All Things Yummy

Here’s an open invitation from Waterloo to Sergey and Larry / Google.  Kinda interesting in a geeky way, but particularly interesting to me because the solar car (and solar car team members) play a fairly big role in the video.

Today was a gorgeous day - sunny and warm with highs of about 18~20 degrees - so I couldn’t stay indoors.  I went for a nice bike ride to the beach, then went for a run along the coast.  Air was warm and everything felt nice and inviting…  One of the things that I don’t do often enough is take advantage of the Ocean that’s all around Santa Cruz.  I visited bunch of sandy (and some rocky) beaches along the way and found some interesting places as well.  Well, there’s my happy thing of the day.

I guess it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been very busy lately with solar car…

Hmm, what’s new… I’ve successfully graduated with Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo - the convocation photos are here. Still building the solar car… possibly interview from a company, but otherwise I’ll stay in Waterloo and do research into system identification of multi-dimensional systems…. fun fun…

I’ll likely be gone for the entire July as well, since I’ll be driving from Waterloo to Austin, then to Calgary, then back to Waterloo… I’ll try to post more often until then.

In 13 hours, I’ll have finished my last final exam as an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo. The exam will start in 10 hours, so I have 10 hours to prepare for the Computer Networks and Security course… and my brain shut down hours ago…

I think today’s Digital Control course was one of the more tougher exams to prepare for. I’ve taken so many control courses that all the material covered in Digital Control seemed like a review, so I was never too sure whether I actually knew the material, or whether it’s some remnant from previous courses… though I suppose it didn’t really matter in any case. The final was a little tricky (but that’s to be expected from Davison) but I think I did okay on it.

Walking into the exam, I had 43.7/45 (with the final exam counting for 55% of the final mark). There were two booklets, and after I had finished the first booklet, I did a quick calculation which said I’ll probably get around 75% or so if I handed it in just there and then, and called it a day… for a second or so, I was seriously considering doing just that before rational part kicked back into gear… heh

Anyhow, 12 hours and 45 minutes until I’m free!

So, ther’s this gem via MSNBC.

Apparently in Korea, bashing Blood B type guys is all the rage.

There are many characteristics associated with type-B people, but the bad rap going around about type-B men in Korea is that they are selfish, mercurial and absolutely useless as caring and devoted boyfriends.

There’s a pop song and a movie about Blood B type of guys breaking girls’ hearts… Wow, maybe visiting Korea might be a bad idea, heh…

Anyhoo, three exams done, just 2 more to go! And I got an extension on my force control project… though I also learned that the software I’ve been working with for the last 3 days didn’t really count because it’s not quite detailed enough to get good results out of. Bah!

Yesterday, I received notice that I’ll be getting the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Today, another mail arrived saying that I’ll get the University of Waterloo President’s Graduate Scholarship, which adds up to $25,000 per year. I guess this makes it that much more likely for me to stick around in Waterloo…

Yay! I guess at least the money’s taken care of now…

I’ve been busily studying and working on my force control simulation project over the last little while. I’m completely stuck on the simulation part (I can’t seem to figure out how to create world constraints (like a wall) to robot to bump against, and the created model doesn’t really seem to correspond to my hand calculations. If you have any experience whatosever with Matlab SimMechanics, please let me know) but the studying part is progressing slowly. My last exam on Robotics went pretty well… and my next exam is in 6.5 hours. Shouldn’t be that bad…

Anyway, during this last (and final!) round of exams, I’ve been feeling a little distant… I keep falling asleep, I have difficulties focusing, and all that good stuff. At least I haven’t started reading 700 page novels during the exam time like I did back in 3B, but maybe that’s preferable to this “I have no idea where all the time is going” situation…

I’ve given it some thought, though, and I think I know the reason for my being this way! It’s gotta be the lack of sugar. In previous exam periods, I went through stupid amounts of sugar, in form of 1.5kg back of mini marshmallows, pounds of cookies, and bags of Tastations. This time, nothing. Well, occasional cup of tea, but that’s about it.

Who knows, maybe all this means that I need to increase my sugar consumption… or maybe it just means I’m getting sick and tired of it all…

Today was my last day of lectures… last, final, final day of lectures at the University of Waterloo… And it ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.

My last class was EASIA201R, and because of prof evaluations, everything kinda ended up abruptly. I was able to chase after the prof and chat with him for a while… He’s an amazing guy, with incredibly amount of experience in doing all sorts of different stuff… His advice to me was that if I don’t know what I want to do, going out and working for a while might be good. Good advice, I suppose. I’ll go talk to other profs tomorrow and make a decision.

Anyway, so there it was… last day of lectures… just like that.

I visited the Canadian Geese nest again today. I was there around noon, and the male was out there hissing at passerby… then after watching Blackout / Team Ryouko (which was amazing, by the way… but most enjoyable was those 4 Indian guys dancing… I think they said style’s from northern India… must look it up ) I visited the nest again and everything was gone! Maybe plant-ops or animal control removed it…

I participated in the Genius Bowl with Lawrence, Astha, Preet, Jimmy, and Rowena today. Genius Bowl is a trivia quiz show held by the Engineering Society. This time, there were 30 teams competing, which meant there were over 180 people packed into RCH 101. I really had no expectations of winning, so we kinda fooled around in GAFF while getting ready for the Genius Bowl.

We figured ties are fun, so we all brought ties and wore them. We also figured that Cowboy hats and Hard hats are fun, but we only had one of each… so that didn’t work out so well. But Preet brought different sparkly hair colouring gel and Rowena brought some face paints, so we figured that’d be enough. This is my first time putting any colour on my hair (only after assurance that it’ll come off - and it did ), but the reaction was surprisingly positive. :p I’m not sure whether it was the fact that I had my hair gelled straight up, or the fact that it was yellow.

Anyway, so we went to Genius Bowl and started playing. There are 5 question rounds, and Spot Light questions where you can bet up to 5 points in between the question rounds… And guess what? We did surprisingly well! After vaulting into 3rd place after 3 rounds, we were in first place after 4 rounds. However, pesky 3B guys (from Mech? Civil? I don’t even remember now :p ) ended up completing a come-from-behind victory by a single point, so we unfortunately came in second place… Ah well, we had a blast and won $60 in process. Ugh, I think my voice is still kinda hoarse from all that yelling.

As we were the only 4B team (actually the only 4th year team), we also kindly informed everyone else that our last lectures are in 3 days and banged our Iron Rings incessantly. Lawrence actually asked me whether I was drunk… I guess that’s a side that most people don’t see very often, heh.

Hmm, some of the interesting answers included the Isle of Man (which I got, for 3 points!), Frequency Modulation (come on, how could we miss this one?), and the Peregrine Falcon (fastest animal!). Good times. You can find the pictures here.

I’m in the process of trying to figure out whether I should be doing grad studies, or go out and work… It’s a tough decision… Email me for details, maybe we’ll chat and you can give me your 2 cents.

There are 37 days (or little over 5 weeks) left of school. I have my last final (I guess you could say it’s my final final, hehehe) on April 19th, after which my 5 long years of University of Waterloo Undergraduate program would come to an end. Heh, I’m already feeling a little nostalgic. On the grad school news front, I got the rejection letter from MIT, as expected. Ah well, I guess I’ll either be in Waterloo for grad school, or will be finding a job somewhere in the industry.

Last weekend, I started having problems focusing. Last time something like this happened, it was a case of Posner Schlossman Syndrome (also known as Glaucomatocyclitic crisis) which is a sudden elevation of the eye pressure. I guess I caught it early enough - last time it happened, I was seeing rainbow halos around lights by the time I saw a specialist. So I dropped by my eye doctor and my left eye pressure was at 32, about twice the norm. I started putting drops, and I think it’s fine now… It’s been about a year since it happened last time, it’s just kinda interesting to see your body start to fail…

Anyhoo, I’ve had an interesting weekend… I guess I better get ready for last 2 weeks of lectures.

I wrote my last midterm exam today - one on Korean culture and history. I have two more labs left, one report, and 5 finals… The set of deliverables can be counted using just my fingers. Poking around my computer, I’m finding all these labs and report that I’ve worked two, three years ago… and those times seem just like yesterday. And now I’m scant 5 weeks away from finishing it all.

As for my future… I have no idea. So far, I’ve only heard back from University of Waterloo, which has been expected. I haven’t heard anything from MIT yet, though apparently the responses are being mailed out… I don’t expect to get in, though… Ah well, heh I’ve also applied for a position at Google, Apple, and at MDRobotics. I have no idea what I really want to do, so I guess I’ll just wait to see what kind of response I get. Hopefully I’ll have a better idea soon.

It’s a scary point in life… much more so than the jump from High School to University. Many of my friends are starting to find jobs and have their next phase all lined up and ready to go… but I’m not quite sure whether I’m ready to make that step or not… I guess even after all that experience, not much has changed after all…