Semester’s End

This post is going to be extremely long [three pages single space typed on Microsoft Word] because I haven’t posted in about 2 months. I apologize to those who actively follow my blog, I thank you for caring. Here’s the past two months of my life in summary. For details? Aim/text/fb/email/call me! I’m in Cali, so we can skype or oovoo or gmailvideochat.

October 31, 2009 AACM Fall Retreat

I went into fall retreat…really not ready for fall retreat. Two months later, I just remember a couple things about my experience, but I realize that God revealed himself to me regardless of how ready I was. I volunteered last minute to be a “mom” at retreat and found that it was one of the most rewarding experiences ever. In my mind, being a mom gave me permission to talk to the people in my family and care for them. It gave me responsibility, not to boss people around, but to force myself to unconditionally love my family members. Since I’m the prejudging type, it was really God’s grace that allowed me to view everyone in my family with a clear, unbiased mind. Praise God.

Also, God revealed to me that no matter how happy people seem, everyone has struggles they are going through and most of them are harder, more pervasive, and more trying than my struggles. We had a lot of sermons on pain and suffering and I really couldn’t understand or relate to any of it. However, now looking back, I realize that all of that was to prepare me for the trials I was going to endure in the coming weeks. I praise God for this divinity, his control over everything, and him revealing to me that I am completely not in control of my own life.

Retreat also reminded me that no matter what happens, no matter what offenses I commit against them, no matter how stubborn and impossible I am, my family will ALWAYS be there for me and love me.

November 7, 2009 Wong Fu

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I got to meet Wes, Phil and Ted from Wong Fu Productions ^^ It was one of the highlights of my semester simply because of the people I went with. I realized how awesome my friends are:;in our tolerance of each other, our similarities, our love for belting random Taylor Swift songs, our spontaneity of dance, our ability to laugh and love and smile and have a good time.

November 15, 2009 Longhorn Singers

Andrew Suen!! This was such an awesome show. I’m never missing a Longhorn Singers show again. It was one of the cutest shows I’ve ever been to. From the bright costumes to the amusing choreography to the pure talent of the singers and showmanship, it was an awesome show.

November 21, 2009 Last Home Football Game for Colt and Shipley – GG Photoshoot

I love my sophomore class My lovely Girls of Grace “AAAANNND completely to Shipley.” Colt and Shipley and the Seniors of UT Football, you will be missed!!

December 3, 2009 Fiona Cheung’s Surprise Birthday

Haha Surprise Fiona! Sorry we didn’t get to have our much needed one on one. Sorry it was about a month early. But I was leaving! And I wasn’t going to leave the semester without attempting to overwhelm you. Happy 20^th! My best friend turned 20, so we went to “Veggie Heaven” …but there were too many of us, so we went to Pho instead. I hope you had fun bff.

December 4, 2009 Eliot Goodman’s Birthday and SNOW!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Eliot! It’s been so awesome being friends with him for the past year+. And! Just for him, it snowed haha Sorry Eliot for making you go outside when it snowed so I could run around in it. Haha Happy big 2-0! You are so old.

December 5, 2009 Midnight Rodeo for Graduates

Always a good time. Though, I’m definitely not a fan of live bands at Midnight. Graduated seniors [Faruk, Calvin, Bryan, Jeff, Kim] you will be missed.

Did I change this semester? What changed me?

I went into sophomore year not really ready for sophomore year. I had just come back from a whirlwind of Paris and Europe and ACC Youth Retreat, and I wasn’t entirely ready for what this semester was going to bring me. With my family up and moving to California, I was finally, really on my own. A couple people told me that things were going to change between me and my family, we weren’t going to be as close anymore, I would only miss them due to distance, but I’ve come to realize that I am that exception. I’ve always been a mommy’s and daddy’s girl, but this semester proved it. Whenever I was in a serious crisis, I always always always went to my mom and dad first for support, prayer, love, hugs over the phone, etc.

I also wasn’t ready for what God had planned for me with regards to the freshmen AACMers. I am not an AACM “Leadership” role, not by name anyways, so I had a hard time trying to figure out what my role should be in the fellowship. It’s in my nature to try to mentor people, try to friend people, try to have fun with people, and try to pass on some “wisdom”, if you will, to those younger than me. I didn’t have my “Austin group” like many of the other sophomores had…the “Dallas people,” the “Houston girls,” the “Houston guys,” etc… It seemed like a lot of my classmates came into sophomore year with a very…close minded and set approach as to who they wanted to mentor and talk to. But as I observed, I realized that many of the people who were in those “sets” really wanted an outside opinion, really wanted someone new, a new face to talk to, someone new to love on them. With the type of personality that I have, I don’t say no to one on ones, so for a huge majority of the semester, I was doing 2-5 one on ones a day with freshmen, people in my class, people not in AACM, old friends from last year, best friends out of state, etc. and I’ll say right here that I got really really burnt out.

Halfway through the semester, I completely broke down for about two and a half weeks where I didn’t really leave my room unless it was necessary (class, meals, one on ones, helping people, etc). Most people didn’t know what was going on because I can usually hide stuff pretty well. I didn’t acknowledge it until later, but it was a really serious episode of spiritual warfare, one of my first extreme ones for a long time. I had been pouring out pouring out pouring out for so long that I didn’t have anything left to pour, and yet, I was still constantly trying to help everyone else. I don’t really remember what it was that finally pulled me out of it, but I do remember who was there with me through all of it. You know who you are, the few of you, and I thank you so much for loving me when I didn’t want to be loved.

When I finally got out of this, had my few weeks of chick flicks, my dorm room, pillows, tissues, blankets, and PJs, I, because it’s me…, started our housing search for next year. It turned out to be an entire semester of turmoil in our class, of struggle for community, of loving others unconditionally, of friendships broken and rebuilt, of God reminding us to give everything up to Him, of mediating large group discussions, of praying with small groups of friends, of the fight for transparency in our class, and I THANK GOD for all of it. I think, if you are in my class and you were involved in this, you know what I’m talking about and I want to tell each one of you thank you, for what you showed me, the trust you placed in me during this time, the amount of transparency you showed ME that you were capable of and I want to encourage all of you to try try try to get that with the rest of our class. I’m SO proud that our class is still very much intact even after this huge struggle. It shows how strong of a class we are, it shows the amount of care we all have for one another’s feelings even if we don’t like to show it, it shows that we really do want and envision a Christ centered community and will work for it, and most of all, it shows ME that I chose to invest in the right group of friends. I love you guys

And one last thing that I feel like I have to mention is this semester’s new friendships. To the freshmen who have allowed me to sit down and get to know you guys, thank you. You know who you are, you know the fun times we’ve had, you know the things we’ve made fun of me about, you know the things we’ve prayed and strived for, you know the things I’m still praying for you about, you know that I’m going to constantly keep you accountable on those certain things, and most of all, you know I love you guys much much ^^. To the upperclassmen I’ve gotten to know this semester, thanks for all the help, you know who you are. Thanks for answering my calls and my chats and my texts and my skype calls, thanks for the hugs, the times when you made me realize I was wrong, the fights, the “I’m sooo mad at you” moments I had again and again, thanks for the rides to places and the acceptance of who I am, thanks for the wisdom, but most of all, thanks for the friendship, I don’t know how I would have made it through this semester without you.

I have so much more to say and so many other things to give thanks to God for, but I’ll stop here because its already super long. Now, below are photos from this semester. I know I’m often one of those people who takes photos of everything and then no one ever gets to see the photos. I get complaints all the time, sorry I just refuse to post photos onto facebook *shrug. Maybe one day that will change.

Hugs and Kisses Merry Christmas. I can’t wait to see a lot of you in a couple days at Urbana.

And a shoutout to people I get to see [maybe get to see] this break here in San Francisco: Ouyang and Kosch

And another one to my ACC Wildfire Girls I miss and love you <3

And a final one to my little sis PHIIIIII I LOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU <3 <3 <3

<3 Kate

Found my old undergrad thesis, and have now put it on the internet for posterity.

This was a somewhat goofy project. I was assigned to continue work on a previous undergrad thesis project, where a matrix library had been written for loop transformations.

This was to be plugged into an optimizing compiler that took Fortran code and produced different fortran code. The idea was that the compiler could be guided into blocking large memory intensive operations into ones that used the cache better, but the whole approach was very academic, requiring specially contrived code and compiler interaction.

The one thing that I liked about this was that, in the end, it did work nicely. I measured a 12x times improvement in the matrix multiplier when the right blocking size was picked. Picking that blocking size required experiment, so practical application of these methods were a long way off.

http://hoover-f5914-900.blogspot.com/2009/12/electrodynamic-field-energy-for-vacuum.html

Perhaps you have to study E&M to use this vacuum?

I’d given my sisters a link to an amazon wishlist and they went crazy buying most of the stuff on it for me. Here’s a pic:

Birthday books

The books are:

• Lectures on Quantum Mechanics by P. A. M. Dirac
• Feynman’s Thesis: A New Approach to Quantum Theory by Richard P. Feynman
• Tensors, Differential Forms, and Variational Principles by David Lovelock
• Handbook of Mathematical Functions: with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables by Milton Abramowitz (Editor), Irene A. Stegun (Editor)
• A Treatise On Electricity And Magnetism – Volume Two – Illustrated by James Clerk Maxwell (Author)
• Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. 1 by James Clerk Maxwell, Kathleen Maxwell
• Electrodynamics​ (Vol. 1 of Pauli Lectures on Physics) (Pauli Lectures on Physics, Volume 1) by Wolfgang Pauli
• The LaTeX Web Companion: Integrating TeX, HTML, and XML by Michel Goossens

I expected a handful of these, but they bought most of the stuff on the list, and even paid new prices.  I’m a cheap bastard and wouldn’t have paid new-price for that latex book which was going for $2 used.

I’d estimate that this is years of reading, without even taking into account the books I’m working on now.

What should I start with?

A developer has been spotted on the 8200 Warden property. Although they are far from being domesticated, developers could display little fear of humans. These animals are most active from dusk to dawn. Please do not attempt to approach them or attempt to feed them.

If you encounter a bold or aggressive developer, act aggressively by yelling and waving your arms. If you do see a developer, please contact IBM Security immediately at 905-413-3523 or by pushing the button at one of the exterior duress stations to speak with security.

As a reminder, if you are working after hours and would like a security escort to your car for any reason, you may request one at the main security desk in Y1.

Considering the spherical pendulum I ended up with the following quadratic form

Expanding or similar matrixes is a bit messy, and I thought I’d try to do it with software to avoid errors. Having written a symbol Geometric Algebra calculator, but not having any sort of trig reduction engine built into that. I haven’t had access to mathematica since leaving school a decade ago, so I made my calculator produce output that I could cut and paste into wolfram alpha’s online engine. Here’s the ones that I tried, for the , and terms respectively

simplify sin(phi)^4 sin(theta)^2 + cos(theta)^2 sin(phi)^2 + cos(phi)^4 sin(theta)^2 + 2cos(phi)^2 sin(phi)^2 sin(theta)^2 + cos(phi)^2 cos(theta)^2
simplify sin(phi)^2 sin(theta)^2 + cos(phi)^2 sin(theta)^2

These both reduce manually without too much effort, and one should get and respectively. Wolfram’s engine gives for the first

(Cos[ϕ]^2 + Sin[ϕ]^2) (Cos[θ]^2 + Cos[ϕ]^2 Sin[θ]^2 + Sin[θ]^2 Sin[ϕ]^2)

It misses three times! Mrs Sardi back at Central Technical School would have failed these guys.

For the less complex expression it does a bit better, but still misses the unit circle identity

Sin[θ]^2 (Cos[ϕ]^2 + Sin[ϕ]^2)

I hope that the real mathematica product does better. Perhaps it needs more time to do a better computation, and is giving up fast in its online version.

My intention was actually to see if the online engine would reduce the elements of a more slightly complex matrix than the one above. I’d done it manually and wanted to verify the output. If it can’t do these simple cases effectively, there’s probably not much point trying the more complex cases.

October 12 to 26th recap…

Life’s been up and down. It’s been exactly 2 weeks…and these two weeks have been quite refreshing. Its been nice … it’s been fun … and life has gone by really fast.

Highlights:

10-12-09 Luke’s Birthday

Emily and I decided to give Luke a small-spontaneous birthday dinner at Tap House (his choice of restaurant, not mine). It was a really nice time of fellowship and I hope Luke had a blast

10-16-09 Twinkle’s Birthday

Twinkle!!!! Man I miss that girl. Randomly ran into her at Gregory the day before her birthday and went to Cheesecake Factory to help her celebrate her 20th. It’s always a blessing to be reminded of old friends.

10-17-09 ACC Lighthouse Lock-in

Oh my gosh. This was…probably the highlight of my semester. Starting at 5:30pm, cooking for 3 hours, playing Screaming Vikings, Rock Band (the same song 10 times in a row…haha just kidding), Mafia, Karaokeparty.com, talking to Phi on Skype, cooking with Calvin until 4am, waking up at 8am the next day to play capture the flag and flag football, etc etc etc. It was just… such a blessing. I really love the middle school youth and have a huge heart for them…I’m probably extremely biased just because of Phi (sister), but I love all of them so much and would do anything for them. Even though I was cooking on the other side of the church, when I called back, I got news that the girls were taking prayer requests before going to sleep. <3 <3 <3 I’m so proud to be your counselor girls!

10-22-09 Terry Fall Banquet

Ah roomie time Sophie, Ari, Rebecca, Bernie, Lance, Omar time… Getting dressed up. Eating yumminess. It’s my…once a year reminder of how blessed I really am. Thank you thank you thank you Mr. and Mrs. Terry for financial freedom. Thank you. Thank you God.

10-25-09 Great Waltz

<3 <3 <3 Words can’t express how much fun I really had. Thanks to the guys who danced with me. Thanks to the guys who…were patient with my horrible teaching. Thanks to the girls who helped me find belts. Thanks to the girls who looked gorgeous and made me feel blessed to be sitting with them. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for the fellowship. Thanks to the guys for actually dressing up (I know it’s often a stretch…) Thanks to a year of dancing. It’s nice to actually know how to dance now. And I missed everyone who couldn’t make it.

AACM Fall Retreat is coming up…and I’m eager to see what I can learn this year. Because things I learned at fall retreat last year still follow me even now.

<3 Kate

P.S. Mom Dad Phi, I love you.

Doesn’t this picture speak for itself?

Are you or your child between the ages of 7 - 17

Praise the Lord. Six tests in 5 days. DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE. Need sleep.

<3 Kate

Oh! P.S. Thanks to Kylee, I now have a new little kid music crush I think he’s 15? His name is Justin Bieber

Hey Phi,

I know I’ve been really busy and sick and not online lately. I just wanted you to know that I LOVE LOVE LOVE you. And really miss you. And can’t WAIT for Thanksgiving break.

Love,

Jie Jie

Mostly verbatim from my Dad:

I’ve been listening to Estonian podcasts. The most recent series concerned the guilds, merchants and so on starting in the Middle Ages and going into the 17th Century. I had heard a couple of these, and the subject material was of very little interest to me until I hit a couple of them which sheds some light about the origin of our family name.

I don’t necessarily want to transcribe the episodes, but will give a summary of what I heard.

Basically a “joot” was a festive occasion ( the use of the word in this sense is not current used in the language.) Strictly speaking these “joots” were feasts usually held in guild ( trade or merchant associations )halls, where there was plenty to eat drink. Sometimes dancing was an element in these “joots”.

There were three major events during the year where “ joots ” played an important part in festivities. These were the times around Christmas, Easter, and the coming of summer in the month of May. The Christmas and Easter events were usually two weeks long, and the one in May one week. There were other events during the year which were not as long, but all of them ended with a “joot”.

The two week events involved parades, musicians ( a lot of drummers and (bag-pipers )dancing, singing, presentations of all kinds of events – street dancing and singing, sword, spear and torch dances done by men, costumes ( one favourite one was that of the Devil). These were much in the spirit of a carnival and the festivities were always followed by a “joot”

The May celebrations which usually lasted for a week, where a “prince of spring” was chosen always ended up with a “joot”. Some of these involved burning of effigies etc.

Some of the shorter celebrations or events involved target shooting ( first with cross-bows and later with rifles ), horse races, and contests of various kinds always followed by a “joot” where there was plenty to eat and drink.

Here’s a little more info about the word “joot”

1.)Although the word “joot” is not today used in the mediaeval sense of a gala “state” celebration, it still today carries on the connotation of a festive event which consists of a get-together of which drinking is a definite part. I have never heard the word or seen the word in print with this meaning, but it does exist in a BIG dictionary.( The action word of “jooma” means to drink, and a “joot” would describe the event where drinking took place.

2.)There is another word “jootma” which means to solder. A jootraud would be a soldering iron. ( Raud means iron )

3.) There is a combining word form “jootraha” (“raha” means money) which means essentially a tip such that you would give for good service in a restaurant. There are apparently some dictionaries in Estonian which trace back the words to their source, but I don’t own one of them. I would suspect that the derivation of “jootraha” goes back to number 1.). This would probably go to the custom of tipping of what I would assume to be the serving wenches for good service or the hope of good future service. Alternately and more probably, the giving of tips had its origin in the participants of “joots” giving money to the organizers of these in the way of fixed “donations” or donations in accordance to their ability to pay. So its joining in to pay for the celebrations.

This covers the variations to some degree in the name.

No matter what, I love my 6th to 8th girls. And I praise God for what they’ve taught me [unknowingly]. I thank John and Jimmy’s parents and old family friends for loving me this week when I got sick. I thank my mom, dad and Phi for worrying about me, for sending me care packages, for calling me, for giving me space, for sending me emails and just making sure I’m ok. I thank Viv, Jimmy, Kylee, and Hayls for being there for me through all of it. I love you guys and want to hug you. And most of all, I thank God for getting me through this hell week [5 exams almost killed me]. I thank Him for His timing, for knowing what I needed and for making decisions for me. I thank God for healing me and not continuing my dizziness. And now, I ask Him for just a bit more brainpower as I take some time for myself this weekend.

This song is really old and I found it randomly today… I remember when I led worship that I had such a hard time hitting some of these notes and had to lower it a couple of notes. I remember hearing it for the first time at youth retreat 5th to 6th grade year. I remember the impact it had on me then. I ask God to help me one more time…

Just a quick note… so, I started bolding and underlining and italicizing parts of the song below, then I realized that I had emphasized the entire song. So I’m just going to give it to you guys as it is…

Tasting Forgiveness
by Robbie Seay Band
I’m pleading my innocence here
Exposing my arrogance all the while
Hoping that nobody sees
Especially You

I’ve yielded to all that has cost me
And thrown to the side what is free
And I’m lying if I say that I’ve figured it out

But maybe this time
The bread and the wine
Will be more than food on my lips

I’m tasting forgiveness
And drinking of mercy
I feast on redemption
Tasting forgiveness

http://www.imeem.com/people/RiE0IY5/music/Ow6YMGoq/robbie-seay-band-tasting-forgiveness/

<3 Kate

I got reminded of this event today, and thought it worthy of a blog post.

Last year I got a call from a waitress in a Chinese restaurant in the nearby plaza.  Her English wasn’t great and my best attempt at interpreting what she was trying to say was that she had my credit card at the restaurant where I had left it when I was there.

This confused me since I appeared to have all my credit cards in my wallet, and hadn’t been to that plaza for a long time.  I didn’t even know where exactly in the plaza this restaurant was.  The possibility of credit card fraud was disturbing enough that I headed right down to the plaza to get this resolved.

After eventually finding the restaurant (it wasn’t in the food court like I assumed, but outside) it turns out that there was no copy of my credit card.  Instead, somebody had paid for lunch for two using one of my business cards.  The story was apparently something like (I’m interpolating and imagining the post lunch conversation with the waitress) :

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.  I’ve forgotten my wallet at the office.  I work just around the corner at IBM.  Would you mind if I returned a little later to pay?  I eat at this plaza all the time.  Look, here’s my business card.  It has my name, and phone number … everything that you would need to contact me.  Is this okay?  I’m so sorry.  This is so embarrassing.  I’ve never done this before.”

Well, the waitress bought the story and the promise to return, and presents me with the bill when I walk in.  She did look somewhat confused looking since I probably wasn’t how she remembered the customer (I came in my motorcycle leathers and boots … I may have also had a blue Mohawk at that time but think that be-as-cool-as-my-six-year-old haircut came later).  This was a week later, where I presume she finally gave up on politely waiting for a return and payment.  She explained to me what happened, and we exchanged apologies (me for her getting scammed by somebody in my name, and her to me for the alarm and the trip).

While I can’t be bothered to lock up my blank scrap paper in my cubicle at work (gasp.  Violating IBM corporate security regulation ITCS300!), I do now lock up the business cards that I never use instead of leaving them on my desk.

When I returned to work it appeared that the box of business cards was depleted significantly, so I wonder how many free lunches somebody got in my name.  I only got one call from a nearby restaurant, but the non-return of the customer could easily be recognized as an ‘oh-crap-I’ve-been-had’ event and written off.  Is Peeter Joot of IBM now a hated name by nearby Markham waitresses and waiters?

Ugg. I forgot to hide my docking station key under the coffee cup last Friday, but at least they didn’t confiscate it this time. Last time I failed the “random” security check for leaving the docking station key in my empty docking station, I had to go down to the security guys who made a big demonstration of unlocking a “secure” cabinet, ripping open a giant 8 1/2 x 11 manilla folder and having me sign for the key that wasn’t protecting anything.

I should have known there would be another random check. They always come in batches. At least they didn’t find my blank scrap paper. It is still hidden behind the cheerios box on my bookshelf, but now has one extra scrap page in it.