Sept 7
1. I went to AFX auditions to try out a spot on the training team. I thought I had the whole choreography memorized until it was time to performed. I don’t think I executed a single move correctly
2. My roommate Dylan recently re-introduced me to Neopets, and I had too much pride in the game. I had ~6.6 million neopoints as well as a ton of rare items. I decided today was the day I gave up my material possessions so I would move on. So I gave it all to Dylan, and I felt charitable. Now Dylan rubs his wealth into his girlfriend’s face.
3. Alice Oh came to visit me at work. We stumbled across this gravity simulator website and decided to mess around with it. We tossed a couple of planets into the simulator, and waited for all the planets to start converging. But it didn’t.
From ~1000 planets or so we narrowed the number down to around 30, but by then the viewing was pretty uneventful. We glared at the screen. There were two planets that consistently orbited around each other, extremely closely. We had our eyeballs glued to the screen, holding onto our bathroom breaks in case we miss the final collision between the two giant planets. It was already 1:20 AM Monday, and we had to head home. We found that my laptop could continue to sleep, and the simulator would resume simulating once it was back up. So I took the laptop home, started a screen cast, and fell asleep, hoping to catch the eventual collision by sometime before morning.
It never happened, I was so disappointed. I guess that’s the reason why earth is still here today. 3 hours of my life wasted.
Sept 8
1. I had my first day of my “Intro to Nonviolence” class. My friends ask me why I bother taking such a class, and I always joke that my parole officer told me to take it. I was interested in the discussion of nonviolence, so I am enrolled.
Our first exercise was to meditate, and shit I am horrible at meditating. It feels so natural to just have my thoughts drift into thinking about something interesting. It takes vigilance to clear my head, and in the end I gave up trying to control everything, and daydreamed the rest of the session.
The instructor then had us perform a vision exercise. He said to have us use our imagination to think of whatever vision or dreams we had in mind, whether it was world peace, green world, or an educated world. He had students volunteer to speak up what they saw. One black male had the vision that African American students would have access to the same opportunities. Another believe that the criminal justice system should be reformed. Oddly, when I was asked for my vision, I couldn’t really think of anything. Instead, I started daydreaming of what it would like to be one of the guardians of the galaxy (I only recently saw the movie). Then, I proceeded to think about how cool it would be to be a fire bender or water bender, but not air or earth because those elements suck.
I was not trying to be insulting. I didn’t have a memorable experience that shaped my visions, the kinds that guided the other students in their missions. I simply amused myself with the possibilities.
2. I went back home to Palo Alto for the evening. I got to see my mom and brother again. It seems like nothing has changed since I was last back here.
Sept 9
1. Had afternoon drinks with Karthik Viswanathan at Timothy Adams. Timothy Adams was this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in Palo Alto that had amazing chocolate milk. It was simply the best chocolate milk I’ve had. Karthik paid for my drinks.
We talked about our summer experiences and what we’re doing this upcoming semester.
2. Had dinner with Tiffany and Darren.
3. At the Hackers@Berkeley meetings, we do committee breakouts about halfway through the semester. Mid-breakout, we hear the media committee do a cheer, “Bam! Media!” They chanted. Everyone laughed, but was jealous of the amount of camaraderie the committee exhibited. A couple of minutes later, we hear the workshops committee yell “Wham! Workshops!”
Sept 10
1. Movement general meeting! I got into Movement Swing! So stoked!
2. Worked on my EE126 homework with Leah. She’s carrying me so much in the class hahaha.
Sept 11
1. It was my last day working as an Academic Center Assistant. I decided resign after some thought, and I was enjoying my last shift at the center. When my shift was about to end and the next ACA’s Annie Su and Jacob Liming were coming in, they told me they would miss having me in the center. Annie and Jacob were puzzled as how to conduct a proper farewell. They brainstormed through experimentation. They announced to the center that I was leaving, they played sad songs, and as I was heading out they saluted me. I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s not like I’ll never see them, they waved like I was soldier ready for deployment.
2. Alice Oh messaged me on Facebook, telling me there’s a coupon code for Lyft that gives you 10 free rides for up to $20 in value for each ride! She said she’s going to Shooting Star Cafe in Oakland to celebrate and get Hong Kong desserts. I was so stoked, and being generous, I shared the coupon code to some of my friends, claiming the exact thing. 20 minutes later, Alice messaged me again and said that she was charge $37 for the ride and that the coupon code didn’t work. I had to go back to my friends and tell them not to use it, but I was so amused by Alice’s guinea pig status to blow her first ride on a trip to Shooting Star. She and her roommate had to take the bus back.
3. I went to worked out with Samson Su (my freshman roommate). I hadn’t gone to the gym since before summer, and I tell Samson has been going quite often. I did several exercises, all of which I was amazed to see how much more weight Samson could lift now. I was struggling, hard.
I took a 10 minute excursion when Alice visited me to hand me Shooting Star Cafe food she bought for me. She got me egg puffs, and they were super delicious.
Sept 12
1. Hung out with Tiffany Ko at Cafe Strada. I had to explain to her what javascript callbacks were. She was working on a side project and was confused as to why her project wasn’t working.
2. I had to leave Tiffany to go eat lunch with Sharon Liu. She came in sick with acute bronchitis. We had a conversation about drinking and party culture, as well as continued discussion over consciousness.
3. Hung out with Megan Mubaraki under a tree in front of VLSB. We just sat there and talked about a variety of topics. We went to Sharetea afterwards, and then to SwingCal, where Elli Haugen, Elissa Lee, and I snuck into the class to take swing dance lessons. It was super fun
4. There was a swing dance event at night, and I invited Soo Song to attend. She was going to attend the beginner lesson, but I kept her and dragged her into the intermediate lesson (I gave her a crash course for a min and told her she was good to go). I did some social dancing, and discovered I was super rusty. I had lots of fun though. I love dancing with everyone.
Sept 13
1. I tried Taiko drumming for the first time today. Dylan’s girlfriend Vivian invited me, and since Dylan was too tired in the morning, Vivian and I went instead. I was two practices late, and everyone had already learned the audition piece. I had to take a side lesson with this really cool guy named Joel. He taught me all the basic moves, and then the song. All in one session.
I have so much more respect for the activity. There was so much to perfect. First, you had to go into a proper power stance, which involved splitting your legs and bending your left leg. There was 5 kinds of hits. “Don” and “Kon” were big hits. “Doko”‘s were more rapid and moderate hits. “Tsuru”‘s were small hits. “Kara” were side hits (hits on the side of the drum). It wasn’t just the “notes” of taiko, you also had to hit the drum in a certain way too! By the end of the lesson, I had blisters on my hands.
I really, really like the people of Taiko, but unfortunately, it conflicts with my other activities. I wish those people the best of luck.
2. I had lunch with Jill Lin. Jill paid for my lunch, mainly because she reached out to me and wanted to talk about Pinterest. I had a pleasant conversation with her. I was shocked (in a good way) to find out she spoke fluent Taiwanese. She also told me about her recent startup idea, and asked for my advice.
3. Spent an afternoon session advising a former colleague of mine, Richie Yu. Richie’s been struggling in CS61A, and asked for my advice. I spent some time working him through an example and the thought process that went through working that example out. I hope he takes my advice
4. Had dinner with Patrick Truong, Elli Haugen, and Samson Su at Chipotle. It was a quick dinner and we just talked about random everyday life happenstances.
5. I attended Lindy on Sproul’s 10th anniversary celebration! I invited Alice Yuan to come and she did! I also invited Tiffany Ko to attend. She came, but immediately left before I could see her face-to-face. She texted me “You lied to me! I didn’t know you had to pay to get in!”. I asked her why she left. “I’m Asian. Asians don’t pay for things.” I would have paid for her…
I was extremely happy I didn’t have to babysit Alice. Many beginners I bring to swing dance need constant attention and assistant to learn the moves. Thankfully a ton of people asked Alice to dance, and she picked up quite a few moves from the guys she danced with. I also found out that I sometimes like being a follow, since it meant I didn’t have to think about what I was doing, and just go with the flow.
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