Horizon-Fingers

SoCoLDS 2008 was great, the best RoKS the Southern Comfort region of AIESEC US has put on since our re-establishment in Spring 2006, in my humble but officially and experientially-informed opinion. I'm pretty proud of the group we've got right now as well, check them out at the Atlanta blog.

I slept the second I got home last night at about 6:30, woke up at 11 to drink some tea and watch the rest of the third season of Weeds, then conked out at 2:00 to wake up at 9:45. A necessary length of sleep, given how little I got this weekend - but oh, it was worth it!

I'm in the lab tonight to work on a lab report, and on my way in I saw a flyer that caught my eye, for Free Culture @ GT. I looked up the website for Students for Free Culture and realized that it clicks a whole lot for me. I may have found my next commitment after my LCP term is over. Plus the first meeting of the organization ever is next week, so I can help be a part of starting something new on campus... again.

In VLSI and Advanced Digital Design on a Monday at the Autumnal Equinox

My day is one of path effort delay and flip flops and latches, of masculinismo y marianismo, awful sushi with green Tabasco sauce to make it palatable, reading the news on my Smackberry, fretting for my homework and grades, trying to conquer it all with AIESEC and being conquered by my environment. It is a day of overstaying familiarity and futility of the dream of escape and breaking bonds, of fulfilling my Pyramid and occasionally descending (or ascending?) into a different Way just for it not to be the same Way.

I feel like after graduation and my traineeship I would benefit from one year in a place where the bulk of my day would consist of reading and running, so I could descend into my own underworld, discover the boon, and return it to this plane. Then I would be The Conqueror to our enemies and The Liberator to us.

"12-year-old William Yuan's invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. 'Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light'" Yuan said. 'I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.' Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. 'My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,' Yuan said. "If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it.""
- from Slashdot

Well, that just makes me feel even better about being here in the lab after midnight, trying to make VLSI programming work in my fifth year of college. It's reasons like this that I feel a constant burning hatred of being in this place, while young Billy in Oregon is already doing something spectacular in 7th grade.

WHERE IS MY SOLAR CELL LAB, GEORGIA TECH?!

I think I have already shaved ten years off of my life with the stress of ennui and rigamarole.

Soundbite Generation

Had my first test of the semester today, in fiber optics. I think I did pretty well considering I only studied two hours. I also finally decided, during said study szechuan, to add classical music to my Pandora account - why did I not think of that before?

In order to form a more perfect union with the Cloud, I am going to try and hold myself to Twittering thrice daily - or maybe five times in the direction of Mecca. Does anyone know of any good apps for Blogger or Twitter that let my Twitterings sync with my blog status, FB status, etc?

Supposed to have dinner with a crazy old roommate tonight. Should be interesting.

Why can't I drop out and get paid to do something high-profile, explosively social, and sweet?

Gaussian Curve of Exhaustion

The weekend was good - Friday night I hung with Dave, John & Christina on the blessing of some just-received coupons for Cameli's, played a bunch of Super Mario Galaxy, and hit the hay at midnight in anticipation of the next day's festivities - but not before giving Ben James some much-needed ice downstairs.

The next day was something we'd waited for a long time - the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Races. We got up to Lake Lanier at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday, and stayed until after two. In between those hours almost 25 of us in the LC hung out in the AJC Foods tent (our partner and sponsor) where we enjoyed plenty of free food and free beer from 5 Seasons Brewing, and racing in the two time trials and finally after the opening ceremonies in the actual race. It was hard but a lot of fun - between our first heat and the third and actual "this-one-really-counts" heat we halved our time due to better teamwork and rowing, and we even won our division! No matter that there were only two teams in our division and AJC was the other one... we win a sweet paddle.

A picture from the event can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/hkatlanta/HongKongDragonBoatFestival08#5245683001560340482.

I returned from the dragon boat races exhausted but happy at the fun we'd had all before 2 PM. I went to Dave's and watched GT lose to VT (ugh), and was really bottoming out from exhaustion for a bit. But later things were okay - my man Matt from the BHMpire came with his band Hayden Corner to play Phi Delt, and we got some Majestic beforehand and then after his show we hung out at my place. Today I did homework and had LTM.

Potluck dinner tomorrow night. I just sent out the LCP application. The end is nigh, but I don't want it to be.

Threads

I caught a film that met my need for disaster and chilling feelings: Threads.



Threads was aired as a television play on the BBC in 1984, at the height of the cold war. It's one of the only long-format films to display in depth the effects of a nuclear winter on society. Some of the images are pretty disturbing and I was pretty surprised that they showed it on TV, but then again in Britain censorship isn't like it is here. I was sufficiently chilled and was pretty afraid I'd have nightmares. The quality of the transfer is poor but the point definitely gets across. I recommend it.

Jonesing A Catastrophe

I don't know why, but I'm really in the mood to read some dark science fiction. Barring that, I'd like to watch a movie that will really, really chill me on a deep human level. The only movies that have ever truly done that to me are Akira (sort of), the final sequence of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and more notably The End of Evangelion. For some reason I'm just plain in the mood.

Labor Day Wockende 2000-Great

I still don't have time to write about the massive month of my life that was August and the immense change therein, but what I can say now is the kind of weekend I had:

Friday night: Enjoyment > Dinner with Family > Walking around Dragon*Con with Gadsden family friends > Going back to the house with my Boys from Bama and enjoying a party downstairs > Enjoyment

Saturday: Enjoyment > Barbecue with family friends at Roy and Dave's > Enjoyment > BAMA LOOKIN' FRESH, MANE! at Alabama vs. Clemson in the Georgia Dome > Going to Dragon*Con with friends and people-watching and people-talking and people-drinking until about 4 A.M.

Sunday: Enjoyment > Karaoke

Monday: Nothing.

Pictures from Dragon*Con:


Tiffany, exhibiting our normal love / hate / pinch relationship


I don't know what she was supposed to be, except camera candy


A Battlestar Galactica nugget initiation party: "SO SAY WE ALL!"


Las mujeres de las peliculas jovenes fantasias. Un poquito Freudesque.


They told me to "Get on your knees." I wasn't about to not comply.