Moving again: things learned

Well things have come to an impasse with me and my live in landlord, so I'm looking for another place to stay.

I don't believe in the "cuss you out on the internet" theory, let me just say that double standards and control-ism is not my thing. Neither is age-ism for that matter. He has a way of making everything somebody else's fault, not accepting responsibility. But I've never had a roomie leave me, and I've only mutually(i.e no fighting or police involvement) decided to move twice for the better part of 8 years of living with roommates. About 80% of the people I've lived with I'm still in contact with (albeit this is thanks to facebook), basically people like me and I'm a good roommate. My landlord has had 3 roommates leave in 12 month period. Let the facts stand for themselves.

I know that everything happens for a reason, there was some reason the Lord wanted me to live there for the time I did. It was close enough for me to bike or walk to work, it was near a major street and lots of public transportation so I got to get the hang of BART and AC transit. It also allowed to be able to maneuver my way around here. So now that I'm moving again I kinda have an idea of what I'm looking for and what I want. Some of things I learned were:

1. When a person says they don't like having room-mates, they've never had room-mates until now. Especially when they're more established, red flag.

2. When somebody gives 30 days notice the day you move in, definite red flag.

3. When somebody shows you who they are (yelling, slamming, calling cops) and say I'd never do that to you. Don't believe that.

4. At my age, I'm looking for people who've been in school, military, corps, etc. Basically people who've lived with room-mates in the recent past.

5. With that said, I think I've been scarred out of renting a room in somebody's house. Looking for a more roommate situation.

6. There's nothing wrong with having house rules, it doesn't make you uptight and especially if I do rent a room in somebody's house that's got to be there. It sounds silly but to me my biggest pet peeve was him leaving his dishes for days, piling up and then him fussing because I'd come home at nite wash his dishes, cook something and then didn't have the energy to wash my own pan.

7. This is the biggie: just go by the lease. If you're lease says rent plus utilities, pay the utilities. Even if they say "I didn't know you're a student whatever, don't worry about it", pay the utilities. Though if you're in an all inclusive situation and you can spare it, it is nice to offer to contribute during the winter months or if you've had a guest stay for more than a weekend.



I've learned so much in the past few months. Living with room-mates before gave me insight but this experience has been majorly eye-opening.

till next time,

DK

OOP, you can't escape it

OOP, oops..., Object oriented programming - to some EET's/EE's it is their favourite subject, to some unrelated, to me? A neccesary tool that finds it way into my creative process and inescapable.

As of late I've had an idea for an iPhone app. No I don't have an iPhone or even an app based mobile but sometimes great ideas aren't necessarily for you. Like my senior project, the coffee maker - I do not like coffee that much. As an EET, I was required to take 3 programming classes, (Visual Basic, and Java 1 and 2), additionally I took C++ before I took Java. Of course this all sets you up for the programming that finds its way into your other classes and projects. Additionally being the nerd that I am, I do have a small affinity for OOP though admittedly I wouldn't want to do it full time for a career.

I had no idea where to start but luckily there's lots of information on the internet about iPhone App development. (This site in particular, the iPhone OS reference library) Objective-C is quite similar to C so there is a slight adjustment in my mind that needs to be changed (Java is my absolute favourite programming language, "evar".) but the concept is still the same. I only wish that I knew more people in my life that shared my creative approach to technology so I could have a bit more help with this project.

I know I start a lot of projects and don't finish them. Mainly to due to the fact that sometimes I just have too many ideas, but I have been trying to do better at documenting my work so when I pick things back up I don't have to re-invent the wheel. Also been trying to at least draw things out when I can generate the words for some ideas.

till next time,

DK

Happy Birthday Vivian

Today is the birthday of my dear friend Vivian, she would have been 26 today. Vivian committed suicide last September. I really rather not go into my personal thoughts but only say that, if you or somebody you know may be in danger please call 1800273TALK (8255)

This is for Vivian and the Scott and Hsu familia

2010 Resolutions

1. Get an engineering job, some sort of job using my degree
2. Pass the JLPT N5 or N4.
3. Improve my body and soul
4. Read more



Get an engineering job: When my year at OTX is over I would like to have a job lined up. I know that this is something I have to start working on now. I'm not sure where I want to work in the South, the Bay Area, or somewhere else. So I'm just going to look and apply to whole bunch of places. Since my degree's in Electrical engineering technology I'm looking into working for a utility or in manufacturing. Electric Distribution and Electric Machinery were my focus, aside from design (which I need a MS Eng or P.E to really use since I'm an EET) Some place where I can either do some field work with engineers who do design. Since that's my ultimate goal. Pretty much some real world engineering practice so I can work towards getting P.E in whatever state I decide to stay in for awhile.


Pass the JLPT: Well in 2009 I took the JLPT and while I still don't know if I actually passed or not, this year I intend to either pass the level I may have failed or pass the next highest level. I'm going to enroll in my first ever Japanese class to improve my grammar and try to practice my reading more.

Improve my body and soul: Taking a cue from 2009 I think that I did way better when I was just focusing on improving myself rather than trying to lose x-amount of pounds. My anemia and other vitamin defiencies haven't been so great the past few months so I need to eat more fruits and vegetables, and protein (which I don't really eat a lot of). It is possible to gain weight after gastric bypass, something I really proved in 2008 but the good thing is, it's a lot easier to get back on track at least in my opinion. I figure if I'm eating my daily requirement of fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy, and protein... my stomach won't have room for junkfood. Well it worked last year. Also while most of my exericing is fine, I need to do some more core exercise. everything's firming up but my gut. When I'm trying to be healthy, I feel better so that's the main goal

Read more: I didn't read very much in 2009 and that's something I hope to remedy in 2010. I love reading, non-fiction and fiction. The first book on the list is some review: Basic Electronics. ^-^

2009 Resolutions - how did I do?

Happy New Year everybody!

Every year tons of people make these resolutions. This year I'm happy to say that I did in fact do all my 2009 resolutions which gives me motivation to work towards my 2010 resolutions. What were my 2009 resolutions?

1. Finish college B.S EET awarded for May 2009 (despite being out of school since July 08 :P)
2. Take the Japanese Language Profiency Test Level 3 or 4 Took the JLPT 4 at SF State in Dec
3. Volunteer in Americorps or similar organisation for a year Volunteering until late July 10 at OTX
4. Take better care of my body and soul Lost about 40lbs, started exercising more, eating more healthy foods.

I think the key for me this year was to make realistic goals and not have set numbers. I just wanted to take the JLPT, not necessarily pass it. Because of this my Japanese has improved significantly. To volunteer, not specifically go across the country for a year. I never would have chose to go to Oakland, but God knew what I needed and I am grateful. To take better care of my body and soul, not to lose x amount of pounds. Ironically enough this is the most weight I've lost in a year since the few years after my gastric bypass surgery. Even though I was just losing weight that I gained in 2008, that's okay. I'm really proud of myself, I gotta be honest.

I'm still contemplating exactly what my 2010 goals are, so look for that on Monday.

The JLPT is over...

So on Sunday I got up and went to SF State to take the JLPT. One of my 2009 New Year's Resolutions was to take the JLPT, note I didn't say "pass" the JLPT. lol.

You're not getting any specifics from me on this year's test. I don't need the Japan Foundation after me. I will say that I think I did okay but I don't think I passed. The grammar part was very hard for me. The vocabulary section went very well. The listening portion went okay, I did get kinda confused on one part.

I've decided to enroll in my first ever Japanese class in January at Soko Gakuen over in San Francisco. I figure I've taken English classes almost every year until college to learn grammar and sentence structure. Why not take a Japanese class?

Of course the next question is, "So did Smart.fm, not help you?"

It helped tremendously with vocabulary and kanji. I couldn't have breezed through the fist section without the kanji lists on smart.fm. But grammar is tricky to learn from a screen and even people who speak a language can't always explain why certain grammar is a certain way. Remember that the next time you get frustrated at somebody who's first language is not English. It's easy to learn words and kind of string them together, takes patience to learn to read. But modifiers, verb tenses and things. Not so much.

I'm taking a break from regular study of Japanese until January. I still have to use it and I read it almost every day so it's not going anywhere. Next year the JLPT is being reformatted so depending on how I did this year I'll either take the N3 or N4.

The old format

Test content summary

Numbers in brackets indicate the exact number in the Test Content Specification, 2004 edition.

Level	Kanji	Vocabulary	Listening	Hours of Study	Pass Mark
4	~100 (103)	~800 (728)	Beginner	150 (estimated)	60%
3	~300 (284)	~1,500 (1409)	Basic	300 (estimated)
2	~1000 (1023)	~6,000 (5035)	Intermediate	600 (estimated)
1	~2000 (1926)	~10,000 (8009)	Advanced	900 (estimated)	70%

The revisions for the new format.

• N1: the same passing level as the original level 1, but able to gauge slightly more advanced skills, possibly through equating of test scores
• N2: the same as the original level 2
• N3: in between the original level 2 and level 3
• N4: the same as the original level 3
• N5: the same as the original level 4

There will be a Reading Test (yomu shiken) and a Listening Test (kiku shiken). The former will incorporate the Writing-Vocabulary and Reading-Grammar sections of the existing tests, while the latter will take the place of the Listening section of the existing test


A lot of people complain since next year you have to pass every section, this year you could just average out to a passing rate. But for me it maybe an advantage to have the reading and vocabulary section together. My vocabulary is definitely in the currently 2-3 range. And my kanji level rite now is around 250 of recognition about 180 truly learned. My grammar is below level 4, for sure but I am confident with a proper class I can pick it up, it's in my blood. But chances are I'll be taking the N4 next year unless I miraculously ace the test.

In the end I can say I've learned a lot of Japanese this year and I'm proud of myself. I've grown up with it and took it for granted but in the past year or so I made a conscious effort to improve myself and I made great progress.

We'll see in March what happened.

Now it can be told?

So far the OTX project is going okay. At times it's one of those things where I have so many ideas it cannot translate into words. I'm very excited about Get Connected Oakland. Working hard on the site and a launch is coming quite soon.

Unfortunately I have one more project that I am supposed to do. My digital story. I hate talking about myself. I don't mind talking about what I do at work, or about math, anime, video games, cooking, art. I'll tell you about in plain english, broken japanese, I'll even go for it in german. But talking about me? I hate that. I'm supposed to talk about why and how I came to OTX. It's hard to say.

I mean 18 months ago I knew exactly where I was headed in life. I was getting ready to graduate with my B.S in engineering technology. Headed towards a career in field engineering in Georgia. I had boyfriend of 4 years, we were on the path to marriage. Yea I knew exactly what I was going to do. Get my Engineering in Training Certification work towards my Engineering Licence . Stay in the South and probably stay there for the duration. Then the recession happened and everything changed and suddenly I found myself back to plan B, working as a cook in a country club. It seemed that everyone around me was getting married, settling down and I was feeling aimless. I knew I had a choice to make . I could work as cook until the recession ended or use my degree for good works. A few of my friends were already in Americorps but I was looking for away to use my nerdy-ness for good. I found out about the Digital Service arts Corps and OTX. It was the most amazing thing I had ever heard of. But it was way out in California. I've travelled alot but I've never lived that far away for that long away from my family. I was born and raised in the South and I was thinking "Am I ready?"

Well I guess I was, coz I'm here now. In Oakland, California which at times can feel like another country but I like it pretty good. No Waffle House though :(. I get to help eliminate the digital divide by working on this project, but also helping with classes, I've even helped with a lab or 2.

Yea things rarely go according to plan, but this time I couldn't have been happier.