Rabbit Trap

Two posts in one day! This one is way too good to pass up. Me tricking Daniel!!!

me: hihihihi

Daniel: uh. who is this?

me: GUESS

Daniel: hrm

someone at stanford

me: nopeeee!!! a visitor to the stanford trees!!

Daniel: ah

uh

berkeley?

me: nooooo

It's your other half!!! I'm at stanford for a silly conference

Daniel: haha

i was going to guess you at some point but i wasnt quite sure why youd be at stanford

youre one of the few people who talk like that

not in a bad way

just very

exuberant shall we say

------------at this point I was laughing so hard that I had to call Daniel and make fun of him live---------------

Daniel: youre horrible

Much belated

Ok I will finally get to the story I promised oh so long ago... Andrew and the case of the thwarted prank!

A few weeks ago, my roommate walked out of the room and I decided to fiddle around with his computer. Specifically, I figured changing his desktop picture was a relatively harmless "prank." I found a huge picture of our friend/drawmate on google, and decided to set his magnified face as my roommate's background. I then had to leave the room and wasn't able to see his reaction, but I figured it was all forgotten since neither of us ever brought it up again that night.

The next day, however, I was sitting in a class and noticed something rather peculiar on my Mozilla page. The Google toolbar (where you can do quick Google searches on the top right of the Mozilla page) had the word "snake" in it. As you guys probably know, I am deathly terrified of snakes, and would never do a search of that gruesome animal. I thought for a while why "snake" would be there...and I suddenly had an epiphany. Perhaps my roommate had tried to get me back by setting my background picture as a snake! Carefully, I dragged down my Mozilla screen to get a tiny glimpse of the desktop. Indeed, the desktop picture had changed! No longer was it black and white, the top corner showed some green! Aha, my suspicions were most likely confirmed. Without ever minimizing the Mozilla screen (and therefore never fully seeing the desktop picture), I changed the background back. I then proceeded to look at the "desktop pictures" file and deleted the snake picture from my computer for good.

Triumph! I went back to my dorm and tried to make my roommate feel guilty by telling him that I broke my computer by dropping it in shock when I saw the snake, but he didn't fall for it. Oh well, I still won! :)

~ak

P.S. Go Lakers!

updates

sorry its been a while guys. so much to do. anyhow, updates:

1) haircut. you guys won't recognize me. its kinda asian, up and short, like you could spike it. i'm trying to decide if i want to spike it or not.

2) school: tough. but fun! i love my bioengineering lab class, because our teacher is really friendly and treats us really well. last week we had a field trip to an antibody company, and we had cupcakes for our article presentations. awesome.

3) global poverty initiative: we just had Poverty Week, which was really cool, but kinda depressing because we didnt get a lot of student attendance. i kinda think its because we didn't publicize earlier on, but ah well. hopefully we'll have other better attended events this year.

4) Earth Institute work! i'm helping this organization (located at Columbia University) design a health manual for africa. it helps community health workers take care of patients and take a lot of the load off doctors. It's supposed to reach about 330,000 people in march, so i kinda have to do a good job....

5) dance troupe: its scandalous. but a good dance. thats all i'll say for now.

and random side note: i saw Stardust a few days ago. SO good. character development wasn't so hot, but really cool concept and themes, and it made me feel warm and happy inside (which is kinda hard to do at MIT mind you) i feel like being idealistic and a romantic again! anyways thats all, nothing too crazy right now (except the haircut. i warned you), hope things are going well with you guys! i'll try to post more often too.

DK

Victoria Secret Pink

Hey y'all! So this was one of two highlights of my busy week thus far.

1) So I come back from lab at around 4pm earlier this week, and while I'm checking through my email, I open up a SK chain mail regarding Victoria Secret's Pink College collection. The Pink collection is basically a clothing line made by Victoria Secret primarily for college students, and they represent a good number of colleges by making clothes with their school logo, colors, mascot on it. Anyways, the link they attached to this chain mail was to vote for the next school VS would represent, and (this is why I love this school) we were number #33 at noon, and by almost 5 pm, we went up to number #3 with roughly 2 million votes.

And this email is hilarious as it explains how we ended up from #33 to #3. At first people were like, "tell all your friends to vote!!", then someone realized ". . . how have 5 million people voted for Drexel?", who is currently #1, closely followed by University of Texas with 3 million votes. So at some point, some girl was like, "Hey, I know some people how would know how to hack the votes just like Drexel might have done!". And within the span of 1 hour, someone hacked it. This guy hacked it so that 2 votes will go towards MIT for every second a person stays on the voting page. Soon enough, I saw our votes go from 800,000 to a little over 2 million within 2 hours. Everyone at school was hearing about it . . all the sororities, all of my dorm, a good number of frats and other dorms were on bored by just opening the voting page all day. Haha, I found that quite hilarious.

2) Last Friday, I went to the Jason Mraz concert . . and wow, so GOOD. I'm reliving my summer by putting his album on repeat. He is one of the few artists I have seen who is better live. He is really rhythmical, I love his songs, and he practically made all the girls in the audience swoon with a couple of his songs. 2 people that I know sat in the very front row! So jealous. And other people got signed autographs and pictures with Lisa Hannigan . . Andrew I thought of you! But anyways, that was it :)

Now off to classes and two semi-formals for the weekend! Yay :) I need a little rejuvination before I enter hell week numero tres next week. Hope you guys are doing well!

-Steph

Be Jealous

82 Degree weather in Sunny Palo Alto, CA.

Grammar Nazi

My strange desire to always be grammatically correct took over again today. Near the end of church service, an announcement was made about some park event, and the speaker reminded us to "dress warm." For the rest of the service (which wasn't too long so I don't feel guilty), I couldn't pay attention because I wasn't sure if it should be "dress warm" or "dress warmly." The situation seems to call for an adverb, but in the case of "dress warmly," that seems to imply putting on clothes in a warm fashion--which makes no sense. Perhaps it compares to the case of "look happy" and "look happily," where the former indicates appearing to be happy while the latter denotes looking around in a jovial state.

What do you think?

And I write this post with full realization that my co-bloggers are from some of the tech-iest schools around. I have faith in your rhetorical skills!

AthLetes (I can't spell)

One thing I love about Stanford is the fact that we have an amazing athletics program, as demonstrated by the 14 consecutive Director's Cups (given to the school with the best overall athletics department). Some of my best friends here have Olympic aspirations, collegiate national championships, etc. This past week, though, I realized how some of the people next to me were actually really famous.

Exhibit A: Toby Gerhart, Stanford's star running back, is in my Probabilistic Analysis class, and while I have known this since the first week of school, it suddenly became kind of surreal yesterday, when I was reading articles online and in the Stanford newspaper (yes, yes, slacking off during class--but at least I don't fall asleep, DANIEL) about Toby's performance. And there he was, sitting 2 seats to my left, taking notes/doing a crossword.

Exhibit B: After the last football game (which we won), we all had to sing the absolutely cacophonous and disgusting alma mater (you think PVPHS's was bad? try listening to a few verses of "Hail Stanford Hail"). Apparently it's a tradition for us to embrace in a line and sing + sway together after our victories, which are happening with more regularity now! My friend pokes me and whispers "dude go grab Michelle Wie." Lo and behold, Michelle had just walked down the stairs and was right next to me! Being too shy....errrr, too respectful and too much of a gentleman, I decided to leave her alone. Whatever, it was still cool :)

Exhibit C: I'm taking this (hopefully) joke of a class in the Communications Department called Media Psych, and the class is dominated by athletes. I've seen basketball players, track runners, etc, and never really cared too much. But there was one girl who particularly stood out, since I was convinced she looked just like Candice Wiggins, a basketball player who led us to the Finals last year and was drafted 3rd overall in the WNBA draft. But I figured I must be wrong, since she already finished her first professional season. Yesterday, though, a class roster was put up to divide us into groups for a project, and her name was on the list! I was right! haha. Guess she came back to finish up her degree.

Also, I apparently took a seat in the dining hall that was just vacated by Robin Lopez (Phoenix Suns rookie who left Stanford last June after finishing his Sophomore Year) a few weeks ago. Lucky him--he got to sit in the seat that Andrew Kao has blessed with his presence.

next up on Andrew's post: How I outsmarted a prank attempt!

ARGGGGGG

I watched innings 1-7 of the Dodger game. They were up 5-3 with 2 runners on and no outs when I left (in the 7th inning) for Bible study. I check my iPod touch and the Phillies score 4 runs in the 8th to win. I'm telling you, it's all b/c of me. UGHHHHHHHHHHHH

Voices

In the words of Cheap Trick, "Hello, it's me again." Not a particularly creative beginning, but hey, it's 3 a.m. over here, so cut me some slack. I'm just listening to my tunes and trying to memorize some Japanese, learn about systems, and preparing for an organic chemistry test, but I thought I should give my dedicated readers a little article to nibble on this week.

I'm sure you are discovering, as I am discovering, sophomore year is frickin' ridiculous. There is so much work that needs to get done. Each class seems to revolve around our majors. Each day gets us closer to graduation. And, I can't help but think, "Is this really what I want to do?" I have no clue what I want to do. Here I am; I'm twenty years old and you expect me to know what I want to do for the rest of my life? Ha! You'd think that twenty years of experience would have narrowed the choices a little bit, but it hasn't. Sometimes, I envy the caveman. He didn't have to worry about things like a job, money, relationships, or grades. He just had to worry about surviving. True, if you fail at surviving, it's the ultimate game over in life, but I would rather carry around a spear and hunt than survive in our modern world by finding food AND spiritual nurishment. Constantly asking ourselves, is this enough? Am I satisfied now?

I guess that's why I like to hike. When I hike, it's nothing but me and a dirt path. I wake up, eat, walk, eat, walk some more, eat, and sleep. It's basically a simple wash, rinse, repeat after that. Nothing to think about, but "I need to walk." It's as simple as that, no, "I have to be here at this place, at this time." Or a, "This isn't satisfying because Seventeen magazine doesn't have this written down in its top ten." I just want to do things for the sake of doing things. I want to enjoy the moment. At this moment, I'm enjoying the droop of my eyelids as I try and focus on typing this article, hearing the air conditioner's constant hum underneath the aria of "Ave Maria", and feeling my sweater gently hug my chest with the heat of my body. I want to enjoy these moments. Why do we constantly have to focus on the future? It's the present we live in and it's that moment that we should enjoy.

I don't know where I'm going to end up in 4 years and it's exciting. Do you really want to plan every step of your life? Don't you want to have a little risk in your life? Everything involves a little bit of risk. I will never forget the time when I jumped across the roof of my house to the roof of the playroom to apprehend the kid who stole my Easter eggs. (It's a long story and if you guys really want to hear it, let me know.) Sure, I could have fallen and broken something or even died I guess, but now, that Easter will be remembered as the Easter where Alex went ninja and jumped over some roofs to get his chocolate. That's risk! It creates memorable moments. And it doesn't always have to involve a huge amount of risk. Trying to open up my locked car with cardboard, nails, and extreme origami skills (good job Daniel) had it's own risks to it. Not only will I not forget that experience, but I will never forget my keys in the car again. For you romantics out there, isn't love a risk every time as well? Love is exciting for that reason: the risk, the unpredictability. You never know what is going to happen. This applies to life in general. Life shouldn't be planned, it should be lived. Lived with risk and enjoyment. So here I am, "planning" what to do for the future, but I think I will just concentrate on the walking or in this case, the "homeworking". Woot, I just created a new verb today.

I hope all of you other bloggers are doing well out there. I look on this site every day hoping for something new to come up. Some adventure and even misadventures to help me get by one more day. I love to hear about how you are feeling. It reminds me I'm not the only one struggling here. Stephanie, I hope you are enjoying MIT. I understand when it's just one of those days where nothing seems to go right and you wished that place would burn in hell. If you ever need a person to vent to, I'm always ready to listen here because sometimes I too wish that Terre Haute, Indiana would burn, but you know, I'm always glad to see it's still here when I wake up the next day. Daniel, I hope you aren't being swamped by too much work. Just remember to stop and take a breather now and then. I'm sure your church youth program is keeping you busy. Thank goodness for the activities which give us the breaks we need. And Andrew, I'm trusting you are still winning your yogurt bet. I just finished "How I Met Your Mother" and it constantly reminded me of my own friends and our own misadventures. I hope all of you are well and I hope to hear from you. Your chemical engineer in training getting back to his "homeworking".
- Senor B

P.S. The title of this post is the song "Voices" by Cheap Trick which begins with "Hey, it's me again." HA! Get it now? Genuis, pure genuis! *pats self on back

Breakfast at Sunny's

Hope you enjoyed breakfast, Daniel.

IHTFP

I really hate this fucking place!!!!

I feel kind of hopeless right now. Classes are getting hard, and once again, I am questioning my intelligence. I feel so stupid. Why can't my brain function better, more efficiently, and faster? Why am I not as acute now as I was back in high school?! How did I even get into this school? And I hate being pre-med.

And these days, I am so busy, I feel like I can hardly breathe. I have to be at a million different places at once, and right now I'm feeling defeated. I don't know how to clear my mind, take a deep breath, and move on because there is no time for that at this school! ugh. I need to find some help, but I don't even know where to start.

Sorry for the depressing/angry entry. I just needed to vent somewhere.

-smyoon

Update

Life is good. :)

I'm busy, but not too busy; the Dodgers won their first game (and I won a Boba out of it b/c of a bet); the people in my dorm are great; and I feel comfortable with my role on the Ministry Team this year.

I could rant on about a few of my classes (in particular, a class titled the Rhetoric of the Presidential Campaign where I'm stuck with a bunch of _____ polisci majors) but:
1) I'm working on not complaining so much
2) I'm paranoid about the traces I leave on the Internet. haha

I think I realized today why I feel like I don't need to spend as much time on schoolwork (yet). Obviously, the quarter is just getting underway, and I don't want to jinx myself b/c I'm sure much heavier Psets and papers are looming ahead. But not taking Chinese this year REALLY helps. That 3-unit class had quizzes every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, forcing me to study practically every day. I couldn't afford to "take a day off" from schoolwork (like I'm sort of doing today.) It's Thursday today, and I have class tomorrow, but nothing really due, so I can just take it easy...last year, I would have to spend a few good hours memorizing Chinese characters/pin yin/grammar. I feel so liberated! That, combined with a few other factors, has made this year (so far) more restful.

Other small tidbits of Andrew news:
I bought my ticket for China! yay! I'm very excited :)

I'm kind of sick. ughhhh I hate being sick. Almost as much as I hate getting shots to prevent getting sick

I felt convicted a week ago about caring way too much about what was going to be on my resume. I realized that my eagerness to get more more degrees out of my 4 years was spurred more by caring what people thought of me than by truly wanting to pursue a specific field of study. To combat this, I decided to take a class this quarter that will probably do nothing for me in terms of graduating or finishing any major. It's a communications class called Media Psychology (I can probalby petition it to count towards a psych major, which I am considering getting alongside my MS&E degree)...but I mainly took it b/c it would be easy and b/c one of my close friends is in it (and she lives off campus so I wouldn't really see her otherwise). It's really nice to sit back sometimes able to tell yourself that "hey, I'm not doing this for anyone or any ulterior motive. I'm just going enjoy my time at school."

I wish my dorm didn't have (incredibly amazingly) attractive woman/women. Gar. Fight on singleness! (not that I'd really want to be in a relationship right now, but it's easier to say that when there's no one good looking around) Lucky Alex. Semi-Lucky Daniel. Then again, better this situation than developing a case of MIT-goggles aka Peter Vanden Bos Goggles (jk) (not really)

~peace