This tattoo is written in binary (a number system in which the only characters are 1 and 0). Each 1 or 0 is called a bit, and 8 bits is called 1 byte. It takes 1 byte to represent a letter of the English alphabet. Binary is the language of computers. Computers communicate using this language.

I’ve spent the last 5 years studying computers and loving every second of it. I get genuine joy out of learning about and working with computers. I’m so excited to spend my life doing something I love.  If you look closely, you’ll see the digits “1101″ (the second half of the M).  1101 is the room number of the computer lab where I spent a good part of my time in college.

These 7 bytes spell out the word, “Triumph”. “Triumph” was the final transmission of the Mars Phoenix Rover before it shut down on October 28, 2008 (just after my birthday). The Phoenix found water on Mars – marking the first time water has been found somewhere other than Earth. It is highly likely that mankind will begin colonizing Mars within the next few generations.

The Mars Phoenix mission was one of the greatest achievements in human history. We built a device capable of traveling through space for 10 months before landing on another planet and analyzing the soil and atmosphere. Phoenix is a testament to the capabilities resulting from human perseverance and passion, which strongly reflects my own personal views on philosophy and religion.

I am getting this tattoo close to my college graduation to commemorate my own triumph. College has been by far the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and also the most rewarding.

Finally, I am getting this tattoo on the inside of my left arm, just above the elbow. This is the same location that the character Rupert Giles has a tattoo in the TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is by and far my most favorite television show of all time. Aside from being genuinely entertaining, I have found the experiences of the characters to often closely mimic my own experiences, and I have learned a lot about myself from this show.

Slowly, my mother’s condition improved.  A year later, my mother went to get a scan to gauge the status of the cancer.  When her doctor came back into the waiting room with her test results, he was crying.  “Julie,” he said.  “Are you a woman of faith?  Because there is no logical explanation for what I am about to tell you.  Your cancer is gone.”

I remember the day my dad told me my mom was all better.  I remember closing my eyes and feeling all the pain of the last year rushing out of me.  I breathed my first confident breath in 12 months.  I cried openly.  I was only 19 years old.  I was too young to lose the person in the whole world who loved me the most.  My mom was OK.

Another year went by.  We were thankful for the time we had with Mom.  She was happy and active.  She had regular checkups, but her doctor said she was in complete remission.  We went on vacations together.  We took family pictures.  Mom’s eyebrow grew in straight.  All was well.

New Years, 2006.  I was living in my first apartment with some of my best friends in the whole world, when my dad told me that my mom’s latest biopsy had come back positive.  Her cancer was back.  I moved back in with my family as we braced ourselves for the bad news.

Mom’s cancer had spread from her liver and breast to her lymphatic system, her brain, and her pelvis.  Her body was riddled with tumors.  Where she was once given two months to survive, she was now estimated to be gone in a matter of days.

Of course, my Mom knew how to fight.  She began anew the cancer treatments that she so vehemently hated.  Her hair fell out again, and came back in gray.  She lost a lot of weight.  She became too weak to hold herself up, and we had to get her a wheelchair.  Her skin slowly gained a yellow hue as her liver became weaker and she became jaundiced.  Months went by.  Despite her worsening outward appearance, her doctor’s assured us that the treatments were helping, though it was too soon to tell if Mom would ever get better.

In August of 2006, I went away to college.  Mom came with us to help me move into my new apartment on the other side of the state.  After we had moved my furniture in, I hugged my family and said goodbye at the door.  The moment the door closed, I pressed my eye to the peephole.  I watched as my mom walked slowly down the hall holding onto my Dad’s arm.  She could barely walk, but she wanted more than anything to be there and show her support when I started my education.  At the end of the hall, she turned around slowly.  I knew she couldn’t see me through the peephole.  She looked straight at me through the door, smiled, and waved goodbye.  Tears welled up in my eyes.  I loved her so much.  I had been so afraid to commit to going away to school when my family was going through such a trying time, but my mom had reassured me that my education was important and I should commit to it.  That was the last time I ever saw my mom strong enough to even lift her own head off the pillow.

Two months later, only two months into my first semester, my dad called and told me Mom had taken a turn for the worse.  When I asked him how bad it was, he told me I should tell my professors I needed a week off, pack my suit, and come home.  I picked up my sister from her university on the way and we went home.

It was the worst time of my life.  Mom’s family drove up from Texas to be with her, but our house was too small for all the people.  We grated on each other’s nerves, which aggravated Mom.  When confronted with the stress of the situation, my natural reaction was to distance myself from it.  I barricaded myself in my room for hours on end, unable to bring myself to face my crumbling family.

At about 12:15 in the morning on November 11, 2006, my Dad shook me awake, sobbing.  “Your mom is gone.” he said.

In books, they talk about seeing peace in the face of the dead.  My mother was surrounded by the people who loved her the most, and had been given nothing but the kindest of care by her hospice nurses.  But when I looked at my mom’s body that night, I saw only pain.  She did not die happy.  She was miserable.  Her body ate itself up from the inside.  She suffered in pain for four long years before the cancer inside her consumed her.  Though her sister and husband held her hand to the very end, my mom died alone.  No one felt what she felt.  She bore it on her own to the very end, and she was broken.

It was the darkest time of my life.  I retreated into myself.  I consumed my time with meaningless hobbies.  Time with my friends was spent in awkwardness.  I could tell they wanted to help me, but I was too apathetic to look for help.

A month later, I went back to school.  I had a lot of trouble focusing on anything important, and I ended up watching a lot of TV.  Amidst the meaningless TV shows I committed so much time to, I began to watch the remake of Battlestar Galactica.  By that time the show was approaching the end of its second season.

I immediately noticed a strong physical resemblance between my mother and the character of President Laura Roslin, played by Mary MacDonnell.  Both women shared the same pointed chin and sweeping jaw line.  It was a curiosity that bound me to the show in a very subconscious way.  I found myself sincerely invested in Roslin’s well-being, if only because she so strongly resembled someone I loved.

As the show progressed, Roslin’s character contracted cancer.  I was stunned to see the strength I had always respected in my mother again personified in the character of President Roslin.  Roslin fought off her cancer through unconventional means (similar to the numerous experimental drugs contributing to my mother’s initial remission), and an unwavering faith in her religion (my mother had been a devout Christian her entire life, and her cancer did nothing but strengthen her belief).

Like my mother, Roslin eventually went into remission, only to be diagnosed again with the fatal ailment later.  This time, the disease came in force.  Recently, Roslin’s hair fell out and I was again shaken by how similar the debilitated Roslin looked to my own ill mother.

When my mom was sick, she would take a weekly trip to the Chemotherapy Clinic.  Sometimes I would drive her, but I was always too scared to sit with her.  The building made me physically ill.  I have always had an aversion to hospitals.  She once told me that the Cancer Ward was her Mission Field.  She would remind me that where we are weakest, God is strongest.  Even though I didn’t share her religious sentiments, I could certain respect that it is when we are at our most vulnerable that we are most susceptible to an emotional change.  She said that when she was receiving her chemotherapy and was surrounded by all the sick and dying people, she would take that opportunity to minister to the people around her, and to do her best to personify the love of her Savior to the people around her.

I was on a business trip last week, so I didn’t see the newest episode of Battlestar Galactica until Sunday – Mothers’ Day.  In this past week on Battlestar Galactica, President Roslin’s cancer has forced her to take regular chemotherapy treatments in a cancer ward.  It is there that Roslin encounters and befriends a woman named Emily.  Emily is suffering from a much farther progressed cancer and is likely going to die soon.

As I watched Roslin sit with Emily and discuss what awaited them after death, I began to cry.  I had never had the bravery to accompany my mom to the place where she felt she had accomplished so much.  I had been crippled by my own fear, and had missed out on seeing my mom in the place she felt the most valuable.  Seeing Laura Roslin pronounce her faith in no uncertain terms was like hearing my mother telling those other cancer patients about how sure she was about what awaited her after she died.  It was like having my mother back one last time, telling me about what she loved the most.

I can never thank these people enough.  Mary MacDonnell for portraying such a beautiful character, and the producers and directors of the show for committing to such a breathtaking work of art.  However anyone else feels about Battlestar Galactica, or religion, or Mothers’ Day, I had a genuine loving encounter with my mother this past Sunday, and it would not have been possible without Battlestar Galactica.

1. Create a makefile. (We spent 1 day on makefiles in class)
2. Populate a binary tree with random integers.
3. Understand and implement exponential distribution (defined in 3 lines of text in the prospectus)
4. Implement Quicksort.
5. Implement Inter-Process Communication between 3 processes using pipes.
6. Implement recursive calculation of Fibonacci numbers.
7. Read and write from a file.
8. The program must be designed so that it can be expanded easily.

None of these is particularly hard on its own, but most of these are unrelated.  We also didn’t spend very much time on any of these.  IPC was talked about for about 20 minutes.  It took 2 weeks to get a solid understanding of it in CS 452.  Recursion is half a semester in CS 163.

All of this combined is probably 12 hours of work and it’s only worth 8 points.  That’s 8 points out of 100 for the class.  The midterm and final combined are 60% of the final grade.  It’s possible to get a C in the class without even turning in any of the projects.  What a stupid class.

Charlie Bartlett not a new movie.  It came out over a year ago.  But I recently got a hold of it in the 4 for $20 bin at Blockbuster, rewatched it, and uncovered some new insights.

Charlie Bartlett stars Anton Yelchin (Alpha Dog, upcoming Star Trek) as the titular character – a wealthy teenager who craves companionship (ala Richie Rich).  After being expelled from his prestigious private school he enrolls at a public high school.  His natural desire to help people leads him to begin offering amateur psychiatric interviews and illegal pharmaceuticals to his classmates.  He befriends Susan Gardner (Kat Dennings – The 40 Year Old Virgin, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist), and makes quick enemies of her father, Principal Gardner, played by Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder).

On the surface, Charlie Bartlett is about teen angst.  We’ve had plenty of movies about teeangers hating their lives and fearing for the future, but Charlie Bartlett approached it a little differently.  At times, the dialogue is somewhat reminiscent of Juno – the teenagers talk like adults think teenagers talk.  Classmate relationships are similar – obviously stylized for the big screen.  In a real high school, there would be no student riots, because there wouldn’t be any one issue that more than a handful of students felt that strongly about.  Students would never band together under a common banner, because high school is the most cliquey environment known to man.

Yet beneath the fictitious relationships and imagined behaviors, there is genuine truth to the movie.  Charlie’s beginning and final monologues includes the assurance, “You are not alone.” – perhaps the most important message high school students need to hear.  Early in the movie, Charlie’s mother assures him that there is more to high school than popularity, but is unable to think of any examples.  Later, Principal Gardner informs him that what is more important than popularity is what you do with that popularity.

I don’t know if it’s puberty, unreasonable expectations, or shifting lifestyles, but whatever the cause, high school is hell.  Charlie Bartlett captures that.  Teenagers spend so much time trying to fit into their idea of “normal” that they don’t realize that there is no such thing as “normal”.

Charlie Bartlett depicts a clearly fictitious high school populated by imaginary teenagers, but beneath the quirky dialogue and moral ambiguity there are glimpses of what high school is really like.  Charlie Bartlett delivers a meaningful message, and is definitely worth watching.

The reason I maintain a presence on multiple communication platforms is because each of the platforms in the above image excels at a specific type of communication.  Twitter is great for very short text-only messages intended for a large audience.  Tumblr is great for sharing images and videos to a medium-sized audience.  My WordPress blog is where I share lengthy articles or images I’ve made myself, and usually fewer than a couple dozen people see each post.

Instant messages, text messages, and email are usually directed at just a single person.

Me:  “Why, because all Indian girls look alike?  You are SUCH a racist!”

Me:  “Oh crap, you’re right.  Wait, no!  She DOES look like Kelly Kapur!”

You know that scene in Ocean’s 11 where Rusty finds out that Danny Ocean has an ulterior motive in the heist, namely that his exwife is currently kanoodling with their mark?  And then Rusty tells Danny Ocean that he let it get personal and now he can’t do the job anymore?  And he kicks Danny off the team?

I suppose one could refer to that incident as, “Demotion of D. Ocean.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHA*snort*

… HAHAHAHA

I slay me.

The Wrestler was directed by Darren Aronofsky.  Darren Aronofsky’s previous work includes Pi, Requiem For a Dream, and The Fountain (my favorite film of all time).  However, Aronofsky also wrote and produced his previous films, while The Wrestler was written by Robert D. Siegel.

My full (spoiler-filled) review can be found after the jump.

Before seeing The Wrestler, I had been looking forward to it for months.  The Fountain is my favorite film and Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors.  Early reviews of the film were overwhelmingly positive and only served to further my excitement.  Needless to say, my expectations were high.

Mickey Rourke gives a masterful performance as Randy the Ram.  Rourke perfectly captures the desperation, despair, and hope of Randy.  Marissa Tomei’s performance is equally stellar.  The cinematography is engaging and poignant.  Close moving shots following Randy from behind invoke the intriguing parallel between Randy’s walk through life and the classic walk of a wrestler through the entrance tunnel.  Aronofsky’s brilliant direction is evident in every breathtaking shot from this beautiful, beautiful film.

But the story is atrocious.  The film starts off well enough.  We see establishing shots of Rourke’s character Randy the Ram in his glory years, and then see how age has broken him down and time has robbed him of his most valuable posession (his body).  He befriends a stripper named Cassidy (Tomei) who seems to empathize with his plight.  After all, her body is no less important to her profession as Randy’s is to his.

Randy suffers a heart attack, and Cassidy urges him to make ammends with his estranged daughter Samantha (played by Evan Rachel Wood).  Randy takes a job in a deli, and seems to be finally figuring out how to make his life work now that he can’t be a wrestler.

This is the point where the movie digressed from my expectations.  I was told to expect a tale of tragedy, courage, heroism, and redemption.  Dan Trachtenberg of The Totally Rad Show said that, “in some movies, a heroic act is winning the All-Valley Tournament or finding the Arc of the Covenant, but in this movie, it’s working in a deli.”

That certainly is a beautiful sentiment, and the movie certainly seemed to want Randy to heroically accept that his time as a wrestler had ended, but Randy the Ram’s time spent working in a deli was anything but heroic.  He took the job begrudgingly, and only after he had exhausted every possible alternative.  If he had had any way out he would have taken it.  Eventually he harasses customers, deliberately injures himself, and quits.

Randy’s relationship with his daughter should have been a beautiful story of apology and redemption.  But I had already seen all of their sentimental scenes in the trailer (all 2 of them).  After convincing his hesitant daughter that he was giving up wrestling and wanted to be her father again, he promptly got drunk, snorted some coke, banged some random girl in a bar bathroom, and left his daughter high and dry.

The story is similar with Tomei’s character.  Randy shares a couple of sentimental moments with her (the action figure and the ‘one beer’), and then immediately throws away any chance he had with her in order to go back to wrestling.

This is not a story of redemption.  This is a story of failure.  Randy had a heart attack, which opened the door to him reuniting with his daughter and developing a relationship with Cassidy.  He knew if he went back to wrestling it would kill him.  He knew if he went back, he would lose any chance he had with the people he cared about.  But he did it anyway.

The ending is possibly ambiguous, but I think the outcome of Randy’s actions are pretty clear.  He died in the ring.  He had another heart attack and died.  He was alone and in pain and a total failure.  He gave up any meaningful relationships he had any chance at in order to please himself.

In the end, the best part of seeing this movie was hearing Bruce Springsteen’s original song playing over the credits.  Not only is the song pretty sweet, but hearing it signaled the end of 115 minutes of disappointment.

I want to watch her tie her shoes.

I want to watch her pick out a toothbrush.

I want to watch her butter toast.

I want to read her favorite book.

I want to listen to her favorite song.

I want to laugh at her favorite joke.

I want to start a fight so we can kiss and make up.

I want to introduce her to my family at Christmas.

I want all my little cousins to call her their Aunt.

I want to buy a minivan.

I want to carry a diaper bag.

I want to poop with the door open.

I want her to sneak a picture of me with a baby sleeping on my chest.

I want to start a college fund.

I want to wake up with kids bouncing on my bed.

But I don’t know if I want her.