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| Engineers and programmers are the often-anonymous architects of society, and what you do now could make a huge difference to the lives of millions, even billions, of people in decades to come. -Charlie Stross Shaping the Future |
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Thursday, December 16, 2004 i almost died today. i feel guilty. i should've been dead or badly hurt. i cheated death once again. i guess i'm lucky. it was finals week at ucla. i've been studying a lot but there hasn't been any long nights. it's been really long days. i had 2 finals on monday. one in the morning and one at night. it was the same ting on wednesday. each final was 3 hours and all 4 tests took the full 3 hours. i was on campus for 11+ hours. every night i was beat so i had to get my nights rest. how did i do? i got 2 results back. the very first test i took on monday, the one i studied the least for, was for CS111, a class that i was retaking. i got a 68% with the average being 70%. i was doing so well, too. i was getting an A but i'll be lucky if i get a B. the second test i got a 79% and the average was around 50% so i did pretty well. i ended up with a rank out of 20 out of 79 students (the rank is not weighted but is a based on progress, e.g. the midterm and final are weighted the same as homework). i felt very confident about the very last test i took (not because i had the most time to study for it just because i knew the material well. on the contrary, i studied very little for it). the other test i felt so-so about. i was ranked 3/115 (again, unweighted) and i doubt i'll lose my A in the class. i had work thursday morning and i wanted to get back to orange county wednesday night but i was dead tired. so i slept in and left in the morning. morning LA traffic sucks. it's like a roller coaster ride. one second you're going 80mph and the next you're stopped. it sucks too because the rising sun is right in your eyes. because of the super bright sky all you see from the car in front of you is a shadow and the frequent brake lights. after about 30 minutes of the constant droning along i was only a few miles passed LAX and the carpool lane opened up. 3 cops in motorcycles cruise along on the carpool. the car their trailing of course slows down to speed limit so he doesn't risk getting a ticket. i get distracted and *boom*. the car in front of me is at a dead stop and i'm still going about 50-55mph. there's about 5 car lengths (can be more) in front of me so i slam my brakes and proceed to downshift to the next lowest gear. i know there's not enough room for me to stop so i swerve into the carpool (without looking to see if anyone is there). i continue to brake and i downshift to third. by now i'm heading straight for a 45 degree collision with the center divider. i counter-steer quickly towards the other direction after i downshift. i downshift again and now i'm heading back towards the car i was going to rear-end (this time at a really acute angle of let's say 5-10 degrees) but now i'm stopped dead in the carpool. my heart is beating and i wonder what the hell just happened. i look at the guy that i almost crashed into and see the disappoint/disgust in his face. i quickly throw it into first and proceed driving so as not to cause a collision with anyone cruising down carpool. i'm lucky. i'm lucky no one was in carpool lane. i'm lucky i reacted quickly enough. i'm lucky no one was in my car. i'm lucky no one was traveling carpool for miles behind. i'm lucky yet i feel so bad. if one small thing didn't go my way i might not be here right now. if i didn't swerve out of the way and i rear ended that car... i might have been traveling 20mph. the truck doesn't have air bags and the belts don't seem to lock during any sudden movement. i would've smashed my face into the steering wheel or worse, into the windshield. there's a grill on the bumper so the impact wouldn't have been softened. i would've hit harder than if i was in any other car. imagine if i had a passenger... i would've been responsible for what happened to him/her. imagine if there was a car next to me... i would've crashed into it and into the car in front of me. imagine if there was a motorcycle... that's manslaughter. i can say "what if" all night and it won't change a thing. i feel really bad. but i'm thankful that luck was on my side. call it luck, God, or a sign. i don't feel too good either way. i should've been dead. c l i f f l o v e's thoughts at 10:36:00 PM
Comments:
here you go, cliff! "http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~nhy/Destiny's%20Child%20-%20Carol%20of%20the%20Bells.mp3"
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