Rare Update

It is kind of funny that when i stop playing online poker, I stop updating my blog too. A lot of things have happened in the past two months which have been rather busy despite of my only taking three classes..

I have been busy with my applications for graduate school, writing personal statements and getting recommendations. Truthfully, the more efforts I am putting into these things, the more expectatations I am subconciously generating.. how can you not.. By just looking at it from a pure money perspective, I am spending somewhere near 1000 dollars on just applying to these schools and GRE and GRE prep, that is if I do not assume I went back to China in summer just to prepare for GRE, otherwise, the cost is around 2000 dollars. But geting into a graduate school at this stage of my life is more than just about money, it is probably the most crucial step in my educational career if I were to get out of EE major and pursue something else. All in all, my application is not that strong, I do not have a kickass GPA and everything else about me is just about average.. I do not really know what to hope for but it would be pretty devastating to me if I do not get into any of the five schools I am applying.. albeit all five schools are top-10 in the nation. THis is perhaps my biggest fear right now.. except that I will not get to find out until March.

School has been tough, I am stuck on my projects and they are all due next week, I have not put in that many hours but I already feel drained. Next quarter I am waking up at 8 AM everyday, this may not sound that rediculous to you but to me.. I struggle to get up at 11 AM everyday!! In fact, I snooze 3-4 times after setting my alarm at 11 AM everyday.. But I must take the schedule next quarter if I want to graduate on time. Two more quarters of School and this EE crap, but school does not get any easier.. the next two quarters will probably be as bad as it gets with two of the hardest CS class awaiting... Sometimes I wonder, how will I be able to do it in Graduate School? I mean.. If I do get into graduate school, it is going to be harder than UCLA, a lot harder... Sometimes I really wonder about the contradictions of the expectatation.. I complain school is too hard yet at the same time I hope to get into a harder school...

I quit my job about one month ago. This is probably one of my biggest decision of my life up to this point, but I really felt it was the right decision. I was not learning any new things at my job and thus I was losing motivation. The job at BOL was just not as fun anymore, it used to be a challenge and I was learning stuff but now it was simply a grind and I really disliked one of my supervisor. After a month, when all the emotions have worn off, I think I speak very objectively when I say this, " John Mayer of BOL is the biggest loser I have ever met". It is simply the truth.. I do not think I will ever see this any differently.

Life without a job is extremely undisciplined, like I mentioned, I wake up at 11 AM with great struggle. I do not think this is good for me, I need some sort of commitment. This is not to mention the ~500 dollars every month I make from this job is now gone, so this leaves me two options: 1. grind out poker and deposite 500 into bank every month, I can do whatever with rest of winning. 2. Get another job. Honestly, making 500 a month in poker is a cake, but I feel that Poker should be treated as extra income.. when I had a job in BOL, it did not prevent me from making money in poker.. but when I make poker the main source of income.. it just does not feel as stable.. So after this quarter, I still would like to get a real job if the opportunity arises...
I do believe that next quarter is good for me.. When I get up early to go to class (my classes are attendance-mandatory), I will actually not waste the whole morning.

With schools and Other stuffs crushing down on me, I do not find myself motivated anymore than I used to.. which makes me feel extremely dissappointed at myself.. but at the same time, I do feel the stress and I sometimes take it out on places undeserving. A lot of the stress I am experiencing right now made me more impatient than normal past couple of weeks and it is taking a toll on my relationship with Lian. I always find it difficult to deal with people especially people close to me when I am under stress, stress as little as finding a parking space, to as big as doing my personal statement for my graduate school app. It is just that when I am under any type of stress or time pressure, I lose my composure easily and have the urge to release that stress somewhere. Unfortunately, it is Lian who is often there for me to release that misdirected anger leading to one arguments after another. Today is the official date that we have been together for 11 months, and we have known each other for one year now.. How one year fly by.. ONE YEAR.. I rarely talk about my relationship to my friends, especially problems in my relationship.. because I feel that it is a private matter and should be resolved privately.. But sometimes, I wished I could've kept written record somewhere about all the ups and downs of the past year.. alll the times we have argued and fought, and why we have argued and fought, how it was resolved and what I said to myself afterwards.. I have a feeling that I am probably responsible for 90% of those fights.. and 90% of those 90% fights I started is probably because of my inability to control my temper when provoked. What is interesting is that 50% of the time I am not even provoked by my girlfriend, it is probably caused by some other things.. and then I take it out on her...
I have watched this relationship grow strong, we went through one very unstable period.. and then another.. the most critical period was probably summer in Beijing.. but through all that we have grown strong, but somehow we have also grown content. Maybe when a relationship has reached stablity, each side takes it for granted a lot more.. We have lost some passion and care for each other along the way. I really am out of ideas about how to fix something like this, about how to rekindle the same fire that lit up a year ago. I do not want arguments to "fuel" our relationship.. sure everytime we argue, we realize how much we miss each other after one or two days, we realize how much we love each other.. but a few days later, during times of peace, some of those "feelings" seem to be forgotten..

I am outta ideas..

and I am out.