Various Shenanigans January 31, 2009

Got into Purdue. 2/2 so far at top-10 engineering schools. (There’s technically 11 or something that are ranked top 10 I think because 3 are tied for #9) I hope you’re happy, Columbia.

Ran the 800m last week at the Shore Conference meet last Sunday. It was my first race all season long, so I was surprised I got out in 61 for the first 400. Then, I hit the wall and closed in 72…. But no worries, it was my first race in a month and a half. I still think my winter goals are viable, just that I won’t be able to reach all of them because there’s hardly any racing left in the winter season. As soon as my IT band gets healthy enough, I want to start doubling up some days to get back into peak condition.

Chinese New Year was pretty typical, but it’s probably my last one celebrated at home for a while since none of my colleges are nearby. (Rutgers doesn’t count because I’m almost definitely not going there)

Project Nemo is well played, Sam. Fortunately, I won’t ever have to do anything of that sort since it would never work well for me anyway. Instead, I’ll be grinding and getting a ton of exp before the new server upgrade. Multi-account magic seems harder than it is.

I only have a calc midterm left (calc+lunch on Monday). Cruisin’ through the rest of the year except Calc and Phys because I need to do well on those APs. Man it feels to be a gangsta senior.

Finished Kurenai. I liked the entire series until the end. I don’t know what to make of the ending.

It is a mentally orgasmic feeling of self esteem when you’re sitting in class, and your whole body is sore from running a BAMF workout and then going to the weightroom the previous day. Also makes for much better sleep since you fall asleep within seconds if you’re tired enough.

Oh yeah, the JC’s are going to prom, so I’m definitely going this year. Smash prom will still be held, but on a different date. Time and location still TBD. (Probably my house or Pavan’s unless one of you wants to offer up a house. I’m not too sure how many non-commenters actually read my blog)

This is my shortest post in a while. Thar be Northern Flint in these regions.

short long weekend January 19, 2009

This was the first of two long weekends that we get prior to midterms. (This one for MLK day and next week for Chinese New Year.) I didn’t have a whole lot of homework, and since college apps have been done, all I had to do was a bit of physics and calc. Oh, and study for midterms. (I neglected to do that one.)

Unfortunately, my blog has a few more random visitors because I posted on Stan’s under my WordPress login. Then again, most of the newer readers are likely to be fellow runners, so it’s fine if they get to hear about our shenanigans since they already know that distance running is a dismal and totally fun-less experience where all we do is put each other down and talk about making love to each others’ sisters.

My IT Band has been a lot more cooperative for this past week, and I think I’m finally set to get rolling again. I really want to get back into racing form and take my Kennedies out for a spin in the 800 or 1600. I’ve put on about 4 pounds in upper body strength since the end of XC thanks to a ton of pushups, planks, and low weight high rep bicep curls. Before, my upper body was too weak, so I’d have a lot of trouble maintaining form in the middle to late stages of races, so I think there should be a noticeable improvement in my racing. In terms of doing hundredpushups, I’m not absolutely gunning for the full 100, but I’m just making sure that I do at least a respectable number of pushups each day to get a bit stronger.

Running Goals for the rest of high school:
Winter:
800 – 2:06 (currently 2:12 from post 2×2mile workout in XC. Ran 10:53 then 10:46. Pretty BAMF)
1600 – 4:35 (Currently 4:46)
3200 – 9:55 (Currently 10:24…. from SOPH YEAR. That shit is going down. I should have been sub-10 junior year based on my fitness, but wasn’t prepared psychologically to race well)
GET 100% HEALTHY. Everything else is more of an afterthought compared to getting healthy for the spring season.

Spring:
800 – 2:02 (Lofty, but gonna go for it)
1600 – 4:26 (definitely doable. If 2 other guys can get close to this time, we could qualify for nationals.)
3200 – 9:42
1200 – 3:13 (For the DMR leg if necessary. I think this would also be close to fast enough to qualify for nationals if we can 800 and 400 legs around 2:02 and 52 respectively)

I only have to make it through these next two weeks of school before I’m basically stress-free. After that, the only real focus is AP Tests, but I’m only truly concerned about Calc and Phys. Waiting until mid to late March for college acceptances is such a pain…

I ordered a Fiio portable amp from DealExtreme. I don’t actually need it on a day-to-day basis because my headphones are IEMs, which always have low impedence (Sennheiser CX 95’s, bitches), but portable amps can be infinitely useful in a pinch. Also got a USB Bluetooth adaptor for like $4 so I can use the Guitar Hero controller and wiimote on the PC for Frets on Fire and other crap.

JSCS had its annual Chinese New Year celebration this past Saturday. I didn’t have to take part in any of the performances or anything (noted on post below). Basically a good way to kill an afternoon.

We had a great revelation in First Aid last week. Instead of going to prom, pool together money and buy a TON of Omaha Steak to eat on prom night while playing Smash. The only problem is that the JCs might decide to go to the stupid prom that night, in which case we’ll probably all just go to senior prom. Having to find the JC’s prom dates would be a cinch, but that’s just two more of the “good” dates that we no longer have a shot at…

Apple is having a real down year so far. They’re innovating even less than I’m used to. Granted my gadget buying plans never include buying Apple products. The trusty Sony NW-HD5 has lasted my 3.5 years, and is still going strong. (That means that you’d still have to be using an iPod Photo or 4th gen or an Ipod Mini 2nd gen in order for it to have lasted as long as my Sony.) Let’s not even mention sound quality when I already have all of you beaten at build quality. As far as desktops go, an iMac was never an option for me because of the price-performance ratio and the lack of upgrade paths. (Good luck upgrading your graphics card.) The only caveat is that I haven’t overclocked my rig, so I can’t claim total geek cred. Still, this thing’s a beast. (Intel C2D E8400, ATI HD 4850) (I’m lucky none of these components are out of date yet even though this rig is already 6 months old.) In terms of laptops, I’m going to have to go with a netbook for college. I’ve already decked out my desktop, and I plan on bringing it to college, so it doesn’t make sense to waste more money on a killer notebook. Asus announced a few new EEE models that were tablets, so I’m leaning towards one of those. No need to make final decisions until right before I leave for college though due to inevitable changes in prices and technology.

That’s it for today. Not feeling up to posting more. Obama gets inaugurated tmw, so that is a big deal. It’s nice to be proud of our country for the first time in a while.

combo breaker January 14, 2009

It’s been around 2 weeks since the last post, huh?

New year’s was pretty typical. My family got Guitar Hero: WT for me for my bday, so that was pretty cool. It just pisses me off that they try to nickel and dime the customers with these sorts of products. None of the instruments have built in wireless capabilities nor the option to be plugged into the Wii. Hence, you need one wiimote for every freakin’ instrument. The PS3 and 360 versions both include guitars that have wireless functionalities built in, and the drums have the option to be plugged in. Hence, you would only need one of those controllers in a full band (for the mic). All three versions cost the same, and the PS3 and Xbox versions obviously look better. (The characters are ass-ugly in guitar hero compared to rock band anyway imo)

Butttt there is a plus side to now having guitar hero. (I don’t play it much unless people are over. How many times can I play through the uhhh…. 12 half decent songs on the setlist before I get bored?) I installed Frets on Fire and downloaded 1.2 gigs worth of music for it. I’m currently buying a Bluetooth usb adaptor so that I can sync up my wiimote/GHguitar. End result? Guitar Hero…. with better songs. Warning though: Frets on Fire is open source, which is a good thing, but as a result, the coding doesn’t take very good advantage of your hardware. Hence, be wary if your PC isn’t exactly flying.

Finished all of Kannagi in this past weekend. It’s directed by the guy that directed Lucky Star for the first 4 episodes before getting fired because those first 4 episodes sucked. Somehow though, Kannagi was friggin’ amazing. The humor is mad whack; some of it is typical anime humor, but a vast majority of it is actually very well executed. The plot was really good, especially in beginning and closing episodes. The middle is still good plotwise, just not as good as the other parts. Ef~tale of memories is probably next on my list. Also added Minami-ke Okaeri to the list of current shows that I am following because Nodame Paris Chapter is over.

My IT is still mad tight, but it’s been significantly better in the past 3 days, and I think it’s affecting my stride a lot less than before. Since we’re still not doing any particularly fast workouts yet, my main priority is just to get back to 100% health before I really need to start busting my ass and racing. The Adizero Adios arrived last week. It’s significantly lighter than the CS (.6-.7 oz lighter), but the forefoot cushioning seems to have improved. I’ve only worn it for a warmup to break it in since the CS still has mileage and the past few days have been snowy/still wet from snow. Mccaff sent us on a new run yesterday. 7 minutes easy around school, then a 5 mile tempo down S Holland, right onto Holland, left onto S. Laurel Ave (?) and then left turn all the way up Takolousa and back down S. Holland to get back to school. The run was a really good effort from our guys, finishing the last mile in around 5:45 and averaging about 6:25 pace for the whole shebang. It’s pretty good to see that a lot of the younger guys are stepping up during these early parts of the season with a lot of the core team members either on break from a longer XC season or recovering from injury. (George came back the last week of winter break. Me and Monga came back 2 weeks into the season because of Northeast, and then both of us have been semi-injured. Ollie and Hoff both still recovering since XC.)

Until recently I was ready to give up running in college, but I think thanks to recent injury/break, I realized how much running has impacted my life. Basically it’s for the euphoria of running fast and beating the piss out of other people, whether at practice or races, but also for the people that I run with. In retrospect, my highschool life would have been most likely miserable if I hadn’t done XC and track. 95% of the people that I talk to in school are people that I got to know really well only thanks to running. When I’m not running, I basically mope around the internet while pretending to do homework. Otherwise, I’m off looking at PC and A/V system upgrades that I can’t even dream about implementing until I’m out of college and making my own money. (My dad is pretty loose about me spending money because he knows I don’t waste it usually, but that’s probably why I need to practice self restraint.) Without running, the only long term goal for me would be getting into a good college and getting a good job, just like any other unmotivated Asian guy. Besides that, where else would I get my killer physique? (It’s going to waste seeing as how I’m not currently in the hunt, per se. Alas, other things take priority at the moment.)

The coach from Harvey Mudd called me 5 days ago, and even though I haven’t visited yet, I think that I’d be pretty happy there. I’ll visit all of the California schools that I get into when the admissions results come out. I’ve already visited most of my other schools at one point or another, so it’s just the Cali schools. UI looks pretty cool, but I still need to look at financial aid that I get for each school, so it simply wasn’t possible for me to just go to UI with no other thoughts. Besides, I’m making my first UI visit near the end of February for an engineering orientation type program, so I wouldn’t know what the campus is like until then.

Grades are pretty solid at the moment. I’ve aced the past 3 math quizzes to make up for that first crappy grade that I got. In Phys, I’ve also been in Limit Break. Just need to get through one more test for the marking period I think. All my other classes should be solid except perhaps Econ and maybeeee English (I never have any idea what I have in that class), but honestly, I’m going to be an Electrical Engineering major…. I think Stat, Phys C, and Calc BC should be my only AP tests depending only on where I get into college. (At some, I can use the other AP credits to fulfill some elective requirements.)

Chinese New Year thing for JSCS this weekend. I convinced my mom not to put me in any performances because there was a possibility of having to race Group II relays, but I seriously doubt that now. I’ll just be there watching this year. (For the first time since I started JSCS 12 years ago or whenever it was.) Chinese New Year itself will be a week from next Monday. Fun stuff, just that midterms start the day after =[

I did basically no hw tonight, and it’s 12 AM, so I think it’s for the best that I finish up for now so I can get to bed and get in my required hour of final fantasy IV before sleeping.