Monday, October 26, 2009
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6:45 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Due to the absence of yesterday's post on my thanksgiving roll, there shall be two now.
Day 6:
I thank God that I can learn from my mistakes that I've made, some of which I am still paying dearly for it, and to come to Him for forgiveness.
Day 7:
I thank God for the hard lessons in life that makes me learn endurance, humility and wisdom
I wonder if there is a male version of the emotional side of a PMS.
Just came back from watching 500 Days of Summer. This is the first movie in years that I have decided to watch alone and definitely I have not regretted doing so. The other movies that I have ended up watching alone I've regretted to some degree. This movie is different. It gave me a lot to think about myself. I went in having some expectation that I will be able to identify with the characters in the movie, having read the background and synopsis. That expectation was fulfilled but not in the way that I was expecting (kinda contradictory, I know). Anyway, I enjoyed the movie very much. The visuals in the movie were very striking, some with hand-drawn graphics and others with the interplay between neutral and dull-ish colours with the cast's expressions. But the thing that really got me was that I "get" the characters. I understood so much of what is going on with them that it feels like I know them. Strange feeling at first but somewhat comforting. Like I said, it gave me so much to think about myself which is part of the reason why I would like to watch it alone. It's almost like a safety blanket of sorts. If you haven't watch it, please do. What you make of it is up to you but the very least I can say is that it's not some cheesy happy ending romantic movie you see most of the time.
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Saturday, October 24, 2009
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5:00 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 5:
I thank God for students that I learn to be humble and patient while imparting knowledge and be an influence to them.
There is a certain Baptist church in North Carolina that is going to have a book burning on October 31. What's strange about this book burning? They are burning various versions of the Bible that are considered by this church perversions of the "God ordained" Bible, the King James Version (KJV). Some of these "heretical" Bible versions are like the NIV, NKJV, Good News etc. On top of that they are burning books by contemporary Christian authors such as John Piper, James Dobson, Billy Graham etc. As well as "ungodly" music like rock, rap and pop, which is probably understandable, but also country, gospel, jazz and so on.
The funny thing is that open burning is prohibited by state laws but they are still going ahead with it. The church may be fined up to $25,000 for the apparently 40-strong congregation.
I don't know whether to label this as ironic or cannot see the wood for the trees.
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Friday, October 23, 2009
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7:00 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 4:
I thank God for the numerous teachers that are or were in my life, both educationally and spiritually. Without them...well, they wouldn't be called teachers, would they?
I saw someone on the street who looks and dresses quite closely to the famous 80s singer Rick Astley complete with 80s styled sunglasses. And he was with this high school girl, presumably his girlfriend. The Rick-rolled maneuver does not fail.
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Thursday, October 22, 2009
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6:53 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 3:
I thank God for the talents of others because it is not just about me.
I just bought the Wicked music album after being converted when listening to it at a friend's friend's place. I should be kicking myself for not going to this musical because it's so damn good. The last (and the first) musical I went to was when I was in London in 1996 watching Starlight Express. Can't remember much, probably because I had no feeling for music back then.
Apparently, I'm not the only one getting Mac-scooped. Welcome to the boat, peoples!
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
at
2:37 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 2:
I thank God for the immense opportunities to do something that I like and/or passionate in. These opportunities express the gifts He has given to me graciously.
Just been reading the new stuff that have just come out of the Mac production lines and while I thought everything was cool, I was also a bit annoyed. This is also synonymous with the time when I got my iPhone as well. Just when every store dropped their price about 2-3 weeks before the iPhone 3GS came out, I took the opportunity thinking that a) it is unlikely that the new iPhones will be kept at roughly the same price as it was now and b) they wouldn't be selling it to more mobile providers. Lo and behold, both my assumptions were wrong. The iPhone 3GS came out with just a few dollars more on the plan than what I got for the regular iPhone 3G. That was quite annoying.
Now coming back to the new iMacs that have just been rolled out fresh from the Apple oven (or rather orchard). Just barely 2.5 months after getting my iMac, the new iMacs boast of higher specs at an even more affordable price. I got mine at a 2.9GHz Core 2 Duo, 24 inch screen, and a upgraded graphics card to a NVIDIA GT 130. Now for the price I paid for that, I could have gotten a 2.8GHz i7 Quad Core, 27 inch screen, 8GB RAM and a ATI Radeon 4850 on the new iMacs. And that's the full price, not the student price I got for my iMac. Don't get me wrong, I still love my iMac to bits but the sudden upgrade in specs and sudden drop in price is quite painful over a span of 2.5 months. That was really quite annoying.
It somewhat goes to show that I will not make a good financial analyst, stock broker or actuary despite my so-called love for math and numbers. I can't act well according to the market or maybe that I can't predict the market well enough to make an informed decision. Regardless, I always seem to miss out on every market conceivable and not just on tech goods. Education, relationships, food and the list goes on. Gives a whole new dimension to the term "loser"...
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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4:38 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
It has been an awful few weeks. Assignments piled up within days of each other and thanks to my procrastinating nature, that means sleeping at 8 am and hours in front of the computer. But having said that, there is a certain satisfaction that comes with finishing the assignments, especially the programming ones. It feels good when a program you code can withstand any stupid behaviour from the user. On a tangent, I find that it is really easy for you to come up with a smart algorithm to do something but it is really hard to think "stupid". As in you'd have to lower your intelligence down to that of a monkey so that your program doesn't crash when random clicks or random inputs are done. I think I now understand the meaning of the term "code monkey". Maybe it is why I noticed that most of the computer science, software engineering and IT are all crazy in some way. *gasp* That means I'm going to be next. YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!! *shake fist*
Definitely one of the most frustrating but I'd have to say most satisfying was the Java one. Yes, I know that I've been complaining about it for the whole semester but on hindsight, I really understand why not many people are doing this subject. This is an accelerated Java subject which is meant to cram 2 semesters worth of Java into 1. So with that, we learn stuff fast and we have to do stuff fast. The thing that made this one satisfying is that we have now the ability to do GUIs (Graphical User Interface). It is the single most frustrating thing about Java, not so much of the difficulty of creating GUIs but the tedious nature of layout. Java goes to town about layout. Once the GUI is done and start using them, you've jumped from a code monkey to a regular everyday, completely oblivious about the backend program user. That's satisfaction.
With all the assignments out of the way, I can finally breathe a little easier. There is still quite a number of things to be done like studying for the exams and the super-long-overdued post-processing of Fernando and Onna's wedding. Probably the most pressing need to meet right now is cleaning up my room. It's like a pipe bomb went off my room. Not to mention the dust and...erm...other stuff.
In just a span of a few weeks, the number of couples and/or potential-couples have sky-rocketed. Like mushrooms sprouting after a good rain. This is nuts. It's almost the same as the year when I came to OCF except that was about medicine students. Back in 2004-5, if you stand in the middle of the back hall of the church during supper and where ever you look there is at least 5 medicine students in your direct line of sight. Now it seems that if you stand in the middle of the hall, you're bound to hit at least 5 people who are in a relationship or testing water in your line of sight. It may be an exaggeration but it's still pretty damn a lot. I don't know what to make of this but my first thoughts was that this is going to be very awkward. I don't know, I don't think I can be in a room (a large one for that matter) that is populated with couples or publicly known water testers and be myself. I find that the number of identification links among friends diminishes and that is no good socially. A classic case of birds of a feather flock together. Sure we can joke around about people who are together or water testing like primary school children but to be exposed to this environment every time gets pretty dull. Gone are the days when I'd never have to worry about such things and everything would be peachy. I guess my age is showing.
On that note, I realized that I am avoiding quite a number of people for more or less the same reason. I know what you are thinking, I'm in a self-fulfilling downward spiral. Well, maybe. Frankly speaking, I don't think we as a whole are as accommodating anymore. I can't step up to their level because of a clique-ish behaviour and they don't seem to step down to my level because they are either too busy or too distracted by other things or other people. Quite sad actually. If this continues on, then I think it may be high time for me to go serve elsewhere.
On a slightly brighter note, I know that Thanksgiving is not for another month or so but I've decided to give thanks for one thing for 25 days. I've been pretty depressed and/or negative that I think I should take the time to reflect on what are some of the good things that I've overlooked given my depressed state. It is also an attempt to get blog posts running normally again. And so here is Day 1:
I thank God for the second chances He has given me that has saved my bacon so many times. He is Grace, Mercy and Love.
And now, the short news of the week:
Damn, I don't have any of these. No wonder I'm not loaded. Perhaps my children will have a better head start than I did. Also to get an even better head start, should try for children only in the month of January. =P
This is not one for the faint of heart or easily disturbed emotionally.
Uni using Twitter for their course. Interesting but is there a point to it?
Amazing what you can do with cardboard boxes. Kudos to Daniel.
Everyone out there, keep surfing the web. It's good for you. A very good excuse to give to your boss =P
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
at
2:41 AM
| Posted by
Juwen
Wow, that past week was hectic. Had 3 assignments due this week and the busy part is now over. I still have 2 big assignments left, one on Monday and the other one on the following Monday. The first one is nearly complete, just need to write another 2.5 functions and it's done. The other is to fit a GUI on the previous assignment so it's just a matter of fixing the connections.
Also, had slow internet for the past 4 days and it was excruciatingly slow. Loading mail and news is snail-like let alone some videos. It was so slow that I refrained from reading my Google Reader because so much stuff comes into my Reader everyday. And it doesn't help that this week I had an exceptionally numerous of news tabs opened on my browser.
Lightroom came and soon I will be able to edit the wedding photos soon. I am quite amazed how fast it installs on my computer. Barely a minute and the whole thing is done and ready to get a-processing. But having said that I really don't want to be like this guy. I'm scared.
There's been quite a number of things on my mind lately but I don't have the words nor the time now to verbalize it. I think I have been doing too much thinking for my own good. Unfortunately, these sorts of thinking doesn't benefit me in whatsoever way. Just to satisfy my intellectual side, but no applicational use. It will all sort of make sense when I do get around to saying it.
News of the week:
This popped out on The Age and immediately caught my attention. The arguments are all for the wrong reasons which further shows how far we can go to justify such bad ideas just because it's "beneficial" in some odd way. But it doesn't stop there. Oh no, it doesn't. Few days later, another link came up as sort of a follow-up on why polygamy shouldn't be a bad thing. A link to a forum of a site which is primarily for expectant mothers and/or mothers with very young children. Their responses to that article in The Age were, by and large, shocking. Sure some of them joked about it but some were like "I don't care as long as people are happy with it". Seriously??!! Mothers having this kind of response? This, folks, is hedonism at its core. Have we gotten so liberal about sex that we've stooped this low? Sure I'm not surprised about such things happening but it is still a pretty big deal when you do hear about it.
I am now living in the second best place to live. Nice.
Without these 3 people, we would still be using crappy internet services and no digital cameras. I'm OK with no digital cameras but internet...oooh let's not go there.
Richard Dawkins is coming to town. Possibly, just possibly, it may not be good.
So, does that mean if I glued the chip from a PS3 on my uber 40 inch LCD TV, I will get better TV recordings? Awesome.
It's interesting that 20-30 years of personal computers that design slowly crept in to PC makers to make things functional and stylish at the same time. Same with handphones, laptops etc. So basically, it goes like this "Make it work properly, then make it look nice". Too bad Windows didn't get that hint well.
Would you use it if you happen to be standing next to a person wearing this when a gas attack goes down?
The recent sex scandal on David Letterman was a very interesting one. From the way he was talking about it in his show, he knew what he was doing was wrong all the long but it's not wrong unless someone else caught him. When the heat's getting too hot for him, his senses came back on and confessed. There's a lot to learn from this, especially when it comes to self. Do we have that same mentality? It's not wrong until someone catches us in the act? Are we getting away with sin just because no one catches us?
There are some perks living in an underground nuclear missile bunker/silo. For starters, you'd never have to worry about a nuclear apocalypse.
It would be quite funny to see 550 geriatrics bowling on the Wii simaltaneously.
Daymn. I eat these fairly regularly. What foods are not considered dangerous any more?
Interesting article on first impressions.
If nonsense can sharpen your intellect, that may explain a lot of things. So, if I keep watching episodes of Spongebob Squarepants, Fairly Odd Parents, Family Guy, American Dad and other non-sensical shows, will I become an Einstein? And if that were true, what sorts of nonsense did Einstein have when he was growing up?
Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize. That's...a bit fast
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