Ok.
I'm up late, but I still haven't touched my homework. After the last entry, I went to the library to study, but after I got there, I realized that I had to do my laundry, so I figured I'd just study at home.

Big mistake. I have done my laundry, but while waiting I worked on a drum loop for this weekend, talked for five minutes on AIM, hung out at Dan and Cyrus' place downstairs, read the paper, talked to Danny Dokko a little on the phone, and sat here reading up on others' pages and lives.

My time went to all of these things, and for the next half hour I'll be folding and putting away my laundry.

What should I have done tonight that would have been the most efficient with my time? Probably this following blurb would have been ideal: I should have gone straight home to do my laundry, and opened up my dynamics book and notes at my desk. Afterwards I would have set my timer for 20 minutes for when I would have to go down to put the clothes into the dryer, and commenced studying. For the next hour and half, I could have gotten cracking at this assignment. Then, I'd get my laundry, fold it, study a little more, work on the drum loop a little, then sleep at around midnight. That's what I am feeling my night should have been like. Unfortunately, I ended up going for the immediate urge versus sticking to the long term necessity.

Well, that's already passed, and I live only one life... and that's by Grace alone. God, keep me from being frustrated at my impulsive self, and grant me Your gift of enjoying this life you've given to the fullest.

Please, teach me, make me teachable, that I can be what You want me to be.

Yay, Albert is now linked up. Check his site out as well!

Today, after spending the afternoon programming and attending the exit interview for loans, I went to dinner @ Blimpies with Suk and Angela nuna. It was fun! Writing a paper afterwards with my Mechatronics was not. A plus, though, in their lab (from which I'm typing at the moment) they have the largest mp3 collection known to man. They have like 3 gigs, 648 files worth of U2 songs and videos alone... puts my paltry 1.5 gigs of U2 stuff to shame.

Paltry, I say.

Tonight I'll be up late doing homework...

Fun.

I went to bed at ~1 last night.

I didn't sleep till ~3.

Why?

I went online, and I was trying to make a good drum loop for this weekend.

I think I annoyed the $*@! out of Edmund. Sorry, Spesh.

Well, as a result of last night's stupid display of un-discipline, I woke up at 11. DANGIT (a la Janet Lee)! It's time to really get a move on today. No Instant Messenger, no compromise. I've compromised the past couple of days and all it's gotten me is a truckload of trouble.

And a teacup of sleep.

Well, today I had my last class, and my mechatronics group successfully made it through all of our trial runs (if we messed up, we would have had points deducted). Yay! The project is done! Well, almost. There's still the write-up.

On the downside of today, I've had this really painful canker sore on the back left part of my tongue. It makes everything taste bad, I guess the pain I experience associates itself and just ruins the experience of eating.

I took this test because I saw it on Amy Kim's site. Ames, I got the exact same thing you did.





which children's storybook character are you?

this quiz was made by colleen

Tonight, I'll probably end up attending the rehearsal for the jazz band that will be performing for my Intermedia Studio project. What's the project? We want to increase audience interaction with the musicians; ie, we want to explore different ways they can influence the musicians' emotions. The audience has the opportunity to select and display a random picture to the musicians, and the musicians in turn respond to the picture. I still have to finish writing the image selection program, hopefully it will work. It has to work by this coming Tuesday, the night of the concert. For those of you in Hopkins area, if you want to attend, we're the final act of the Computer Music Performances, Tuesday night, Griswold Hall in Peabody.

I've also been preparing for Worship Night on Saturday... i've been practicing this intro that I recorded last night.. Hope you like it. As well, hope you can make it this weekend or on Tuesday.

I got up at 6:30 today to go to 7 AM small group. I like small group, it's good to spend time with the guys, eat breakfast, share about what we've been going through... though, it always becomes a Yogi-counselling session by the end. I don't know how he does it, but it seems every week he just ends up getting put on the spot. Poor Yogi.

In half an hour, I'll be going to my very last lecture at Hopkins as an undergrad.

Hard to believe that what I came here for 4 years ago is about to end.

Go to Jacob's site and read about his experiences from going to Korea before college. He's now on his third part.

Jacob's the man. Read it.

I locked myself out today.

Yay. Turns out, I lost my keys under a textbook on my chair.

Anyhow, I must go study. I'm still determined to get myself back in the game.

Money!

buckle down. break down. construkt. obstrukt.

compute. dispute.

....deconstruction
...dconstructin
..dconstructn
.dcnstrctn
cnstrctn
.constrcton
..construction
...dconstruction
....deconstruction

mystify. glorify. terrify. wonder why.

breaking news. papers used. thoughts infused. so confused...

Today has been the beginning of the end, the last Monday of class I'll have here at school.. unless I don't finish all my work.

This is just unbearable, I can't figure out why it's so hard for me to concentrate. It's been over a month now that I've been having problems again. Before that I think I was ok in terms of my school work.. in fact, I was really enjoying it. Math is a real skill that one gets good at with enough practice and thought, just like any other art. It's just viewed so negatively because people don't always see direct applications for it, but since I'm supposed to be an engineer, it's my job to apply it. There are so many cool things you can do with math if you really know how to use it... in my class called Dynamic Systems, some applications include modelling car suspensions, understanding how speakers physically work, etc.

Enginerds, unite.

That's great and all, but these past few weeks has been an uphill battle to even get cracking at any of my work. My homework assignments have not been getting completed—resulting in my slipping grades—so things just aren't going so happily.

After reading Joe Chen's posts, it looks like he and I have much in common. Joe's a great guy, if you ever get a chance to meet him. He's a second year med student at Pittsburgh; I know him because he went undergrad here. He's 2 years above me. Check out his site, the link's to your right.

Later.

10 years.

It's hard to believe that it's already been ten years since the L.A. Riots. The media blitz is still a vivid memory; the grainy videos of Rodney King and burning stores, the stark brutality of rioters as they extracted Reginald Denny from his truck and proceeded to pummel him to the ground...

Afterwards, I recall In Living Color dealing with the issue with humor, with David Alan Grier (I think he was the one that did) posing as Rodney, and Jim Carrey as Reginald.

Isn't it interesting how the sometimes only thing people can do to cope with negative experiences is laugh at them?

About the concert yesterday. Something that was running through my mind as I stood there, intensely enjoying the music. I noticed, for example, this one black guy besides me—I'll call him "Snoop" because he reminded me of Snoop Dogg—really getting into the music. Whenever Black Thought would rap a string of good lyrics, "Snoop" would get this esctatic grin on his face, close his eyes, cock his head down as he bobbed to the beat, and raise his hand in the air. He'd then move his hand to the beat of the syllables, in order really get into their groove.

It looked like he was worshipping.

I looked around at all the people with huge smiles on their faces, throbbing to the tight beats, and hands raised up.

It looked like they were worshipping.

The similarity between them and people I've seen in worship was almost identical. What were all of these people worshipping? "I'm here 'cuz the Roots are awesome." "The music is so great." Everyone was there (including myself) to find pleasure in the music, in the emotions evoked by the music... Is it setl-worship? Is it worship of the music? of the Roots?

That made me think... how was my experience last night different from me going to Delirious concert, or when worship at church is simply really good?

Sometimes I think that I'm not really worshipping but simply getting lost in my emotions as an end for themselves, and that unsettles me. But then again, one must cnosider, there is one difference... the Object, or the object that sparked the emotions.

God, You were so gracious to let me enjoy the fruits of the talents that You've gifted these incredible musicians with. But God, why aren't they making You the object of their playing?

Last night, I got a glimpse of what it is within us that God is jealous for... our utmost enjoyment and attention, our sheer pleasure derived in exploring Him and seeing how Good He Is.

God, will you teach me more on worship? How to explore You? How to relish in and obey your Word? Will You bring me into a deeper level of intimacy with You than the one I currently have? I've distracted myself this year with someone else, with music, with laziness, with the desires of my flesh... but You've been stripping so much away this semester; is it so that I can turn to You?

God, in the Name of Christ alone I request, that You lead me to a more confident and obedient relationship with You...

THE ROOTS ARE INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got back from the concert... man, what a day, what a night. The sound check was AWESOME... the keyboardist would start a little melodic riff, the bassist would kick in, then skratch, "the human turntable", would start doing some crazy record noises and beat boxing.... seriously, i think he's better than Rahzel.

After they kicked us out from sound check, I went home and met up with Cyrus, Louis, and Tony. We came back, and after waiting a while in line, we finally got in.

The opening act, "Cex", was a white guy who was a former Hopkins student (he would be a junior right now). He had talent and he was putting everything into his act.... but.... it was not quite an enjoyable experience for me. The crowd didn't seem to liike him either and kept booing him. I felt really bad, I know it takes a lot of guts to get out in front of alot of people and perform, but still... he just didn't have that "it". Give him a few years, and maybe he'll make it.

After he walked off, it took the band an hour to get onto stage. Seriously, NOTHING was going on on the stage for over an hour, it was quite annoying.

But as soon as they came on... WOW. They came on with all the lights out, and they started to hammer out a reallly solid beat. The bassist (named Hub) was grinding out a pumping riff, the drummer (named ?uestlove) was workin' the bass drum, the keyboardist was hammering out this nice little riff, Skratch was goin' nuts, and Black Thought started to rap like none other.

WOW. They were just incredible for the whole concert. They had these impeccable stops and go's, coordinated dynamics, etc... when they were jamming, they broke into COUNTLESS numbers of covers, little snippets mixed in... ranging from Dave Matthews Band, Nirvana, Guns 'n Roses, Charlie Brown theme song, Super Freak, and a lot of rap stuff as well.

At the latter part of the concert, they showcased of the band members. First up was the drummer, ?uestlove. He has such a stripped down drum set-up, but he gets such crazy rhythms... so talented. He started off with a nice solid beat, and by stopping the bass drum, snare, etc., he gradually stripped the elements of the beat until it was down to the hi-hat. He then started to do this CRAZY syncopated rhythm on the hi-hat, played the rims and sides of the drums, and gradually worked across the set to the big tom. At that point, the guitarist came up with a pair of sticks and started to play the snare; ?uestlove then got up, and they started to rotate in and out while keeping beat. So cool.

The guitarist was up next, and started to do a slew of crazy stuff... jazz to metal to alternative... he broke into Dave Matthews' Crash, Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit, and when he started to play Guns 'n Roses' Welcome to the Jungle, the whole band joined in. It was so funny to hear Black Thought belt out like Axl Rose... he did a good job, I'd say.

The keyboardist was really funny, he was playing classical stuff, funky stuff, Charlie Brown, etc.. he did a lot of atmospheric, rhythmic grooves as well; crazy.

The bassist was awesome. He eventually broke a string, but man, he kept it going strong... he was nuts.

Then.

Skratch.

INCREDIBLE.

He sounds just like a turntable scratching, and mixed in with his beatboxing... oh DEAR. INSANE. He'd similate scratching a record with his hand, and "scratch" along with it... then he'd break into a breakbeat. All you a capella beatboxers should listen and learn.

Well. I must say. What a night. I'll write out my personal observations of the night later, in the philsophical evaluation realm.