Curtain Call

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” — Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” — Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Brief Time (小段)

Feel free to listen to this while reading.

I can’t believe that I started my blog two years ago and that high school is already over. Time is always short from ahead and drags from behind.

Past vicissitudes of life burst into perspective in the present but will fade later on, as people forget.

Mongolian Throat-singing

I learned Mongolian throat-singing two days ago. I watched a video which explained that everyone has their own natural tone, so I followed the instructions and found my tone by sighing. At the end of the sigh, there is a croaking noise made by the throat which must be prolonged.

The trick to throat-singing is to continue that croaking while singing a similar note. That way, both will happen at the same time.

However, make sure that you are not only humming and that the croaking is about equally as loud (it is at a lower frequency).

Small Class

On a different note, it seems like I will only have a few classmates next year. I’m guessing about 150-80? It seems like by May 1st, there aren’t many people who committed.

Caltech’s administration may switch to ED next year because the coinflips this year have been terrible. I think they expected a 60% yield because of REA but it’s probably much less because REA only has a small effect.

Personally, I like this lower yield because it means there are less people taking Core and CS classes. However, it does feel a bit weird to have so few people in one grade.

NEAd not MuLl over the past (NEAML)

For the first time in five years, my school’s math team qualified for the New England match, which is a big accomplishment. However, for a school that used be first in the county, I think we fell a long way and this is only the beginning of rebuilding. It just seems like some time around seven years ago, the school just became terrible at STEM for no known reason.

Mr. J’s theory is that it was probably a combination of many factors, but the main one is social media. I can see that being the case since people are more stressed out than before, but I don’t see why it would make things so bad that a poor devil of a sub-sub-second-rate Chinese import would have no competition on the math team.

Anyway, this team is great and I will be leaving it in the hands of the next generation… who seem to be very good at doing what they do.

Crossing the Rio Grande

I heard this interesting story of a sophomore at my school who went down to the Mexican border to teach math to the kids (perhaps a ladder optimization problem from calculus). That’s not even the best part though… He made a DOCUMENTARY out of it?!!?!

It just goes to show how far people will go to get into college. I mean, it’s either stuff like this or studying (ew!). Perhaps doing a few math problems every day is just too much for most kids in this generation in this place.

Some kids have started companies which don’t even pay taxes. I jokingly suggested to the math team that we could blackmail these companies into donating their revenue to the operation of our club. Of course, this is a win-win, a line about philanthropy on the CEO’s Common App extracurriculars prompt and more pizza for math team.

I joked with the math team kids that they are never going to get into college if this keeps up.

Community

The two Chinese girls on the team talked about how their parents actually did say that they would go to a nearby community college if they did not study hard. I found this very funny because I experienced the very same thing. Chinese parents must have some sort of meeting where they all discuss what kind of strange stuff they will do to trigger their children.

The astute among you (perhaps experiencing culture shock) might be thinking: “What’s wrong with community college?” Well, nothing. Which is the most lopsided part of it; they made it seem like hell on earth.

I suppose the conventional Chinese/Confucian wisdom of getting the best education guides their actions. This mostly works because going to a decent or better college is a good way to make a lotta money afterward (assuming the right careers), but I think many parents go too far.

I got Beef

I tried cooking beef over the weekend. It didn’t taste good.

I did what my mom does, which is brine it in salt water and then cook it, but it tasted so gamey that I didn’t really want to eat it.

The next day, my sister made the final piece with a marinade of some brown concoction with thyme and garlic and it was actually pretty good.

I think the main problem with brining it in salt water is that all the juices are just sucked out with the blood and it just doesn’t have flavor anymore.

Affirmations

Today in English, we went around the room writing affirmations for each other on pieces of paper. I must say, this was a really good, wholesome idea from Mrs. N.

I’m glad that my classmates wrote that I had “good ideas” but I would rather they write something they learned from me rather than the fluff. My teacher said that she never had a student who thought as much as I do, which is a big statement. Acutally, my math team advisor spoke with her and she said that I am always very insightful. I appreciate that.

However, it was nice to write specific notes for other people and draw some smiley faces.

Outro

As my high school career comes to a close, I ask myself, “Would I do anything differently?” And the answer is definitely yes, but every situation where I would do something different is one in which I would not have the experience and wisdom to change until now.

So, no.