5 Long Years

Wow

2007-03-28T01:53:00.000-04:00

zomgs, Judy's engaged! Way to go Kelvin!

Pi Day

2007-03-14T13:59:00.000-04:00

Happy Pi Day! Note the time =).

Warmth

2007-03-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

Wow, it looks like my complaining about the weather has paid off. It's 68 degrees outside today. I see people out with shorts and a shirt. I think I'm going to leave lab early and enjoy this weather while I can.

Spring Break

2007-03-06T13:36:00.000-05:00

I went back home to California for spring break and it was great. Family, friends, food, and of course, Magic. And the weather was awesome. It started out cold and rainy, but it was sunny and warm by the time I left. I don't think I'll see that kind of weather in Michigan until May if I'm lucky. Right now it's 26 degrees in Ann Arbor, and 67 degrees in San Jose. Is it bad if I'm already counting the days before I go back?

Real Winter

2007-01-20T18:58:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I posted to this, so I figured now would be a good time. Also, Jarrod is away at ASPDAC in Japan presenting one of his papers, George is done with his Ph.D. and working at Lockheed Martin in Philidelphia, and Jin is out visiting George while her advisor is also away at ASPDAC, there's not much else to do.

So the new semester has started, and things aren't bad. The courses I'm taking are Cryptology, Intro to AI, and Microarchitecture. I'm mostly taking Cryptology to fulfill a degree requirement, but the content of the class is pretty interesting as well. So far it's been a lot on complexity classes, which reminds me of CS170. The homeworks we get are pretty tough, and that's a lot like CS170 as well. The good thing is that we can work on the homeworks in groups. The bad thing is that Kevin isn't here this time around to tell me all the answers.

I'm taking Intro to AI to fulfill another degree requirement. Unlike my other classes, Intro to AI is an undergrad level class, and it shows. We were talking about various puzzles in class, and my professor brings up Missionaries and Cannibals. To demonstrate how the puzzle worked, he had 6 students get up in front of the class to figure out the solution on the spot, and then act it out. What could have taken 5 minutes took about half an hour. Why am I waking up early for this class?

Microarchitecture is being taught by the same professor I took Parallel Computing Architectures with, Professor Austin. He's one of the most laid back professors I've ever had, which is both good and bad. It's good because there's not much work to do for that class, but it's also bad because I'm worried I won't learn much in this class, which kinda sucks because Microarchitecture is the only class I really care to learn anything about. The content of the class is geared towards modern computer architectures, with an emphasis on low power, reliability, and application specific designs. I think it should be pretty good.

The only other thing I really want to talk about is the weather. It is friggin' cold in Michigan, and after trudging through the snow for a week, I'm sick of it already. A few days back we even had an ice storm that left all the plants covered in ice that looked like a thin coating of glass. Yea, the snowy winter was novel for a while, but I am definitely missing that warm California weather now. I guess I'll be looking forward to that warm weather which won't be coming until, what, May?

Break

2006-11-26T19:25:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I've posted to this thing, and I feel like I should update this more regularly to keep myself on track. I've spent the past week at home for Thanksgiving, and seeing all my family and friends again has been really great. It's around 20 degrees warmer here than in Michigan and people here really are spoiled by it.

Something that's kinda been a wake up call to me is that everyone has been asking me about grad school. I mean it's been good, and I've met some really cool people, but I've been out for 3 months now and I feel like I don't have much to show for it. The classes are decent, but I feel like I'm just skimming paper after paper without actually learning anything. I suppose I should be responsible for my own learning now that I am a grad student, so maybe it's time I got serious about this stuff. But ever since I got back to school, the drive just isn't there.

I know that this little anxiety attack will pass shortly, but damn, I wish I could honestly say that grad school was the right thing to do. Right now I'm having trouble picturing myself staying in Michigan for 5 years.

Wii

2006-11-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning the Nintendo Wii came out, and I figured that since I was still on Michigan time I'd be able to hit up the stores early and try to pick one up. I woke up at 8, which I realize is 11 Michigan time, but I blame my roommate for ruining my sleeping schedule.

I drove out to the local Target to find a line of people waiting outside. I walk over to the end and the people there tell me they're the last to get Wiis, and they got there at 5:30. I try another Target, and walk inside to see them handing out the last of the Wiis, also sold out.

The Circuit City isn't far so I go there to find no one waiting outside, which is odd since they weren't open yet. I walk up to the door and see a sheet posted saying they opened at midnight and the Wiis are long gone.

Finally, I drive out to Best Buy, my absolute last chance of getting a Wii. There's a line outside, and no one knows for sure whether they're going to get a Wii or not because unlike Target, they didn't hand out tickets. I wait for a half hour and there's like 20 people in front of me when they tell the remaining crowd that they're sold out -_-.

But, the story doesn't end there. My former coworker Judy had camped out the night before with her boyfriend Kelvin, and they both got Wiis. Judy told me that she didn't really need a Wii since Kelvin had one, so I could buy hers off her. So props to her for letting me have it =).

I am now the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii. And my arms are sore.

Dark Day

2006-11-18T23:35:00.000-05:00

Today is a dark day for blue and gold.

USC beats Cal 23-9.
Ohio State beats Michigan 42-39.

And people wonder why I don't like red.

Pandora

2006-10-19T23:36:00.000-04:00

Today I got a chance to meet Tim Westergren, one of the founders and CEO of Pandora. If you've never heard of Pandora, you should check it out. It's kinda like Internet radio, but you can define the kind of music you end up hearing. Starting with a song of your choice, it plays a string of songs that have a similar sound and feel to the original. It's a really great way of discovering new music, and it's pretty much all I listen to these days.

Listening to Tim talk, I was really surprised to find out Pandora works. They've got this huge database of music they call the Music Genome Project, and they use it to group together similar songs. This database has over 100,000 songs, and the crazy part is, each and every one of them is categorized by hand. They've got a group of people with a good music theory background that just do nothing but listen to songs and fill out around 200 characteristics about them. He said that a person can usually finish a song in 20 minutes, so the amount of work that's gone into this thing is huge. I can't help but think there's some way you could build a computer program to do this analysis, but then I bet the analysis would be pretty crappy. Their whole process is pretty labor intensive, but the quality is top notch.

I'm also surprised by the whole legal aspect of Pandora. All they have to do to get new songs is to go out and buy the CDs. Then, they're free to put them up on Pandora. Apparently, this is perfectly legal under the DMCA, and anyone could do it. What they can't do is play a particular song on demand. They also can't rewind, and have restrictions on how often you can skip songs, and how often you can hear songs from a particular artist. I guess if you're able to do those things, then there's no need for you to buy music at all. They compare themselves to the radio, and are trying to put themselves out as a music recommendation service.

I think they've got a good idea going, but I'm just unsure about their financial future. I'm not sure how much ads will get them, and I don't know if it's a service people would subscribe to and pay for just yet. It reminds me of satellite radio. Sure, satellite radio has hundreds of channels and no commercials, while normal radio sucks ass with crappy stations and 10 minute long commercial breaks. But whether or not it's something I'd subscribe to... I dunno. For something like Pandora, the recommendations are great, but I'd like the ability to hear those new songs I like a few more times, just something to justify the fact that you'd be paying for it. Otherwise you'll forget what you heard, and end up with nothing.

Snow

2006-10-12T15:07:00.000-04:00

It's the middle of October, and it's snowing here in Ann Arbor. This is kinda cool since I haven't seen real snowfall in a while. This also sucks because it's freakin' cold outside and I have to walk home. I really need to get some winter clothes before I freeze to death.

Home

2006-10-01T20:36:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday night, I flew back to the bay area for the GSRC annual symposium. It was being held at the Wyndham hotel in San Jose, and I spent Thursday and Friday there listening to professors present their research. I also went to a student poster session, where I had to present a poster about research one of my advisors' other students had done. The whole conference was actually a little boring, and from talking to people that have been to it before, it seems to be more of a formality than anything else. Professors go to it just so they can keep getting funding from GSRC.

Still, it was a good chance for me to get used to presenting research, and it was also a good chance for me to meet grad students from other schools. I met some cool students from UIUC and the University of Washington. Thursday night I went out with them to Gordon Biersch, and met up with some of their friends that were working in the bay area. It turns out one of them is a grad student from Purdue, and he knows my cousin who went there to get his M.S. Isn't that random?

Friday afternoon I had time to go hang out with the folks at Xilinx. It just happened that Xilinx was having its Virtex5 release party that afternoon, so it was really good timing. I hadn't gotten around to telling all my old coworkers that I was coming back, so I got a lot of surprised faces when they saw me, which was fun. I even managed to pick myself a nifty V5 shirt, which pissed Judy off since she doesn't have hers yet and I don't even work there anymore.

That night I went with my Xilinx friends to eat pho at Dac Phuc. I was kinda craving it since I can't find good pho anywhere in Ann Arbor. The one place I tried had broth that tasted like water. But Dac Phuc is awesome, and it was as good as I remember. All of us really like that place, and I think the owner can even recognize us because we've been there so much.

Afterwards we went to Clarence's house to play Magic. I'm an addict, I know. I blame Mike and Judy for getting me back into it. At least I've decided I won't play constructed with my own cards since that gets really expensive. Draft and sealed are fun though, even if I'm not that good. When we were done, Judy gave me back home. Thanks Judy! Now you know how awful my commute was for the last 2 years.

Saturday I finally got around to getting a haircut. I hadn't had one since I left for Michigan, and my hair was pretty shaggy. I was just afraid the barbers in Ann Arbor wouldn't know how to cut Asian hair. Then I met up with Ben and John in Fremont and hung out for a while. We realized that Howard owns all the board games and ended up playing cards. We played a trick taking game called 99, and by the end of it all, I didn't win but I had taken 1 trick more on average than John or Ben. I wonder if Bridge has anything to do with it...

Whew. I can't believe I wrote so much, and if you're still reading this, congrats. It feels really good to be back home, and I can't believe it's only been a month since I left. The one thing I can complain about my trip is the weather. It's as if the cold weather followed me all the way from Michigan >_<.

Nerd Central

2006-09-23T22:24:00.000-04:00

I don't know how Mike talked me into it, but I ended up going to the Magic prelease today for the new Time Spiral set. I've gone with him, Judy, and Kelvin to a prerelease for Dissension, so it's not exactly something I've never done before. Still, I can't help but feel a little self conscious being at one of them after having seen the kind of people that go to those things. Nerd Central doesn't even begin to describe it.

Mike, Judy, and them were already set to go to the prerelease in San Jose, and had even gotten together a huge group of 8 people to go. Out here in Ann Arbor, I was expecting to be left out, and didn't particularly mind. Then Mike went and showed me there's a prerelease being held in Detroit a half hour away from me, and he had a friend at UMich who plays. Before I knew it, we were driving out there and then half my day is gone, spent playing Magic. What a way to go.

Iowa

2006-09-17T23:55:00.000-04:00

This weekend some of Jin's friends from Iowa came to visit. Jin's from Iowa, and went to high school with one of them. The rest are all former/current students at the University of Iowa. Apparently 4 of them decided this weekend was a good time to drive down to visit some people they knew at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. How they decided they had enough time for a 6 1/2 hour detour to Michigan on top of that is beyond me.

The 4 of them make quite a bunch: a computer science major working at John Deere, a linguistics major taking a year off before going to law school, a senior studying computer science, and a sophomore studying psychology. They all seem to get along pretty well, starting a pillow fight Saturday night that caused enough noise to make one of our neighbors pound on our door. They're also pretty hardy sleepers, since they had one sleeping bag and 2 pillows among the 4 of them, yet somehow managed to spend the night on our hardwood floor.

Some might think they're a little weird, and they wanted to know if they gave me a good impression of Iowa. What immediately comes to mind is 6 people crammed into one car, bubbles of personal space, and a game you're not supposed to think about. It was pretty fun having them around though... weird, but fun. So that's Iowa for you.

Going Home

2006-09-13T22:21:00.000-04:00

My advisors are busy people, so finding a time when they're free to talk is somewhat hard. I managed to catch Prof. Bertacco in her office today so I stopped by to ask questions about papers I was reading. She didn't have much time to answer my questions, but she did tell me about a conference she was preparing to go to. It turns out she's preparing to go to GSRC which is in San Jose at the end of September. She asked if I was interested in going, and I jumped on the opportunity. Who wouldn't say yes to a free trip home?

Just then my other advisor, Prof. Austin, walked in and asked if Prof Bertacco had finished a poster for the upcoming conference. She said she didn't know she had to make one, but came up with the idea that I should make the poster and speak at the student poster session. So I have to create a poster about research I have no idea about, and prepare enough so I don't sound like an idiot during the poster session. Not exactly a free trip home, but it's good enough. I thought I wouldn't be back before Thanksgiving, so it'll be nice to go back and spend some time with people from home.

Unproductive

2006-09-10T23:22:00.000-04:00

I can't believe the weekend is over. Now that classes have started and I've gotten a chance to meet with my advisors, I finally have some work to do. Then, the weekend rolls around and I end up barely doing any of the things I wanted to get done. Where did the time go?

I guess I can see why Saturday was unproductive. Jin's family friend Perry unexpectedly stopped by and took us out to eat. He did his undergrad at UMich, then took a few years off, and came back to get an M.S. We ate lunch downtown at a Japanese restaurant, then browsed around the local farmers market, and somehow ended up buying groceries at Meijer. I felt bad for dragging Perry around with us on errands, but he had a car and we had to take advantage of it =).

Afterwards, I played some tennis with some fellow grad students, which was both good and bad. It was good to get some exercise, but I'm horribly out of practice. I was using someone else's racquet, so at least I have an excuse... Then I made it back in time to get dinner with my neighbors Adam and Angie. They had invited us over for some pasta and salad, which was great. It turns out Adam and Angie like to play board games and brought a small collection of them with them to Ann Arbor, so we played some Cranium, Balderdash, and Guillotine. That basically took up the rest of the night, and before I knew it, Saturday was over.

Today I don't really have any excuses as to why I didn't get anything done. I told myself that I had stuff I needed to do, yet I somehow always found another distraction to keep me from doing it. I guess I'm too used to working, where I could do whatever I wanted on the weekends. I gotta find a way to switch gears and get myself back into school mode.

Back to School

2006-09-08T23:36:00.000-04:00

The first week of classes is over, and it went by a lot faster than I expected. I'm only taking 2 classes this semester: EECS 570 - Parallel Computing Architectures and EECS 578 - Computer-Aided Design Verification of Digital Systems. Both of these classes are high level graduate courses, and this will be the first time I've taken classes like these, so I'm not sure what to expect. So far all I know is that I'll be spending very little time in a classroom, since I only have 1 1/2 hours of lecture every day. That's a welcome change from my undergraduate days, but I guess it doesn't mean I'll be spending any less time at school.

I've been getting everything squared away for my office, where I'll probably spend most of my time slaving away for the next 5 years. I share the room with 3 of my advisor's other students. All of them are older than me, in their 3rd and 4th years toward getting a Ph.D. They're all nice people, and I'm sure I'll get to know them better since we'll be spending a lot of quality time together in that office. Since I don't have much to do yet, I haven't spent much time in the office, but pretty much everyone is there whenever I stop by. If that's any indication of the amount of time I'll be spending there, I might as well just pack my bags and move in.

Last Day of Freedom

2006-09-04T23:29:00.000-04:00

So this is it... my last day of freedom from responsibility. This past weekend has been both relaxing and uneventful. However, I did meet up with John, a CSE grad student who's really into board games. Jin and I invited him and his fiancee over, along with Merrick, and the 5 of us got together at my place to play some games. We played some Boggle, which Jin is just too good at, as well as some card games that were new to me, Qwitch and Mille Bornes. John also brought Illuminati, but after telling us that a short game would take 2 hours, we decided to hold off on that for another time. The new games were nothing great, but it was good just to hang out.

Jin also got me hooked on bridge. We started playing one night, just the 2 of us, even though the game is meant for 4 players. We'd go through the initial hands and she'd help me with the bidding, and then one person would play offense while the other person played both sides of the defense. I hate to admit it, but it's a lot more sophisticated than I thought it would be, and it was pretty fun. That night we played until 2:30 AM, and even then we had to tear ourselves away from the cards.

Once school starts, I'm not sure if I'll still have time to do this kind of stuff. It's time to switch gears though, and I've got to see if I can still handle school after having been out for so long.

Orientation

2006-08-30T22:29:00.000-04:00

Today was the College of Engineering Open House. I've been pretty excited about it, not really because I have too many questions about grad school, but because I've been wanting to get out and meet some of my fellow grad students. I have to admit that UMich is a pretty big school, since the new engineering grad students alone filled up the entire auditorium that we were in. There were also tons of international students, especially from China and India, but I guess I should have expected that.

I got the impression that all the grad students there were really stressed out, even though classes haven't even started. During various Q&A sessions, everyone kept asking about how to find funding, how to find an advisor, how to get an internship, how much time to spend in lab on research, how many classes to take... The whole thing was starting to worry me until my housemate Jin asked a grad student panel the only nonacademic question of the day: What do you guys do for fun around here? The whole panel answered the question one by one, and at least half of them told us about their favorite bar. I guess I should have expected that as well.

All in all, the day was pretty fun. I met most of the new grad students in my department, and they all seem pretty cool. Now I just have to meet with my advisors, but they're both out until classes start next week...

My Housemate

2006-08-29T22:36:00.000-04:00

My housemate Jin came back today. She had originally moved in before me, but then flew out to visit a friend in Sacramento, and didn't return until now. And yes, she's a she.

I met her at the University of Michigan Computer Science and Engineering Open House back in March. It was an event for prospective graduate students to go meet the faculty and see the school. We were some of the few CSE students interested in hardware, and got grouped together in the beginning and kinda stayed together throughout the open house. She was easy going and fun to talk to, and I found out she really liked Kirby, the pink fluff ball from various Nintendo games, and bridge, a card game I thought only old women played. I even happened to meet up with her again when we were both visiting the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since then, we've kept in touch, and when we found out we were both going to Michigan, we both came up with the idea of living together.

I'm happy that she's back since the place is a bit empty with me here by myself, and I haven't really gotten the chance to meet anyone else yet. I'm hoping that will change tomorrow though, when I go to the College of Engineering Open House.

Moving In

2006-08-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

Today will be the first night that I'm spending at my new place. It originally came unfurnished, so my parents and I ran around Ann Arbor and the neighboring cities to grab all the things I'll need for my new place. I swear the local Ikea must have made some kind of deal with the University of Michigan to keep its housing unfurnished. I spent over $700 there alone just so I have a place to sleep and work. At least my room is now full of sleek new Swedish furniture.

The place itself isn't too shabby. It's built like a 2-story townhouse, with a kitchen and dining area/living room space on the first floor, and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. The whole place is lined with hardwood floors which are actually kinda nice. It even comes with a basement, which is something I haven't really seen since I lived in Illinois, but it's concrete and as dirty as I remember them to be. The only really annoying thing about my place is its location. It's kinda far from everything, and the entire North Campus of UMich where the engineering buildings are is pretty sparse. Downtown Ann Arbor is really nice though, so I guess what I'll have to do is befriend someone with a car...

The First Step

2006-08-27T22:08:00.000-04:00

Hi, my name's Jeff, and I'm a Ph.D. student studying Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. I've just started my degree, and I figured I should do someting to document this 5 year journey. That, and I totally copied my friend Howard =).

I've got all kinds of mixed feelings about pursuing a Ph.D. A part of me is happy to have quit my old job. A part of me is excited to begin a new chapter of my life. A part of me is nervous about how I'll fend for myself, and whether I'll make new friends. And a part of me is worried that I'll never finish the Ph.D.

Well I've just flown into Michigan yesterday, so here's hoping that the first step is the hardest.