Pictures and Conversations

It was an amazing day outside. Walking around there was no question in my mind as to why people live in this earthquake country. It's so beautiful out. I took some pictures around campus. But can't post them because I'm at home and don't have my usb cable for my camera with me.

Now that I've started to take pictures again, I took a quick look at some pictures of the past 4 years. Most of the pictures I've developed are in a box actually. They haven't managed to make it into an album. This is mostly because they I only developed a semester's worth at a time and half of them would be at home while the other half stayed with me at MIT. And sometimes I would put the special ones in frames or tape them to walls. So they're just one big mess that I need to sort out. I would like to have them in albums though because it would make flipping through them so much easier. Most of the pictures from my summer in Europe are in two albums because that summer was especially long due to the short English terms.

Four years went by really quickly. And now I'm counting the weeks of these quarters. I feel like I didn't manage to get to know some people in undergrad as well as I would have liked. This is partly due to time budgeting issues and partly due to me not asking personal questions and really trying to get to know people. I would like to think that I've improved on all these accounts. I think I just wish that my everyday conversations can be less academics oriented. Because in the end, conversations about psets don't really matter. And I've been getting better at making small talk. But there are definitely forms of small talk where the conversation topics are irrelevant too. One of my neighbors commented Americans can talk forever about nothing at all (he's from Japan). And I think it's true. I would like to have better conversations where I get get to know the other person instead of random chatting. Maybe I should make a list of questions to ask!

More pictures!

The start of this entry is a bit awkward but I just want to comment on this. There's a lot of guys in grad school, especially in engineering. And I mean a lot. I bet you my facebook guy:girl ratio has gone way skewed by now. How do you check this btw? I know it's possible to check... Anyway, it's just kind of weird sometimes to realize everyone around you is the opposite gender. I guess having lived in McCormick didn't help this situation either.

Anyway, I'm going on a camping trip with the School of Earth Sciences over Thanksgiving break! I'm excited. We're going to Owens Valley and going on hikes around the area to learn about geological formations. The area looks really beautiful and it would be really educational for me since I've never had the geology background as an undergrad. So it would be good to see some of these formations that we're always talking about in my structural geology class. Maybe I will see why there is this need to classify them physically.

I took some more pictures around my dorm today! I will get around to taking pictures on the actual campus at some point.

Halfway through the quarter (almost)!

Quick entry before I go to sleep! I felt really bogged down by homework this past weekend. By the time Monday came around, I was totally unmotivated to do any more work. Mostly because things weren't really going anywhere.

But I spent about 4-5 hours today sitting in the Blume center cranking out the latest finite element homework with some people and we got through the entire thing. We're not really finished but there's just small bits and pieces missing. So I'm pretty happy with that. We're going to office hours tomorrow to get some answers to those questions. This finite element class is crazy theoretical. I don't think it can get anymore theoretical than what we're doing. We've literally just started on Chapter 2 of our book! I bet if I were to look at any other finite element book, what we're doing would still be in Chapter 1. We've barely begun to solve any problems. We spent a couple of weeks just learning how to define problems so that they can become finite element problems.

So far, I have to say that the structural geology class is the easiest one. If I just read the book, I will understand what's going on. The problem is finding time to sit down and work through everything in the book. It takes me a few hours to read through a chapter. I can't just read the thing either, I have to copy the stuff onto a notebook. This helps me learn but that's where the time consumption comes into play. Anyway, this is one class where I think I understand what's going on and can do the homework with fairly little difficulties.

I've started running again. I think I will try to run every other day. I think I will get too tired running every day. I might try to go swimming on some days. But the pool is far away and I hear they don't provide towels? Not convenient. Anyway, I've been running in the suburbs south of Rains. Part of the route I've been running involves dirt paths which I prefer to paved roads actually. On Monday I decided to add a little more to the loop I've been running to make it longer. Except, I managed to find the most steep route ever! It seemed like it was uphill the entire way and at some point there was a sharp descent. It took me almost 30 minutes to get through 2 miles. I also got a little lost but still... I think I will do the same route tomorrow but backwards. I hope that will go better.

I've stopped going to the classes that I've been auditing... I can still pick them back up but I don't know if I really have the time to do this. I got a little discouraged when I found out that the dictionary I got for Vietnamese has IPA for the English entries but not for the Vietnamese entries. Clearly I got the wrong dictionary! Language classes might be worthwhile though since they tend to cost a lot.

Speaking of things that are worthwhile to go to, there's an info session for Arup tomorrow. I certainly don't need to go for the information but might be a good networking opportunity?? Don't know... I'll see how my day goes.

Anyhow, this weekend should be fun. I'm planning to go home on Friday and bring my brother and cousin to Stanford on Saturday to watch the homecoming football game. I should go buy tickets soon. Next week will be a busy one. I have 4 homeworks due, a day long seminar on Tuesday, and a midterm on Thursday. The midterm is for finite element and it's the only midterm I have. My other classes don't believe in exams (no really, they're all based on homework). My midterm is open book, open notes, etc. So I think I should be fine... I'm used to working on problems with people though. Exams should just be one big team effort!

More pictures of the campus coming soon.

Highlights of Week 4

Weekends here are so fun even when it's filled with work. Yesterday I went with some friends (neighbors) to Costco and Ranch 99 (asian market) and stocked up on food. I think I have enough food for 2-3 weeks now! I had also gone grocery shopping on Friday but that was for mostly perishable foods. I went over to Mahalia's place Friday night for dinner because her boyfriend was visiting. We had a pretty nice dinner. I brought over corn, bread, and grapes. They were well received. I should get pictures of the dinner from them!

Friday afternoon, I went to the library and grabbed 5 or 6 books related to groundwater and modeling of groundwater problems. I'm currently going over one of the books and it seems to have a pretty good explanation of using the finite difference method for solving groundwater problems. This is why I'm blogging now. There's hope for this hydrology class! I think I will be well prepared for the computational poromechanics class that I am going to take in the spring. Actually, I think I will be well prepared to take on any other hydrology class after this...

Last Wednesday I went to see Rent in San Francisco! It was really good. We got there just in time. We sat down and the show started. We had cheap tickets so we were in the rear balcony. Really far up. But it was still really good. I think I would have been a bit lost had I not seen the movie before. It was really awesome to hear the music live though.

This entry is not going make sense chronologically. Recapping the highlights of my week. Yesterday, my "neighborhood" had another dinner thing. There are a lot of neighborhood events. There are a couple of graduate students who get money to throw these events. I think they have $5 per person per event. I met someone who is from Singapore and had gone to LSE for undergrad. We started talking about the differences in the English and American education systems. Pretty interesting conversation. The first years I met at Cambridge are graduating this year since their programs are only 3 years long. I think some of them will come to the US for PhD programs. It would be cool to see them again.

This morning I went for a run. I looked out side the window and there was fog! I thought about Cam the whole way. There were a few days in Cam when it was foggy the entire time. Here, the fog only stays for the morning. But over there, when the fog comes, it stays for 2-3 days straight! So strange.

Oh, last Tuesday, it was pouring rain the entire day. I walked to class instead of biking because I didn't want to get sprayed with water because my bike doesn't have fenders. Turns out those things are really useful if you don't want water and mud all over yourself. Walking wasn't all that much better but I had waterproof things and they dried out really quickly. I didn't get wet at all.

So yeah, I started running again. I think I will try to run consistently in the morning. I've been getting really lazy and getting up later and later in the morning. I don't have morning classes. But I just end up wasting a lot of hours in the morning. So I think if I wake up around 8am and go for a run, I would actually get some work done before going to classes at noon. I work better at night (less distractions) but it's not healthy to stay up that late. So we'll see how long this lasts. haha.

The quarter is almost half way over!!!

More pictures of the apartment complex!

So there's not too much in the way of fall foliage but there are a few red trees. There are better ones near the road but I haven't gone over there with my camera yet. I think I'll go take more pictures this afternoon just to take a break from studying.

There are also lemon, orange, and persimmon trees around here! I should grow my own herbs and veggies here. I think they will do pretty well. Start a vegetable patch outside my apartment. haha! just kidding. I think I want some potted plants though.

Pictures of my apartment!

I realized that this blog has been extremely picture-less for a long time. I got tired of taking pictures after coming back from Africa. But I thought I should have some pictures of my life at Stanford so here they are. Plus it's been really beautiful outside everyday. After spending a summer in NYC, living in suburbia is definitely a change.

So here is the view from my room. This is a picture of one of the apartments in the grad apartment complex that I live in. Notice the blue skies, green grass, and red roof. All the apartments in this complex are 3 story low-rises with a grassy courtyard in the middle. There is a beach vollyball court just to the left of this.

This is my messy room... It's especially bad since I took this picture on Friday (end of the week)


The kitchen is squashed in a corner of the living room. It feels very cramped but I guess it's functional.

Here's a shot of the living room. We have a couch, dining table (not shown), and e

Recap of Week 3

I got sick last week. I'm still recovering but feeling a lot better than last week. Last Monday, my stomach started hurting in the afternoon. My throat had been feeling a little bit irritated after eating a lot of BBQ the weekend before. And then of course, I decided to fry dumplings for dinner and then it just all went downhill from there. My throat started hurting a lot, had a slight fever, body ached, and was just generally not feeling well the entire week. So I spent a lot of time last week just sleeping. I skipped out on all my non-essential classes. I would get up in the morning, eat rice porridge, and go back to sleep. This would make me feel better in the afternoon. I was still able to do homework in the evenings when I felt more awake. Thursday was especially bad though. I went to Vaden but they said it wasn't strep throat and didn't give me any antibiotics. I even went back on Friday and another doctor claimed that I have the flu even though I really don't think my symptoms were indicative of the flu at all. I even got a flu shot a couple of weeks ago. Anyhow, I managed to keep up with classes and teach for Splash.

My brother and cousin came for Splash! I think they had fun which is good. I took them up the Hoover Tower during Sunday lunch. Apparently, it's free even for my guests. I mean, it's only $2 for adults and $1 for kids under 12 but still, it adds up if you have a big family or a lot of friends. I taught origami and stamp collecting again. I swear some kids are super spoiled and come from places where they always have everything they want. I had a limited amount of paper for my second origami class because the first one used them all and this one kid was like "is there any way you can get more?" even though there was clearly still enough paper for everyone. And then when we were folding this ring thing that needed 8 pieces of paper, she kept wanting to get more pink paper even though there wasn't any more. And some kids just can't wait for their turn to be helped. Don't they understand that they're not entitled to always be helped first?? The girl mentioned above didn't have the patience to finish making the ring and spent the rest of the class drawing on the board. While I'm at it, I feel sorry for some of these homeschooled kids. I'm sure they're learning a lot more academically than public school kids but they would not survive in a public school since they're used to having things done their way. You learn a lot of social skills by going to school. School is not just for academics. In fact, I think MBA students would admit that a big part of their motivation to do an MBA is to network.

So being sick and doing Splash all translates to being behind in studying. I've kept up with all the homework that was due but I didn't managed to do anything beyond that. I think grad classes have more outside reading and you're really expected to do more than just the prescribed exercises. I need to go to the library again and find some good reference books for my hydrology class. I am so lost in that class. The next homework involves coding. Not only am I not sure I understand the hydrological concepts, I'm not sure I understand the finite difference method that we're supposed to use to solve the problems. Not to mention my Matlab skills are still very limited.

Other news: I'm going to see Rent (the musical) in SF on Wednesday! Our dorm got tickets so a bunch of us are going. I'm excited. I saw the movie in LSC back in sophomore year and liked it a lot. I hear the musical is a lot better! And now that I've lived in NYC, things should make more sense. The New York Times make so much more sense now. Before I would just ignore all references to neighborhoods but now I have a much better sense of all the references.

This Saturday, the MIT Club of Northern California is organizing a bike trip. This sounds really cool but I don't know if I'm going to make it. I might have to do some major studying...