Music Crisis

ARGH!!! I plucked my laptop into the uni network forgetting
that I've shared my folder when I was at home, so uni ever
so kindly deleted all my mp3s on my laptop. ARGH! Now I'm
stuck at uni with no music, besides the "sample music" that
came with windows. Even those I have to use them VERY
carefully so I don't get sick of it. I was gonna go to ECM
and buy a new CD to just relief this a little but even that
is closed for Christmas and New Year. ARGH! I can't work
without music! Heck I can barely live without music. ARGH!!!

Whatever am I supposed to do!? *sob*

/even caffeine can't fill the void. *sob*

The need for a break

Fact: human perform better after a nice rest. Productivity normally increase once a body has been resting and their mind refreshed. With that in mind, I'm taking a long weekend break. :P

Of course I'm going to bring some work with me. It's virtually impossible to get away from work when you're doing research and the topic has to be constantly at the back of your head. As a friend pointed out to me very kindly, there's no holiday for the postgrads. Readings aren't going to analysis themselves. But it'd still be good to take some time off to somewhere else and a nice change. :)

I spent the morning in court because of jury summon. As it turned out it's not all too bad because there was only one case and the guy pleaded guilty at the end, so no one needs to be there. Isn't that cool? :)

Ok, with Beatles playign in the background, I'm going back to work so I won't have to take too much work with me to the trip :P

I’m pushing an elephant up the stairs

Holy crap! It's not until I try to search on the other guys that I realise I'm going to end up having A LOT of reviews to do. :|

Anyway, Currently onto the team 2 or 4 that I was going to focus on. All the other ones I'm just going to group under their listings, unless of course if they actually done something really really different, which I doubt very much. But only 2 more weeks on this to go... eek and a half! Hopefully it'd all be done by then.

Lunch break, Dr. Phil, then back to work. :P

Dreams

I slept in a littel today. And being stressed out as
I normally am, I kept dreaming that I'm waking up.
It's really tiring. I'll "wake up", and then realise
I'm just dreaming that I woke up, so I'll "wake up"
from the dream and get up, and try to varify that this
is real, and when I convince myself that it's real,
I'll find that it's still a dream. Then I'll wake up
from that dream, and the cycle continues.

Once I really got up I got really paranoid about whether
this is still a dream. And convinced that there's no way
in knowing. When I was in the dream I thought that was
real too. Sure there were things that now I woke up I
wonder why I didn't pick up at all. But when I was in the
dream it made sense. I even felt pain when I bumped into
the bookshelves in the dream, and decided that this pain
can't be a dream.

So maybe right now I'm typing this in my dream. Who knows.
Or maybe you're just dreaming about reading my blog. :)

The battle is ON!

Aim: to get my literature review done before the end
of year, and convince supervisor that I need to actually
do more research before I can decide how to go about my
project.

Progress: Just starting. Getting there... slowly.

In other news: I tried to fit back into the pair of jeans
I "grew out of" today. It's still a wee bit tight but it
sorta fits! horray!

/a little less conversation a little more work please...

Someday you're the pigeon, someday you're the statue

And Today I think I'm definitely the statue. In fact I think for the whole of this week I'll be a statue.

The week is going to be ridiculously busy, got tonnes of little things to do. And tonnes of not so little things. *sigh* If I survive I ight tell and tale some days.

Back to work I go...

Until you spread your wings, you'll never know how far you can walk

Curse it. I feel like writing another murder mystery. Again. Not as a party, but as a novel.

Everyone, all at once now, "Ha. Ha."

It's just that I got all these ideas in my head and if it's not for my complete lack of literary skill I would probably start writing. Short stories. Novels. Something.

It's not so much that I can't write. It's more to do with the fact that I'm so extremely careless that sometimes what I write just don't make sense. Like how I mixed up words in my head. It's not even conscious. It's like my hand has a mind of its own or something. Maybe that's what
automatic writing is about.

Maybe I'm a psychic.

There's also the fact that I don't really have much of an attention span. Not to mention that I'm interested in almost everything. Recently with the painting and all (AND actually get pretty good review from people), and I want to move onto jewellery making. And now there's the writing another murder thingy.

I wonder when, if ever, I'll start being interested in my thesis.

Swimming in a sea of infomation

The lecturer who took my neural network paper said we need datamining because we live in a sea of information.

But DAMN! Someone should've warned me before I started the literature review! Man... I'm trying to sort it out is some sort of order... but it's almost impossible...

Wish me luck?

Possibly Maybe

I'm taking a break from thesis work today. The art project needs urgent attention, mainly because Pete just found out last night that the art fair starts today. Didn't really think the set we've done is the best work, and besides we want to at least get one stand alone one there. So I've decided to get painting today.

It's not going too bad. I've just finish painting the packground, so teh poem should be able to go on it in about an hour. After the paint has dried and everything's set. :) The problem is still the fact that I can't rule lines on acrylic on canvas. Well I CAN, I just can't rub them out. And for a calligrapher to work without lines is mighty cruel.

Anyway. I'm off reading a little. Tomorrow I'll be back with more thesis update goodness. Maybe. I think. I hope.

Pagan poetry

Title has NOTHING to do with what I'm writing, it just happens to be playing on the computer when I'm writing and it sounds cool. :P

Anyway. I've successfully wasted almost the whole day now. Okay, it really depends on the definition of waste. I've done some work of some sort but it's just not research related. My ferret attention prevent me from concentrating on reading today. It didn't help that the papers I'm supposed to be reading is so incredibly dry.

I've decided to work on the "art project" instead and have been sketching and doing words layout today. Well, this afternoon anyway. Still need to wait til Pete have a look and approve the design and colour and all. But it's looking pretty good. And I'm only hoping teh painted version would look good too, seeing I'm more of a sketcher than a painter. Paintbrush just doens't like me.

Hmm.. back to attempting to read? I guess so.

Who will save your soul

Early post today so I can free up my afternoon to finish reading all the papers I have in the "unread" pile. :)

Got quite a lot to say today. I'll try to break them into bits and pieces.

A friend told us that he's decided to join the Christian Brothers last night. I wouldn't say I was shocked, because I wasn't THAT shocked. Although I would've thought that friend is a bit too liberal to be joining the brothers. Then again, Pete was saying that not all of them are conservative fanatic and since New Zealand is quite small. Who said young people aren't attracted to the vocation anymore?

That said, it's interesting to see how people view Christians. (I know technically we're Catholic but I'll use the word Christians here as any followers of Christ.) Partly I suppose is to do with the way Christianity is preached is some cases. Ok maybe Jack Chick is a wee bit over the top. But then again, the people who's approached me to preach Christianity all seem to be using the same theme: follow Christ and that's the ONLY way to salvation. I have a few things against that sort of thinking. (Oh boy Vatican is gonna have something to say about that now aren't they?)

Firstly: I don't believe that God doesn't want a "personal relationship" with us "by default". They made it sound like God won't let us even get close to him because He's all high there and won't let us to close to him. Which part of the lost son parable did they miss? If us, imperfect human, can love our offspring unconditionally (well, more or less), don't you think the almighty and all loving God, whom created us in his own image, would do the same?

And then there's the fact that people keep talking about following Christ, accept Christ as your saviour, and then go and condemn other people? This is normally when I say "Hello? Which part of "love thy neighbour" don't you understand?" Christianity shouldn't be about this "exclusive club". I normally can't help but to laugh when I saw Jack Chick depicting all Muslim as evil terrorists. I have a few friends who're Muslim and they're absolutely lovely people. And here people are, just go and condemn people without even TRYING to understand their religion and beliefs, on the basis that there are a few fundamentalists with a different belief then them?

Don't even start with me about the "mighty Jesus in Heaven casting people away in the lake of fire". If I recall correctly, Jesus was the one who didn't judge anyone and hang around with the "sinners" to let them know that God is all loving, and has never abandoned them. Lake of fire? Where was that in the bible?

Honestly: live out what you preach. It's all about love and accepting people even if they're different from you. The world would be a much better place if that can happen.

Okay, onto the next item: Today marks the 10 months mark for me and Pete. :) Some people said that after half a year the "honeymoon" period will be over but it doesn't seem that way. Maybe it's because we're just so perfect for each other. It's uncanny, how the two of us never notice how much we have in common, and the fact that we have the same value and view on so many things. I suppose maybe that's what "soul mate" means? It's like finding a best friend. It's like when pieces of the puzzles just click together. It's like when the riddles are solved.

Emotional landscapes,
They puzzle me,
Then the riddle gets solved,
And you push me up to this

State of emergency,
How beautiful to be,
State of emergency,
Is where I want to be.

Borrowed lyrics from Bjork's Joga

Okay, now that I made almost everyone reading this sick, I think my work here is done and I'm back to reading. :)

--
P.S.: If you're reading this today baby: Happy decalunaversary :D

Full speed ahead!

Okay, so after trying to get the lit review up and running, this is getting quite interesting. The amount of literature is, as usual, overwhelming. But then lucky there is Silyn-Roberts book on how to go about it. Sometimes it really does help to read somethign other people put out to help with my research.

And my weightloss program: it's actually going pretty well. At least I think so anyway. I'm trying to either loss 2 kg in the next 3 weeks, or at the very least fit into my jeans again. :) Wish me luck!

/back to the exciting world of reading.

No pain... No pain! o_O

Yesterday was a fun day. I had to live without internet for more than half the day. It's not too bad since I wasn't really doing much research by that time but it's still really annoying. I was already showing signs of internet and email withdrawal. It was horrible! And they're telling me that it'd happen again today for "at most 30 minutes". Wish me luck.

Yesterady I also went for a jog with my brother. He's sadistic as a trainer. Although I have to admit that it does help a lot to have someone pushing me. But man... THE PAIN!

I wrote a little short poem today. Mainly because I need something to put on my ICQ info and none of the lyrics seems good.

Everything you know is about to crumble down
All you have left is evidence that doesn't hold
In this place where darkness is the only absolute
You stay strong and create the greatest story ever told

Besides all that, life isn't all too bad. I've given up the GUI for a while to sort out my literature review and start sorting out all these papers I've read and sorting them into different categories and all. If I'm lucky I might start writing too. But I doubt it.

Progress report

I thought the little GUI application should be done in a few days. Now there's even more obstacle. *sigh* Hopefully I can get something by the end of this week. Besides I should probably start looking into writing a literature survey sometimes, as a friend of mine pointed out.

The weight loss plan is still going strong. I think. I'm not a proper nutritionist so I wouldn't know how much my meal is actually helping, but at least I'm eating a lot more vege and generally cutting my carb intake. Hopefully it'd work. :P The good thing about this is that I do generally feel a lot better. Which actually affected my work habit to some extent. So go me!

Okay, more attempt to get the GUI working, otherwise it's more reading and writing instead. :)

Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C

Day three of this attempt to loss weight, think my body is finally catching up to my plan and putting up a fight. This afternoon I'm starting to feel slightly dizzy thanks to being hungry. But I'm not giving up. No I won't. I won't give in so easy I will fight it to the last. :P

Anyway, research. It's going sweeeeeeeet. Well, at least the GUI tool coding part of it is. But there's still a lot to be done. although I think most of the basics have now been coded already. Which is really good.

Recently I've hooked on the Cookie Monster song for some strange reason. Probably because of the performace from a friend of mine while he was very drunk. (In fact he claim he can't remember much from that night. I'm not surprised.) Pete and I just can't quite stop laughing whenever we hear the song. So the logical thing to do would of course be downloading the song and play it over and over again. I think I need help.

I might give into the temptation and have a banana... :|

/C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.

Coding again

I finally got the go ahead from my supervisor to spend 2 weeks coding for a nice pretty looking GUI which helps analysing the data and display it. Yay! So these two weeks I'm going to work pretty hard to get it all nice and pretty looking.

On the dieting/exercising: All the walking yesterday was pretty good. And I managed to eat "healthier". I'm not too sure if what I ate today was quite healthy enough, but then again the dumplings I had shouldn't be too bad. Afterall mum made them, and she put more vege than meat there. Should be reasonably low carb, and even if there's quite a bit of meat there, I kinda need the protein considering I'm not a milk drinker. Gonna try to get my jogging routine up and running again. (excuse the pun :P) So hopefully I can fit into my clothes again. *sigh*

Okay, back to GUI coding. Call me insane, but I think I'm kinda enjoying this. :P

The Ultimate Weightloss Challenge

This is it. I can't even fit into pants I bought last year.
Last friggin year! I have no idea WHY I just gained that
much weight this year. Okay, maybe I have some idea, and it
has to do with me not going into uni to work anymore hence
losing my daily walk from Mt Eden to uni. But still! This is
scary. So here's the plan: eat less, or more importantly,
eat healthy, and try to get my ass out there and start
jogging again.

Petey keeps worrying that I might turn to the other extreme
and gone anorexic. In a way, I'm a little bit worried too.
Butthen hopefully so long as I'm mindful of it, and make sure
I don't over do the diet (and still keep eating) I should be
fine. I hope. Besides: I doubt I can give up food myself. :P

For the past two days I've been doing pretty well diet wise.
I'm not overeating anymore, and I'm not eating til I can more
just because it's something I like to eat. Exercise wise...
well... I walked around the block if that counts? But I'm
walking to and from Mt Eden today anyway, that should help.

Anyway, as for my research: it's getting somewhere. I'm hoping
the laptop can be here soon so I can actually take the thing to
work and show people what I'm done so far and how things are
looking and all. But alas: getting things done around here is
still very much a long painful journey. I'm hoping it'd get
there before christmas, but somehow I'm not too optimistic
anymore...

Anyway, heaps of things to read, and coffee is starting to kick
in. I might come into uni more often this week. Hopefully. It
still depends on laptop, especially now that I'm moving onto the
whole data analysis stage. Not having a computer fast enough to
work with things tends to make life a wee bit difficult.

/All reading and no coding makes Lisa a dull girl

Guy Fawkes!!

I always thought Guy Fawkes was a funny idea: we celebrate the fact that someone tried to blow up the government house by playing fireworks. But then who cares, as long as you have pretty fireworks to play with, right? Ah... see I bet your father didn't explain to you that playing with fireworks is like burning money. Mine did. Well, sort of. Maybe he hasn't but that would be the kind of thing he'd tell me. I still think I grow up to be the stingy bitter person I am today because of him. Mostly because of him. The rest I'll blame it on the fact that PhD funding isn't all that much.

Anyway, spent the past two days playing with data. It's quite amazing when you finally get to play with so much data that it actually use up ALL of the computer's memory. I feel like a grown up. You don't ever have the feeling that you're doing REAL work and not just dummy play problems until you get to the point where it eats up all the computer's memory. It's almost beautiful. Although I don't think my computer is too happy at the moment.

Anyway, Back to playing with data (aka research). I don't know about tonight yet: was gonna go to Guy Fawkes with Pete's family tonight but apparently that's cancelled. Damn. And I went and bought a box of fireworks including one where fireworks shoots out of a chicken's ass. (I thought his little brother might like it...) Oh well, I think some friends are going on Saturday anyway and I might just have to save my chicken ass firework until then.

It's the end of the world as we know it

'Tis a sad day.

The bully has yet won again, and the sad fact is a whole nation is so blind and narrow minded that they don't even know what he's done to the country.

I can't believe that some people just can't see what the rest of the world is seeing. They all know that he's a joke and to let him be a leader is a mockery to the country. The rest of the world can all see it. No one likes him. In fact, no one even like the country. The arrogance and the ignorance is almost embarrassing. Okay, I can't say EVERYONE fits that stereotype. I do know quite a few decent people from the land of the evil chimp who knows actually see what the rest of the world sees. It's the big bully in the international playground. They have been brainwashed by the media. It's a bit like, dare I say it, Nazi Germany.

No one ever gives the rights to anyone to claim to be the leader of the world. And even if they do, it's definitely not the place where it has the highest crime rates and full of other assorted social problems. Why they think they're superior is beyond me. I mean, just because they're decided invading another country because they may or may not have some unknown weapon (and definitely oil) does not make them the leader. Just because they're oblivious as to what the rest of the world is like right now does not make them the right to claim as the superior superpower. Their power comes in military, how they will just go invade should they THINK the other country need rescuing.

All this come from the lack of the sense of world view. I suppose when you have a big country like that you don't need to go outside. But how that differs from some kids staying at home all their lives and claim they're better than everyone else I wouldn't have a clue. To the people over in that other corner of the world who actually thought about their votes and lost: don't feel too bad, you put up a good fight. But the country on the whole still need to see the bigger picture and actually realise what a mess they're in. In fact, you know what? The whole country need to go on Dr. Phil.

/Now understand why talk shows are only really successful in that country which shall remain nameless.

Be afriad. Be very afriad.

As of the time of writing, vote counting still go on somewhere on the other side of the globe. Right here in this little country known as New Zealand, we can all but wait and hope US citizen have enough sense to vote for the right president.

Don't give me any crap about how it's not my business since I'm not an American. Who get to be the American president could affect the rest of the world. Well, ok, rephrase: if Bush is there for another term the world's going into chaos.

My friend mentioned he can't believe the propaganda that's going on in US. You would've thought that sort of thing only happen in some sort of country under a dictatorship. The media is so skewed that it's basically propaganda. They have no idea what's go on outside their country, and that's just sad. Having said that, it's not all of them that are clueless. I know some American friends who's actually apologised on behave on their country just because how big of a joke they know they are.

But what can I do? I even try to submit an anticle about how the whole world KNOWS we can't have Bush there for another term to fark and they won't greenlight it. Grrrrrr. So all I can do is sit here, and be afriad...

PLEASE don't let Bush win.... :|

Motivational speech

Talking to fellow PhD students is always motivational. They'll
tell you that it's only going to get less interesting and
workload will only decrease. It's all down hill from the day
you enroll. All enthusiasm still survived after the first few
months or so will slowly die. I can't wait. *sarcasm*

I made an effort today to tell myself I need to work harder. I
shall work full days rather than half days, and I shall make an
effort to go into uni/psuedo-work more than twice a week. And
then I found out my usual parking spot around uni has work going
on, and parking is once again a race against time and you have
to get there ridiculously early to get a spot. The work on its
own is ridiculous anyway: they're building a carpark inside a
carpark. o_O It's an office carpark to start with and now
they're building a carpark there. Go figure.

Okay, time to get motivational. I'm going to get some V. :P

It's like a journey I just don't have the map for

It's scary to read old diary entries, not so much because of all those heartbreak I've written there, but more because how immature I was, and not realising that I was immature. I know, I was young back then and all. But some of the things I've written not so long ago still sound immature. I'm not too sure whether I've just grown in these time, or I'm still very immature and not realising it until I stand back to see it objectively.

To tell the truth sometimes I'm very scared that I think I'm not growing up. I don't know how to handle most things and that scares me. Honestly sometimes I wonder how this whole life thing works. Maybe I'm still young. Still, I'm supposed to be an adult now. It's not like I'm still in high school.

Anyway, immature or not, there's still research to be done. I better be off...

Motivational speech

Talking to fellow PhD students is always motivational. They'll tell you that it's only going to get less interesting and workload will only decrease. It's all down hill from the day you enroll. All enthusiasm still survived after the first few months or so will slowly die. I can't wait. *sarcasm*

I made an effort today to tell myself I need to work harder. I shall work full days rather than half days, and I shall make an effort to go into uni/psuedo-work more than twice a week. And then I found out my usual parking spot around uni has work going on, and parking is once again a race against time and you have to get there ridiculously early to get a spot. The work on its own is ridiculous anyway: they're building a carpark inside a carpark. o_O It's an office carpark to start with and now they're building a carpark there. Go figure.

Okay, time to get motivational. I'm going to get some V. :P