Survey

Well, I haven't blogged for a while (not since 3/11/12, wow), and a survey seems like an easier way to start blogging again.

Before you read any further, if you haven't already under the Blogger Dashboard you need to click the 'Add' button and paste http://altruistic-edelweiss.blogspot.com.au/ and follow that, since apparently the change to .au has caused a lot of you to not get any posts from me in your Blogger feed.

Was going through the mailbox a while ago, and there was a plastic syringe of 'AntKill Poison', which said 'Do Not Consume; Do Not Touch' o.O

Before I drown this post with crap, here is Happy Apple's blog survey [what the it was two weeks ago whoops]:

1) Do you have a middle name? If not, what would you make your middle name?
Wen Jie, which is my Chinese given name. My name (along with small numbers and hello) is just about all I know how write in Chinese.

2) Name a pet peeve of one of your parents.
My parents don't really have pet peeves, although maybe they get annoyed at my laziness

3) Which European country would you most like to visit?
Maybe Austria, since it seems to be such a beautiful place and a cultural hub (especially musically). I would definitely visit through the new year so I can get a seat in the Neu Jahrs Conzert, which airs every New Years Day morning, and apparently the Golden Hall (idk what it's called) has amazing acoustics.

If it included Asian countries, I would probably say Japan, followed by Korea, just because they have unique cultures while being quite modern in terms of technology

Speaking of technology I remember that while I was waiting for the MTR train in HK, I saw a power room with a radiation hazard sign on it, seems legit

4) What was the happiest day of your life? If you can’t remember, what makes you the happiest?
I'm not really sure if I've had a happiest day. I guess the night I was invited to the Physics Olympiad Camp is ranks pretty high (although that was the night before the prelim 3u math yearly, which I subsequently failed because I was too excited about summer school to study)

5) Name three things on your desk.
Headphones, school diary from 2008 (aka my phonebook), an el cheapo diary/journal that I ocassionally recount events in.

Other stuff on my table includes:

• instruction manual for a supermarket electronic keyboard
• school bus passes for 2012, because I totally needed them to go to school
• grippers, which are those things with a spring-like resistance that you're supposed to squeeze and improves your hand strength (at least the gripping kind)
• one of those pen-holder cups, which has the graduation pen, the bamboo pen from Happy Apple reading 'sarowak' (it still works!), and a Pinnochio pencil made in Italy which my year 3 or 4 teacher gave me
• an 'I <3 UNSW Engineering' (bumper) sticker
• periodic tables from chem quiz

6) In your opinion, what is the most useless gift you can give?
Perhaps chocolate: my family never seems to get around to eating any that we get, and before long they expire and we have to dump them :( (woops that was for receiving)

Okay, for giving perhaps it would be floppy disks since basically no-one has a floppy drive, although those things have geek cred now so maybe not

7) A language you wish you had complete mastery over?
Mandarin Chinese (which includes reading/writing), followed by Cantonese, because that's pretty bad. I'm going to China by myself soon so I'll be forced to speak Canto, so hopefully that'll improve

Other languages which I have/had interest in include Korean, Japanese, Russian, Esperanto, Classical Latin (7I good times)

8) What do you wish you had learnt as a child and developed so you were good at it now?
Piano. I think that somewhere in the back of my mind, I've always wanted to play piano (perhaps since around 4-6 years old). I'm actually in the process of buying a piano (see question 21)

9) Your favourite feature physically? (Don’t say you don’t like anything!)
In the past, I liked my hair (the one on the head) since it wasn't stiff but was actually kind of free-flowing, but now it's stiff and messy, so maybe my calves/lower legs, okay that's pretty weird I'll stop now

10) Your favourite thing personality-wise?
Appreciation of good humour? Humility/modesty? An insufficient amount of human interaction makes this question incredibly difficult for me to answer properly


11) Do you want to change yourself this year?
I think you would have to be a remarkable person to say no to this, so yes: I want to stop procrastinating, stop being lazy, be more friendly/open/sociable, and all that cool stuff

Also pretty important, I want to be faster at everything in general, since I feel like my mental perception of time has slowed down dramatically from year 10 (i.e. my brain has gone slow), and I do things a lot slower than I used to.

12) What are you planning to study?
Right now I'm going to be doing Computer Science / Science (Physics), after I threw away a $6k scholarship from USyd to come to UNSW (which gives me $2k).

I was pretty close to getting the NICTA-UNSW Undergraduate Research Scholarship which gives $12k per year, but I was a reserve and the guy just above me took the offer :/ That's probably what I get for slacking off in English for two years

13) Are you an Apple person?
Nope, although I do have an iPhone and iPad 2.

The story of how Apple entered my house: one day while furniture shopping I found an iPhone in an open carpark. We couldn't unlock it or anything, so we ended up getting it reset and that became my first phone. Then my dad started to like apple stuff so he decided to get the iPad at Castle Towers on launch day. The line for the Apple Store went around that empty space for escalators completely, and some people actually camped out with tents and chairs, lol. Being the excellent fellows we are, we instead went to David Jones and got an iPad 15 minutes after launch :)

I think Apple products are mostly fine and well-designed, but I hate certain aspects how the company designs the system and how they are so lawyer-heavy (I heard they effectively patented a rectangle), so not really an Apple person.

Interestingly, practically every physicist I've seen or met owns either an iPad or MacBook, which is especially obvious when you look at some CERN conferences, and I still have no idea why this is. btw, you should check out Dr Karl's macbook cover, it's awesome

14) What is your favourite word?
Tolkien once said that "cellar door" is the most beautiful phrase in the English language. There are a lot of 'aesthetic' sounding words in English seperate of their meanings, so I don't really have a favourite word. Some that I like include 'science', 'truth', 'life'

15) Do you like the date of your birth?
Since I was born around midnight, my birthday in Chinese time was particularly auspicious, so I suppose it's good, although it means that birthday and Christmas presents get clumped together

16) What is the coolest thing you have made?
I haven't made anything ever

Well, I guess making small pieces of code is pretty cool from my perspective (future code monkey right here), and I've had to fix stuff now and again which is fun, maybe I should be doing engineering instead (specifically mechatronics)

17) Introvert or extrovert?
Slightly introverted, but mostly just shy (introverted =/= shy): I enjoy social company enough such that it wards off sleep deprivation, but it is a bit exhausting afterwards.

18) Do you prefer lemons or limes?
I don't think I remember what limes or lemons taste like. I'll go with lemons, since I've used that in food sometimes.

19) What do you find the most annoying “first world problem”?
In terms of people complaining of experience one of them, almost all of them irk me in some way. Broken/choppy internet connections are probably the worst, they make me rage so bad which isn't healthy (I finally have ADSL and it's with BigPond, so yay stable internet)

20) Do you behave differently at home?
Yes. I'm a bit hyper/crazy, my voice is up to half an octave higher, and I slip into falsetto too much. In the past, I also used to do different voices which includes the Count from Sesame Street.

21) What is your favourite kind of shopping? Or do you dislike all forms of shopping?
Too many choices! Went piano shopping last month three times, which was interesting, although the choices thing is even more pressuring.

Actually, I like going through bookstores and going through chem, phys, maths or computing books and then baulking at their prices, and I end up spending a lot more time that I thought I would. I got into trouble for overstaying at some Monash bookstore and kind scalded by Dr Matt Verdon, who is a pretty cool guy/physicist/teacher

22) What are your views on feminism? (Sorry.)
I know very little about what 'feminism' is, but I guess I'm all for gender equality. What TJ said about males getting owned for arguing about feminism is why I usually opt out of any discussions on the topic. TheAmazingAtheist said some interesting things (some of which I agree with) on a video, and basically it boils down to unequal treatment based purely on gender without warrant, wait this doesn't make sense please ignore this

23) On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being hermit and 10 being aware of things practically before they happen how aware of world events are you?
Wow, I only noticed the questions says 'world events' after reading other responses, so I'm rewriting this at 3:15 am
In the past I was 8-9 since I usually read SMH online and watched SBS everyday (which together with ABC are the only news programs worth watching since the other ones have too much crap/are too subjective), but now I mostly read stuff about science so I'm now a 5

24) What will you do when you retire?
I'm not sure I'll even be able to retire given how the world is changing, and considering a possible path as a reserach scientist, I might choose not to :)

25) If you were designing your future house, what style would you have?
I have no idea what a style is, but I guess I would have a sort of 'modern' or 'minimalist' style: a bit like my house with the plain beige/yellow-white walls, but with more wooden floors

I have this weird urge to have my bedroom ceiling painted sky blue with clouds, and a colour gradient to represent sunset on the walls

26) What is an appliance you would love to own?
I have no idea. My Mum would probably say 'KitchenAid', which I hear is a wonderful machine.
If computer equipment gets counted, I'd probably like a new keyboard to replace my old stock Dell keyboard since it's noisy and pretty dirty by now

27) Will you drive a Toyota when you grow up?
Almost definitely: all of my family cars have been Toyotas, and they feel durable. Hopefully when I decide to get a car it'll have a small footprint, and maybe it'll even have those hydrogen fuel cells that we've been waiting patiently for.

28) What is a common expression of the 21st century you cannot stand?
The "YOLO" phrase as used by the majority makes no sense to me: "you only live once, so let's kill ourselves!" I do see a few people use the phrase in a more sensible way, so it's not that bad

29) Describe something that has happened to you that you were so sure would not happen or vice versa.
Being invited in Physics Olympiad Summer School or National Maths Summer School (a recreational-math camp), managing to make the finals of ProgComp (although we had a pretty good chance), getting 3 different interviews for scholarships and then actually getting offered one

30) What are your plans for your blog’s future?
To keep it, and add to it, like an evolving piece of history. Also, to post regularly (maybe weekly) so that it doesn't turn into yet another dead website.

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My back has arched quite a bit from sitting down too much during these holidays, so when I go back to China my relatives will be like "Dyna Blade, you need to stand straighter!" It's going to be the first time I'll visit China during Winter in memory, and the first time during CNY (bracing for supercongested transport everywhere). I haven't seen snow before, so I'm kind of hoping to see some in China, although with Guangdong being down South it might not be cold enough


Next Post: due before I leave for China (the land of no Blogger, Wordpress, and Facebook), and will be about either Runfit, scholarship-related adventures, or 2012 in general, idk.