Archives #3 11/20/03~3/16/04

Long Ever Lasting School 3.30.04

update: 250 days to my graduation

It's not just me. After spending 10 hours a day in school day in and day out, you would have the same feeling. "I hate school" -- I don't know since when became the opening sentence of each conversation. I don't know why school life has been so torturing. There are always long and impossible assignments. It has come  to a point where going to school is like spending jail time. The only way out is to wait till jail time is over. For me, it's merely 250 days away. Maybe I have been going to school for too many years. I got so sick of it. I have lost interest in it. Also, my future after graduation is an unknown. My life has absolutely no direction. I think I'm in another major depression. The worst since I got here four years ago.

I went to volunteer as a grader in the final of Texas Math Counts. Math Counts is a competition for middle school students. They are called "mathletes". The top four from this final Texas competition will move on to compete with kids from all other 49 states in the national competition. The mathematics problems that they have to deal with were not that hard. It's nothing compared to those in the Mathematical Olympiad. This is an example of one of those problems:

20  __  __  __  __  220  ??

This is a sequence of numbers. The first number is given as 20. The sixth one is 220. The third number is the sum of the first two. The fourth is the sum of the second and third, and so forth. What is the seventh number?

It's an easy problem. It can be solved by a simple algebraic equation. I was a grader. All I need to do was to check their answers. Make a cross next to incorrect answers and count the total number of correct answers. There was a individual where the "mathletes" perform individually. The team part is where the four "mathletes" from the same school perform together. The scores from the individual part and the team part will give a composite score of team total.

Two observations: First, we compile a list of top 20 performers (out of about 300). Out of the top 10, 8 have a Chinese (or Taiwanese) last names, such as Zheng, Lee, Cheng and Hsieh. Chinese-American kids dominantly out smart kids from all other ethnicities. A question surfaced in my mind: Are these kids born to be smarter? Or do they work harder? Or are they raised differently by Chinese parents? i think it's a little bit of all of the above. A 50-year-old grader behind me said, "it's all Asian. Ah! Smart folks!"

Second observation: One of the tasks as a grader is to compute the scores. I did them without any problems. They can be done easily without calculator. but some 30- to 40-year-olds had a tough time doing these simple math. I saw a grader struggled with a 56 divide by 4. He finally did it in three minutes. The director did 185 divide by 4 with a calculator then said as if defending her action, "I had too little sleep and not enough coffee this morning."

New England Patriots are new NFL "Dynasty"

Superbowl MVP Tom Brady passed 354 yards and three touchdowns. The New England Patriots are NFL champions again. This battle was predicted to be a defensive game. This prediction was right for the first quarter and much of the second quarter. But Brady's pass to Deion Branch with just over three minutes to go in the first half changed the entire pace of the game. The Carolina Panthers immediately responded with a touchdown connected from quarterback Jake Delhomme to Steve Smith. The half ended with Patriots leading 14-10. The second half was a shootout. The game was tied with about one minute remaining. When the entire world, including me, were thinking that the game would definitely go into overtime. Carolina kicker John Casey did the something that is the last thing Carolina fans wanted to see: he kicked the ball out of bounds. The patriots started their possession on the 40-yardline. With no timeouts left, the Patriots completed some short passes en route to a 40-yard field goal with nine seconds remaining. This was exactly what the Patriots did two years ago against the St. Louis Rams in the Superbowl XXXVI.

The close game was one of the most exciting in Superbowl history, and it definitely is the most exciting Superbowl I have ever seen (I have seen four so far). But it wasn't the talk of the day. The halftime show stole the spotlight from the actual game.

12.3.03
photos: left: Reuters/China Photo, link: AP/Greg Baker

15 days from flying back to Macau

5 number of final examinations before I go back

3 number of episodes of Worlds Apart I saw on National Geographic Channel on one day. It is a tv show about American families living with families from India, Ghana, and Malaysia for 9 days. It became my favorite tv show that is not sports related

12 number of minutes of basketball I played before my body entering exhaustion stage

5 number of classes I'm taking this semester

4 least number of A's I want to get for this semester

0 number of 30-page lab reports left in this semester

9 number of classes left before I graduate

5 number of chemical engineering classes left before I graduate

1 number of internship I need for the summer

369 days from my graduation

Football note:

Yes, it is football, as in futebol, or soccer

8 number of years ago did a team not named United, Arsenal or Liverpool win the English Premier League (Blackburn Rovers 94-95)

4 number of times a team not named United, Arsenal or Liverpool won the English Premier League/Division One in the last 20 years (Everton 84-85 & 86-87, Leeds 91-92, Blackburn Rovers 94-95)

Try to talk about the competitiveness of the English Premier League? I don't know what the other 17 teams in the league are playing for.

*** out of 5

This Trilogy could not have started better. With the same token, it could not have ended worst. It all hyped up in the first episode. The entire world was expecting something exciting to succeed it. But it was not what the Wachowski brothers had in mind in the beginning.
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** out of 5

Oh. I am glad that this is not a trilogy. If you are expecting to see fight scene and only fight scenes, and you don't mind seeing blood spilling around, this movie is for you. Except some gut-wrenching fighting scenes and over-the-top style of filming, Tarantino disappointed me.