The Raven and the Stormcrow

The UP cursor cosplay event was part of the annual Engg Week, and was held in tandem with the cheerdancing competition. The cosplay itself was pushed back two hours due to a change in venue.

The cosplay turnout was ...eight! Admittedly it was sort of predictable, as they limited it to UP diliman students currently enrolled, so there you go. The event was held outdoors, on the Engg Lawn. Grabe ang init!! It was a good thing that it was almost afternoon, and there was a huge building behind us, so it sheltered us from some of the heat.

I played an RO alchemist, costume courtesy of Minami (Arigatou gozaimasu!!).

Carla as RO blacksmith, Trinity as Kurapika, and I as RO alchemist

One good thing I experienced in that event was that I got to meet and chat with Trinity Cross (who played Kurapika of HxH) and her friend Carla (nice meeting you guys! ^_^ ). Poli, miked01, and their friends also dropped by. Some of the event's parts were emceed by the excellent magnetic_rose.

The eight of us went through preliminary judging, in which we posed in front of three judges (sort of what they did in UGG). After the first cheerdance performance, we got to ramp on the rubber mats (woe to those in high heels!). Then, after the rest of the cheerdancing, we got to ramp again and wait for the results of the cosplay judging.

The brave eight

The top three were the following: 3rd place was Carla (Trinity's friend) playing RO blacksmith, 2nd place was an RO sage, and 1st place was....a pink poring made of, surprisingly enough, papel de hapon! This poring was also the mascot of one of the cheerdance teams.

Raven

Labels: cosplay, photos

Ah, procastination. Sometimes it can save you time and effort.. sometimes it just makes you look like an idiot. I guess in the case of our blog, I got a little bit of both. Here's something that happened a month ago:

During the sembreak, I went to the beautiful island of Bohol. It's part of a standing tradition: the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas congress, a gathering of physicists from all over the Philippines. Mostly to have lunch, but also to present our most recent research results and listen to others. Well, it's also something to put in a resume, though the congress is far from being a IEEE journal.

The research in question was my undergrad thesis, which I defended in the last schoolyear. It was about the fabrication and testing of semiconductor lasers.. not very intellectualy challenging, but it takes a bit of skill since each laser is about the size of the head of an ant.

Bohol itself was great. I like being in the provinces.. stuff is so cheap compared to what I'm willing to pay in the metro, particularly the food and services. I also got to swim around a bit at the resort the conference was held in, though I didn't stick around for the tour.

When I got back, I quit my lab.

Not that I had anything against the lab.. I enjoyed it. It was one and a half years of late night experiments to do my thesis, and that kinda grows on you after a while. But for some reason I never appreciated the science of semiconductors, and it's not satisfying to be just an experimentalist without understanding the theory behind it. And I guess there's also the nagging feeling that I was only in the semicon lab because Pat's lab wouldn't let me in, years ago.

So now, I'm in the process of jumping over to Theoretica, and trying out the other side. I'm also wondering whether I should leave physics entirely, and try my hand at Economics, or CompSci.

It's a little late to be indecisive about my career path.. or maybe a little early to have a midlife crisis. Either way, don't ask me what I see myself working on ten years from now, because I'm still thinking about it. Because it's important to be true to yourself... and it's only work if you don't enjoy it.

Labels: photos, vacation, work