Browsing the archives for the Life category.
I don’t know what July 14th might mean to other people, but to me, it means a lot: the last day of my first job!
In the past month, I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to work in the VeriGuide team with some amazing people to make a plagiarism detection system for teachers and students in school to use. My main job was to integrate the already-completed system with Moodle, a Learning Management System that has quite a lot of market shares in schools today, with some minor addition such as beautifying and tweaking interfaces and what not.
For pretty much the whole month, I’ve been waking up at 7 (while all you sleep till like 12), show up at office by 9:30, work for 2 hours, go to lunch, work again for like 5 hours and go home. Yeah, the regularity of my holidays was pretty much like school, and I gotta tell you, it has been driving me crazy, at least for the first couple of days.
That said, it has still been a fantastic experience for me. Not only did I get to improve on technical details (by working with some other nerds and dealing with multiple languages between PHP, XML, JSP, and Java), I also had to do some critical thinking “exercises” and learned how to communicate with other people effectively. We organized ourselves with Google Docs (which were amazingly helpful, I finally realized), held some discussions in our tiny office (which was also used by some grad students for their research work under the same prof), and made this work experience not only about codes, but also about interaction with people and team-building – something that I could not have otherwise learned.
Lastly, the amazing people that I was working with is probably what made my month so great. I had so much fun just working, talking and even taking after-lunch chilling breaks with them – so thanks a lot!
Now on my last day, I’m kinda happy because I’m now (kinda) free; but I say I’m definitely going to miss what has happened during the past month in a small office at CUHK. Keep in touch!
Just came back from an exhausting, but nevertheless absolutely amazing, 4 days-long spiritual retreat organized by my church. To sum the camp in a sentence, I was able to take 4 days off everything else – work, school, or any other things in the world – and just truly relax and reflect over the past year. Turns out, by filling myself with so much work in the past, I have actually missed a lot of things that I didn’t realize them until this past weekend. And all I have to say is, “WHOA!” – how the heck did I miss such blessings and think that God wasn’t with me this whole time?
John 10:4 says “When [the Good Shepherd] has brought out all his own [sheep], he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” I simply loved it when our speaker explained it as a beautiful picture with Jesus taking the three steps before I did and made sure the path is safe, then turn around, reaching His hand and asked me to trust in Him through all kind of difficulty there might be – because He has been through everything and knows exactly what the journey is like.
I didn’t plan to post anything spiritually related on my blog when I first started it, but this feeling is getting so strong that I just felt like I had to say it to the world (Yes, I know I’m just exaggerating, considering the amount of readers I have 
) When I finally had a chance to count all the things that God has done for me, how many times I have broke His heart yet still He was still trying to get me back on the right track, I simply collapsed. There is simply nothing that can stop me from saying: I believe!
In the camp, we were separated into small groups, and after every message we’ll have some time to discuss about the talk. During one of the discussion times, we played a little icebreaker game to “get to know each other”, I guess?
The game was somewhat like Telephone, but instead of talking, we draw the message out. The first person will start a general topic, pass on and the second person will have to draw it out. Then, the third person, without knowing what the first person has wrote, needs to guess what the second person has drawn, then write what he think it is out. Fourth person will draw it again based on the previous person’s response, and so forth.
So, I started the game with the topic “Tom Cruise” (partly because I just watched Knight and Day, partly because I wanted to see what Tom Cruise would look like in drawings ), and passed it to the next person with a warning that my topic is going to be hard to draw.
The second person laughed out loud when he saw what I wrote, then got stuck there for a while not knowing what to draw. After a while, he must have suddenly remembered the movie and drew this out:
The third person stared at the drawing and had no idea what it was talking for a while. But after some struggle, he figured out too (with giggles, teehee)
Now I don’t know what happened here for the fourth person. But it turned out something like this:
The fifth person of course couldn’t figure out it was Tom Cruise, and it seemed most logical for her to write this down (ask her why):
So the last person took the liberty and drew this out based on the above:
So, in a sense, Tom Cruise and I must share some common traits or something. Maybe we’re both just too good looking that people get confused easily. 
Yesterday, during Economics class, after showing us the Fear the Boom and Bust video (again), my teacher said something was surprisingly insightful. I couldn’t remember the exact quote, but it sounded something like this:
I feel that teachers often give assignments for students to do it for teachers, such as essays, which are actually not very helpful to students.
What an interesting idea I’ve never thought of. Relating back to myself, the assignments that I find most motivated to those that relate to us more, those that make us feel like we are not doing it just for a grade. When we grow up, we won’t be writing essays for teachers anymore, but real stuff without a “rubric” to be grade on: it’s either a thumbs up, or “pack up your stuff” thing.
Graphics Design has been one of my favorite courses, because it simulates an environment of fwhat real designing life is like – Mr. Meyer is a genius in the way that he set up all the competition and teamwork factors, etc. Because of this, I learn much more than just the skills, but also experiences of what real life feels like. The same goes for Media and Computer Science, where its assignments are not done for just the teacher and the grades, but for the students in the school and those around us.
And yes, our MAD Project also fits perfectly in this category. I don’t know about you guys, I actually enjoy MAD Project. It gives us an opportunity to show off ourselves and to demonstrate our true abilities. These kind of projects will be what we are working on when we grow up, so take advantage of this opportunity to really do what you want to do, and enjoy in the process.
I mean, this is the real point of education, isn’t it? It’s to prepare us for the real life, not for the teachers!
Colleges seemed so far away, but now that I really think about it, it’s actually not. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The College Info Session thing that just happened this afternoon at YCIS was fun. The representatives were funny, presentations were very informative, and taught me quite a few things, too. I enjoyed it because I got a lot more exposures to schools that I never thought I would be going, and it made me I realized that, hmm, Stanford might not be THAT good after all.
When everybody else talks about what kind of special programs there are (The one that interested me the most was Dartmouth plan, which was kind of really smart), Stanford only bragged about how much money they spend on research, how great their campus is (which really was great). But do I really care? No. What disappointed me even more was that, given their strategic location near the Silicon Valley, they don’t have any programs related to it! (even though they bragged about how so many big companies like Google came out of Stanford).
I guess I need to rethink this through. Perhaps Stanford was just another myth, something like how girls used to think “I want to go to Princeton because all the princes are there”, just in a more mature way, I guess.
Other colleges, however, did a great job on impressing me. Chicago with its “no walls between undergraduates and pros” system, Dartmouth with its #1 Undergraduate Teaching and Dartmouth Plan, Duke with its location and environment, and Yale especially for their House System. I’m probably most persuaded by Dartmouth today, but I enjoyed all their talks.
Heh, but who am I to talk with only a 1940 and a 3.8 GPA… I’ll just keep on dreaming.
And… feel free to take a look at the notes I took during the session.
Wow, I just realized haven’t updated this blog in a long long while. It’s not my fault, blame homework.
…
Okay, fine, I admit, it IS my problem. But I mean, I AM a student, and I AM supposed to be easily distracted by other things, right?
I need motivation! Like. CONSTANT motivation… I do get “inspiring sparks” every now and then that pushes me into work, but they die easily after only 30 seconds of work. For the whole Easter, I’ve basically done nothing except for ONE website. Think that’s productive? No… I swear, if I didn’t play those games that I beat for a hundred times already, check Facebook every 2 seconds, surf through tech news site for stuff that I already know, I could have finished all my homework by then.
Recalling my experiences in SMIC, I really don’t considering my workload in ICS heavy. Heck, at the beginning of the schoolyear, I slept at 9 everyday. But as my procrastination habit worsens, I couldn’t help but to stay until 12 trying to finish my work. And yes, that’s VERY late for me.
I did indeed try to change things but I don’t think anything worked so far. I changed my background to a boring one thinking maybe that way I would stop staring at my desktop for 30 minutes not knowing what to do.
Garh, now there’s only 2 days left of Easter, and I didn’t even start on my homework yet. I had SO many plans for Easter, but so far, not even one is completed. Argh, what’s wrong with me?
FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!
(And just as I was writing this post, I checked Facebook at least twice, wandered to engadget at least once, and almost started a game of Most Wanted.)
NEVER. I mean, NEVER, log on to Facebook from a friend’s computer and forget to log off. I was stupid and I did it, and this is what happened:
Well, at least James didn’t change my profile pic to something ridiculous yet… Oh crap.
4 months ago at a regular hospital check up, my doctor told me I was way too fat and I need to lose weight. During the 4 months, with various friends’ help, especially Sam Hsieh, I was able to control myself from eating and started working out. Sure, there have been a few days where I couldn’t control, like the Christmas week and the CNY week, but hey, I did get thinner! And when I visit the doctor today, even he was surprised. I think that was actually the first “good job” I have heard from any doctor. Aw, I’m proud of myself.
Just a little statistics… I was at 89kg (196 lbs), and now I’m at 77kg (169lbs). My current BMI is 25 I believe. Still a few pounds away from “normal weight”, but hey, at least I’m not obese anymore!
Just wanted to say thanks to all those who have encouraged me along… you guys are awesome! Though, I still need help reaching that “normal weight” though, so keep controlling my appetite and making me work out.
And in dedication to my achievement, here is a little poem I wrote for English class. (And yes, thanks to Tim Au who helped me on the poem 
)
A scene quite opposite to heaven,
Happened on November Eleventh,
The day when I was announced clinically obese
Oh crap, doesn’t that mean I can’t eat?
“You have 4 months to lose 4 kilos”, he said
with a casual expression on his face that just made me mad.“That can’t be hard for you, can it?
Just control yourself a little bit,
Eat less, work more,
And soon enough, you’ll get the girl you’ve been looking for.”
Okay… that last thought was kind of weird,
but it was true my weight might be what the girls have feared.I was sure that once they see the new me,
They would jump for joy and shout with glee.
But wait, before all this can happen,
I must work to become like the legendary Kraken.
How I can achieve that I didn’t know,
All I wanted was people saying “whoa”.Four months of sweat have dripped,
Thousands of calories have slipped.
Now, I am standing ever close to the trophy
On a journey that I never thought was easy.
When I look into her eyes that I now have caught,
I know in my heart, my hard work has been bought.
That was an honest question. No pun intended, at all. I admit, I’m a guy who really cares what others think about me, and some recent events really got me thinking… who do people see "Peter Zhang" as?
For me, I always see myself to be a very optimistic, nice, nerdy and tech-savvy person. Not much of a talker, but I suppose I can listen. Really bad at athletic, knows piano… but definitely nowhere as good as some other peoples. But most of all, I’m a guy that really cares about friends.
When I first came to ICS, I thought this could be a chance to “re-brand” myself. Surprisingly it did work. All of a sudden, I’m known as the “piano player”, “Crocs fan” and “the one that lives in Shenzhen” (and possibly others that I don’t know of as well?). I really don’t mind being recognized that way, I mean, they do truly identify me after all.
But I want to be way more than just those. No, I don’t want to be just the dude who you call help from when you face a problem, be it math, tech or directions, but somebody that you can trust, somebody that you can share things to, somebody that you can truly befriend with.
Am I too selfish? Maybe. Am I missing something? Possibly. Am I being too arrogant in demanding something that I don’t deserve? …who knows?
Wow, 2009 was fast. Too many things have happened this year. First my mom was sick for about 4 months (leaving me and my sister alone at Shanghai for 2 months), then I got to work in the ThinkQuest team, then we moved to Hong Kong, and at last, the highlight of the year – the San Francisco trip.
Now, onto 2010. I don’t normally do any New Year resos, but I guess it’s different this year. Why? I don’t know. I just felt different.
Well, first and foremost, I’ll need to somehow lose my weight (AND maintain it) to at most 75kg. That way my doctor will be happy, I will be healthy, and I can get an allowance raise from my mom.
Considering this is my most important year in high school, I need to shape things up academically a bit. Let’s see, a 3.9 GPA would be good, and I’ll need to get at least 2100 on SAT before June. I think it’s totally possible if I just spend a little time everyday studying some vocab. It shouldn’t be THAT hard.
And at last, I need to master Java and Javascript. Two different languages, I know, but I’m linked to them both as a APCS student and a Web designer. I can’t seem to design anything anymore… where’d my design sense go? (Or, did I ever have one?) Hopefully that can be saved by the Graphics Design course, which I am really looking forward to.
Do you think I can fulfill all these resolutions?