Monthly Archive for December, 2006Page 3 of 5

Why is it…

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 11, 2006
in Personal
. Comments

…that I’m unable to do anything today. Oh wait, ONE thing. I finally got a pair of shoes that don’t seep water into my socks.

…that I feel like such a teen, with extreme mood swings. One second I cannot help but to be ambivalent at life. The other I start swearing into the ground and up into the air. It’s bipolar Josh Kim at his best. If you see him today, make sure you catch him when he’s sighing, and not when it’s punching things. That way, you’ll get candy and/or gum.

…that I felt so inclined to buy candy for every single person I see. I personally have to think that it’s because I want to get at least 2x as closer to all the people I know now, now that my mind has been cleared just a little bit.

…that I can’t see straight. There’s this dark haze around everything. Just as I type this, I cannot help but feel my nerves on overdrive.

…that I’m in extreme extreme extreme amazement as to how much even worse things could have been.

This is the first of many thinly veiled commentaries on Josh Kim. Please do enjoy the complete waste of time this is.

7:15

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 11, 2006
in Personal
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I swear I counted wrong. There’s no way I did a mile in 7:15. Not a chance. Never.

In middle school, I ran a 10 minute mile. I was pretty out of shape back then. I still remember almost DYING as I crossed the finish line. I still remember those poker chips we used to mark how many laps we did. Man, that sucked.

After doing the math (right as I am typing this entry), 50 second lap (which is what I know I can do) comes out to 7.30 minutes. Oh. Wow. I’m quite happy. And this is after running 1.5 miles on the Nautilus… thank goodness I’m getting to healthiness. At least, cardio-wise. I hope I don’t have some scary cholesterol numbers like some rabbit Emily I know, though. (Update on left bicep: after almost a week, it’s still in pain. I can’t fully extend my arm without pain. But alas, must continue this up to keep beating Colin.)

Regardless, I’m happy to see at least something’s working out. So onto the actual entry.

After 3.5 hours of constant work (yes, I work…), I was looking forward to a lonely but restful lunch. Instead, I met up with Mike Cho at the Union for some Rice Garden. Then the almost obligatory Espresso followed… Almond Winston’s Breakfast (no Earl Grey… sad) with honey. More and more, I’m finding out that there is not a single tea I don’t enjoy. No more Caramel Mochas for me.

This second job is going to be interesting. I feel like I will be able to write an entire paper on using open source technologies in educational institutions. The Banner/Enterprise system was always a piece of crap in my mind, as well many of the other students… and to think at least some percentage of the 60K I owe in student loans went into paying for that pisses me off. A group of underpaid CS undergrads could have came up with something at least equal to this.

Moodle. I will be diving into the depths tomorrow.

Grainger for Four Hours

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 10, 2006
in Personal
. Comments

It’s very fun. And cold. My goodness, it’s cold. I’m never studying on the 2nd floor again… why don’t they turn on the heater. Maybe it’s to keep the students alert and such.

Got Japanese, Hanja, and Ruby done for the day. I cannot believe the Internet is so slow. I think I’m going to hit up Siebel after my daily WIMPE run.

Dinner… what to do for dinner…

Work tonight. Then more work tomorrow. And then… yeah… you guessed it, more work.

Freelance is freeing. I’m free to do more WORK. Well, I guess, I’ll be occupied with lots of things to do.

A thinking Josh Kim isn’t going anywhere. Refocus. Reinvent.

Let’s see… anything good to share…

I got an email from my dad. It happened only a few times before, but my dad made it sound like it was the last one he was going to send. The exact contents will remain secret, but it’s mostly about (at least… what my poor Korean skills tell me) where I should be focused towards. He definitely pulled out some verses from Genesis and the tower of Babel to tell me something about staying here on campus… but we won’t get into that. In the end, though I got the point that to succeed in life, two things are most important: To not waste time, and to not be afraid of failures.

Hmm. Good. Convictions set forth again. Higher, wider, deeper goals are set. Time to go be more faithful in all I do.

Oh, and my dad can freaking write some awesome stuff. Too bad… I can’t read very well…

Foreign Languages…

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 10, 2006
in Foreign Languages
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This post basically launches off the category known as “Foreign Languages” here at JoshKim.Org. I hope to include things from Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and even… Latin. I really should put those 4 years of high school awesomeness to good use.

For some reason, I really feel like learning a new language has tremendous benefits. Something about the languages of choice originate from global superpowers (Japan… GDP 2nd next to US), to-be superpowers (China) or past superpowers (Latin = Rome. almost all of the known world at that time)… (Korean? I don’t know why I’m learning this, other than I’m Korean myself.)

Maybe there’s more to it than that. I look at Chinese scripts (which Hanja (Korean-ized Chinese)and Kanji (Japan-ified Chinese) come from), and see how much art and history is behind it. Alphabets look silly compared to it.

Obviously, English is like a bazillion times well suited for effective communication (No, I hate you, simplified… but I guess the world’s going to be moving towards it…), but something about the Chinese characters… stir something from within.

Maybe you the reader will take away from these random posts I make on the topic of foreign languages. I’ll basically use these posts as summary of what I’ve been learning. Also, I’ll be posting on the joys and frustrations of learning a new language… from my viewpoint. I guess I could try to be as non-biased as possible, but that’d only be kidding myself.

Well, onward!

Cool is the Best Korean Pop Band EVER* and Other “Cool” Things

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 10, 2006
in Personal
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*Josh Kim is opinionated. Extremely.

I mean, seriously. How can you go wrong with a name like “Cool”? Their music… almost always brings a quick smile to my face. I cannot help but to bob my head from left to the right, over and over again. I might possibly become coding music soon. It’s late/early, right? I think it has to do something with coffee consumption. 3 cups, to be exact. I never got into coffee in such a large way until this “semester”… I might have to get a coffee maker, if I ever move into a place.

I think it’s almost official. I’ll be on campus next “semester” (again, I use this word as if it has something to do with me… but it doesn’t). Now, it’s about finding a place to live. I guess this is the place to shout for help while I start looking through apartment listings or whatnot. Finding spring subleases are definitely easier than fall subleases… maybe I can piggyback off of someone’s room. Seriously, I have no stuff… I live out of a suitcase, and I’m fine.

One of the many goals I have for the rest of the year is to learn more Ruby. I tried to start learning again today, but I got sidetracked with people. I went to the lounge of ISR and met so many familiar faces… which helped me to realize that I’ve been neglecting some of these relationships. If “people” were one of my many reasons to stay there, I better make “people” a priority.

Okay, that was an interesting tangent. So back to this programming language called Ruby. [It's going to get nerdy from here, please skip if you're not a nerd] While JoshKim.Org will stay PHP… and I want to learn to program a little bit more modularly using the plug-in system with WordPress… I will learn Ruby for some initial experimental web applications. Lots of little ideas rolling around, and I should start fleshing them out.

Goals for this coming week and the rest of the year…

  • Hanja: Finish through 3rd grade.
    • Only a few pages left.
    • Finish the entire book by end of year.
  • Japanese: Keep going with the lessons.
    • Be able to read hiragana with no problem. ALMOST.
    • Start Katakana
    • By the end of the year: Be able to read all kana.
  • Quiet Times
    • Freak, I’m slacking.
    • Daily. Prayer. Sweetness.
  • Ruby
    • Learn as much Ruby and Rails as possible.
    • Write one coherent, fleshed out web application and put it on HanMeta.
  • PHP/Web Design
    • Freelance
      • Need to look for another client. Keep working for first one.
    • Work
      • Start work on Monday. Rock out.
    • WIG
      • This is top priority… after my work… or is it?
    • JoshKim.Org v. 1 will be complete
      • The main (no… not jkmain) page should be complete.
  • Blog
    • Need to find a better blogging software. Wordpress’s online interface isn’t good enough… need to be able to do things on the desktop.
    • Figure out what the heck this site is going to be about… if I keep writing about random crap online, will it work?
      • Have a link blog? Link to things I find interesting online?
      • I do blog at incredible speed…

The funny thing is, this really sums up my life. Minus “people”. I don’t know how to categorize such a wide field of things… yikes.