My Japanese speaking test was unfortunately delayed today.  Taira sensei sent out an e-mail about two hours before I was leaving my dorm for circuits class today saying how her baby has a fever and she cannot make it to school today.  Great.

I woke up 5:00 AM to study for this…

Now, I’m given a three day extension to prepare for this test.  Way to prolong my suffering enjoyment for this class.

I have just finished up ordering the final parts for my new computer build that I’ll be doing over break. Luckily, I held off my build for three months since now the Penryn 45nm chips are out, which caused the old 65nm chip prices to plummet. Now, the purpose of this computer will be to run Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (Yes, you read that right). I’ll try Mac OS X to see how that works out for me. Maybe, I’ll consider buying a Mac after doing this. *gasp*

Here is a breakdown of what I bought:

1. Ultra Black Microfly Aluminum Case (No Power Supply): $40

2. Ultra 350W Power Supply: $7

3. ASUS P5K-VM LGA 775 Intel G33 Micro ATX Motherboard: $115

4. Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0 GHz LGA 775 65nm Dual-Core Processor: $67

5. PQI 2GB DDR2 800 Memory: $40

6. Samsung DVD+/-R SATA SH-S203B: $25

7. ASUS WL-138G V2 PCI Wireless Card Adapter: $25

8. ATi Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB GDDR2: $40

Total: $359

A lot of these markdown prices are after rebate. I have been collecting these parts since last fall.

I’ll post again when I complete my build over spring break. One of the things I’m looking forward to break! ^_^

Yeah, I know, not the most exciting thing ever, huh?

Finals are winding down here. Japanese 2-2 finishes this Tuesday after I miraculously survive the speaking portion. That’s something I always wanted to work on, but the problem is there are like no people at Northwestern who can speak Japanese, and if there are, I doubt I can even practice my speaking to them.

Actually, in general, no one told me the Japanese % @ Northwestern was going to be so tiny. In fact, I’m just really disappointed at the Asian ratio/percentage here. It’s mostly just Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean Asians here. If I knew that before, I would have probably chose going to UCLA than going here. YES REALLY! I don’t know if you know this, but I really like Japanese culture, and it was big part of what I wanted to look forward to in college.

*sigh*

My two engineering courses, Circuits and Intro to Feedback Systems, finish on Monday. After I take my Microecon final on Wed, I’m hopping on the train to Midway to get to the airport and go home ASAP.

I don’t understand my EECS 221 (Circuits) class. The teacher just sucks. Ok. He really fucking sucks. Seriously. I don’t understand how he’s even on staff without his help from tenure. I don’t even think he does research any more. Every day in class, I just sit there wondering what the hell am I going to do when I grow up. Am I going to listen to some old fart rambering why he thinks dark chocolate is delicious or why you shouldn’t like Democrats when I’m working in a cubicle or with some development team? I don’t fucking get it. Even though no one learns anything from his teachings, he expects us to attend class every day because he even takes attendance,too!

What the fuck.

Anyhoo, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released today, and I’m sure a lot of you are crazy and have died playing it. Now, I don’t know if you guys knew this, but I have already been playing this a month before it had been released.

My suitemate imported a copy of the Japanese version from the internet on his modified Wii, so we were able to play it early. Luckily, I’ve been vaccinated from this Smash virus, so it won’t be affecting my finals studying at all. Just a couple words not to spoil much for the game. Expect this game to be a throwback to the original 64 version. It plays slower than Melee, but a the attacks that your characters possess add an extra umph and power factor in to the game. It just makes it so much more fun to see more characters flying out and into the ring. Also, no character overpowers one another since each character actually has tradeoffs. Overall, this is a fantastic and shitty half-assed review of this game, and I recommend every Wii owner to buy this right now. Now the only two things I’m disappointed with it are the graphics (would have been epic on 720p resolution and above) and the online Wifi play with strangers. Nintendo decided to add this bullshit 2:00 minute factor when you play with strangers with no settings to modify the item listing. Also, there’s no voice or text chat, so it’ll just be 2 minutes of dry sex fun. Socializing is essential in these kind of games, but I guess Nintendo is just not doing their best for online support like they promise.

Hopefully, Mario Kart Wii can remedy that, though they only promised text chat. Yay, so now I can send a bunch of smiley faces across the internets to 5 year old Texans who would probably message me “lol r u gay coc suker!!11″ or something along the lines of that.

So, I still need to find something to do over summer now that I already promised that I didn’t want to study abroad in Japan ALTHOUGH I REALLY WANTED TO! Man, I wish I talked to someone about this more. You see, it sucks to be engineer since you always have to look for ways to market yourself better with technical experience. I decided that an internship will be more worthwhile than having the most epic summer vacation ever. I know, how lame, right? I wish I … argh. Well, now I have made a decision, it’s now the no point of return, and the summer baby is coming. I need something to do. Of course, I thought about hey, I could study abroad and find a job in Japan, lolamirite? Well, no. I’ve read into too many stories how just finding a job in Japan can be painful.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I think of the jobs application process in Japan. Well, first there are tests which half pass. Then, you have a handwriting test to see if everyone says your handwriting looks like a fucking masterpiece. After that hand cramping process, then you have an oral interview which feels like you’re on trial and that you’re going to die if you say something wrong.

I don’t know. Maybe I just had it all wrong, but basically I just was afraid I wouldn’t find something to do in Japan if I studied abroad. Wanted to try for Wasaeda but obviously the deadline is way past now.

Trying to fit my life together…

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted.

It’s almost the end of the quarter. I can’t believe in less than 1 and a half years I’ll find myself in a cap and gown and actually graduating from this university. This actually scares me from time to time. I don’t know if I’m really ready for the world yet. Looking at my course week, job experience, and skills, I’m not seeing what I can achieve in the real world. Though hm, somehow, maybe I shouldn’t worry about it too much.

Still searching for something to do over summer. Well, I turned down studying abroad Japan this summer because I thought it wouldn’t reflect well on my resume if I could not get a job. Sure, it would have been the best summer vacation ever, but it would be best if I could work there, which is close to impossible for foreigners. Now that I am running into trouble finding an internship for the summer, I kinda regret it. I feel I should talk to my Japanese teacher to see what if it’s still possible to study abroad after graduating.

So in the midst of all this stuff, I find myself again craving Japanese food! Oh man,there are like no restaurants or shops around here that carry any delicious J-food in Evanston. The closest place is Mitsuwa, located in Arlington Heights, which is about 40-50 minutes west of here (past O’Hare). I can’t even get there without a car since now the CTA cut routes. Gah! Anyone know any restaurants that serve authentic Japanese food here? I’m dying! No, the Evanston sushi bars are all fake Japanese with the exception of Kuni’s. No Ramen places? Anything?!?!!

I’ve been living off Ramen for quite a bit, but I still haven’t found anything that’s been appetizing or anything close to Hakata Ramen. Gotta got some of that when I’m back for Spring Break.

As for the weather, the snow keeps pouring, and the cold won’t stop. The wind burns my dry skin. I’m actually fortunate it’s quite warm this week. Temperatures will be around the 30s to 40s. Speaking like this in Cali, and people would think I’m talking crazy.

Class registration begins Tues.  Still need to decide what I need to specialize in.  Circuits?  Programming? Networking? Hardware design?  All of this has to be decided by tomorrow morning.

Driving down the interstate 5 and 60 freeway sure is a treat on July 4th.  Fireworks are blasting from all directions, making it a scenic drive.

Happy Independence Day!

At work today, guess who decided to show up?   Yep.

Those bastards decided to see if I love to see them at work.  Well, I guess not.

I used the company’s credit card to purchase my poison and set up four strategic traps all around the site.  Awesome.  I could have abused that buying power to my own will… Well, anyway, after 4-5 hours, all the ants vanished.  Amazing stuff.

I think I’ll try using these tomorrow at my permanent residence and see if I can finally once and for all eliminate those pesky ants from the house.

Kinda dazed and sleepy at the moment.  The weather does not seem to help as it once again was a blazing 100 degrees in the inlands.  I think I might pass out at work if this keeps up.

Did those bitches die?

Before bed @ midnight:

It was like this in the morning, too. I thought this product was snake oil by then. Had to prepare myself for work while a bunch of ants were crawling into my ass and hair. Ugh.

After work:

Admiral Ackbar! MY MAN!

All the ants became thirsty and started drinking water from the toilet bowl. Some resorted to extreme measures by drinking the detergent. Wow. All the ones in the toilet bowl drowned, and I performed a short burial by pushing the handle.

Work wasn’t too exciting today. I’m now doing a testing marathon of various componens of the digital signs from chips to controllers, but at least youtube background music passes the time very quickly.

Oh shitholes! It was freaking 105 degrees today, causing the road to burn hellishly. The tires on my car squealed at every turn, and the steering wheel felt like it may have errupted in flames at any moment.

Last night, my generous sister shared with me a somewhat let’s say… interesting recording of Chopin’s Share-zo, uh I mean, Scherzo No. 1. It’s so beautiful and amazing how well someone can butcher a piece like this. Her playing is a blazing run-through with more holes than a swiss cheese. Hell, it’s not even swiss cheese any more. It’s diahrea spewing out from a donkey into your ear. It’s a knife jamming and bleeding the insides of your ear dry. I swear, I would rather do this than listen to this recording again.

I suppose a combination of Miss State and classical musical talent don’t mix too well in a beauty competition, and this should come to no surprise. However……………. why did this happen? ;_;

Audio link after the break.

http://www.jazzdrummer.com/goofs/misstexas2000Chopin.mp3

I was going to post a better recording on Youtube below, but they all are very messy and bangy. No one plays Chopin right on YouTube (with the exception of the masters).

Man. I just have to say: Fuck ants!

Recently, the ants assaulted my bathroom for no reasons and they’re swarming everywhere. I spent part of my Friday night holding the lines using a variety of household weapons: everyday salt, a bottle of delicious Palm Olive apple flavored dish detergent, and an ancient bottle of citrus-based hardwood floor cleaner.

I must say that these household items did work…temporary. First, I walled the entrance with a pile of salt. Then, I dabbed a bit of detergent onto a sponge soaked in water and wiped all those little bastards up. Finally, I flooded the entrance with the floor cleaner.

Mission Accomplished.

So only a few surviving ones were seen f…until TODAY, what the fuck. The little creeps decided to infiltrate again through a tiny corner of my sink. Those fuckers!

I search in Google for any commercial remedies, and the Internetz agrees that this ant bait product called Terro would do the trick and exterminate these fucktards forever.

Skeptical but desperate, I decided to buy this and try it for myself. The box contains six plastic trays that have a flap (cut opened with scissors), so the ants can enter. The material consists of sugar and borax: sugar = attraction, borax = termination.

So I placed one next to the opening they were coming from and soon after 10 seconds, hundreds of ants stormed out of that tiny hole thinking they just scored big on dinner. Well, dinner is on me for tonight and maybe breakfast, too.

So now as I type, there are little hundreds of ants in that little tray. See for yourself:

1 minute

1 hour

Green liquid is my lovely apple-licious detergent!

Video after the break.

That black outline you see are those fucking ants. As long as they don’t cross the Mexican border to my room, they won’t be shot.

Five Classes: Physics 135-2 (E&M) + Lab, Intro to Computer Engineering (Circuits) + Lab, Japanese 1, Advanced Programming for Computer Engineers, Engineerng Design and Communication + Project

Tomorrow is a new beginning…

Welcome to 2007!   So I begin the Great Journey, as you may call it, to a new year and a new me…

NOTE TO SELF:  NEVER CAMP OUT FOR BLACK FRIDAY AGAIN.

END