Looking back, Springing forward

Here comes my reflection post regarding winter quarter, which is usually divided into subsections.

School

This quarter was the first quarter I took upper division classes along with my regular classes. In the beginning, Chemistry 113A was overwhelming me with the amount of work it had. Gradually, I adjusted to the excessive workload (20+ hours per week!!). I had to give up some fun things to study for the class. Unfortunately, a lack of good sleep for round one of midterms led me to make numerous silly mistakes in Math and Chemistry. However, I was able to pull my Chemistry grade up with solid problem set and midterm grade scores. For math, I ended up in the top ten percentile on the final, but the score was not high enough to raise my overall grade to an A- I originally wanted. I’m still waiting on my Chemistry grade. As for Lingusitics, the class was fairly straightforward. A lot of memorizing in the beginning, but the class became easier as time went on. Extra credit certainly helped.

Overall, I feel mostly satisfied with my focus in school.

Effort: A-

Math 33B: B

Chemistry 113a: ???

Linguistics 20: A-

Poker

In the beginning, I was hitting a hot streak in poker as my previous graphs/pictures would show you. Later in the quarter, due to the excessive school work, I gave up poker to spend more time in my studies, only playing a few time a week (<5>

Overall:

Effort: B

Results: +$1400

Fitness

Uh, no comment… (lol)

I gained mucho weight during the last few weeks due to finals stress and procrastination. I didn’t care what I ate and I stopped running with Jason this quarter. I threw up after trying to sprint one lap during week 10 and gained 4 lbs.

Overall

Effort: F

Results: +4lbs

Gaming

This quarter was an interesting time for gaming. I played in the All-Hill smash tournament with Aesis and won the grand prize ($50 gift card). I also played in the UCLA Monthly V tournament only to lose early in the doubles and singles tournament. It was quite disappointing as I lacked discipline and patience in playing my opponents which costed me the set. The quarter ended with the Brawl Gamespot tournament, which I got 1^st in and won a trophy/invitation. My smash game is kind of getting worse as I feel that I am less confident in my reads and becoming more indecisive in what to do against better opponents.

Overall

Effort: B+

Results: $50 giftcard/trophy

Relationship with God

I had my fair share of ups and downs in my walk with God, starting with the highest of highs. I was really disciplined in reading the bible and spending time in prayer. Then, certain things came along early that had me struggle with loving God with all my heart no matter what circumstances hit me. I skipped church a few times to avoid interactions with people. I like PC very much because of the fact that you have nowhere to hide and you have to share what’s going on life. Towards the end of the quarter, I had a hard time distinguishing between conviction and condemnation which led me to a very awkward troubling few weeks. Thankfully, through people and prayer, I was able to discern what the difference was and be free! My relationship with God is not ever perfect or really disciplined, but it’s a work in progress. Hopefully, I’m able to ground myself more in God instead of merely what others say about Him.

Overall

Effort: B

Results: ??? (I don’t really think there’s a result I could really write?)

Thank you guys (you know who you are) for making the quarter awesome

Killer Drive

3/13/08

Killer drive, a term I say casually to people, who, ironically, don't know what it means, so here's my Daniel's dictionary entry.

Killer Drive - noun - an academic drive in which a person strives to not only do better, but destroy, the class competition.

Anyway, so on paper, the killer drive sounds like it could be an awesome thing to have, especially if one is struggling with academics. I had the killer drive last year during the fall quarter (2006). I came into UCLA, extra cocky, thinking that I was the best student at Chemistry.

So I took Chemistry 20A in the Fall with Scerri. During lecture, I laughed and mocked whoever would ask the teacher questions in lecture because everything seemed so trivial and basic, material-wise. One girl in particular would ask at least 2 questions in lecture and at least 10 per discussion section, no joke. A part of me would die on the inside whenever she asked a question.

The first midterm came along, and I got a 41.5/50. Not bad by any means. The class average was roughly a 34/50. However, that same girl, who asked many questions, got a 45/50. This is when the killer drive officially kicked in to my system.

Yes, the killer drive.

After that moment of glancing at her midterm score, I thought to myself, "She's so much dumber than I am. I have to destroy her on the next midterm along with everyone else. I'm the smartest guy in this class. There is no way this inferior competition can come close to my Chemistry knowledge."

From then on, I read the section readings at least 3 times and practiced a ridiculous number of problems. I punished myself vigorously if I made a mistake whether it might be a Significant Figure error, SI unit error, or a calculation error. If I made even one mistake, I would make myself do 5 more problems until I made sure I got it right. Every night, that girl's paper would vividly appear on the white ceiling of my dorm room and I would think, "I can't let her beat me again."

The next midterm came along and I scored a 58/61 on it with the average being a 40-45ish. I think it was one of the top scores of that midterm, but I still wasn't satisfied. -2 for forgetting a fact and -1 for a calculation error??? "That's ridiculous", I thought to myself. The 95 merely just appeased my killer drive, but I needed to get a perfect on the final to satisfy my drive.

For the final, I wrote the first 80 pages of my course reader, word for word, until I realized there were more efficient ways of studying. Nonetheless, the image of losing to an "inferior" student still echoed in my mind.

Here's where the negative side effects of the killer drive come in, if you haven't already noticed any in this post. I wasn't eating normally anymore. Studying was more important. If I got a problem wrong, then I didn't deserve to eat. Eating was an afterthought, perhaps a reward, for completing the problems. My spirituality was absolutely torn into shreds. My identity wasn't in God, it was in beating the class and what number was on my paper.

My emotions were all over the place. The killer drive has taken over me and placed worries everywhere.

"What if she really is that much smarter than me? I must be worthless if she is doing that much better. I have to do well on this exam and beat everyone or else I'm absolutely worthless. I can't fail, I can't pass.... I have to win! I don't care about anything else anymore, but this one thing, my rank in the class"

I took the final and aced it, but didn't perfect it (139/155, Average = 90/155). I didn't know whether I got the highest grade in the class. Although I did get my first A+, I wasn’t satisfied because of the constant paranoia of not having the highest grade in everything.

For now, the killer drive has left me, which is good.

Does anyone want to help me not procrastinate now? (=p)

Chipotle Opening

Pictures Taken 02/29/08
Blog Posted: 03/12/08

Hey, so Daniel Lin and I decided to go to Chipotle for the grand opening last week. "Chipot-what?" is probably what your asking. It's a Mexican Create-your-own plate type restaurant in which you can make your burrito/taco/bowl however you want. It's simply amazing, although it doesn't measure up to the authentic Mexican establishments, it's better than everything else.

Authentic Mexican > Chipotle > Everything else (Rubio's, Taco Bell, Baja Fresh etc...)

Quite the long line, but I was craving Chipotle so we went out. I took some pictures, here ya go.

Yes the line hooked around Gamestop.






We got in line at around 12:15pm, and Daniel Lin made an over/under bet with me that we'd get our burritos at 1:15pm. Initially, I said we're going to have to wait until 1:45 PM. Man was I wrong.
We ended up getting our burritos around 12:55, so Daniel Lin essentially owneed me hardcore, like triple kill ownaged me.


We also managed to run into cool people like Enoch in line.



Mission Accomplished


Lunch: $0.

SMashing

Learning from Hardcore Video Game Playing

So after 5 years of tournament Smash, here’s what I’ve learned

1.) Beating your two friends =/= being the best in the world

Sometimes I get people who walk to me around campus who can beat their small group of friends and then tell me that they could probably beat Ken , Isai (pro smashers) easily. Ironically, this is the mentality I had with smash until I went to a tournament, played real people, and got freakishly owned. Lesson of the day, beating your sister in video game does not qualify you as being a pro at the game.

2.) Everyone has a different play style

My good friend, Brandon, plays Marth, while I play mainly as Sheik. For the longest time, he was my only form of competition for Smash, so I was used to his patterns and tendencies. However, when I tried playing other people’s Marths, I would lose really bad because I was so used to playing my friend that I would expect other people’s Marths to do certain things at certain times, only to see something different, which would lead me to my next point

3.) Learn to adapt

Winning sets against really solid players requires constant adaptation to what your opponent is doing. Is he throwing a lot, when I do an aerial? Maybe, I should try to do an empty and space far away enough so he can’t throw me, and then I should punish the lag from his throw.

(1 minute later)

Hmmm, he’s caught on to what I’m doing, he’s starting to do a smash attack instead of throw in this situations. I should switch to a quick jab to counter his smash.

This is a rather basic example of what goes on in people’s heads while they play a video game competitively. They have to constantly think about their actions and anticipate their opponent based on patterns, tendencies, and previous match history. It’s a lot more than meets the eye.

4.) Be more concerned about your opponent’s actions than your own

This is more of a poker analogy than anything. Often times when I see amateurs play poker, they often complain to me, “Man, I didn’t get any good cards all day, but my friend did. He gets lucky all the time”.

This is a huge logical flaw in approaching poker, games, or anything that involved competitiveness and teams. In poker, the question shouldn’t be I should only bet when I have good cards, rather it should be what my opponent is doing? Do you think he has good cards? “I think he looks weak based on his body movement and physique, maybe a bet will get him off his hand” “I have pocket jacks, although it’s a very strong hand, I think my opponent has an even stronger hand, so I’m going to fold instead of bet here”

In smash, my roommate used to have a huge problem with focusing only on his own character to the point that he wouldn’t pay attention to anything else. This became really noticeable when we played in a teams tournament at UCLA and a Jigglypuff player would do the same “rollout” move, in which Jigglypuff rolls quickly rolls across the stage and hits a person. This move killed him 5 times in one match. I realized that he wasn’t paying attention to his opponents or me on the screen at all, and it ended up costing us the match. After telling him to pay attention to his opponent and surrounding environment more, his game playing got noticeably better.

5.) PRACTICE!!

This is the best advice I can give if you want to be good at a videogame. Your technical skill not up to par? Then, play in training mode and practice the same technical movements over and over until you can do it 99.9% of the time on command. You can’t win a certain matchup as your character? Get friends to help you out with that matchup.

Practicing with friends is also the time when you can practice little nuances and techniques you cannot risk doing in a tournament.

“Can my down-A attack beat out his fireball?”

“Can my recovery counter his smash attack?”

These are the types of things that you can practice at home, but this knowledge is vital if one wishes to excel in a tournament.

Also, talk to friends; discuss weaknesses and strengths you notice about each other. Even record yourself and take note of mistakes and patterns of yourself.

6.) Tournaments last long, wear deodorant and shower!

Many video game tournaments in general last full days, sometimes even weekends. The general demographics for these tournaments are males, so you can imagine how bad it can be when 100 people are in a stuffed hot room. It’s gross. Whenever my friend, Alan, runs a smash tournament, I tell him to remind everyone to shower because it really does smell that bad.

Anyway here are some pictures from my smash career.

UCLA Team for Crew Battles (Fall 2006)

Winning all-hill tournament (UCLA 2008)


PC Cheering Squad (Yay!)

Have some more pictures somewhere

Notable Results
#2 MV Smash Teams tourney w/ Brotter 2005
#4 UCLA Smash All Hill w/ Brotter 2007
#1 UCLA Smash All Hill w/ Aesis 2008