Blog: Entries From 2003

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Just about everybody seems to have a blog these days! With the onset of college rapidly approaching (four more days, gasp), I've decided that these next four years just may produce something worthy of recording. So without further ado.. Anson's Blog is born. (I'll have to think of a better name)

I rode the metro to UCLA in the morning and picked up my books for Chem and Comp Sci. While waiting for the afternoon bus to come, I read about C++ pointers and munched on a brownie energy bar that was my breakfast supplement. And enjoyed it. Surprisingly.

Today I had my last meal with my family. My mom asked me if I would like anything special, but I said leftovers would be fine. Still, it was one of the best meals I've ever had.

Mixed feelings bounced through my head as I rummaged through my belongings, packing everything I'd need. "I'm going to college!" I thought. "But I'll be leaving home, missing everything I've known for 18 years." ... "But it'll be a great experience." ... "I'll be on my own." ... "That's bad." ... "That's good."

I know I'll be missing my family, my friends, but at the same time I'm ecstatic. It'll be a new life, a new experience. But that's what we do when we try anything new. College is, after all, just one of the many stepping stones on our journey. Onward bound!

Well, it's been a long day. My mom drove me to UCLA in the morning since I was too tired to keep my eyes open. The move-in process was extremely efficient and smooth! From a loading up a truck in the parking lot to renting out a rolling mailbin at Hedrick Hall, many move-in assistants helped us to move my belongings seamlessly from the car up to my floor, Hedrick 3 North. As my mom was about to leave to go back home, Sophonias and his dad showed up, and my mom told Sophonias to make sure I sleep early. We also met our floor R.A. Leo, and our P.A. Nan.

Sophonias and I spent the day organizing our room. He still needed to get a network cable and textbooks, so we went down to the Ackerman Student Union. There I stumbled across something I had not seen for ages: a pair of original Sony Walkman headphones, for $5.56! My old pair having disappeared mysteriously some time ago, and my other pair at home, I could only buy the headphones. We had lunch at Rieber Hall, since the dining facility in Hedrick was closed for construction.

Leo and Nan planned to take the floor to Westwood for the evening, but they changed it to dinner at Rieber Hall instead. Aside from the main courses, lunch and dinner's menus were the same. Even then, the main courses were similar: both Chinese.

I'm getting tired of these ZoneAlarm firewall alerts. Every few seconds, an alert window pops up, telling me that a ping to my computer has been intercepted. When I look in the alert viewer, it says the ping originated from the UCLA server. Great, so my computer isn't connecting well with the server. This all started after I cleared out what I thought was a junk cache folder for ZoneAlarm; it turned out to also hold files for all my ZoneAlarm settings. Wups.

My mom drove to UCLA to take me home for the weekend.

After church, my mom and I went to the 99 cent store and bought coathangers and a lot of bottled water. We picked up Sophonias at his house and drove back to UCLA. Hedrick Hall's dining facility opened up, so we had dinner there. That evening, Sophonias and I visited a friend from school, Lac, and went to see "The Matrix Reloaded" which was playing in Royce Hall across campus. This was the second time I've seen the movie, and I still have no idea what the people in it are talking about.

Networks rock! Sophonias and I both installed the StarCraft demo on our computers and we can play against each other via the UCLA network. Today Lac's friend Rishi came over and we talked until he had to leave. Later he came back with Lac, and the four of us played a couple card games: Hearts, Spoons, and Crazy Eights. Rishi and I played StarCraft against each other. Later, Sophonias' friend John came over, and I played StarCraft with him as well. So far I've been undefeated. ;-)

Sophonias and I went to the welcome luncheon of the Engineering Society of UCLA (affectionately dubbed ESUC, pronounced "E-Suck"). I was seated at a table with fellow freshman computer science students. I have to admit that the speeches and video that were presented were quite, umm, banal. But at least I got a free lunch. ;-) Well, I'm still going to join ESUC, because the services they provide will be useful, such as: 150 sheets of printing per quarter (more than the average student would probably need). And the join fee is only 5 bucks.

This morning I had breakfast in Rieber. I'm getting tired of the continental breakfast served in Hedrick. Nothing but carbs, carbs, and carbs. I talked with a sophomore named Jason, who gave me an ominous warning of bell curve grading, aka savage competition.

In the afternoon I went to my first class- the Math 31B Discussion, taught by a T.A. named Kareem. Right at the start, he dove into "review" differentiation I had long since forgotten how to do. And even worse, almost everybody seemed to be following it, except me! But I guess a lot of students were lost, because sighs of relief resonated when several students asked Kareem to explain a few concepts. Well, I'm catching on. Just need some serious textbook review. Did I mention I hate math?

LAUSD deleted my email account when they finally discovered I wasn't a student any longer. Oh well. At least I didn't have anything too important in there.

On the academic side, my Chem teacher gave us 50 pages of reading to do, and my Calc teacher is from Russia (or a related country) and has a really obscure accent. Hopefully I'll get used to it quickly, as I got used to Iusmen's accent back in AP Calc. On the other hand, Iusmen didn't stutter.

The weekends combine breakfast and lunch into a single brunch. Hedrick doesn't open up on the weekends until Sunday night, so Sophonias and I ate at Rieber. The food there rules (Sophonias disagrees- he champions Hedrick); in fact, the Kung Pao chicken dish at Rieber was better than at any Chinese restaurant I've been to. And the chef who cooked it wasn't even Chinese..

A girl named Kat found us at brunch and introduced herself. She actually lives on our floor- Hedrick 3 North. Really cool. After we talked a bit, she went to the Rieber lounge to play the piano.

Sophonias showed me Intouch Ministries, a website that provides streaming video sermons by Dr. Charles Stanley. This is great because we haven't yet found a church to go to. Today's sermon was on inner peace, and it was a good reminder that true peace can come only from God.

Today was my first lecture for Computer Science 31. My Comp Sci lecture and discussion classes are twice as long as my other lecture and discussion classes- a whole hour longer. But at least it's a class under my willfully selected major, so I'm not complaining too much.

I stayed after a little to discuss artificial intelligence with Professor Shinnerl, who hinted that he prefers to be called by his first name, Joe.

October is here! Classes seemed to drag on and on today. In the afternoon I went to check out a Bible study put on by a campus club called Christian Students, and in the evening I attended one of their series of welcome dinners. I had a long discussion with two graduate students of the club about their view of Jesus Christ as a life-giving spirit. I came back to Hedrick fatigued from such a loooong day, so all I did was play online games. Bleh.

I added an Academic Schedule page that lists all my classes and teachers. I still can't think of a good name to replace "Anson's Blog"......

This afternoon I worked out for an hour in the Rieber exercise room. I felt sooo buff. Unexpectedly tonight, Hedrick served New England Clam Chowder (I was wondering if they'd ever) as well as several other new and quite delicious items. I found myself repeatedly asking, "Am I in Rieber?"

I had left my laptop on with AIM running since Friday afternoon. I was planning to leave it on continuously and set a record for online time, but after a day and a half my laptop began to act wierd and laggy, so I had to restart it. :(

Looks like I've found a church to go to. I emailed Roy from CCAC about churches in the area, and he referred me to a guy named Andy from AACF, and he referred me to Emily also from AAFC, and she drove me and two girls, Alison and Genevieve, to a church called NewSong LA in Culver City. NewSong LA is actually a new branch-off of NewSong Irvine, so they don't have their own facility but lease a big room in The Veterans Memorial Building senior center. The worship was different (a bunch of people singing in different keys- I think it was similar to the "gospel" music genre) but it was cool, and the sermon (it was about the story of Mary and Martha when Jesus came to their house) was a great reminder of what our perspective as Christians should be.

I also met two other girls from AACF at NewSong: Wendy and Connie. After church Emily, Alison, Genevieve, and I went to Best Buy for a while, and I played on an electronic keyboard and discovered that I forgot how to play Canon. Funny thing is that I just played it from start to finish with no problems three days ago in the Rieber lounge.

I had brunch at Rieber with Alison and Genevieve, and Connie joined us mid-brunch. Then one of their other friends showed up to join us right when we were finished eating. Needless to say, it was a fun day. Sophonias didn't go because he had to do his English homework, but he agreed to go next week (and if he doesn't, I'm gonna drag him the whole way). Wow, that's the most I've ever written for a blog entry. Ok... goodnight.

I needed to use the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET compiler for one of my Comp Sci projects, and I didn't have it installed on my laptop, so I went up to the 6th floor lounge of Hedrick where all the computers are (it kinda stinks, since all we have on our floor is couches). I apparently didn't have a Resnet password to access the computer, so I walked down to the SEASnet Help Desk all the way in Boelter Hall, but they didn't know much about it so they referred me to STC (Student Technology Center) back at the top of the hill, but they didn't know much about it either. So STC referred me to the Office of Residential Life, and the guy there didn't know about it either, and he referred me to the computer lab in Covel Commons, which turned out to be the right place. So I read through a bunch of legal agreements and got a Resnet password associated with my University ID number so that I could use any of the Resnet computers. I was finally all set. So in the evening I returned to the 6th floor of Hedrick and logged into one of the computers, only to find that the Resnet computers didn't have Visual Studio .NET installed on them in the first place.

I guess I'll have to make do with my Borland Turbo C++ Compiler for now.

This afternoon I went to the SEASnet Help Desk in Boelter Hall this afternoon to pick up my username and password for the SEASnet computer network, which allows me to use the computers in the several computer labs interspersed throughout Boelter. I went to another room in Boelter, where I picked up a full 6 CD Microsoft Visual Studio .net Professional pack. Since I'm enrolled in a programming class that uses that compiler, I get it for freeee.

Oh, and I also discovered that I had been spelling Rieber incorrectly as 'Reiber', so I had to fix all my blog entries. Finally.... Arnold won. But we all already knew he would.

This morning I woke up to an annoying buzzing alarm. I thought it was just somebody's alarm clock going off (and them being too tired to go turn it off) in a nearby room, so I went back to sleep after a while. Maybe half an hour later, our R.A. Leo burst into my room and woke me up, saying we had to evacuate the building. It was then that I realized what that annoying buzzing really was. As I went downstairs, I saw a firetruck parked outside the building. The alarm stopped ringing, and I didn't see any fire or even smoke, but they still made us walk to the nearby parking lot. Soon after that they dismissed us, allowing us to go back upstairs. I wasn't too happy about losing sleep over what seemed like nothing, and I was falling asleep through all my classes.

After my Comp Sci lecture in Franz Hall ended at 6, I walked across campus and up the hill and found the gathering place for Asian American Christian Fellowship (AACF) at the Sproul Hall turnaround. Then we all walked down the hill to the AACF meeting room in.. wouldn't you know it, Franz Hall. They had a time of songs, a skit, a message, and then more songs. Having missed dinner, I was extremely hungry, but I had an awesome time. Afterwards, I stopped at Puzzle's where I found out that people who missed dinner at the residence halls may still grab a late bite.

Cat found us again at dinner, and her roommate Kelly was with her. We had a nice time just chatting. We found out Cat is crazy when she started making a detailed happy face with scraps of food on her plate. Crazy in a cool, funny way. :)

I checked my mailbox today and found a sample voting ballot that I was supposed to receive some days ago. It was still entertaining to read it, though. The full list of the 169 gubernatorial candidates also displayed their occupations. Among them were: Custom Denture Manufacturer, Retired Meat Packer, Comedian, Railroad Switchman, Cigarette Retailer, Marijuana Legalization Attorney, Restaurant Owner, Olympics Advisor, Golf Professional, Used Car Dealer, and Middleweight Sumo Wrestler.

A girl from AACF named Denise drove Sophonias and me to NewSong today. We also met Jennifer, whom Denise was also taking to NewSong. I thought the music and the sermon were once again pretty good. The sermon was about Rahab, and the six points of a strong faith. At the end we found out that the first letters of the six points spelled "R-A-H-A-B-S" as the speaker noted, "We should all be Rahabs."

A girl named Ling who lives on our floor found us during brunch and dinner, and the three of us had fun just chatting over our food. Turns out she's from Singapore, and she speaks Mandarin. Though she claims her Mandarin isn't the best, it makes mine (which is pretty sorry anyway) seem like a dog trying to speak Latin. Wao da zhong wen bu tai hao.

Sophonias and I went down to the Hedrick dining hall to eat, but there was a huge line outside (some sort of delay), so we decided to go to Rieber. On the way, we bumped into Richard and his friend Sandy who were going to eat at DeNeve, so we decided to join them instead. The dining hall, if you could even call it that, seemed more like a mall. I mean, it was HUGE. Everything was pretty clean, and they even had some booths you could sit in, like at sit-down restaurants. The overall quality beats that of the Hedrick and Rieber dining halls. Naturally. That's one of the many perks of paying more for housing..

This morning Sophonias and I bumped into Kelly at breakfast. Her classmate Leon found us and joined us too. Breakfast was (naturally) pretty short, so unfortunately we didn't get to talk too much. But we coincidentally bumped into Leon again at dinner and talked a bit more.

After my afternoon math discussion class today, I walked back to my dorm and did some math homework, then took a nap. When I woke up, I reminded myself that I had a computer project that I needed to finish and submit online by 9:00 pm. But I decided to keep working on math, being the kind of person who doesn't like to stop working on something until it's all done.

Around 6 o'clock, I decided that I really needed to get to my computer project. So I got to work on it, but at the end I had a somewhat serious problem I couldn't get rid of, so I jumped on AIM and talked to Kenny and he helped me sort it out. But I still needed to type out the report. By then it was past seven and I still hadn't eaten, so Sophonias and I hustled down to the Hedrick dining hall and swiped our cards to get in.

Only then did we realize that Hedrick was having a Japanese theme dinner, and that the place was consequently packed with three times as many people as there were chairs. The lines to get any sort of food whatsoever were unbearably long, and the 9 o'clock deadline was rapidly encroaching, so I stayed in the shortest line and got a bowl of Udon noodle soup, and then I went to the only thing that had no line, the desert bar. I grabbed a few cookies and cornbread and found an empty seat and ate my meager dinner. Needless to say, it was a pretty sorry dinner. By then it was 8 o'clock, and I needed to hurry back and finish my project, so I grabbed 8 pieces of fruit (you're only supposed to take one fruit out of the building) and ran back to my room.

Then while my stomach was in agony, I hurriedly typed up the report, which consisted of recorded input and output to my program and some comments about any problems I encountered. At the bottom of the hour, I noticed that my program wasn't displaying significant figures exactly the way it was supposed to, so I frantically looked over my code and put in a few lines. Then the new code didn't work properly, so I had to change it a bit, and some more again after that. It was 8:55 when the code finally worked properly, so I quicky stuck all the project's files into a zip file and submitted it at 8:59, with one minute to spare. The moral of the story: don't procrastinate, and um, Udon soup is pretty unfilling, too.

UCLA strongly warns against downloading copyrighted media, e.g. MP3's. While they personally do not monitor internet packets, they say that if they receive a notification from an outside agency that a user is downloading copyrighted media, they (UCLA) will turn over that individual's information. So what do you do if you are a college student who left his music at home and is bored to tears? You download the MP3's anyway! Well, that would be one way, but a safer alternative is MIDI files, which are third party sequenced (i.e. immitations) and 100% legal. A decent site I found today is MIDI Farm. While MIDI files pale in comparison to MP3's, they're obviously better than nothing. Hopefully I'll go home soon and get my real music.

Well, there's going to be a power blackout in Hedrick (who knows why) from 10pm tonight till 5am tomorrow. That would be 10 minutes from now, so goodnight folks.

At 10 o'clock last night, I was up waiting to watch all the lights go off per the schedule blackout. They did not. So I went to the lounge to see who was there, and I found a group of people in my chem class working some book problems, so I joined them. A bit before 12, I decided to go to sleep. As I was getting into bed, in my mind declaiming the power outage that never was, the lights suddenly went out.

Denise took me to church again; Sophonias didn't go because he had gone home to avoid the power outage. The sermon was really good, it was about the story of the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears; what made it really interesting was that the pastor put every detail into historical context to show the story's significance.

My chemistry midterm is done! The questions were relatively easy; the only thing that messed me up was that I didn't know how much time was allocated (50 minutes), so when the professor suddenly called 10 minutes remaining, I was still on the third of four problems, taking my time and double checking everything. I frantically rushed through the test, not writing down numbers on my test packet but plugging them into my calculator, and only writing down formulas. Hopefully I won't be docked too much if they decide I didn't show enough work. Sigh. We'll see.

I got an email from my mom this morning saying that my grandfather (on my dad's side) passed away rather suddenly of a stroke. What's sad is that he would always reject our expostulations for him to believe in Jesus Christ, so he did not have eternal salvation. Life is just so mercurial- you never know when it's going to end. Our faint hope is that he somehow decided to come to the Lord in his last minutes; otherwise the sad truth is that he won't be with us in heaven, and that he will be facing eternal judgment. :'(

My grandfather (on my mom's side), brother, and parents all came to visit this morning, since my brother had a medical checkup at the UCLA medical center. My dad and I finally picked out a Dell Inspiron 5100 online that we thought was good. Although it wasn't the best priced we've ever seen for the specs it had, the price was decent and the cheapest we've seen recently. We got it from the Small Business section of the Dell website, because prices there tend to be cheaper than in the Home and Home Office section. Of course, we had to provide a fake business name... =0

I got my chem midterm back after the lecture today. My score was 87/100, which is supposed to be good compared to the 66/100 class average. I would've liked a higher score, like.. 100/100. =)

For dinner, Sophonias and I ate at Covel Commons for the first time. The food there was literally exceptional, much more exquisite and more lovingly prepared than at anywhere else I've been to. Afterwards, we went to the Grace on Campus meeting. We were half an hour late, so we missed what people said was a hilarious skit. We had a time of singing worship songs (and the drummer was crazily good) and a message. We both really enjoyed it! Grace is more schedule friendly than AACF, which starts at 6:30 on Wednesdays, leaving me no time to eat dinner after my Comp Sci lecture ends at 6. But in every other respect, the two fellowships are almost identical.

I spent the whole day just writing and debugging my Comp Sci project. Well, 5% writing and 95% debugging. Sad thing is, that is about normal for a computer programmer. Creating beautiful code only to find that it just refuses to work. Oh, the agony.

A guy named Felix took me to Grace Community Church today. Also riding with him were a guy named William and coincidentally, my Comp Sci discussion T.A. Tim Ma. The church congregation was HUGE. People told me that there are usually around 3000 people, per service. And there are two services!!

After the main service, we branched off to a college students/young adults fellowship during which the pastor began one of several messages in his series about marital relationships. He reminded us of the eternal perspective we are supposed to hold, and how marriage plays into that. Really great stuff.

I didn't know how bad the Simi Valley wildfire was until my mom called me tonight, saying that she could see flames over the hills surrounding our house. She asked me what I wanted my family to pack in case they needed to evacuate, but all I could remember was my secret money box.

I got on AIM and talked individually with Roger and Raymond. I was feeling pretty worried and hopeless. Elaine from Van Nuys messaged me, comforting and assuring me that everything would be ok as long as my family was safe. "Your house can be replaced, but your family can never be replaced," she said. Later Roger, Raymond, and I went to a chatroom and talked and typed short prayers. I know that whatever happens is because God has allowed it to happen, so I need to trust Him with this. The Bible verse Romans 8:28 came to mind. Also one of my reference booklets had a good verse: Psalm 18:2.

Thank God the fire around Porter Ranch seems to be under control!! I took my math midterm today; all the problems seemed extremely easy.

The math midterm scores were posted online. I found out I got an unexpected 46/60, which is not much better than the 41/60 class average. Wait a minute.. I thought I said this test seemed easy. Something is amiss.

The math midterms were returned to us during discussion class. What messed me up was that I made small algebraic errors. Still, the main part on which I did poorly was where I got 1/10 points because I messed up a step in the beginning, but all subsequent steps were methodologically correct. I think I should have gotten more points than I was given, so I'll try to get my test re-scored and cross my fingers.

My math teacher explained the scoring to me and showed me why I got so many points off. So my grade stands, but I'll try to use this as a reminder to study extra for the next math test.

My dad picked me up and we went to church where he was helping with our International Fun Factory, the alternative-to-Halloween carnival we put on every year. I ran into a lot of old friends. Then I drove the car back home by myself, in the raining darkness. What made it worse was that I had half forgotten how to drive.

My mom was pretty happy to see me, and she had scrumptious food made just for me. After dinner she got started on alternating my new suit, while I finally got to use my new laptop. =) I spent most of the night migrating files onto it from my other two computers.

We left the house around 7 bound for Mountain View. I was asleep the entire time, but we arrived a lot sooner than I expected (I can imagine my parents doing 95 MPH on the freeways). The afternoon funeral for my grandfather was sad. My dad couldn't state assurance that my grandfather had eternal life, so all he could talk about was my grandfather's worldly life and accomplishments- the things that are left behind and fade away and thus ultimately don't matter. =(

I got to drive for 100 miles on I5 on the way back home. I was probably the slowest vehicle on the road. Many times I was doing 80, and cars were STILL zipping by. Imagine that.

I just realized I'm supposed to have a computer science midterm tomorrow..

The computer science midterm was a piece of cake. I'll be mad at myself if I don't get an 'A'. Then again, that's what I said about my math midterm....

Once again I was trying to set a record for longest time on AIM. I was up to over a day by tonight, when suddenly I get a message that I was disconnected from the AIM network. It then re-logged me on automatically, but my online time was reset to zero. Fate dashes your aspirations in the cruelest ways. Or maybe my computer is tired and wants to go to sleep.

Debbi was talking to me online and told me she was sick, so I went to DeNeve to visit her. We had a good time just hanging out and talking in her room. And man, was it nice in there... they even have carpeting on the STAIRS. They even have their own bathroom in each room! Now I wonder why she declined my offer to switch rooms.

Sophonias and I watched The 6th Day on my laptop. What else can I say? It was good.

I was a little late and I missed my ride to NewSong (or rather I think he was there but he didn't know what I looked like), but fortunately Denise came by to pick up the stragglers: me and another girl. Problem was her car was full, so we had to squeeze five people in the back. I guess it couldn't been worse, if Sophonias had decided to go too, but he said he needed to stay and do his Enligh report.

After years of serene operation, my primary Hotmail address received its first piece of spam mail. The address was purposely so obscure that no spammer could have guessed it; however, either it was leaked to a spammer through one of the various chain letters that people include my address in (cough cough), or the spammers are trying ALL possible combinations of words. Needless to say, I will be seeing exponential growth in the volume of spam in the days to come. (Aaaargh)

Our computer science midterms were returned in class today. The maximum score possible was 110, but the test was worth 100 (hence 10 points extra credit). I got a.... 99. Heh.

"Yesterday's forcast predicted a 30% chance of rain today," Sophonias stated in the morning.

"Posh," quoth Anson, "t'is not a cloud in the sky!"

Two hours later after Anson's chemistry lecture: it's pouring harder than he's seen in months and he's all drenched.

Gee wiz. Since I eschewed calculus for chemistry during the week, I had to pull an all-nighter to get my calculus homework done. It took several hours do finish two assignments. The problems are relatively straightforward, there's just a lot of convoluted algebraic work.

See? This is why I hate math.

I fell asleep during every class today (what would you expect for me pulling an all-nighter?), and I was just relieved to get back to my dorm afterwards. I feel so behind on everything. I desperately need sleep, but I also have two midterms next week (Monday and Tuesday- veeery nice) that I have to really study for, and also a computer project due Tuesday night.

I will just be GLAD after Tuesday is over, that is, until finals week creeps up on me.

Raymond: What are you up to?

Me: Studying for my Monday and Tuesday midterms, sigh.

Raymond: What? Midterms again already?

Me: That was my first reaction too.

In the afternoon I went to a review session of the chem study group I'm supposedly in, and I even taught for an hour on the VSEPR theory. Afterwards, as joyful music reverberated through the dining hall, I reflected on how helpful the review session had been. After dinner, I went to yet another one, this one put on by one of our chem T.A.'s. It was likewise helpful, and after some more reading back in my dorm, I feel (almost) confident about this midterm. Can't say the same about math, though, because I haven't studied for it yet. =/

Once again we had 50 minutes for the chemistry midterm. I didn't know how to do one part of the last problem, which was worth more than any other problem. I have a feeling I didn't do so hot.

The math midterm was scary in the begining. It was all integration, 6 problems, 90 minutes. A couple of the problems really freaked me out because I couldn't find a method to integrate. But I finally figured them out, as time was running low.

While I was taking the test several ideas just popped into my head, like to use integration by parts or a half-angle identity, and the formula for arclength. After the test, I consulted the book for the formulas I used and found them to be correct.

In the end, I think I did pretty well on this test, as I was able to every problem (and double-check them) and all my formulas seemed to be right.

I went online to check my posted math midterm score and was extremely disappointed (and shocked) to see, in cold numbers that seemed to be jeering at me, 51/60 - 85%. That gives me a math midterm average of B- or C+. I can't imagine why I would have gotten so many points taken off. Guess math really isn't my best subject.

Yes, I pulled the customary all-nighter to do my math homework. =(

How did my blog URL get on Yahoo and Google? I never submitted it (maybe somebody else did, lol). Wieeerd.... but cool I suppose.

Last night, we had another scheduled power outage, only this one was on time, at midnight. I had half-forgotten about it, so I had to brush my teeth with only the one emergency hall light barely shining in. I guess it could be worse though. We could be living in caves.

I was working all day yesterday on making an instrumental song with this program called Fruity Loops. The end product was, for a newbie like me, at least tolerable.

On Friday I submitted my math midterm to the professor, complaining that one grader took off FOUR points just because I had a sign wrong (I wrote minus instead of plus). Today I got the midterm from his office and found that he had given me an additional 3 points! That brings my score to 54/60. Ah, I like him. He's a fair teacher.

On the flipside, I also got back my chem midterm and found I had gotten 44. Only this was out of 100. <whistles> Well, more motivation to ace the final now...

I am thankful for..
1. Jesus Christ. He died on the cross that we might be saved if we believe in Him.
2. My family. Their unconditional love for me is shown all the time. They support me in everything I do.
3. My friends. I'd go crazy without companions who support me, talk to me, and simply are there for me always.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Matrix Revolutions was somewhat of a let-down. I didn't expect it to end that way. But, I guess it had to.

Like with the other two Matrix films, I'm going to have to watch this one a few hundred times to really understand it.

I haven't written here for a while because I've been studying assiduously, sort of, for finals. My CS final today was, I thought, extremely easy. They even gave us so many hints along the way, like on one problem they wrote "Read this program carefully", and one a specific line of the program they wrote "Read carefully!"

My math final seemed pretty easy as well. The scores were posted the same day; I got 47/60. Kinda low. :'(

Looks like I got three more points on my math final. When I went to pick it up, the teacher said that the person who graded one problem took off too many points. Score! =p

My chem final was a different story... At least finals are all done now. I can be happy, for the time being that is.

Course grade in Math 31B: A-. I can't believe I got a 74/100 on my Comp Sci final. Though everybody did pretty bad.

I went to my Comp Sci teacher's office, and he said that since everybody did bad on the final, they'd probably add 20 points to each score, meaning that I'd have a 92 instead of 72. LOL. Talk about leniency. Well I'm happy. =)

Woot, home now.

It is my firm belief that dentists are nothing more than sadistic practitioners who enjoy being the source of unbearable pain for "patients". <Rubs face after dental cleaning>

My Chemistry final was mailed back to me. I got 84. Well, the test wasn't out of 100, it was out of 200... But for some weird or miraculous reason I still managed to get a B- in that class. Which means I am done with it forever. =0

On a better note, my Comp Sci course grade was an A.

This concludes the academic quarter of Fall '03!

Merry Christmas y'all!