sometimes i feel ive got to
run away ive got to
get away
from the pain that you drive into the heart of me
the love we share
seems to go nowhere
ive lost my lights
i toss and turn i cant sleep at night
once i ran to you (i ran)
now ill run from you
this tainted love youve given
i give you all a boy could give you
take my tears and that's not nearly all
tainted love
tainted love
now i know ive got to
run away ive got to
get away
you dont really want any more from me
to make things right
you need someone to hold you tight
you think love is to pray
but im sorry i don't pray that way
once i ran to you (i ran)
now ill run from you
this tainted love youve given
i give you all a boy could give you
take my tears and that's not nearly all
tainted love
tainted love
dont touch me please
i cannot stand the way you tease
i love you though you hurt me so
now im going to pack my things and go
touch me baby, tainted love
touch me baby, tainted love
touch me baby, tainted love
once i ran to you (i ran)
now ill run from you
this tainted love youve given
i give you all a boy could give you
take my tears and thats not nearly all
tainted love
tainted love
tainted love

so the other day we went to hang out in the mall. i bought . . . nothing, darn, i thought i bought something, but i didnt. as we were walking into the mall, this weird desi guy kept staring at me, like i had spinach or something hideous stuck in my teeth. a while later, we were standing and talking in front of the brooks brothers store when this guy walked into the middle of our group, looked at my friend and said something to the extent of "sweet candy" i dont recall, he then did a little . . . dance, movement thing, and left. afterwards we all looked at each other and went "whaaat . . . was that?" was a mighty strange day. ive counted three bmw m3s, one bmw 740 and one bmw 745il. strange day.

i finally got to see donnie darko! its such a good film. makes you think.

sleepy, coke not keeping me awake.

i think ill burn some more mds. i leave for bdesh next saturday. see ya!

07.20.2002
14.14 gmt -05.00

marilyn manson
tainted love

happy birthday mellissa! we went and saw fireworks today and lenox mall, it was sooo niiice! they had big ones! and small ones! and glittery ones! the ending was outstanding. lots of fireworks, lots of very large booms which you can feel buffeting you, lots of fun! wish you could've seen it, would've enjoyed it much methinks. there was a piece that fell into the crowd and started a small fire, but it was no biggy. we went to the mall around five or so, and i went to get my watch fixed (the band was too big, i bought this watch a year and a few months ago and have just now . . . got it resized). the lady at torneau (very very classy watch store at the mall) said this was the craziest watch she had ever seen. i asked how long it would've taken her, she said ten minutes, but it ended up being about twenty or so. the watch is a swatch irony that's made of aluminum (and me being Æ, bought it :)). the band it self is a stretchy plastic band, with an aluminum exoskeleton. looks really cool and is extremely light. my wrists are so teeny! you'll see. so yeah. i'm happy! we took marta over, and then hung around the mall for a looong time, got some food and camped outside in the parking lot. the fireworks were coming from the parking deck just in front of us, so we got a very nice view. we were so close to them! there were a lot of people there today. we saw some Ærial shots on the big screens they had around the mall and it was jam packed! it was also a very muggy and warm day, and i was wearing a black shirt and full khakis. luckily i don't sweat much. the show began around nine o'clock or so, and everyone began to count down, and at zero, all the lights in the area went out and the fireworks began. the cool thing, was too watch the reflection of the fireworks in all the tall glass office buildings around us, was very impressive. afterwards we were walking to the the marta station and i noticed that the area smelled heavily of sulfur, looking around i saw the place was littered with hundreds of firework shell fragments! so i picked up a few, some had writing on them and one piece i got was a multilayered plastic looking thing. really cool. so we got home, and i just remembered i have school tomorrow (suck) and my dad's coming tomorrow so i have to get my laundry done and such. so i'm off to sleep! here are the pictures (my friend saud took them with his digital camera)! enjoy!

teeny wrists!


soap bubble in my hair.


sunny pose.


bushy eyebrows!

07.05.2002
00.39 gmt -05.00

chicane
offshore

this is for you smitha! hehe.

so this summer has been very awesome so far. smitha and i have been going to a movie about once every week so far. since my last post, we've seen minority report, amelie, lilo and stitch, and are going to see powerpuff girls the movie tomorrow. should be fun!

i was supposed to write a review on minority report after we had seen it, but i've been rather lazy. but anywho, here's my three cents. it was awesome!

hehe, no really it was! the story was very engaging and wonderfully played out. the visuals were also superb. the gui (graphic user interface) used in the movie was very nice. there were some scenes in which the light was very soft and blurred, it just . . . looked beautiful. and of course, tom cruise "orchestrating" was very very nice. definitely go see.

amelie, we went and saw that at the fabulous fox theatre. the theatre itself was very nice. it's built like a mosque with minarets and everything. the inside was very nice. red carpet, lots of seats, and a balcony area, the way a theatre should be. we sat somewhere in the back and to the right a bit, but the view was still good. the ceiling itself is painted to look like a starry sky. it was very . . . upclass :) must go back someday. the movie itself was extremely cute!!! the actress, audrey tautou, was very cute and played the part wonderfully. definite go and see.

the bourne identity was ok. a good action film, but nothing more. the pace of the movie itself was very constant and it seemed to end very quickly. good fun movie to watch that doesn't require a lot of thinking or attention.

lilo and stitch, i want one! (both lilo and stitch) the movie was very different i thought for a disney movie. it's about a broken family and lilo and her sister trying to make due alone, and avoiding lilo being taken to a foster home. it's very cute, but the ending was a bit too . . . convenient if you ask me. another goood summer movie.

my cd came in the mail the other day, romeo and juliet volume 2, produced by nellee hooper from massive attack, good listen. let's see . . . ah, my wisdom tooth is coming in and i've got a bad case of teething, sucks.

apparently this week is challenge 2002. it's a church thing and they have kids from across the united states (around six thousand this year) come down to meet. this year georgia tech is hosting them. everyday, i see hundreds of kids having fun, laughing, singing, enjoying themselves, on tech campus, which is very unusual. this is the liveliest i have ever seen this school. the other day they were swimming and playing around at the shaft. to them the shaft is just another reflection pool, but for us students, it symbolizes all the wrong and screwed up things here at tech (hence, getting the shaft), just strange to see other frolicking around it.

have a test tomorrow, should go and study for it right now, but i guess i'll write some more in here since i haven't been doing much with my journal lately.

oh! go and see these (1,2) drawings, drawn by smitha. good stuff.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER (her birthday is on the 4th but just in case i don't update) also, do you have my wip3out cd? hmmm??? if you do, i've told you many times before not to take it, cause mom sent me the demo cd. you had better hope you didn't take it, and if you just forgot it to take it out of your case, make sure i don't find it when i come to bangladesh :) just a little warning from your older brother :)

07.02.2002
19.37 gmt -05.00

velvet underground
sweet jane

i heard this song two years ago in bangladesh. read about them here. it's a rather cute song.

friday i night i think it was, smitha and i went to see sum of all fears (thanks for the recommendation andy!). a fairly good, with extremely good music. especially the opening and ending pieces. it's the story of jack ryan (played by alec baldwin in the hunt for red october, harrison ford in patriot games and clear and present danger), it takes place in the timeline earlier than the other movies. another movie that looks good is the bourne identity. but alas! not enough money or time to watch all of the movies out this summer. hollywood seems to have a few bad years of movies, then one very good year of movies, followed by more bad movies, etc . . .

in other news, the glc is offering cheap tickets ($04.50)to the showing of amelie at the fabulous fox theatre. i've never been there or have seen amelie, smitha says it's wonderful (the movie that is, she hasn't been to the fabulous fox theatre either).

yoinked from smitha who yoinked it from someone else, who yoinked it from someone else, which after awhile terminates to/from (whichever) daniel:

has a blog post ever got you into trouble?
nope never, unless you consider getting a scolding from my little sister trouble.

how many people do you know face-to-face who read your weblog?
i know . . . three, wait five of them, at least i think they read my weblog.

have you met any of your regional (or even remote) bloggers?
i have never met any remote bloggers, just the regional (smitha) folks.

do you modify or delete posts? how often? why?
i never modify my posts, regardless of what they say. it just seems . . fake if i do.

how much is your weblog a part of your personal identity? do you feel like people who don't know about your blog don't really know you?
my weblog is not essential to knowing me at all. most of the personal goings abouts of my life i keep to myself and just tell a few friends. this is something i use just to . . . log the days events.

how has blogging changed your life?
nay.

do you know how to code at all? did you learn how to code by blogging?
learned how to code years ago making my first webpage back in the day of adobe photoshop 4.0 (click the 4.0 anyways, its an interesting site which chronicles . . . the life of numbers).

what weblogging tool do you use and why?
my fingers because i have to use the keyboard, and notepad because it's so gosh darn swell.

does the design seem like something that is just something that has to be dispensed with in order to be able to write publicly, or is your design an integral part of your writing and presentation?
integral part most definitely. i first came into blogging by making a new site design and wondering what to place in it. the designs always reflect my current mood on life. such as right now, i'm one year from graduating in Ærospace engineering, hence all the flight references.

how many times have you changed your weblog design entirely (or nearly so)?
hmmm . . . about . . . exactly . . . three times i think.

how many people would you guess (educated guess based on hit counts/logfiles) read your weblog on a weekly basis at least?
emmm . . . twenty?

what have you done to get more people to look at your site?
shamelessly plugged my site while talking to others on im, shamelessly asked others to shamelessly plug my site, shamelessly posted on message boards about my site, the usual.

what one or two characteristics make a blog really popular? are there things that you could do to have more people read your weblog that you consciously do not do? why?
content, it's all about content. i could make my content more appealing, but my life is rather dull and my writing 5k!11z leave much room for improvement.

what really popular weblog do you think most deserves it...and/or least deserves it?
n/a.

how do you feel about your readership? what makes for a quality readership to you?
readership? is that like leadership or something? what makes for a quality readership to me . . . they're alive, breathing. bonus quality points if they link to me.

what other blogger is most responsible for you starting your own weblog.
jason kottke, his was the first blog i'd come across.

who was the first other blogger (that you know of) who put you on their sidebar, and how did you feel? how did it influence your blogging?
smitha! great! not really :)

what other blogger do you most admire for his/her writing skills?
smitha! i dunno how she does it, magic i suppose, and one day i shall have that magic!

what other blogger do you most admire for his/her design skills?
jason kottke, very nice, very simple.

who is a blogger that you think is really good but doesn't get nearly the attention they are worthy of?
n/a.

do you feel obligated to have people on your link lists/sidebars that you never read?
that i've never read? why would i have it on my side bar then?

what one or two characteristics define a really quality blog (in your humble opinion, of course)?
design and content, content and design.

random link here, this guy has waaay too much time on his hands.

a while ago a friend of mine introduced me to this magazine with many words, and very few pictures. i thought to myself, how anyone could read this! it's so boring! then i read it and have been buying it since (been about six months now). i should get a subscription so save eighty percent off the cover price, but i've been too lazy to send the card in. what magnificent magazine am i speaking of? why harpers of course! go out and get one right now (note: you cannot find this magazine at seven-eleven or your local supermarket, try something more specialized such as borders or barnes&noble).

done! right, time to get back to . . . researching modified newtonian analysis of inviscid hypersonic flows.

06.19.2002
21.15 gmt -05.00

bombay vikings
kya surat hai

the piano in this song is wonderful! i command you all to go out and purchase his new album, 18.

life's lesson #12884: green bananas are raw.
life's lesson #12885: raw bananas are not very tasty.

i was finally able to meet with dr. ruffin to discuss what it is that i am supposed to this summer.

wait? you want to know? ok. i have to write a paper on different methods for solving flow problems and present him with the most optimum method. i have about a month and a half to do it. fun!

whaaat else . . . it rained really hard today here in atlanta. we greatly needed it. on a side note, i got my shoes soaked, but have been too lazy to take them off.

right. i know i have much more to say than just this . . . maybe i don't. ah! my mother and sisters are leaving for bangladesh tomorrow morning. have a safe trip if you're all reading this! my dad and i are leaving the twenty seventh of july for bangladesh, and then we all leave about the nineteenth of august i believe.

right! i got it! we went to publix (grocery store) yesterday to buy food (what else would i buy there?). and we're in the canned goods aisle when this old lady walks up to yale and asks him if he could give her a ride to her house. jÆ and i looked on as they talked for a while, and i asked yale if he knew the woman . . . which he did not. so we proceed to the checkout and the lady is waiting for us, we help her with her bags and unload them into the car, drive her to her apartment and help her load them into her kitchen. the randomness of the situation still intrigues me. oh well, there's no such thing as too much good karma.

06.15.2002
00.41 gmt -05.00

moby
n my heart

i've been busy with school and life. who knew life would throw such obstacles my way? who knew summer school would be time consuming?

a week ago i was walking past the student center and i saw downtym playing d(ance)d(ance)r(evolution). now, downtym's the last person i would expect in this world to play that game, so i had to confront him about his new hobby. we hung out for a while and talked, and i went about my business. when i got home later that day, this was waiting for me on my im window:

alright, listen up! the first rule of ddr club is: you do not talk about ddr club.
the second rule of ddr club is: you do not talk about ddr club.
the third rule of ddr club: someone dances to "oops!..i did it again", falls off the pad, dies of a heart attack, the dance is over.
the fourth rule of ddr club is: only two guys to a dance, gentlemen.
the fifth rule of ddr club is: only one dance at a time.
the sixth rule of ddr club is: no boots, no jingly shit.
the seventh rule of ddr club is: dances will go on as long as the mix plays.
and the eighth and final rule of ddr club is: if this is your first night at ddr club, you have to dance.

this past saturday was a very interesting day. we went to the mall (i had to buy an electric razor, i got this one) and just hung out for awhile and met up with some of sanin's friends. then we walked around some more, got some coffee, walked around some more, and so forth. i was sitting a store reading a book waiting for them to finish whatever it was that they were doing, when the guy next to me said, nice getup. i thought he said good book (don't ask me why, that's just how my brain parsed it). then he said i looked very industrial, gq, sharp, and he said my glasses looked really good. i was like . . . whoa! cool! and we walked out of the store. i felt really good for the rest of the day; i got a compliment from a random person! (i was wearing black slacks, black shiny square front shoes, dark blue shirt, a darker metallic blue tie, and my black rectangular frames) neato!

same day i bought gatecrasher - experience, very good set. got the new moby album 18, very good stuff, very moby. i heard massive attack - teardrop like a year ago, and found it again the other day on the net, was most pleased. here are the lyrics:

love love is a verb
love is a doing word
feathers on my breath
gentle impulsion
shakes me makes me lighter
feathers on my breath

teardrop on the fire
feathers on my breath

in the night of matter
black flowers blossom
feathers on my breath
black flowers blossom
feathers on my breath

teardrop on the fire
feathers on my breath

water is my eye
most faithful my love
feathers on my breath
teardrop on the fire of a confession
feathers on my breath
most faithful my love
feathers on my breath

teardrop on the fire
feathers on my breath

stumbling a little
stumbling a little

lovely no?

that's all for now, i promise to make this more of a daily habit. time to read some research material.

06.11.2002
17.48 gmt -05.00

massive attack
teardrop

don't tell anyone that i'm listening to paul oakenfold. don't get me wrong, his work is amazing and he's very talented . . . well it's just that he's sort of like the backstreet boys of electronica. everyone has heard of him and mostly everyone likes his work, and every "newbie" into electronica will know paul oakenfold first. and the last thing i want are people assuming that i've jumped on the techno bandwagon. i heard tranceport in the student music listening room and went out and bought the cd and have been playing it nonstop since.

summer classes are in session. and they more boring than i could have ever imagined. my feedback systems class doesn't start till the second half of summer semester and the rest of the classes are easy. so i've been doing a lot of mp3 organizing and sleeping. such is my life.

i went to see episode ii on opening night, the first showing of it at twelve o five (hey! five's a four letter word!) in the am. it was amazing! the atmosphere was so lively! smitha, andrew, smitha's friend, and i went to the theater at six in the evening to stake out positions. we were the third group in line. smitha drew me a yoda giving the "v" sign . . . not the peace sign . . . the "v" sign that anime characters do. i'll scan it in and post it.

surfing the web i found this site dh2 - costumes and prop building tutorials. now you can build (or even order) your very own stormtrooper costume! they sell for around three hundred dollars . . . i swear, one day i shall own such a costume and wear it to episode three.

here are my answers for friday five:

01. what's the last vivid dream that you remember having?
it was the dream i had last night. for some reason i bought an apple ibook and a sony vaio laptop. i spent the rest of the dream setting them up and playing around with them and just . . . yeah, i'll stop here.

02. do you have any recurring dreams?
many. the most memorable recurring dreams are those in which my gravity on earth is like that of the moon.

03. what's the scariest nightmare you've ever had?
that would be when i was seven and living in california. back then i used to be a ufo fanatic and watched unsolved mysteries and the like religiously. i dreamt that aliens came to my school during parent-teacher night and my folks and i ran back home. i was looking out the window and saw their ship come down level with our window and i heard them in the kitchen taking my family away. i hid myself in the broom closet and heard them approaching. and then one of them opened the door and said something to me and i just screamed and woke up. at which point i went to my parent's bedroom and told my dad to move over so i can sleep with them.

04. have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? why or why not?
nope, it would take too much effort on my part to remeber to write it down.

05. have you ever had a lucid dream? what did you do in it?
most of my dreams are all lucid. knowing that, i just let the dream run its course and sit back and watch. when i feel that a nightmare is about to being or that this dream isn't turning out well, i just wake myself up. all i do is close my eyes in the dream and "switch" back to the real world.

here are my answers to the fifteen questions given to me by my blogger insider partner vaspider:

01. if there was one thing you could ensure everyone in the world would learn by the time they were ten years old, what would that be?
the general curriculum of a ten year old in the united states. there are many uneducated people out there in the world of six billion people. if everyone knew how to read and write, do basic math, and know something about literature and history, then people would be better able to decide on what to do with their lives.

02. if you had one hour to live, and you could make as many phone calls as you wanted, how many phone calls would you make?
six.

03. to whom?
one to my parents and sisters, another to my family in bangladesh, one to my friend in new york and one more to my friend down here in georgia. i'd leave instructions with my georgian friend on what to do with my e-mail and website accounts. another to the school or work so they can begin the paperwork and a final call to my bank to close my accounts and give the money away to a charity or some random person who needs it.

04. if there was one negative thing about you people should know the minute they met you (as a "disclaimer" or what have you), what would it be?
i have a short temper.

05. if there was one positive quality you could make sure everyone saw about you upon first meeting you, what would that be?
i don't stay angry at people for more than thirty minutes.

06. do you believe in ghosts? why or why not?
not enough evidence to support the existence of ghosts.

07. how about reincarnation?
nope.

08. if you had to watch one movie every single day for the rest of your life, what would it be?
leon is my favorite movie, but watching it every day for the rest of my life would get boring, so i'll have to go with the adventures of baron munchausen. the visuals will keep me entertained for half of eternia while the plot paradox will keep me thinking for the other half of eternia.

09. favorite flavor of ice cream?
good old chocolate.

10. do you read shakespeare? have you read him? do you think he's overrated, under-read, or are you apathetic?
i have all of his works in one large book, currently reading titus andronicus. personally i hold him in high regards and believe that his work is under-read. i think too many people just read one or two of his well-known plays (hamlet, romeo and juliet, othello, a midsummer night's dream, etc . . . ) and know not much of his histories or his sonnets.

11. what's the one article of clothing without which you could not live?
underwear!

12. conversely, if you had to give up one piece (or type) of clothing which you wear by choice, and give it up forever, what would it be?
give it up forever . . . jeans. there's plenty of khakis to last me for the rest of my life.

13. has there ever been anyone in your life who you've lost, for whatever reason, and wish you had a chance to make amends?
my grandmothers both passed away and i hardly knew either of them. when i look back, i realize that i should've spent more time with them and said how much i love them.

14. if every person you were involved with for the rest of your life could only bring you one item as a gift, what would it be?
their favorite book.

15. have you recently added or subtracted anything significant from your daily routine? if so, what was it, and why did you change it?
i know exercise a few times a week now. so i can get hopefully decrease my stress levels and just to get back into shape.

right, that's all from me. all that's left is to spell check this and upload it.

05.24.2002
17.12 gmt -05.00

paul oakenfold
tranceport

let's dance in style, lets dance for a while
heaven can wait we're only watching the skies
hoping for the best but expecting the worst
are you going to drop the bomb or not?
let us die young or let us live forever
we don't have the power but we never say never
sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
the music's for the sad men
can you imagine when this race is won
turn our golden faces into the sun
praising our leaders we're getting in tune
the music's played by the madmen
forever young, i want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever, forever and ever
some are like water, some are like the heat
some are a melody and some are the beat
sooner or later they all will be gone
why don't they stay young
it's so hard to get old without a cause
i don't want to perish like a fading horse
youth is like diamonds in the sun
and dimonds are forever
so many adventures couldn't happen today
so many songs we forgot to play
so many dreams are swinging out of the blue
we let them come true

05.09.2002
01.45 gmt -05.00

alphaville
forever young

spring semester is over! oh joyous day! one more year to go before i graduate and embark on one of life's greatest journeys . . . work. or, graduate school. whichever, though i'd prefer getting my phd. speaking of which, i really must start studying for the gres . . .

so spring semester is over. summer session starts next monday. i'm sitting here all alone and bored in my new dorm room (ulc 301f). nothing's set up because i'm switching into the graduate living center with a friend of mine. taking very few classes this summer. general psychology, controls, electronics lab, and i got research with dr. ruffin. i'm going to be working with him on c(omputational)f(luid)d(ynamics). it's going to be one interesting summer.

gah! i'm so lethargic. so much has happened in the last few weeks! i could fill up an entire twenty k of blog space with it. but alas, i'm too lazy to remember and type it out. so, let me summarize in no particular order. took finals, they were hard, had a twitch in my left eye. played our last dungeons and dragons game till fall, we're left hanging at the climax, darn. went and saw spiderman, awesome, wish i could be bitten by a bug and given cool powers. slipped and fell on elbow while running to showing of spiderman, got up and went, woohoo. afterwards went, owww. went and saw spiderman again, didn't fall this time. have been eating microwave chicken and watching anime for the past week, fun. getting fourteen hours of sleep daily. been sad for a few days over some issues. i shaved today. went to eat at the cheesecake factory. parents came to visit, brought lots of stuff with them, ate at magiano's, greatest cheesecake in the world, better than cheesecake factory cheesecake. saw the professional the director's cut, awesome. made new blog design, good? applied for membership into the rice bowl journals, hope i make it. saw monsoon wedding, loved it, very cute. going to bangladesh this summer, for two weeks only, ecstatic. saved the world from impending doom, got a medal, shiny. yeah, that's about all that's happened so far. so tomorrow i can start anew.

oh my god it is so boring here at tech!

did i mention that i shaved today . . . i see i have, drat.

wait! don't leave! look! i have . . . candy! k, well not really candy. i guess i should let you all leave now.

05.08.2002
11.34 gmt -05.00

sum 41
motivation

how do you like the new design? i came up with it during finals week at two in the morning in three hours time. good no? just dropping a quick line and letting you all know that i'm still around and alive. will write more later, off to bed i go.

05.07.2002
02.30 gmt -05.00

moby
we are all made of stars

sorry for the lack of updates and not having posted my blogger insider the other night. i was away from my computer for pretty much all of yesterday. but anywho, for this round, my blogger insider partner is jocelyn craft and here are my answers to her fifteen questions:

01. what was your first thought when you woke up this morning/afternoon?
it was eight in the morning and my first thought was "woohoo! i still have six more hours to sleep before i have to do anything!"

02. my ears perk up at any sound that seems like it's in another language, and hakan hagegards voice can distract me from anything, even stopping me in mid-sentence. is there anything that catches your attention so completely that nothing else matters for the moment but that thing?
hmmm i would like to say something that would sound . . . not geeky . . . but when my computer starts to make a sound thats not usual, every sense of mine is focused onto that sound . . . till i have to take out my computer, take off the case, and fix the problem. *i have problems*

03. what do you think about personality quizzes/horoscopes? do you take them seriously? literally? or do you scoff at them? ignore them?
horoscopes are fun to read but i dont take them any more seriously than i take miss cleo. im a big fan of personality quizzes, just cause i like to read about myself :) but so far most of the ones that ive taken have been fairly accurate.

04. if you had to choose one place in the world to live, and remain there for the rest of your life, where would it be, or what sort of place would it be?
forever? hrmmm . . . thats a hard one . . . theres so many places i would want to live. but i would have to say tucson arizona, ten miles away from the nearest home, off in a secluded part of the mountains. the sky is absolutely the most beautiful sky i have ever seen. the sunsets are spectacular and the nights are clear as flawless diamonds. the sky is ablaze with reds, yellows and oranges and goes in all the directions. you can make out all the constellations, the milky way, the colors of the different stars, catch a shooting star every half hour, and read by the moon. yup, very very nice place to live.

05. some people just exude confidence, or seem knowledgeable, to the point that total strangers will ask them questions or advice. how often to people do that to you?
all the time. people are always coming up to me and asking me for the time.

06. how long does it take you to notice your surroundings? do you pick up on small details, or get the 'big picture'?
it takes me awhile to notice whats around me. im fascinated by evey and any detail. ill walk around outside looking at the pattern of bricks, the sign posts, lights, whatever, but i wont notice the car coming straight towards me as i try to cross the road looking everywhich way but left and right.

07. have you ever experienced 'cell phone rage'? tell the story.
we were attending the blade ii opening and the guy next to me got a ring on his phone half way through the movie and instead of turning it off, he started talking to his wife right next to me! i had to use all my will to resist the urge to take his phone and chuck it across the theater.

08. if you could do anything in the world you wanted and get paid for it, what would you do with your time?
read, which i have not had much time do in college so far. i would love to just sit in my chair and read everything and get paid for it. text-books to comics. i would spend all day absorbing all of it.

09. is there any talent or ability that you wish you had that you envy/admire in others?
the ability to make casual talk. at large gatherings i always just sit off to the side and take in the details. im not very good at approaching random people, introducing myself and then carrying on a conversation with them.

10. what was the last thing you learned (school or not)?
last thing i learned here at tech was . . . the control equations for simple aircraft, in my flight dynamics class.

11. if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
that would have to be my mentality about studying. i would make it so that i would do all my work on time and study properly, instead of cramming and pulling all-nighters.

12. if everything about you had to change, except for one quality you chose, which one would you retain?
my niceness. if i lost that, then i would be a completely different person. everything would change for me then, i wouldnt talk with other people like i used to. and id probably tell a lot of people off whom im friends with now.

13. coffee: black, or what?
mocha frappuccino and black tea. coffees just too bitter.

14. is there any one tangible thing you cannot live without?
. . . a shower. i must have hot running water every morning! or else i get mad! and you dont want to see me when im mad!

15. what . . . is your favorite color?
red, no blue! arghhhh! really, its black right now. colors subject to change at any moment.

right . . . story time!

so im in flight dynamics, and im rather tired so i take a short power nap (dr. tsiotras doesnt really mind). halfway through i woke up and saw someones arm on my desk, in my clothes, holding my pencil, and attached to my body. i couldnt figure out whose arm it was, so i left it at that and went back to sleep.

04.06.2002
14.18 gmt -05.00

ravi prasad
indian gipsy

it's been a while since i've last posted. feels like ages since i've read any other blogs either. oh where does the time go? four more weeks of school left. im so scared! this semester has gone by much faster than any of my previous semesters. it's unreal how quickly my life is speeding up. soon i'll have to look for a job. soon i'll have to get married. soon i'll have to die. right right. for now i have to concentrate on high speed Ærodynamics.

hello to everyone! heidi, adeeb, nausheen, maliha, and naushad. sorry for not having written anything the other night, i had forgotten. little sleep and lots of caffeine does that to you. hope you all (maliha and naushad have a good trip back home).

my roommates are becoming anime fanboys. they have anime wallpapers on their computers, wallscrolls, and watch anime like all the time. though, i can't really say anything about them since i do the same, except for the gaudy anime wallpapers.

looking for something else to do other than study.

new york was fun! but it's rather late to tell any stories.

right. i should be getting back to studying. just thought i'd put something in so peple know i'm still breathing.

03.31.2002
18.10 gmt -05.00

mikuni shimokawa
tomorrow

bah! to the world. be back when i'm feel better.

03.18.2002
00.30 gmt -05.00

smashing pumpkins
the end is the beginning is the end

yes. read or die is one of my favorite animes. the ost is excellent. the soundtrack to noir is also superb. i logged onto my ftp server and downloaded metropolis onto my cousin's comp. he has a cable modem and when i connected, i was getting about 1.8mbps! the file transferred in about an hour. the anime is based on an american film by the same name. the animation is a blend of cgi and old-school animation.

i bought two cds a long time ago that i've not had the time to post about. they are "hybrid - remix and additional production by" and "the thievery corporation - the mirror conspiracy" the hybrid album is very much like their first release, nice, fast, and smooth. they theivery corporation album is something you would hear playing in a trendy coffee shop. very good party music, if you're into that trendy european thing.

i visited my cousin's office the other day. he works for credit suisse, and the office screams european/ikea. it's all glass, polished steel, and light wood. very nice and polished, the kinda place tyler durden would bomb.

yale was . . . gorgeous! reminded me of castles and the like. each dorm has its own study/lounge area and dining hall. the architecture was very old and beautiful, opulent. my cousin showed us the campus and secret societies (of which he's a member of) and the library. the rare books library houses of course only rare books and is able to create a vaccum throughout the entire building in five minutes if a fire should break out. it also houses two of the five existing copies of the gutenberg bible.

bought a yale engineering t-shirt.

have not done any of my homework yet. took a nap. most wonderful. i should take naps more often, they're so refreshing.

tomorrow i'm metting up with smitha for some sight-seeing. planning on visiting a musuem and an imax.

sleep time.

03.04.2002
23.39 gmt -05.00

read or die
subete no eichi wo eikoku he!

well it's certainly been a while since i've last posted. the past two weeks have been hectic here at tech. tests and homework as far as the eye can see. oh, and yearbook deadlines. but those are all gone and done with now. spring break is here and everything else can take a back seat.

except for the three sets of homework and one lab that i've been assigned for over break. bah! when i will become a professor, i shall do away with such extraneous things as homework and lab. you will have lecture, and then a test every two week of lecture. homework will be optional. you will be able to drop two tests and get extra credit points. though i'll have to meet my quota of giving so many as bs cs and so forth. some unlucky fellows name shall be drawn from a hat and he shall receive a c in the class. as compensation for this, i will give him the name and address of who ever came up with such silly rules and regulations, and a choice of either a baseball bat or a crowbar.

but back to spring break.

my flight was scheduled to depart from atlanta at four thirty five so i grabbed the next marta headed for the airport at one thirty. when i arrived, the porter informed me that i didn't have to stay in the line, as there are curbside checkin available. so, there i was sitting at gate a9 with two hours to go. slept for a bit, boarded the plane, slept some more, woke up in time for the snack mix and coke, slept some more, and woke as we were flying over new york. it looked like an intricate circuit board etched in gold. very beautiful. the landing into la guardia was just as spetaculur. we flew over the water, and just as it seemed that we would crash, the runway comes out to greet the wheels. really cool.

so i arrived in nyc and picked up my luggage. met my cousin at the door outside and talked a bit for awhile. but i was too mesmerized by the big city lights ahead, behind, and to the left and right of me. it's not that i've never seen nyc before, but before, i used to take it for granted and thought no more of it. but all of that has changed now after being at college for three years.

they (my cousins) have a wonderful flat in manhattan, it overlooks the united nations building and the new trump tower, among other high-rises. we went out for some great sushi (at this place called sharaku). the line was veeery long. but it was well worth it. the sushi was excellent, i've only had it once before (with matt and sam in atalanta) but now i'm addicted. chopsticks weren't a problem, sam said that i picked it up very quickly. must be from all the video games and counterstrike that i play. afterwards we walked around for a bit around the nyu dorms. it's about twelve or so now, and the dorms are still awake, everyone is up and about enjoying themselves, quite a contrast to tech.

sleep . . . what can i say about sleep? it was most satisfying. i haven't slept this well since i got sick two weeks ago. so well in fact i dreamt last night. as in i haven't been dreaming lately at tech. must be all the stress, or lack of proper sleep.

i clocked thirteen hours of sleep.

today we're going to go to my cousin's husbands school (yale) and walk around a bit and then meet up with another cousin later in the night for some supper.

thing noticed last night. at this grocery shop across from my cousin's flat, instead of having a card puncher for the workers. they have a hand scanner now that "punches in" your hand . . . the lengths employers go to insure worker honesty.

03.02.2002
12.55 gmt -05.00

iio
rapture
riva remix

sorry for the lack of updates. school's been unyielding. here's my blogger insider answers sent by echo. right, and if the answers seem rather plain and all . . . blame tech for holding my creativity hostage till i graduate.

01. what are you going to be when you grow-up?
president and ceo of my own Ærospace firm and airline company . . . or an international man of mystery . . . whichever presents itself first.

02. do you want children? if so, how many?
yes! two to three of them, any combination of boys/girls will do. until then . . . i'll have to borrow relatives kids.

03. do you know how to change the oil in a car?
don't you just pour the oil into a hole somewhere in the engine designated by "oil"? it can't be that hard can it?

04. if you had to kill everyone on the planet but me of course and three other people who would they be and why?
wouldn't kill rabab cause she's a very good friend of mine and the one of the few friends with whom i can talk about nothing all the time. my mom would definitely be alive . . . i'm not so good at taking care of myself (ie . . . everyday things, like remembering to eat, knowing where i'm supposed to be, essential tasks like that). let's see . . . one more left . . . darn that's a hard one. who . . . who could be one of the lucky few . . . and . . . and . . . paul van dyk, have to keep the music going.

05. what is your opinion of george w. bush?
he is very clueless as to what he's doing. he just seems very inept at the job, that's what frightens me the most.

06. who is your favorite artist?
art? that would have to be michelangelo. music? the orbital.

07. what song best describes your outlook on life?
tears for fears - everybody wants to rule the world. they sure don't make music like they used to nowadays.

08. why do you blog?
no reason really, just so i can remember what i've done that day. also it let's me try my hand at web-designing.

09. how has the disaster on nine-eleven in new york effected you?
i live a sheltered college life so i haven't been affected at all. though i do remember the day it happened, staying inside out of fear of being singled out and picked on. but after that . . . i haven't been stopped or searched at an airport, or approached by random people on the streets.

10. do you have any tattoos? do you want any? why or why not?
no tattoos, don't want any for religious and personal reasons. looks like they hurt a lot, and the thought of permanently inking my skin . . . doesn't appeal much. the furthest i'll venture with body art is pen doodling.

i'm feeling somewhat sick. i can feel the beginnings of a sore throat, that little lump, the scratchiness, the unpleasantness of drinking cold orange juice, stuffy nose. yep. maybe i should stop sleeping with the window open. though, i sleep better with a breeze blowing in and the massive amounts of white noise that comes in. i wish they made white noise tapes. something about it just sets me at ease. sounds like rain. one of my favorite places to study is the cafeteria on east campus. during lunch time, the ruckus made by a hundred or so hungry students is rather soothing.

article found on wired about blogging. response. yep, i know my blog is full of junk. but hey, so what. once in awhile i'll have an insightful idea, but for every other time, it's just something that lets me record what i've done today, and someplace where i can try out new designs.

school's been insanely busy this last week. i have a flight dynamics test on wednesday . . . not looking forward to it. i understand the basic concepts, but the recent stuff we've done with satellites and stability, bewilder me greatly. the example mid-term we went over today had no satellite problems on it. bah! i hate satellites. trying to prolong sleep for as long as possible for my roommates are roleplaying and are making somewhat of a low-level disturbing buzz that you can't get out of your head.

in georgia news . . . this belongs in a horror movie nuff said. don't want to talk about it here, to sick.

heading to sleep.

02.18.2002
18.21 gmt -05.00

iio
rapture

freakin' roommates and their damn everquest and damn radios! grrr!!! i get so pissed/angry/grumpy/whatever when i don't get sleep. and i do sleep very lightly. i've asked them about twice to keep it down. but damn them all! it's three in the morning and i have two be awake and eight. then i have class till six, and two tests that i have to study for on tuesday. grrr!!! i hate my life at times. well since i can't sleep, i might as well do some homework. right. if i can't sleep tonight, they won't sleep tonight.

do not come between me and my sleep.

02.11.2002
03.09 gmt -05.00

howard shore
the fellowship of the ring
the breaking of the fellowship

i should blog more often. always too busy.

so anyways. last night was very very strange. i woke around three in the morning (or so it looked, i don't like to look at the clocks when i wake up (cause then i feel disappointed that school starts in like two hours)) and just stayed in bed for an hour or so. it was strange because i felt . . . like swords. i saw myself composed of samurai swords possessing great power and skill, all the while trying to solve kanji matrices. i got up and walked around and everything was so heavy and slow and flat . . . (yes . . . i did have a little debbie swiss roll before bed). oh hush up! yes i know they're not good for me. so what? they're so tasty!

i have concluded today after much research and sampling, the cafeteria's iced tea taste like brown. now, don't ask why brown of all colors. it just is. brown.

major update in my life. last night i called my mom up at like twelve (morning) and asked her what i should do with my future, and ran some ideas through her. today after talking to my mom and dad again, i've decided to go for a masters/phd program. i originally thought of doing just my masters, but the opportunity to get a phd and become even more specialized in Ærospace and learn more was too much for me to pass up. so, if all goes very well, i'll have a phd in five years (including next year being my senior year as an undergrad). it's going to be a lot of work, but i'm sure i'll love every moment of it. though that means that i'll have four more years of schooling still left at either here or m.i.t (if i get accepted). i love my parents! they're so supportive. my dad told me that all i should concern myself with are my studies (easier said that done :)) and he'll deal with the money and whatnot. i don't plan on letting him or my relatives down. it's really odd when i look at my parent's families. my mom's family is mainly made of business men. my dad's side is mainly made of engineers/doctors. my sister and i are doing engineering/medicine, and my youngest sister fancies something having to do with money.

fun link time! here's this very, very very cute flash animation site nabbed from aimee's site. a 404 site that might be of interest (nabbed from emily). why hello kitty has no mouth. here's a really cool .gif animation and another one. the official ninja homepage, nuff said. Torture devices and other ways of death shown through the world of lego lego death. and my last link . . . lotr in two hours.

k, phew! got those out of the way and cleaned up my bookmarks. now, onto more pressing matters.

but i forgot those, so off to bed with me.

02.09.2002
00.09 gmt -05.00

chemical brothers
come with us
my elastic eye

well it's been awhile since i've lasted posted. as you may have noticed already, i'm using punctuation once more. i think i should get back into the habit of somewhat appropriate grammar (because it would be impossible for me to have perfect grammar). i don't think that my future boss would consider writing in all lower-case sans punctuation 'artistic' . . . silly management type people.

my dreams are becoming stranger and stranger. last night's episode featured system of a down giving a performance at tech its seems normal right? but instead of their regular lead singer, it was my flight dynamic's professor, dr. tsiotras. jeff tells me that i should stop having little debbie swiss rolls before bed. bah! to jeff. i'll eat whatever i please before sleep.

so the chemical brothers came out with a new album, come with us. most of the songs are good, but star guitar and the test are my favorite. very well made. the music video for star guitar (which you might be able to catch if you watch mtv2) is the best music video ever made (in my opinion). i can't really describe it all that well here, its something you must see yourself. let me just say that the background fits the music very well.

jeff says that he'd like to see me on lsd. iv'e reminded him many times that i'm muslim and am forbidden from even playing everquest, let alone consuming psychotropic substances. he says that he'll spike my kool-aid. fine whatever floats his boat. as long as he presents me with the navier-stokes equation when im tripping. you see, the navier-stokes equation is the primary equation of computational fluid dynamics, relating pressure and external forces acting on a fluid to the response of the fluid flow. in a nutshell, the holy grail of fluid dynamics. it has not been solved for an exact solution yet, but i plan on changing all of that if i ever take window pane.

no . . . i'm not really going to take lsd or even ponder the thought.

so i have a lot of links that i've been meaning to place, but i'll do that sometime later this week.

k, well that's all for now, i'm feeling very sleepy, and i have a test on thursday that i should be sleepi . . . errr . . . studying for. thanks again smitha for helping me out with japanese!

02.05.2002
23.34 gmt -05.00
chemical brothers
come with us
star guitar

chemical brothers
come with us
the test

why not? everyone else is doing it :)
friday five

01. have you ever had braces? any other teeth trauma?
braces? no, though i really do want them, my friend says that my teeth give me character, i beg to differ. other teeth trauma eh? hrmmm . . . ive had two wisdom teeth removed and a cavity filled. i went in and was very jittery and the like, and it was over before i even knew it. the most unpleasant thing of it was not the pain (it felt like eating really cold ice cream) but just the whole having the drill, and pliers, and nasty medicine in my mouth.

02. ever broken any bones?
yes indeed i have, my right arm. i was jumping over my bed (with a pillow as cushioning go me!) and i landed the wrong way and went *thud*, *crunch*, *mooommmyyyyyy!!!*. mom was very pissed that i broke my arm. though i got a cast and that was pretty cool.

03. ever had stitches?
never play football on blacktop, esp. when its all gravely. went out for a pass, caught the ball, slipped, and landed on my elbow. didnt hurt then so i thought id go back to my friends house to get cleaned up. walk in and my (friends parents were having a pot luck where all the bengalis in the area get together and talk off medicine (cause theyre all doctors) or gossip, or watch basketball) mom notices me and starts freaking out (she was pissed again that i injured myself). i look down and my shoe and pant is covered in blood, cause i split my elbow open and it was oozing lots of blood. but i was in a room full of doctors (i swear all of their eyes were on the wound). they patched me up right . . . without anesthetic, which was very very not nice and painful, its like watching someone sew you up with a large needle.

04. what are the stories behind some of your (physical) scars?
never play football on asphalt, esp. when its all gravely went out for a pass, missed the ball, slipped and landed on my palms. scraped them out like a lot. got up and was extremely jittery because my palms were caked with blood and full of dirt and rocks. though i was in shock so i couldnt feel anything, and there was no blood so it was all white (my flesh that is, no more skin, and chunks of palm were missing too). so i went into the bathroom in the masjid (sunday school accident) washed it out before the pain came back, covered it in antiseptic and waited for the day to. my palms took about two weeks to heal back but the indentations and marks are still there. btw, mom was pissed.

05. how do you plan to spend your weekend?
playing shadowrun, and working on high-speed Ærodynamics. translation: playing shadowrun (everyone knows i dont do my homework).

todays a very drippy day. my sisters school in iowa got cancelled two days in a row due to snow, and all i am entitled to is rain. bah humbug! i missed the bus this morning and trekked to japanese in the rain, for fifteen minutes. i was soaked. but it is a nice day, for being inside and having the window open. not too cold and not too windy. i love mildly rainy days.

last night we went out to see brotherhood of the wolf which was good. (i must learn some more adjectives). it was subbed in english (which i didnt mind, but everyone else was pissed about). it was a very . . . raw movie. it was gory and all, but not american gory. more gritty, homemade. though they did use a lot of slow motion shots, every other scene or implemented. afterwards jeff went on about how he hates the french, he just dislikes them. he says that nothing good has come out of france. will, jeff i beg to differ, so heres the good stuff:

alexis tocqueville
marie curie
victor hugo
alexandre dumas
gustave flaubert
jules verne
joan of arc
montesquieu
jean jacques rousseau
denis diderot
jean d'alembert
baron d'holbach
blaise pascal
pierre curie
charles augustin de coulomb
joseph-louis lagrange
joseph fourier
augustin-jean fresnel
sadi carnot
jean-bernard-léon foucault
antoine henri becquerel
jean baptiste perrin
prince louis-victor de broglie
andré marie ampère
jean baptiste biot
pierre de fermat

right, most of the names i put up are mathematicians, physicists, or chemists. i dont know much about french philosophy or literature, more of a science man myself. but yeah, theres alot more names that i havent placed down, that have come out of france, and have been good, so no more french bashing!


i am a defender-ship. i am fiercely protective of my friends and loved ones, and unforgiving of any who would hurt them. speed and foresight are my strengths, at the cost of a little clumsiness. im most comfortable with a few friends, but sometimes particularly enjoy spending time in larger groups. what video game character are you?

indian cliques . . . theyre a bit strange. always hanging out with the same people, always going together everywhere. strange. what really gets me about them (and other cliques) is their ungodly high level of conformity. in some cliques, they all look alike! same haircut, same clothes, same facial hair (for the guys), and most of them all have their cellphones out. honestly people, have you ever heard of individuality? note: i meant this towards some cliques on campus.

one more rant and im off to play some shadowrun. pre-marital sex = bad for religious and personal reasons. sex with more than one partner (unless you remarried) = very bad for religious and personal reasons, just seems to cheapen it greatly.

right, done for today, bye all.

02.01.2002
10.55 gmt -05.00

banco de gaia
drippy

which carbonated beverage are you?

01.31.2002
15.44 gmt -05.00

garbage
beautifulgarbage
breaking up girl

cant sleep, the fans will eat me, cant sleep, the fans will eat me. my damn fan on my computer is making such a ruckus, combined with my damn roommates watching anime too boisterously; doing homework seems a better bet than trying to sleep at all. i fear i may be facing a nervous breakdown, maybe i shouldve taken less classes. hopefully tomorrow ill be able to buy some lubricant for the fan, or some earplugs for myself.

01.29.2002
02.48 gmt -05.00

nobuo uematsu
final fantasy 8
the oath

ugh, for some reason (perhaps its the combination of thirteen hours of sleep and lots of pizza), im dead tired tonight. hopping into bed with the time machine by h.g. wells (awesome writer) and blank & jones (awesome djs). see you all tomorrow.

01.27.2002
21.43 gmt -05.00

blank & jones
cream

thursday night i believe it was, some kid down the hall from us set off his sprinkler in his room, they couldnt get someone to turn it off for awhile, so the entire second floor was soaked in water, and the first floor was flooded. they managed to turn it off eventually and then began cleaning the apartment complex. they shampooed the carpet and set a large ventilator in the corridor (cause it smells very unpleasant, and has been since thursday). i went to bed around two oclock after having finished an exhausting session of shorin-ryu karate (im still sore from that night). i woke sometime later that night (seemed like a few seconds after i closed my eyes) and heard someones clock beeping. it turned out to be the fire alarm. my roommates and i get outside and wait for about an hour before the police come over and tell us that they cant shut the alarm off. some chemicals or whatnot set off the ionization alarm they told us and they need to call in a technician to turn it off. so for the whole night, i stayed in my room with the alarm going off, unable to sleep (i sleep very lightly). so saturday, i get to sleep in, only to be woken at eleven in the morning by my sister. heres the gist of the conversation:

me: hello (in a very slow, groggy, just woken up voice)
her: whyd you call me?
me: what?
her: you called me, why?
me: wha?
her: huh?
me: huh?
her: is this hamza?
me: yes, why did you call me?
her: you called me, why?
me: i didnt call you, please let me get back to sleep
her: hahaha! k, bye!

crazy sister and her crazy mind. bah! i couldnt get back to sleep after that.

so i spent the day playing no one lives forever and max payne. both are excellent games, but i prefer nofl over max payne, sure bullet time is great and the graphics are amazing, but nofl is much longer and much more involved (you can get past all the levels without killing anyone or being discoverd, though its quite a challenge). nofl is a first person shooter spy game (somewhat simlar to metal gear solid) set in the sixties whereas max payne is a shoot em up kill everyone with lots of guns game. i havent been playing much of counter-strike. everytime i try to connect to a server, my ping is around two hundred fifty. theres something amiss with the georgia tech routers.

tonight we went and caught the ten thirty showing of the count of monte cristo. it was a very good movie. the right mix of action, comedy, and drama. very well done. now i just have to go and read the book.

the student center game room just got a dance dance revolution third mix machine. i was walking home one day when i noticed a crowd there, and the first thing that popped into my head was *they mustve gotten a ddr machine*. yep. that they did. i dare not attempt to play it, but watching people (their feet more specifically) play that game is entertaining in itself. that is one game that requires a large amount of skill to play at the higher levels. suffice to say, the hardcore players leave drenched in sweat.

watched rush hour two friday evening. now i have to find the first one. starting the french connection, ive heard good things about it.

ive just realized that i have nothing of value to say . . . oh well.

before i leave, make sure you go check out smithas new design for andoruss hideaway and lets try this again . . . very very very nice layouts.

01.27.2002
02.03 gmt -05.00

edward shearmur
k-pax
4th of july

yahoo! ive finally managed to decide upon a design for theDragPolar. quite pleased with myself. nice simple design, nice colors, and very readable as opposed to the last design which i thought was just too busy. so come all and praise my new design! hehe.

for the longest time my color settings were always too bright. some sights i could barely view but when i went to compensate for them, i other sites became too dark. too much fiddling around with the gamma and brightness till i noticed this little slider called 'contrast' . . . nuff said. everythings fine now, though some of my earlier wallpapers are hard to make out. at least the pieces i make now, will be viewable on most screens.

i dunno if you recall the last layout i had for drag polar (now its called theDragPolar . . . and yes it HAS to be that way) but it was comprised of three frames. a fifty pixel (width) left frame that had a picture in it and links to the other sections of the site, followed by a middle frame with a simple white background that took whatever space was remaining, and then a three hundred pixel right frame that had the links pertaining to the different sections. the right frame background picture looked rather nice, but it didnt work too well with the text, and the white background on the middle frame looked to sterile. so i junked it all and started from scratch. and now i present to new, the new, improved, and readable theDragPolar. though i will still update multiples of five with new posts.

sorry for the lack of posts, school has been hectic since its started. just way too much stuff to get down. especially with yearbook. eric and i have finished the cover design (which we think looks really nice, ill put a pic up later) and now were working on the divider pages and endsheets. the deadline is mid february and we are very pressed for time. were also working on a map of the school for andrea the co-editor. basically . . . i scanned in a campus map, and were removing the text, numbers, telephones icons, etc . . . and its extremely tedious work. i was supposed to hand it to her last december . . . but yeah . . . finals and all sorta took my time, and then the computer at home (very old machine. pii four fifty) couldnt handle the file (~one hundred mb) so ive started working on it only recently. our last yearbook (eric designed the cover, i did the dividers, and we collaborated on the endsheet) got full score for design and a total of nine hundred and fifty out of a thousand. needless to say, for a school with no journalism/writing class/program and a limited yearbook staff . . . we did rather well. the only downside is . . . the judges lost our book that we submitted for being awarded. so while we cleaned house on points in the critique, we wont win any awards (were positive last years book would have gotten us a gold crown, the highest honor awarded). sadness ensues. im positive well get a gold crown this year though.

ive reinstalled my dictionary for ms word two thousand (for some reason, it didnt install during installation).

im loving all of my classes this semester. japanese two is simply fun. flight dynamics is a few steps up from kinematics. its basically motion of bodies in three dimensions. sounds simple, but it involves much rotations and frames and dynamics. structures two is . . . boring . . . yeah. structures lab is . . . stupid . . . which reminds me, i have a paper due monday for it. but my favorite class is high speed Ærodynamics. i wont get into the details (it would take up too much of your time) but the math in it is simply wonderful. so far weve derived many equations for different types of flows that ive seen in earlier classes (but have taken for granted) and proven the properties of shock waves. i look at my notes, and all ive done so far and have come to realize that i know nothing of math. im going to take linear algebra over summer semester. i wonder if they offer a class in proving theories. thatd be fun. currently i have earned some ninety odd hours. one hundred thirty four is what i need to graduate. with summer classes, i should have some spare room for basic graduate classes and free electives. or . . . i can spend my senior year with three or so classes. hrmmm . . .

oi! its five am and im not done posting yet. maybe ill continue tomorrow? . . . yeah, sounds good to me. need some sleep. havent had decent sleep in awhile. tell you all about it tomorrow.

01.26.2002
04.29 gmt -05.00

crimson tide
theme

everyone has a new layout for the new year. i had one but i scraped it, just wasnt working out well. so back to the drawing board.

schools been keeping me so busy . . . dunno have much time to do much of anything site related.

had a nightmare last night that all my work piled up and i didnt have enough time to finish it. first nightmare of the school year. great.

time to warm up some food and head out to the library. ill post something better first chance i get. just letting you all know that im still alive.

01.21.2002
12.36 gmt -05.00

tsuneo imahori
trigun
sound life

happy new year! my first post of 2002 (its a palindrome!) so here goes.

how do you like the new site? i wanted to make a page just for my blog and came up with an idea for it during finals week and finished it up during winter break. finals were . . . bad. rather hard and stressful, no more six classes at a time for me. this semester i have five totaling fifteen hours. should be an okay work load for me.

winter break was great! two weeks and some odd days of nothing but sleep, sleep, food, sleep, playstation, books, and more sleep. though my parents have this odd habit of not wanting to raise the thermostat above seventy . . . which in iowa, doesnt work to well especially if you live in the basement *cough*me*cough*. but i managed to survive with the aid of two blankets.

lord of the rings was great! excellant! fantastic, and ill leave it at that for i have not the time to write out my thoughts on it. heres a comic of lotr . . . in everquest style.

updates . . . updated my music list, my schedule, and added six new wallpapers.

thats all for now, gotta get back to working on yearbook, have deadline coming up.

01.09.2002
14.23 gmt -05.00

vanessa mÆ
storm
leyenda

phew, if im posting, that means that my computer hasnt blown up yet. i left it on for over break and with the window and door closed, allowing for no ventilation, plus, i restart the computer once every two days, but it going to be about five days . . . sooo i dunno. but anyways, i hope i dont come home to a melted amd thunderbird. thatd be bad.

so the trip was very uneventful (which is a good thing). i checked in under fourty five minutes. after the september eleventh bit, security has increased and they do random searches now (though, people tell me that theyre really not random at all, but ive never been stopped, or searched or given questioning looks, and im as brown as they come, so i dunno). after the stunt the uga fan pulled (shutting down hartsfield) they now have a do not enter sign and some guards posted. so i checked in, bought the december issue of wired (on my magazine staples, the others being, pop-sci, newsweek, and time), visited brookstone (where youre not allowed to turn on the chairs if youre under eighteen) and went to this music shoppe where they had mobys play dvd running.

then i sat down and waited for my seat to be called.

my seat was right by the engine! woohoo!!! (sorry, Ærospace thing) in my opinion, seats next to the wing are the best, cause you can see the flaps and slats deploy and the ailerons function and everything!!! there were so many good shots of the sunset for me to take, but alas, i left my camera at home. best part of the trip (other than sleeping through it) was watching the thrust reversers engage on the engine. ive seen the thrust reversers that deploy from the rear of the enging and cover the exhaust, forcing it to go in the opposite direction. but this was the first time ive seen this type (you see them on the engines used by 747s, 777s, etc . . .). in this situation, side panels slide back revealing fans that divert the thrust foward. it was really cool.

so i arrived in kansas, met my dad, and drove home in three and a half hours. at home, i ate some good food, talked with my mom and sisters (cause my dad fell asleep on the couch). and i went to bed in my nice own bed. woke up in a bright sunny warm room with trees outside and just stayed in bed thinking how great it was to be back home. and then i looked at my watch and noticed that it was one oclock. and i was supposed to start studying for my finals. so i ran out of bed, and . . . did nothing for the rest of the day :) gotta love being home.

gotta get ready for a thanksgiving dinner invitation we have for later tonight. see you guys later and have a merry err happy thanksgiving.

11.22.2001
14.27 gmt -05.00

i think thats my favorite one out of all the final fantasy music i have. really well played. listening to it brings back memories of cloud, tifa, Æris, and barret heading out to one of the mako reactors in nibelheim. i think they play the music when you cross over the railroad tracks over the water. could be wrong. the plot line of seven was (i belive) was the best out of the final fantasy games available on the playstation. one of these days, im going to download an emulator and play the originals.

look look look! on the left hand side, underneath eavesdropping heading, a few links down, keep going . . . thats it! its me! i love it when people link to me :) thanks emily! (sidenote: one of these days, i am going to take this site off my computer, and actually host it elsewhere and register it, so i can get some more traffic. i know i keep saying that, but maybe if i say it enough, ill get around to doing it)

are you supposed to put a period after parantheses? i was never good with grammar, we just dont mix well at all.

three days since i last posted, getting lazy i am. yesterday was monday right? i had a structures test (which i was supposed to study for sunday night). but i didnt use my time wisely, and skipped all my monday classes. crammed, and got an a. though . . . i dont know what i did to get an a, be thankful that im not specializing in structures.

my darn posters keep falling off. i think the paint here is a really bad surface for duct tape (not on the posters, i have those cheap plastic frame things with a string to hang it from, i duct taped the string). or maybe not . . . my radiohead posters still up and ive never had to retape it (it uses the least amount of tape) but the other two, jeez! theyre practically covered in duct tape.

almost done with my new layout for the hub page. its really blue and light yellow, but theres lots of empty space, lots of empty space. dunno what im going to put there.

another thing that i keep telling myself that im going to do: put anchor tags on all my posts so theyre easy to link to, referace, whatever.

and yet another thing that i keep telling myself: i will start my thermodynamics homework now. im weak :)

tomorrow, im leaving on an airplane. to go to iowa. what? youve never heard of iowa? well neither did i till my parents moved there. its a rather dull place to be, but hey! its home. i just dont hope i dont kicked off the plane for looking "suspicious" or "in thought" or "for being too brown and terrorist-esque". it happens. people get kicked off the plane because some other passenger who has been inundated with mass media since the eleventh, thought another passenger to be a likely terrorist, like theyre an expert on spoting terrorists.

this posts resembles whip cream. takes up alot of space, but not very filling. now if you excuse me, im going to do my thermodynamics homework (play counter-strike).

11.20.2001
02.00 gmt -05.00

nobuo uematsu
ff vii
world theme (orchestral)

what a night tonight was! so first of all, ive started a new page! its been thirty posts so ive retired the last page. most people do it monthly, but i post too infrequently to archive on a monthly basis. so then, i present to you, page three!

i wasnt able to do any work today at all. none whatsoever. but we did go see harry potter! we left at apartment at around six pm in order to get some tickets. we arrived at the amc theater in dekalb and proceded to the automatic ticket machine. one of them would keep timing out whenever it would check daves credit card, so i use the second one and ordered five tickets at senior price (closet thing to student discount they have) and then waited for about two minutes before it printed the tickets out. we got the ten fourty five showing (everything else was sold out). so for about four and a half hours, we wandered around the mall keeping ourselves busy. we stopped by the game arcade where we played some time crisis ii and the grid. well, jeff played the grid for about two hours before we went to camp the theater door at ten. but before all that, we had some food at applebees. fasting the whole day sure does make one appreciate food alot more.

at the arcade they had a dance dance revolution machine. ive never seen one before but assumed it to be another arcade game. it looked so fun! but i dare not play, cause it was more than i was willing to spend (a dollar) and these guys were on the machine for two hours and still going when i got there. but it was rather interesting to watch them dance, one fell just as he was completing the final move for the stage. one of the players sat down for a breather and this girl (looked to be about thirteen) asked him for his autograph. he replied *uhhh nooo* and she kept pleading with him saying how cool he was and how he might be famous some day. yeah . . . so it was funny at the time.

ten pm and we go to camp the door, we get in at ten thirty and grab the best seats in the house. one of the previews they showed was for the new scooby doo movie which was obivously a batman preview, but it was too obvious of a batman preview, so it had to be something else. right . . . so the movie was really really great! they did a great job casting the characters, everyone fits perfectly. especially alan rickman as snape. the cg was great (quiditch scenes were very well done). they managed to fit the book into (well, not the whole book, they left out alot of the classroom scenes and other little things) a two and a half hour movie. though . . . it doesnt feel like two and a half hours, more like an hour.

right, if the wording and whatnot seems rather blah or whatever, its cause its like two am here and im dead tired.

hmmm . . . harry potter, going out tonight, ddr . . . i think thats all that i wanted to post tonight. goodnight all.

11.17.2001
02.00 gmt -05.00

nitin sawhney
air i breathe