18/12/03

*** 16th ***

i got home around 6am, waited about half an hour for the water to heat up, had a shower, and went to bed. i woke up around 10 - 11am, when she came over.
she left around noon, and i had breakfast, got my gear and went off to tel aviv, for training.
i got there a few minutes late. i received, and put on, my new taekwondo uniform, and we began doing all sorts of silly things, like sprinting, and fighting. having missed a lot of training, being sick, and losing weight / muscle mass (people are commenting, it's quite embarrassing), i found it to be a lot of hard work.

after training, i went to a classmate's apartment to do our accounting homework. an absolutely STUNNING apartment, in the middle of tel aviv, and it's really cheap.
i'm only a tad jealous.
anyway, i couldn't see straight, but we somehow got through most of the assignment. and then i made my way home.

i got home, and found our brit playing with a new joystick, attached to microsoft flight simulator 2004.
and it is GOOOOOOD.
he gave me some time with a training helicopter, which proved to be really difficult, but as i've been obsessed with flying them since i was a child, i was completely absorbed and thrilled.
and i got to practise all the neat stuff i've learned from the jane's ah-64d longbow manual.

she came over with one of her flatmates, and our brit and grootbek came with us to ra'anana to play some pool.

*** yesterday ***

we had a lot of fun, and because there were five of us, it came out fairly cheap, at least by israeli standards.

she and her flatmate returned to gedera, and i logged on to an israeli counterstrike server. and played some AMAZING games! i managed to keep a kill:death ratio > 1, and at one point racked up a beautiful knife-kill...

on my way to bed, i stopped by our brit's room, where he had been sitting for ages, flying a boeing 737, the entire distance, in real time, between two states.
i'd heard the others making fun of him, and, curious, i sat down to watch.
i could not believe that flying and landing a boeing could be so intense, and so riveting. for about twenty minutes, or more, i had to keep reminding myself to blink. i managed to help out a bit, but unfortunately the landing didn't go so well, and resulted in a crash.
but the process is simply incredible.

he then gave me another round with the helicopter. i had one goal: to land the damn thing.
after a few minutes, i managed to figure out the basic idea - you have to pre-compensate for over-compensation, by pushing the rudder pedal (twisting the joystick), and immediately pushing on the other one to adjust. this results, basically, in twisting your hand (pushing the pedals) rapidly from one side to the other, which kind of looks like a nervous twitch.

anyway, i LANDED THE DAMN THING.
AH - YEAH.
totally proud of myself, i went to bed (around 03.30).

i woke up around 11am, or something. i went shopping, bought myself some food, and a 40GB harddrive. i can now use my computer like ordinary human beings.

my programming partner came over around 15.00, and we worked on our assignment, due friday, until 23.00.
my back, and my eyes, HURT.

she gave me a ride to work,

*** today ***

where we're now about to begin. i watched a really funny movie, called the gamers, or something, for which i'll add a link when i get the chance...

good hunting.