Tuition Paid
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Dr. Davidson sent me an email today and decided to pay for my summer tuition and activitiy fees. Awesome! :)
I'm heading out to an interview with Brad for a web design position. Good luck to me.
September 2003logue
The Guys
Friday, September 26, 2003
The Guys, the play by Anne Nelson was on Ingram Center tonight. I went to see it. Actually I didn't know what it was about before I got into the theatre. So I used the interim before the play started to find out that it's a tribute to the firefighters after the tragedy happened on September 11, 2001. The two actors performance carries out the scars and emotional disturbances of the people who did their work and lost their closest friends and family members. Any ordinary characters displayed in it can be found in everyone's life. There is always that average Joe doing his own things. You guys fight and just doing usual stuff. But as soon as he is guy, you began to realize how terrific this person is by retrospect the life. The firefighters are great. Solute to them.
Accidentally, there was a huge fire took place in a nursing home the day before the play was on. Some people lost their lives in the burning down building. A lady mentioned in a very sad and peaceful manner during the Q&A session to bring everyone into reality and also connect everyone to the play. I meant to talk to the white-haired lady as I stepped out of the theatre, but I didn't do it as usual. :(
I went to work out this morning and met David again. It's a little bit awkward again. But I just pretend to be normal and cool doing my workout. After a while, he came back complaining his webhosting service is crap and the service provider is not providing any assistance. I figured out he knew nothing about those web publishing thing. So I offered to help him out as a way to know him better. He called me about five hours later during my little nap time and ask me to meet him somewhere on campus. I was glad he called. Then I drove there and went to the computer lab with him. It took me no time to figure out things for him and get things done. I can tell he was really excited and amazed to see how I do those HTML coding thing. He encouraged to really start to doing the webdesigning thing and make money out of it. Very good advice. I think I am gonna do it and make that happen. I probably need some small business advice from someone or some book. Whatever it is, hope it works out okay.
Fruitful Monday
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
I got up really early considering I went to bed very late last night. It's gonna be the job fair day. So I drove to Staples and got some professional resume paper and printed some resumes out. Today is the deadline for the production design assistant position in CMT. I decided to submit my resume with coverletter to them directly. That took me a good 2 hours to do that. It's time consuming, but i felt good. Because I can feel the difference and people can see the difference in my efforts to pursue the jobs. good luck to me on the job fair and other job applications.
Basquiat, Ethan Frome, Pulp Fiction
Friday, September 19, 2003
I watched Pulp Fiction. It wasn't that good. At least the editing isn't doing a great job. And the story could be shorter. I can see that there are some movies like Urbania show some hints of the way they make it. But Urbania and one british film about gay marriage did a much better job in explaining the plot more explicitly. Put everything about the movie asides, the whole idea of poor people make huge hits in hollywood seems shady when people make their trashy lives into movies and consider them as arts. Some can be, but most aren't. At least this director isn't that great in organizing his materials together. If there is a better director, it could be a much better film, although i'm not a big fan of those materials.
The movie worth mention is Basquiat, which captured the life of Jean Mitchell Basquiat, a young graffiti artist in New York. It's real, touchy and artsy at the same time. Definitely a must see for people who are artsy themselves and care about art too.
Then Ethan Frome is another good film. I'm glad I watched it before I decided to return it. Liam Neeson was in it. Very tragic ending. The relationship between one man and two women make them deserted from the people in the village. But the true love and the genuine feelings those people share is so pure and rare in the society filled with corruption and filthy people. Another must see film. I'm surprised that people on IMDB didn't rate it very high.
When I do return the tape, the lady in Nashville library said it was a great film. But she thought it was so tragic and sad. Anyway, isn't that what life is about? The tragedies always bring the shining side of human being out. Bravo to that.
Passive thinking and retrospection. Comparison and reflection
Thursday, September 18, 2003
I talked with sis a few days ago and helped her to revise her resume. After I sent the revised version back and discussed it with her on the phone, it seems that she is not very impressed and sounded reserved. It's her traditional response though. Maybe she is not confident about her ability, maybe she is tired of current situation and is depressed. There are many maybes. All those leads to my reflection on current status. I am like her--not liking my work, not happy with what I do, not working hard to refurbish resume, not trying hard enough to find a job... It's very similar. Everyone is good at giving advices, but when it come to his/her own situations, no one is quite the same person who is giving out advice.
I remembered there is an article in high school article or something like that talking about "people who are in the mud cannot see why he is in the it, but the people outside can see it clearly". That's exactly what happened here. I saw the problem that she is not working hard enough to achieve her full potential and I am doing the same thing, plus blaming her at the same time for not doing it. What a irony!
I saw Chad on Tuesday and talked about how cruel the kids are in the United States. They call people who wear glasses as nerds, geeks, and even faggots. Chad said that's the competitiveness they learned and saw from their parents who were doing the exact same thing at work, while having fun... The competitiveness shown on TV is encouraged and trashing talking is okay to many people while I, who came from a diffrent culture, would think that's vulgar and stupid. All the psychological effects will play a big part during the competition, but that's not what the fair competition about. But in reality, WHO CARES? If only they win, they couldn't care less about the shame and ugliness. It's clearly shown on Wednesday's Big Brother 4. Ali's parents are "proud" of their girl doing trashing talking, back stabbing on national television. I am even embarrassed by them. Don't they have a slightest idea of what should be taught to their children? All the morality and values are totally lost in some families.
I am talking about competitiveness tonight. We all should be competitive. (although I wasn't as competitive as I want to be, I am sure I can learn it.) At the same time, the competition should be carried out in a fair and moral way. Not by other ugly little tricks.
The lessons I learned from so many reality shows are being competitive and the right way to deal with people although I still have a hard to to use those tactics. Those things will benefit me in the long run.
Interview with Derek Buckmaster from GE Plastics
Monday, September 15, 2003
I had an interview with Mr. Buckmaster from GE Plastics. We talked about the position and what the work will be like if I join the company. He is interviewing more people and building up a research team geared towards to customized plastic design. At the end of the interview, he mentioned that he will send out an email about the signup package and what they could offer. I haven't get the information yet, but I hope it's a good offer and make me to really think hard to decide whethere I should go back or not. We'll see...
I cooked Chicken Noodle Soup tonight. With some fresh parsley, chicken broth, and egg noodle. I made a nice soup dinner. There are more stuff in the soup book. Need more time to experience it.
Nothing going on for the whole weekend.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
Saturday is really boring, I spend the whole day doing nothing. After I watched some videotapes and felt bored about what I was doing, I went out for a walk around 10pm. It was very pleasant outside. Breeze brushed through my face and it felt great. I brought cellphone with me to talk with parents and family. Dad went home on Sunday morning. Mom and sis was at home. As soon as I told her the news that GE would interview me on Monday for the position openning in Shanghai, sis spend over hald an hour trying to convince me to go back home and work there. It was all reasonable and I was thinking about the same kind of things. However, after spending so long time and get used to all the customs and other stuff, it's really hard to make up my mind to give up everything and go back. Although deep in my heart I knew I probably will have a much higher start point in my life if I go back, it's still the very hard to consider that as an option in my life.
Sunday is boring too. I went over to the library returned some tapes before I went to library to download more clips. Then I went to jogging for 3 miles. There are some cuties there running on the track. It's fun to watch those guys. :) That's actually one of the biggest thrill go jogging besides the feeling jogging give me--- eyecandy. I always wanted to jog everyday, but there are always something came up and I just let it go.
Tonight is the 10th anniversary show of Conan O'Brian. He put up a jumbo show in primetime. It's really cool to see the evolvement of the show in the past 10 years. He is not my favorate comic, but he is not the worst. I appreciate his hysterical humor sometimes. Just for that, I hope he can stay on the air longer.
Moon Festival Celebration
Friday, September 12, 2003
I went to the dinner with Huawei, Jinwei's friends and we celebrated Moon festival together. It's not as bad as I thought. There are totally eight people and I liked one person. The rest of them are pretty self centered and boring. I talked with the Hu Qian, Jinwei and another girl during the dinner and have some interesting conversations.
Afterwards, I took 3 of them back to school. Two left earlier in the garage and I was in the car with Qian. We kind of have some natural conversation started about everything going on in life and LSAT preparation. She suggest me to go to law school and she really think I will be very good at it since my logic reasoning is great in her eyes. I am very encouraged by her words. But the conversation part about her attitude towards life make me really reconsider what I have thought about my life. I need to try 100 times harder to make life better and I cannot just do what I am doing right now while expecting things will change for good magically. It won't happen. The good things only happen to people who try. I wasn't trying hard enough, and I will start doing that. Thanks to her for this talk and it was very meaningful and in time.
Not much going on today
I got up a little bit earlier than a few days ago and watched some TV. After spending the whole night wait for the DVD encoding function. I figured that there is something wrong with the methods and I have to redo a few steps all over again. At around 12AM this morning, the final version of the Scent of the Women is finished. The quality is awesome. It will take much less time next time when I try to copy another DVD.
I went to lunch with ADAM and other people on his floor and it's a farewell party. He is quite a character in some ways and he helped me some in the past. It's great to see him leave for a better position. But the lunch time is a little bit awkward since four of us are not very familiar with each other. It's very hard to start a conversation considering Eric Barf isn't that enthusiastic about me. Anyhow, it went not bad and I tried harder than before to make the conversation flow. good effort.
Scent of women
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Scent of Women by Al Pacino and Chris O'Donnell
I watched this movie the second time today. I remember the first time is long long time ago when I was a kid in my parents old house. I got more meaning out of the movie now then ever.
A person's true identity is hard to find. An asshole can also be the sweetest man in the world. A odd situation can turn around to be the most beautiful thing ever happened to your life. A person with integrity live a far more meaningful life for him and for everyone else.
I'm making the rip of this video now. It is a great treasure of what I have and it will always be.
" It's a great day for singing a song;
and it's a great day for moving along;
and it's a great day for morning and night;
and it's a great day for everybody's plight.
Discussion with Qian 2 about FLFM 2
Oops, it's not a discussion about the possibility and reality any more. The possibility BECAME a reality, even it's on a TV show. Anyhow, we are both clear about the fact that it's a different issue we are talking about and more importantly care about. So, let it be.
I truely believe what you said about how hard it is and so forth, because otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who are lonely in all their lives. And it's just because of that hardship, there are people who are willing to put up with all kinds of tests, and there are people who are willing to take the tests at the same time to go to the next steps. That's far more important than whether they can find true love or not. The process made them grow and mature, and that IS the most beautiful thing eventually.
As for whether the show is fake or not, I couldn't care less. At least it showed a bright side of human being and that's what most reality shows lack of right now.
Happy Mid-Autumn's day to you. Enjoy it with your Mom. Say hi to her.
Msg to Qian to verify the validity of my point about Love and Money
Guess what? Girl...
Chad picked the girl, not the money. did I mention he picked the girl? :P
I'm glad that there is a proof of the possibility I am tring to explain in that four hours. Anyway, we both have a point. we each scored a point. High five with ya. I guess you knew girl better and I knew guy better. and that's that.
Have fun taking LSAT
NBC.com > For Love or Money 2
Monday, September 8, 2003
The final episode of For Love or Money 2 is shown tonight and Erin decided to choose Chad. He played a little trick for a bit and make Erin think think he was gonna to choose money. It was funny to see how Erin relieved after getting the news that he actually chose her over one million dollars. I felt great that there were true love in the world and it CAN happen on television shows. I just find Hu Qian's phone number and call her up to tell her the news. Just to prove she is wrong about the true love will make me feel good. :)
Congratulations to Erin and Chad. You two look great together.
Beatle's film
Sunday, September 7, 2003
After spending the afternoon on computer categorizing the files and old stuff, I went food shopping. I felt so hungry when I got to Kroger and my stocmach was moaning. After I came back, I ate one Yogurt and suddenly felt uncomfort in my stomach. The dinner wasn't tasting good after all that. The whole night is a nightmare while I try to distract myself watching some movies. One is about Beatles called "One Hard Day's Night". It was a fantastic and unique film about the four beatles. It's great to know that four of them are quite good actors themselves.
Then I watched another movie called "Clerk", it's a so so movie, talking about how ordinary people find the meaning of their lives. Not too much fun.
Interestingly, both movies I watched tonight are black and white movies. Quite a coincidence.
Therapy
Thursday, September 4, 2003
After about five hours sleep, I got up and got ready to counseling with Chad. We talked a little bit about the roommate situation as usual at the beginning. Same old things.
Sometime in the middle of the counseling, I mentioned that I begin to post blogs online and it's just for myself. Most of time, when people put blogs online and they keep records of their life, at the same time, they share it with other people. I didn't do anything to pormote the site and let people come to see it. It will probably make me feel good to get some feedback from other users. However, it's mainly to record the thoughts and my evolving process. Chad is very insightful as I told him the story and he analyzed it as a convinient easy way for me to communicate with people while avoid direct contact with public. Very interesting thoughts. It's very true in so many parts of my life and I didn't realize it until he pointed out. I'm glad he helped me out on this again. The best thing to solve a problem is to identify a problem first and tring to face it and solve it later. I'm at a good starting point with Chad's help. As a reminder, he poiinted out to me before that I might not like myself very much since the people I didn't like usually share some common characters with me. That's another big harvest of counseling. I didn't get upset at all, instead, I'm so happy and enlightened. Psychology, what a science. :)
I catched up another episode of OC this afternoon on tape. It's a great show, although it's a little bit exaggerated and unrealistic. The good thing about is that it shows the bright side of human being and make me feel more positive in many ways and teach lots of proper real-life intereactions. Love all those kids.
I cannot believe this!
I couldn't believe that I spent another three hour tonight (well, this morning) trying to make the blogger's interface look better. I like the final results nonetheless. It's simple and artistic.
I went to Steve's new apartment tonight and hang out with him for a while. It's fun and we talked a lot about each other's life and stuff. I'm glad we keep in touch and keep the friendship going.
There were only 5 people left in the Big brother 4 house. After tonight, Jee was eliminated. The left four people are Jun, Erika, Ali and Robert. Three girls against one guy. I thought the three ladies alliance will go to the final three. However, Robert did a great job and get the hold of the HOH. The Head of Household title will guarantee his position in the final three. I'm not a big fan of his. But it's good to see a guy in the finals. :) Good luck, Robert. At the same time, I hope Jun will win. She really deserve it because she is smart, palying game hard, also, because she is asian. I root for minority as always. Good luck to Jun too. Whoever win, just don't like Ali win. That bitch doesn't deserve anything. Most of the audience will feel the same way.
A great msg from Paul: Love 2.0
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
Customer: Well, after much consideration, I've decided to install Love. Can you guide me through the process?
Tech Support: Yes I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?
Customer: Well, I'm not very technical, but I think I'm ready. What do I do first?
Tech Support: The first step is to open your heart. Have you located your heart Ma'am?
Customer: Yes, but there are several other programs running now. Is it okay to install Love while they are running?
Tech Support: What programs are running Ma'am?
Customer: Let's see, I have past-hurt, low self-esteem, grudge, and resentment running right now.
Tech Support: No problem, Love will gradually erase past-hurt from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. Love will eventually override low self-esteem with a module of it's own called high self-esteem. However, you have to completely turn off grudge and resentment. Those programs prevent Love from being properly installed. Can you turn those off Ma'am?
Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?
Tech Support: With pleasure. Go to your start menu and invoke forgiveness. Do this as many times as necessary until grudge and forgiveness have completely erased.
Customer: Okay done, Love has started installing itself. Is that normal?
Tech Support: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other hearts in order to get the upgrades.
Customer: Oops! I have an error message already. It says, "error-program not run on external components." What should I do?
Tech Support: Don't worry Ma'am, It means the Love program is set-up to run on internal hearts but has not yet been run on your heart. In non-technical terms, it means you have to Love yourself before you can Love others.
Customer: So what should I do?
Tech Support: Can you pull down self-acceptance; then click on the following files: Forgive-self; Realize your worth; Acknowledge your limitations.
Customer: OK, done.
Tech Support: Now copy them to the "My Heart" directory. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching faulty programming. Also, you need to delete verbose self-criticism from all directories and empty your recycle bin to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.
Customer: Got it. Hey!!! My Heart is filling up with new files. Smile is playing on my monitor and Peace and Contentment are copying themselves all over My Heart. Is this normal?
Tech Support: Sometimes. For others it takes a while, but eventually everything gets downloaded at the proper time. So Love is installed and running. One more thing before we hang-up. Love is Freeware. Be sure to give it and it's various modules to everyone you meet. They will in turn share it with others and return some cool modules back to you.
Customer: I promise to do just that. By the way, what's your name?
Tech Support: Just call me the Divine Cardiologist, also known as the Great Physician, or just "I AM." Most people feel all they need is an annual checkup to stay heart-healthy; but the manufacturer (ME) suggests a daily maintenance schedule for maximum Love efficiency. KEEP IN TOUCH!
Got up late again.
Monday, September 1, 2003
The meds stopped and the sleep came back. :(
It seems that the Wellbutrin really works in the sense that it make me less sleepy. Unfortunately, I have to stop the meds because my insurance stopped and I cannot afford to buy the medication any more. This really sucks.
