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Scipionyx
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read my profile
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Birthday: 11/26/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: having fun.. thinking about stuff..
Expertise: OVER THINKING.. blanking out.. not knowing what to do and when to do it.. being mediocre.. trusting my instincts..
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/15/2002
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| wow. It's been ages since I've last written here. I wasn't even sure this account would work. I almost thought it didn't when an ad page came up with a tiny link for 'No Thanks' before it continues.
What inspired me to write here? Blogs are still popular, but has far evolved from the early days of blogging (high school level daily rants, etc.) I have been thinking about writing here to keep track of my language learning and it just so happens that today, I see a facebook note from Mike R. about his Chinese-learning blog <http://learnchinesedaybyday.blogspot.com/>. wow.. what a coincidence. This is not a competition -- there's no way I can compete with his determination to learn Chinese. He takes classes, goes to China, and has people to talk with. I am learning from books, websites, programs, and maybe a few phrases with strangers once a month. I hope he can learn Chinese to what he feels to be a satisfactory level. I hope to do the same with my languages as well.
But wouldn't it be cool if... ich kann schreibe (und spreche und höre und lese) in Deutsch? Ich learne für seiben oder acht Monate und meine Grammatik noch schlecht ist. Vielleicht ist es "ich habe schlecht Grammatik". Ich weiß nicht. Ich sehe kein dies im Buch.
I'm embarrassed to even leave that up. I can read and comprehend just fine (up to my limited vocabulary), but writing is another thing completely. I know the basic rules of grammar, but word order seems to be the hardest thing to learn.
Like Mike, I also had a humbling language experience (in Chinese, in fact). How could people in GuongZhou not speak Cantonese?! Anyways, that's another story. The point is: I will never say "I know the language" when it is not my native language. As the linguists point out, I can always say "I am a student of the language". I hope to study many languages starting with German, Spanish, French, and Italian.
I don't know of anyone who looks at this regularly, so I might start posting here again =)'. This won't become a blog for my language learning. I'll keep doing rants, thoughts, inspirations, whatever I feel like.
btw, I've taken a liking to monospaced fonts like Lucida Console (at 10pt) but not Courier New since 1's and l's and O's and 0's are hard to tell apart. This is Trebuchet MS, the only font that looks good (at least on the edit page).
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| ok, i guess it's time for a HUGE UPDATE. i doubt anyone really reads this anyways, even people who have subscribed (cuz i just delete them from email when i see it too).
so first major thing that has happened: i graduated with a BA in math (applied) and a BA in physics, yes a double major. so what do i do now? grad school? no. no grad school. no school for a (long) while for me. (unless it's going to be something easy like engineering. yes, compared to math and physics, engineering is on the easy side.. it's true.. just ask any mathematician or physicist.) i am currently updating my resume and looking for work (in anything!). well.. not exactly currently as in this moment right now, but 'currently' as in very near future stuff. .. ..
.. .. because.. .. i leave for China tomorrow night. it just occurred to me that going to china is like jumping ahead in international time. i have never been outside this time-zone before. i've been in this time zone from LA (handball tournament) to around Seattle (Olympic National Park), but never left or right enough to go into another time zone. anyways, i don't know exactly how far ahead they are.. i really should find out soon. just to guess though, the pacific probably holds 3 or 4 time zones.. and somewhere over there is the international date line.. cool huh, i think i'll be passing through this artificial imaginary line. so my guess is: you take our time and add about 5 hours to it and call it the next day. i would give an example of what i mean.. but i have no idea how wrong i am. (so don't laugh that hard if i'm way off.. i might come back and edit this later). again, i have no experience passing through time zones - this will be my first!
[so i looked it up (google).. and it looks like you can just add 4 hours to our time, then switch ahead am to pm, pm to next day am]
[edit] yea, so 4+12=16.. that's how many hours ahead they are. and that leaves 24-16=8 hours that the pacific ocean spans!
oh yea.. and i'm going snowboarding for a few days right after i get back. so if you happen to see this (Kent, Kent, Lily, Vincent, Tiff).. i'll finally really try and hangout with you guys as soon as i get back from that. it's been toooo long.
ok.. looking at my desk, i have some french book open. i'm trying to learn french for fun. german is next on my list. i can count to 21 in french (from zero) and 1-10 in german, korean, chinese (mandarin, cantonese, and taisan(sp?)), spanish, and japanese. i'm currently learning it in Icelandic and vietnamese.. it's going well.. i know most of it.. just need to get a few weird ones down. i guess i'll try russian, greek, portuguese, italian, and danish next, and then whatever i can find. i'm currently just working on vocab and gender in french, so i don't really know enough to construct my own sentences, although i can read (pronounce) and understand a lot of the basic stuff. [i wonder how much i will remember when i get back though]
i'm starting to do my pushups and situps/crunches again. and lately, i'm realizing it's not a good idea doing 150 pushups (in 3 sets) before you sleep. it keeps you awake for 3 hours! well.. i have to admit that there were lots of other things on my mind too. I recently found this youTube community of people doing vlogs (video logs) and they are freakin creative.
so parkour. it's probably best to read what wikipedia has to say on it (though i personally try to avoid wikipedia as much as possible). this is my favorite video on it: << http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vTNLXZ8ngU >> ignore the leaf eating part (you'll see) and pay attention to around 1:37-1:39.. that little wall thing is what i'm working on. Here's another video on it << http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdu9sl2Pdvo >> i also want to do that wall spin, seen at around 1:20-1:24. so things to work on.. (1) that wall thing, (2) wall flip (3) wall spin, (4) pole thing. yea.. don't worry.. i won't do anything stupid. hehe
alright.. what's next? umm.. handball.. i'm still really into handball. (and i think i've gotten better again.) it's really really fun. the courts at golden gate park were closed today, so we couldn't play. so instead, Jie, his little brother, and I walked around (the gift shop area) of De Young Museum. and the courts were still locked! *sigh* i'm itching to play again. i probably won't be in any tournaments for a while, at least until things settle down a bit. the next one is probably the superbowl.. but i'll be away for more than 2 weeks when apps/sign-ups are probably due.
alright alright.. i'll talk about girls.. fine. i met this really really amazing girl. without getting into too much detail, she's european, very smart, and pretty. but it'll never work out. *sigh*
i'm just sort of counting down the hours before i fly forward in time. i still have to pack. tomorrow is going to be busy.. gotta help my dad with stuff. i wonder if my friends will have my gear figured out. maybe i should call them tomorrow. i practiced a little on my skateboard, but it will be different and cold. i'll finally touch real snow. as someone on youTube said "don't eat yellow snow".
that's all i can think of at the moment. you'll be lucky if i update again soon, but who knows.. those youTube people inspired me.. maybe this could become a regular thing again.
songs i've been thinking about:
Boys Like Girls - Hero/Heroine
Chris Brown - Say Goodbye
Dashboard Confessional - Stolen
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| so how did I know that this was going to happen? I'm currently working on the last physics hw (perhaps ever) and I still have to procrastinate. i'm just a few problems away from complete happiness, not counting what happens after the last final of course.
lets just finish up this assignment..
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| Harlem Yu - Qing Fei De Yi [Eng translation]
I'll always remember when I first met you
You had the most beautiful eyes
In the back of my mind
I could never forget your voice
When I held your hands
Your tenderness could be felt
I could hardly breathe
I cherish your innocence
So when I see you suffering
I'm sad with you
I'm just afraid of falling in love with you
Trying not to let myself get too close
I'm afraid I have nothing to offer you
And I might not have the courage to try
I'm just afraid of falling in love with you
Perhaps one day I won't be able to hold back
Thinking of you just makes it harder
I just can't help falling in love with you
What's the reason Ya..
That I meet you again
I really really don't want to
Fall into the love trap like this Oh..
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man oh man.. what was i thinking? or not thinking.. *sigh*
I made a mix cd so we can listen to it in the car. I should have included that song.
oh this feeling i recognize
i felt it years and years before
.. ..
no poem today.. gotta finish hw..
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| man.. what's with the new password not allowed to be the old password.. anyways
I'm thinking I should change my facebook picture. I was scrolling though the list of friends tonight, looking for someone, and it made me very sad and proud to see these people I called friends go on to do bigger and better things. Their pictures have all changed and now represent the new persons. I can remember how I met every single one of them and some of the stuff we talked about. It's great seeing how a lot of them are becoming successful people. It's also great to see that your students have grown and that they really will be the future leaders.
I guess I'm a whole summer late with these feelings. People usually feel this way closer to graduation time and school is about to start next week. I can't help but think about what's ahead for me. Yeah, I tell people that this will be my last semester in school and I'll be looking for a job and working once I'm out. But what does that really mean? I envy those people in grad school -- they're still working towards something. I know that grad school in physics is definitely not for me, but what about grad school in math? I'm not even entirely sure what that means. To work endlessly at a mathematical problem, to be good enough to publish findings once in a while, to not know whether you're close to solving something until you actually solve it; am I a crazy math person? Am I even "good at math"? I'm not talking about where I can do algebra or trig problems, I'm talking about creating branches of math no one's thought of before and will solve major difficulties in current mathematics. Or at least prove an 'interesting' theorem (as professor Evans always say, "interesting means hard").
So what am I going to do? I'm going to rock my physics classes (and that film studies class) so hard that even my [low] GPA feels it (sorry, couldn't think of anything better ^_^;;). I gotta start by looking at my 7C book again on special relativity. I peeked at my particle physics book and I saw stuff on Lorentz transformations.. yuck (until I understand them, of course. Then, yay). I don't know how those 'old(er)' people do it: I don't know how they can go back to school after working in the real world. I guess working in the real work can get old too.
I've been watching "House, M.D." Season 1. I enjoyed it tremendously so far - I'm on Side B of the 2nd disc. I'm wondering if I should have chose to become a doctor. It looks and sounds so much easier than math and physics. But then again, I don't know how good I will be at deciding things that will affect people's lives forever. I can't even answer simple questions about ethical decisions.. "what if a really poor man stole a loaf of bread for his family. . . ".
Nelly Furtado - All Good Things (Come To An End)
wonder if I can change my password back to the old one before I forget..
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