T for Thanksgiving
“缓缓飘落的枫叶像思念，为何挽回要赶在冬天来之前” — 《枫》Jay Chou 周杰伦
T for Trees
I overheard this while I was practicing freeskating at the Page ramp, “Here, the leaves don’t change color, they just die.”
Kind of true, the autumn scenery here are very depressing. We don’t really get cool leaves, we just get big brown pieces of cardboard and mushy rotting olives on the ground. Luckily, someone cleaned the road of all the olives.
T for 2BR02B 1
One of my friends started a blog, and an interesting point was that they decided not to pursue music completely partially because of “parental opinion, which I do trust.”
There is a spectrum from filial piety to punk rock. While every parent dreams of obedient children, the problem is that kids who only know how to listen become adults who haven’t learned how to make their own decisions.
Some problems cannot be solved by anyone except yourself, such as, “What makes me happy?” or “What should I become?”
T for Transition
However, balanced advice based on reason can always be helpful. For example, on Nov 20, I asked a postdoctoral researcher the difference between going into industry with a bachelor’s and getting a PhD and then doing research. He said that his advice may be biased, but he made his choice because there are some interesting problems that can only be worked on if he goes into academia. In contrast, working in a company means doing whatever projects come down the chain.
You can see the bias because it is possible, albeit more difficult, to find a company job that allows one to work on an interesting project.
I also asked him if now is a good time to swap from biology-adjacent research to physics + CS related research, and he said it is actually a great time because much of the leading research in biology actually depends on high-level physics such as quantum mechanics.
T for To Abbacchio 2
My deranged, cynical, half-joking advice to DMO’s AP CSA class back in September still stands: “If you do your best, and if you can surpass your limits, you might… still not get what you want.”
But, if you choose to accept this advice, it means letting go of regrets. If I know that I didn’t get what I wanted, then it’s time to move on. Holding onto hope after the time window has completely passed is just ridiculous. That’s actually one of the messages of The Great Gatsby, Gatsby holds onto the green light across the water, searching for something which has ceased to exist.
That’s the nice thing about stories, they provide a way to explore ourselves without directly confronting and defining what we actually are—we may find that we are not good. It’s easier to talk about someone who does not exist but is somehow still representative of ourselves.
Also, I mentioned this in my Jojo Pt. 5 review, but if you lie to yourself for any reason, you lose a part of yourself.
T for Tiktok
Deactivated my Tiktok account because I found there was no point to it anymore. I don’t even want to discuss why I even made it in the first place, though it’s easy to piece together from previous posts. Perhaps it will be an exercise left to the reader.
I just mistyped on my keyboard and the output was “ew” which might be some sort of subconscious indication.
T for Trip & Fall
The main learning curve of freeskating after learning how to get on is learning how to pump. I was able to figure out the general motion of the pump and can now get from the Page/Browne ramp to Downs-Lauritsen in one go.
I think my movements are only 40% optimal because I’m not using my whole body to pump and my legs are too far apart. If your legs are not around shoulder width apart, then a lot of force will be put into keeping the legs from spreading apart rather than into the pump.
Note: On the next day, I fell off when going down the bump between RD and Downs and scraped my left arm pretty bad, but I don’t think anything is broken.
T for Together
The day before Thanksgiving, I had dinner at a sushi place in LA with some of my old classmates from Shanghai. They’ve changed a lot since I last knew them in 8th grade, everyone looks different and has different interests now.
It was interesting to hear international students discuss the intricacies of American memes and slang. When I arrived in 9th grade I also had a bit of culture shock, because my friends would use all these words that I’ve never heard, like “bet” or “flake” or “cake,” but I eventually picked it up.
Anyway, most of what they thought was slang is actually just a random collection of recent Gen Z memes, like “sigma” and “gyatt.” They might be almost one year old actually, and are due for replacement. However, the line between meme and slang is pretty blurry, since “bruh” was once a meme but has become part of many people’s regular vocabulary.
But also, UCSD drama goes crazy 💀
T for Tour Guide
For Thanksgiving lunch, I invited them to come to Pasadena for dim sum (we ordered too much food). Afterward, I brought them to Caltech for a tour of the campus and houses.
Caltech stories are pretty crazy, but I enjoyed telling Ricketts and Lloyd stories the most. The thing they found most impressive was probably the murals in the houses, which I definitely agree with. They also thought that Bechtel was “really nice” and that they “wished they had such nice residences.”
T for Turkey
For dinner, I helped peel garlic and decorate for Ricketts, eating a lot of turkey by the end. C cut five turkeys but he says that he watched a YouTube tutorial ten minutes before. I think he did a very good job for someone who has never done it before, there was some meat left on the bones, but there were no bones in the pieces he shaved off.
J and E were also there, and we talked about the newest chapter of JJK.
T for Trippy Time Travel
In my post from 2022 Nov 23, “Stuff To Do,” “Bedtime Geometry” has no words because I forgot to write it.
However, after thinking for ten seconds, I figured out what I wanted to write back then, so here is a bit of time travel, if you will:
Ever since I was in around 2nd grade, I would try to see in the dark while I lay in bed. What I noticed is that everything seems to be within reach, it’s a funky feeling of being so far yet so close to something. When I reached out with my arms, my hands were enormous compared to the room. The corners of the walls stopped being dividers of dimensions and instead became sides of the flattened 2D projection of the walls into my eyes.
If you focus your eyes on something for long enough in the dark, it can shift sizes and appear closer than it actually is.
T for Try Not to Cringe
I read my friend’s blog and something reminded me of something which I’m pretty sure I wrote down. However, I couldn’t find it in a past blog post nor a journal entry.
By the way, the whole process of going through my past writing was just incredibly cringey. I suppose it’s natural because I became more mature, but it still felt very disgusting. I’m not sure if I should revisit those passages carefully or just forget about them and move on.
Anyway, my friend had the following to say about why people act good:
your motive could be “being a truly good person.” it could be “wanting to feel good about yourself, or to increase your esteem in others’ eyes, or it’s just too hard to cut people off, and that’s a conversation you don’t want to deal with.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve written somwhere about a Mindfield episode in which VSauce finds that people who do good deeds are more inclined to do a bad deed afterward because they believe they have earned the ability to do a bad deed as a result of their good deed. So, in that sense, people may partially do good things because they believe it stores up good karma kind of like a battery, and they are then exempt from doing bad deeds afterward (kind of like that one assassin from Sakamoto Days).
T for Thankful
for this opportunity to learn about living.
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