Technically, break started last week, but there wasn't anything happening last week so yeah. Or well, all I really did was visit Lowell a couple times (Chan's bbq and then Kermesse) and see some teachers. I've also been driving my sister to school. Waking up at 6:45 am (that's right, AM) daily again is extremely painful, but thankfully they're finishing up soon.
In other news, my free time now consists of Pokemon HGSS (HeartGold & SoulSilver if you're a noob that doesn't know what HGSS stands for =P), FMA Brotherhood (Fullmetal Alchemist if you're a noob that doesn't know what FMA stands for), and various HK films that came out recently. HGSS are the Generation IV remakes of the classic Gold & Silver versions, and they are Hella fun. Not to mention the soundtrack, which is awesome. Everyone should play them, no kidding.
The current running FMA is the second anime of the same name. The first came out years ago and distanced itself from the manga halfway in. It was interesting to watch, but this one (which will finish in a couple weeks), strictly follows the manga and is great to watch. Since I didn't have time to watch anything over the semester, I am catching up now by cramming in as many episodes as I can each day.
I am still following Bleach (both anime and manga).
HK & Chinese films--I still have yet to watch Mulan, but I recently finished Confucius (孔子) and 72 Tenants of Prosperity (七十二家租客). The next ones I plan to watch are Just Another Pandora's Box, 14 Blades, and Little Big Soldier. Look them up if you're interested--most of them have historical allusions and will probably be hard to understand if you don't have the context. YesAsia.com is a pretty nice resource. In fact that's how I found out about them. =D
Okay, so how'd the semester go? Grade-wise, I have a 4.0 (so far). EE, History, and Legal Studies all A's, and Physics was a nice A+. The one thing missing--and it's taking an awfully long time--is CS. I have a bad feeling about this, since it'll probably be the class to kill my GPA. Will update as soon as it comes out. About that--I literally check BearFacts every day right after I wake up, hoping that it got updated the night before. I even had a dream about this, and in it I got a B in the class...
Enough about that, no one gives a damn about grades. Summer plans! I said nothing was happening last week, but this week and onward is a whole new story. Today was the first day of my class. It's 4-6pm M-R, but it seems that it'll be one worth taking: Chinese 155, Journey to the West. This will go until July, at which I start my second class, Philos 153 (Chinese Philosophy). I'm glad you see the theme. I've pretty much decided to finish the Chinese Studies minor this summer, while I still have time and while classes are good.
Though the class is late, I plan to continue live at home for the time being. During the day, I'll hopefully start on the research that I should have worked on last semester (and hence received an Incomplete for that unit because of my lack of effort to do so -_-). Dunno what exactly it involves yet, but I met with my professor today. Something about using a simulation program that involves C, parallel computing, and equation-solving. Apparently I'm solving equations that involves QM (since we're operating within the 45nm scale on transistors), E&M (Maxwell governs the electron density & field they create), and thermo (dynamics of atoms within the transistor). However, the task is very difficult, as hundreds of thousands of matrix elements can easily be generated because we're dealing with many atoms at the same time. I'm lucky enough to be able to barely understand the physics and math behind all this...
Anyway, this pattern should continue until mid-June. Then I start on something else, and hopefully I can do all 3 things at the same time. At that point, I'll probably start living at Cal again, since more of my time will be eaten up.
This third activity will be my job and main source of income this summer. What I'll be doing is... *drumroll*... ok, it's not that impressive, but I'll be TA'ing at $20 an hour for 20 hours a week. The class is EE42/100 (basically circuits for non-EE's). Whoooo. Teaching is going to be interesting--for one, I'm glad it's a class/material that I'm really comfortable with. I just filled out the paperwork today, and I'll probably know more as we get closer to the start-date of that class (6/21).
This summer is going to be fun. It's a shame so many people won't be coming back to SF though =/
