Happy New Year, folks
This is a short video clip about San Diego SeaWorld, enjoy ~
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Christmas Day at Balboa Park
Hey folks,
Hope you all have a wonderful Holiday this weekend, whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Traditionally, X’mas is the birthday of Jesus (well, actually Jesus was born during summer in some year BCE, I believe. What we now call Christmas was originally some pagan holiday to celebrate the winter solstice. Then the apostles of Jesus though it was a good idea to celebrate their master’s birthday on this festival…, anyway, I digress…)
Well, American family usually hang out together on Christmas night to enjoy dinner, and of course celebrate the birth of the Savior (no religion flame here, plz. This is history!) And how they celebrate the night? By intoxicating themselves with an excessive amount of eggnog, mixed with an intense concentration of alcohol. Then in the next morning, they hang over from last party, duh. (Well, sometimes they also go to church around midnight, then party, then crash around 4-5 in the morning…)
However, it is not the case for Azn ppl. First of all, I believe that Azn do not drink alcohol like water (fact check, plz), and I also think Azn have lower alcohol tolerance than Wht folks. Therefore, on Christmas morning, Azn go around the town, visiting parks, shopping at supermarket, or eating at restaurants (all run by Azn of course).
And in San Diego, the most famous park should be Balboa Park, located right next to the San Diego Zoo.
As expected, the park that Christmas morning was dominated by Azn, senior ppl, and dogs.
That morning, you could still see some left-over trace of the last night party.
There are also some museum around the park
A nother attraction to the park is the “Blk Forest” or at least what ppl usually call. In there, u can spend the whole they looking at trees, rocks, and chasing squirrel around…
of course, they also have a pond filled with fish in the middle of the park
Well, thats it for my Christmas day. Tune in later for pictures about San Diego Sea World.
May the Force be with you all
Weekend’s Great News
Hey folks,
There are a lot of good stuff happen this weekend. First lets talk about the Problem of the Fortnight. Once again, I, with my supreme intelligence (mwahaha), win the “most elegant” prize for that little competition again. Strangely, this time, there is a tie for the “most elegant” place: me and another guy from Imperial Valley Campus, an extension of SDSU. Now with that, I can grab the other book about Operation Research that I spotted the other day amongst all the prize for the competition. And with the last problem, Problem of the Fortnight also goes to hibernating period until the Spring Semester.
Now lets talk about football: the San Diego Chargers just had a wonderful victory against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals, regardless of their terrible loss recently (one of their players, wide-receiver Chris Henry, passed away this Thursday in a car accident), managed to put up a good game against the Chargers. The game was thrilling with a tie 24-24 until the very last seconds. During the last play, Phillip Rivers, Chargers’ Quarterback (pic), performed a wonderful drive of about 50 yards in less than 1 minute left. The game ended with a Chargers’ field goal, setting the final score 27-24, Chargers wins.
With that win, together with their opponent’s (Denver Broncos) loss earlier today to the Oakland Raiders (19-20), San Diego Chargers (11 wins – 3 loses) officially get in the play-off. In fact, they are ranking 1st in their division (AFC West) and 2nd in the whole American Football Conference (AFC) (after the Indianapolis Colts with 14 wins – 0 loses).
Furthermore, the Chargers still remain INDOMITABLE during December with 17 consecutive wins in December since 2006. Very good news for Chargers fans, indeed.
Now lets talk about movie. Recently, most of the country is talking about Avatar: The Game, some action sci-fi movie with some RPG gaming elements blended in. Check out the trailer of the movie
However, Avatar is not the movie I’m waiting for. As a big fan of detective novels, and movie show, I’m looking forward to the premiere of Sherlock Holmes, released next Friday – Xmas day. And because of the greatness of Mr.Holmes, I’d like to dedicate a whole tomorrow entry talking about the greatest detective in novel and the upcoming movie.
Anyway, thats it for today.Enjoy the Holiday, folks.
May the Force be with you.
Holiday Greetings
Hey folks,
As of today, the final exam session at SDSU is officially over. There was very few ppl wandering around in campus this morning, almost all the buildings and facilities were close (food court, Starbuck, and even the restroom…). SDSU campus now enter the hibernation period until the 20th of next month.
Clearly, its now also time to worry about the coming holidays as ppl are buying stuffs for the holiday, such as gifts, new ultilies… For about 50% of ppl, the shopping season has started since the last holiday, Thanksgiving; while to the other half, which are commonly known as men, the shopping season will start from tomorrow, 1 week before Xmas… ^.^
And then there will be the card-sending procedure… in which one must send a whole bunch of season greeting cards (filled with the SAME words year by year) to one’s family and friends, and expect the other party do do the exact same thing.
Anyway, this is the season greeting card I receive from SDSU. Very nice, indeed. Thank you, SDSU, for your warm wishing and I also wish you the same thing…
Now this is another season greeting I picked up from some random places on the net last year, and I think its a good idea to post it here (they are cute and come with different flavors) except its for 2009 
Now, there is some more random stuff. This afternoon I got bored (well, I always get bored easily), and thus I decided to do something fun: making food, haha. I took the ingredients leftover from last night, mixed together and rolled them into some fresh spring rolls, Vietnamese style, of course. Now, have a look at my grandeur art, MWAHAHAHA
Oh yeah, and some candy arranging….
They all look good, of course….
Well, thats it for tonight then. May the Force be with you.
Ten Commandments
Hey folks,
Its almost Christmas, the biggest holiday in Christianity, and I think this should be a perfect chance to talk about the history of the religion, as well as all the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). Under the guidance of the God, the three religions all want to direct ppl toward good deeds, worshiping God… and in order to do such task, they all agree on the common code of moral conduct which is known as the 10 Commandments (a.k.a. Decalogue)
Oh yeah, this is the original version, which I clearly have no idea of what is being written (but I do know the contend of the 10 Commandments though). The code was bestowed upon Moses and the ppl of Israel by The Lord himself on Mount Sinai
But thats enough about religion, lets talk about Math. Well, as some expect, Mathematicians also have their own code of moral conduct, which serves as the guideline for them on their process of learning the Truth.
And this is the tale in the Math Bible…
And God said, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of arithmetic algebra, out of the land of Euclidean geometry:
Thou shalt not divide by zero.
Thou shalt not put other textbooks before thee in math class.
Thou shalt show thy work; check thy work and confirm that thy results are reasonable.
Remember thy test days and prepare for them wholly.
Thou shalt honor the correct order of operations.
Thou shalt not do thy math homework in ink.
Thou shalt commit the facts of arithmetic to memory.
Thou shalt do unto one side of an equation what thou doest to the other.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy original problems; thou shalt copy thy problems accurately and legibly.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s paper, not anything that is thy neighbor’s.”
When the people saw the derivatives and geometric constructions and heard the Linear Algebra students’ torment, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Leibniz, “Speak to us yourself and we shall listen. But do not have the creator of Mathematics speak to us, lest the vast amount of information expand our minds so greatly such that our heads shall explode.”
Hmm, thats good to know. Hope you all enjoy the little tale before bedtime.
And may the Truth be with you.
Winter Holiday
Hey folks,
Before, when I was in Vietnam, I, as well as a lot of Azn ppl simply use “Merry Christmas” as a way to great each other for the holiday. Well, that may be true for some Azn countries where there are only have 1 or 2 main religion, and somehow the country adopt Christianity as a major religion.
In the U.S., things dont work that way. Thanks to the First Amendment, freedom of speech and religion, there are more than 9,000 religions in America, worshipping more than 9,000 kinds of gods, deities, spiritual figures… Around the time of Xmas, there is also an important Jewish holiday called Hanukkah, Festival of Lights, to celebrate an important Jewish revolution in the past. In December, there is also Kwanzaa, which is an African holiday that I have no idea what its about… Told ya, there over 9,000 holidays, haha…
Therefore, to avoid unnecessary argument, Americans now begin to shift to using “Happy Holiday” instead of the traditional saying “Merry Christmas.” Clearly, you dont want to give a holiday greeting card with a Xmas tree and the line “Merry Christmas” to a Jewish person.
Well, and while we are on the topic, I’d to show how ppl around the world say Happy Holiday…
Well, thats it for the Winter Holiday. Tune in later for a religious lecture about the 10 Commandments of Math, haha
May the Winter Spirit be with you.
Christmas Carol
Hey folks,
Its December already which means that the Winter Holiday is coming. When I was a child, Mom and Dad used to trick me that if I behave, Santa Clause will have a present for me. So far, I remember having a toy tank for, a picture book when I was a kid,… Then after I got to Middle School, Santa gave me a girlfriend on Christmas ^.^, only to take her away from me during my High School time…, also around X-mas, as I recall…
In short, I hate Christmas!!! The Holiday usually associates with some of my bad memory… And to any of you who still believe in Santa, SANTA IS NOT REAL. If you do believe in Santa Clause, please get a life, its for your own good…
Enough about the biker Santa, anyway, The Winter Holiday is also an occasion for family to get together. If for some reason, your family have a piano, or any other types of instrument, placed in the middle of the living room, and if you some reason, your cousins all now how to play instruments, you will then need to know at least one or two Christmas Carol to perform to the family… Well, not to show of your skillz, but to avoid embrassing yourselve before the cousins. Amongst the Christmas carols, the simplest ones should be “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bell.” Now in this entry, let’s learn how to play those songs…
First is “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” for the music sheet of the song, go to tis website: http://www.8notes.com/scores/530.asp, I also have the sheet downloaded right here
If you click “Play” on the website, it will play the song for you, pretty neat, I think. If you are music-challenge, and have no clue how to read a music sheet, worry not, there are tutorial videos from Youtube.
Well, its slightly different from the one in the sheet, but the guy is pretty good at tutoring.
Next is “Jingle Bell,” which is easier, IMO
This is a good one which teaches you how to play the right-hand, and yeah, just follow the letter on the screen. Unfortunately, the dont show your the left-hand chord…
A better tutorial version
Just follow those and I think you will be good ^.^
Well, thats it for the Christmas Carol… Should I talk about Hanukkah next???
Anyway, may the Force be with you, and please stop believing in Santa, seriously.
Last Week Review
Hey folks,
Last week, I had some lively chat with a guy named Jingle (at least thats his IGN, dunno what the IRL name is). That guy moved to the U.S. a couple of years ago, now having a degree in Math Education, teaching Math to college students. IMO, the guy has some sense of poetry since I saw several poem on his entries. Check out his verse about Math
“Math is cool, If you know the rule;
Math is fun, If you are its fan;
Math is cool, Isn’t true?!
I love math, How about you?”
Check out his blog: http://jingleyanqiu.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/i-love-math-how-about-you/
Good job, Jingle. Nice to know you. Hope you will have more topic on Math.
Now, it’s time to talk about ME. Last week, my solution was selected as the most elegant solution for the Problem of the Fortnight challenge. Check out the proof of my superiority, MWAHAHA: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~psalamon/ProblemOfTheFortnight/POF.htm
I got a T-shirt, same as the old one, and of course a book ^.^ Sadly, they dont have any manga or comic book to offer, and even worse, most of the books are old and used.The good thing is, those books contain “ancient knowledge” and “valuable experience” from the previous owner (a.k.a. my professor ^.^ – Professor Peter Salamon)
As you can see, Mr. Salamon also fits perfectly the image of a Mathematician (refer to the previous post about Mr. Brock for the description on the category)
In the end, I picked this book about Operations Research, interesting topic…
Anyway, now have a look at the current problem:
Consider a square with a positive integer at each vertex subject to the dynamics obtained by iterating
(1) assign each edge the absolute value of the difference of the numbers on the adjacent vertices
(2) erase the numbers at the vertices and replace them with the edge values.
Example:
Well, what can I say, another easy problem which I killed it in 5 mins. MWAHAHA. Seriously, they should chance the name of the challenge from “Problem of the Fortnight” into “Problem of the 5 to 10 minutes”. Fear my superiority,MWAHAHA
Now lets talk about the Putnam challenge, there were totally 3 representatives for SDSU who showed up last Saturday. Sadly, one of them got freaked out at the test and flee in the middle. The others two didnt look very optimistic. So, good luck competing with the folks from the Ive League. Oh wait, they are ways out of your league. Mwahaha
I guess thats it for this post. Winter Holiday is coming, and I think I should dedicate a couple of post on this topic. So tune in later for more fun stuff on the holiday.
May the Force be with you.
My Favorite Professor
Hey folks,
Now that the deadline for registration for freshmen & transfer students IN THE U.S. is officially over. For student outside the country, you still have time until the end of February to register and pay the $55 fee. Then you have until March to finish all your paperwork. However, I strongly recommend you finish your application + paperwork ASAP, since the sooner you complete your stuff, the faster you will know the decision, and in some rare cases (when there is limited space, students with the same GPA…), the priority goes to whoever finish their stuff first.
Furthermore, the final are creeping toward. To be precise, in SDSU, we only have 1 more week for lecture, and the last week will be reserved for the final. In most of the class, the final usually takes 30-40% of the total grade, so it can be quite a deciding factor for one grade for the class. I believe that a majority of students have been forming study group to deal with their final. (Well, if u are good enough, u can do stuff pretty much on your own… Only the weaklings flock togather. Regardless, FRIENDS ARE GOOD TO HAVE, and although I may sound like a jerk, I DO RESPECT ALL MY FRIENDS)
Enough about the test and other stuff, lets talk about some interesting stuff for now. It has been a whole semester, and yet I haven’t introduce any of my professor. To be honest, ALL of my professors are excellent, and really know their stuff well (How could they survive here in SDSU if they were suck). Each of them has their own interesting characteristic. One professor tends to speak uber-fast, and always considers that u already know the structure of the lecture, and that the material is trivial, so students can deal with them on their own. Another one makes students work in groups and gives out insane amount of HW (easy but time-consuming)…
However, amongst them, my favorite teacher is my Calculus teacher, Professor Paul Brock
Judging from his portrait, Dr. Brock fits perfectly the description of a typical Mathematician: white male with big beard and a lot of gray hair… (My mom commented that he does look like Santa Clause…). For his class, Mr. Brock always comes to class with a perfect preparation for his lecture, and thus makes all the problem clear to student w/o any serious mistake. He is also the advisor for Math major, which means if you want to graduate with a Math degree, you certainly must see him at least once in during your time here. In addition, he teaches most of the important Calculus classes, and Math is nothing without Calculus, haha.
Professor Brock also has a good sense of humor, as he usually makes joke during class to provide some kind of relieve for the class. Yet most the students either feel overwhelmed by the material or don’t understand the jokes, and thus his jokes usually are underappreciated. That’s very sad! To be honest, Mr. Brock is the only teacher I know ever compares doing integral with killing wild animal (the guy must be a good friend of Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney, as they usually go hunting together. While Palin uses sniper gun headshot the dear w/o even seeing it, and Cheney uses torture devices to trap the deer, Mr. Brock uses a tank to shoot the poor animal into piece. MWAHAHAHAHA).
Anyway, lets end this entry with a quote from Dr. Brock: “W’HELL, IT’S LIKE KILLING A DEER WITH A TANK! BWAAAHaHAHAHAaaaa… HeeHeeHeee…”
Remember folks, dont run into Brock, Cheney, and Palin while they go hunting, or else you will end up being the next deer, MWAHAHA.
Sarah Palin – “Going Rogue”
Hey folks,
Let’s talk about something serious for a while. Right now in America, people are discussing the newly released memoir of Sarah Palin, ex-governor of Alaska and vice presidential nominee for the 2008 election. Therefore, I think it’d be wise to have an entry dedicated to the introduction of Mrs. Palin, as well as some brief review of her book. So, there we go…
*****
In 2006, Sarah Palin, a Republican politician, defeated the incumbent Governor of Alaska, and thus became Alaska’s first female governor as well as the youngest governor in the history of Alaska, at the age of 42. However, on the national scale, not many people know or even hear about this lady until the recent Presidential Election last year. September 2008, Palin was selected as the running mate for Senator John McCain, making her the vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party. Her speech at the Republican National Convention then made her the most recognizable women in the world; hence her career in the political stage has begun to escalate, soaring from the governor of a piece of land in the corner of the country to the central of many praises and criticisms.
Mrs. Palin refers to herself as a typical American women, a working mom, wife of a blue-collar union man, and mother of five with her eldest son serves the country for a year in Iraq. Throughout her years as the governor of Alaska, she has contributed several reforms to the state in the field of environment, ethic, and education. Recently, Palin resigns as the governor of Alaska, and as many people spectate, the ex-govermor is now moving one huge step ahead, aiming for the next Presidental Election in 2012.
Recently, Sarah Palin releases her memoir, titled “Going Rogue,” and the book quickly becomes the central of attention national-wise. The memoir ends up as oe of the most-selling books in many online bookstore, such as Amazon.com, and its author, Mrs.Palin, also becomes the guess, talking about her new book on many famous talkshows , especially Oprah Winfrey’s.
According to the product description, in her book, Palin mostly mentions about her life of “growing up in the wilds of Alaska; meeting her lifelong love; her decision to enter politics; the importance of faith and family; and the unique joys and trials of life as a high-profile working mother.” The author also briefly provides her opinion on politics as she “opens up for the first time about the 2008 presidential race, providing a rare, mom’s-eye view of high-stakes national politics—from patriots dedicated to ‘Country First’ to slick politicos bent on winning at any cost” (Product Description)
There are many reviews on the book, some of them even claim that through her book, Mrs. Palin “emerges as a new style of feminist” and “Going Rogue has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto, the requisite autobiography of the future candidate” (Melanie Kirkpatrict, Wall Street Journal).
*****
Wow, it looks like an in-class essay… and its been a while since I last wrote a proper essay. This should be a good practice for my future essay writing tasks, which I deeply disdain (>.<). That should be sufficient for the brief review of the book.
Strangely, there is still no update on the last “Problem of the Fortnight” result. I now begin to wonder if I made a trivial mistake in my solution (which has a very small chance of occurrence), and that no one (in the whole SDSU school), that have enough Math skill to provide a correct answer for that petty question, given that I made a stupid mistake in my solution.
Btw, today is Thursday, which means the musical weekly performance at the campus main square. Every week, on Thursday, the school hires some random band to perform in the main square. Sadly, not many students are attracted to this event, and the band they invite are usually mediocre at most. Tomorrow I will have a test on Abstract Algebra, which I hate – thats the branch I hate the most in Math (yet strangely my grade for the class until now is still around 98% mwahaha – even higher than that for Calculus, weird). Then right after the test, I will have some bowling game with the folks in the Math club, just to shrug off the stress (not for me though ^.^)
Ok, thats it for this post. Lemme look for some more fun stuff, probably the pictures on the band, if they are worthy, or of my playing bowling…
Until then, may the Force be with you.
