You're Asian, you must be smart, right?

School started today. It was..., boring. I have a good teacher for Electromagnetism at the least, but I'm not a big fan of the stuff. My Analog ICs professor isn't even back until next week, so his TA ran lecture today. Fuck if the lecture wasn't reviewing BJTs yet again. Probably the fourth or fifth class I've taken that started out with BJT review.

I'm hoping there will be someone interesting in my Linguistics 1 class tomorrow. I've told a few random people to take it with me, since I'd like to have someone I know in the class to talk to, but..., whatever. I don't think I'm actually going to get into Communications 3 either, so this (Lin 1) will probably be my only non-engineering class this quarter.
First quarter of senior year outlook : bad.


So, on to something else.

As it tends to be with the beginning of a new year, we have a bunch of new bus drivers. With the bus drivers, comes actual checking of IDs when you get on the bus on campus. So, I was in a bad spot when I was dropped off on campus with neither phone nor wallet. Luckily, I knew the driver and she wasn't checking IDs anyway, so I drew the long straw on that one.

Being that it was the 8 PM bus, there weren't a whole lot of people on the bus besides the normal fare of "I don't think enough people can hear what I'm saying on my phone" girl, "I'm cool because I've always got my headphones on" guy, and "oversized guy who sits next to you on the small-ass bus seat despite the fact that there are other seats open" guy.

There was this guy and girl that came on though. They came on talking, but apparently just met or something along those lines since they sat apart from eachother in that awkward "I want to talk to you but don't want to sit next to you because then you might think I like you even though I really do" kinda way. They were talking about the guy having been thiiis close to being a chess master back when he was younger, and other such "get to know" eachother topics. I don't feel bad that I was eavesdropping seeing as how they were seated next to me and I couldn't have ignored them even if I'd tried. They talked for a while longer about other irrelevant things, and I was getting kinda creeped out 'cause the guy kept looking at me and he looked kinda funny. Eventually he said, deliberately so that I could hear I assume, "He's got a sword".

I let him take a look at it, and he asked a few questions about it, asking whether it was Kendo and where I was learning, whether it was a "real sword" or not, things like that. I told him about the class, but it was pretty easy to see he had little interest in the subject, so I gracefully bowed out of the conversation and let him talk to his lady friend.

This was, however, shortlived as the empty space between them that they were talking through was filled by two new patrons of the bus. Truthfully, I felt kinda bad for them, since they quite obviously wanted to get to know eachother better, but was too scared to show the enthusiasm necessary to move through the people and sit next to the other for fear of, um, I'm not entirely sure. People are just scared of stuff sometimes.

I still suffer from this. Fuck if I know why. The result of some sort of under-development of my social psyche or ego or some crap probably. As much as I really don't want to become an adult, I really wish I'd just grow up sometimes.

Anyway, the guy had no backpack, but apparently carried on him a pen and a pad of paper at all times. Just before the girl got off at her stop, he gave her his number and said they ought to hang out sometime, in that ever-so-trying-to-be-casual-but-really-quite-nervous tone of voice. "Oh, thank you", said she in reply, confused, but quite pleased it seemed.

It was a nice moment altogether. I smiled when I saw it happen, and to think about it now still makes me chuckle. I suppose it was the utter lack of pretense on both their parts; the slightly awkward, hesitant, back and forth bantering. Much like two fighters, feints, dodges, you toss something out to see how they react, and draw away so as not to show yourself vulnerable.

It was a tender moment, beautiful in some ways and a reminder that people aren't always so bad. I, well, there's not much else I want to say I suppose.


...

# posted by Yann : 01:07  0 comments

Well, the Revolution controller was revealed. It seems like the majority of folk are quite taken with the thing and are very interested in where it is going to take the state of gaming. Many have already compared the Revolution to the original NES in terms of what it is going to do to the market. Whether this will actually happen remains to be seen, but damn if that isn't a nifty little gadget. As for me, I wasn't really intending on spending $400 on a console and was wary of buying a Revolution at launch, but I think I may very well pre-order a Revolution when I get the chance now.

I also bought Advance Wars : Dual Strike. I bought it on..., Wednesday and finished the normal campaign just earlier today. At the time of beating the game, I had about 20 hours logged, so I may have a bit too much free time.

The game is fun. The campaign features more interesting stages than were found in Advance Wars : Black Hole Rising, as well as a somewhat more engaging storyline and actual characterization of the various Command Officers you use.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot of crap happening. Hopefully I will do Interesting Things this week, and I've been getting calls for tutoring lately as well, so the cash situation is looking a bit better. Yay for uninteresting posts.

# posted by Yann : 21:09  0 comments

There is Something Wrong with my computer. What this is exactly has not yet been determined, but after pulling shit out, putting stuff in, playing with things, and a bit of voodoo, I think the motherboard is dead. It's also possible the processor is dead, but that seems less likely. It has been a while since I've had the computer I suppose, but all the same it's weird of my motherboard to give up the ghost like this. It was working about 2 hours ago :(.

Now, assuming it really is dead, I've got limited options. I could go without a computer and just use this semi-functional laptop for a while, but..., well, I dunno, I guess I could do that if I wanted. This being senior year and all, I should probably hold off on video games if at all possible, and constraining myself to this Piece of Crap would preclude any hope of playing much of anything.

I could also take the opportunity to upgrade my computer, but I'm not seeing that happening since there are better things to spend my non-existent money on.

I had initially figured I would just buy another of the same motherboard and use that, but now I wonder whether I'd be better off with a crippled computer. I do indeed spend too much time on the computer as is, and there isn't all that much schoolwork that needs to be done on a computer besides typing up lab reports and essays and such. And if I'm forced to use this thing (I wish I had pictures of it), I might be more motivated to finally fix it and make it a REAL laptop; a PORTABLE laptop with a HINGED LID, classy.

Well, not much else going on. Going to see "The 40 Year Old Virgin" tonight. I have high hopes for the movie, since most people have said it is entertaining.

As for life, The State of Yann as of late has been confused. This whole graduating-from-college thing is creeping me out a bit and making me wonder about my fitness and how I've spent the last few years. Unsurprisingly, all this thinking eats away at the mind and slowly crushes the spirit. Long story short, I really need something to do 'cause Summer is driving me crazy.

...

Here, have a picture!

# posted by Yann : 20:46  1 comments

So ants had once again invaded my bathroom. Having realized that killing their scouts did little to no good with regard to stopping their assault, I busted out the poison food that had proved so effective in stopping them in other parts of the house. I grabbed it just before I was going to sleep the other day and put it down on the counter as I did my nightly routine before going to bed.

When I wake up in the mornings, I often can't see very well. I wear night and day lenses, and upon lucidity, my eyes are very dry. Thus, it takes a bit of time and usually a bit of water/solution in the eyes to see. After washing my face and just as I was brushing my teeth, a flood of black crap all over my counter brought to my attention that I left the stupid poison thing right next to my sink. They luckily left most of my crap alone, so I didn't have ants all over my toothpaste and such, but still the sheer flood of them was kinda scary. I wish I'd had a camera with which to take a picture.

Now, maybe half a day later, my sink area is entirely clear of ants. Thank goodness for poisons. Not that I particularly enjoy that I needed to utterly destroy that colony of ants, but if you force my hand in a situation where running or a peaceful solution isn't possible, then I'll do what it takes to keep my way of life.

# posted by Yann : 02:25  0 comments

I've decided I ought to take the GRE this year. More than just a few friends are studying for it right now, and I figure since everyone else is doing it, I might as well too. From what I hear it's Super-SAT, which is good news I think. I also like that I can take it on a computer, since I kinda hate writing stuff out with pencil and paper. I'm really starting to dread this coming year of school, but I suppose that'll make graduation that much sweeter. Maybe.

I've started reading Anna Karenina in some attempt to broaden my literary horizons. I'm just fifty pages into it so there isn't much to say about it yet, but I'm glad my initial worries that it would not grab my attention were wrong. I do suppose the classics are considered classics for a reason, but the slew of boring books (The Scarlet Letter, The Grapes of Wrath, Jane Eyre, among others) they made us read in HS make me a bit wary of "the classics".

Also saw "Man on Fire" the other day. It reminded me of "Leon", aka "The Professional", but with less loli. Needless to say, it was altogether fairly depressing with a generous helping of bad-ass and killing assholes. There's a reasonably large lost finger count as well. It felt overly stylized in some points, but altogether the movie was pretty good. It did a good job of making you actually care about the characters, and hate the antagonists. By the end of it, you were cheering him on as he went apeshit all over the baddies. Definitely a movie you should see.

As an ending note, I managed to catch the ending bars of "Ticket to Ride" by the Beatles today. It's always weird to hear a song you used to like a lot but haven't listened to in a while. Furthermore, it's always nice to hear a Beatles song on the radio. Which reminds me, I also watched pretty much all of "Forrest Gump" on TNT yesterday. I saw the movie when I was fairly young and so by now had forgotten most of it. I'd also forgotten just how good a movie it was, and thus sat at Sean's for the few hours it took to finish. I think I might try and find those books in the near future.

# posted by Yann : 20:18  0 comments