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Monday, December 01, 2014

Welcome, Kuma-chan!


I have exciting news as we have been searching for a new addition to our home!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

My first coding project: 2048

I'm now into week 4 of my web dev boot camp, meaning I'm almost one-third of the way through, crazy!

Honestly, there are times where I feel like there is no possible way that I can be remotely competent in just 12 weeks, but then I saw some student projects from the previous session and it motivates me to remember that they were just like me...and now they have real, working products!

I just uploaded my first working game, which is based on the original 2048 game:

"So you agree? You think you're really pretty?"
Don't be too harsh, it's my first working code as a whole and I didn't focus too much on aesthetics (as you can tell).  I used Mean Girls as a fun theme to motivate me.

If you don't know about it, try it!  It's a simple but effective time-waster.  You're basically trying to combine the same numbers together until you get a 2048 tile on your board.  This hasn't happened for me yet but you have this bright pink version to try it on!

We made this game to learn and understand a bunch of new concepts and be able to use them in a real context and then played around with different effects afterwards.  To summarize:


  • This combined HTML5, CSS,  and CoffeeScript (converted to JavaScript)
  • The board fades in
  • Every time the numbers combine, the background tile image changes
  • Every time you hit a new high tile number for the first time, the background image and movie quote change
  • The score tally is simple but functional
  • Alerts you when 'game over'
  • Used two-dimensional arrays to build the board


This project was from two weeks ago (we started it in our second week) so we've already moved on to new topics, but I'm already trying to think of a few different ideas that I'd like to try out in a couple months.  I do have a key topic in mind that I'm really excited about, so hopefully I can put my thoughts together enough to build it.

Hope all is well in the real world!

xx K


Monday, September 29, 2014

Monday Morning

It's a beautiful Monday morning here in Hong Kong, which means it's a day after the intense Occupy Central situation.

Thanks to those who reached out and checked in on me over the weekend; I actually avoided the area yesterday because I get a bit freaked out by crowds anyways (this is why I never go to concerts).  I wanted to want to go because it's a piece of history happening, but the eventual tear gas took it to where I was afraid it would go.

Still, I find it very admiral and courageous for the people to be out there and taking a stand (whereas I didn't, so very American of me...T_T).  Aw man, even as I type this, the feeling of regret is growing. Ok, Kristen, must improve on thyself!

[Update: The protestors are still staying strong and will probably increase on Wednesday and Thursday due to public holiday.]

***

In other news, there was also a very scary volcanic eruption in Japan that killed and injured several hikers.  This was the area Anita and I traveled to just this year before we left (I know, I still intend to write a blog post about it)!

I do feel like the world is becoming a scarier place.  With all the airplane crashes this year (seriously, what the hell, it's really, really scary!), it's freaking me out: the flight that crashed from Taiwan (which my girlfriends and I were in Taiwan together and one took a very similar flight on the same day), the two crashes with Malaysian Airlines, Air Algerie, and all within just a few weeks of each other!

This is the reason why I'm that person who makes all her friends text her when they've arrived and landed safe.

***

Can I just mention how embarrassing and insulting Fox News is?  I can't believe they are still able to air as a reputable source because they like a parody of Anchorman to me.

It really disturbs me because there are people who actually believe everything they see on the news.  Especially with this piece I just saw,  claiming that racial profiling should be allowed because putting Japanese-Americans into internment camps was such a success.

Being Japanese-American, this is offensive, but being American, it's downright embarrassing.  The guest speaker later apologized, but not until several days later after a rain of criticism.

***

Lastly, anyone catch Leonardo DiCaprio's speech about global warming?  None of us are perfect, but we should at least try to reduce our damage to the environment.

The global situation with the changing climates is a real thing; I am so annoyed of people still saying it's not real.  Like the scientific community's educated and researched opinion is not good enough? What?

I get to that feeling where if someone is still adamant about it now, it's not even worth my energy to explain if they can't accept it with all the facts and figures in front of their faces.  All it takes is a Google search or five and one should be a bit freaked out.

***

Anyways, this wasn't meant to be such an intense post, but I do think these were worth mentioning.

What I had originally intended to post is much less interesting: that I'm onto my second week of coding boot camp.  The first week was good, it left me feeling like, "I want more, but I'm kind of drowning!"

The biggest insight though, is that it feels really great to be a student again.  Not only that but to be with other students who actually want to be there.

It's very different from college; we're all young and excited but to be honest, a lot of us don't want to be in class and we don't appreciate it at the time.

This is different.  Most of us all have some kind of working experience or situation where we want to improve ourselves and our skills, or make some kind of life change, so it really affects the attitude and energy of the class.  Everyone has an interesting backstory, so it's been so refreshing and motivating to participate in this course.

Anyways, I need to get ready for class, so I hope everyone else is having a great start to the week!

xx K



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Friday, September 12, 2014

What do you mean you've "never heard dial-up"?

Checking out the lanterns in TST

My girlfriends challenged me to something called "30 before 30" which is a list of 30 goals I want to accomplish before I'm 30.  I was game to play until I realized...my deadline is only a year and a half away.

WHAT.

Crazy!!

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm still young, but I've definitely started feeling older.  Not that it's a bad thing at all, but sort of bizarre-feeling.

I'm still compiling my goals, but before I get into my 30 Before 30 list, here are some moments or ways that I've been feeling the generation gap widen behind me and feeling more my age:

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

4 years, 3 Countries and 4 Apartments

Happy Anniversary!
Me: Btw, happy belated anniversary
Boy: Happy anniversary!
Me: You forgot!
Boy: No, course I didn't
Me: Yess
Boy: I set a calendar reminder actually
Me: And you still forgot??
Boy: I didn't forget
Me: -_-
Boy: Just thought we were waiting til the weekend
Boy: Why didn't you say anything?
Me: Plus, it's the 25th today here
Boy: Our anni is 23rd
Boy: It's same day as ur birthday
Me: Oh
Me: Oops
Boy: That's how I remember
Boy: Now who looks stupid!
Boy: Fail
Boy: Don't even know the day
Boy: Sounds like something a boy would do

The above chat took place while I was in the States (and a day ahead) and is evidence that the Boy got one on me!

Thursday, September 04, 2014

Adventures in Cooking

Mangos and Basil Seed, yum!

Since I've been funemployed for the past few months, I've had a sneaking suspicion that the Boy has been trying to slowly condition me to be his personal chef.  While he doesn't usually buy books, he's bought at least three cookbooks and left them casually scattered around.

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Back from the Golden State


Hello, hello!

I just spent three weeks in my home state and despite it being my longest chunk of time, I took it at a more relaxed pace. Unfortunately, that meant skipping a trip up to San Francisco which I was hoping to do, but I guess there's never enough time!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Okay, maybe I have too many shoes


The photo above would be the current state of our new living room. Despite the boxes, I feel more homey already!

Much to my dismay, most of the remaining boxes fall under one of these categories:

1. Clothes
2. Shoes
3. Random-crap-and-clutter
    ie: pencils, papers, old ipods, old flip phones (how to toss responsibly?)
4. Random-and-clutter-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-but-maybe-it's-important
    ie: random buttons, screws, cords, instruction manuals, one side to an earring...yes, I'm that person. 

Bedroom

Living room when there are no boxes

Kitchen...not yet organized.

It's been feeling steadily productive!

I will say that the Japanese packers did an exceptional job.  They are so meticulous and detail oriented, though, I felt silly that they carefully wrapped my Forever 21 jewelry...thanks, guys!

Our "spare" room which will mostly be a wardrobe.




This was going to be our spare room and my little "creative" space, but it's going to turn into a wardrobe, basically.  There just wasn't any storage space built into the apartment so we bought what is the biggest closet I've ever had:

Building the wardrobe
I don't think this closet will ever leave this room (unless it's in pieces again).

This was the room empty.
Woo!  So I've been steadily filling the closet with all our work clothes.

Speaking of work, I don't start work until September, so it's been great having the time to really settle into the city.  I really don't know how people move to a new country and start work right away.  There's all these little things that I want to get situated and take time. The biggest being the apartment search and the actual unpacking process but even things like figuring out your local super market, where the ATMs are, and just orientating myself and getting around.

Before I finish up this post, I wanted to show the terrace of the service apartment we stayed in:

Construction near our terrace


Speared through our sun chair
Do you see this?

One of the bamboo scaffolding fell off at some point and speared through the chair I was sitting in earlier.  I told Management and they brought over some wine and macaroons to apologize but still left wicker debris all over the terrance.  We're definitely not in Japan anymore because that ish would not fly.

And lastly, a photo of my new MTR pass!  It's so much cuter than the card!


Cheerio!

Thursday, July 10, 2014

First week in Hong Kong


10 days in Hong Kong and we've finally decided on our new home!

::Drumroll::

Monday, June 30, 2014

Lists and Leaving Dos

Thanks for the photo, Azu! Taken at a BBQ outside of Tokyo.

The moment I found out we were going to be moving to Hong Kong, I was stricken with panic.

Why?

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Away we go

Woww.

The past six weeks have been a blur and I'm still coming to terms with the fact that:

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Season of Selfies

How awful am I, only my second post of the year and we're almost at the end of the first quarter!

I really did mean to write more...I have all these half-completed posts about my trips to Boracay,  London and Niseko, but I never know how to write a good story and experience like so many other bloggers do.   I kept pushing them off and before I knew it, it all snowballed (haha, get it?) into a season of work, snowboarding, and trying to stay warm.

Saturday, January 04, 2014

Happy New Year 2014!

It's a shiny new year!

Whew! I've been wanting to write, post photos and stay updated up until the end of the year and then kick off with a timely post about New Year's resolutions, but I've been so busy that I could barely get adjusted to my current time zones.