All along mm and I assumed Spring Break is in the 2nd week of March. Off we went, confirming reservations for flights and hotels. One fine day, we realized that Spring Break is in fact in the 3rd week! Ugh! Called up Travelocity and paid a whole bunch of reservation change fees of $300!

No more assuming in future!

Thank you so much dear for this wonderful gift!! You really gave me quite a surprise! And of course nothing beats the eternal engraving on the ipod. You can be sure of this! Muak

Baobei, Happy V Day

(LOL u can’t resell it now)

I just recently stumbled upon an old animation I did 4 years ago. Looking at it now, it’s really kinda cute. Took me a month to create this 11 seconds of motion.

The bee is certainly flying in a very weird manner.

All you people out there, Happy V-Day!!

And most of all, for my beloved maomiu! Luv ya dear!

We are learning to model a head in class today. So I made quick sketches of the front and side profile of this pretty well-known actor. I guess for the first assignment, it’ll be good to model someone with very distinctive features. We’ll see if that’s true.

It’s quite obvious who this is, isn’t it?

Just played two consecutive nights of mahjong. One word to sum up the experience - fantastic! I’m really using the free time this semester very well indeed. I’m glad I found many more mahjong khakis - and very enthusiastic ones to say the least!

I don’t know why I like this game. As much as I don’t understand people who find mahjong boring and a waste of time, they probably can’t comprehend the ultimate joy of getting a 清一色 (All-one-color) or even a 大三元 (Three-fortunes).

Contrary to the popular belief, I do not see mahjong as a form of gambling. It’s really more like a social activity where groups of friends get to together to catch up, play and get excited during the whole process. You bitch about your work and your lives. You gossip. You joke. It’s all these (random) conversations during a session that spice up the whole game.

When we play, we like to set the maximum loss limit to $10. After all, the goal of the game is to win, and not EXTERMINATE your friends. That said, I can’t understand how people can play mahjong without money at all. The whole psychology of the game really just changes. It’s amazing how an introduction of a bit of money flow during the game can set the whole excitement flowing, without burning too huge a hole in our pockets too.

Oh- did I mention that I enjoy mahjong more with booze?

This video is incredibly funny! Watch how Hunter Cressall rants about how Macs suck.

Though I am a 100% Mac lover, this video gets to me because of the creative manner he rambles! Even the background music is perfect.

Of course what he says about Macs is no longer valid. I had once resurrected a very important file from my Powerbook G4 after I accidentally deleted it and emptied the trash. He obviously hasn’t used Mac OS X Tiger yet! Haha- strangely, I thought he was talking about Windows machines initially.

After:

• past 2 weekends of skiing and boarding (and bruising)
• Sun - 2 hours of squash
• Thu - 0.5 hour of jogging
• Thu - 3 hours of squash

I’m finally getting back in shape… I don’t feel too sleepy in the afternoons. Basketball and volleyball anyone???

Come to think of it, it’s really hard to play some of my favorite sports here. Slap the school for converting the small badminton court to a musical dance studio! Now playing regular badminton is getting harder. My tennis racquets ain’t getting enough attention due to the freezing winds out there. And I really miss my outdoor swims in the sun…

Yes! The design paper my team submitted for the CHI 2006 Student Design Competition is finally accepted into the next round of competition!! We originally did this project as an assignment in our class, and I’m glad our advisor Jodi Forlizzi encouraged us to submit the project for the competition. Considering how we managed to just spend 3 days putting together the project into a paper and poster for the submission, it was really a worthwhile effort to say the least.

We were tasked to design a service for personal monitoring of diet, exercise and health for individuals. We conceptualized and developed the prototype of a wearable watch-like device aimed to assist young women aged 18-25 to keep track of their diet and exercise habits. Our device encourages the user to balance the many aspects of attaining good health, including nutrition, exercise and the social aspects of health.

Read our paper and play with our prototype to find out more.

Way to go, Team AVIVA!

Modeling in Maya is really fun. After 4 weeks of lessons and workshops, I’m finally getting used to working in the program environment, and thinking 3D. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s god-damn tedious! I’ve done a low-polygon modeling of a 1923 Ford Model T car, and currently working on creating a NURBS humanoid face for my second assignment. For inspirations, I’ve found some very accomplished works out there. Hope I could attain such a level one day…

This Toyota Cecilia is one of the best car models I’ve seen on the web. Superb photorealistic rendering! Oh boy, I love the details on the wheels. When I’m ready, I’m going to take shot at modeling my Ford Escort ZX2.

I couldn’t believe this when I first saw it. This model of Zhang Ziyi looks like the real deal! Notice how Fangwei Lee, a technical artist from ETC @ CMU plays around with her facial expressions.