Illusions, delusions, and dreams...

Quotes of late:

"If Green Day were a vector, its basis would be Basket Case, Holiday, Time o-f Our Lives, and

Quotes of the day:

Jason Hsu, guest speaker from RA.LLC: "There's this other type of risk we evaluate for investors. Basically, when you're wrong, you don't want to be wrong by yourself. You want other people to be wrong with you. If you were the only one wrong, you'd look really stupid. That's what we call career risk."

Marty Willhite , guest speaker from Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP: "So who bought a house in the last couple of years? Everybody bought a house, right? There's no reason for anyone to not have bought a house in the last couple of years. I don't care if you have no income."

Quote of the day:

Zeb: I've been here for a long time...
Page House diners: How long?
Zeb: 8 inches.

I am not dead yet.

Let's see, updates since November 8th... First term sucked, finals sucked even more. Managed to pull off a 3.3 for the term somehow. My major classes (physics and astrophysics) are my worst grades (seems to be a trend at Caltech).

First half of winter break was amazing. Spent a week at Claudia's house in PA, hung out with friends I haven't seen in a year, had tons of fun, more than I'd had since summer, including drinking with high school friends. =D The 1.5 weeks that followed were not as great. I stayed in new house and unpacked and repacked all my shit, organized the house (didn't get very far), and got some new furniture. My new room is hella small.

Right now, only 2nd week into 2nd term, and I already foresee difficulties, with scheduling as well as with classes themselves. First weekend was ski trip with Page House. I didn't ski, but enjoyed it very much nonetheless. We went hot tubbing, and saw amazing fireworks with smiley faces.

I've been meeting with people left and right for summer research opportunities since getting back. So many cool projects, but only enough time for one. I also need to find a prof. who will have a high chance of getting funds for a SURF as well as be able to write a good recommendation later on. Need to write up a resume soon, like, today... ><

How are you all?

My new laptop arrived yesterday, and I got all the stuff on my old computer transferred and everything, and now it's operational! *happy* It's an HP Pavilion, very sleek-looking. Intel Duo Core 2 processor, 2.2GHz, 2 gig RAM (though that's separately upgraded), lots of goodies. I know everyone says Vista is annoying, but it's soooo pretty! *pat pat*

Been sick for a good while, so now I need to make up tons of work. I hate having to work after slacking off for a long time. It's so depressing.

Update: I'm still alive, sort of, barely. Sets are about to bury me alive, grades are dropping, and I already have three of my four midterm in my possession. Thing are going fine socially, but I'm getting sick, so I can't kiss Wilson. T_T State-of-health is inversely proportional to (number-of-all-nighters-pulled)^2, and I'm getting up to one order of magnitude for the all-nighters. \dork

I plan to slack off like crazy 2nd term, and party like crazy, and do loads of work-study, and enjoy my life. (LOL)

And I miss everyone.

So Rotation is officially over. Outcome? Disappointing. I'm bitter, about losing cool kids to this other house that shouldn't even be a house in the first place. And honestly, they really shouldn't be on equal competing grounds with the rest of the houses, considering they have way better food and housing than us, and that's what attract most people, anyway. Although, in terms of the things we as the Asian Mafia can do, I don't think we did too badly. If anyone is to blame, it's the kids for not being able to see through the facades houses put on for Rotation and for ranking stupidly. Yep.

Initiation part I, which we traditionally call "the Line", is also over. That was actually a lot of fun. Basically, we use black plastic to cover our longest 1st floor hallway from floor to ceiling, and when the frosh come, we make them slide with their backs against the wall from the entrance to the other end of the hallway, all the while yelling and cursing at them and throwing disgusting stuff of the syrup, honey, and whipped/shaving cream variety at them. We also made them do things like human bowling and three-legged races, and beer pong with disgusting and unknown drinks. We also saran-wrapped guys together facing each other, and told them "back of the line!" many times. And we made people take shots which were actually water to see who would do it. It's sort of like a frat initiation. I yelled a lot, and was told that I was very scary. =^.^=


Quote of the day:

[21:56] John Chen: my bed collapsed this morning
[21:57] John Chen: so my mattress is on the floor right now
[21:57] John Chen: yes, this means i am gaining too much weight

John: *in response to the song "Sparkling Diamonds"* stuffed animals are a girl's best friend

Quotes of recently:

Peter (to Anson's mom): Can I help you carry some stuff? (helping Anson move in)
Anson's mom: Yeah, sure, let's carry this up, the two of us.
me: Let me do it. Peter has a bad knee.
Anson's mom: Oh, Peter's getting old. His knee is going bad.

George: There's no "I" in Montana.

It has been quite a few days. School still hasn't started yet, and I almost miss CDS food, though I will not think so in a week. The SURF report is...well, not really coming along, and books and pre-reading and such? Ha, very funny. I'm happy that most freshmen have started school, though, happy that they're doing college stuff now, but sad that they'll all be so busy and afraid that I won't ever hear from them again. T_T What can I say, I'm the sentimental type.

Cleaning up and reorganizing my room makes me feel happy, and productive, and slightly less disappointed in myself as I usually do.

I want to read books, read lots and lots of books that do not contain numbers and equations and derivations and proofs, books that are rich with allusions, symbolism, imagery, and irony, books ripe with drama, action, heart-wrenching tales.

I wish I had the God-damned time.

Quote of the day:

"You know what's hard about working with my grad student?" --Peter

It's been a while. SURF ended officially last last Friday, so people have been moving out. Right now, it's just Peter, Calvin, George, and me in our group left here. George is going away soon, and Calvin is going home sometime mid-September.

I've been trying to get my sleeping schedule organized (as if I ever had one). SFL is such a nice place to work, and I can literally go there whenever I want. I've been waking up before 10am everyday, which is an amazing accomplishment for me. Oh, and I've been going to the gym everyday, too, and working hard for my mentor. Hopefully, I will get something accomplished this summer.


Quotes of the day:

me: Peter is the guy who has a grad student in his lab
me: and they go to the clean room together
me: at night
simone: uh...huh
me: and wants to have lesbian sex with me (he just asked me)
simone: ...
simone: how can peter have lesbian sex with you if he is, in fact, a man?
me: good question
simone: well. being a student at caltech, I am sure he will be able to explain the logistics to you
me: except he's not a biology major
simone: mathematically! or something
me: he'll do it with a proof!

Claudia came over on Wednesday, and I've been totally slacking off with work and spending tons of time with her. It's been a blast. Wilson taught her how to cube. Thursday, I took her to Huntington Library where we saw a pretty cool literature exhibit of really old books, including things like the Gutenberg Bible and the Book of Hours. Rico was really nice to drive us there and then back. At night, we went to Old Pasadena and ate at Thaitalian and walked around the shops and stuff. We came back and played some pool and ping pong. Yesterday, We woke up at noon-ish and went to this Chinese buffet, driven by Wilson and accompanied by Peter and Calvin. The food was pretty good, and the guys ate a lot, and Peter, if he didn't freak Claudia out, definitely freaked me out. -_-;; Afterwards, Wilson, Calvin, Claudia and I went to Third Street Promenade in downtown Santa Monica and walked around from 4om-something to 10pm at night. The Promenade is a no-vehicle street with tons of stores and restaurants and street performances for 4 or 5 blocks. We had a lot of fun just hanging out, especially at Brookstone where Claudia and I rested on the super-comfy mattresses and Wilson and Calvin gave me and her massages. =^.^= Claudia bought a really cool black outfit at Guess. There was this whole discussion about fashion afterwards. Lots of fun, yup. I've always wanted to go out shopping with a best friend, bring some guys along, and make them carry stuff for us. ^^;;



Quotes of the week:

George: Are you guys driving to Old Pas? If there's room, can I go with you?
Peter: Uh...they're walking there.
Claudia: Yeah, we're walking. Sorry, there's no room.
George: ...she just called me fat. I'm gonna go into my corner and cry now...
Claudia: You fit no corner.

"Friends don't let ferns pop collars."

Peter: Do they [Sailor Moon episodes] have...you know...
me: The lesbian couple? Yeah.
Peter: So...can I borrow them? (walks back into his own room)
me: Wow, Peter, you really want some girl on girl action, don't you.
Joe: Wait, you want to borrow me and George?

"A Little Pain," from the anime series "Nana," first ending song. I have been looking for this mp3 file for over a year. The torrent never had any seeders...until tonight. In just 5 minutes, I got the song I've been obsessing with for so long. I'm so happy!! o^_^o IT'S SUCH A GOOD SONG!!!

I also found Pet Shop of Horrors and xxxHolic, and Sailor Starts! I'm such a kid. ^^;;

This week has been good in a so-busy-that-I-get-no-sleep sort of way. Yes, some might argue that that's not really good, but I feel like I'm up to speed with work. True, I'm still working at a relatively slow pace even though I'm putting in a lot more than I did before, but I'm trying, at least, and that makes me feel accomplished, since I don't try very often. I'm starting to see some results, very shallow results, but that's something nonetheless. The more I do, the more there is to do. So many little things here and there that couldn't been predicted, like adjusting the axes of 40 graphs one by one, running the same code over and over again with very minor modifications, etc. It's quite tedious at time, but I'm slowly getting more comfortable with it, and I'm even finding out shortcuts and writing shortcut codes for myself. It'll be exciting to see what I'll end up with after all the analysis, and I'm even more excited to write about my results.

I presented my progress so far to my SURF group. The only other undergraduate who's doing networking in my group (everyone else is doing synchronization) wasn't there, so I was basically presenting to my post doc. Pointless, but whatever. I've been averaging 5 hours of sleep per day this entire week, so I'm going to pass out after some Iceland vodka + Purple machine Naked Juice.

Ciao, y'all.



Quote of the day:

me: which one (glass) is yours?
Peter: Clear, clear, clear...
me: C-L-C

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4-7 sentences on your LJ (and under my entry as comments!) along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest (unless it's too troublesome to reach and is really heavy. Then go back to step 1).


In doing mathematical manipulations with infinite series we must remember that some properties of finite series do not hold for infinite series. In particular, Sec. 3.4 indicated that we must be especially careful differentiating term by term an infinite Fourier series. The following theorem however, enables us to integrate Fourier series without caution: I don't think you want to see the rest.

Taken from Elementary Applied Partial Differential Equations (With Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems) (aka ACM95 textbook) by Richard Haberman.


And I tag everyone who actually reads my journal.

OmniPotentKcS (3:45:41 PM): where are you working
silverkitsune27 (3:45:51 PM): in my dorm room
OmniPotentKcS (3:46:00 PM): awsome
OmniPotentKcS (3:46:03 PM): ha c now
OmniPotentKcS (3:46:08 PM): when people ask you what you do
OmniPotentKcS (3:46:18 PM): you can say, o i do my real work in the bedroom

changyi: they say....
changyi: what you gonna do with all that junk...
Ye: er...you're gonna get some girl drunk?
changyi: -_-
changyi: i aint got no lady lumps


Calvin and I played KMF yesterday, at 1am. It was very amusing. ^.^

( The Dream. )

Finals are over, the year is over, I am dreading the day when grades come out. Moved out of old room into new room with good couch, swivly chair, lots of shelf space, and extra dresser. Research starts tomorrow, presentation at 11am, must prepare.

Mom woke me up at 5:30am to study, telling me that it was 7am already. Granted, I had 8 hours of sleep and am not all that tired, but still, it sounds ridiculous.

Classes are now over. I have 5 finals, one final project, one final composition, and one lab notebook.

Ge1 final: done
Phys3 lab notebook: go over it with TA on Monday
Math final: Wednesday, 10am
French final: Wednesday, 12pm French composition: Wednesday, 12pm
Physics final: Wednesday, 4pm
Ge1 project: Friday, 9am
Biology final: Friday, 4pm


The plan this weekend is:

- study for math final
- do as much of the lab notebook work as possible
- take the math final
- study for French final (go to prof's office to pick up papers)
- do the French composition
- study like mad for physics


I never posted about this, but this Wednesday, I was out at the Dumont Sand Dunes on a Ge project field trip. Although I had a crippled leg, it was still so.amazingly.cool. It wasn't like sand dunes as far as the eyes can see, more like a couple of two hundred feet tall sand dunes in the middle of a regular desert. The dunes were a very light tan color, and the contrast with the pure blue sky was so stark and the depth perception so impossible that the whole scene looked faker than a photoshopped picture. Because of my leg, I didn't get to climb up the dunes and make it boom with the rest of the group, but I could hear it very distinctly down on the flat grounds. Even without climbing the dunes, it was still a much cooler project than the lab projects.