Monday, January 30, 2006
Eyes on the road
Life is good. I'm usually pretty upbeat and chipper, but lately things have just seemed "nicer."
Tonight was my first night back at the studio since sometime in late September or early October. For the most part I just jumped back into the routine of things and got my sparring on. Seth and I did some half-speed stuff for about 10 minutes and it felt great. I'm definitely nowhere near where I was a few years ago, but I suppose that's the price one pays for developing other interests and maintaining money for an education.
It's funny to think that when I was a senior in high school I had the option to become a professional martial arts instructor. I joined the USSD's instructor's academy and went religiously. There were a few weeks I was running a school by myself and conducting all the classes. I was there for the periodic 6am Saturday workouts. It is exceptionally difficult to forget the feeling one develops while doing kata as the sun rises.
That was my life for nearly two years now that I think about it. To this day I have yet to earn my black belt, but I'm damn close in a system that doesn't award many of them. Actually, I might finally be up for testing for the rank of Shodan this summer. Coincidentally the United Studios will be making another trip to China this year and I plan on attending. How awesome would that be? Testing for my black belt in China, home of the Shaolin Temple, and have rank conferred by the head Abbot as well as Grand Master Matera. I think that would easily be one of those "life defining" moments.
It's been a long journey. When I started I must have been a fairly bright-eyed 16 or 17 year old. Now I'm 23 and the last belt is on the horizon. One of the reasons I love the arts so much is because of the cues it takes from real life. It helps develop a sense of appreciation for progress and the three distinct roles we take in life. Most of the Chinese arts don't observe belts because they feel it dilutes the purpose. For them there are only three ranks 1) student 2) disciple 3) master. For the systems that do observe belts, the transition from the colored belts to a black belt is the change from student to disciple.
Sometimes we spend tremendous years of our life working on something or progressing toward a goal that seems infinitely far away. Then, one day that goal is at hand and we're almost forced to stop and simply say "wow, I did this."
That's how I feel about a lot of things in my life right now. The years of effort I put in to earn a black belt in Shaolin Kempo. The years of effort I put in to finish computer science. The years of keeping my head up and just being me to have the best friends and family I could ever ask for.
Given the opportunity I'd gladly do it all again and invest all the same effort on round two. Granted, perhaps another path would be just as fun and rewarding...
---
Old Japanese Proverb:
There are two kinds of fools in Japan. Those who never climb Mount Fuji, and those who climb it twice.
Tonight was my first night back at the studio since sometime in late September or early October. For the most part I just jumped back into the routine of things and got my sparring on. Seth and I did some half-speed stuff for about 10 minutes and it felt great. I'm definitely nowhere near where I was a few years ago, but I suppose that's the price one pays for developing other interests and maintaining money for an education.
It's funny to think that when I was a senior in high school I had the option to become a professional martial arts instructor. I joined the USSD's instructor's academy and went religiously. There were a few weeks I was running a school by myself and conducting all the classes. I was there for the periodic 6am Saturday workouts. It is exceptionally difficult to forget the feeling one develops while doing kata as the sun rises.
That was my life for nearly two years now that I think about it. To this day I have yet to earn my black belt, but I'm damn close in a system that doesn't award many of them. Actually, I might finally be up for testing for the rank of Shodan this summer. Coincidentally the United Studios will be making another trip to China this year and I plan on attending. How awesome would that be? Testing for my black belt in China, home of the Shaolin Temple, and have rank conferred by the head Abbot as well as Grand Master Matera. I think that would easily be one of those "life defining" moments.
It's been a long journey. When I started I must have been a fairly bright-eyed 16 or 17 year old. Now I'm 23 and the last belt is on the horizon. One of the reasons I love the arts so much is because of the cues it takes from real life. It helps develop a sense of appreciation for progress and the three distinct roles we take in life. Most of the Chinese arts don't observe belts because they feel it dilutes the purpose. For them there are only three ranks 1) student 2) disciple 3) master. For the systems that do observe belts, the transition from the colored belts to a black belt is the change from student to disciple.
Sometimes we spend tremendous years of our life working on something or progressing toward a goal that seems infinitely far away. Then, one day that goal is at hand and we're almost forced to stop and simply say "wow, I did this."
That's how I feel about a lot of things in my life right now. The years of effort I put in to earn a black belt in Shaolin Kempo. The years of effort I put in to finish computer science. The years of keeping my head up and just being me to have the best friends and family I could ever ask for.
Given the opportunity I'd gladly do it all again and invest all the same effort on round two. Granted, perhaps another path would be just as fun and rewarding...
---
Old Japanese Proverb:
There are two kinds of fools in Japan. Those who never climb Mount Fuji, and those who climb it twice.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Time marches on
I can already feel the effects of limbo setting in. Everyday I spend at least a few minutes lost in reverie wondering what life would be like to only be working. After these several minutes are squandered I'm left with the horrible realization that this, in fact, may very well be it. Wake up. Go to work. Chat with coworkers at lunch. Type. A lot.
I enjoy my job for the most part. I really do. My complaints come from the inherent monotony involved in software engineering. It's a fun task in an atomic sense. The task itself is great. Working with questionable management, confused users, and people with zero conceptualization of how software really works... not so much. If software engineering were somehow an encapsulated task I think it would be vastly more enjoyable. Unfortunately, without some damnable users the product would never be utilized and then where would my paycheck come from?
In the very near future I will find out whether or not I'll be moving over the summer to a new potential home on the other side of the country. In the very near future I will have some serious life decisions to make. I've essentially already made the decision to move. It's simply a matter of having a university to empower, not to mention justify, that action.
Why is it that I'm so hell bent on this path? It's a compulsion; no, it's more than that. This is obsession. In a very real sense this is a yearning for vindication with respect to my own ego. The "womanundertheinfluence" correctly referenced the sense of capital-A Arrogance that I feel her and I share. It isn't necessarily elitism and it isn't a separatist attitude. It's a sense of self-recognition. It's being honest with oneself. Perfect? Not by a fucking long shot. We all have our faults, but by the same token, we all have our strengths. We simply recognize ours for what they are.
The reward of undergraduate education for some is the conferring of a degree. For others it's the recognition from the next layer up. For me it's the ability to pursue a divergent career. My current job gives me extremely liberal show up policy. For instance, I'm merely required to be at work between the hours of 7am to 10am. Frequently I come in as late as 10:30am. I chalk this up to having a job that has zero customer interaction and high intellectual value. The less determinism in my job the better. I want things to aim for, but I don't necessarily want a set path to achieve them.
I would be happy to consign myself to mediocre pay at best if it meant that I had something exciting to do. My income has remarkably little to do with my sense of satisfaction. I make damn good money right now, yet I want to go to graduate school. I would be slashing my yearly income to less than half to make that choice. Money is not the deciding factor. Getting to pursue what I find interesting is a degree of freedom too exciting to not choose. This is my life and I want to spend it doing the things that I want to do. Designing software for other people can lick my balls. Oh well, for now it pays the bills, and for that I am thankful.
In completely unrelated news I find that my more zen attitudes always seem to yield better results. Example, when I look the least I find the most. I have been enjoying the lifestyle change I mentioned a few posts back. Really it boils down to me taking advantage of my new found time to enjoy the search for sex. Interesting discoveries, let me tell you. In the past three months I have met more stable, productive, and interesting people than I have in the last 3 years. I still don't understand the full implication, but I'm positive I'll explore it some more.
I enjoy my job for the most part. I really do. My complaints come from the inherent monotony involved in software engineering. It's a fun task in an atomic sense. The task itself is great. Working with questionable management, confused users, and people with zero conceptualization of how software really works... not so much. If software engineering were somehow an encapsulated task I think it would be vastly more enjoyable. Unfortunately, without some damnable users the product would never be utilized and then where would my paycheck come from?
In the very near future I will find out whether or not I'll be moving over the summer to a new potential home on the other side of the country. In the very near future I will have some serious life decisions to make. I've essentially already made the decision to move. It's simply a matter of having a university to empower, not to mention justify, that action.
Why is it that I'm so hell bent on this path? It's a compulsion; no, it's more than that. This is obsession. In a very real sense this is a yearning for vindication with respect to my own ego. The "womanundertheinfluence" correctly referenced the sense of capital-A Arrogance that I feel her and I share. It isn't necessarily elitism and it isn't a separatist attitude. It's a sense of self-recognition. It's being honest with oneself. Perfect? Not by a fucking long shot. We all have our faults, but by the same token, we all have our strengths. We simply recognize ours for what they are.
The reward of undergraduate education for some is the conferring of a degree. For others it's the recognition from the next layer up. For me it's the ability to pursue a divergent career. My current job gives me extremely liberal show up policy. For instance, I'm merely required to be at work between the hours of 7am to 10am. Frequently I come in as late as 10:30am. I chalk this up to having a job that has zero customer interaction and high intellectual value. The less determinism in my job the better. I want things to aim for, but I don't necessarily want a set path to achieve them.
I would be happy to consign myself to mediocre pay at best if it meant that I had something exciting to do. My income has remarkably little to do with my sense of satisfaction. I make damn good money right now, yet I want to go to graduate school. I would be slashing my yearly income to less than half to make that choice. Money is not the deciding factor. Getting to pursue what I find interesting is a degree of freedom too exciting to not choose. This is my life and I want to spend it doing the things that I want to do. Designing software for other people can lick my balls. Oh well, for now it pays the bills, and for that I am thankful.
In completely unrelated news I find that my more zen attitudes always seem to yield better results. Example, when I look the least I find the most. I have been enjoying the lifestyle change I mentioned a few posts back. Really it boils down to me taking advantage of my new found time to enjoy the search for sex. Interesting discoveries, let me tell you. In the past three months I have met more stable, productive, and interesting people than I have in the last 3 years. I still don't understand the full implication, but I'm positive I'll explore it some more.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Scientists earlier today were able to conclude that my testicles are roughly the same density, general weight, and consistency of a naturally occurring sample of uranium-235. How you ask? Because the paper we (we being my former research group) submitted to QSHINE, better known as the conference for Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Wired/Wireless Networks, has been resent out, and accepted subject to a minor revision, to be republished in the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.
Let's check the scoreboard, shall we?
That would be two international conferences, a refereed journal, and now a transaction of the IEEE.
It's probably a good thing that I don't gloat like this in the real world. No one would probably talk to me. However, just between you and me, bloggy, I kick ass. Part of me wants to send a postcard to CMU with a little addendum letting them know they can add a fourth publication to the application.
Ironically, I also finally saw my complete GRE scores today. Wow do I suck at standardized testing. It's not that I did horrific or anything, but I definitely look like an e-tard when it comes to things most engineers should probably be good at. Typically engineers score in the very top of the quantitative section (when compared against other graduate degree seeking students in other fields). Me? Nope, I fucking suck at GRE quantitative reasoning. It isn't that I suck at math either. Hell, I've taken up through Real Analysis (advanced calc essentially), linear algebra, and number theory. I just can't tell you which goddamn column is greater. I also apparently can't read graphs. Oh, while we're at it, I DON'T FUCKING REMEMBER HIGH SCHOOL GEOMETRY!
Interestingly enough I blew the verbal section out of the water. I can only imagine what an admissions committee must think (not that any half-way decent admissions committee uses the GRE, but I digress). Sucked at quantitative reasoning, but sure can put all those purty little letters together to make neat things? Who knows.
I'm also striving to be at work on time. Anyone who knows me realizes that I am absolutely horrible at schedule regularity. I haven't shown up to my anything regularly, on time, since 2001 probably. My life is simply far happier when I'm shirking the responsibility of temporal accuracy. Why rush when I can just get there later? This attitude has surely cost me over the years, but my stress level is virtually non-existant too. I figure as long as I continue performing at this level (see paragraph 1) I can get away with some of this. That's the real goal. I have to be as much of a bad-ass as Dr. Gregory House, MD. That way I can draw an awesome paycheck, tell people to fornicate themselves with a pointy stick, and still be 100% awesome.
Time to crash so I can wake up in the morning. Morning workouts are killer...but so awesome too.
I am so smart... I am so smart... S-M-R-T...
Let's check the scoreboard, shall we?
That would be two international conferences, a refereed journal, and now a transaction of the IEEE.
It's probably a good thing that I don't gloat like this in the real world. No one would probably talk to me. However, just between you and me, bloggy, I kick ass. Part of me wants to send a postcard to CMU with a little addendum letting them know they can add a fourth publication to the application.
Ironically, I also finally saw my complete GRE scores today. Wow do I suck at standardized testing. It's not that I did horrific or anything, but I definitely look like an e-tard when it comes to things most engineers should probably be good at. Typically engineers score in the very top of the quantitative section (when compared against other graduate degree seeking students in other fields). Me? Nope, I fucking suck at GRE quantitative reasoning. It isn't that I suck at math either. Hell, I've taken up through Real Analysis (advanced calc essentially), linear algebra, and number theory. I just can't tell you which goddamn column is greater. I also apparently can't read graphs. Oh, while we're at it, I DON'T FUCKING REMEMBER HIGH SCHOOL GEOMETRY!
Interestingly enough I blew the verbal section out of the water. I can only imagine what an admissions committee must think (not that any half-way decent admissions committee uses the GRE, but I digress). Sucked at quantitative reasoning, but sure can put all those purty little letters together to make neat things? Who knows.
I'm also striving to be at work on time. Anyone who knows me realizes that I am absolutely horrible at schedule regularity. I haven't shown up to my anything regularly, on time, since 2001 probably. My life is simply far happier when I'm shirking the responsibility of temporal accuracy. Why rush when I can just get there later? This attitude has surely cost me over the years, but my stress level is virtually non-existant too. I figure as long as I continue performing at this level (see paragraph 1) I can get away with some of this. That's the real goal. I have to be as much of a bad-ass as Dr. Gregory House, MD. That way I can draw an awesome paycheck, tell people to fornicate themselves with a pointy stick, and still be 100% awesome.
Time to crash so I can wake up in the morning. Morning workouts are killer...but so awesome too.
I am so smart... I am so smart... S-M-R-T...
Sunday, January 08, 2006
I'm a lousy blogger. Not because I can't write or recant various stories from my life, but rather because I have no desire to actually sit down and write when everything worth writing about is going on.
I have become completely obsessed with House thanks to Heidi having me watch the first four episodes with her last weekend. Thanks to the wonders of high-speed internet, an indexed news group reader, and 9 megabits of expendable bandwidth I have downloaded the entire first season. I can't even remember the last time that I was interested enough in a TV show to download an entire season of it. Actually, the last TV show that I did download en masse like this would have been Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but I digress.
The most likely reason I like this show so much is because I see way too much of myself in Dr. House. Maybe it isn't that I see myself as I am now in him, but rather the part of my own id that wants to be like him. The power his character projects in the field of diagnostic medicine is incredible. He rarely doubts himself because he trusts in his judgement and experience. He is nothing short of a vicodin addicted raving egomaniac. I trust in my judgement, but I'm definitely not addicted to anything. I'm also not an experienced diagnostician. However, give me 25 or so years and I definitely could see myself in that position.
Scarrier yet, I could see myself *with* someone like that. I must admit, Hugh Laurie is a damned attractive man given his age. Watching the show I can't help but empathize with Cameron on her attraction to him. There is something incredibly sexy about that level of self-confidence and his ability to more-or-less play God with these people. Is this an attraction to power?
In other news life is good. Application for CMU is off, minus Dr. Sen's recommendation letter. I'm going to try and get him to submit it with an apologee for its lateness. Hopefully they'll understand... Damned professors and their notorious lateness! They claim that they get initial acceptances back around February 1st. If I'm crying on Feb. 1 you'll know why. Granted, if I'm accepted you'll also see me with an incredible smile of smug satisfaction. I'm going to go with Heidi on this one when I say I don't know how I can't get in given my research background...but, who knows. Sometimes things just aren't in the cards.
As always, there are a thousand other things going on that I just don't feel like writing about at the moment. Invite me to coffee (tea really) for the unabridged versions of everything.
I have become completely obsessed with House thanks to Heidi having me watch the first four episodes with her last weekend. Thanks to the wonders of high-speed internet, an indexed news group reader, and 9 megabits of expendable bandwidth I have downloaded the entire first season. I can't even remember the last time that I was interested enough in a TV show to download an entire season of it. Actually, the last TV show that I did download en masse like this would have been Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but I digress.
The most likely reason I like this show so much is because I see way too much of myself in Dr. House. Maybe it isn't that I see myself as I am now in him, but rather the part of my own id that wants to be like him. The power his character projects in the field of diagnostic medicine is incredible. He rarely doubts himself because he trusts in his judgement and experience. He is nothing short of a vicodin addicted raving egomaniac. I trust in my judgement, but I'm definitely not addicted to anything. I'm also not an experienced diagnostician. However, give me 25 or so years and I definitely could see myself in that position.
Scarrier yet, I could see myself *with* someone like that. I must admit, Hugh Laurie is a damned attractive man given his age. Watching the show I can't help but empathize with Cameron on her attraction to him. There is something incredibly sexy about that level of self-confidence and his ability to more-or-less play God with these people. Is this an attraction to power?
In other news life is good. Application for CMU is off, minus Dr. Sen's recommendation letter. I'm going to try and get him to submit it with an apologee for its lateness. Hopefully they'll understand... Damned professors and their notorious lateness! They claim that they get initial acceptances back around February 1st. If I'm crying on Feb. 1 you'll know why. Granted, if I'm accepted you'll also see me with an incredible smile of smug satisfaction. I'm going to go with Heidi on this one when I say I don't know how I can't get in given my research background...but, who knows. Sometimes things just aren't in the cards.
As always, there are a thousand other things going on that I just don't feel like writing about at the moment. Invite me to coffee (tea really) for the unabridged versions of everything.
