monkey nonsense

i now own my own electric guitar! and it’s not a wii guitar!! it’s the real deal!

so on tuesday…
i drove from DC to Columbia/Jessup MD – ~30 miles, 45 minutes
purchased an used line6 floor pod for $100… $110 (grr… after the seller marked up this price once i got there. ghetto!! thing was… i was going to actually give him an extra $20 because i specifically asked him to hold it for me. earlier in the day he said he had multiple inquiries and he was going to sell it to the first person who get up there. but since i had to tutor… and he was all the way up in columbia MD, i asked him to hold it for me and told him that i would definitely be there if he could guarantee it. well… i saved money in the end. because he was so annoying about it being $110 now… i wasn’t going to give him that extra $20 i was thinking of giving him. psh!)

then, from columbia/jessup MD, i drove to falls church VA – ~40 miles, 50 minutes
purchased an used electric guitar for $50. this dude? much cooler than ghetto amp seller. he actually lived in ashburn but was nice enough to arrange the sale to me while he was in falls church practicing with his band. furthermore, he had gone with a first contact, first serve sale. i had contacted him the day before, but because someone else emailed him first… he said he was trying to work out the deal with that guy. when that guy flaked out on him, he contacted me the next day… which is when i purchased it

but bah!! as he explained how everything worked… turns out i need some hex keys to unscrew some screws at the end of my fretboard which keeps the guitar in tune if i whammy too hard… and neither guitar nor amp came with any cables! so during my lunch break, i went to a guitar shop near my office (actually stumbling upon it after not being able to find the radio shack) and purchased the cable. and then after tutoring, with guitar in hand so i could test out the various sized hex keys, i went to the home depot and bought a 7/64th (yeah… that cost me an extra $2 because the 7/64th hex key didn’t come in the smaller set) hex key.

so far, the first 2 days have been awesome it’s not quite as easy as guitar hero but still quite fun!

ruby on rails is smarter than me.

so for the past few weeks, i’ve been messing around with ruby on rails. just playing around. and i created a model called “person” to keep track of users.

so i called the ruby command “ruby script/generate model person” expecting everything to be created named person. so “app/models/person.rb”, “db/migrate/001_create_person.rb”, etc. etc.

but i kept getting myself confused. some times it was people… some times it was person. because i was playing around so much, i kept getting mad at myself for being so wildly inconsistent with my naming convention! i even tried to do persons.

i just now noticed (because i started from scratch again since i broke my last attempt)… that ruby on rails, when i create the model person… is smart enough to rename things people when it needs it pluralized! genius.

too bad i didn’t notice this earlier.

jesus christ vs. christ jesus

is there any significance to using one over the other? paul seems to have used both at one point in time in his letters.

i googled. i got really excited when the first page returned came with a description “Paul clarifies to Timothy the difference between Jesus Christ vs Christ Jesus, and notably by using both “Jesus Christ” vs “Christ Jesus” in the ’same…” sweet!! the exact answer i wanted!

unfortunately, the page was called “Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ: Which is Witch – GodShew” uh…. yea… but i was curious anyways. the page was uber confusing to simple-minded-me. i have no clue what the crap they were talking about. (allegorizes?? allegorically?? who knew you could conjugate the word allegory in so many ways!) i did like how they counted the number of instances of both phrases (“Jesus Christ” wins). i didn’t really know what the freak they were talking about, but i had the weirdest feeling that i didn’t really trust them…

then it misquoted 2 Timothy 1:1 as using both “Christ Jesus” and “Jesus Christ” when in my version of the Bible (NIV), it uses “Christ Jesus” both times. so… does that mean the counts it told me earlier are messed up?

so i’m done googling. because the internet is a scary place. will someone please just explain to me if there’s a difference between the two? we were thinking maybe it was just something that got mixed up in translation. but it seems odd because paul uses both. in the same letter so you would think either 1. paul would’ve used a consistent word in his letter or 2. the translators would’ve used a consistent translation throughout the letter?

i like the conclusion drawn in small group. that perhaps Jesus was just practicing the Chinese way of having one’s last name first. which brought up another question…. what’s Jesus’ last name? it’s probably not Christ. since he was the son of Joseph, would he be Jesus Josephson? or is he the son of God, so therefore Jesus Godson?

imho, i am one of the coolest people i know! jk! i’m not one of the coolest… but i am one of the most NON-nerdiest people i know! maybe i know a lot of nerdy people (yes), maybe i just am not that nerdy (yes), but definitely one of the most non-nerdiest people i know.

so it seems very odd that i would be posting what i’m about to post.

i like the mac os. this is not nerdy… the mac os is far from nerdy. it’s very intuitive and doesn’t require a lot of computer savvy necessarily. i like the mac os because it allows me to use ruby on rails easily. ok… that was the nerdy part. ruby on rails comes with the mac os. unfortunately, i don’t have leopard so my ruby/rails versions are out of date… so it’s not as easy as it should/could be. but even still… installing a packaged ruby on rails (locomotive) was so easy, i was amazed! and then to install a webserver/myphp (MAMP) was also easy!! it was crazy! i remember wasting HOURS at the beginning of the semester in MISM classes trying to set up my laptop properly. it took me about a hour (and only because i was at panera’s trying to download the stuff) to install everything and get a working environment!

i get jealous really easily.

but the things i get jealous over are not the typical things you would think.

in college, i got jealous whenever psycho would go to bed before me. angela would come over to work on our networks project and we’d be making progress… when psycho would head off to bed. within 5-10 minutes of psycho going to bed, i would have to sleep too. i was nearly failing networks, but i would have to sleep. because otherwise, the fact that psycho was sleeping and i wasn’t, would eat away at me. jealousy.

another example… talidabakes.com. i used to think this was an awesome blog. used to. now? i think it’s the WORST BLOG EVER. it’s just post after post after post (WITH PICTURES) of cookies and other baked goods that i can’t have! what a tease!!! though talida’s nice and occasionally, when i see her after she’s baked some of them, given me some to eat STILL. just knowing that she’s baked something delicious and i can’t try??? terrible. (ok… i’m just kidding. it’s not the worst blog ever… i’m just bitter with jealousy)

games. i get jealous when others are get to play games i enjoy. this friday, while i was on the bus, may (supposedly… but i don’t believe this at all!) forgot i was traveling out of town and asked if i wanted to play settlers. ahh!! i told her explicitly, no fun! no fun! that’s right… no one’s allowed to have any fun! is that too unreasonable to ask? i don’t think so…

i also get jealous of my stuffed animals when they look so comfortable on the bed and i have to get up to go to work.

i need to tone down the jealousy…

i always feel like i have the worst memory ever. worst. ever. i can put something down and literally, two seconds later, i will NOT remember where i put it. i will want to memorize a phone number that i see on my computer screen at work to dial on my phone (i need to turn my back… don’t ask. my desk is set up in the middle of the room floating away from the wall, but the phone jack limits my phone’s mobility)… and two seconds later, despite repeating the number over and over… i won’t remember it.

but then it’s weird. i seem to have a pretty good recollection of things that happened in my life. and it’s not just fuzzy details, but pretty detailed details. for example, i remember:

• everyone’s roles for missy mouse… even though i had pretty much the easiest part (all i had to do was be left-mommy and right-mommy), i still could remember a lot of the different puppets and who was holding them
• i actually have a pretty good memory of a lot of chinese school… like the skit in 6th grade where we were “camping” and i had to drop a flashlight. and one of the poems i had to memorize and recite for that stupid contest… my poem was titled “my dad’s big leg” and it included a bit about how i liked to sit and hang onto my dad’s leg while he kicked.
• bill! bill! bill! bill! bill nye the science guy! i remember watching this A LOT 7th grade in mr. milne’s class. i remember the table i sat at (2nd from the back, on the side farthest from the door, near the windows)… that i sat at the same table as margaret, mariam, and mariam’s non-english speaking partner. i remember having my body traced as “gus” for our project on the human body
• gus! (hrm… i seem to recycle names) the snowman i made sophomore year with angela on the cut. and then, i remember the snowman my sister and i made on our deck… we used spatula’s to smooth out the mountain of snow (we didn’t do the roll method because… i don’t know. my parents just never taught us that when we were kids. i didn’t learn it until i saw my next door neighbors doing it) that became the snowman’s rump.
• who remembers the pied piper-ish FILMSTRIPS (that’s right! film strips!) we used to watch in elementary school?? i swear, it’s this guy wearing a red “robin hood-ish” hat singing some song and the end of the song it’s like “in english, my name is john”… and so he’d be the intro to all these fables/nursery stories…. rumpelstiltskin… rapunzel… we got to watch all of them!
• when we were moving out of the old house in VA… i was 3 years old. i have very little recollection of the house, but i had this memory where my sister and i, as the last thing we did when we moved out of the house, we went to this ledge and grabbed our two teddy bears (the fuzzy, fat white one that i make sound like a retard… and the skinny, white one of my sister’s that for whatever reasons, reminds me of my grandma) off the ledge and then we left the house for good. now… since i had no recollection of the house really, i always imagined that i dreamt it. but recently, i told my mom this story and she started laughing. she wasn’t sure that it happened… but she said that our house did have a wall in the basement where there was a built-in ledge and she was surprised that i’d remember that of the old house!

so i seem to have these great memories… and yet, i’m missing all these other memories like:

• the apartment we moved to between the two houses i’ve lived in. yea… so i can remember moving out of the old house and moving into the new house, but there was A YEAR where we lived in an apartment and i have NO MEMORIES at all of this time.
• 2nd grade. yeah… the entire year. i really don’t remember much. apparently, the science class i went to was the class that mariam and shruti were in. yet i really don’t remember them AT ALL. oo, my one memory of that year though was jamin’s my little pony. but that’s it. i have no other memories from 2nd grade. i’m also missing any memory from chinese school’s 2nd grade too. which is odd. very odd… (PARTICULARLY BECAUSE 2nd grade in chinese school was a year before 2nd grade in elementary school, but that’s another issue…)
• 8th grade. see, one could argue that 2nd grade was so long ago and i was so young, that i wouldn’t remember it. but 8th grade… i feel like i should remember 8th grade! but i really can’t remember much of 8th grade… like whenever i try to think of middle school, i have all these memories… of 7th grade!! it’s like i repeated 7th grade twice and then went to 9th…
• taking the SATs… so i tutor now for Kaplan so a lot of times i’ll bring up “back in my day…” (i.e. “back in my day… the SAT was out of 1600!”) but the funny thing is… i can’t remember taking the SAT!!! how many times did i take it? where did i take it? when did i take it? i don’t remember!! i do remember taking the GRE however

it’s like my brain takes off certain years so that it can be alert for others and remember all the details of the other years.

close to 12 years ago, a bunch of us from chinese school met in my parents’ basement and got high inhaling markers for almost an entire weekend. supervised by our parents. i’m not even exaggerating!

we were making shadow puppets for chinese school. shadow puppets is one of the reasons why i think li-ming was amongst the most awesome chinese schools growing up. because it offered truly unique and interesting lessons in chinese culture. i mean, everyone had chinese brush painting and calligraphy (boring if you ask me!) and chinese yo yos and dance, etc. etc. but li-ming was THE original shadow puppet school. (i think senior year, i heard rumors another chinese school was also doing it… but i don’t think as awesomely as us )

so 12 years ago, we made a bunch of puppets out of cardboard (not the traditional leather… too hard) and put on the show, The Marriage of Missy Mouse. it’s crazy that it was so long ago. it was one cycle of the chinese zodiac ago. fred’s voice (mr. cloud in the recording) sounds like a little kid’s because he was so small!!

since this year was the year of the mouse again, it was time for missy to make her comeback. they got a bunch of new little kids to perform the show. in fact, one of the kids is YOUNGER (10 years old) than the puppets… another kid is ONE YEAR older than the puppets. it’s ridiculous to think that we created the puppets 12 years ago!!!

since none of the original puppeteers really got the see the video of the show, i recorded the last rehearsal by this year’s troupe right before their performance at the library. the rehearsal actually wasn’t as awesome as their actual presentation, but i wasn’t able to record their actual performance (which was awesome) and the school performance (awesome as well). and actually, the camera picked up ann and i talking (and whining when they were missing/slow on transitions) because we were dumb and hadn’t realized we’d be picked up by the mike (along with a bunch of other background noises because everyone else was getting ready for their performances). the puppets are actually brightly colored but because of my camera/lighting in the room, they come up rather dark. the video really does the show little justice oh yea, and i have rather unsteady hands… but enjoy! i think the story is a GREAT story. really cute.

what’s been going on in my life?

• my stomach’s been upset. nothing new here.
• this morning, on my way into the office, i walked past a guy who looked like MOBY!! (that’s a reference to how i met your mother)
• work has been busy. this is namely for my nerdy CS friends: ren-yi… frankie… sunya… dave, my 212 TA… shoot, i have such nerdy friends. it’s a good thing i am so cool! =P jk. anyways… i actually wrote 2 recursive functions at work this past week! i haven’t had to do anything like that in the longest time. when i wrote my first one, i actually started laughing because i was like whoa… it’s like 212. and then when i wrote the 2nd recursive function, i had my logic all wrong and my program kept infinitely looping.. and then i was like WOW, it REALLY is like 212…
• a couple of weeks ago, i ended up having to skip tutoring because i was staying late at work. the next time i went to tutoring, monae was the MOST behaved i’ve ever experienced!! usually, because she has homework club before, she’s all tired and just wants to play games. i can usually get her to read but never to write anything. the week after i missed tutoring, she was all calm, listened to me, AND even wrote a paragraph about why she likes butterflies. i did feel bad for missing the previous week though because she was like i didn’t think you were going to come back after last week. last week, i was in subgroup (the group for students who don’t have a one-on-one tutor) and it was boring!! i felt so bad for having ditched her =( AND hint hint, if you’re interested in tutoring on tuesdays, let me know! they always need more tutors so that every kid can have a one-on-one tutor and not be stuck in subgroup.

BUT while nothing’s been happening in my life, a lot’s been happening in not-my-life…. because apparently EVERYONE decided to have a baby!!! so a bunch of my friends/coworkers (to use the medical term) popped within the past few weeks, cumulating in this week when 1 friend and my coworker both went into labor monday! on tuesday, diz arrived and on wednesday, dorothy arrived. and i got to see a few more pictures of aaron, born a few weeks earlier. dude, i really REALLY want to ea… meet these babies!!!!

me: I WANT TO EAT MY FRIEND’S BABY
me: i’m looking at pictures of him and i want to eat him
me: GIMME GIMME
Victoria: hahah
Victoria: wow thats creepy sounding
me: er, heh heh
Victoria: but whats creepier is that i totally get what you mean
Victoria: mostly, i just want to nibble on them
me: hahahha
me: i want to nibble
me: AND THEN CHOMP
me: and then mostly nibble
Victoria: sometimes i want to chomp
me: the fat ones u want to chomp
Victoria: especially if theyve got the baby soft cheeks
Victoria: YES
me: MAN
me: i’m glad you understand
Victoria: haha
Victoria: im not a cannibal
Victoria: but babies look so edible!
Victoria: lol i just told liyang that im not the only one who wants to chomp on babies (because he always thinks im crazy when i say it)
and he said Liyang: i hope u control your urges if u guys start the educational business
me: dude the kids we tutor?
me: not as tender anymore
Victoria: thats what i said
Victoria: but if they have a little brother
Victoria: who happens to come in with them in the arms of a parent
Victoria: i cant be held responsible for my action
me: hahaha
Victoria: see, i wont mind if you lightly chomp on my baby in the future
me: REALLy?!
me: dude i’m saving this IM
Victoria: i mean there will be teethmarks on it from me
Victoria: so….
me: hahahahahha
Victoria: no like BITES taken out
Victoria: just…nibbles