my digitized life // john hwang

Eleventh minute.

First, I just want to type that this post is not a joke or fiction and am attempting to account for this honestly as possible.  If you experience this kind of event frequently, please do post a comment since it’ll be interesting to how many notice this.

This is the weirdest of all coincidences but whenever I look at a digital representation of time (cell phone clock, computer clock, digital alarm clock, television clock, and etc) to see what time it is, it is always the eleventh minute of the hour. The scary thing is that 80% of the time (approximation), it is always the eleventh minute of the ninth hour, making it 9:11 AM or PM. It doesn’t happen every morning or every night on a consecutive basis. It happens in a way that at the time I think “weird” and it’s put away in my mind. Then at some point later, it happens again and you are reminded of the last time it happened. This has been happening since last semester down at Tech.

It is one of the weirdest feelings in the world that curiosity picques your interest and you want to know what time it is to find that it is exactly 9:11 in the morning or 9:11 at night.

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One thing done.

Out of the 23.98 years of my life, I know I have finished at least one thing; my education by the sages of current society. We all feel, at one point or another, the end of the beginning and the beginning of something new. This is merely a fraction of what I felt today. As excited as I was to have found out that I have successfully completed all my Bachelor of Science degree requirements for Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, I could not help feel that this is not even close to the climax of my life. In perspective, I hope this is even a tiniest of bumps on the open road as I know there will be gargantuan hills and mountains I will have to climb in the future. I wishfully hope that the stress and pressure I have faced at Georgia Tech have me well prepared for the real world.

There are some things you expect as you keep stepping up the ladder of knowledge; however, the interrogation I have faced against my own expectations of a collegiate environment here in Atlanta has given me a brand new perspective and I will never forget it.

(more…)

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Afterthought, deferred years and years.

Why was it that I couldn’t tell you how beautiful you are? How fun it was with you? How your smile was the true reason for my frigid nature that prevented me from getting closer? Thinking back, there were so many things… I’ll call them mistakes for now. Now, it is merely a diminished afterthought and yet I was lying in my bed trying to fall asleep tonight where I relived memories of the past that lasted for a relative while after the fact. I draw up a long and thick line between two boundaries and whenever I get close to this boundary, I shut the door so neither I nor you can cross the line. I felt like it was the right thing to do but in reality it was simply because I feared the next step into the other boundary thinking it would destroy what we had. Ironically, my unforthcoming reaction to the next step was my achilles’ heel that deteriorated everything instead.

Merely an afterthought … from years and years ago. It shocks me to think how young I was back then… how young we all were.

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Obsessive-Compulsive.

Moving on after I determined that RLS was actually something that other people experienced and not some random thing I had, we shall discuss OCD. Now, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a more popular psychological issue that didn’t take long for me to self-diagnose. It wasn’t a very serious case personally, I can only venture a guess and say that at certain points of my life it became noticeable to some people.

Now, I’ve never delved into the depth of symptoms and explanations of OCD but I knew my own symptoms; personally, my OCD was all about right vs. wrong. I always had the right way of doing things and if it wasn’t perfect then it was the wrong way over and over until it was right. Unfortunately, it sort of tied in with my superstitious nature so I believed (and believe to some extent to this day) that if I left things a wrong way, something bad was going to happen. This sole belief deteriorated my OCD to the point that it probably became noticeable to people I saw on a daily basis. It was as if my mind would convince me that I did something the wrong way and I could not think of anything other than to go back and do it right. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as it sounds when I am typing it up right now because more often than not, my mind wasn’t satisfied with it until I repeated the action multiple times.

I will list a few of the things that I used to (have to) do as a result of my OCD, but I’m still trying to decide on some that won’t make people start to believe I am a nut. Here we go: I prefer right over left, top over bottom, and clockwise over counter-clockwise, evens over odds, and over-balance or balance over under-balance. From there you can derive others like my preference to lead with my right foot than the left, top-right hand corners, and turning things clockwise. Sometimes it just doesn’t even make sense logically but my mind has already setup these ‘rules’ and if I don’t follow them to the dot, I need to keep on doing it until it’s done right. I like the number six and eight so if there is repetition, I’d usually repeat it six or eight times. I sometimes have to read things over and over until I feel that I’ve read them correctly and that again, is my mind’s decision. I do things related to security and a second later, I can’t think whether or not I’ve done it and have to go back to check and double-check (locking doors, turning headlights off and windows up out of cars, etc).

The OCD that I have is not destructive as other cases that may have been portrayed elsewhere. The worst point of my OCD was when I’d have to literally waste thirty minutes of my time doing something until it’s done right and this I grew out of for a few years now. Thankfully, my timeliness was a priority over my OCD so I was never late to things because of its effects.

So within the past few years, if you have seen me doing things over and over or have seen me doing something that made you tilt your head left or right, then yes; I had/have a relatively mild case of OCD. I hope nobody gets freaked out or finds this extraordinarily amusing because it can be a very serious disorder. For those of you who have OCD: aside from medical treatments (if there are treatments available) just try, even for once, to break out of your habit and distract yourself right afterwards. I think I did this unknowingly and was able to break away from some OCD-related habits.

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Teaching Self, Part I.

I’ve always enjoyed self-learning.

As geeky as this may sound, ever since back in the days when I was finally able to get onto the Internet with ease, it seemed like a whole new world had opened up for me. I had access to so many resources that I could use to learn about what interested me. For example, I remember when I first found Geocities. I spent an entire day learning HTML by example and even trial and error (upload and see). The work-in-progress product definitely looked like a child scribbling some gibberish on the monitor but I found it amazing and absolutely awesome.

That was when it all started. I started to seek out resources I could use to learn what I thought was awesome at that time like Visual Basic programming. My first textbox, command button, and form that did absolutely nothing other than displaying “test” in the textbox when you clicked on the button was spectacular in my mind. All the programs I’ve made during those days were all so trivial but they were still fun and it probably kept me from doing foolish things with my time.

I’m so glad that I learned the ability to self-teach. As a matter of fact, I know for a fact that I am more productive learning things on my own than having to go to class and listen and take notes during a lecture. It’s a bit weird when I say it like that but I’m confident that it is true. (But of course, having a professor to go to when you can’t figure something out is something outside of this context.)

… to be continued.

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Laboratoried.

Last week, I spent a little less than 16 hours in lab for one lab course. We have two 3-hour labs per week; each lab is always due a week after the assigned laboratory time and each lab takes at least 5 hours to finish. On top of that, we have homework assignments for each lab which take anywhere around 3 hours outside of lab.

The kicker? This is supposed to be a 2-hour laboratory course.

In the end, I am glad that I will get this course over during the Summer instead of in the fall because 1) I’m taking one other class that is not as strenuous as other ECE courses I’ve taken so I’ll have more time to focus on this lab class and 2) Summer semesters are really never relaxed as I’ve heard but this lab kind of packs 4 months of material into 2.5 months so better to get it over within a shorter period of time instead of for 4 months.

Anyway, I’m taking a bit of time adjusting into this whole Summer semester thing. I haven’t really been too efficient with my schedule outside of getting my school work completed, I need to try to find a part-time job somewhere while starting to prepare for finding a full-time position for after Graduation.

Anyway, for all my friends not in the ATL this Summer, feel free to email or give my cell a ring!

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