by Neopets, and Jim Benton signing postcard books. While Jim Benton was diligently still there, none of the others were. Viz instead had an intimidating monolith of a booth, and I can only speculate as to the dealings that happened inside. Neopets was cast down from the pedestal it held last year, going from a large open space to a mere hallway, a couple computer stations sandwiched between two very close partitions. It was a very different experience for me, Sally and Kenny, who were the only repeat attendees.

Different was still good, though. Brian and I diverged from the group in order to check out a piece of music-mapping software that produced visual representations of music as it was being played. It was to usher in a new method of learning music, where you didn’t just memorize finger positionings for guitar chords, you saw a 2d map of the strings you were strumming and which frets you held down, or the same information projected onto a 3d spiral. It would even show you the corresponding keys on a keyboard were you to play them. It was colorful and impressive, and I got to hear Brian play a bit on the acoustic guitar they linked up. I wanted to play on their drum set but it was being hogged. It was a well-made and most likely expensive booth, considering all the monitors and equipment, but not very popular.

We then found our way to the Neopets booth, if you could call the small firing lane a booth. I saw computers and bins with goods in them and was looking forward to winning whatever prizes they had. I was immediately thrown off guard when the exhibitor smiled at me and said “Oh it’s you! Back again?”

I was immediately puzzled. This was my first time stopping by, perhaps he confused me with another Asian? I started to correct him, because damnit I wanted my prize and I wasn’t going to let accusations of double dipping stop me.

No, he clarified, he didn’t mean I was back again this day. He meant back again at the expo this year. The exhibitor remembered my escapade last year at his booth, and I suppose I made quite the indelible mark. Their former setup included stations lined up with Neopets games running on them, inviting people to play them, and they would reward high scores with scaling prizes: bins full of different Neopet plushies of different sizes, a very high score netting you a bigger plushie.

I immediately went to work and farmed the shit out of that game.

“It’s no fun staying in the back and dodging the ice creams. Why don’t you move around?”
Because staying in the back gives you the most time to react and plan ahead. “Nah, it’s okay.”
*several games and one of each plushie later*
“You’re a gamer, aren’t you.”
…*smile*

This year, skill was not a factor: you clicked a button that spun a wheel of prizes. The bins were full of crossword puzzles and coloring books. I prefer to think of them as red herrings, though. The real prizes were tucked away in his belt pouch pocket: codes to redeem for in-game items, and Neocash cards. The nice exhibitor gave me a code, Brian $10 in Neocash, and we appreciatively scrammed. I figured my brother Mikey would know someone who played Neopets and would love the gifts, but he denies knowing or being associated with those who know about Neopets.

Another online game we stumbled upon was called Cookie Town, which was geared towards young kids. I admittedly chatted them up a bit because I wanted one of their cool cowboy hats, which they did indeed give me. Apparently Cookie Town was the brainchild of one of the brothers at the booth, who dreamed of a cookie town while stoned. FYI, do not tell people this. I do not feel comfortable introducing children to a game based on someone’s intoxicated fantasies, no matter how delicious when dunked in milk.

The highlight of the expo was over at the Comedy Central booth, one that I passed by but totally ignored. Brian unwisely pointed out that they had a Rock Band station, and I immediately sprouted hair all over my body and went feral, dripping saliva as I raced towards my glorious prize. I rent the drummer asunder and took up his spot without missing a beat. The guitarist and bassist stared at the mutilated former drummer until I let out a bestial growl and yelled at them in an unearthly tone, “KEEP PLAYING. IF WE DON’T FIVE STAR THIS, IT’S YOU TWO NEXT.” Compliance was not an issue.

The station was meant to attract a crowd, and featured a sweepstakes: if you played Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld and left a business card, you would be entered in a raffle for a Rock Band bundle. Damnit, the one time I really really wanted my company to be real!

I instead stood quietly to the side as the band finished the song. People wanted to try guitar, and so Brian stepped aside, but fewer wanted to embarass themselves on drums, and I gladly volunteered. Unlike somewhere like Anime Boston, very few of the attendees have ever played Rock Band, and I would say there are people who probably have not even heard of it or the console I was playing it on. I get stares as I scroll down to expert difficulty, and a concerned stare from the booth manager as I flip the foot pedal backwards. I end up playing the mind-numbingly slow Wanted Dead or Alive thanks to our lead guitar’s girlishly squealed mandate, and I leave with my appetite tantalized but unfulfilled. Brian and I return later towards the end of the expo when there is no crowd or band, and I convince him to guitar alongside me as I drum to Maps. I finish very content, but Brian’s handling of the Stratocaster set off a spark that, fueled by the real life guitarist in him, made him really want to play more Rock Band. Mmm, delicious convert.

We walk back in the oppressive heat, grab a drink at McDonald’s because $3.50 is too much to pay for a bottle of water even if it is in Javits, have our suspicions heightened that the M34 is a god damn bus of myth, and then take the AC-less train back to our stops. I realize that I’ve only eaten a mouthful and drunk two cups of fluids all day, and proceed to gorge myself after taking a much-needed cool shower. I then sit back, reflect on how much I liked the expo this year despite coming back with a light (but procured) bag, and start hoping that the Neopets manager will bring back those cute plushies next year.

I like technology.
Technology needs documentation written about it.
Those proficient with technology are typically not as proficient at writing.
I am proficient at writing.
I like writing.
I like manuals.
Manuals need to be written.

Let’s recap:

• I like technology. - Very common.
• I like writing. - Not quite as common paired with the first.
• I like manuals. - I am the only person I have ever known who likes manuals.

I love reading documentation. Before playing a game I will gladly dive into documentation and written resources headfirst, absorbing everything I can and getting a feel for the setting. I strive to find out what works and how to do it, what is worth doing and why they were worth including. I do everything I can to make sure that I know everything that pros know, that I’m at no disadvantage for my lack of experience. I spend the time climbing so that I can stand on the shoulders of giants.

Technical writing is perhaps the lamest job that fits my skillset, even lower than writing flavor text for games. But god, do I wish I could do them.

I thought that I would absolutely love fencing, find rock climbing interesting, and dislike drumming. Instead, I am passionately missing drumming, eagerly awaiting rock climbing, and only mildly looking forward to fencing.

I was entering contests when I saw one limited to ages 13-18. I got excited until I remembered I AM TWENTY WHAT THE FUCK?!

I will admit that this is the first time my ass has been sore. Still, going 8-2 against the other fencing students was worth it.

Also, thankfully, rock climbing only seems to destroywork out my forearms and hands, leaving the glutes and lower free for fencing to mangle.

I went into this semester resolved to take a gym class of some sort. Not because there was some requirement, not to get extra credits, but just because the opportunity was there.

I had always had an interest in fencing, but never joined the fencing club that started up the end of my last year of high school. Maybe I liked the idea of poking someone with a blade, or I thought that fencers just looked really cool.

I’m taking fencing this term as an hourly class twice a week for one credit over at FitRec, and it’s definitely as cool I imagined it. I enjoy the mind games that you have to play with your opponent to psych him out, to make him miscalculate, to make him become overconfident and set himself up for disappointment. I like the rising tension during the approach, and how time slows down as your mind speeds up during an attack. You’re always thinking, always alert, judging your opponent’s distance and reach in comparison to your own.

Which, I will admit, is usually an unfair balance for me. I’m rather short, and with short height comes short legs and short limbs. Compared to taller guys, I have little in the way of reach, and can cover less distance when retreating, advancing, or lunging.

Reach matters quite a bit in our first exercise. Before we’re allowed to hold a blade one class from now, we’re practicing everything else: footwork, right of way, and tactics. Instead of using a blade, we’re using a glove. This is saber fencing, which normally allows any kind of hit above the waist. For this exercise, we loosely wield a glove and have to try to hit each other in the chest or back.

To exemplify right of way, a fencing concept in which an attacker’s hit has scoring priority over a defender’s hit, we take turns attacking and defending. The attacker is allowed an advance and a lunge, during which the defender can make up to two retreats. Once the advance and lunge are taken, the roles are switched.

There is no blocking allowed, and actions can be of any length, so you do not have to take a full advance or a full retreat. This turns the exercise into one primarily about tactics and distance. The two fencers start out a good distance from each other, and advance closer while taking their turns. The object is to get your opponent to misjudge the distance at which he can hit you, so that he lunges and barely misses as you are retreating, ending up right next to you. Once that happens, he’s practically giving you the point, since you are now on the attack and can easily hit him.

In practice it rarely works out that way for me. Being rather short, I have a rather significant disadvantage in terms of reach and movement in this exercise. Since the attacker is only allowed a single advance, with their lunge not advancing them very far (only extending their reach), a defender with two retreats should actually be able to increase the distance between himself and the attacker, resulting in fencers drifting apart from each other if they take full retreats.

This is not so in my case; in fact, the taller people in the class can actually still hit me even if I make two full retreats, and I’m hard-pressed to hit them if they take two or even one full retreat.

I therefore have to be sneaky to win. I have to take my attack immediately after they finish theirs, to get them off-balance and to get them to make mistakes. I have to keep our distances under my control.

I want them to back off more than they should thinking that I’ll advance, putting him out of reach. I want them to not advance as far as they should to hit me, thinking that I’ll retreat.

Feinting to achieve those results is difficult, to say the least. It’s absolutely thrilling and absolutely tiring. You’re moving all the time, and if you’re not moving, all your muscles are tensed, and if your muscles aren’t tensed, you’re probably going to lose the point. After a dozen bouts, you’re caught up in a exhausted but focused trance where you forget about the half dozen matches around you and only see your opponent. All you see are his movements, his reactions, his responses to you toying with him and his frenzied attempts to try and outmaneuver you.

And just like that, it’s over. The world rushes back to me and I’m smiling, being a good sport and laughing with my opponent about how he just barely caught me. We walk back to our sides of the room, take a slow breath, turn around, assume a ready stance, and the world slowly dissolves once more as we begin our approaches.

I’m not sure how I’ll do with a blade in my hand, but I can’t wait to find out.

Here’s to a semester where I wasn’t ashamed to tell people how I was doing in school, where I didn’t habitually cut classes, where I was proud of my work and myself, where I lost friends and met new ones, where I entered more contests than I’ve ever entered, where I won more contests than I’ve ever won, where I realized the path I should be heading along, where I discovered even more about myself, and where I finally picked myself up off the ground.

Here’s to success. Here’s to motivation. Here’s to foolishly fighting the fight and forgetting to fascinate. Here’s to falteringly forgiving the forgotten. Here’s to obfuscation.

Here’s to the one semester I would not have done any other way.

My 3-day trip to New York was amazing, and both Shelly and I came back with twice the load we departed with. The majority of my load came from Saturday, when I went with my brother and the FIT group to attend the Digital Life convention at the Jacob Javits Center. I knew it was going to be a consumer electronics expo, but I wasn’t quite ready for the sheer amount and size of the electronics on one small showroom. There were TVs bigger than both of my monitors put together, computer towers nearly as big and probably three times as heavy, and sexiness emanating from even the lowliest of booths.

Was it as good as the Licensing Expo? Despite both conventions being showcases, they were entirely different breeds. The Licensing Expo had gimmicky free stuff: lots of pins, buttons, stickers, and a couple good items like a Happy Bunny postcard book. Digital Life’s freebies were a lot less plentiful but more useful, things that people would use and remind themselves and others about the product: Microsoft popcorn and playing cards, Lord of the Rings Online trial DVDs, and a Newegg poncho. Being the officer of the MMO club, I felt it was my duty to procure goods for our members, and took a whole nine full-size DVD cases from the piles that were being constantly replenished. It wasn’t until later that I found out that the installer was available online and trial keys could be sent to your email address. Oh wells.

The big notables were the video games. They had computers that ran Bioshock beautifully and still smooth as silk, two DDR arcade machines, dozens of PS3s and 360s, and several unreleased games: Crysis, Guitar Hero 3, Team Fortress 2…the first hour at the convention was really just me going from booth to booth gaping at the live games that were being played on these monster rigs and screens. I’m not so sure I like Guitar Hero 3’s interface, but my opinion might have been soured by the long lines for everything worth playing .

But the absolute best part? Totally whooping the Geek Squad’s ass at 3-question computer trivia, and winning a USB hub in the process . Working as BU tech support finally pays off (well, other than in the literal sense XD).

The last day was spent playing with not one, not two, but three linked Xbox 360s, with three matching televisions, three copies of Halo 3, and 10 controllers (sorry to break the sequence of 3’s). I donned the mantle of SomeRandomGuy so that people could say “Woo, I just killed some random guy!” and “Damnit, some random guy keeps sniping me!” Unfortunately it was more of the former than the latter, but I eked out a spot in the middle of the leaderboard, which is good considering my inexperience with console shooters. Regardless, it was crazy fun for all of us, with lots of jeering and screaming and teabagging. Shelly came back with a 360 of her own, opening up the possibility of four-player Halo 3 co-op with Megan’s 360 . Toss in Bioshock, MMOGS meetings, and RPG games, and I’ve got a lot I want to do and not a lot of time to do it with. College is definitely in full swing.

The beach epitomizes nearly everything I react badly to. Sand gets everywhere and precludes everything but sandals (which I never wear), the Sun is blinding even when there isn’t an expanse of sand reflecting it, the heat causes me to break down, and extended periods in water have the same effect. But when I went there last Saturday with my friends, it wasn’t like that at all.

In fact, I rather enjoyed it.

My main problem was the heat. I had a pair of comfortable slippers from home, and my sunglasses were in working order, if a little crooked. That was easy. On the beach, I thought there would be no reprieve from the oppression of the infrared rays bearing down on me from all sides. I brought a spray fan in preparation for dealing with the heat, but I was afraid that it would remove my sunscreen, so I kept it tucked away until absolutely necessary.

But like most theorycraft, I forgot to account for something: wind. There was an incredibly pleasant breeze blowing throughout the beach that kept me cool while under the beach umbrella that Shelly provided. In fact, I was hottest when not on the beach! The line for a $2.75 Nathan’s hot dog, no matter how famous, was windless and way too hot. And the hot dog wasn’t even that crunchy…

The food, as expected, was overpriced. Thankfully, my friends and I were able to find small bastions of cheapness, like vendors selling dollar cans of soda and water, as well as dollar icee carts. I didn’t know there existed icee carts that do not carry some form of lemon, but I wasn’t about to complain in the face of the equally awesome pineapple.

This was all to refuel our bodies after volleyball. I’m not a big fan of it, but that didn’t keep me from chilling out in the shade while taking pictures of the action as well as the awkward, compromising positions they occasionally ended up in. I was a bigger fan of frisbee, which I found Joanna, Yi, and the Stuy robotics team playing a ways down the beach. I got to toss around a frisbee whose primary purpose was something other than a shovel, and then headed down to the shoreline to take my first steps in the ocean.

I’ve lived a life with a set of tempermental skin, and when I looked at the seaweed, shell, and debris-filled ocean, I was a little skeptical to say the least. If I stepped in without my slippers, I would feel all kinds of things underneath me and around me, but if I stepped in with them on, the same things got caught inside of it. I resigned myself to keeping my slippers on (I didn’t want them to get stolen or washed away) and moving when the tide was at a standstill. It was surprisingly cool, and I didn’t melt or molt. When I returned to my original group, it turns out they wanted to go into the ocean too, and I took bolder steps. I still didn’t plan on going much farther in, so I left my camera, wallet, and cell phone in my pocket like I always do and started wading in while holding up the ends of my shorts. There was noticeably less debris as I got farther out, possibly because the same debris is washed back and forth when you’re closer to the shoreline. I got a first-hand glimpse of how much less debris there was when my friend Mike snuck up on me and pushed me over. This was in direct violation of the verbal contract I arranged with him previously, being “If you drag me into the water, Mike, I’m taking your balls.” Needless to say, his balls were now mine. I contemplated chasing him down, but unlike me, he had no compunctions about going into deep water. I deemed my electronics more valuable then a pair of testicles and wisely left the beach and emptied out my pockets before too much water seeped through.

He’s still my hero though, because of this exchange:
Sally: *playing with the sand* Hey look, it’s a dinosaur print!
Mike: *kick* Hey look, it’s messed up.

We had spent a good five or six hours at the beach before we decided to head out. Some of us needed to get home, others were worried about the sudden appearances of sunburn. Still, our original purpose was to go on the Coney Island rides before they closed after this summer season. Sally, Shelly and I had not forgotten this, and remained resolved to go on the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel before leaving.

The Cyclone brought out an interesting side of me, one that I usually only see during tests. When people come to me and lay out all their fears about how they’ll do, and how they haven’t studied, I am the epitome of false confidence. The fact is, despite my assurances and cool words, I am often just as fearful and unprepared. The same is true for rollercoasters: when people expressed uncertainty about whether going on was a good idea, I did my best to rally them and persuade them to go. Was I any less afraid of the feeling you get when you descend down those hills, that you’re going to go flying out of your seat and splatter across the pavement? Fuck no, it’s why I never go on rollercoasters by myself; I can be brave in the presence of others, but I’ll rarely stand up for myself. As we climbed up the first hill, I finally admitted out loud, “For the record, I’m scared shitless.”

And wow, scared shitless of that first hill I was. I clutched that bar for dear life and didn’t let go. The rest of the ride was both a success and a failure. It was favorable in the sense that I really, really enjoyed it. After the first set of hills, I got into it, I stopped cursing and started enjoying. I kept my eyes wide open as a smile streaked across my face wider and wider with each coming steep hill and sharp turn. I left the ride exhilarated, shaking with excitement and seriously tempted to spend four dollars for a reride.

The person sitting next to me was not of the same opinion. Her version of “scared shitless” only amplified as the ride progressed, and despite the sign that said “Do Not Rest Head On Bar,” she put her head down and closed her eyes in order to block out the overwhelming G forces and we zoomed about. This caused her head to thrash back and forth as we ascended and descended, showing that a bruised face and disjointed glasses was the price of resting your head on the bar. We all tried to comfort her, but she was shaken and the damage had already been done.

We never went on the Wonder Wheel because people were really itching to go by now. I think it would have been a memorable experience and given us some great pictures, but it wasn’t in the cards, at least not today. And while I only have a few more weeks until I start school, I have plenty more summers and plenty more great rides to experience with plenty of great friends.

Getting out of school a month before your brother does and three weeks before your summer classes start leaves you with a lot of free time. I tried new games and tossed them away, tried old games and tossed them away, used Flash to make text glint, started reading military science fiction again, and visited some friends while not visiting other friends. My chronic ennui reappeared on cue, as did its periodic remission. I’m not as productive as I could be, but the pace of summer gives me a wide berth to be lazy.

My summer classes are only a few hours every day, and are just enough to keep moss from growing on me. The teacher was literally hired the day before class started, and didn’t have a syllabus for a week. He writes tests that have confusing wording and answers that are identical in everything but syntax. He sometimes teaches us incorrect material and refuses to correct himself. In fact, the only thing he is good at is avoiding our questions, especially during tests. I do not think Hunter will depose him, simply because they have no one else. Based on the uproar we received when we went over the test, I’m pretty sure that we’ll get passing grades just to shut us up. Once the term is over, Hunter can put this embarassing course behind them and we can put our liberal arts requirements behind us.

My social needs are pretty slim, so I’ve been very content this summer. I:

• saw Curse of the Golden Flower with no sound while loitering in CompUSA and then again at an outdoor screening
• tasted appropriately expensive samples of restaurants on 46th street at The Taste of Times Square
• made my practically annual trip to the Museum of Natural History
• learned Mahjong and Cranium
• had my first sleepover, and found that I could not masturbate as fast as girls who have had boyfriends
• chilled out to watch Stargate for several hours while eating questionable beef but tasty shrimp noodles and pork
• proudly walked into the Jacob Javits center as president of Steven’s Selective Services in order to snag freebies
• slept through most of the July 4th fireworks
• became left-handed

In terms of actual productivity? I’ve set up another photo album, one I think is far sexier than Coppermine and reminds me of a certain mp3 player brand. It doesn’t let me categorize, label, or search very well, but it’s simple to view and easy to add and link to. Tip: once you click an image to view a larger version, you can press your keyboard’s arrow keys to scroll through the rest, as well as use your mouse to drag it around the screen. Sexy and easy? Oh my.

I’ve got several great games lined up, but there will be more posts when I find myself on the wrong end of a rifle too many times. For now, look at the glorious pictures of my freshman year. (Too many to bother linking, but I’ll do that in the future whenever I make a new album.)

I’ve been an idiot for the past semester and a half, but I’m coming back to BU with a fresh batch of resolve.

(Even though I spent a little too long dallying with the last bit of the title.)

From Always Excel: Campus Markers and the Purpose of Boston University

As students at Boston University, we are expected to learn many things before we enter that right of passage called graduation… Mathematics may be used to rob a bank; chemistry used to kill; penmanship may be used to forge a check; psychology may be used to cheat one’s fellows.

Waluigi - Evil version of Luigi
Waruiji - Japanese pronunciation
Ijiwaru - Japanese word for mean-spirited

waru - iji
iji - waru

COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!

If only Wikipedia didn’t beat me to the punch.

Dear Mr. Fruit Basket,

I know you have a great reputation as a matchmaker, but all the fruit you’ve given me has been mediocre. I’ve gotten bored with the fat red apples you keep showing me. They may be sweet and nice, but I need some zest in my life.

That’s when you brought that Cripps Pink apple to my door. His slim, toned body and crisp, tangy demeanor are what I’ve been looking for all my life. Set us up on another date.

It has been over 30 hours and the heat in my building has yet to fully come back on. At least my hands are no longer shaking. Thank goodness for a laptop and (limited) outlets in the study lounge.

Edit: Okay, it’s back on now .

I am a persuasive French wino that can stun people with insults and convince policemen that he and his party were in fact not responsible for the mutilated bodies tossed out of a window into an alley. All with the flick of a d20.

The BU Role-Playing Society is one of the three clubs I’ve joined. Right now the only campaign I’m dedicated to is a post-WWII spy adventure set in Vietnam. There are lots of other games in many different non-D&D settings, but my schedule often conflicts and I honestly don’t have the time anymore. That said, it’s a fun and often hilarious way to spend a weekly evening.

Wizards is a community service group that teaches science experiments to kids from kindergarten all the way to early high school. A friend in my computer science class invited me over to a meeting one day, and I figured that it was a weekly two hour committment that might be reminiscent to the fun time I had volunteering with 1st graders at P.S. 89 right next to Stuyvesant. I noted this on my app, and lo and behold, I got one of the spots in the group that works with kindergarteners and 1st graders . We’re driven by van to the Young Achievers school, what seems to be one of many Boston pilot public schools for new learning strategies. The distinction wasn’t exactly evident though, as it reminded me a lot of P.S. 89 despite it being a regular public school. Not that it mattered, because the school was charming and the kids were cute and wonderful. The kindergarteners have their current curriculum based around butterflies, so our activity focused on symmetry using butterflies as examples. Few children remembered the word when the day was done, but all of them had fun seeing their folded paper cutouts become butterflies. The colored versions were all pinned up on the window afterwards.

The BU Massively-Multiplayer Online Gaming Society is a club that a couple friends and I founded after seeing interest on the BU Livejournal group. We rotate through new MMOs every two weeks or so, playing games like Gunbound, Rakion, Albatross18, and Ragnarok Online. We’re all encouraged to play games on our own and stick with ones that we like, but we often meet up with other MMOGS members so that there’s a sense of familiarity when in unfamiliar territory. After each game’s rotation is finished, we each write a review and give it a grade, both of which are posted on our soon-to-be-created forum. We’re hoping to have generated enough of a track record to warrant attention from non-MMOGS members, perhaps non-BU members, and hopefully game developers looking for effective beta testers. The pinnacle of success for the MMOGS would be either getting access to a highly anticipated game in closed beta testing or getting enough funding to provide paid accounts to some of the newer, hotter games on the market. As it stands, we’re just a bunch of college gamers. But next semester, we’ll be gamers with university funding for snacks.

I am vice-president of the MMOGS. The president, secretary, and treasurer are all juniors, which means that in all likelihood I’m going to be inheriting the club after two years. Oh man it’s like Excalibur all over again. Luckily the club’s survival doesn’t depend on my (lack of) gaming skill, but rather my enthusiasm, which I have plenty of. For now I’ll just chip in where I can and learn a few things along the way. And have fun with ultra-high angle shots on a mammoth while I’m at it.

On this music video.

SarcasticSteven: wow wtf is this about
SarcasticSteven: utada is suddenly crazy emo stalker
SarcasticSteven: and everyone’s going v for vendetta on their asses
SarcasticSteven: and…erectile dysfunction?
dabiggestDREAMer: …what?
SarcasticSteven: exactly
SarcasticSteven: no clue what’s going on in the music video
dabiggestDREAMer: where the f*** did u get erectile dysfunction from?
SarcasticSteven: when the black chick and the white guy are having sex
SarcasticSteven: and then he sits up straight and is like “…*moody*”
SarcasticSteven: the chick tries to comfort him but he’s all like “zomgnoooo” and runs
SarcasticSteven: then punches away his frustration
dabiggestDREAMer: (i am laughing out loud)
SarcasticSteven: teehee
dabiggestDREAMer: i thought he’d be like, facing some inner demons
dabiggestDREAMer: or some shit more deep than a soft dick
SarcasticSteven: lol
SarcasticSteven: another theory i conjured up is that the black chick is actually a closet lesbian who has had feelings for utada ever since they were little kids
SarcasticSteven: hence the flashbacks
SarcasticSteven: and maybe she called out her name when she was having sex with the guy
SarcasticSteven: and then the guy is all like “wtf? unless this is gonna be a threesome, i’m out”
dabiggestDREAMer: ..
SarcasticSteven: and the girl is all mixed up inside, but runs after him
SarcasticSteven: and then she’s all like “UTADA ZOMG”
SarcasticSteven: but utada goes flying like a ragdoll
SarcasticSteven: but not before she flashes a really sweet smile, because she loves her too
dabiggestDREAMer: i thought it was more best friend than lesbianism..but hey you never know XD
SarcasticSteven: they might’ve had some fling before she was dumped
dabiggestDREAMer: little children tho..i dunno
SarcasticSteven: but while utada embraced her lesbianism and always wanted her to be her last, the black chick wanted to fit in
SarcasticSteven: and it’s in the moment before the car crash that the black chick gives in and they share a moment of compassion and love

I plan to major in Computer Science with a possible minor in Psychology. I have dropped Spanish and will be studying Japanese.

I elected to follow the Divisional Studies track rather than the Core Curriculum track. With DS, all of BU’s introductory courses (Psych 101, Bio 101, etc) are put into one of four categories: Math and Compsci, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities. I must take two classes in every field that is not where my major resides. Even if I decide to switch majors, thus requiring me to take two classes in Math and Compsci, I will have covered my Divisional Studies requirements for it anyway by the end of my first term.

I’ll reserve my opinion on how good my schedule is until a few weeks after school starts, when the fatigue starts setting in. We aren’t allowed to take more than four courses the first term (and never more than six) so I’ll use this term to determine next term’s courseload.

MA127 – This is the calculus class for those who have already taken calculus in high school. It condenses two terms of material into a single term. I already took calculus in Stuyvesant, so I shouldn’t have to struggle too much with learning, just remembering. Getting a 720 on the Math SAT II exempted me from BU’s math requirement, and as a compsci major I don’t need to take any math courses to fill the DS requirements, but many of the mandatory compsci classes require calc, so I might as well take it while it’s still fresh and get it over with.

CS112 (C++) – I’m skipping CS111 (which was easy to do, considering my AP score and my programming experience) and heading onto CS112, with a focus on C++ since I’m much weaker in it than Java. I’ve already set up my laptop with Ubuntu and installed emacs and gcc (and the JDE since I do prefer Java), so I should be able to program without constantly being confused by a GUI compiler like Eclipse. Old habits die hard; I instinctively type gcc -Wall after Ctrl-X-C. I’ll have to pick up a good book to help me out; I was able to do so well in AP Compsci because the Java textbook was very good, and helped me understand concepts and syntax that I didn’t pick up while sleeping. Any recommendations?

WR100 – I did not qualify for WR150 (so I don’t get to skip a class!) but English classes have never been a problem for me aside from procrastinating on papers, so I’m not worried. There were many different types of writing classes, from scifi to children’s books to Asian literature, but since I did want to experiment with the field of pscyhology, I took the class that was focused on readings in psychology and psychoanalysis. I plan to have the same class synergy when I fill another DS requirement by taking an Anthropology course focusing on the study and evolution of human behavior.

LJ101 – I’ve gotten past the notion of becoming fluent enough to read manga and understand anime. After all, I’ve spent god knows how many years studying Spanish, and I can just barely read the signs in the subway (much less understand soap operas!). Hopefully a little of my otaku enthusiasm will still be present, so that I have motivation for learning a complex language while coping with a new environment.

You know that Boston University students are a little weird when you find one describing to two small Asian boys how unprotected sex feels infinitely better than that with a condom.

Things actually went pretty well considering that I’m probably going to never see most of the people again. It’s something that I found hard to accept in Stuyvesant until I realized that I knew plenty of people by face but not name or action, and I had never seen our valedictorian before. I had to go through realizations like this for every school change. They have all been marked by a noticeable increase in population: 7 kids a grade to 50 to 800 to 3000. And let’s not forget the college population of all the neighboring campuses, boosting that 3000 quite a bit.

Perhaps other people realized this as well, because everyone was extremely social. Not just “say hi to your roommate” social, but “say hi to the person sitting next to you” social, and even “say hi to the person sitting two seats away from you after a minute of silence” social. Except for alone time here and there once a planned activity was over, we were kept in groups according to what school we were in (Arts & Sciences, Engineering, Fine Arts, Management, etc.) so there was at least some regularity in who we were seeing every day. In addition to those cool people, I actually saw and hung out with people that I knew. There was a multi-activity excursion for people who arrived a day early (like myself), and I found myself sitting only a few seats and a row away from Courtney! as well as more seats away from Shelly and Dimitri (sp?). Very hawt coincidences.

The actual orientation was from Thursday to Friday, but since I wasn’t keen on waking up at 3 in order to get there on time Thursday, I opted to move in a day early. Out of 600-700 kids at orientation, around 200 usually arrive early. We were roomed up with the person next to us in line, and I got put on the second floor of Rich Hall, which wasn’t all that great to be honest. No AC, a curtain and a pole for a closet, bugs in the shower, etc. In its defense, all the rooms already had MicroFridges for us to keep stuff in, and unlike every other room I heard about, ours was actually cool at night. It was even a little cold on Thursday morning because it rained.

The first day was rather nonchalant except for meeting those three familiar faces. The second day had plenty of things lined up, most of which weren’t exactly interesting. There were a whole lot of talks from the faculty and the student advisors, which had a habit of putting me to sleep as the day went on. I eventually pulled through, and was rewarded at the end of the day with a “free” shirt (we had to pay for Orientation, after all), kareoke, a comedy show, music bingo, and Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Unfortunately the wireless DDR pads were very unresponsive, and Shelly and I were craptacular at Guitar Hero, but it was still a nice way to end the day.

The primary goals of orientation are to have us take our writing assessment and to have us register for our fall classes. The writing assessment was 50 minutes long, and damn it was a boring 50 minutes. We either got a page from Toqueville’s Democracy in America or Machiavelli’s The Prince. I unfortunately got Toqueville. I didn’t know shit about politics, much less the history of it, but I do know how to attack a person’s writing style and integrity. I think I did a pretty damn good job, but I only got a 3 out of 4 or 5. Not quite enough for me to skip a writing class.

Every BU student at orientation clocked in a lot of supervised hours planning and registering for their classes. First we had two 3-hour sessions with our student advisor, where they went over the required courses, how we might want to go about them, and how the registration process worked. Once we had planned a schedule, we were taken to our temporary faculty advisor to have our course list evaluated and improved. Mine was a nice Asian compsci professor who was brimming with excitement about his subject (which is a good thing!). He probably thought more highly of me than I deserve, considering I just barely got through System Level/Graphics and slept through AP Compsci (but still got a 5 on the AB version!), but he did recommend a good teacher, which I took note of when we were shuffled onto the next stage of the process.

Even though we had planned our schedules with our student advisors, we now had another chance to do so, this time with our faculty advisor’s suggestions in mind. There were no real changes in mind, just in the type of programming language (using C++ instead of Java), so it wasn’t as stressful for me as it was for the people whose faculty advisor completely reworked their schedule.

Once we got these new schedules approved, we were then directed to the final stage, where they sat us down in front of a computer with an access code to unlock registration for us. It wasn’t a random lottery like it was in Stuyvesant; we simply punched in what class and section, and then that was that, we were a part of the class. We were required to put down alternate classes in case one was full by the time we got to the computer, but thankfully I just managed to squeeze into the compsci class.

After that…we were pretty much done. The best speeches had already been made, and the only reason I didn’t fall asleep (I hope) during the closing ceremonies was because there was an awesome piece of chocolate on every seat! I wasn’t really in the mood, but I stole some for Shelly. After that, we went our separate ways and I linked up with my family. We set up a Bank of America banking/checking account, and I finally got a credit card! It’s a joint account, so the bill gets sent to my parents. Which, you know, is good, so that I don’t have to worry as much about spending (yea, like I can really spend that much when I can’t help but research every alternative). But it also means I’ll have to stick to free porn.

Rejected: Columbia College, Johns Hopkins University.
Accepted: SUNY Binghamton, Boston University.
Waiting on (but is more or less in the bag): Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I’ve said that I would be happy no matter where I got into, and that statement has held true. Unless RPI is willing to give me a full scholarship and a pet bunny, I will most likely attend Boston University. So I’ll be seeing Kate among other *ahem* people.

I still consider RPI a very good school, but I’m just not sure whether I’d like its strong science/engineering focus. I still plan to major in computer science, and I do love computers, but I’m not always sure I have the skills to pursue it as a career. I’ll definitely want to try other courses in college like psychology and maybe economics. RPI may be able to provide a better focus on computer science, but there’s still some part of me that hesitates, and I’d rather keep my options open.

I really doubt I’ll be talking much more about college now that this has been settled. The only things left to do are try to increase the drop in the bucket that is my financial aid package, and get a laptop. I’m looking for long battery life and feather-light, since I like dependability and I’m a weakling. The ThinkPad X60 seems great then, and at a decent price for an ultraportable if I only upgrade the RAM and battery off of the base package. It may look generic, but if anything, it’ll just make it a less tempting target to steal.

But I’m still bringing my desktop computer. A growing boy needs his games.

V. Au: But when I let the parent sleep, the child does work. However I need the parent to die. What is my problem?
—–
J. Lin: As long as a woman has a baby, she has no real reason to create literature.

I knew that the letter from Carnegie Mellon was way too thin to be an acceptance letter. Makes sense; what more do you need to reject someone than to flick the rapier and go into Prep C? It irks me that I have to write at least three more essays (probably more in the range of four to six). I’m lazy and it takes a while for me to actually start writing, so I may cut down my list of schools. I’m definitely applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and I’ve already applied to SUNY Binghamton. Possibly applying to Boston University. They’re reach/safety schools. The real variability comes from the other schools, which happen to be brand name. I’m picking and choosing from Cornell, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. Well, mainly just Columbia and Johns Hopkins, but Cornell is still in the running.

However, if I couldn’t get into Carnegie Mellon Compsci, what chance do I have to get admitted to Ivy League schools? I’d still like to dream, which is why I’m applying to at least one, but I’d rather not waste my time on fruitless dreams (eh, tim?). So I figure I’ll get the RPI/BU(?) essays done first, and then write as many dream essays and applications as time allows. Which will, in all likelihood, be only one.

I’m taking the rejection fine. I know things will turn out for the best. I just wish I didn’t have to do more work .

Edit: Okay, did my research and finalized the list. I’m applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Boston University, SUNY Binghamton, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. I’ll only have to write a short essay for BU and write an optional (hah, yea right) essay for Johns Hopkins. We’ll see what happens with those.

Happy and sad,
Tired and awake,
I’m not sure how much more
of this cycle I can take.

I procrastinate. I sleep at 1 or 2 AM on a daily basis, waking up at 6:25 AM. I do very little homework, if at all, due in no small part to my tendency to get sidetracked as well as starting my homework as late as 11 PM despite coming home several hours earlier. I regularly feel remorse for my actions, though inaction would be the more appropriate term, and then five minutes later go back to procrastinating.

And yet I keep doing it because once the ten seconds of remorse runs its course, I’m perfectly content. Maybe even happy. There are plenty of things I love to do in the world, plenty of things that I have already done, and plenty of things that I have yet to do. I could step away right now and I’d be satisfied with the things I’ve done. Content with the memories made.

That contentment is perhaps what’s keeping me from being more efficient. Most of the time I like how my life is going. Sure, I’m sleepy during particular classes, and will eventually get yelled at by a teacher for handing in a project late, but I’ll do fine. I’ve done fine, I will do fine, and I’ll be content with however “fine” is defined, so why change that?

I had thought that with my shifting from Xanga to Blogger to Deadjournal to Freewebs to Movable Type to Wordpress that maybe I wasn’t a traditional. I do like new techy things: new gadgets, new programs, new discoveries. Yet the more I think about it, while there may be instances where I like to shift around, I really prefer to settle into grooves. Be it in an online world or in school, I’ve had the most fun when it was something I could rely on.

I just hope that when the dust has cleared after I’ve left college, that something will be a someone.

Actually, no pictures, just a post. As good as the pictures are, I’m afraid to touch my Coppermine photo gallery. There’s no real organization system; half of it’s organized one way, half another. Even the more organized half isn’t really organized efficiently. I may just end up reinstalling it and leaving the current gallery as some antique.

Things are more settled on the college front. I’ve applied Early Decision to Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. It’s very selective, having the lowest acceptance rate of all the schools within Carnegie Mellon, so it’s more or less a crapshoot whether I can get in or not. On one hand, my grades aren’t that great, my SAT scores could be better, I could be more involved, and I could have taken more challenging classes. But on the other hand, as I said in my interview, I’m different than all the other math/compsci kids because I can write and I can speak. That part of the interview went fine, though right now I’m a bit worried at the note the interviewer hastily jotted down right after I said that. The interviewer was a very nice guy, and I felt comfortable with him. I was also at ease with most of his questions; I was fortunate and wasn’t asked about politics, global affairs, or all that other stuff I know nothing of. The only questions that slipped me up were intentionally lubricated: two good things and one bad thing my friends would say about me, and why I didn’t like Carnegie Mellon. Tricky tricky.

The essays were done in typical Steven style. That is to say, it’s a wonder I maintained sentient thought so late without caffeine. I finished the draft of my first essay around 3 in the morning to meet a self-imposed deadline (more like a parent-imposed deadline) and did the final draft days later. I finished the draft of my final essay around 1 in the morning the day of, and finished the final copy around 3 in the morning that same day. Good thing that the Intel research project students were pulling all-nighters that day, and one happened to be my regular reviewer . Thanks again, Caroline.

The essays themselves turned out alright. They were both initially kinda sketchy and not very interesting, but I managed to transform them into something half decent. I didn’t say anything that could not happen, but I took creative liberties. I like to think of them not as falsehoods, but as embellishments. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining what BS was (it amazes me how many people didn’t know how to play BS…and am I the only one who knows Chinese BS?), so I just said that I helped design a poker game. Same principles. And while I don’t eat food most people would consider repulsive, I eat sushi, which my girlfriend won’t touch. See? I wasn’t lying in the essay! *inserts a $20 bill into the slot and leaves the pay-per-confession booth*

So to sum up the dreadful business of college, I’m applying to Carnegie Mellon but probably won’t get in. I feel like I will, but it’s not like I took a toke of melange or anything. If I get rejected, you should all apply to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and SUNY Binghamton! Because you’re all cool people, and I’m going to be lonely. Yet chances are you’re all going to higher places: one’s going to NYU, another to Harvard, another to MIT…another’s already in MIT…damn you smart people. Damn you loveable smart people.

AP English Teacher on the Iliad:
“Achilles is a man with an MBA in manslaughter.”

Me on the Iliad:
SarcasticSteven: zeus was hatin on the trojans
SarcasticSteven: and hera’s like “oh no, don’t be hurtin mah homeboys”
SarcasticSteven: so she gets a plan to subdue zeus
SarcasticSteven: and she’s like “i want your cock”
SarcasticSteven and he’s like “damn! none of my other bitches be that horny!”

SarcasticSteven: like this one trojan was like “your moms are whores!”
SarcasticSteven: and so this achaean was like “don’t be sayin nothin about my momma!”
SarcasticSteven: and he thrusts a spear through the guy’s eye, coming out of his skull the other side
SarcasticSteven: then he beheads him and holds the head up high, with the spear still in it
SarcasticSteven: and he’s like “tell his dad that his son’s a pussy! achaeans represent!”
SarcasticSteven: and the trojans bounce

So as you can see, AP English is just fine. I get to sleep when the teacher isn’t breaking English teacher norms, and the Iliad is chock full of random people being randomly killed in grotesque ways. I hear Canterbury Tales is a lot racier, but the Iliad is still good stuff.

I snooped around and found layouts to give the site and the photo gallery graphical overhauls. I felt it was due for a change after nearly two months of inactivity. I’ve been primarily neglecting it because there have been a lot of things hanging over my head, and I play games to get away from that. And it just so happens that I like games that pull me in, so I’ve been spending a lot of time gaming and not a lot of time thinking.

Stay tuned; the next post will have pictures.

Period listings taken from my Sconex profile.

PERIOD 1: Pre-porn warmup (Mr. Quagmire)
Giggity.

PERIOD 2: Architecture (Mr. Rothenberg)
Rothenberg is one of the craziest teachers ever, but that’s why we love him. Tons of corny jokes, random references, and random tangents make me stay awake during his lessons. Not to mention I’m considering architecture as a minor/hobby, so the lessons themselves hold interest for me.

PERIOD 3: Architecture (Mr. Rothenberg)
Stuyvesant mandates a type of class called a “10 Tech” during your senior year. These are in the same suit as the 5 Tech classes required in junior year (photography, advanced CAD, robotics, etc) but take up two periods a day instead of one. I don’t mind, and in fact I like it, especially because I do well in the class and since the teacher is writing a recommendation for me, I want to shine as much as possible.

PERIOD 4: Electronics (Dr. Majewski)
This is the slacker 10 Tech for the nonartistic. The artistic slackers take Acrylic Painting, the nonartistic slackers take Electronics. Hence Acrylic Painting is mostly girls, and Electronics is mostly guys. But despite exams only being 5% of the grade and being guaranteed a 99 if I simply showed up to class, I’m actually interested in Electronics. Especially because we’re using this cool electronics kit, and I love to play around with stuff.

PERIOD 5: Lunch (Mr. Thepersonthatmakesmylunch)
I’m so alooooooone. Except for you, Joanna. And Kimberly and Paul, but I don’t even know if they go to lunch.

PERIOD 6: Ap english literature (Mr. Gern)
I’m going to sleep. But I’m going to sleep with friends. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

PERIOD 7: System level programming (Mr. Zamansky)
Everyone loves Zamansky. I think I will too. The computer room we’re in got a major overhaul, so it’s on par with the computers we were using for AP Computer Science. Which is to say, not as good as the ones we’d play Quake III Arena on, but better than the ones that ran DOS.

PERIOD 8: Calculus applications (Ms. Rubin)
For what I thought would be a class full of jocks, I’m on comfortable terms with more people in this class than any other. And the teacher seems nice as far as math teachers go, so I think it won’t be that bad.

PERIOD 9: American government (Ms. Feldman)
I have the opposite feeling about this class. She seems evil. I want Plafker back.

PERIOD 10: Post-porn wrapup (Mr. Quagmire)
Giggity.

While mis treatment and karma contribute to my chivalry, I realize that it’s really because I wanted to prove them wrong. Whether it was in jest or not, there was truth resounding in that stereotype, one harbored by many people who’ve seen too much of the bleak side of relationships. This is unfair, and I’m a stickler for treating people justly. At some point I must have realized that simply telling them, “we’re not all like that!” wouldn’t do. After all, I have enough common sense not to believe that it’d really work like in the movies, followed up by some hot sexxorz. Rather, I chose to prove by example.

I don’t believe that all men are evil while I’m the only good one, but when I act chivalrous, that’s how I can make myself feel. The combination of gaining good karma and inching towards my goal is positively euphoric. It’s like when a corporation donates to charity. Not only are they helping out the people on the other end, but they’re establishing the reputation that corporations do give back to the community. The only difference is that I neither make billions a year nor have to give any of it out. The only things being donated are kindness, umbrellas, and jackets.