EPTTexts, Pictures, Hardships and Happiness
Meant to write a blog on how's everything going for a long long time, but life has been so busy lately I've never found the time. But I think now it is good time! I have class tomorrow at 11am, but it is only 12am now, so even if I sleep at 2, I will be in great shape.
Note: All the pictures are very high quality, open them in a separate tab if you want to see the details
So here goes...
Working
I want to start from summer last year, that is, summer of 2010. It was the most rewarding summer so far at Berkeley. I was working with a professor on some research in computer science, and I was allowed to stay at Berkeley over summer to continue research, with payments!! I worked 8 hours a day at a rate of $15/hr, and with parents taking care of rents for the mean time, life is quite good. Research is fantastic, as it is more algorithm/theoretic, I do not need to spend all of my lives coding at the computer, I'd say only 2/3 of my work is coding, which is quite nice as it gives me breaks everyday to lay outside in the sunshine with my ukulele and just think about the problems on the grass.
While in the lab though, I take break by playing with my many toys, here is a shot at my desk during the summer, I particularly liked the giraffe toy, which will go limp if you press the button:
![[image loading]](http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/2372/p1020602w.jpg)
And here is a little ecosphere I made, which sits at the corner that gets about 1 hr of direct sunlight a day to sustain it. Unfortunately, it has died since my labmate placed it in direct sunlight, which fried the whole thing:
![[image loading]](http://img204.imageshack.us/i/p1020603gm.jpg/)
Can you see the little planktons? In the full picture, they are the tiny tiny dots that cling to the hairs of the green algae.
Behind the ecosphere are some clay models, when i first got the clays, I made some dinosaurs with my roomate Anibus, it was pretty cool:
![[image loading]](http://img51.imageshack.us/i/p1020528n.jpg/)
Question: Which one does not belong?
On weekends when there is no work, I get to hike with girlfriend in the mountains nearby, Tilden Park, if you want to visit it sometimes, it is quite alright...
Hiking
Hiking is great, that's how we got together. In the beginning when I wasn't sure if I liked her, I asked her if she wanted to go hiking with me, and she did. Through the many hikes, I get to know her better and better, here are some adventures...
First time hiking we got off-trail, and fought through 200 meters of climb filled with spikey plants that were waist high. I did not bring a camera that day, but here's a google picture so you know what I am talking about:
![[image loading]](http://www.markrshepard.net/WeedsOfOregon/Plant/Bull%20thistle--Cirsium%20vulgare--m.jpg)
These things are pure evil, pierce your jeans np.
Basically the entire side of that mountain is filled with this spiky plant, and we had to navigate through them. In the beginning we just tried to step over them, with ouches once in awhile. Then we got better, we found huge branches and we were able to slash at the plants to beat them down. In the end, we evolved to rolling a piece of log, absolutely crushing a path in our wake. It is difficult work pushing the log with our feet uphill, but we managed. Yesterday we went hiking again, this time on trail, and we found the same log laying there. Since it is winter time still, the spikey plants have all died out, and we were able to look down and realize we havn't really climbed that much. At the time though, it felt like ages...
This other time, we hiked all the way through Tilden park to the other side, and reached San Pablo Reservoir. We have never reached San Pablo Reservoir before because of a trail "nimitz trail" or w/e it's called, that we can never find... We were really close to it one time, we thought if we could just fight our way through some dense patch of trees, we would've reached the water. However, the dense patch of trees(more like bushes) were VERY dense, it is difficult to even break through the branches. We got lost inside the maze of trees and the air was full of the smell of decaying leaves. It was quite a stressful experience. In the end, we decided fuck it, we are just going to pick a direction that looked green (we were on a patch of grass) and just go straight, and we got lucky and got back to where we started.
This day was lucky though, we just climbed to the edge of the park, and hopped over a fence:
![[image loading]](http://img696.imageshack.us/i/p1020543z.jpg/)
Fence is on the right side, see it? It's not too difficult.
We found an abandoned boat by the water, and of course, I took it for a whirl... I was using a long metal pipe to scrape the bottom for movement, while sitting snugly in the boat. She pushed me in...
Little did I know, the boat is abandoned because it was leaking!! And as the water seeped into the boat slowly, I thought I better get onshore before I sink! I stood up, and, scraping the bottom of the reservoir, start to push myself toward the bank. But I lost balance and, this is the aftermark:
+ Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://img825.imageshack.us/i/p1020571d.jpg/)
I spent a lot of time drying myself on the desolate parking lot nearby...
![[image loading]](http://img842.imageshack.us/i/p1020574w.jpg/)
Luckily, we did find nimitz trail for the way back, it was basically a cattle trail...
![[image loading]](http://img713.imageshack.us/i/p1020575eg.jpg/)
On the way back, we see the clouds rolling in from the other side of the mountain!
![[image loading]](http://img19.imageshack.us/i/p1020583n.jpg/)
And when we made our way back to the other side, indeed it was cloudy!
![[image loading]](http://img24.imageshack.us/i/p1020596az.jpg/)
Non Hiking
When not hiking, we made interesting things like this abstract-art type clock, made with wire mesh and foam coated with acrylic paint, the 12 numbers are replaced with colors which we agreed that shared the feelings of the day:
![[image loading]](http://img813.imageshack.us/i/p1020490l.jpg/)
I also found some time to help the Berkeley Starcraft AI team!! Check it out!
http://overmind.cs.berkeley.edu/
In the end of the summer I bought a bike, and a new computer so I can play sc2!! <3
Semester of Fall 2011
But like all good things, summer ends, and a brutal semester is in stored for me...
I was taking a compiler class, which absolutely killed me. That class has 1 project a week, and the project takes about 20 hours. Most of it is starring at the skeleton code they gave us, and try to figure out what is going on. However, it was rewarding. Through the compiler class I get to know my friend Bruce better. Bruce is from China, and carried with him many chinese-ness, I was able to practice tons of Chinese.
During my weekly getting pwnt though, I always looked forward to Saturday which girlfriend and I would always cook something. We've managed to produce meatballs, dumplings, roast chickens, turkey pot pie, and many more. Mom says we're turning pro :D Unfortunately, I have not saved pictures...
The semester was fast though, it was basically like so:
Semester Starts
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Semester Ends
Did learn a ton though. In the end, Bruce is graduating and I went hiking with him during midnight:
![[image loading]](http://img822.imageshack.us/i/p1020621l.jpg/)
I'll miss Bruce, my projects could not have been done with out his support! Technical Support For Life!
Winter Break
Christmas was uneventful and relaxing, went hope and helped parents do yardwork (wake up -> yardwork -> buffet), got back early and continued to research, then went to a research conference with my lab on 1/14.
My roomate Alex moved out, he was a great roomate, albeit difficult to cope with at times, you can learn a great deal from him. I have learned from him what is a man, and of endurance and dedication, and going to gym and biking. Here's the three of us:
![[image loading]](http://img151.imageshack.us/i/p1020516z.jpg/)
Evan/Alex/Anibus
Now
Everyone's back from vacation now, just visted some friends who were away for a long time and I really miss them. They got me more cook books! One is on Chinese pastries and other is on Ribs! I will have a lot of fun.
School officially starts tomorrow, I've ordered my books and I can't wait. My goal is to keep good health and physique, hang out with friends, be comfortable with girlfriend, study hard, learn a lot and publish a paper. It should be another difficult/brutal semester, but it should be filled with content-ness like a cat full of food! mew~
That will be all! Wish we all have a good, busy semester and plenty of good weathers!!
![[image loading]](http://img401.imageshack.us/i/p1020609f.jpg/)
Telegraph ave. Walk to school on it every day!
--evanthebouncy
p.s.
please drop a comment! It will make me happy
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