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| 08:33pm 17/11/2009 |
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mood:  sick
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I just Twitter-stalked a dude. I needed to confirm one of my classmate's last names so I could cite him as a collaborator on this p-set. Still, I feel a little dirty.
Also ill and headachy.
Last night I had slightly feverish dreams about reinforcement learning, where it didn't feel like sleep because I was thinking so much, and I kept trying to think about other things so I could get more restful sleep, and my dreams turned into thinking about not thinking about RL.
Kinda like Hungry Joe in Catch-22, who thinks he can't get any sleep because he dreams that the cat is sitting on his face and keeping him awake. And later the cat suffocates him. Okay, so not quite like that. Still, any day that has parallels to Catch-22 is a good day as far as I'm concerned :3. |
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| dude... |
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| 11:45pm 15/11/2009 |
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mood:  tired
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I think...maybe, just maybe, I have a glimmer of understanding about the current p-set.
I'm going to celebrate this potentially useful knowledge by reading about the Vikings, maybe drawing something, and if I somehow incorporate Odin into my dreams about reinforcement learning, so much the better *o*. |
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| It takes me awhile, but I get there... |
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| 04:08pm 11/11/2009 |
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mood:  contemplative
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The most important lesson in school is not literature analysis or mathematics or biology or programming or whatever -- it's learning to fail. Because at some point, we're all going to fail (some of us more than others). School is a place where we can fail and the consequences aren't that serious.
No, really. It's easy to feel like your life is on the line -- one grade is going to derail everything you have planned and out the window goes all those hopes and dreams -- but it's not. That's something I have understood on a rational level for who knows how long, but again and again I have to experience it to actually get it.
Eighteen years I've been "doing" school and I'm just now getting to the point that disappointment, unexpected setbacks and my own limitations no longer trigger complete panic-mode and the desire to run away or cry or give up or whatever other overreaction controls me at the moment. Today was really the first time I was able to say, yes, that sucks but that doesn't devalue me as a person and there's no reason to drop these twenty other things just because that one came tumbling down.
School is practice for the real world, because while failure will inevitably happen in both, in the real world, consequences for failure can actually be deadly-serious. And while we might not manage to avoid it, hopefully we'll handle it the best it could possibly be handled -- even if that's just turning a nose-dive into a belly-flop.
So yeah. If you're curious, yes, I did awfully on the test (not awfully overall, but awfully compared to my classmates, which is unfortunately what matters). But it'll be okay. To all the other people on my flist still in school, it'll be okay for you guys as well. I know you won't believe me, but it's always good to have a reminder.
I feel like these past few weeks, I've had to learn so many life-lessons, some of them quite painful, but that's okay too. Hopefully they'll stick, and I'll move on for real this time. Why are we on this earth if not to learn? |
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| XDXDXDXD |
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| 08:55pm 06/11/2009 |
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mood:  accomplished music: Bad Religion - "Skyscraper"
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Fuck yeah! I'm a badass! Take that, support vector machines XDXDXD. I was so not expecting to actually produce working code XDXDXD. |
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| Here we go |
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| 11:13am 06/11/2009 |
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mood:  productive
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It occurs to me that I'm supposed to give the message this Sunday, so I probably should get something written up relatively soon...or at least practice my juggling. Even more reason to finish up this p-set tonight, I suppose _o_.
Anyway, feel free to come join us. The MCC Relief Sale is going on, so I imagine a bunch of people will be out of town, meaning it'll probably get lonely for me :(. I think the themes are going to be anarchy, love and detachment, but we'll see what gets slapped together. |
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| It seems too good to be true |
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| 03:32pm 03/11/2009 |
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mood:  grateful
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My ML partner talked to the prof after class, and so I joined in and made the suggestion that rather than having three assignments back to back, he space them out and maybe drop one, but the prof was like, let's just have two more assignments and call it good. Which means he's dropping two assignments and my partner and I will have a full week to finish this one.
It's too good to be true. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but in the meantime, woot woot. I would throw in a happy emoticon, but I'm still just prepping myself for the slaughter to occur tomorrow in crypto. Thank God I'm a fatalist... |
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| I can do it...I hope |
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| 11:43pm 01/11/2009 |
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mood:  anxious music: Dandy Warhols - "Nietzche"
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Wednesday morning is going to be pure logical-reasoning pain, but then Peter will do his proposal, and on Saturday, the lab is going to eat barbeque, either to celebrate or commiserate depending on how it goes :D:D:D. I love Peter so much -- no matter what happens, I'll be a little sad. Either he'll do well and leave sooner or he'll leave later and be sad...such is life _o_.
( Art stuff ) |
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| I was wearing a hoodie and I was still cold... |
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| 12:41am 31/10/2009 |
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mood:  impressed
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It can't be more than 10 degrees above freezing, but while on an emergency toilet paper run (the worst kind of run imaginable), I saw girls trick-or-treating or something in low-cut tops and short-skirted bottoms as a maid and angel respectively. Wow, ladies, y'all are seriously hard core. I may not admire the lifestyle, but you gotta respect the 'ttude :O. |
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| Let's flip the "reset" switch... |
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| 10:34am 30/10/2009 |
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mood:  satisfied
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For breakfast I had (in serial, not parallel at least) orange juice, cod liver oil and chocolate cake. I suspect this may be proof that I'm going insane. Further proof is that, after some recalculating and rejiggering, I even think I have a schedule that'll fit in everything I need to do. Sometimes I think my day planner is all that stands between me and a nervous breakdown. |
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| Last night I had a dream, we were inseperably entwined... |
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| 11:37pm 26/10/2009 |
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mood:  determined music: Noah and the Whale - "2 Atoms in a Molecule"
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Ugh, I can't decide if I'm so horribly behind that there's no way I'm going to get everything done, or if everything is coming along nicely and life is grand >_>;;. Definitely wish my lab partner and I had finished the coding today. Didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow. Both of us want to finish by Thursday, and I think we can make that happen. And for everything else, there's a good 3 hour chunk on Wednesday while I'm proctoring...
Blah. Time to be a proper grad student and cut out sleep >_>;;. But for now...
( Bodyslide by One! ) |
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| School and stuff |
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| 08:48pm 20/10/2009 |
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mood: sleepy
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Kinda vaguely dazed at the moment...my ML midterm was today, and while I was definitely not as well prepared as I should have been, it wasn't horrendous...I think. Kinda funny though. Overall it wasn't bad, but the first part of the first problem was this linear algebra derivation, and I was like, dear God, I can stare at this all I want, but I simply do not know the rules needed to solve it o.@. So that was not a good way to start, but I talked to a guy leaving at the same time as me and he was like, yeah, that first question stumped me. So we bonded a bit ^^.
Anyway, just wanted to have a quick shout out for some kinda-sorta newcomers to devArt. There's nexykun, aka ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) typ0ninja, who's hardly new to art, but is just getting back into it after several years of hiatus. He's wicked awesome, and you should give him love and critique in that order...if we're lucky, he'll post more of his badass sketchbook shenanery :D:D:D.
And of course Foodstamps-Lobster, aka bloodfromstone. He's a little baby artist at this point, but he's got rad ideas and a lot of talent. Give him plenty of love (and maybe a few ass-kickings when he tries to avoid doing what he knows he needs to do ;P) and enjoy seeing his art get progressively more kickass :D:D:D. |
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| Yays~~ |
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| 09:08pm 16/10/2009 |
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mood:  tipsy
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Finished up my p-set, steadily making progress on my other p-set. Not too concerned about my midterm (but that'll change). Basically done with one fellowship essay, got a working rough draft of the second, still need to write up the third. Internship apps can wait till tomorrow. Now is the time to steadily drink my way through the evening and sleep a derivation-less sleep. Life is goooood :3:3:3. |
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| Still churning away in Matlab... |
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| 10:52am 16/10/2009 |
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mood:  twitchy
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Wow, talk about slim pickin's next semester...everything that looks remotely interesting I've already taken...and I've only been here three semesters -_-;;. Looks like it's time to finish more of my undergrad background coursework and take that business class I've been meaning to.
I really don't know how I feel about a Clash of the Titans remake. As much as I can recognize the movie as garbage with at best questionable mythology, I frickin' adore it. No, let me clarify, I frickin' adore Ray Harryhausen and everything he does. Models and stop-motion stand the test of time so much better than CGI as far as I'm concerned. And remaking CotT means remaking the graphics, and if you remake the graphics, what's the point? I guess there's that owl which I always liked as a kid...
Also, new icon from here. Other favorite one? The one with Musashi, of course. |
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| Writer's Block: Job search |
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| 11:12pm 08/10/2009 |
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It's kinda funny that this came up only a couple weeks after I was seriously considering dropping out of grad school. Like "no, for reals, I've had enough so I'm looking into getting an actual job" serious. Of course that passed, partly because I know I won't feel that way when I get to a point where I can actually quit, but also partly because I realized there are very few things I want to do for a living when I sit down and consider my options.
And by very few things, I mean I want to direct video games. That's...about it. I don't know when it became a kind of obsession for me, but at this point, it's something I just have to live with. Even when I convince myself that it's not going to happen, that it's too difficult and I don't have the necessary skills or connections, even when I finally decide, "fine, I'm not going to think about it any more, because it's pointless"...I still do. It's there in the back of my mind.
So yes, I'm tired and stressed but happy where I am. There is a dream job, and as far as I'm concerned I want to be doing that or at least working my way toward it in some fashion. I hope to be graduated in five-ish years and working for a nice, small developer somewhere, hopefully making the connections I need to start my own company.
As for what I'm doing right now, I figure designing toolkits for the graphics side of video games isn't a complete waste of time. I'm currently in the proposal stage, but sometime next year I'll actually start the research proper. There are also business courses I want to take, internships I'd like to do, and if I ever get enough freaking time, game programming I'd like to mess around with more on my own.
It's either that or give up all my worldly possessions and move to Siberia...anyway~!
( Finally drew something I'm happy with~ ) |
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cheerful
pensive
calm