Summer Update

Hey all! been too busy living my life to talk about it >_<;;

Well, what's new... I completed my first year of my master's, trying to get a paper out and published before I graduate, and have to start on my thesis soon. I've been debating about whether to do a master's or a PhD, but I want to work in industry pretty soon and get in on the ground floor of the biotech industry. Don't know if I'll stay in MRI, or do something else. Should brush up on my EE skills though...

Anyways, that's the boring part. Held a Korean Night in April, where we ate bulgogi and watched "Attack the Gas Station", this insane Korean movie about four guys who take a gas station hostage and the hijinx they get up to. They don't have any weapons except for their fists and a massive wooden stick, which makes it funnier and more innocent somehow. Of course they all turn out to be not such bad guys in the end, and everyone gets what they deserve. Good turnout, and we all headed over to Whyte Ave afterwards, but it gets a little fuzzy after that... :P

Speaking of insane asian movies, Kungfu Hustle is the best random martial arts movie I've watched in a while! It's even better when you realize that almost every scene, line or move is a homage to old-school kungfu movies from the likes of Bruce Lee and other great HK masters. A couple of the random martial artists were actually big stars or stuntmen/women back in the day. The story isn't half bad either, kind of disjointed though. Most people will only see the violence, but its overall message reflects the big-fish-eaten-by-bigger-fish vicious cycle and how it won't stop until someone makes a conscious decision to. The only thing I didn't really like was the random romantic subplot thrown in... I guess it's important for his backstory, but it was never really worked in the way it was with Shaolin Soccer. Meh, but that's not what we watch it for I guess...

hehe, this post is turning into a movie review column. I guess I should talk about Unleashed then... neat concept, but crappy finish. Jet Li seems to be branching into "real" acting, but still can't save this sorry excuse of a plotline. I don't know, all the elements are there for a theoretically good movie, but it just doesn't come together. I think it might have to do with the fact that a movie that is awesome when made in Asia would be super retarded when created in Hollywood... I don't know, the camp just seems more natural there because it's an exotic place to us...

well, back to my life. I was kind of burnt out by the end of the term, kind of avoiding my project for awhile. Sometimes you just need to step back, take a deep breath and see what you've done so far. I was bogging down in the little details without understanding the underlying theory (well, I thought I did before, but really I didn't). I just needed to really sit down and go through the code to figure out where to go from here. Of course, it didn't help that my prof changed a whackload of things while I was writing my term paper... The pressure is on to publish though. At the conference there were a few groups that were doing things very similar to our underlying principle, and this other super-respected group in Minnesota talked to Rich (my prof) about their idea which is basically the same (nothing on paper yet though). We have to get this paper submitted soon so all the work we've done isn't for nothing... plus this is my master's project, so I would have to start over from scratch. Sucky. well, I've got the registration algorithm down now, so all we have to do is finish up the image comparison and figure out how the ultimate reconstruction should be done. hehe, sounds like a video game... This is one of the reasons I don't really want to go into academic research. It's a lot more competitive in that you have to publish papers to get grants, and you're competing against everyone else in the field who has the same idea. And seriously, it's rare that someone will have a totally unique idea that no one else is working on. Maybe once I've gained some real-world experience developing some practical solutions I'll come back and do a PhD, but not right now.

phew... some fun stuff that's been happening so far... Green Day rocked! I can definitely say I've fallen in love with their music all over again. Their live show is awesome, with pyrotechnics and them pulling stunts like supersoaking the mosh pit and pulling up three guys to play their instruments, and the sound was crystal clear. Billie Joe was boosting the crowd's excitement every chance he got, and everyone got up and partied, even in the nosebleed section. We snuck down into the balcony right up on stage left, so we saw everything pretty close. At one point they broke out the funny hats and stuff, Billie Joe was wearing a crown and a mantle, the backup guitarist was wearing cowboy high-heel boots and a huge foam cowboy hat, and Tre was wearing the Queen's purple hat (looked like anyways). Mike was too cool for funny hats though. :P I got a few pics of the concert with my phone, but the best images will stay in my brain.

hmm, what else... we did end up going to San Francisco for a week, and it was awesome! I'll save the trip highlights for the next post, this one is too long and I'm getting sleepy. :P General impression in four words - hilly laid-back quirky cool... you can see the pics(zip file) and vids for visuals at my online gallery here.

SOOOO... before I go to bed I'll just talk about my newfound love for team sports... played volleyball with b'dette at her teacher's year-end tournament, and am playing slo-pitch right now with the BME department. One thing that makes it fun is that everyone is at the same level as you are in a rec league, so no one feels bad for screwing up or sucking. We're just happy if we manage to pull a team together :P... But we're finally getting better at slo-pitch, and goal is to win the next game! It's been fun getting to know all the guys in the building, and we get free pizza too! Yi and Puja are a couple of the few students who are my age, so it's been nice getting to know them too. Too bad they're easterners though :P (Hamilton and Toronto)... All the people are really nice though, and well-rounded, not the typical stereotype of the grad student (although my grad stereotype was always a granola outdoorsy kind, maybe because I'm in Alberta)... Almost makes me want to do that PhD just to hang around here for a little while more... but then I think of the work I would have to do and that urge fades away.... :P

Well, I gotta go to bed... I think I got a cold from partying too hard on the weekend and not enough sleep... hottubbing until 6AM on Friday night/Saturday morning probably has something to do with it... hehe night all

cheers, Ange