MIT Sport TKD Blog

i haven’t been to the career office since my freshman year… and i’ve heard rumors that they aren’t very good (especially with pre-med stuff).

but lo and behold, those rumors hold some string of truth!!  let me tell you about my experience…

i waited patiently to get my resume reviewed because i was applying for consulting companies.  after twenty minutes of waiting, at last i got to meet with someone.  names were exchanged and a hand shake shook.  i told her that i’m an engineering major, but am looking into applying for consulting companies; therefore, i needed help to change my resume.  she asked me when the last time i came to career office; i said my freshman year.  she glanced at the resume and looked at me.  she asked, “and you got jobs with this resume?” appalled, i said, “yeah…. i worked at lockheed and bose.”  wow, what a jerkface.  don’t be surprised that people don’t need career office critique.  actually now that i’ve experience firsthand how they clearly belittle people, i probably won’t ever go back.  so lame.

Tonight, olympic taekwondo started in Beijing.

First, let me say that it looks like fighting at the olympics would be AWESOME. There is one center stage, raised on a pyramid structure, with four corner judges sitting outside the yellow boundaries. The coach sits at the base of the pyramid while the two competitors fight, like gladiators on a pyre.

(from Day Life)

Tonight (rather, starting on Aug 20 at 9 AM Beijing time), the men’s and women’s fin/flyweight divisions fought. Included was American team member Charlotte Craig, the least spotlighted member of the US Olympian team, otherwise known somewhat simplistically as “All in the family.” You hear so much about the Lopezes that sometimes, it’s easy to overlook Charlotte, who also normally trains at a different studio (Jiro in LA, instead of Elite in Texas.)

But I have to say she came out blazing and her kicks were solid. You can see matches at nbcolympics.com, although I’m sure the finals matches will be much more interesting. I guess around this time (3 am) they are going to start the 2nd round of sparring, but I will probably be asleep soon, and will simply read about the results tomorrow.

I hope everyone gets a chance to watch the US team, as well as the other international superstars, fight through their brackets. On one hand, olympic taekwondo is such a high level of competition and is amazing to watch. On the other hand, you can really see that the basics we are learning are all that you need, but simply raised to a very high level of athleticism and experience. As we watched the match between Venezuela and Portugal, Master Sinn and I began to spar and kick hogu in my small studio apartment, trying to imitate the girls with the amazing left leg turning kicks. Yes, even the flyweight girls would beat me down.

The schedule and links to streaming taekwondo:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/taekwondo/index.html

mmm, this is my last week of interning. i can’t wait. as much as i enjoyed working at bose, i really can’t keep up this wacky sleep schedule. sleeping at 11PM is a lot harder than you’d think, especially if your friends sleep much later. i also don’t like having the option of napping during work. sadness.

anyway, onto the real purpose of this blog post. out of spontaneity, i decided to make a video of the mit sport taekwondo girls, specifically the A/B team girls. yes, just for fun maybe it’ll be used for orientation. then girls can see that they can do this kind of hard physical contact sport despite their athleticism.  sorry alum, there were too many girls ~.~ i got really of doing the video by the time i finished all the current members.

check it out:

avi version (~800mb): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LF4L5YE5
mp4 version (~80mb): http://web.mit.edu/chui/www/sport%20taekwondo/tkdgirls.mp4

i’ll try to upload a wmv and mp4 version on the gallery.  enjoy!

HOME!

I got home on June 11^th, flew in at Zia International Airport in Dhaka at night which is Bangladesh’s capital and not my home. Home sweet home is Chittagong.  The first person I saw was Abba (Bengali for dad).  I put out my T-mobile phone card from my razor and inserted my local SIM card and dialed my father.  We talked through the glass coz I hadn’t been cleared through my immigration paperwork yet.  A year is a long time not to see abba.

I couldn’t rest very long at Chittagong.  Although I am home, I have a HUMONGOUS project to carry out. I am working, with a friend, to implement a youth leadership training program that incorporates three different types of kids in my hometown.  There are three schooling systems here: English (of which yours sincerely is a product of) a.k.a. rich, spoilt kids, (which yours sincerely is NOT), Bengali (the state language and state supported schools) more middle class, and Islamic madrassas (which focus a lot on Islamic/religious education).  There is great disconnect between peers of these three mediums.  We want to bring these kids together in the spirit of responsible leadership through community service.  The project was one of the winners of the Davis Peace Prize 2008 (

English kid: OMG! Doooddee, I just learnt this killer break dance move from Step Up2.

Bengali kid:  I must have perfect grades so that I can go to a good university to support my family.

Madrassa kid: I am sidelined because people think I am a ‘Islamic fundamentalist’.  I will get rejected from a top-brass job because I have a beard and wear the Islamic cap.

Disclaimer: I am grossly stereotyping and would probably get shot if any of the kids saw this blog!

I started work on this almost immediately after I got here.  We are working here with a partner organization.  So the rest of June and the WHOLE of July has been swallowed up in getting applicants for the program, screening applications, getting a venue, training facilitators, keeping track of thousands of dollars, making ten gazillions phone calls, answering ten gazillion phone calls, and basically going nuts.  But by the grace of God, the program has kicked and is running with AMAZING colors.  The kids are so enthusiastic, so positive, they have been bonding really well, and they really believe they can make a change in their community and country.  We went for a field trip to a local slum yesterday.  The kids have to design community service projects that cater to the need of the slum dwellers. Example: one group came up with the idea of directing a play with the children of the slum to demonstrate the dangers of illiteracy, so that families send their children to school.

Program will end on August 16^th with a huge graduation ceremony inshAllaah. The kids deserve it, they have been working their gluts off.  True my summer is being swallowed whole with backbreaking work, and I am actually looking forward to the time when I will be back on campus doing solid mechanics classes and annoying psets (aaahhh good times ;)))  But this will be an experience for me to remember for the rest of my life and it might have even changed the course of my life. 

P.S.  I am also guilty of treason.  I have returned to my karate club, and have been training there for the whole summer. BUT I have been practicing my TKD kicks on my kicking bag and on my karate-mates.  I made my club use the same warm-up drills like plyo jumps that we do at practice. There were a lot of groans when I made everyone do the plank for 40s!

P.P.S  The whole credit for this entry to THE Mary.  She threatened never to cut weight to make me spar heavy for the rest of my life. 

Exhibit A: Gordon, turned purple as a squashed summer blackberry in the sun

Exhibit B: The Hole

On a faraway beach, in a faraway land where the sands sing to the weary traveler, was a huge hole. Deep, wide and wet, its volume was a phenomenon in a plain of ridges and dunes. Despite the closeness of the ocean, no tide has ever filled it, though the bottom is rumored to hold a mysteriously salty reservoir. Futile attempts were made to make it into a lake, a placid thing of beauty for pleasure barges like those Caligula built on the shores of Lake Nemi. Whoever those fools were, the only result was an abandoned canal stretching only partway into towards the sea. What was once a deep, ambitious mouth cut sharply into the sliding walls almost to the bottom of the pit, is now overrun by oozing sand, the whole affair most dissipated in its heedless dilapidation. A laughable testament to the impossibility of the task and the naiveté of its creators.

On the edge of this monstrous chasm perched a castle of sand, with dribbled towers sculpted like melted wax, all completely encircled by crumbling but formidable walls. There are only two entrances to this wall, one in the North and the other in the South. For the weary traveler, lost on sun-baked sands too hot to touch, this was no welcoming haven, its shadows too ominous to even tempt with its respite to the heat.

–

Romanticism aside, Sauza dug a humongous hole (it was really deep!) next to his sand castle, complete with wet sand-dribbled towers looking for all the world like melted wax. And sat in it. We tried covering him with a towel and debated whether we should put a frisbee in the middle and trick Bobby into coming over and have Dan leap out (or so the theory went). Finally we decided a random frisbee in the middle of a towel was too suspicious — particularly since the towel kinda sagged in the middle, and you can see quite clearly that SOMETHING was wiggling around under it. In fact, that was might have even been more freaky.

I found it quite comfortable, cool and the view rather romantic. With the afternoon sun slanting from the West and your head a few feet below the sand, the sand spires seemed to tower into the light, ominous spires outlines by a blinding glow. What could only ruin the experience was the ring of people standing around, giving one the feeling as if one was about to be buried alive in some barbaric burial ritual.

It is too much of a pity to let such a good hole go to waste, so we threw Sauza in and buried him up to his neck. (Actually it wasn’t so dramatic: I said “we should bury you”, and he said “OK”) The trouble came when we tried to dig him out. He had crossed his legs and wouldn’t budge. When we attempted to pull him, we almost got pulled in ourselves. The less compassionate of us were tempted to give him a straw and leave him there, which caused him some alarm. Fortunately, the more ethical decided to dig some more and finally, with an Olympic heave, Sauza from born once again from the sands. Although this would be the first a deity emerged into the world in swimming trunks.

Exhibit C: Vijay’s furry back — think exotic sea animal, in all the wrong ways. He even slings sand balls (Spiderman 2, anybody?).

Exhibit D: “Gordo” the built Mermaid, complete with uni-boob and an admittedly fetching tail

Exhibit E: Sand woman giving birth to a very pregnant Christin Chin. So Athena was born fully grown and armored form Zeus’s head, Aphrodite from sea foam, the Monkey King from a rock and Christ from a married virgin. But this, surely this, is something we haven’t heard of yet in mythology.

Exhibit F: For something a bit more tasteful, although more mundane (or NORMAL for god sakes), and a truly exquisite experience for the taste buds –

Fruity, rich, deliciously cold scoop of dripping chocolate raspberry ice cream.

Sweet.

OHIOOOO everyone!

wow, how to begin…

blogging seems so strange now. i used to be really into the livejournal scene back in middle/high school (yeah, yeah… i was a teenybopper. but at least it’s a step up from xanga? ^^). thinking back on it, i poured some serious love and time into my little online buddy…

but then MIT happened. and the frequency/quality of my writing took a serious turn for the worse. imagine something like this xkcd comic, but instead of “my overall health” and “the day i realized i could cook bacon whenever i wanted,” it would be “any semblance of writing skill i might have had at some point in my life” and the graph would crash at “the day i came to mit.” >.<

in fact, reading over my poor, neglected blog is pretty painful. starting september 2005, half of the entries are cursing the terrible boston weather and the other half are apologies for not keeping my blog up to date.

but at the same time… OMG I WAS A HAPPY, CAREFREE, ENERGETIC FRESHMAN!!!

exhibit a: (from sept. 30, 2005… almost 3 years ago! O__o)

“Be a hearty New-Englander” –Sunny, my roommate

It was 49 degrees when I woke up today. Yesterday I almost got blown away by 40 mi/hr wind gusts. I’ve unpacked my scarves, joined the facebook group “Afraid of Freezing at MIT,” and washed out my thermos. And I can’t stop coughing.

But for some reason I feel just fine!

::tears::

what happennnneeddd…

it’s pretty interesting, though, to read back over reflections on freshman year (few and far between as they are). oh, freshman year… ::cue cloudiness and reminiscent music::… that was when i got dragged to my first TKD p.e. class by my roommate!

on that note, i really miss tkd… oh yeah, and all you guys too. ;D every time i get one of mary’s social emails, i feel sad and lonely… just kidding! kinda…

i’ve been trying to stay in shape here. i don’t have a car so i can’t get to a dojang for practice, but i’ve been running on a pretty consistent basis and doing some stretching/curriculum review… so hopefully getting back into the swing of things won’t be so hard come september.

ah! you may be wondering where i am (or who i am, for that matter… oh boy, i have a feeling this blog entry is not very coherent @__@). well, this is christine lee (supersecretcodename: flyingtotoro), and i’m in san jose, CA, working for a MEMS research division of qualcomm.

things here are pretty nice. i can’t complain about much. well, i take that back– i can. but i will spare you (for this entry, at least).

for the time being, let’s just say i’m enjoying the beautiful california weather and the copious amounts of delicious, sweet fresh fruit.

i’m also very lucky to have wonderful tkd friends who came to visit me 4th of july weekend… jenn huang, jackie, and john came by and we went galavanting around the bay area (will upload pictures soon). i’ve also met up with our alum instructor conor, who is doing quite well, it seems.

other than that, i’ve just been… watching copious amounts of food network, travel channel, and bravo (to make up for the lack of those channels at MIT) aaaand… NOT progressing on my many summer goals.

hopefully you all are being more productive than i am.

… i know i’ve said this already, but I REALLY MISS YOU ALL!

::sending happy thoughts::
–Clee

(posted by Suz)

and I did not quit TKD (yet).  I’ve been in and out of town, and when in town, drowning in work/patent bar review classes etc.

I would go to the social events, if I had a long enough attention span to read Mary’s e-mails.

Anyway, I went to June for a friend’s wedding in Italy, came back to work for a mad week of classes (I’m studying to take the patent bar) and work, then went on another vacation to Hawa’ii with my family.  We went to Honolulu and had a great time, but due to poor planning and general lameness did not do as many cool things as most people do when they are in Hawa’ii.  Certain siblings of mine preferred to stay in the hotel room all day. (???)  I practiced forms by the beach in the early morning when there were relatively few people to gawk at me.  That said, no one really paid attention to me, possibly because there were are lot of other people at the beach to stare at.  Also, the other people were scantily clad, whereas I was not.

Italy was a much shorter trip - I spent the first two days (one in Pisa and one in Milan) catching up on sleep and trying to fake it in Italian.  It went okay.  You can pick up a lot of Italian by repeating what Italians say to you.  Pisa was a nice small town, but I didn’t even go see the Tower, since I had just flown in and was sleep-deprived and jet-lagged.  Milan felt unfriendly and cold, except for some random friendly British guys I encountered.

Then I headed to Tuscany near Siena for three days of partying and “Sports Day” organized as part of my friend’s wedding.  It was a huge wedding group full of Caltechers (where the bride, groom, and myself went to school) and Londoners (as the bride and groom now live there).  British people are fun to party with, but some of them only seem interested in drinking.

At Sports day, we had a mad marathon of soccer, softball, bocci (?), flag football, and some bizarre fifth “sport.”  I played soccer and flag football, which was a lot of fun.  Our team (the groom’s side) lost. I think we weren’t just as athletic as the bride’s side, which was full of expert soccer players and people who cheat in sports.  (I was supposed to add that last phrase in surface support of the groom’s side.)

Well, hope to see you all again soon!

hey everyone, for those who don’t know, Alicia, RDC and I are going to be competing at Senior Nationals one week from today. (No, not senior as in senior citizen.) We’ll be in Detroit on July 1st, weighing in and then pigging out, and competing on the 2nd. Others you might know will also be there - Jayson Grant, know for his on court dances, and Ana K from CW and some friday practices.

But that means this week we’re going to be miserable, because we are cutting weight. If you think dropping 6 pounds by next tuesday is impossible, you haven’t eaten Trader Joe’s High Fiber Cereal (yea yea that’s my real blog too. everyone and their mother has one). The good thing about it, i guess, is i will be beach ready next week. So Mary, plan a beach trip soon please!

If you’re around this summer, it would be awesome to bring some new people to the club. I’m having a great time teaching the beginners, and would love to have a large group of awesome new people like we did after last summer. And if you’re around, lets play more ultimate frisbee…even if i’m not just doing it to cut weight.

This blog site and album-posting goodness is so awesome! Thanks so much guys : )

<3 <3 <3

Now, people should start writing : )

PART I

I would like to explain the motivations behind the creation of this blog.

As the cohesive group we are, a big family we proudly call ourselves, some of our club members [Mary] are feeling uneasy, and completely lost, considering the prospect of a summer disconnected from some of their TKD buddies. Didn’t you feel the stress of having to say goodbye to other TKD folks knowing you won’t see some of them until the fall term? That’s what I thought, tragic. Well, don’t stress, for this blog is here to bring some hope to your lives and help you cope with the situation. The main purpose of the blog is to keep each other updated about our super interesting summer activities *so Mary can easily stalk all of us*. Sharing your summer experiences with Mary the rest of your TKD buddies is a honorable thing to do, and something we’re all looking forward to.

What can you possibly share in this blog? Anything you want. Let your imagination fly, and reach new limits, and once you find that special thing you would like everyone else in the club to know about, use your magnificent writing skills to tell us all about it, through this blog. Topics can range from your current internship or research project (we’re all very interested to hear about it, I swear), to how much ice cream you ate yesterday and how much you’ll have to kick in order to burn those extra calories. There is simply no limit in what you can talk about, just use your common sense and keep things clean.

Now, some of you might have used the WordPress platform before and will be all excited to jump right in and write a blog entry. For those of you who don’t know how to do it, these are the easy steps to follow to publish your entry:

1. Register for a new account.
2. Send me and Mark an e-mail so we can set your account as a contributor.
3. Once your account is set as contributor, Login to your account
   
4. Once logged-in click on Write to write your post. [you can just use the link in this line if you can't find the 'write' button once you're logged in]
5. After your done, click on Submit for Review [a very cute button to the right]
6. Send us another e-mail, and we’ll approve it unless you said mean things about my cat.
7. Done! Mary can now officially stalk you more effectively.

• note that after your first blog entry you only have to repeat steps 3-6 for your following entries! easy, huh?!

If you think all of this is simply too much work for you, given that you are already dedicating your life to lab or something, you can just write your post in an e-mail or word document and send it to me and I’ll publish it for you.

PART II - Here we get graphical

There is another thing I wanted to share with all of you. We wouldn’t be able to effectively stalk each other only through blog entries… right? How often have you found yourself looking through other people’s pictures on facebook just to see how much fun they were having? Right. We have also set up our own beautiful TKD gallery. The concept is easy and clean, everyone can post pictures of what they’ve been up to for the enjoyment of the rest of the club! These pictures can be, again, about anything you’re doing this summer. To access the galleries to the following:

1. Visit the Gallery site [http://MITSportTKD.com/gallery/]
2. Register! [An error screen might show up at the end, but your registration should have been received anyways, don't worry]
   
3. Send Mark and I an e-mail to notify of your registration [we need to approve the account]
4. Login
5. Follow the instructions to add photos to your gallery! You can add albums and photos to those albums.

• If you don’t know how to add photos let me know and I’ll help you.

That is all for now, we have two beautiful stalking tools up and running and I’m eager to see what you all have to share. I hope you all are having an exciting summer and I hope to see many blog entries and photos soon!

-Omar