Cardio

I’m not much of a good runner. Running non-stop, I can reach 3 miles if I’m pushing it. I want to increase this to 5 miles. In addition to being kind to my heart, I also want to bulk up a bit on my legs. My upper-body strength is just fine where it’s at. My legs look like stilts in comparison.

Code

I didn’t take any Computer Science classes last semester, so my work with code is a bit rusty. I don’t plan to do anything big, but I’m going to look over C++ code from previous semesters, in addition to playing around with Android development and the Haskell programming. The bros in Computer Science tell me Haskell is somewhat of a pain, so I might as well start early.

Christ

This is a big one here. I will need to continue spending more time studying the word and improving my spiritual knowledge. I can only become better with this, I just pray that I don’t drift away in my walk with Christ.

(C)Korean

Yes, it doesn’t start with a C, but I think we get the point. I always take time during my breaks to study more Korean regardless of whether I significantly learn a lot or not. It’s good practice, but I don’t expect to be a master anytime soon.

If you’ve been around me recently, you know that I’m always wearing a Sansa Clip Zip on my arm along with a pair of Adidas PMX 680 headphones around my neck. I use them both nearly every day when I’m at school. They’re really useful and convenient together, but unfortunately, they’re also of little sentimental value to me. The YP-T7Z is a different story though. I received this as a gift for my 16th birthday from my mom. During that time, my mom was suffering from immense pain in her lower back. Her spine was injured and she was in desperate need of surgery. The only problem was, she had no form of health insurance and thus was unable to afford for it. My birthday was coming up around this time. I was fine with skipping it because my mom’s condition was more important to me. Regardless of that, my mom, despite her bad health and financial situation, drove me to the store and bought this top-of-the-line MP3 player with her own hard-earned money for me.

I still remember that moment perfectly. My mom was so ill and it seemed like death could creep up on her at any moment, yet she was still willing to show how much she loves me. I used this player all the time and I always had it with me. Unfortunately, I lost it sometime around the end of my junior year of high school. I spent days backtracking and searching for it with no success. I was really upset that it was gone. As I said earlier, this is a rare device so finding a replacement wasn’t easy. After a five years of searching, I found one from someone living in the UK. It took a little bit of haggling, but he agreed to sell it to me, and I’m glad too. When I received it, I was immediately reminded of my early high school years and how much my mom cares about me, even if she isn’t the type to show it all the time.

I don’t plan to use this player on a normal basis, I have the Clip Zip for that. For now, I’m just going to keep it at my desk to make up for lost time. And yes, my mom did receive her surgery. I wrote about it a while back.

Credits go to Alex Hung for many of the photos. 

Next Page: Setting Up The Picture

Good luck to everyone with finals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiHKGmb7_jA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmd58nFB6OI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzm5xLoPMk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e2L24zXrKQ

So I spent the past 8-ish hours experimenting with both Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max. After tinkering around with both, I have come to favor 3ds Max more. I feel that Maya is better suited for animation, but to each their own of course.

This is really just a small piece of work done on my first day of using 3D modeling. I spent about 3 hours creating the 3D work (though it would take probably take a skilled person 30 minutes tops) and another 3 in Photoshop. Not exactly super-excited about the finished product, but it’s a good benchmark to start at. Here’s to my future projects, cheers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqbVNlCv4UA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0rsPo337Gs

I am very inspired by the work she does. I have always loved graphic design, but I have always been limited by the software that I use, that being only Photoshop. As a result, I lack practically any skill in 3D art. Kelly suggested that I should try it out if ever given the chance. Thankfully as students, we are able to use Autodesk modeling software for free. I now have Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max installed. Both are pretty great, but I am starting to favor 3ds max more, as I’m not really committed to animation as Kelly is. Hopefully I can use these tools to better myself as a designer and find ways to merge these skills with programming.

Features List

• Art’s Hobbies Extended TE Plexi replacement and Bottom Plexi.
• Sanwa JLF Joystick w/ Mesh Balltop
• Sanwa button microswitches
• Sanwa OBSF-30 Button Rims
• Rollie Electronics “Asian Style” 30mm Button Plungers
• Seimitsu PS14 Start/Select buttons.
• Toodles TE Kitty Mod
• Braided wire sleeving
• Bottom artwork features altered Rainbow Dash and “Cthulhu Powered” logo.

To-Do:

• Replace JLF mounting plate with a clear Art’s Hobbies JLF Plexi Mount.

I learned that if anything needs to get done, I need to get it done myself. If I want to grow as a person in all aspects of my life, then I need to learn to grow all by myself. I’m tired of asking for assistance and not receiving any. From now on, I want to see every single day of my life as an opportunity to improve myself in knowledge, health, and spirit on my own and without the help of others. Trust is my most important virtue, it is more important to me than love or happiness. As this semester is coming to a close, I’m starting to lose trust in people. I cannot rely on them.

I am so sick and tired of others of telling me of what I lack, what I don’t know, and what I am incapable of. I have had enough of this nonsense. From now on, I will be doing things with as much independence as possible not because I am trying to prove a point, but because I already have proven it in the past and I know what I am capable of. I don’t need this sense of “community” anymore, I no longer desire it. The only things that I need are my will to keep going and the most important values in my life that fuel it, which are my mother and Jesus Christ himself.

I pray for the well-being of everyone, no matter where their journey takes them. Most importantly, I pray for my life journey, that I become smarter through my education, stronger through my physical training, and more spiritual through my walk with Christ. I have nothing to prove, but everything to gain.

I was remembering how awesome The Big Event 2011 was last year, so there was no way I could turn down doing it again. It is truly a rewarding experience that just gives you a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, regardless of how exhausted you become afterwards. Last year, I signed up as an individual, but this year was completely different. Being involved with the awesome Epic Movement, I became one of the group coordinators for the event, which is quite a leap from last year. Did my stress level rise? Nah, still zero.

As the 30th annual Big Event, it was also the largest, consisting of nearly 18,000 students who were up and willing to help the Bryan-College Station community. Epic Movement was pretty large, so it had to be split into three different groups working at three different sites. In general, all of our groups had to do yard work such as weeding and mulching. We were also tasked with window washing while other groups took part in destroying dog houses. Normal, everyday stuff, you know? Jeannie was the name of our host and she was very kind and humorous. It was a real pleasure to serve her and her hard-working family.

Afterwards, our group went to Beef Masters to eat 16 oz sirloin steaks for lunch, a very suitable reward for a hard day of work. So yeah, that’s The Big Event 2012 for you. Short, sweet, simple, and fun. Let’s do it again! (next year, that is…)

Here are some photos that I took, excluding the last one. Credits go to William Chen for that beauty. Just so you know, even more photos can be found on the TAMU Epic Movement website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uWP0XQV0HE

As you may (or may not ಠ_ಠ) already know, Project Mov was a custom arcade stick project that I finished back in February. I haven’t had the time to upload the time-lapsed video of the project because compressing 15+ hours of HD video into 6 minutes takes a long time. But alas, here it is in all of it’s supreme glory. So just sit back, relax, and prepare to be confused with everything that’s going on.

Music: Above and Beyond – Every Little Beat (Album: Group Therapy)