The English in the following post will be broken up, not follow logical flow and may be grammatically incorrect but I couldn’t care less as I’m exhausted and haven’t properly blogged in weeks/months.
Today I finished the last exam in my first year of university. I think I did pretty well. In HKUST it would mean “relative-to-the-mean well” since we’re graded on a curve. None of my grades are out yet but they’ll definitely be better than the disaster that they were last semester.
Tomorrow morning I leave for Manassas, Virginia (Washington DC suburb) for 3 months! That’s my whole summer break. So I won’t get to spend any relaxation time with high school friends coming back to HK for the summer or my friends from uni staying here for the summer. That really sucks. Yeah.
I had an interesting experience packing tonight. You see, Continental Airlines doesn’t like musicians (or aspiring musicians such as myself, haha what a joke) and do not allow you to bring anything bigger than a “small instrument” on-board. A guitar is definitely not a small instrument. I don’t have a hard case for it so the only option was to decapitate my Strat, wrap the neck and body in bubble wrap and pad it with clothing and stuff it in a suitcase that will be checked in. Here’s hoping that I will still have a properly functioning/sounding guitar when I put it back together on the other side. Please………….
My plans for this summer are to study for courses I’ll be taking next semester, practice a lot of guitar (given that I still have one once I land in the US), help my parents renovate a house, get a driver’s license and hit up all the museums in DC for a second time. And hopefully meet new people so I don’t die of social depravation or something.
I’m tired now but I shouldn’t sleep so I’ll watch that Prison Break DVD thing I blogged about previously.
I’m done with my first year of university! Only 2 more to go!
Today I watched the last ever episode of Prison Break. Forgive me for being lame, but I’ve followed Prison Break from Season 1 and really enjoyed the series up till the end so this cancellation of the show is somewhat upsetting for me.
Well I don’t have much else to say really except to reference this from Wikipedia:
“Four years later Michael is dead, however the two hour DVD that wraps up “loose-ends” shows that Michael sacrifices himself (he will die anyway) to get Sara out of prison.” #
Here’s a video my friends and I made one rainy afternoon as an extra credit project for our Operations Management course (ISOM161) at HKUST.
I know it’s lame… please don’t flame. (ooh that rhymes) We actually made it the day before it was due and the actual filming time was about half an hour and most of the acting/lines was completely improvised.
Recorded with a cheap photo camera. Edited in iMovie on a Mac. The video below is hosted on Vimeo, so it may take some time to load. Alternatively, you can watch it on YouTube.
OK, let’s see… I bought my electric guitar, a black Fender Squier Strat (I’m poor), back in October so it’s been over half a year that I’ve had it. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, I’ve played it very little and my improvements have been very marginal. I’ve had quite a lot of time to play during this Easter Break and I still try to fit in a half hour or so on the weekends but it’s been tough. I’m definitely not lacking motivation and I really do want to learn but I spend so little time at home that when I get back at night, it’s way too late to start practicing.
Regardless, I’m still learning a lot of new things every time I play and slowly but surely I shall improve and hopefully be able to play a full-length song sometime. Maybe in the summer…
Here’s what I can play. Mind you that I can’t play the full songs but just the main riffs (which are usually just repeated continuously for the duration of the song). Yes. I’m a total guitar noob.
Pink Floyd – Money
Led Zeppelin – Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You
Green Day – Brain Stew (similar riff to “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You”)
Nirvana – Come As You Are
The Rolling Stones – Satisfaction
Oasis – Wonderwall (still needs some work)
And here’s what I’m learning (very very slowly):
Boston – More Than A Feeling
Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower
Radiohead – Paranoid Android (got the main riff)
Radiohead – Talk Show Host
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication
Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
The US National Anthem (just need to speed it up and make less mistakes)
I also spend some time each practice session just playing around with notes, the tremolo bar and the pentatonic scales. Yeah…
To be honest, I’ve never written out to-do lists until the beginning of this semester. I’m pretty sure I didn’t because I felt my memory was good enough to remember what I needed to get done on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Last semester’s results seem to have proven otherwise.
I am aware that Mac OS X comes pre-equipped with some to-do list capable software, namely, iCal, Stickies and Dashboard Stickies; but when it came to the point at the beginning of this semester when I actually decided to write to-do lists, none of these cut it for me.
And so I began perusing the net for an alternative. I wanted something super simple, without a bunch of features I had no use for. It didn’t take long for me to find TaskPaper by Hog Bay Software.
With TaskPaper, I simply use the Project button to label my different classes, the Task button to create, well, tasks for each class, and the Note button to include more detailed information about individual tasks. As I complete tasks, I simply click next to them and they’re crossed out and tagged as done. Ah, the great feeling of accomplishment.
I'm a 19-year old 2nd year Business student at HKUST. I'm originally from Ukraine but I've spent the last 9 years in Hong Kong. This is my blog. More...
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