sayajay.net

wahoo. new project for comp sci. implementation of a program that can learn a grammar, given a set of sentences. pretty interesting eh? i've got spring break to make this thing work! piece of cake... hmm. i really like carrot cake. anyway.

i went out to see a play last friday.

here's the complete title of the play: "THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN-PAUL MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE."

*phew* must be a french thing. nevertheless, the content of the play was quite interesting. it centered around the french revolution, but the play was actually written in the aftermath of World War II. when i think about the wars that are happening right now (with that big-booger-man poopie head as US Prez), it's very interesting that the same issues never seem to age.

of course, my favorite line of the play is something that Marquis de sade says to marat: "marat! what good is a revolution without general copulation?!" hmm, true, true.

dwinelle hall, on campus, seems to be a second home for me. almost every one of my classes is in or around the vicinity of that building.

i found out something new about that lonely hallway on the seventh floor. it also houses the south east asian studies staff lounge. i "let myself" in and decided to raid the fridge, and found some pepsi. it was 90+ degrees out - hotter than its ever been these recent days, so i simply couldn't resist.

the lounge overall was sparsely decorated; what few pieces of furniture that were present turned out to be horribly difficult on the eyes. i was napping on this comfy leather couch for about half and hour before someone walked in.

hmm, well, i had to go to class anyway...

the future is fast approaching. with the onset of potential graduation, it seems only now that the reality of "real life" is starting to sink in. if there's one unique niche of existence that i've attained while living, it would be: being a student. now, life as i know it will seize to exist. what else shall i be, if not in school?

it's time to start brushing up on my resume, and start creating a portfolio of my past projects. the trouble i seemed to have in the past is trying to commensurate the seemingly anti-thetical sides of myself; and a good part of my berkeley career has been trying to merge those two interests together somehow.

want to see my professional goodies? probably only for techno geeks and english lit minded folks only...

i'm interested in the way that people think... which i guess is something that cognitive science is very intimately concerned with as well. my emphasis is computational modeling; i enjoy the software engineering aspects of it. most of my cognitive science projects therefore use computer models to simulate the way people think, learn, and perceive.

and then, there's the english major that i'm also trying to cram in. in my honest opinion, i think that literature and art can certainly give us insight into what we think and feel (and how others think and feel). except, just in a different way. i read about characters, people, and situations where the same feelings are evoked, and the same thoughts are given due course.

so... how to explain to an potential employer that doesn't usually embrace both sides of me? well, one distracting suggestion might be to put on some shiny dress clothes; which, for me, can be a somewhat awkward experience (not that i don't like looking good!). the trials and tribulations associated with dressing nice can be quite an excruciating and ponderous adventure. case in point: i was tying this neck tie. sure, sounds easy, eh? thankfully, some times the internet can help a lot in this respect. of course, i didn't get it right on my first try:

horrendous, i know. this has to be the third time that i've tried doing a necktie. but this is the first time i've done it without any help at all!! after an exorbitant amount of time, i think i might have succeeded:

bla. looks fine to me.

the last time i wrote how i felt about a great many things lately; a whole "ambiance" of related ideas have been floating about me, in my own little world. the future, what it brings, the past, and what i've turned into because of it.

so, i think about love as well. its funny... my most recent conversation about this topic came about when i was talking to someone about a grammatical construct in english: active versus passive voice. hopefully, i need not explain, but here's an example i immediately think of:

• "i want to love" (that's active voice)
• "i want to be loved" (passive)

it seems natural to want to be reciprocated - that it's an awful feeling to love and not have that loved returned. but that automatically seems to suggest that one would rather prefer to be loved than to love. here's a passing from Yasushi Inoue's The Hunting Gun. This woman is writing a letter to the one she loves, on her death bed. It's interesting that she would be thinking about these things before she is going to die:

"To love, to be loved - our actions are pathetic. When I was in the second- or third-year class of a girls' school, during an examination on English grammar, we were tested on the active and passive voice of verbs. TO strike, to be struck; to see, to be seen. Among many such examples was brilliant pair: to love, to be loved. As each girl, eagerly looking at the questions and thinking about them, licked the lead of her pencil, someone mischievously started passing around a piece of paper, and the girl behind me gave it to me. When I looked at it, I found a pair of questions: "Do you want to love? Do you want to be loved?" And under the words "want to be loved," many circles had been written in ink or blue or red pencil, while under "want to love" there wasn't a mark. I wasn't in the least an exception, and I added one more small circle under "want to be loved." Even at the age of sixteen or seventeen, when we don't know fully what it is to love or be loved, we women seem to know by instinct already the happiness of being loved.

But during that examination the girl sitting beside me got the scrap of paper, glanced at it, and without hesitation made a big circle with a bold stroke of her pencil in the place where not a mark had been left. She wanted to love. Even now i remember vividly that at that moment I felt confused, as if someone had suddenly attacked me from behind, though somehow, at the same time, I felt a slight revulsion because of her uncompromising attitude. She was one of the duller students in our class, and inconspicuous and somewhat gloomy girl. I don't know what she has grown up to be - that girl whose hair had a brownish cast and who was always alone. [...] When at the end of their lives they lie quietly and turn their faces to the wall of death - the woman who can say she has tasted fully the happiness of being loved and the woman who can say that even though she was unhappy she has loved - to which one would God give the true, quiet rest? Yet, is there anyone on earth who can say before God that she has loved? Yes, there must be. That thin-haired girl may have grown up to be one of those few chosen women. Her hair and clothing may be in disorder, and her body may be scarred, but she can say with pride that she has loved."

even when i read and study various things - love, life, the way people think - there are some things that i can see and think about, but never touch. some people complain, "i think too much." but who says that has to be a bad thing? i can't imagine what i'd be doing, if not thinking about someone or something.

well, my most recent shipment from yesasia has arrived. it appears then that spring break is off to a "good" start.