My head hurts...
...from listening to too much music through headphones and playing too much DS. It's nice not having any homework this weekend, but... what's the point if everyone else is busy?!
Oh well, it was a nice break. And then Thanksgiving in a week and a half! This semester just flew by... Seems like I haven't been at school that long, and suddenly the professors are starting to talk about finals.
Anyway, this week was pretty eventful. On Thursday I went to the Taiwanese American Professionals speaker panel event, hosted by TASA. It was pretty interesting - there were speakers from all different fields, from engineering to law to medicine, and even an indie musician. Oh and this guy from Facebook was there. They talked about their jobs, what they do, stuff like that. Apparently it doesn't matter what field you're in - when you're just starting out you'll be working 60+ hours a week (in the case of the doctor, 80+). Which sounds pretty scary... but as the doctor guy put it, "if you're not willing to work hard, you're not going to succeed at anything."
While wandering around the engineering buildings, I happened to see a flyer advertising a seminar about automobile crashes. I thought it was interesting, so I decided to go. I was the first one to get there, so I took a seat and waited for it to start. Soon after, more people came in... except all of them looked old enough to be grad students and there were even some middle aged people. OOPS. Guess it wasn't an undergraduate seminar after all. But it was too late - if I left now, that'd be rude to the speaker. So I sat through the whole thing pretending not to be in the wrong place, and no one said anything. I guess the saying is true - as long as you look like you know what you're doing, people will assume the same. ._.;
As for the seminar itself, it was pretty interesting. I didn't understand all of it, but from what I could tell, the speaker was testing out a new way of documenting and doing research on the statistics of crashes. According to him, we shouldn't be looking at the frequency of crashes, but at the severity of them. Because with the present system, we're putting all the resources into preventing crashes at sites where there are a lot of fender-benders, while neglecting the sites where fatal crashes rarely, but do happen.
Not that I'm ever going to use that information. But it's good to know. Here's something a bit more practical: tell your parents to be careful while driving on the S-curve of the Bay Bridge - there's been 49 crashes in 53 days or something like that.
Today after wushu me and two others on the CMAT logistics team went over to last year's logistics head's house to take inventory of stuff. And we found CMAT posters from a looong time ago. There isn't any use for them anymore, so I kept one, and now I have a CMAT 2005 poster hanging on my dorm wall, for inspiration.
"Calwushu consumes my soul." (Taken from the facebook profile of one of the calwushu seniors.)
Seriously, you know you're obsessed when during math lecture you suddenly find yourself thinking about how to fix the choreography in the longfist form. Every waking moment now I'm training, if not physically, then mentally, picture the forms in my head, visualizing how I want it to look in execution. And even when I try to get to sleep, I'm going over the movements of the butterfly twist, trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
I think I've improved. At least, I can get through a whole section of my form without Liz (the first Calwushu person I met, and my unofficial mentor now) telling me to stop and fix a million and one problems. But I've still got a long way to go. My speed is still mediocre, my stamina needs a lot of work, my aerials are too low, and I still can't land inside-jump kick straight into splits. My arms are too weak to get through the entire broadsword form without slowing down by a noticeable amount, and I have yet to figure out how to do butterfly with a staff without either hitting myself or dropping the staff.
But I'll get there eventually. I hope.
I think I need some motivational music. This should do. It's practically the Calwushu theme song.
//EDIT: If anyone wants to go running over Thanksgiving Break with Kay and me, comment here or let me know in some way or form. We're most likely driving over to San Antonio to run on those trails, and yes, I'll arrange carpools.
Oh well, it was a nice break. And then Thanksgiving in a week and a half! This semester just flew by... Seems like I haven't been at school that long, and suddenly the professors are starting to talk about finals.
Anyway, this week was pretty eventful. On Thursday I went to the Taiwanese American Professionals speaker panel event, hosted by TASA. It was pretty interesting - there were speakers from all different fields, from engineering to law to medicine, and even an indie musician. Oh and this guy from Facebook was there. They talked about their jobs, what they do, stuff like that. Apparently it doesn't matter what field you're in - when you're just starting out you'll be working 60+ hours a week (in the case of the doctor, 80+). Which sounds pretty scary... but as the doctor guy put it, "if you're not willing to work hard, you're not going to succeed at anything."
While wandering around the engineering buildings, I happened to see a flyer advertising a seminar about automobile crashes. I thought it was interesting, so I decided to go. I was the first one to get there, so I took a seat and waited for it to start. Soon after, more people came in... except all of them looked old enough to be grad students and there were even some middle aged people. OOPS. Guess it wasn't an undergraduate seminar after all. But it was too late - if I left now, that'd be rude to the speaker. So I sat through the whole thing pretending not to be in the wrong place, and no one said anything. I guess the saying is true - as long as you look like you know what you're doing, people will assume the same. ._.;
As for the seminar itself, it was pretty interesting. I didn't understand all of it, but from what I could tell, the speaker was testing out a new way of documenting and doing research on the statistics of crashes. According to him, we shouldn't be looking at the frequency of crashes, but at the severity of them. Because with the present system, we're putting all the resources into preventing crashes at sites where there are a lot of fender-benders, while neglecting the sites where fatal crashes rarely, but do happen.
Not that I'm ever going to use that information. But it's good to know. Here's something a bit more practical: tell your parents to be careful while driving on the S-curve of the Bay Bridge - there's been 49 crashes in 53 days or something like that.
Today after wushu me and two others on the CMAT logistics team went over to last year's logistics head's house to take inventory of stuff. And we found CMAT posters from a looong time ago. There isn't any use for them anymore, so I kept one, and now I have a CMAT 2005 poster hanging on my dorm wall, for inspiration.
"Calwushu consumes my soul." (Taken from the facebook profile of one of the calwushu seniors.)
Seriously, you know you're obsessed when during math lecture you suddenly find yourself thinking about how to fix the choreography in the longfist form. Every waking moment now I'm training, if not physically, then mentally, picture the forms in my head, visualizing how I want it to look in execution. And even when I try to get to sleep, I'm going over the movements of the butterfly twist, trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
I think I've improved. At least, I can get through a whole section of my form without Liz (the first Calwushu person I met, and my unofficial mentor now) telling me to stop and fix a million and one problems. But I've still got a long way to go. My speed is still mediocre, my stamina needs a lot of work, my aerials are too low, and I still can't land inside-jump kick straight into splits. My arms are too weak to get through the entire broadsword form without slowing down by a noticeable amount, and I have yet to figure out how to do butterfly with a staff without either hitting myself or dropping the staff.
But I'll get there eventually. I hope.
I think I need some motivational music. This should do. It's practically the Calwushu theme song.
//EDIT: If anyone wants to go running over Thanksgiving Break with Kay and me, comment here or let me know in some way or form. We're most likely driving over to San Antonio to run on those trails, and yes, I'll arrange carpools.