Music for My Soul

I usually play particular songs for different states of my mood. Whenever I felt angry, distressful, or disappointed then I’ll play songs from Kenny G. But not all of his songs fits my weary condition. I usually listen for these songs of Kenny G:

• The moment
• Morning
• Theme from dying young
• Loving you
• Forever in love
• Sentimental
• Silhouette

Whenever I heard those songs my soul becomes calm again. I feel relax. It feels like there’s a calm strength fill my mind. And usually, I gain new power to do cope with my problems and do my activity again.

But it doesn’t mean that whenever I play those songs it means I’m in a weary condition :)

Pay attention to the detail

I've been struggling with an anomaly in my code for several days now. I've tried to rewrite the code, change some more variables, add the number iterations but it doesn't work out. But then after re-read the paper again I realize that the problem lies on the number of intervals length, I used a very small number of intervals where actually it need a little more number of intervals length.

How I can miss such information? It's because I thought I've understood the global flow of the algorithm and didn't read small information written at the end of the paragraph. D'oh!

Lesson learned: don't assume you've already understood the program, until you read the whole paper thoroughly and in detail.

TOP Huayu

Last week I decided to take a Test of Proficiency (TOP) Huayu. It's a certification test for Mandarin language organized by Steering Committee of the Test of Proficiency Huayu (SC-TOP). You can image it as a "TOEFL" test for Mandarin language. I enrolled on the test not only because it's free (at the time, a promotion I guess) but also because I want to measure how my Mandarin language goes. I took a beginner level, and the test was conducted at Technology and Science Institute of Northern Taiwan.

I've downloaded the sample mock test provided at SC-TOP website, and also review book 1 Practical Audio-Visual Chinese. I thought it was all enough. But the test was just not as expected. There are lots of new characters that I've never known before, and the audio voice was just so fast.

One Japan-born American I met at the test said that the real test is indeed a lot more difficult than the mock test, and he said that there are a special book for the test preparation. Darn! I just knew it at the D-day. I hope I'd knew that several weeks before the test.

Well, this is not an excuse, but a lesson. Next time, prepare well, in a way that read books that are specially designed for the test. What I was doing is just like "taking an English conversation class" for facing "TOEFL" test. That was just not right.

I hope I'll perform better for the next test. Jia you!

New Year's Resolution: Current State

I don't know why, but it just came into my mind about nine (yes, it's nine!) new year's resolutions that I made on the very first day of this 2010 year.

I'm trying to count how many of them have been realized or at least being attempted. Well, though the progress is not aggressive I'm happy to say that all of them are being proceed. Some is 50% done, the other is still 30% done, but at least they're all started to improve day by day (well at least week by week). I don't want to make a speculation, or even planning an "alternative" resolution in case of some of my resolution are not able to be achieved (on time). All of them are important, so they're all have to be achieved. Though I still have 8 more months to go, I realize I couldn't waste my time again.

So I have to focus to speed up the progress. Stop at doing unproductive activities. Eliminate procrastination spirit. And just do it!

Afternoon Jogging

Today I felt so bored (you may think that I'm easily get bored, well not really, but it is normal considering the place where I stay is very draggy) that not even a fabulous movie can cheer me up.

So I decided to do a little workout, jogging. At first I planned to jog from my campus to Laguboti, but then my friends warn me that the road is unsafe because lots of cars passing through in a high speed. So they suggest me to jog from YTP Arjuna until Gasaribu village. And so the jog started.

[gallery]

The above pictures are what I saw when I was jogging. In the left and my right side there are rice fields spreading as far as I my eyes can see. The third picture is the condition of the road where I jog, not too smooth but still fine.

I thought that it'd take only 30-35 minutes to travel all the road, but it took 90 minutes for me to travel and back to my campus, very exhausted but I kinda enjoyed it. For the next jogging, I plan to go to Lumban Binanga, they have a very beautiful view out there.