J

Cool photo.

I should leave school and become a professional photographer with my cellphone cam.

I did nothing

but watch Code Geass for the past 2 days (or 3 days??).

It had the perfect ending, so now I can lean back satisfied and go on doing productive things again.

Back Up

After chilling in the doldrums for about a week, it's time to step up my game again. As a bonus, here's a picture of me half-conscious:

School starts in 2 weeks - it will be the pattern of studying for a midterm, studying for the next midterm, then studying for the final, so I should enjoy the bit of summer I have left as well as be incredibly productive.

I'l list the things I will work on here for the sake of it:

1) Hit the apartment gym consistently in the mornings for the next two weeks:
It's much easier to maintain something if it's done early in the morning before I have time to think up of a bunch of excuses. Breakfast will consist of milk, and bunch of eggs, and a bowl of rice. I've probably lost a lot of strength over the past week, so I'd better get into shape fast. As a bonus, I doubt many people, if at all, will be there at 8 in the morning.

2) Continue my multi variable calculus overview
I learned early this summer that I can only learn and retain new knowledge in my head when I'm alone. Totally alone. Because of this, I had quite an easy time with Math 221 (not quite an A+, but whatever) when I learned the concepts through Khan Academy before actually attending the lectures.
Of course, I've heard people talk about the benefits of studying before classes, but I've rarely put it into practice. I'm quite determined to push this habit throughout my 2nd year.
The name "multivariable calc" scared me a bit, which is why I chose that to go over beforehand, but it doesn't seem incredibly difficult atm (don't jinx it, Albert). Next up will probably be some discrete math for CPSC 121.

3) Climb Grouse one final time (Sunday?)
This isn't particularly high on my priorities, but why the heck not? I'll go to just enjoy the hike this time, rather than strain myself to get a killer time. Ideally when my swelling has gone all the way down so I don't look like a goof.

4) Keep learning new things for Java
I learned that being familiar with the language and how it works is much more important than knowing the nitty gritty details of its workings. At the moment, it's not easy for me to get a lot of practical hands-on time coding all sorts of cool things, as I'm not in a CPSC lab course and am not aware of resources that can kickstart me to get there, but I do follow example code from books and try out simple exercises. I think for the rest of the summer, I'll ram through what's left of my Java book and the online Java tutorials (which go together surprisingly well).

I am familiar with:
program structures,
control statements,
arrays,
objects,
inheritance,
polymorphism,
and the absolute basics of GUI creation.

Over the next two weeks I should be able to cover:
string manipulation,
files and streams,
more recursion,
searching algorithms,
maybe take a sneak peek at networking as well.



Holy sh*t, this is a looong post. Why did I even write so much?
Dear diary.

Updates on my pain

Day 1)

-face turned yellow, almost lost full body strength, couldn't keep balance (mom and brother helped me move between transit stations)
-drank 3 energy drinks to keep me going for the entire day

Day 2)

-swelling began, face literally looks like a pear
-tasted blood 24/7
-managed to take in some chicken soup
-ate some instant noodles for dinner (took 30 minutes to eat)
-felt whoozy whenever I stood up

Day 3)

-swelling worsened, unable to shut jaw completely
-backwards progress, can't even eat noodles anymore, resorted to drinking all day
-relied on painkiller medication to prevent me from feeling totally shitty

Day 4)

-swelling slightly reduced, able to chew small bits of food
-higher calorie and sugar intake, able to think and concentrate better
-reduced bleeding, way less pain
-got incredibly drowsy from medication in the afternoon (ended up taking 1.5 hour nap)
-will watch some Code Geass

Day 5)

-swelling significantly reduced (fk yeah!), able to eat almost anything I want to now
-can still feel stitches in the back of my mouth with my tongue though, feelsweirdman
-will start doing stuff today

Going to the dentist

So to have 4 wisdom teeth taken out, I had to go under sedation. Cool. I asked my bro and sis what kinds of things I said as I was coming out of it.

I apparently had a cool conversation about video games with my brother about video games.

I apparently also took a bunch of photos of myself with my phone.

Sister: are you cold?
Me: no, because you are Russian.

Brother: what's the last time you remember?
Me: 9:30
An hour later:
Brother: what's the last time you remember?
Me: 9:30

Apparently, I also sent 2 text messages, which I was able to check up on later (nothing stupid, whew). Overall, a strange experience considering that I can't remember most of the things I did. It reminds me of the one time I sleepwalked - I got up in the middle of the night to shower. When my mom asked me why I was showering, I responded with "I am cold".

Draft Animation

This 7 second clip is the result of 2.5ish hours of animating.

Had to do some research on girls walking in heels. They put the toe end down first? Wat? Sounds painful.

And I'll be honest (ashamed to admit), I was strutting around in my room like a woman trying to understand the movement of specific joints while I was trying to make the animation seem more natural.

Next on the list: smooth out the animation and animate the hair strands.

notes to myself

Double post, but mostly for my sake. There's quite the difference between imagining your to do list and physically writing/typing it down.

To do:

1) Prepare for hell when I get my 4 wisdom teeth yanked this (upcoming) weekend:
-Eat up as much as I can beforehand, because I'll be on a liquid diet for the next 2 days :(
-Train myself to not lose brain function after 4 hours of not eating anything (try eating less at a time)
-Hell, maybe even look forward to starving (you'll be losing body fat, Albert! awesome....)

2)  Java:
-Finish off polymorphism reading, complete case study
-Get back to GUIs, learn how to make custom positions for all those fancy buttons, start up on more advanced button operations
-Find assignments/practice projects to work on

3) Steal rich friend's house:
-Get keys, take over for a few days (inquire tomorrow)

4) Reschedule man-date:
-Bring up project, run over ideas/plans
-Receive wise advice

5) Convo with VFS buddy:
-briefing on flash/unity
-learn to build early prototype

4) Install 3ds Max:
-Find a nice 3d woman model, pre-rigged, preferably non-nude (way too many of those o.O)
-familiarize myself with interface and keyboard shortcuts, make a 10 second stop motion animation base
-smooth out transitions, get timing right
-animate face (?)

5) Grouse Grind:
-Head up when the temperature drops a few notches and/or the darned mosquitoes die off
-Likely final time for the summer, make it count

The firstest date evar

Here's an interesting item I found during my wallet clean-up: a movie ticket from the first date I ever went on in my life.

And out of all the movies I could've chosen, I chose Transformers.

Must've been strange with Megan Fox filling the screen, now that I think about it.

Turned down a movie invite to study java at home

The idea of a movie came up during a group lunch at some fancy restaurant. To be honest, I didn't see much of an appeal to Total Recall anyways.

But there was an annoying ass bitch there in the gang. Who thought it was a good idea to invite her? It doesn't matter that she's young and very sexy (oh, that's prob why she was invited), HER VOICE DRIVES ME UP THE EFFING WALL! It doesn't help that she speaks like a 10 year old. I had to refrain myself from stuffing a rag down her mouth.

Need to develop good excuses to ditch friends when necessary.

Gaem design

So during grade 11, I wanted to be a video game developer. I considered going for Vancouver Film School.

Those were quite the days. I would spend hours thinking of cool game ideas. They weren't quite as naive as those of others, since I had some idea of how game development worked. I even spent several hours trying out a demo render of what a first person shooter could look like:

This was a full 3d animation from about 3 and a half years ago. Of course, it was a pain attaching the camera at the right location and moving the entire first person body without ruining any of the bone rigs, but in the end it came out roughly satisfactory. If I spent a few more hours on it, I might've actually made the scenes and the lighting look nice!

I don't want to repeat my animation post from several posts ago, but I really do believe that in a 3d, AAA modern game, animations are THE most important thing to take into account, and that even in the year 2012, animation systems are quite lacking. I told myself that if I ever make it into the industry, I'd become a master animator/animation systems coder. I had ideas on how to vastly improve games, and to this day, I still think they are valid.

But then grade 12 happened, and then the first year of uni happened. I jumped around a bit back and forth, and ended up here in computer science. It almost feels that I've made a full circle. In my current major, the game development path is an option! Compsci is quite nice when it comes to potential job placements, and as a bonus, it's field I can really put my head into. Areas of game development such as coding for game mechanics, game engines, and rendering systems have opened up! (Maybe going a bit overboard, but let me enjoy the moment).

In an ideal world, I would graduate with a BSc in Compsci, land a software engineering position at Bungie (located in Seattle) or 343 Industries (also near Seattle), and work on systems during the intense 3-4 year game development cycles for various console platforms. Observe and take part in the evolution of games and the technology they run on. Unfortunately, this is the epitome of wishful thinking. I can almost guarantee myself that I'll never actually land a job in those companies, but the hope can drive me through the tough hours that await me at school.

At the moment, I am blasting my way through Java tutorials and toying around with GUIs. Hopefully I'll be able to get somewhere beyond fancy number and string operations by the end of this month. Still very far from making a functional game, but hey, we all have to start somewhere.

Obligatory photo dump

Grouse time: 2 hours exact. lol.

Caro being stupid:

Photos!

The best of, from Thursday's UBC romp: