Yearly Archives: 2002

Games Amid Exams

I final­ly got my Security in Computing exam out of the way. Basically, every line that I read in the text­book was worth­less. There were only four long answer ques­tions on the final, and each one was a prac­ti­cal, as opposed to the­o­ret­i­cal, ques­tion that we nev­er learned. I had to learn how to do all the math right in the exam. At least it was open book. For some rea­son I start­ed get­ting fucked up answers when try­ing to find the mod­u­lus with my cal­cu­la­tor. Calculating the mod­u­lus of any­thing about 10^100 results in inac­cu­ra­cy, I’m guess­ing. At first I thought it was my cal­cu­la­tor giv­ing me some odd val­ues that did­n’t cor­re­spond with my writ­ten ones. When I got home, I checked Pita’s cal­cu­la­tor, and got the same answer. Then I checked the built-in cal­cu­la­tor on my com­put­er, and it came to the same answer as what I did by hand. So now I have no idea if any of my val­ues are com­plete­ly fucked. Whether I pass or fail depends com­plete­ly on how lenient the giv­ing of part marks is. I’m slight­ly wor­ried, some­thing that does­n’t usu­al­ly hap­pen when I fin­ish with a course.

I trad­ed in two games, and used two EB gift cer­tifi­cates yes­ter­day, to pick up The Legend of Zelda for my GBA. It end­ed up cost­ing me $2.50.

I’m get­ting all psy­ched up for the LAN par­ty tomor­row. The atten­dance is sup­posed to be around 10 peo­ple, but Thom’s proces­sor fried yes­ter­day, so he might not be able to go.

You

It’s very hard for me to get some­one out of my mind, once they are there. I have some very odd ideas. My mind starts to won­der.

I wish it was some­thing that I could con­trol bet­ter. It’s quite an embar­rass­ing afflic­tion. If any­one real­ly knew what I was think­ing, I don’t think they’d under­stand. I always use my imag­i­na­tion to fill in the blanks, and it ends up dri­ving me nuts. It feels as if I need to imag­ine, in order to give myself hope, that my faith in human­i­ty can be renewed. I end up being frus­trat­ed at myself, and jit­tery.

Something which only music can cure.

First Pho, More Music, Christmas Shopping

I went for some phở with Iain, Pat, Jason, and Mike on the week-end. I had a fuck­ing great time. Mike is a great per­son to hang out with. I had Chinese BBQ pork with my noo­dles though, so I’m not sure if it can be clas­si­fied as authen­tic phở.

I met Thom, Mel, Ryan, and Mel on the week-end. I’m still try­ing to fig­ure out what I’ve done to deserve the com­pa­ny of such a great group of friends.

Thom is a good per­son to talk to. It turns out that we share the same inter­est and embar­rase­ment in solo pho­tog­ra­phy. We’ve agreed to go togeth­er some night. He’s giv­en me some Slash’s Snakepit, Theatre Of Tragedy (which fea­tures some nice female vocals), Paradise Lost, and Tiamat music to sort through.

Aaron was also able to pro­vide me with some Aphex Twin, Hooverphonic, Lamb, Morcheeba, Omni Trio, Supreme Beings of Leisure, St. Germain, Unkle, and Thievery Corporation to lis­ten to. He accept­ed my MD play­er as a gift, but I made sure that he was com­fort­able with it.

It turns out that Ryan and I share some class­es togeth­er too. He knows me as the per­son who plays GBA in class all day, and who gets dirty looks from the teacher as a result. I feel ter­ri­bly bad know­ing this. I always believed that my play­ing was unknown to those around me. I feel as if I’ve insult­ed some teach­ers who don’t deserve to be insult­ed. Of course, the major­i­ty of them deserve to have me play­ing in their faces at the front of the class with the sound cranked, but there are a few that I feel don’t deserve this. I’m still unre­pen­tant about most of the sit­u­a­tion though, since my game play­ing actu­al­ly aids my con­cen­tra­tion.

I went Christmas shop­ping with Aaron, Thom, and Mel on the week­end. An old lady told me that I looked like Sean Lennon. I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing. I found some great can­dles at the Body Shop with a scent called Snow. It’s a very neu­tral smelling scent that’s very inof­fen­sive which I’ve been burn­ing all day to aid in my study­ing.

Relationships As A Nash Equilbrium

A sub­ject I find dif­fi­cult to express myself about is that of free­dom.

Freedom is a dif­fi­cult thing to under­stand. In a rela­tion­ship, free­dom is always bound­ed by some con­straint imposed when the rela­tion­ship is first made. Yet free­dom is a very gen­er­al state­ment, even if nar­rowed down to the sit­u­a­tion with­in a rela­tion­ship.

The free­dom I wish to speak about is that of depen­dence with­in a rela­tion­ship. Freedom in this case is relat­ed to a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty.

As a per­son, I find respon­si­bil­i­ties to be detestable. I have always tried to avoid respon­si­bil­i­ties in my life, and I do it well. The only thing that I am respon­si­ble for is myself, a fact that I’ve very will­ing­ly accept­ed, unlike oth­ers that I know.

However, in a rela­tion­ship, I’ve always felt that one should be respon­si­ble for his or her bet­ter half. I’ve always believed that it should be a com­mit­ment when enter­ing such a bond. Yet there is always the sep­a­ra­tion between being respon­si­ble for some­one, and being forced to be with some­one to serve their whim.

As a respon­si­ble per­son, it is one’s job to make sure that one is there if the oth­er needs it. However, this oth­er per­son must under­stand that when­ev­er he or she feels this “need”, he or she should not inter­fere with the free­dom allowed with­in the bound­aries of the rela­tion­ship.

A gener­ic exam­ple may make things clear­er. If a boyfriend want­ed to spend some time at home on the week­end with his girl­friend, but his girl­friend want­ed to go ski­ing for the week­end with her friends, then the male should not hin­der the activ­i­ties of the female, unless he was in dis­tress, or in great need of com­pa­ny. If his demand for her time is too great and con­stant­ly smoth­er­ing oth­er activ­i­ties she wish­es to do, then he is not being a respon­si­ble per­son and respect­ing his part­ners’ wish­es.

It has always seemed like such a self­ish thing to me, to be inor­di­nate­ly demand­ing, or unsat­is­fi­ably clingy. It begins as a form of flat­tery, to be sure, but exces­sive con­straints become a bur­den or strain on the rela­tion­ship. One finds one­self con­stant­ly try­ing to please the oth­er, with­out pre­vail.

I believe that such greed­i­ness stems from inse­cu­ri­ty. When some­one is inse­cure, he or she is scared that his or her part­ner is hav­ing too good a time, and will hence for­get about the rela­tion­ship. Perhaps jeal­ous­ly plays a part in such a vague sub­ject, and serves as a more con­scious man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sub­con­scious feel­ing.

Of course, I am guilty of such self­ish­ness myself at times, though I wish I was­n’t. I feel that I’ve improved, that I can respect the desires of oth­er peo­ple, so that they may be free to do what they wish. Perhaps this is a sign of increased con­fi­dence in my rela­tion­ships, that all I wish is for oth­ers to be hap­py.

A Nash equi­lib­ri­um is a ter­ri­ble thing.