And so it begins...

Tomorrow is the day that I have been living in fear of for the past three months. The end of summer, and the first day of classes. Honestly, if I can make it through to December without a severe loss in GPA, sanity, and sleep, I will be amazed with myself. I couldn't sleep last night because I have a million things to get done by the end of this week, and they just kept running through my head constantly. So after an hour of that I gave up, and got out of bed and actually started doing those things so I wouldn't think about them anymore. After working on the course webpage for the class I'm TA'ing, I went for a 42 minute run at 5:30AM. I've been skimping out on running/exercising lately because I've been caught up in other stuff, so it felt really good to expend some energy like that (even though I was dead tired from not sleeping). On another note, why the hell does the sun rise so late in Austin? Back in Phoenix sunrise usually happened around 5:25AM or so, and thus I'm used to going for a run around that time. But here the sun doesn't rise till like 6:45AM, and it was pitch black out during my entire run this morning.


Anyway, I got my advising professor to sign the form needed so I could register for the thesis class this afternoon. She wanted me to drop one of my classes (I'm taking 3) because she thought it was too much, especially with my TA job. Now hearing that made me sort of pissed, because I absolutely hate being told I can't do something. So unknowingly, she helped give me a little "oomph" for this semester, because when I'm told something like that I like to work my ass off and prove them wrong. To prove that I can do anything that I want to. That's what I've believed in ever since I was 17 and if I lose that belief......well its really important to me, so let's not imagine what would happen if I lose that. Well since I'm low on sleep and classes are tomorrow I should get some rest now. Peace out.

I am PUMPED!

I have been getting more and more into Allacrost lately than I have in a very long time. I literally wake up and work on code, documentation, and other issues from morning to night and don't even blink in between. It feels great. I haven't been so excited about this game since around August/October of last year. =D I cringe at the thought of classes starting on the 31st though, because then the amount of time I'll have to spend on Allacrost is going to decline rapidly. :(

You know what I find ironic though? I think I am learning more just working on this game than I am going to graduate school. I mean, reading and writing published papers in my field doesn't teach me CRAP! I feel its almost a complete waste of time (though I know it's necessary). That's one of the things that I really dislike about grad school. I'm the kind of guy that likes to go out and do things, not just read about things and then say "Hmm, okay." and not actually produce anything. Knowledge that is absorbed strictly through reading is much much easier to be forgotten (I read this in a scientific study somewhere). I prefer reading articles in Scientific American and Wired SOOO much more than tecnhical papers, and I actually feel I learn a lot more from them than technical papers as well. Half of all the writing in most technical papers is just motivation, previous work, and other bullshit that you is pretty much copy/pasted from other papers in the field.

Oh, by the way the paper I submitted to IISWC got rejected, and rightfully so in my opinion. I didn't think it was a very good paper, and I had practically no time to work on it because I was so busy with work. If I had my way, I would never submit a paper if I didn't feel completely confident in it. Who gives a shit if you publish 20 papers a year? It doesn't mean anything if they all suck, or they just aren't that interesting. I want the research I do and publish to be of actual importance to people, not just another piece of hay in the stack, you know? Whatever. Time to get back to writing code for my game. :)

I'm afraid...

I really am. I feel a general fear for this upcoming semester, because I know I'm going to be so damn busy and I have no idea how I'm going to be able to get through it. I've been trying to fix my sleeping schedule so I go to bed around 10:00 and wake up at 5:30 and I thought I was finally going to fix it tonight, but as I laid there all the things I have to do in the upcoming weeks just kept running through my head. I almost wanted to make myself cry because I thought it would make me feel a little better. Every time I think things are about to settle down, something huge pops up and it upsets me.


In the last two days, this has happened twice. The first was a rejection notice of the paper I submitted to IISWC. Now I guess a normal person would take this as bad news, but I thought it to be good news because A) I thought the paper sucked anyway (partially because I didn't have all the time in the world to work on it) and B) it means I don't have to go present the paper at the conference in October. I thought the reviews we got back were a little harsh though, but I laughed it up. :) So now my professor wants to aim for submitting it to ISPASS instead. But the research I've done at work we have planned to submit to ISPASS! There's no way in hell I'm working on two papers for the same conference. NO. FREAKING. WAY!


The second was an e-mail I got from a former co-worker who said that my former manager stated that I have to come back to work next week and give a presentation about my research at Freescale to a crowd which includes our chief technology officer and senior vice president. Gee, thanks! Its not like I wanted to have a life or anything for these last few days of summer. Seriously, presentations take so long to prepare too, and I have less than a week. ;_;


So what are the other things I'm worried about? Well, to keep it short:

- I'm taking 3 courses + a thesis course, 2 of which are computer architecture courses (read: a hell of a lot of work).

- I have to work 20 hours a week as a TA. But I guess its better than going broke and hungry again.

- I still haven't found a roommate...

- I still need to unpack everything in my apartment and clean the place thoroughly. (I don't work well in a dirty environment).

- Allacrost is really running at full steam now and I don't want to stop!!! If only I had like a month instead of a week before school started, I would be able to accomplish so much.

- I have an entire manga volume (Mai Hime volume 4) to translate, and I told them I tried to get it done before school started (one week and counting...)

- I really want to join the marathon club and keep myself in shape throughout the semester (something I've never managed to accomplish by myself). I'm hoping I'll be ready to run the Freescale Marathon in February, but who knows.

- A lot of general crap to do with configuring my linux PC + laptop that I've been meaning to do for a long time, but haven't gotten around to it.

- I need a social life this fall. I found that it really helps reduce stress this summer, and by damn I deserve it!


This sucks. This really sucks. Sometimes I feel like everyone (advisor prof/TA prof/former manager/scanslation team) just thinks that I only belong to them, and that except for the work they give me, I've literally got nothing better to do with my time. WRONG! I like doing all the things I do, but I want to do them at MY OWN DAMN PACE!!! I feel like people are trying to make me run faster than I should be able to go you know? And all this stress, while most of the time isn't monumental, is continual so its grinding down on my pysche and really effecting my daily life. There are nights where I can't sleep, and there are days where I'm trying to do so many things at once I just start flipping out. I seriously feel like I'm going to be busy everyday for the rest of my entire life.


I'm seriously considering dropping by counseling services when I go to campus tomorrow and setting something up. I bet that just sitting down and talking with someone and having them listen to me seriously would help me out. I just don't know what I should be doing anymore. Sometimes I feel like I should run away from it all and live my life freely, and not being chained down by the will of others. Phew, okay that's enough of that for tonight. Now let me try to see if I can get to sleep again...

Its been a while (久振り)

Wow. The last 3 weeks or so have just been amazing for me, some in good ways and bad in others. Its a long long story and I'm not going to get into the details, so I'll just outline the major points of what have happened:

- My last two weeks of work were incredibly, insanely busy (which is why I haven't blogged for so long).

- It looks like I'll be working for Freescale next year, eventually as a full-time employee. (And I want to work there, so this is a good thing).

- I didn't have internet in my new apartment from the 1st until about the 13th. It was tough since a lot of my activities are online, but it was also relaxing and made me appreciate the other things in life for once.

- I got hired as a TA for EE360M in the fall, which is a junior-level VHDL ASIC design class (I TAed a very similar class my last semester at Purdue).

- Progress with Allacrost is literally soaring now. Ever since Raj (our new video programmer) came aboard, we are making leaps and bounds with the code. Its amazing, and it feels so good to be able to work on it full-time again now that I'm done with work.


Well, that's the just of it. I'm still not really moved into my apartment (yes, still) because a lot of things need to be unpacked and arranged, and I need to give the place a thorough cleaning. I just haven't gotten around to it because I'm busy with so many other things at the moment. Oh, and I still haven't found a new roommate. I'm starting to get a little worried about finding a good one now. Anyway, I'll elaborate on some of the finer points another time.

Me >>> @_@

Alright, so I'm moved into my new apartment now (sort of, I still have some small stuff to move). Things are nice so far, but I won't have my DSL connection back until the 11th, which really sucks for me (and that also means I might not be blogging as much for the next two weeks or so). But in a way, it's nice to take a break from being online all the time.


Work is killing me this week. Literally. I came back and all of a sudden there were just a MILLION things to do, and I'm literally bouncing all over the place trying to get things done. My term of employment was extended a week to the 12th of August (my boss wanted to extend it until the 19th, but I told him no I need a sanity break). It's probably a good thing too, because there is no way in hell I would be able to get all this work done by Friday, even if I worked 24/7, and I'm already pulling long hours all day this week.


Anyway, if you don't know Yanime released volumes 6 and 7 a couple days ago (I translated 95% of volume 7), so you should go check it out because it's some good reading. Allacrost has also been progressing nicely lately, thanks to the most part of our new graphics programmer Raj, who has really made some big strides with the video engine, and so things are great. I wish I had the time to test out his new video engine and develop parts of the game that I have been long wanting to code, but lacked the video support to do so. Oh well, I just guess I'll have to invoke my EE powers and get all this crap done so I can get back to what used to be my life. Peace out.