wahoo April 13, 2009

Yesterday

Woke up at 11:00 because I was too tired to wake up at 8 for a long run with Jon and Arthur. Worked on Herman research paper about space and NASA until about 3:30. Went out for an awesome 90 minute run. I was flying after the first 30 minutes. Definitely close to 14 miles. Came back, stretched, and lamented that spring break was about to end. Then slept early around 11ish.

 

Today

Nothing special happened at school.

4xtoploop (9:22, 9:05, 8:44, 8:13) followed by all out toploop. I set a 7 second PB and ran 7:29. George was sick and not at school or practice, so that was the fastest time of the day. Drills afterward were like quad sex. “Check out the show!!!!”  Couldn’t get into the weightroom because the school was locked after 3pm since there were no janitors due to snow days, contracts, and the school not wanting to pay the janitors overtime. Unfortunately, the JCs won’t be getting any loving tmw either because Wednesday is a dual meet against RFH.

 

I’m mad excited for Holmdel Relays. Weather forecast is looking awesome for Friday and Saturday. We should be looking to shoot down the DMR record this season.

 

 

I have to write a letter for HMC to try and get in off of the waitlist. I guess I should write one to the coach as well. He’s been sending a bunch of mail to me for the past few months. I can’t exactly run for them if I don’t get into the school… I would definitely run for them if i went, since the weather there is orgasmic and the team is really strong for a DIII school.

 

Fuckkkk 4 weeks left before AP tests. My Econ tests will be the first ones i scratch out if i’m pressed for time.

Spring Break April 12, 2009

I can’t possibly label each day like the last 2 real posts because it’s been so long since then. Everything from spring break is a huge jumble of random things that i may or may not remember in the correct order.

 

Friday-Monday morning I was in Cali. Got to LAX friday night around 11, dropped by Caltech to visit my sister for a bit, then drove down to San Diego. Saturday was Admit Day at UCSD. I watched some presentations from the ECE department and went on a tour of Sixth College (The residential college that I’m in for UCSD). Sunday we spent most of the time looking at houses in La Jolla and University City. My parents hate University City. If we’re moving they want a house in La Jolla or San Diego I think. After that, we drove back up to LA and had dinner with my sister’s friends from Caltech and my parents’ college friends. This is what 18 oz. of frozen yogurt looks like:

 

UCSD is wayyy awesome. The weather is sick and the campus is awesome. Plus the electrical engineering there is getting really good in the past few years. In terms of name, they’re not quite at the level of UIUC yet, but within a few years they’ll be getting to that level. Plus, all of the major tech companies are on the West Coast, and UCSD seems to do better with job recruiting. The only problem is that I’m out of state and they gave me zero in aid and scholarships. I’m okay with taking out loans to pay for my education even though I was quite against it before. I won’t have to take out a huge amount because my parents are willing to pay for a good portion of my college tuition, but they can’t cover all of it. It’s also better for me to take some responsibility. I’m figuring if I have collateral – in this case, having to pay back debts – on the line, I’ll be more intrinsically motivated to do well in college.

 

Running

Since last post, nothing too crazy happened. We had a dual meet last thursday against RBC and Squan. Doubled in the 800 and 3200. Disappointed with my 800. The 3200 was supposed to be more like a workout, but it was only decent. 10:44 on a 60-70ish% effort isn’t too bad. I could probably run a 2×2mile workout at that pace if I had Ollie to help me out. (We basically did during XC season. We went 10:54 and 10:48 with a pretty long break in between the 2 intervals. Then ran a 2:12 800. Basically this xc workout was better than the race I had last thursday, but also because it was a harder effort.)

Friday I took off because I had no time due to planes and whatnot. Saturday was a track workout on UCSD’s track. A mixture of 400’s and 800’s (2:30-2:35 for the 800s, 67-71 for the 400’s) Sunday I ran on the treadmill even though the weather in San Diego was absolutely fantastic because we didn’t have any time for me to run outside the hotel. I went for 8.5 miles and closed like a beast (5:40 last mile) because I was listening to my MP3 player and got pumped up by Powerglove.

Monday I got back too late for practice. Ran 50 minutes, bumped into Ollie at Takolousa since high tech wasn’t on break yet. It was mad rainy. Tuesday was a track workout I think. 6×800m at 2:30 then cutting down to 2:24 by the last one. It was really windy and we had pretty short recovery for these. (1:30-4:00 of recovery i think.) Wednesday was a moderate run for 70.

Thursday was 8×400m starting at 70 and cutting down to 64 by the last one. Recovery was short for this workout too. 1:30-2:30 of recovery I think. Friday was a premeet of 35 minutes easy. Today was supposed to be Colts Neck Relays. We had a very strong DMR lined up with George in the 1600, Friggly in the 800, Kris in the 400, and me in the 1200. George was really sick, and it was raining, so coacher sent him home before he even got on the bus. We went to Colts Neck only to come back because the meet got cancelled. There was like an inch of water on the track and windy as hell. Went to Red Oak with some of the distance guys. (We’re pretty sure we invited stan and horace to red oak…) Hot chocolate and pancakes =O

 

Other stuff

Frets on Fire is actually working now. Got a Les Paul Wii controller from Best Buy $15 because i’ve got skills, so the GlovePie scripts are playing nice now. I was never too good at Guitar Hero, so it’s nice that there’s a better selection of songs for me to play now so i can become better.

Holy shit I’m glad high school is almost over. It’s long past time that I enter the real world and start learning things that I care about. The only thing I’ll miss is running as part of our team. I can always visit old high school friends.

The JC’s are doing quite well. I haven’t given them too much attention in the past week or so, but they’re still fine. Next week I’ll be sure to work them pretty hard.

Bah too tired gotta sleep for a long run tmw. Next post won’t be as long overdue as this one was.

Off to uCSD as of tmw April 2, 2009

 

I’ll be back monday morning just in time for practice. Text if anything pops up.

 

I leave you with a parting gift:

 

Bro cuddle!

A Fancypants Adventure March 30, 2009

More on this later.

 

Sunday

First day off of running since Spring Track began. As a result I felt fidgety the whole day and had trouble falling asleep at 1:30, but still felt pretty energetic compared to usual the next day. I finished off the Infernal Affairs trilogy by watching the third movie that evening. It was crappy compared to the first two, but I figured it would be. All of the other time during the day was spent doing some miscellaneous hw for psych and english.

 

Monday

Relatively decent day. I decided to wear the fancypants I bought on Saturday along with this shirt that Lisa got me ages ago. A ton of people were like “I like your pants,” or something of the like. 17/18 of them were guys. Fuckin’ A, Kev Hsu… And Keith was like “Oh, where can you buy clothes like this in America?” (Pointing at shirt) I told him I was pretty sure it was from H&M, and he was like “What is H&M?” in typical Keith fashion. Only downside? When someone asked JC whether he liked my pants, JC said that he doesn’t care about my pants.

 

Besides deciding to look slightly more dashing than usual, my day was pretty standard. Cockblocked Owned Raped by Keller today, calling me out on what was about to become a great WAG. Also of note: I didn’t fall asleep in school at all today. This is the first time since sometime before midterms.

 

3xbiggieloop tempo today. 12:15, 12:00, 11:39. It’s good to have Ollie back for some of our runs. 800-3200 double on Wednesday is gonna be sick. Got Vinay to do some core stuff with me after we got kicked out of the weightroom by catfucker. This kid also needs epic JC-approved abs.

 

Leaving to visit UCSD on Friday until Sunday night. Rejected by CMU on Sunday, but not too distressed over that. No expectations this tuesday either. UIUC or UCSD is looking pretty likely. Cornell is the only remaining possibility i think. Or if i get into HMC off of the waitlist, but I’m acting as if that isn’t an option at this point.

 

I am on a blogging rampage recently. I have no idea. I just have more free time, I suppose. It’s also nice to have an idea of what’s happened at certain points in your life even if some of these things were mad trivial.

Bad Good Good Bad March 29, 2009

THIS PART OF POST STARTED WRITING 3/25

That was the progression for the past 4 days for me.

 

First day detailed in most recent post.

 

Tuesday

Felt fucking awesome and motivated. Nothing special happened at school. We ran a 3xFWBW tempo run (8:01, 7:59, 7:56) followed by an all out FWBW. Going up the start hill, I wasn’t too confident that I would run well, but then I got pissed off about a lot of things and decided to light the shit out of the backwoods. I ended up running a 7:08 FWBW, and we set a 5-man average record for the FWBW. (George also set the individual record)

George – 6:36

Bert – 7:08

Ollie – 7:24

Joe – 7:40something?

Arthur – 7:40something?

The run completely made my day, and i felt awesome as a result.

 

Wedensday

Fitness day in gym. 7 BAMFs in our class decide “fuck fitness.” Said BAMFs refuse to change and sit out on the bleachers while the rest of the class does some goofy shit on the track. Ed Reck, most overqualified gym teacher New Jersey, sends angry email to all of the sports coaches. Hence, coach said I couldn’t run with the team at practice that day. So I had to do a 70 minute run on my own. Except I got lucky and ran into my other runner friends from some town other than Holmdel. None of you know any of them. There’s this really goofy tall lanky white kid and some shortass asian kid. And a random part trinidadian/mixofeverythingelse kid. And an asian kid that cares too much about school. Once I got back to the school, I decided to stretch and do drills next to the fence right near the top of the track (Directly to your right when you drive into the school). It just so happened that my teammates were stretching and doing drills. And it was purely coincidental that they tried to copy me, doing the same drills at the same time as me.

 

Also, good story involving Bowen. But you’ve heard it already, and I’m not likely to forget it, so no point in elaborating.

 

Thursday

45 minutes then hill sprints. Pretty standard.

 

Got home to find out I was rejected by both Duke and Berkeley. I raged like crazy over Duke because I had expected to get in based on the fact that Duke Engineering is err…. Duke Engineering, not friggin’ Stanford. I wasn’t that surprised about Berkeley considering I was already rejected from UCLA. Anyway, my dad talked to me for a while since I was so pissed off. Thanks to that, I’ve decided to become a hardxcore engineer; none of this go-to-engineering-school-and-end-up-doing-some-other-crap bs. Hence, I have to go to a legit engineering school. Thereby pretty much ruling out Columbia even if I do get in.

 

THIS PART WRITTEN 3/28-3/29

 

Friday

Ladder workout. 200-400-600-800-600-400-200m. All at 68 second 400m pace. Except coach changed the second 600 to a 400 because we completely fucked up the 800. (2:24 instead of 2:16 for me up front. A lot of the group even further back) Very short recovery for most of the workout. (1 minute. 2 minutes for some of the later longer intervals) Drills after.

 

Came home and watched Infernal Affairs 2 with dad and sister. Then rewatched Infernal Affairs because neither of them had watched the first one.

 

Saturday

90 minute long run because we get sunday off this week. Wasn’t super fast, but decent pace at the end. Still mad sore from Friday.

 

Came home and found out that I got a 12k/year scholarship from UIUC. Fuckin’ A. I’m still visiting UCSD though. (Leaving Friday i think. Gone for 3-4 days) My parents are in dire need of an excuse to move to San Diego, and I don’t blame them. I don’t actually like anything about NJ except for the people that I already have ties to here.

 

Went to Jersey Gardens with the family after lunch at Penang. I got a few pairs of pants that will go nicely with some of my button-ups, so maybe i’ll go classy on monday or someday this week. I was also disappointed to find out that the Nike Outlet didn’t have shit. No flats (Katana Rac3rs are getting old) and no stuff at good prices. They didn’t even have any of the hightops i’m considering.

 

It’s past midnight… already Sunday.

I had plans. I scrapped my plans. It’s okay though. I can deal with it without bitching. Carpe diem motherfuckers.

wasn’t going to post today, but here goes March 23, 2009

Spent the entire day moping around school and not wanting to do much. When I somehow manage to do less than usual in AP Stat, then something is fucked up because I’ve definitely gone into the negatives of productivity at that point. Then I tried to blow off steam with running and weightroom afterwards, but wasn’t able to physically kick the crap out of myself because we had a moderate day of running, and there’s only so much you can do in the weightroom before there’s a possibility it will interfere with running. (Running with really sore arms blows. I figured that out after my 80+ pushup days in the summer when i was still on the hundred pushups program.) Then I went home to find out that I was waitlisted by Harvey Mudd. Fuckin’ awesome day.

 

Resolution: Don’t let this shit bother you anymore. You’re doing 200 pushups (nonconsecutively… Hopefully i can get it done in 4 or 5 sets) tomorrow if you can’t get over this by the time you get to school. Because it’s not okay to be acting all pissy for multiple days in front of everyone like the world has wronged you in too many ways. At that point it becomes bitching. I will not bitch. I am no bitch. I am better than that.

 

Only bright spot: Ran shirtless after the first two toploops today. My way of sticking it to nature. The calendar says it’s fuckin’ spring. I’m gonna run shirtless like it’s fuckin’ spring. I don’t care if it’s 40 degrees outside. At least I’ve still got things like this to make my day.

 

The girls in our school must be fucking retarded. Horace and the JC’s have yet to get dates for prom. Good luck finding a counterarguement. I mean, I could possibly understand being intimidated by the JCs’ immense manliness and godliness, but Horace is pretty approachable. Alas, a pilgrimage to foreign lands and/or ages is seeming inevitable.

 

Running was 4 toploops moderate. Started at 9:50ish and went down to 8:59.

 

Running-wise I’m near a peak in terms of fitness, which is an awesome thing. In the rest of my endeavors, it can only get better from here. If you continue to do at least one GAR thing a day, things will definitely look up.

nope March 22, 2009

Running

I’m working backwards from today…

Today – 90 minute long run with Joe and Stefan. Jayram was there but ran a bit more. Everyone else is feeling injured or had to go to church or something since it’s a sunday.

Saturday – Scrimmage vs. Ocean. I don’t think any of the top 10 or so distance guys raced. We did a workout before the meet instead. 10×300m at 53-51 s (70-68 second 400m pace), last one was 49. We took pretty short recovery: only the 100m in between each 300m that completed the lap. Feels good to get some turnover. Mad props to Changa. This kid ran 5:23 in the 1600 in his first outdoor meet freshman year. I was 5:25-5:30 my first outdoor 1600. If he works hard and focuses during his races, he has a good shot to break 5 minutes this year.

Friday – Supposed to be a 4 mile tempo on the track with Stefan and Friggly. (Arthur and Kyle were in our group, but Coach probably would have stopped the, after 3 miles anyway since they’re sort of injured/getting back) Started at 5:43, 5:37, then 5:40ish. Then coach stopped us after the third mile because the group was breaking up. Took a lap of recovery, then ran a mile in 5:29. Definitely could have gone 5:10 if mccaff had said to go all out. (He said to maintain pace at 5:40.)

Thursday – 45 minute recovery run. Lots of people feeling slightly injured/getting back into shape. Luckily I’m not one of them. I felt a weird soreness on the outside lower right calf this past week, but it’s gone now, and besides that, I felt fucking ready to fly.

Wedensday – 67 minutes not too hard.

 

Overall, I’m feeling really fit these past 2 weeks, and I can’t wait to light some shit up on the track this season. It certainly helps that I have external motivation as well at the moment.

 

Two months left to make things happen and blow shit up. 4:25 isn’t that far out of reach for three of us is it?

 

Other Stuff

Holy shit. Doing ab work is the most gratifying experience ever. Next goal is to get past the regular 6 pack and go into epic 8 pack territories. (Need to clean up the lower 2 packs and the obliques as well) JC would approve.

 

Duke and Berkeley come out this week. Not high hopes for Berkeley since UCLA rejected, but there have been stories of people getting rejected from UCLA but getting into Cal. Originally price was an issue for my family if i were to consider Cal, but since they’re already considering moving for UCSD, i guess that would be an option if i somehow got into berkeley as well. I have somewhat higher hopes for Duke, but no expectations. (I’ve learned not to have expectations for admissions offices. Those fuckers could screw up wiping their own asses. I still don’t even know if Columbia ever got Mccaff’s rec actually…) Oh yeah, CMU also should be coming out this week. Getting in would be nice, but I haven’t visited yet, so I have no idea how badly I want to go.

 

I went to IHOP with Sam and crew after the scrimmage yesterday. Note to self: Make sure everyone agrees to go to Red Oak before Sam drags us all to that hellhole again. IHOP doesn’t even have better pancakes than Red Oak. Plus Mr. Clean – the world’s baller-est waiter -  works there.

 

Watched Infernal Affairs off of my XBMC rig on the plasma screen yesterday. Great movie. Highly recommend. I can’t wait for AP tests to end so I can have people over for movies like every weekend. (Got a ton of HD movies. Suggest a few in comments so I can get a hold of them before I start needing new ones every week?)

 

I want to get a new pair of baller shoes to hang out in. Nike Dunk High id’s (Mad expensive. 125.) or hitting up Mercer 21 for Flywire Air Max 95’s? (I don’t even know if Mercer 21 still has these. They were probably limited edition.) I’m leaning towards a pair of hightops. Because hightops are friggin’ awesome. Then again, I need to save up the moneys. We’ll see if I can find a pair of decently priced hightops next time I hit up a Nike outlet.

 

Advertisement: The JC twins are going to prom. We need two lovely ladies for them. If you think you’re eligible, please figure out your plans with them ASAP. It helps my planning if I already know that the two most fuckin’ awesome dates are already taken.

Snap March 17, 2009

I did not get any Physics hw done tonight… 8 more problems to do tomorrow i guess… Also need to start studying learning for some of my AP tests. It really disturbs me that my family is going to have to spend $602 on AP tests this year alone, and 770 total if you count the tests from last year as well. The College Board is supposedly a non-profit organization. So what the fuck do they do with all of that extra money that they definitely have lying around?

 

Decent workout today. 1600 at 5:22, recovery around turf, 1600 at 5:15, recovery around turf, 2:40 800. 2:36 800, 72 400, 70 400, all with 45 seconds recovery. Not quite an epic workout, but very good for confidence because the 1600’s felt like they were at a very controlled pace. We did a ton of drills after the workout too. Great stuff for my soon-to-be-JC-god-status abs. Strange soreness in the one of the tendons on the outside area of my right calf, but most likely just an ache from increased mileage as of late, coming back from the lower mileage we ran after winter track. There’s a good chance I blow off Science League for practice on Thursday. I’m sure Holmdel will still take first though. As long as Aaron has Greg to cheat off of, all will be well.

 

I just found out I got into UC San Diego, but apparently I was supposed to know on Saturday because the decisions were posted online the 17th. It’s not my fault they sent me an email notification about released decisions 4 days after the fact. My dad is considering moving to Cali if I decide to go to UCSD so we can pay in state tuition (It would be cheaper than going to UIUC for in state), plus he apparently loves San Diego. Also trying to take advantage of the low home prices there compared to a few years ago. Still waiting on scholarships from UIUC and decisions from Duke, Harvey Mudd, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, and Cornell. All of them come out after the 28th except CMU, which starts coming out in waves on the 22nd. (Mail sent out 20th at earliest.)

 

Down to <30gb out of 500gb on my hard drive. I guess it’s time to shell out for a secondary 1TB internal for storage purposes. (Hitachi Desktar or Samsung Spinpoint F1)

Macdaddybeth: No Compromise March 16, 2009

 

 

 

Herman Project finished. I spent 3 hours on Sunday editing with Santosh using Sony Vegas Pro on my rig, but it’s pretty evident that we got lazy editing the middle section of the movie. It’s all useless plot anyway that’s designed as filler in between fight scenes and fanservice. The last 4 scenes were filmed at Pavan’s house on Saturday, but I’m disappointed that we watched Hamlet 2 instead of Voltron: Fleet of Doom while we were there. Anyway, here’s the movie that we ended up making in its entirety.

 

Macdaddybeth from Kevin Hsu on Vimeo.

 

Update later this week with other stuff… need to do physics hw since it’s one of the few classes i still need to care about.

Recent happenings March 9, 2009

Here is the long-awaited fanservice fight scene in our Macbeth movie for the Herman project. We spent 4.5 hours filming at Pavan’s house on friday, but we still have 2 more scenes to finish up because Santosh had to leave early. We’ll have to edit it on my computer this weekend, mostly likely using Sony Vegas, but Windows Movie Maker if we’re strapped for time. (If so, I might go back and spruce it up with Vegas when i get a chance)

 

 

As of this current writing, I’m using Windows Live Writer to make my WordPress posts. The software is very robust, and it allowed me to upload video directly to youtube while embedding it in my blog post (just did so for the fight scene). There are also a bunch of plug-ins that allow Live Writer to use photos from your picasa and flickr accounts quite easily. I’d highly recommend making the switch for your blog posts if you’re running Windows.

 

On Running

Spring Track just started last Friday, and it’s a welcome change to stretch and warmup with an entire team rather than just 4-6 guys that i run with during off time. It’s my final season of high school running, but I’m definitely going to continue running after high school. There’s no way I’d give up my killer bod to laziness after all. Additional goal for this spring: run fast enough to give ‘em sick speed goggles for kev hsu. Although I’d like to point out, that for the kids in our state that are fast enough to get nice speed goggles, those speed goggles are unlikely to save them from having their gene pool ended by natural selection.

 

Today was 6 toploops. Haven’t done this many in ages. 53:45 for the whole thing. (8:57.5 average, finished in 8:26.)

 

Everything else because i decided to stop categorizing this post

I got rejected from Caltech, but I was basically expecting this and realistically, I was hoping for a wait-listed at best. Mostly due to my shitty junior year grades. No worries though. Everywhere else decisions come out in the next 3 weeks.

 

I have a beautiful moneymaking scheme. I bought 3 copies of C&C Red Alert 3 Premier Edition, 2 copies of Crysis Warhead, 1 copy of Crysis, and 3 copies of Orange Box for $10 each plus tax at BB because of a $20 off coupon. Resell value is at least $20 for each. I’m planning on keeping a copy of red alert 3 for myself and maybe 1 each of the crysis games. Might make another stop to another best buy to pick up more games before the offer expires. (I cleaned out the stock at the holmdel BB except for 1 copy of red alert 3, so don’t even bother checking.)

 

Went to see Watchmen with kev li, mike choie, and paco. I’ve only gotten through a little of the graphic novel, but it’s really apparent that the source material is much better. The movie is still decent on its own though. If a blue penis doesn’t make you laugh, what will? I should go out more often now since school is winding down….