boston - week 1

my 1st week in boston has been amazing. in fact, i couldn't have written a better script. within minutes of arriving in my MIT resident hall, ryan, brian, and i met up, which is the 1st time Team TacoBell has re-united since our internship 2 yrs ago in dc. mayhem was guaranteed to take place. well, we mostly just had ryan show us all around boston and cambridge since he's been livin here for a year. highlights from that 1st weekend when i arrived include:

• brian running through a public fountain
• brian being asked by a park ranger lady to put on a shirt, after which he jokingly ran at her
• brian's insane convo w/ ghandi
• ryan's friend, sushi. enough said

okay, i realize most of memories are inside stories and way too much to type, so i'll stop. basically, it was great. also, work at the lab is pretty amazing, too. right now, i'm researchin 2d pattern matching. i'm trying to find and implement the fastest possible way to determine if 1 image is found within another. i really hope i can do good work, and the environment isn't nearly as rigid as "taco bell's." this weekend was pretty great, too.

just within the one week i've been here, i've been to about 10 places, including some good japanese, chinese, and american eateries. i really appreciate boston's walkable-ness and how much it has to offer. i aim to visit more art-related places soon. i've met some pretty cool friends here, and my room overlooks the charles river and charles bridge. so, i live right at the brink of cambridge and boston. it doesn't get much better than that :) oh, and i'm making a google maps map of all the significant places i visit. i'll post it sometime.

if you could visit for 12 weeks any city in the states, which would it be and why?

it's summer time!

okay, trivial post:

this spring quarter has been very stress-free, as i was only taking 1 undergrad class, 1 grad class, and was a TA for 1 class. plus, the ugrad class was only comprised of 2 tests, and the grad class was only comprised of 2 projects. nothing else too significant. however, just to be cruel, both ugrad tests were pretty much on the same exact day that the grad projects were due. so, my entire quarter basically only had 2 real days.

so, the past few days have been crazy. the to-do list follows:
-wed @ 8-11am = cs181 final worth 60% of my grade
-thurs @ 3pm = cs263 project and 8-page technical report worth 40% of my grade
-friday @ 2pm = cs33 deadline for my grading all the projects
-friday @ midnight = cs201 little seminar summaries due
-need to pack my entire room (for my flying to atl, boston, indo) and cause i'm sub-letting my room this summer.

oh, to make it more interesting, apparently i booked my flight home to ATL to be at thursday at 9am--way before i was done with everything. wednesday, i awoke on 5 hrs of sleep, at 6 am, for my 8am final. soon as it was over, i picked up leslie, headed to my place, and we worked on the project and started writing the paper. after 16 consecutive hrs of work, we finished at 4am. came home, packed, and slept from 5:30am - 6:15am... a whopping 45 minutes, for a friend was driving me to the airport at 630am. needless to say, i slept on the plane rides :) yet, i was fortunate enough to wake up to some pretty scenery:




let the summer begin :)
boston, baby! it was all a dream.

huntington beach and climbing things

this past weekend was pretty amazing.

kenny, one of my good friends from high school in atlanta, was out here in cali, so we met up this saturday in long beach. we then drove to huntington beach and newport beach with his 9 sisters (+/- 5) and 1 cousin. we toasted hotdogs, smores, and of course corn. then, ~6 more friends of his cousin met us on the beach, and we all played football until the sun set. within the last 6 years, i've always lived within 5 miles of either the atlantic of pacific ocean. but this confirmed for me that wherever i choose to live once when i'm done with school, i want it to be near an ocean.

sunday, i joined ucla's outdoor adventure group to go rock climbing. i had only rock climbed twice before, both of which were indoors. so, apparently outdoor rocks are not the same as indoor ones. the rocks aren't made of hard plastic w/ semi-conveniently-located handle grips strategically placed throughout. the event lasted around 8 hrs and was an amazing time.



it's good to know our lives were in good hands.