Lone Genius - Tue, 01:37 PM Aug 26 2008

When people hear the phrase "lone genius", they are most likely to think of Edison and the myth of how he invented the light bulb. Yes, it is a myth! The story of invention of light bulb we all hear since childhood is made up; a marketing strategy used to sell light bulbs. And the "long genius" image of Edison? Well, let's just say Edison had a research lab with 14 people working on innovative ideas.

This myth of Edison was well preserved in deed; I have never heard of Edison's research lab until I read the book "How Breakthroughs Happen". In this book, the author used Edison's myth to proof that innovations do not come from lone geniuses. Instead, innovations come from environments where communication and teamwork flow smoothly. I feel this is a very accurate observation of the innovative process. However, I still feel innovations do come from some sort of lone geniuses. Even though Edison had 14 people in his lab, most of them probably only played a small role the inventions; it was Edison who was able to put other people's ideas together.

Another lone genius is Einstein. When Einstein was working on the theory of relativity, he locked himself in a room and even his wife wasn't allowed to go in. But even Einstein looked for help; he solved the problem of space time when he was taking a walk with his friend from grad school. In Einstein's head, something his friend said helped to solve the problem, however his friend had no idea how he helped Einstein (I hope this is not another myth). My thinking is most innovations do come from geniuses and they do spend a lot of lone time with their thoughts. The important point is successful lone geniuses know when to ask and look for help and inspiration.

Done With Classes - Sat, 10:01 PM Jun 7 2008

I am done classes, maybe forever this time! Yes, I am kinda glad.

As I mentioned before, last semester was suppose to be my next phase in grad school, research. But some how the transition wasn't as clear as I expected it to be. I was only taking one class, but I still couldn't focus on my research as much as I hoped. I did do more work for the research though, but with all the traveling, new chapter in my life and class work I just couldn't think big about my research topic.

This summer should be a pretty good preview of the next few years of my life. I hope it will be more structured than it has been so far...

Finding Structure - Mon, 02:01 AM Jan 28 2008

Winter breaks are usually very unstructured times for me; no classes, research meetings are often canceled and campus gym becomes too far due to the first two reasons. But the winter break I just had trumped all that came before it.

I started a new chapter of my life during this winter break; this new chapter came so quickly I did not really have time to prepare for it. Even though I am doing alright thanks to previous experience, it still takes time to get use to such a big change, to get into a routine... And getting sick for a whole week pushed all my goals and plans back. I welcome the start of a new semester, it surely will help me structure my life and be more effective.

Why do I sound so depressed when I am doing this post? Shouldn't this change be very exciting to me? I have always embraced changes with excitement before, why not do so this time? Wait, I am excited about starting a new chapter of my life!!!

The Next Phase - Tue, 04:05 PM Jan 1 2008

First blog in 2008, but don't expect this to be my new year resolution blog post... I don't need the new year to come in order to think about what I need or should do, I think about those through out the year (though not nearly as often as I would like). This post is about my transitions in grad school.

I have accomplished what I initially came to grad school for, Master of Science in Computer Science. However, I am not done with grad school. After my first publication, I have decided to pursuit Ph.D. in Computer Science because I really enjoyed the research process. Since, I have completed almost all of the course requirements for the Ph.D. program; just one more class of my choice. My transition from 2007 to 2008 is marked by my transition from course work to research work. My focus will be on research projects in the coming years. As my previous advisor said best, "in grad school, students must make the transition from consumer of knowledge to producer of knowledge." I am finally at the point where this transition is clear.

I have been looking forward to the next phase of grad school for awhile now. First year in grad school was fun, I was able to pick all the classes that were very interesting to me. But the second year, the courses started to become a chore; I can't pick interesting classes anymore in order to satisfy the grad school requirements. In addition to less interesting classes, research projects are becoming more distracting... Finally, I made it to the next phase without any hiccups! From now on, learning is not about earning A's and satisfying "areas" but about learning because I need to know.

I know the road ahead is not easier than the road traveled, but I know I am ready for the next phase, I am ready for the transition.

Energy Efficient - Sat, 11:53 PM Oct 20 2007

Since I use my desktop like a TiVo, I leave it running during the day to record the shows. The system is set to avoid the sleep mode to ensure it won't miss any recordings. I definitely feel bad about running the computer for 8+ hours just to record 1.5 hours worth of shows, but functionality coming before energy efficiency...

Today, I got the "bright" idea to test to see if the system has the ability wake itself up from sleep mode to do a recording (partly because I am running Windows Vista now). And to my surprise, it did! Wow, what a great feature! Props to Windows Vista! The system can wake itself up 5 minutes before a recording, record the show, then go back to sleep shortly after the recording is done. This feature also works for Windows Update and Disk Defrag. Now my desktop has both functionality and energy efficiency.

Note: As far as I know, Linux doesn't support this feature for MythTV right now, someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Entered the Stock Market - Fri, 11:16 PM Oct 19 2007

On this 20 year anniversary of Black Monday, I entered the stock market as an investor! I have been in the stock market before to take advantage of the employee stock purchase at the old job, but I did not consider myself an investor. Now, armed with previous experience and additional education, I am ready to carry out my investment plans.

What an interesting first day indeed. After weeks of dealing with paperwork problems, the trading account is finally setup this morning. The major indexes have experienced some losses this week, and this morning all the indexes are in the red again. This is good news for me though, all the waiting for paperwork paid off. As I entered in my limit orders, I set the price to what I thought was very low; so low that I did not think they will be executed by the end of the day (what's the rush, right?). As a first day noob, I kept a watch at the prices through out the day. The prices steadily declined but were still no where near my limits. But around 3 o'clock, two of my orders actually went through! Wow, what a steal I thought, but these are probably the only orders I will have fulfilled today. But I spoke too soon! In the last 30 minutes of trading, the stock prices were dropping like flies and my orders went through one after another... those paperwork problems sure saved me a lot of money!

By the closing bell, my portfolio was almost complete... On Monday, I will find out how good of a steal these trades truly were.

Back to the Dark Side - Sat, 01:06 PM Sep 22 2007

My new Linux desktop has been providing great services since it was set up, and one of the most used services is MythTV, a TiVo like system. A few weeks ago, I noticed MythTV stopped getting new updates for TV listings. After some research, Zap2it, the provider of free TV listing for MythTV, was going to shutdown the free service effective September 1, 2007. There are alternative TV listing services available for a fee... but pay a fee on a Linux system? Hell no!

Windows Vista, which came with my new desktop, has Windows Media Center. Windows Media Center has TiVo like features that includes "free" TV listing. Since I have already paid for Windows Vista, why not take advantage of it. For a few weeks, I have been booting in to Windows to let it automatically record TV shows. I must say, Windows Media Center is pretty impressive; the interface is easy to use and my remote control works without additional setup.

Now that I used Windows more, I also reboot to switch between Linux and Windows more. This inconvenience forced me do some evaluation. I absolutely need the ability to record TV shows and I also would like to have the ability to play Windows games, therefore, I need Windows. Then, which must have features on Linux do you still need excluding MythTV? The conclusion was the great development environment. But this environment be created by running Linux in VMWare Server. So, the choice is clear, run Windows Vista as the primary OS and run Linux in VMWare Server. With this solution I get best of both OS without having to deal with dual boot, all thanks to the unexpectedly great Windows Media Center.

Moving Back On Track - Sun, 06:23 PM Aug 5 2007

As I was riding in the bus on my way home from New York last weekend, I had a long time to think and reflect. I used to do these thinking sessions often, but in the past year or so I haven't had any. That day, I thought about my life since I started grad school and my plans for the future. What have I done lately? Where do I want to go from here?

Shortly after I started grad school, I have been in "vacation" mode. Grad school has been my excuse to slack off a bit. Back in the days, I was so motivated; reading to improve myself, thinking about opportunities and most importantly taking actions. But nowadays, I do just enough to get the grades in school and feel okay about that. Simply put, I lost my motivation. During my long ride home, the more I thought about it and more wrong this situation felt. Everyone around me are working so hard, fellow grad students are putting long hours into their research and friends in the industry are improving their skills. But some how I was able to stay put and be happy about that. Things need to change, and I came up with four items to work on. First, I need to take my research more seriously. Second, I need to start learning new things again. Third, I must not let my existing skills wither away. Finally, I must continue what I am doing right.

I started to clean up my act since Monday, and my productivity has improved. Things are moving back on track but I need to make sure I keep the momentum going. Hopefully I will have something good to reflect about next time I have a long thinking session.

Fitness Challenge - Wed, 01:09 AM Jan 24 2007

A new semester is about to start and I spent a couple of hours planning my schedule on Tuesday night. A significant part of my schedule is fitness related; weight lifting, running, wushu practice and so on. My workout schedule is brand new for next semester. Also, I updated my meal plans to fit my new workout schedule. A new cycle is about to start, after a relaxing winter break, it's time to get back to serious training.

Coincidently, a friend also just started a new workout routine and has "bragged" about it a few times :-p As we were talking about our routines, we brought up a fitness challenge between the two of us. This fitness challenge is not about body building or weight loss, it's "all about the cuts baby"! Here are the details of the challenge:

The challenge will take approximately 90 day; it ends on May 5, 2007. On that day, body fat percentage will be measures by the same scale. Who ever has the lower body fat percentage wins the challenge. We have a 10% body fat lower bound, meaning anyone with 9% body fat on that day will have it count as 10%. This is for our health considerations.

I am happy to accept the challenge :-D (my body fat is 10.1% right now! haha, jk)

Idea Plus Determination (Part 2 of 2) - Wed, 01:34 PM Jan 17 2007

Who would have thought installing and booting Windows from a USB hard drive would be so difficult? I thought I was almost done, but it turned out this is the most time consuming step. When the first installation attempt failed, it's time to research away. The instructions I found for USB installation of Windows were much more complicated than I expected. Ohh well, I got this far, I most finish it. Per instructions, I ripped the Windows installation CD on to my hard drive, manually modified the ISO with special software (which I had to download and crack), created and converted binary files from text, and reassembled this custom Windows CD. Even thought I was a little tired, part of me really enjoyed working on these steps. The process of creating a custom Windows CD required so many new techniques I never experienced, it was fun. Yeah fun, until after 3 custom CDs were made and the installation still did not work. I had to accept the fact that my USB hard drive is not supported during the Windows installation.

I felt like a failure. I sat there and starred at my laptop hard drive, which was removed during the previous step, for awhile. For some unknown reason, I decided to take apart my USB drive; it was just a random thought that I decided to act on. As soon as I opened the case, I noticed the USB drive uses the same hard drive as my laptop. In fact, the same brand and same model (but holds more data :-)! I had a new idea, if I can some how disassemble the USB drive and put the hard disk into the laptop?s hard drive case, I can install Windows onto this drive. Then I can reassemble and USB drive and boot Windows. The installation was smooth as butter; it was time to boot up Windows. When the boot up started, my hopes were up. Yes, it went past the BIOS initialization. Yes, the USB drive started crunching away. Yes, there is the Windows logo. What?!? Blue screen of death?

At this point, it was very late at night (or early in the morning). I was tired and frustrated, but lucky for me I already had another idea. Why go through the pain of booting from USB drive at all when I can use the USB hard disk as an internal disk. But because switching the hard disk into the laptop case is a bit difficult, I needed another hard drive case for my laptop. And to my surprise the hard drive case is cheap; much cheaper than Bluetooth, USB hub or power adapter by far. I can wait a few days until the hard drive case get here; at least now I know once the parts get here I will have a working Windows machine.

After a long process of trail and error, research and discovery, learning and thinking, I finally have what I wanted, a powerful Windows machine without disturbing my Linux machine. I love this final solution; it is simple and economical, and I learned so much along the way. I will remember to pursue my ideas with a whole lot of determination, because I know I will discover new ideas and knowledge I never considered before.

Idea Plus Determination (Part 1 of 2) - Wed, 01:00 AM Jan 10 2007

What do you get when you combine an idea with a whole lot of determination? Discoveries and learning! I am in need of a more powerful Windows machine. However, Dell is not cooperating with the holiday deals and I refuse to buy a new desktop unless I find that "perfect" deal. One day, an idea popped into my head. I have an USB hard drive, why not install Windows on it and run it off my laptop? I was determined to get this setup to work.

As soon as I conceived the idea, I hit my first problem. This USB drive requires 2 USB ports to function (one for data transport and the other for power). And because I only have 2 USB ports on my laptop, I won't be able to use a mouse when this hard drive is in use. And using Windows with only the touchpad would be a pain. So I put on my thinking cap and pondered, how can I use a mouse without taking up an USB port? Oh, I can use Bluetooth! Except, I don't have Bluetooth installed in my laptop. A quick search on eBay shows a Bluetooth card for my laptop in within reasonable price, given that I have a few Bluetooth devices that can take advantage of it. Then I started to research on how to install a Bluetooth card into my laptop. While reading the owners manual for my laptop, I followed the steps to take apart my laptop. One by one the components came off, the top cover, the keyboard, the LCD... I followed the instructions step by step, learned the structure of my laptop as I went, until I hit a few steps I was very uncomfortable to carry out. I had to take my laptop part so much, I wasn't sure I had the ability and tools to put it back together without possible damage. This was too much risk for a temporary Windows machine.

At the point, I refocused on an idea I previously discarded; using an USB hub to increase the number of USB ports. I discarded this idea in favor of the Bluetooth solution because adding Bluetooth was more "elegant". I wouldn't have to carry an USB hub around with me all the time and Bluetooth has other benefits as well. Now, I was back on this idea and was looking for an USB hubs online. I found a hub with a nice design and a nice price on eBay. If I were to get an USB hub, it'd better work with Linux as well (my current OS on the laptop). All USB hubs should work with Linux right? I better do some research to make sure. And to my surprise, not all USB hubs are created equal. Should I take a chance and buy this hub? If it doesn't work then it is money lost... I better buy at a local store and have a second chance in case it doesn't workout. Thanks to online comparison, I found an USB hub with a rebate and the store is currently open! With my new USB hub, I was excited to use my hard drive and mouse at the same time. However, after I plugged all the devices into the hub nothing worked; the hard drive was struggling to start and the mouse had no power. Wow, I did not anticipate this twist. In my decision process, I thought about power, but I assumed it would be enough since mouse is not a high power consumption device... back to thinking.

Since the problem is with power for the hard drive, I started to focus on that aspect. The USB drive needs 2 USB ports because it requires so much power, if I can provide external power to it then it would free up the second USB port. Looking at the hard drive, there is a place for power adapter, I got another solution :-) Unfortunately, I would have to sleep on this idea because all the stores are closed at this time. Next day, I bought the right adapter from RadioShack for the hard drive (after returning the USB hub). Everything works at the same time!

Now all I have to do is install Windows on the USB drive and I am on my way to a powerful Windows machine! So I thought... it's funny how things never workout the way you want.

To be continued...

Back on the Blog - Wed, 02:11 PM Dec 27 2006

I haven't blogged for a long time; not since the fall semester started. It's surprising how much things can change in just a semester. There are lots of new things going on in my life, but it's hard to list them all at this time. I'll just try to update on a few things I mentioned in the previous posts and write about the major changes at a later time.

At the beginning of the semester I got to travel to Philadelphia to attend the 8th IEEE International Symposium on Web Site Evolution. At this conference I presented my first publication, the work I have done past summer. I felt a special feeling during the conference. For most of my life, I have been in the audience of professors and teachers. This time I was in the front of the room, and some very smart people are listening to what I have to present. This feeling is hard to describe, it's mostly a good feeling :-) I enjoyed attending this conference, especially since I had a chance to talk to other researchers in my field, I began to understand what research is all about and I like it. I also learned that going to a conference while taking classes is not easy, especially when the conference lasts 5 days. When I got back to school, I had to play catch up for weeks... still worth the effort in every way.

One of the reasons I am back in school is to enjoy campus life better this time around. And I did exactly that this past semester, learning interesting things, attending school events, meeting new people; I am loving campus life. Don't get me wrong, I still worked hard. My time management can use more improvements, but things worked out well overall. This winter break will be the first real break I have had in over a year. I started grad school a couple of days after I quit my job, and summer was busy as well. Towards the end of the semester, I really felt burnt out. I need to recharge my battery during the break so I can better enjoy school. Time for lots of snowboarding and as always lots and lots of thinking ;-)

Deserving Rest - Fri, 08:25 PM Aug 25 2006

Sadly Summer of Charles is coming to an end; however, it's been one of the most productive summers. In the previous posts, I have listed a few of my accomplishments, in this post I would like to acknowledge my arduous workouts :-)

I was a regular at the University of Maryland's gym this summer. I worked out regularly, especially the past 5 weeks when I added running to my weight training. For the past 5 weeks, I would go to the gym 4 days a week, with 2 days of weight training and 2 days of running. This summer, I went back to the old school lifting routines (from my high school era) of push-pull, with a few addition/replacement exercises. The running is also my old way, with a set 20 minutes of running at a speed I can handle. The real accomplishment is how persistent I was; I did not miss a single day in the past 5 weeks and rarely missed a workout during the summer.

With school starting next week, I have given myself a week off from gym to rest and heal. This is a deserving break that can also improve my training when the semester starts. The only form of exercise I am obligated to do is stretching, for preparation of the Terp Wushu Club :-D

My First Publication - Fri, 11:00 PM Jul 21 2006

"We are pleased to inform you that your paper has been accepted for presentation and publication as a full paper in the proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Symposium on Web Site Evolution (WSE 2006), to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) on September 23-24, 2006."

Today I submitted the photo-ready version of the paper, all of the hard work during Summer of Charles has paid off. Though this is not the only fruition this summer, it is definitely the most prominent and energy boosting. :-D

Many thanks to my advisor Dr. Vibha Sazawal!!!

Summer of Charles - Mon, 01:21 PM Jul 17 2006

How is Summer of Charles been going so far? Busy...

Immediately after the final exams, I started a research paper for a software engineering conference with my adviser. Time till the deadline for the draft, one month. I really enjoyed working on this research, I got to pick the topic and make many important design and implementation decisions. But, to make the deadline, we had to work day and night. I didn't mind the hard work at all; I still can't believe I am being paid to work on something I would do on my own time anyway.

With my research position, I get to take up to 4 credits of courses for free! To take advantage of this perk, I decided to take a summer class for the first time in my life. How can I say no to free education? The course I picked was Investment, that's right $$$ investment. "The course starts 2 weeks before the draft deadline, I should be able to handle that." At least I thought so.

When that course started, I really felt the work piling up. Everyday I had about 2 hours of class, then I head to my office and research my head off. Also, I can't miss gym, that's another hour and half. By the time I get home and finish dinner, it's already 10:30 PM. Now it's time for homework and reading assignments. After 2 weeks of this, I was almost glad the research is about to kool off. But it didn't.

Due to reason unknown, the deadline of the draft was extended for another week. My adviser and I both felt this is a good opportunity to expand our research paper. Though part of me really wished we didn't get that extension. Day after day, I was starting to get burned out. But finally, the deadline came and the paper was submitted.

For my hard work, my adviser rewarded me with a week of vacation. Perfect timing, because the mid-term for my investment course was that week and I haven't been able to keep up with the readings. So, it's time to cram of a test... then the research picked up again, then it's time for the final exam... Long story short, I didn't get a breather till last weekend.

I have no regrets. Even when I was stressed out while studying for the final exam, I realized, if I were given the chance to choose again, I would still choose to take the course. I am glad I pick the harder way, now I know I can handle the work. I am more confident about the "crazy" schedule I set for myself next semester. (crazy as in, my adviser advises against what I am about take on)

But for now, I am going to do my best to enjoy the rest of Summer of Charles.

Intelligent Creation - Mon, 06:18 PM May 22 2006

For a graduate course at University of Maryland, we were given the assignment to create a "chess" playing program that can play Ultima, an variation of chess.

At the end of the semester all the teams played in a tournament to determine how well the programs play. After many tough matches our program was undefeated in the class. The above picture is the result of our toughest match; this game lasted two and half hours with 239 moves total. There were 3 offers to draw the game but they were rejected by the white side's operator (me) :-)

Great job team! Our hard work got us the top prize, pride!

Program Features:

• Alpha-Beta Search
• Transposition Table
• Iterative Deepening
• Quiescence Search
• Playable Ultima Game Board
• Evaluation Function Selection
• Search Depth Selection

Why Go To Grad School - Wed, 03:23 AM Apr 26 2006

I wasn't planning to blog around this time period due to all the final project deadlines and final exams, but since a friend of mine asked me why I quit my job to go to graduate school, I feel it's good to answer his question and at the same time reaffirm myself of my motivations. The simple answer I gave most people was "I was planning to work for a few years and then go back to school", and most people just stopped asking after that. But this reply was not enough this time; he wanted to know my real motivations. Since he asked so well, here is my motivation to pursue graduate studies in Computer Science.

First, I want to make it clear that I plan to return to the software industry after I finish graduate school. Knowing that, if I had to choose between 2 years of work experience and 2 years for graduate school, I would choose the latter because I feel graduate school is the better intellectual investment. Before you have the urgent need to correct me and say sometimes the 2 years in the industry is more intellectually challenging, let me state that I did delay graduate school to pursue a challenging project at work. To me that was a gamble, I could be learning a lot from the project but I also could be wasting time not going to grad school. In my particular case, I lost the gamble. The challenging project was terminated and I ended up coding the same mindless project I worked on for years (ok, maybe the project wasn't that bad ;-) If you are sure you can be intellectually challenged by your job then stay (hey, I was sure), but if you are not, graduate school is definitely the less risky investment.

Now, why do I think graduate school is a good investment for software developers? Because I truly believe that graduate school will help my career in software development. Unfortunately, many smart people from the industry do not feel graduate school will help software developers. Joel from JoelOnSoftware, for example, stated in this article under the section "Take programming-intensive courses" that he feels graduate school in Computer Science is for useless and uninteresting proofs. This is a very incorrect depiction of graduate school; a lot of useful researches are being conducted in many universities and the results of these researches are the future killer technologies. Many great minds from the industry constantly look into researches from the academic world. To keep Microsoft on the cutting edge, Bill Gates takes a few weeks off every year just to read research papers from many universities for ideas and inspirations.

For me, graduate school is an opportunity to learn in depth about the areas I have interests in and/or know is useful from industry experience. After working in the industry, I have a better idea of what these areas are and it's time to put in the effort to assimilate knowledge. Also, graduate school is an opportunity to experience areas that I did not get a chance to explore as undergraduate. I feel knowing different areas can help with innovation and creativity. Just last week, I noticed an algorithm from compiler optimization that is similar to the Google PageRank algorithm. Who are we to say the Google guys did not or could not have gotten inspiration from an area that's unrelated to their work? And I want to be able to communicate with people from the academia when I go back to the industry; I want to easily extract latest knowledge from these great minds. I need to learn the way they talk, the way they write and the way they think, and the best way to do that is to be one of them.

Hopefully now you and I all know the reasons I am in graduate school studying Computer Science :-)

The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld - Wed, 05:00 PM Apr 12 2006

During my office hours today, I had an interesting conversation with another graduate student about Donald Rumsfeld's poem from the Department of Defense news briefing:

The Unknown As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know.

Here is part our discussion of this poem:

unknown unknowns: How are unknown unknowns transformed into known knowns or known unknowns? We concluded, only by accident can we make that transformation, because we cannot look for the unknowns as we do not know what to look for.

unknown knowns: These are not mentioned in the poem, we argued their existence?

interpretation 1: If the knowns are unknown to us, then we do not know that we know them? It is only when they become known knowns that we know we know them. Therefore, unknown knowns are irrelevant to us and are equivalent to unknown unknowns.

interpretation 2: Given there are known unknowns, we can conclude that there is some work needed to transform known unknowns into known knowns. If by accident we found a previously unknown and it made the transformation straight into known known, then this previously unknown was a unknown known. Therefore, unknown knowns could exist.

Learning by Teaching - Fri, 06:00 PM Mar 24 2006

I have always heard the phrase "The best way to learn something is to teach it", and I always thought I understood this phrase. Maybe I did, I just didn't expect it to work so well!

I am a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course this semester. My responsibilities include:

• reinforce concepts presented in lectures
• assist students with programming projects
• grade homework and projects

I attend all of the lectures by the professor; being a TA forces me to pay attention to the details. During lectures I try to ask myself "how would I teach this to the students?" This constant questioning helped me remember and understand the material better.

During my office hours, I get to discuss material with my students; this is the best opportunity for me to learn. The students ask variety of questions and once in awhile I get a question that just stunts me. The question is so good that it changes my perspective on the subject.

The best part of teaching for me is I get to have so many different but great minds thinking and sharing with me. I learned so much and I thank the professor and the students for the opportunity.

No Pain No Gain - Wed, 08:39 PM Feb 22 2006

My mantra for snowboarding has always been "if I am not falling, then I am not pushing hard enough." Anyone can prevent falling by staying on the easy slopes and/or riding slowly, but in order to improve you have to push yourself (even to do crazy/stupid things). Well, I pushed myself last weekend :-p

I was in the terrain park, going down a "bench" (first trick of the day). Half way through sliding down the "bench", right before the jump, I felt something was dragging on my board. That made my lose balance and fell face forward off the jump and landed on my knees. That was the hardest fall I have taken since I started snowboarding (I still don't know what dragged me). The pain kept me away from the terrain park all day and I was afraid of falling on the slopes as well.

At the end of the day, I thought to myself, I can't go home feeling defeated. After contemplating for awhile, I decided to go back to the park and re-do that trick. I don't remember how long I sat at the top of the park before I got the confidence to go down. I seriously think I would have been carried off the mountain if I fell again on my knees, but due to stubbornness and some peer pressure I went for it. I was so relieved to have landed on my board, joy and confidence rushed back into me. I had enough confidence to take a couple more jumps in the park. At the bottom of the terrain park, I took off my board and limped back to the lodge with the pride I had lost :-D