I'm writing a song in Music Theory. We had to pick a text from somewhere and put rhythm, chords and then melody to it, in that order. I picked Judges 19:29, so I'm having a lot of fun. I like to call it one of the "Unsung Tales of the Bible". I must either be unable to abide by the social norms or have a certain taste for shock value. The melody is turning out to be quite intriguing actually; if I get a recording of it I might post it on here.
Calculus is coming along. I got a lot done but not enough. I'm going to have to settle with turning in half an assignment in tomorrow. We have a quiz tomorrow as well. And the midterm is on Wednesday. Hopefully Dr. Atkins won't assign additional assignments and I can take advantage of catching up so that most of the topics are fresh in my mind for the midterm... at least that's a positive way to look at things =).
I noticed my previous post doesn't allow you to post comments. Sorry about that. I was tweaking with the settings and must have forgotten to put it back. Hopefully this post will allow you to post comments. Thanks for reading though!
Oh and also if any of you prefer to read blogs through feeds, let me know and I'll consider publicizing this blog so you can do that. For now though I'm opting not to, for other people's sake rather than mine of course =P. I don't like to be vain enough to think that my personal life (or the information contained in it) is of value (financial or otherwise) to anybody. Or perhaps I crave attention. Either works I guess.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Trudging Through Calculus
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Snow & Calculus
It snowed today!!! Though school wasn't cancelled so I had to go to classes. One of the two professors of my Game Design class - Dr. Alma Barranco-Mendoza - was sick and her kids' school was cancelled because of the snow, so she couldn't lecture today.
So my other professor - Dr. Kevin Schut - decided to finish a lecture he couldn't beforehand (sometimes those professors ramble and lose track of time so that they don't get through all the points they wanted to, tsk tsk).
I'm behind in Calculus, and I'm not sleeping enough. This is really frustrating me. I have a midterm next Wednesday and my homework is due on Friday + there is a quiz that day, so I need to be prepared, but if I sit down to study I feel like falling asleep; it's very hard to think through integral Calculus when your brain is all muggy and trying to shut down. Please pray for me
Saturday, January 26, 2008
My Future
Car
For the first time this summer I'm going to be taking a course at Trinity as a commuter. Ah, commuting with the great Transportation company known as Translink. I cannot say anything of the quality of the England, California, Northern Ireland or Australia versions of Translink - all of which are separate companies - but the Vancouver episode is... quite the frustration. This of course may be due to my upbringing in Japan, the land of railroads reaching every corner of the entire nation. However, many local residents also complain about the service as well. On the third side of the coin, people tend to complain here a lot in general...
Hopefully the picture I have painted is bleak enough to make my salvation shine gloriously. I have come across an opportunity to acquire my own car. I might as well be vague until it happens but I want to share the news of this opportunity because of a couple of cool things.
For one, I'll be able to transit to TWU during the final semester of my Game Design course instead of having to ride a bus for an hour and a half. I concede that the bus ride has improved improved from last year - it used to be 2 hours - but it's a 30 minute drive by car...
Also, I will be able to get to church at odd times instead of having to depend on a ride. My involvement in ministry at the church is limited because the buses don't start early enough for me to get there by 10am for the normal worship service time, let alone for a worship practice beforehand. This is mainly because it's a 2 hour bus ride which is a 30 minute car ride. I'm hopefully getting my license on February 26th (provided I pass the road test on that day), so it will be awesome to put that license to some good use.
If all goes well, I'll get to pick up my parent(s) at the airport when they come over in April. If all doesn't go well, I'll fail my road test and my Learners license will expire in March.
House
So far I've been an on-campus resident student since my first year here at TWU. As a young student at first you don't really realize how your living and food expenses compare to market prices, especially coming from an entirely different economy. Slowly however I've come to realize that though the price of convenience for living on-campus is cheap for the market, it is still a big expense which can be done away with.
A friend of mine just recently moved out of a house right across the street from TWU. I asked him to speak with his landlord on my behalf so that I might have preference as a potential tenant for this coming September. If I share the house with Jonny I slash my monthly housing cost by $200, yet still maintain the convenience of being in walking distance of my classes. I'm really excited about this opportunity of frugality, and hope that everything goes down well. I just need to keep persisting with getting through to my friend's landlord.
Minor
For the past year or so I have frequently described myself as taking a Music Minor. It was not until 2 days ago in face that I finally filled out and submitted the paperwork to do so. I'm really glad I made that step and look forward to entering dialogue with my Music professors to seek advice on my academic pursuits.
Google Reader
And finally, a little bit of advertising. I recently started using a tool called Google Reader. What it does is subscribes to webzines (online magazines), articles, blogs and anything that uses an rss feed. It then organizes it for you and keeps track of what you've read and even keeps your reading stats for you. Essentially it serves as your digital newspaper except is especially tailored to your tastes, so it's way more interesting.
I've subscribed on my family's blog so I can keep up to date on what they're up to. I also get some sermon audio from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Mars Hill Paper (TWU's student newspaper), NPR and BBC news, as well as some project management blogs since I am doing that with the digital game design project.
If you find yourself spending your leisure surfing time looking up things in a very scattered and inconsistent manner, this may be the tool for you. If you already have a Google account, you're already half way there. It's very simple to use, and will either save you a bunch of time or take up all of your leisure time. Whichever it does for you, it's going to do it really well.
For the first time this summer I'm going to be taking a course at Trinity as a commuter. Ah, commuting with the great Transportation company known as Translink. I cannot say anything of the quality of the England, California, Northern Ireland or Australia versions of Translink - all of which are separate companies - but the Vancouver episode is... quite the frustration. This of course may be due to my upbringing in Japan, the land of railroads reaching every corner of the entire nation. However, many local residents also complain about the service as well. On the third side of the coin, people tend to complain here a lot in general...
Hopefully the picture I have painted is bleak enough to make my salvation shine gloriously. I have come across an opportunity to acquire my own car. I might as well be vague until it happens but I want to share the news of this opportunity because of a couple of cool things.
For one, I'll be able to transit to TWU during the final semester of my Game Design course instead of having to ride a bus for an hour and a half. I concede that the bus ride has improved improved from last year - it used to be 2 hours - but it's a 30 minute drive by car...
Also, I will be able to get to church at odd times instead of having to depend on a ride. My involvement in ministry at the church is limited because the buses don't start early enough for me to get there by 10am for the normal worship service time, let alone for a worship practice beforehand. This is mainly because it's a 2 hour bus ride which is a 30 minute car ride. I'm hopefully getting my license on February 26th (provided I pass the road test on that day), so it will be awesome to put that license to some good use.
If all goes well, I'll get to pick up my parent(s) at the airport when they come over in April. If all doesn't go well, I'll fail my road test and my Learners license will expire in March.
House
So far I've been an on-campus resident student since my first year here at TWU. As a young student at first you don't really realize how your living and food expenses compare to market prices, especially coming from an entirely different economy. Slowly however I've come to realize that though the price of convenience for living on-campus is cheap for the market, it is still a big expense which can be done away with.
A friend of mine just recently moved out of a house right across the street from TWU. I asked him to speak with his landlord on my behalf so that I might have preference as a potential tenant for this coming September. If I share the house with Jonny I slash my monthly housing cost by $200, yet still maintain the convenience of being in walking distance of my classes. I'm really excited about this opportunity of frugality, and hope that everything goes down well. I just need to keep persisting with getting through to my friend's landlord.
Minor
For the past year or so I have frequently described myself as taking a Music Minor. It was not until 2 days ago in face that I finally filled out and submitted the paperwork to do so. I'm really glad I made that step and look forward to entering dialogue with my Music professors to seek advice on my academic pursuits.
Google Reader
And finally, a little bit of advertising. I recently started using a tool called Google Reader. What it does is subscribes to webzines (online magazines), articles, blogs and anything that uses an rss feed. It then organizes it for you and keeps track of what you've read and even keeps your reading stats for you. Essentially it serves as your digital newspaper except is especially tailored to your tastes, so it's way more interesting.
I've subscribed on my family's blog so I can keep up to date on what they're up to. I also get some sermon audio from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Mars Hill Paper (TWU's student newspaper), NPR and BBC news, as well as some project management blogs since I am doing that with the digital game design project.
If you find yourself spending your leisure surfing time looking up things in a very scattered and inconsistent manner, this may be the tool for you. If you already have a Google account, you're already half way there. It's very simple to use, and will either save you a bunch of time or take up all of your leisure time. Whichever it does for you, it's going to do it really well.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Something New
I tried keeping people up to date on me by posting YouTube videos, but then I found out I'm not allowed to stay in the lab after work. The lab is where the iMacs are with the cameras and mics... too bad. So now I'm trying something new. I'm good at doing new things, but new gets old pretty fast....
I'll still be using the time I have at work to post on here probably, which is maximum of 3 times a week. So anyways, let's see if I can recap my semester here at TWU so far...
I'm taking 3 classes, working at 2 jobs, and have 1 girlfriend. That's pretty much the extremely short version which actually describes how I spend most of my time very well. Let's explore each item one by one
Digital Game Development
This is my favourite class. The class consists of a team of students who are pursuing different degrees (art, music, business, computer science, communications) all working on a single project to develop a computer game.
I am the "Technical Project Manager" for this project. My job is to compile and maintain the schedule for the entire project (including each individual task) and making sure everybody completes their tasks on time. It takes a lot of communication with everybody and dedication to the project, both which I love and thrive at doing. The "Technical" part of my title is supposed to mean that I am especially managing the software developers workload, but I suspect I'll be doing an equal amount of project management across the board.
Music Theory
This class is quite self explanatory. I took on a music minor as a part of my hopeful preparation for graduate studies relating to music and computers. This entails learning the theory of music. I have always engaged in music from an aural and experiential level, never really tackling any theory aside from my encounters during piano lessons from my Mom.
The method of this course is to introduce the student to the rules of music followed by musicians approximately 250 years ago. The community of musicians never really felt the need for rules or theory until the enlightenment age came along with its expectation of rationality from all things claiming to be worthy pursuits. Thus people like Rameau decided to systematize and analyze music in a whole new way...
The existence of music theory is not very negotiable. Thus actually the method of taking students back 250 years is a favour because the theory of music today is way too complex and diverse for any student of music to take as a starting point. It's nice to work with music which is very restrained in its taste... learning more modern music will make more sense once we get to it. Otherwise it's kind of like learning about democracy without knowing about monarchy or better yet about anarchy without learning about government.
Integral Calculus
If you haven't figured out already, I despise mathematics on many levels. However for some odd reason I have picked the degree of Computing Science which mandates the successful completion of over 3 mathematics courses. I protest to their relevance to my pursuit of technology, but who knows, it might prove useful one day.
In the mean time I struggle with motivating myself to do mathematics assignments which I struggle with
I'll still be using the time I have at work to post on here probably, which is maximum of 3 times a week. So anyways, let's see if I can recap my semester here at TWU so far...
I'm taking 3 classes, working at 2 jobs, and have 1 girlfriend. That's pretty much the extremely short version which actually describes how I spend most of my time very well. Let's explore each item one by one
Digital Game Development
This is my favourite class. The class consists of a team of students who are pursuing different degrees (art, music, business, computer science, communications) all working on a single project to develop a computer game.
I am the "Technical Project Manager" for this project. My job is to compile and maintain the schedule for the entire project (including each individual task) and making sure everybody completes their tasks on time. It takes a lot of communication with everybody and dedication to the project, both which I love and thrive at doing. The "Technical" part of my title is supposed to mean that I am especially managing the software developers workload, but I suspect I'll be doing an equal amount of project management across the board.
Music Theory
This class is quite self explanatory. I took on a music minor as a part of my hopeful preparation for graduate studies relating to music and computers. This entails learning the theory of music. I have always engaged in music from an aural and experiential level, never really tackling any theory aside from my encounters during piano lessons from my Mom.The method of this course is to introduce the student to the rules of music followed by musicians approximately 250 years ago. The community of musicians never really felt the need for rules or theory until the enlightenment age came along with its expectation of rationality from all things claiming to be worthy pursuits. Thus people like Rameau decided to systematize and analyze music in a whole new way...
The existence of music theory is not very negotiable. Thus actually the method of taking students back 250 years is a favour because the theory of music today is way too complex and diverse for any student of music to take as a starting point. It's nice to work with music which is very restrained in its taste... learning more modern music will make more sense once we get to it. Otherwise it's kind of like learning about democracy without knowing about monarchy or better yet about anarchy without learning about government.
Integral Calculus
If you haven't figured out already, I despise mathematics on many levels. However for some odd reason I have picked the degree of Computing Science which mandates the successful completion of over 3 mathematics courses. I protest to their relevance to my pursuit of technology, but who knows, it might prove useful one day.In the mean time I struggle with motivating myself to do mathematics assignments which I struggle with
- Accomplishing well
- Finding a practical reason for it which is relevant to me
My professor though is a very intelligent man who clearly enjoys mathematics which amuses me very much.
Spartan Athletics Event Staff
The Spartans are the University's athletes. The event staff is me. I've moved up since being hired in my first year, tearing tickets and maybe selling them. Since then I've pretty much done every job available, which is nice because I have the experience to be helpful in almost any situation.
The thing I enjoy the most right now though is announcing. I've started to announce Volleyball and Basketball games. I do like all the jobs which involve watching the game, but I like this one the best because you actually get involved with the game and athletes on a more personal level. Even though you don't interact with them per se, you learn their names and describe plays to the audience.
Main Computer Lab Teaching Assistant
This is where I'm at right now. Right by the white board. Basically all I do is sit here at the computer and look smart. People may ask me questions if the have problems now and then, just to test if I'm actually as smart as I look. For the most part though, it's a very quiet job, especially compared to event staff. Even though it's not as exciting, you can't turn down getting paid for just sitting at the computer, and maybe answering questions and pushing chairs in now and then.
Also as a part of this job I get paid to mark for a programming course. Last semester I marked for "Intro to Programming: Modula-2". This semester I will be marking "Intermediate Programming: Java". It's a good way to keep on top of my programming knowledge and maybe even add to it. I love the concept of getting paid to learn.
Tamara
She's the girlfriend, in case you couldn't figure that out. We've been dating since April 2007. This is the first relationship I've had where God has been such a big part of it. He has definitely been leading us and guiding us as we get to know each other, and I think I have a pretty good idea of where he is taking us. Otherwise I wouldn't be dating her.
Spartan Athletics Event Staff
The Spartans are the University's athletes. The event staff is me. I've moved up since being hired in my first year, tearing tickets and maybe selling them. Since then I've pretty much done every job available, which is nice because I have the experience to be helpful in almost any situation.The thing I enjoy the most right now though is announcing. I've started to announce Volleyball and Basketball games. I do like all the jobs which involve watching the game, but I like this one the best because you actually get involved with the game and athletes on a more personal level. Even though you don't interact with them per se, you learn their names and describe plays to the audience.
Main Computer Lab Teaching Assistant
This is where I'm at right now. Right by the white board. Basically all I do is sit here at the computer and look smart. People may ask me questions if the have problems now and then, just to test if I'm actually as smart as I look. For the most part though, it's a very quiet job, especially compared to event staff. Even though it's not as exciting, you can't turn down getting paid for just sitting at the computer, and maybe answering questions and pushing chairs in now and then.Also as a part of this job I get paid to mark for a programming course. Last semester I marked for "Intro to Programming: Modula-2". This semester I will be marking "Intermediate Programming: Java". It's a good way to keep on top of my programming knowledge and maybe even add to it. I love the concept of getting paid to learn.
Tamara
She's the girlfriend, in case you couldn't figure that out. We've been dating since April 2007. This is the first relationship I've had where God has been such a big part of it. He has definitely been leading us and guiding us as we get to know each other, and I think I have a pretty good idea of where he is taking us. Otherwise I wouldn't be dating her.We spend almost every morning together; I go over to her place and we have breakfast, and share a time with God if we can. We spend almost every evening together too by just enjoying each other and praying at the end. If you pray then you can pray that God will continually be the guide and master of our relationship.
Oh yeah, about the title of this blog. "The Struggle for Balance".... for one I didn't feel like writing a title for my blog in the first place because it's merely a medium for me to write about my life so others can get a glimpse of it. I began to think though.... "balance" is something I've found to recur as a theme in my life. By theme I mean it seems like nobody has balance and it really frustrates me. It's just something I see as being very important. So I figured I could call my life a struggle for balance, be it for myself or for those around me.
Oh yeah, about the title of this blog. "The Struggle for Balance".... for one I didn't feel like writing a title for my blog in the first place because it's merely a medium for me to write about my life so others can get a glimpse of it. I began to think though.... "balance" is something I've found to recur as a theme in my life. By theme I mean it seems like nobody has balance and it really frustrates me. It's just something I see as being very important. So I figured I could call my life a struggle for balance, be it for myself or for those around me.
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