Just to let you know, I am in the process of revamping my website. I have created a new blog from scratch. (Scratch meaning good, old-fahsioned PHP + MYSQL coding.)

Moveable Type, it's been fun. See you around.

Yeah... maybe I'm the only one who thought that was cool.

Independence Air has a link to the audio clip. (requires Windows Media Player)

This past Saturday:
Waterlooplein -> Centraal Station -> AMS -> EWR -> DCA

Tomorrow:
BWI -> BNA

* The flight from Nashville to Newark was on the smallest airplane I've ever been on. Except for that one time when I was flying a crop duster over a stone quarry. Oh wait. That was a dream.

A list of some of the things I learned while in Amsterdam. That is, the non AIED stuff. That's for another time.

• Being alone in a wonderful foreign city is exciting for the first 4 or 5 hours. Then you get lonely. Actually, I think it's more like you get hungry, and then you go someplace to eat by yourself, and then you get lonely.
• Sneltram means subway. At first, I thought it was the name of the stop. I kept thinking... this is the biggest metro station ever. It spans about 10 blocks!
• You have to pay extra for ketchup.
• Bicycles are cool.
• Having 7 modes of transportation in a city is even cooler.
• Chinese people speaking Dutch is uber-cool

[click above for the complete picture set on flickr]

--

Dentist: What are you studying in grad school?
Jason: Computer science.
[Dentist looks at Jason's teeth]
Dentist: Ah. So you can make lots of money later to fix these teeth.
Jason: ...

In other news, I am finally a card-carrying grad student. I've been sneaking around all last year still wielding my undergraduate ID. I was walking around campus today, and decided this has gone on long enough! So I stopped by the card office. Luckily, I just beat the SAOP rush. The lady didn't let me take a new picture, so there's my picture from freshman year. Well, at least I have the (G) now.

And, I just realized I left my earbuds in Maryland over the weekend. I never thought I'd say this, being skeptical of how good these ubiquitous and overpriced earbuds are, but I miss them. Thanks for showing me the light, Matt.

I'm in LA! How crazy is that? I'm here for the Games in Education conference.

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. But you can always keep up with my latest photo happenings at my flickr site. Speaking of flickr, I just uploaded some pictures from the conference, along with some pictures I took of E3 expo banners, and such that they were putting up today. (See Fig. 1)

Figure 1. Now cloudy skies are coverin' the blue.

After the conference, we went to Marina del Rey, as shown in Fig. 2. Not so much open air, but we were on highway one. Had dinner at El Torito! It was just a little bull.

Figure 2. Sunlight dances with the distance.

The Engineering School just sent out an email informing us that they are going to be closing down the ICLs (computer labs) on the first floor of FGH, since all the undergrads now have their overpriced engineering laptops. It got me thinking of the old ICLs, back in the Jacobs Hall days. Spent many a late night there programming or writing papers. It seems like ages ago. The ICL used to be across the hall from Karen Dolan's office.

Also, the course bulletins came out this week. This is the 11th Vanderbilt course bulletin I have seen.

I was taking a course senior year. One of the grad students in the class that semester was finishing her Master's degree, and was starting into the Ph.D program. She had gone to Vanderbilt as an undergradudate. I remember thinking... ha! who would ever do that?!

Speaking of nostalgia, I recently realized that warm soda reminds me of high school pit orchestra.

I'd better finish this up. I'm getting pollen all over my laptop.

I'll leave you with a picture of a bird that decided to make its nest in my self-declared outside office.

I hope you are smiling too.

Two random excerpts from today that probably aren't blog worthy:
[my bass feels seaworthy]

• Why I'm glad my office isn't in ISIS:
  


• You know you're in a room full of Computer Science grad students when someone's phone goes off in the middle of a seminar, and the ringtone is the Lord of the Rings theme song.

And, in case you never visit the homepage of this site:

[seven random images from my flickr account]
sign up for flickr! it's so cool, but i only have 1 friend on it :-(

Which brings me to point number 1: I've been really good at starting things and not finishing them lately. Like unpacking, putting up a new shower curtain, cleaning my bathroom, writing a paper, etc. I think this point was going somewhere.. but. Umm... I'll think about it later.

How's the Ph.D. life, you ask? It's been pretty good so far. Been really busy, but not too bad, I suppose. My new office is in FGH 314, if anyone cares to stop by. I used to think that the hall leading down to our office was just a dead end or an emergency exit. But lo and behold, here we are.

Pictures? Hmm... I have a grand total of five pictures taken in the year 2005. (You'd think since my camera fits inside an Altoids tin, I would have it with me more often.) Here are two:

Apparently that's what we old people do for fun now. Make bananas foster and play Mah Jong.

Some cool stuff to check out online:

• flickr.com (and some of my pictures are here)
• Windows XP "PowerToys"
• And of course, if you haven't already, check out all the new stuff at Apple!

Well, since I had a point #1 above, I guess I should at least have a second point.

Point #2: There comes a time in every man's life, when he finds himself going out to buy a toilet rug to put in the bathroom. And then he plays some Mah Jong, and feels old.

*edit - half an hour later. perhaps this can be Point #3*
I'm listening to Howie Day's Stop All The World Now album... special edition! I was pretty excited - four bonus tracks! And then I was just thinking about it... aren't "bonus tracks" really just the mediocre songs that didn't make the cut the first time around? Oh well.

Recent happenings over the last couple weeks:

• Moved into the new place with Steven
• Barely finished the ILE project
• Just checked my grades - passed all my classes... I suppose I now have a Master's degree!
• Flew home

Hmm.. I guess that was the big picture. It seemed a lot crazier than that, but here I am in MD now :-D

Taken from my old website:    

Bah!

Schedule for next semester:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Schedule of courses SPRING 2005 REGISTRATION 15:02 12/23/04 | | Tan, Jason Wei-Kang {GS - GM } | | | |Enrlmnt Crs Meeting | |Status Num Sec Title Hrs Days Start Stop Room | | | |Enl PSY 232 01 Mind and Brain 3.0 MW 16:10 17:25 WH 115| |Enl CS 362 01 Machine Learning 3.0 MWF 15:10 16:00 FGH 129| |Enl CS 399 01 Ph D Dissertation Rsch 3.0 TBA TBA | | Total hours: < 9.0> | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I can't remember the last time that I actually had to walk straight from one building to another to go from one class to the next! Ahh... Wilson Hall. How I have missed you and your monkey-infested basement.

Oh! Some pictures:

Goodbye, old apartment
 

Goodbye, FGH 236 office
 

Hello, new apartment!
 

Some pictures are up in the gallery. And the video is up on our website here.

Trying to make it through to the end of the semester... see ya around!

Wait. That's how I started off the last entry.

Actually, I'm not really sorry. I take that back.

And this isn't even a real entry, just a shameless plug:

Vanderbilt Show Choir concert
This Tuesday, 8pm, Sarratt Cinema.
Tickets on the wall for $2.  Also $2 at the door, I believe.
Featuring:

• Variations
• The Vanderbilt Juggling and Physical Arts Club
• Swinging Dores
• Max Beizer
• Vandy Taal
• The Dodecs

I'll probably have more time to post pictures and such over Thanksgiving break. Off to pack, and then to the airport!