Sometimes I feel like this...

Yet another internet video...

Found another classic internet video on Youtube. Enjoy!

Visit weekend for the prospectives

We just had visit weekend for prospective first-year PhD students in Bioengineering at UCSD, and I must say that the weekend really is a nice annual event (except for the extremely bad weather) that is almost Christmas-like in how it forces all of us in the department to think about the year we've had, and almost New-Year-like in how it makes us reflect on the program as a whole and think about changes to be made for the future.

As a first-year myself, it has allowed me to look back at my decision to come to UCSD, and I'm happy to say that I made the right decision. San Diego has more of the elements I was looking in a top-notch program, like a structured curriculum, excellent research and medical affiliations, and had the bonuses of promoting cameraderie with other first-year PhD students, excellent weather, and Jen, of course!

Now to just pass quals and settle into a lab...

Thanks, Blaurb

Thanks to Blaurb for the resolutions! I look forward to the lattes in the morning. Well I'm back again for a post. Things have been pretty ho-hum for me these days, as I spend them being a T.A. and a graduate student here at UCSD. I think I have decided I want to start a book club here. As a grad student, I really spend very little time reading books for leisure (not that I was ever really a heavy reader), and my stack of books I want to read has gotten larger and larger ever since I got here. I guess a book club for my fellow first years will have to wait until after quals though, which comes around in May, I believe. Anyways, here are selections from my own personal book list, that I hope I will be able to read sometime in the near future:

- The Search by John Batelle (essentially a biography of Google)
- The Universe in a Single Atom: the Convergence of Science and Spirituality by the Dalai Lama
- The Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
- The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
- Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
- On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins

Alas, I probably won't get through this list before 2007 rolls around, but maybe. Perhaps that shall me one of my real resolutions. =)

On an entirely separate note, I came across some hilarious Brokeback Mountain parodies, and here are some links:


And an old favorite, found while browsing YouTube.com,

my new resolutions

here are things that i will do in order to improve my life. i am recording these so that you all can hold me accountable to them.

1) stop laughing like a maniac who has lost his mind
2) give jen a massage every day
3) cook yummy food
4) make lattes
5) remember to transfer $200 into jen's account every week for her allowance
6) stop talking about poo and farting
7) learn that it's not polite to point and laugh at people who are doing you a service by writing a blog entry for you
8) update my blog at least once every three days

thank you that's all.

For the guy who has everything...

This will be a ho-hum post. Sorry! I've actually decided that my blog will be my digital identity, so not only will I talk about the goings-on of my life, I may throw in tidbits from my past that illustrate things I generally believe in. Maybe my blog is schizo. I keep changing it.

So, blaurb asks me yesterday what I would like for my birthday, which is coming up, and honestly, it took me a long time to think of something I want. I'm a very difficult person to buy gifts for, I realize now. I suppose the reason for that is because in my mind I associate things with a personal value. I ask, "how valuable would this be to me?" If something has a justifiable value to me (it will make me more productive, etc.) I will usually buy it. This of course means I have pretty much everything I want, right?

What about experiences, you say? Yes, the gift of some sort of experience (skydiving, dinner, etc.) is typically a good alternative for the guy who has everything. If I were to nitpick though, such gifts typically require an investment of time that I may or may not want to invest, because frankly, I may have other things I'd rather do (This is why video games would not be a good gift, because I have better things to do than waste my life on video games).

How about the gift certificate? This is a clever option, as it allows me to pick and choose at my own leisure, but it does lack that element of thoughtfulness and care that is embodied in an all-out gift, you know?

Back to Posting!

I guess I'm starting to have things to say again. For example, I have built my own Personal Video Recorder (Tivo) with a leftover computer of mine, and it is functioning beautifully, allowing me to watch TV on my own time. I must admit, I have a weakness for TV. TV draws me in, and it sucks my time away, and I know it, but I can't stop. I think it's very much like an addiction.

When I was younger, in elementary school, I probably watched about 7 hours of television every day, starting at 3PM when I got home (invariably to watch the Disney afternoon) all the way through Saved by the Bell, the local news, through Prime Time and all the way until the nightly newscast. I would then start doing my homework, or possibly sleep, and then do my homework before class started the day it was due. What is it about television that makes me watch so incessantly? Is it because I grew up with such monstrous tv-watching habits? Has my brain been programmed to accept passive television entertainment as its lowest-energy resting state? Or perhaps is isn't a function of my environment, and perhaps it is my attention-deficit-disorder seeking out an appropriate medium to supply the constant stimulus it craves. Once again, it's the tried-and-true nature vs. nurture question, rearing its ugly head.