The Big One

I’m a bit annoyed that I am now a senior but I still can’t get into Linguistics 20. If you have ever talked to me about enrollment you probably know that I have been interested in this class for as long as I have been at UCLA. It’s always been sort of low priority: some other class filling rapidly inevitably forces me to spend my precious first-pass units elsewhere. For the Math 30 series and the first few math upper divs, there are generally 3 sections of each course offered each quarter, one taught by an awesome professor and two taught by horrible professors. Then there was always some GE which I was sure would fill up much quicker than Ling 20 (Scand 50W, Poli Sci 50, Geog 5...). Thus leaving me with zero choice in the allocation of my first pass units for my first few years as an undergraduate.

My capacity to be selective has purportedly increased in recent years, upon achieving “graduating senior” status. But I still have to compete with the other graduating seniors for the Classes that Matter. And I still can’t get into Ling 20. Blame resides with the first pass/second pass system, which we love as freshmen and hate as seniors. Something about silly freshmen being allowed to enroll in silly freshmen classes before their graduating senior overlords is just wrong. The worst part is even though the class has been full for a month now, the amount of students enrolled just keeps increasing:


Speaking of math classes, our selection for Fall 2010 is dismal. For some reason in the fall they mainly schedule The Ones that Everybody Takes, Math 110A, 115A, 131A, and 132. Which is absolutely fantastic for the people who have just started their upper divs and absolutely lame for the rest of us. It’s a trend I’ve been noticing - fall quarter has the most intro classes and as the year progresses they offer more specialized/unique/not boring ones. For example last spring I took Math 116, Cryptology, which incidentally is nothing like you think it is if you are unfortunate enough to be fan of the Da Vinci Code. But I’ve never really had an issue with a drought in class selection until this fall - presumably the budget cuts are at fault. Let us weep for the freshmen.

Until this year I was diligently writing a bit about each class I took at UCLA. I have gotten pitiably far behind so I’ll just tell you some of the highlights, although some of these should probably be called lowlights, get it?

CS 180 - Introduction to Algorithms and Complexity Theory: I’ll admit I didn’t really know what to expect from this class, but I did assume it would be useful for a computer-person specializing in mathematics. After all, it’s about algorithms. But it ended up being weighty and a bit too abstract and a bit too impossible. Every week I was assigned 4 impossible problems to solve by myself, problems which I spent hours thinking about without actually making any progress, and problems which I consequently got depressed about before writing down some crap and turning them in anyways. Fortunately the professor seemed to know his class was awful and let us out 30-40 minutes early from each lecture. And made some nerdy algorithm jokes, which I would have appreciated much more if I weren’t in a dank, stuffy room with no windows, surrounded by smelly undergraduate engineers.

CS 174A - Introduction to Computer Graphics: I still can’t believe the turkey that taught this class. On Day 1 he says to us “don’t expect to have enjoyable lectures,” and “I’m not going to make any funny jokes.” (This was a lie. He made several funny jokes. In fact I would say his ratio of funny jokes to normal speech was a bit higher than many other professors.) But he also told us some stuff about how learning is supposed to be a painful process, and how terrible our calculus and linear algebra skills were. So all-in-all he was a bit of a downer. He liked to tell us nothing about what would be on the exams. I scored about 30% on the midterm, which was the most below-average I have ever been on anything. I’m assuming this was because he threatened to give us negative credit for sufficiently awful answers, which dissuaded me from filling the page with my usual bullshit (I think this was his goal.)

This guy was quite full of himself, but deservedly so - he was brilliant. But he made it a little too apparent that teaching was not His Thing. After the midterm he gave us a course evaluation where he asked us to vent all of our concerns with him and with the class. Then he spent an entire class session discussing what we wrote, making legitimate excuses for some of our issues, but actually promising change for others. We left uplifted, or not completely screwed for the first time in the seven weeks we had been in the class. Then, he left the country. This sounds made up but I swear to you that he left the country and didn’t teach the rest of the class, just in time to not do anything he said he was going to do.

We were left in the astoundingly clumsy hands of the TA who spoke at about 50% normal speed. A smart guy, I’m sure, but he drew things out so much with his incredibly thick accent masking his already-broken English, things we didn’t particularly wish to hear in the first place. So I am pleased to announce that this is my new Worst Class of All Time, surpassing even 10th and 11th grade English.

German: I took an entire year of German just for kibbles and bits. I guess it’s because I like languages and because high-school me willed it. In the fall my TA was an old man, who was about as far from stimulating as I can imagine, and who failed to get us to speak German basically at all. He did quirky things like give us four copies of the same handout (maybe he had memory issues.) But I lucked out in winter and spring, when I had a very fun TA who reminded me a lot of my French TAs from freshman year. It was a good class, I met some great people (this is another reason I like to take languages.) But I’m afraid my retention of German is not so great - probably because German is hard. For some reason it’s much less intuitive to me than Spanish or French. My biggest problem is that there are way too many prepositions: an, ab, auf, aus, in, um, zu,, bei, neben, hinter, zwischen, nach, mit,durch, gegen, von, innerhalb, wahrend, etc., then of course they often contracted with other words, hinab, hinaus, herab, damit, danach, beim, zum, am, im, zum, hinterm, vom... All I can say is stay far away from German if you struggled with Spanish or French.

It has occurred to me that the university (at least mine) focuses on the theoretical rather than the practical, the abstract rather than the concrete. I suppose this is probably better, since the practical is usually a whole lot more obvious. But it creates a feeling of aimlessness that I find hard to shake. Am I really learning? Are these four years of solving impossible problems worth it? Being able to recite some new facts is a bit more tangible evidence of learning than suspecting “my thought patterns are a little different now.” I did have a bit of an epiphany during my sophomore year about mathematics and knowledge in general (this would take several more paragraphs to discuss), but how do I know that my university education is responsible, and that it wasn’t something that would have dawned on me regardless?

Coinciding with this is the longest creative draught I have experienced since I started calling myself a composer. This I am still struggling with. You would think that any emotion at all would lend itself to writing music (happy music. anxious music. sad music. mad music. lonely music.) But I have always found it much easier to write when in an optimistic/carefree/happy mood. Composing has never been very natural for me, but it is a bit alarming that stress seems to completely kill the entire process. This is something to think about, and for you to think about with me.

We played some incredible music this year in UCLA symphony:

Balakirev - Symphony no. 1: Oh how this piece grew on me. I am unsure why I did not like it at first, perhaps because it opens a bit slowly, with unquestionably the worst movement of the four. Not bad, but not terribly interesting - except a few bars towards the end of the piece where with a few brass chords he seamlessly gets the music back from Db to C. Half step modulations have always sounded terrible to me, but this one works. Then comes a scherzo which is probably one of the few classical works which I would describe as “catchy,” especially in its climaxes over a low A pedal. Then an andante with a melody which reminded me of the kind of melody I used to write. It’s even in Db, the key I imagine all pretty melodies in. I of course liked this movement instantly, although looking back I think its climax is a little less than effective: a bit of muddy orchestration of an odd chord, much less impassioned than a simple restatement of the melody earlier in the piece. A beautiful movement in general, but with a lot of exposed string writing in difficult keys, worsened by our hall’s unspectacular acoustics. The finale was the best movement of the four, and shouldn’t it be? It opens with a folk melody which I don’t particularly care for, except in that it makes me feel like I’m playing Tchaikovsky. Then a very upbeat clarinet melody which begins a triumphant allegro. Strings in octaves punctuated with brass and percussion - what’s not to like?

Tchaikovsky - Symphony no. 2: Another one that grew on me, but not all of it. The slow movement still sounds like it was written for the equivalent of today’s elementary school string players, some kind of stupid children’s march which spends way too much time with the dominant and tonic and no time anywhere else. But I’m willing to overlook this one because the surrounding movements are incredible. The first movement, absolutely a blast to play, is probably the most reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s 4th-6th symphonies which were the works which pulled me into classical music in the first place. Sometimes in an orchestral string section the writing makes it difficult to play energetically - Tchaikovsky will have none of that. This was the most bow-hair-breaking piece I have performed since Rodeo. 3rd is a scherzo, which is a word I have difficulty using to describe a piece which sounds as angry as this flurry of notes. Completely relentless, even in its transition to the brief trio. The final movement is nothing spectacular, but closes with a very Russian blast of C major, which works for me.

Stravinsky - Suite from The Firebird: Further evidence that Stravinsky was way ahead of his time. Listen to the 60-second Firebird variation and you will have no idea you’re listening to something from the early 1900s. A sort of romantic modernism, breaking away from the last few restrictions of the classical era while still embracing natural forms and occasional lyricism, the kind of modernism I love and strive for. Top notch orchestration - this was after several revisions of the original ballet. It reminds me of Ravel at times - particularly the lullaby near the end of the piece, which occasionally sounds almost plagiarized from the opening to Ravel’s own Rapsodie Espganole (In a good way.) Then the Infernal dance, 4 minutes of rhythmic fervor which reminds me of modern wind ensemble literature. And of course, the unforgettable B-major Finale, easily one of the most triumphant moments in all of classical music.

Vaughan-Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis: Have I really never written about this before? Along with Barber’s Adagio and Part’s Silouan’s Song this is one of the few works of string orchestra literature which doesn’t bore me. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Phrygian mode is as close as I will ever get to spirituality. I have wondered for a while now why modern composers don’t embrace the medieval modes more. This piece is haunting, like it’s the music of god, and it’s just because the As are flat instead of natural. And I’ll stop there because any more and I would feel like I’m repeating myself.

Elgar - Cello Concerto: This piece is devastating: I feel guilty that it was right before intermission. Shouldn’t we leave the audience with something uplifting? Elgar has this style of writing where he almost completely abandons the tonic, going minutes at a time without resolution. In high school I fond it very difficult to listen to; only when I come back to this piece 4 years later do I realize it’s supposed to be. How could you live in post-WWI Europe and write music with a nice perfect cadence every 8 bars? The third movement in particular tears me apart. It has nothing that is normally found in what I consider pretty music: no fortissimo climax, no soaring string melody, no suspensions. It just goes for a short 4 minutes and somehow it’s the saddest thing you’ve ever heard. The soloist just floats back and forth above the orchestra, meandering aimlessly, a bit reminiscent of Messiaen’s Louange à l’Éternité de Jesus from the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps. And of course the material is restated towards the end of the 4th movement, just to make me even sadder.

Ravel - Ma Mère l’Oye: The most restrained of his orchestral works, I felt it was a good fit for our orchestra. Its highlights include l’Impératrice des Pagodes, a quick 2/4 dance over a major pentatonic scale. I love the last few chords: every note of the scale sounded simultaneously - and it’s still beautiful. Further proof that is impossible to write anything ugly with a major pentatonic scale. Then there is La Belle et la Bête, its titular characters represented by a romantic waltz and the rare contrabassoon, respectively. What a fun instrument the contrabassoon is. If you have never heard one solo before you should look into this piece. The work closes with Le Jardin Férique, a slow C major crescendo to a final few bars of sparkling harp and celesta over string trills and sustained horn chords.

And a not so great piece:
Mozart - Flute Concerto no. 1: I maintain that this piece could be played without much difficulty by a 5th grader. It’s absolutely unspectacular. I know you know I dislike classical era music in general, but this is just so much worse than Mozart’s own Symphonia Concertante, which we played last year, or any concerto by Haydn. At least the soloist had some nice cadenzas.

I have somehow managed to get a paid internship with Edison Mission here in Irvine. Mostly what has resulted is further disappointment at the plodding tempo of office life. Always waiting for somebody. Which isn’t quite what I needed, but at least this time I get money. It’s difficult to be here daily from 8-5, but I have survived for two full weeks now. The whole experience has grimly foreshadowed the rest of my life. At least I have a fallback position: math teacher. And perhaps my career as a composer will suddenly and surprisingly take off. But that’s probably just a bit of wishful thinking. I often feel guilty for doing so little here. Must try to convince myself it’s okay to take money from large corporations.

I’m approaching 2700 words - which is significantly longer than anything academic I have ever written. Am I redeemed now? Can I go back to saying I have a blog after 7 months of neglect? If you actually read this far without skipping please let me know, and please allow me buy you some delicious food.

2010

California's recent storms have coincided nicely with our discussion of weather in German. Almost immediately after my professor began to teach some weather vocabulary today came a roar of thunder - particularly loud because the classroom door was open.

Yesterday we waited about 30 minutes in similar weather outside of the Griddle Cafe in Hollywood, which turned out to be quite worth the wait. We ordered a giant pancake filled with Oreos, which was incredibly tasty, and so large that two of us could only finish about 2/3 of it. The issue was not so much its size as its sugar content. I would like to know precisely how many Oreos I consumed yesterday, because I have never been so repulsed by the thought of sweet food as I was after that pancake. I have now gone nearly a day and a half without eating anything sugary, which is a little unusual for me.

And now for a discussion of an eternally evident trend: that frequency of blog posts varies inversely with the blog's age.

Over the void of the past few months I have developed an admiration for daily bloggers - this is something to work towards. (Side note: Blogger.com's spell check insists that "blog" and "blogger" are not words.)When you've just started a blog the words come effortlessly: in 2007 I posted 17 times in November and December alone. You might not suspect writing a few sentences each day to be difficult - it certainly sounds simple to me.

But I have some chronic writer's block. I've attributed it to a lack of motivation: the same deficiency which prevents me from picking up a book and reading it, working on a large-scale programming project, or actually getting the music in my head onto paper. Instead I find myself watching movies and television, presumably due to their minimal brainpower requirement.

Case in point: this weekend I watched all three Bourne movies, which were quite enjoyable, though a bit formulaic:

Bourne, to self: Who am I?!
Some CIA division head: I want all eyes in (European city) on Bourne! Give the asset his location!
Bourne, on the phone with division head: Send (CIA employee) to meet me at (crowded European city square). Come alone!
Some CIA employee: That place is a surveillance nightmare!!
CIA division head: I want snipers on the rooftops! And all eyes on Bourne!
Bourne: You didn't come alone! I'm out of here!
(car chase in which Bourne escapes and then travels to another European city)

Intellectualism has been pushed to the sidelines. Although recently Frank told me he might be able to show my clarinet sonata to a clarinetist and a pianist, which prompted me to make some revisions. Since I finished the piece last summer there have been a few unsatisfactory spots: in particular a stale restatement of the main melody of the first movement down an octave. I've since replaced it with a passage in which the clarinetist refuses to play, to the pianist's dismay. They proceed to musically mock each other until the pianist flips out and begins to play discordant variations on the clarinet's themes. Of course, this probably sounds much more interesting in words than in reality.

This has only confirmed my suspicion that I need some incentive beyond personal satisfaction to actually accomplish things. School is never an issue because it entails its own deadlines and provides immediate feedback. But I worry that when I lack the motivation to do what I consider my hobbies, there might be a problem.

What motivates you?

West Virginia is the grossest-shaped state in the US

Looking at a political map of the United States, I have made several conclusions: first and foremost, that West Virginia is the grossest-shaped state in the union. Take a look at a map yourself and I'm sure you will agree. Most US states are nicely in proportion with each other, with a mix of natural and arbitrary borders defining a more or less rectangular area, splitting the country into a checkerboard. And then there's West Virginia, which sticks out like a sore thumb:


As the roundest state, "thumb" is probably not a bad description of the shape itself - if you ignore the two disgusting, wild flailing tentacles protruding from the northeast. And that triangle in between - what's up with that? West Virginia probably gets beaten up by all the other states. To me it looks a bit like chicken:


(Give it a minute)

Then there's Idaho, which has always reminded me of those foam #1 hands:

Will somebody explain to me why Idaho is so enthusiastic? It's as if the state is utterly unaware of its crazy senile neighbor Montana, gaping at Idaho without even a hint of subtlety.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Illinois, which has the most aesthetically pleasing shape of them all by a considerable margin.

With its straight, latitudinal 42° 30' N northern border, Illinois seems to hang down from Wisconsin, suspending below itself the rest of the state and its natural borders with the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan. A beautiful stalactite dripping moisture in a cool South American cave; an icicle dangling from an icy winter cottage at dusk in mid-January.

To whoever is responsible for Illinois' borders: kudos.

Great minds think alike

Hopefully you are familiar with Apples to Apples. This is not fabricated in any way.

The best moment of my life

Tonight around 10 PM, the greatest moment of my life occurred - this one will be particularly difficult to explain.

1. We were playing a board game that you have not heard of. It does not have a Wikipedia article. Nor does the company who made it, although we have discovered that it is by the creators of Trivial Pursuit - which renders its obscurity even more puzzling.
2. To make a long story short, it's a geography game. Basically you read vague descriptions of places from cards and then fruitlessly attempt pinpoint the exact location on the planet at which they are/were located. Some are quite easy: "Ubi wasn't built in a day", but most are basically impossible. One of the game pieces effectively described our reaction to the rules of the game:
   
   
3. The game is wild, wacky stuff. Setting up the game felt akin to making final preparations for a demonic ritual, which you might get a feel for if you take a look at these photos. A few statements in the rules are particularly cryptic, and important to my story:
   "The player born closest to March 15 plays first." (As a side note, this was me.)
   "There's something fishy about some Ubis. We are pulling your leg. These are called red herrings. When a red herring surfaces, the correct answer is 'that's a red herring'."
   "Great Caesar's Ghosts lurks within the game. A player to whom he speaks, beware! (Looking on the bright side, we could have included a dagger)."
4. "That's funny, March 15! The Ides of March!" we thought. We started to play and learn as we went along, answering a few corrections correctly, and a whole lot more questions incorrectly.
5. One fateful turn, my team rolled dual Ubi Eyes on the Ubi Cubis which meant that we could choose which accuracy we wanted to give - hexagonal or triangular, which required you to be 6 times more accurate, but is required to actually make progress in the game. We could also choose the region of our choice - AMR (Americas), EUR (Europe), WAT (Water), or UNI (Universal) - a question from each region is found on each card. In other words, we had it made - and we were already two scoring facets ahead of the other team.
6. We drew the next card from the box and read the clue:
   "AMR: Ubi 'Beware the Ides of March!""Ha! That shouldn't be in the Americas, it should be in Europe!" we thought. "That must be a red herring." We then turned the card over to read the correct answer - and to our dismay, it said something like "Et tu, Bruté?" and told us basically we lost all our points and had to start over.
7. Let me just clarify the amount of FAIL here for you - I'm assuming you are pretty lost. We had ideal circumstances. We had the privilege to choose and then chose a question which we were 100% convinced we had the correct for. We recognized it as a red herring, which requires us to have read the rules. Which in turn required us to have read the cryptic note about Caesar's ghost. We have read Julius Caesar. We had started the game with the closest birthday to the Ides of March. The question itself told us to beware the ides of march. In summary: Against all odds and all common sense we walked headfirst into our demise.
8. Andrew immediately began to sing the keyboard cat song - to play us off. If you don't already know what this is, here are some good examples of the keyboard cat phenomenon:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io63z-aRMbg
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLSoYihTtro
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deYn_efItS0
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WSg7dcKFzg
   Of course all these videos require that you have previously been exposed to other videos. It's all very meta and if you are oblivious to the internet subculture and don't get it, I'm sorry, but you probably never will, and nothing I could have said would make this funny to you. But those of you out there who truly comprehend (there has to be at least one) will agree with me, that this moment was perfect, in every sense of the word.

It's only downhill from here.

Quote of the Year

Weisbart, on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus:

"That's why this theorem is so nice - it takes something that really requires a lot of thought and reduces it to something that ... a 3A student could do."

Sightings

1. In class Monday: Some littleish Indian guy wearing red shoes kept walking down the hall past our room and then walking back seconds later. He's what I imagine an Indian elf would look like (the kind from the North Pole, not from Rivendell.)
2. Walking to class Tuesday: Some girl had headphones on and was listening to loud Bluegrass music, complete with very audible violin glissandi. I suppose anything is a welcome departure from the stuff people usually listen to way too loudly!
3. Walking to dinner Tuesday night: We exited Rieber Vista just as a guy on a bike was arriving. He was pretty far from the building and wanted to make it inside before the door closed. So he pedaled as hard as he could right to the door, then slammed on his breaks just inches from the door to grab it. It was pretty hardcore if you ask me.
   

Miscellanea

Vivid descriptions of recent happenings:

Tuesday morning I attended the first lecture of Asian Am 10: History of Asian Americans. I decided to drop it immediately afterwards. It wasn't so much that the professor was bad - he was just a bit too lively for my tastes. At least, that's the excuse I'd give if I were ashamed at all to admit the following: (1) I was still on the waitlist, (2) I don't want my professors to call on me, (3) I don't want to be forbidden to doze off, (4) I don't want to be in an 8 AM discussion on Thursdays, (5) I don't want a class in ugly ugly Bunche Hall, and (6) I don't want to read six novels.

Speaking of dozing off, I have decided to draw a star in my notebook upon awakening from each of my inadvertent classroom naps (It helps to keep track of when they occur). Plus the lectures of Psychology 15 are videotaped (Is that still the right word if no tape is involved?) so I can go back and review the spots I missed; I only hope now that my lethargy is not caught on film.

I entered MS 5147 on Wednesday just as the previous class was finishing up - and heard a familiar voice explaining something to a student. I looked up and saw that the professor of the previous class was none other than Shifty Ifti, looking just as he did before the incident. Needless to say, I avoided eye contact.

Houdayer used a smiley face to denote a set that were vector subspaces and unsmiley faces to denote set that were not. I am a math person and I like smiley faces, Weisbart does too, and now Houdayer. I thought to myself, "Math people like smiley faces." Then I felt immediately guilty because I was sititng in Math 115A, a class in which we have to explicitly prove virtually everything. Speaking of proving things, I hate it. It's one thing when you're proving something advanced and exciting. But when it takes 5 lines to show that if x + z = 0 then z = -x then it seems to me you are looking at things in a little too much detail. Proving things in this level of abstraction is like the math version of being politically correct - what you're used to saying is totally fine except in that it upsets the old math dudes. This is why my major is a variety of Applied Math - I'll leave this crap to the theorists. Alas, 115A is a prerequisite to most other upper division courses.

I previously mentioned PAB 1425, the large lecture hall in the Physics and Astronomy building, unquestionably the nicest building on campus. One of this building's perks is its amazing chairs, which swivel around in a way I can only describe as sitting like I've never sat before. Tragically, Wednesday's lecture left me conflicted upon the discovering a fatal flaw in this revolutionary chair design: if two people seated next to each other try to exit their seats simultaneously, legs will collide. And I don't mean just brushing up - it's more of an intersection.

Walking to lunch on Wednesday I saw a guy with a spiked backpack, which made him look as if he were Bowser. Or a stegosaurus. Laugh all you want, but you don't mess with someone with spikes on his back.

Frohe Weihnachten

For some reason I have had remarkably little Christmas spirit this year - which is why I am surprised that the usually-mundane task of wrapping presents granted me such fulfillment. Here is a photograph I took of the armada of gifts I wrapped Tuesday morning, arranged seductively atop one another:



I know you're unimpressed, so let me assure you that if you had witnessed the skill with which I usually wrap presents, you would agree these five are a triumph.

The festivities reminded me of earlier festivities which I neglected to write about, namely All-Hill Halloween. In early October we were suckered into attending our first (and hopefully our last) floor government meeting, where a vote was held to select our floor's theme. Disney movies won a marginal victory over Pokémon - not exactly frightening, but we all began to envision some nice decorations. Consequently, we were unprepared for this:



It's Halloween indeed when once-lovable Disney characters are suddenly so decrepit.

Cats and Dogs

I realize that a post about rain is redundant at this point, but there is something fascinating about unusual weather here in Southern California that I find impossible to ignore.

Monday morning I woke up and it was raining, which is decidedly the best way to wake up. Recently I was reminded of the phrase "raining cats and dogs", which I never quite understood - but I do know that it can accurately describe Monday morning, with a little augmentation. So I will say this: it was raining jaguars and rabid coyotes. Or so it seemed to someone who has been living in Southern California for the entirety of his life.

Naturally I was in a good mood, and naturally the 3rd Law of Everything had to shatter that. I went on MyUCLA to check grades, which I have a propensity to do the week following finals. I clicked on Math 61 and saw a big, hairy C-, the alluring symmetry of the 3rd letter of the alphabet a stark foil to my inadequacy. Hmm, I didn't think I did that poorly on the final. Then I realized I had no grade listed for the final exam, and calculated my grade with a 0 on the final: sure enough, a C-. Emailing the professor confirmed the error; he informed me that I should have received an A- and that he had already requested that the grade be changed. What a guy.

I had a whole bunch of Butlerisms which I would share with you, more for my sake than for yours, because I think he is hilarious. Unfortunately I wrote them down in my notebook, which I left at UCLA, so here are a few I can recall from memory:

• After making an error on the chalkboard: "Luckily we have such modern technology here." He erases it with his hands: "Touch screen!"
• Discussing the chromatic number of a graph, the amount of colors required to color each vertex such that no two adjacent vertices have the same color: "This is denoted by the greek letter χ [chi, pronounced as the first part in the word kite]. If you ever forget what letter we use, just remember, chi, as in chi-loring!
• While writing a set X and its subset x on the board: "That's the disadvantage of using X to denote sets - the uppercase and lowercase look the same!" Someone suggests using a curly x to make the lowercase more obvious. "Well, you're assuming I know cursive!"
  

First final, Fall 2008

I just got back from the Geography 5 final, which took about 20 minutes to complete. I was halfway to Haines Hall when I realized I had turned in my exam to the form 2 spot when I had form 1. So I went back to Dodd and told the professor.

He leaned over to me and said quietly: "I gotta tell you - the exams are exactly the same. You're golden. Have a great break."

The Vandal Strikes Back

Monday morning the vandal struck again - this time on the front of the Physics & Astronomy building. Unfortunately by the time we got out of History of Rock the graffiti had been hosed off so I was unable to photograph it (It's interesting how much longer chalk stays on Humanities than on the PAB - but I digress). Instead my vivid description will suffice: orange chalk, written vigorously but legibly, the following: Gravity cannot be held accountable for two people falling in love! Naturally I assumed it was some crestfallen soul struggling to cope with an abrupt and traumatic breakup, sparked by the sudden discovery of the infidelity of his former lover. But then I realized it was on the Physics and Astronomy building - so it must have just been some guy who was mad at gravity.

In the dining halls there are always three kinds of pizza: pepperoni, cheese, and funky. I always like to eat funky pizza to escape the monotony of my existence. While usually a common flavor like Alfredo, spinach, chorizo, or the lovely margherita pizza - the funky has on occassion assumed more adventurous flavors such as Caesar salad and PB&J. Wednesday in Covel was a pizza whose most spectacular component was its name - Egyptian Pizza. Think to yourself for a moment what ingredients Egyptian pizza should have - I guess at first you have to somehow convince yourself that pizza can in any way be Egyptian - but at least make an effort.

If you guessed anything Egyptian, you are wrong - it had peppers and onions. Maybe those are sort of Egyptian, maybe. But I was completely unprepared for the final ingredient:

Hot dogs. Take a good look at that picture. One good look. Now take a look at Egypt:

I think a strong argument can be made that hot dogs are probably the least Egyptian thing on this Earth.

Such a striking juxtaposition.

Humanities

Outside of Humanities A51 - where our Math 33B lecture is held - some letters have been missing for as long as we can remember. But today there was a slight change, a desperate appeal for justice scribbled in chalk, boldly exposing the edifice for the confinement it imposes:

Winter weather

After what seemed like an eternity of relentlessly hot weather in September and October we have finally been granted some relief. I am glad that temperatures have finally dropped enough to warrant pants.

Last Saturday there was a beautiful moment: A brief cloudburst around 3 PM - while I just happened to be listening to Jonathan Newman's As the scent of spring rain...

Today was an eerily clear day for Los Angeles: Walking down the hill from Hedrick we had a clear view of downtown LA. I didn't know that ever happened.

You know you're a math major when...

...you see someone who looks like he could be the offspring of people you know - and you're saying it in your head, "Hey, that guy looks like a cross between Eric and Jeff!" - but instead you word it instinctively as "Hey! That guy looks like a linear combination of Eric and Jeff!"

True story. Do me a favor and word it like that whenever this situation arises.

Butler had another amazing joke today in class:
"You know - computer scientists are always get Halloween and Christmas mixed up. You know... because OCT 31 = DEC 25."


It has occurred to me lately that my humor here is becoming a little too esoteric.

Faces surround me (a picture post)

Faces surround me - in a delicious slice of Oreo cheesecake:

On the floor of Claire's house:

Along the Ring Mall at UCI:

And among the 100+ blurry 4th of July fireworks photos:


In my defense some of the photos actually turned out quite well - and I don't get to say that often:




These were the fireworks of the 2008 Americafest, a large drum corps show / fireworks display which apparently has been held every 4th of July for the past 82 years at our own Rose Bowl (and I thought I wouldn't have to return there until September.) As we could expect, the corps that performed (Pacific Crest, The Academy, Santa Clara Vanguard, Phantom Regiment, and the Blue Devils) were as spectacular as the fireworks they preceded.


It was interesting to see how the audience segregated itself into those attending for the drum corps and those attending for the fireworks. But as the corps ended and fireworks were about to commence we were reunited by the universal love of glowsticks:

The previously-mentioned fortune cookies have been reconciled. As promised, a photo of the swarm:

One morning after waking I was plodding down the stairs when I noticed that my mom had left me a note on the rail of the stairs:
She didn't just leave me. a note, she left me two:


I later noticed a third - I guess the dishwasher really needed emptying:

And finally, relief - a fourth note with a nice upbeat shift in tone:

First final

Reasons why the AUD 10b final was the easiest ever:

• On Tuesday the professor reviewed every single project we needed to know. She also told us everything we needed to know about them, worded just as they were on the final.
  
• The other questions were about the vocabulary lists which were online, also worded just like the questions on the final.
• The remainder of the questions were about primary source readings. The majority of these questions were the exact same questions which were on a quiz we took and reviewed with during discussion last Friday.
• We could bring a page of notes with anything on it, including what she told us on Tuesday, the vocabulary online, and the facts from the readings quiz.
• We had 75 minutes to do 100 questions.
• The questions weren't even very hard to begin with.

Fun things that happened during the exam:

• 11:13 AM: The TA says "It's 11:13. Not even 15 minutes have passed. You should all stop and take a deep breath, you're all going to do fine! Just relax," as if there were someone in the room who was not relaxed.
• 11:15 AM: The TA says "Okay, it's 11:15 now!"
• The room was silent and all of a sudden the professor exclaimed "Oh shit! I think the answer key's in there. Does anyone have a test with blue highlighting on it?"
  

Almost June

One week of class left and I've been accumulating a bunch of random stuff to mention here.

Yesterday was the final discussion for AUD 10b (We don't have one tenth week because the final is on Thursday.) As the TA was leaving so that we could fill out the course evaluations she told us "If you still haven't received your grade for the first essay, get in contact with the professor." I was already apprehensive about the essay because we turned it in early May and she said grades would be sent out over two weeks ago. But as I was looking up the professor's email address in the syllabus to contact her I started to panic because it didn't look familiar at all. I checked my sent mail folder and sure enough I had sent the electronic copy of my essay to a different address. I flipped out and emailed her another copy and asked if it was a problem. I feared she wouldn't accept it this late or wouldn't respond to me ever. Much to my surprise I received a short email less than 20 minutes later, with nothing but two short sentence fragments and some questionable punctuation:
"A.
good work, well-written and organized..."

A while ago there was a lot of fuss about the iPhone, which I was never too fond of. But as she unveiled to me yesterday, Cassandra has finally finished engineering her very own iPhone competitor. Finally some trendy new technology that I can support!
And here's a nice photo of me talking jauntily on the new iPhone killer (You'll have to excuse my hair for being so dark that it's difficult to see the upper half)
And speaking of phones, a glorious new face was discovered yesterday on the back of the case of Cassandra's:

A few awkward conversation fragments my ears picked up over the past few weeks while walking past people:

• Guy on a cell phone: "All your friends are gay. I don't want to be your friend anymore."
• Girl, to two friends: "And you know what Chris did? He quit his Pokémon application because they weren't as cute."
• Guy, to another guy walking with him: "I haven't had hiccups in like two years. If I have hiccups it's going to be monstrous."

Our Linear Algebra professor is a bit old and for the most part completely uninteresting but he has responded memorably to a few questions over the past two weeks:

• Guy in our class: "What does it mean where it says 'not covered but interesting' on the review sheet?"
  Professor: "You should probably know that material but you will not be tested on it. It basically means it's more interesting to me than it is to you right now."
• Professor: "The TAs will be reviewing tomorrow in your recitation sections."
  Guy in our class: "What if I can't go tomorrow?"
  Professor: "Well... then you can't go."
• Guy in our class, two days before midterm: "Can you email us the key to the practice midterm?"
  Profesor: "No, there is no key to the practice midterm."
  Guy: "Can you make up one?"
  Professor: "No, I'm really behind. I have to make up an exam first."
  

And a cryptic message inscribed across the bottom of a desk in MS 5200:
"(scribble) eer on (scribble)
Now I know they don't kill you."

Words that make me lament my love of language:

• Legit - Generally used as a synonym for "good". As in "That's legit." I am going to start using illegit exclusively to mean "bad". Anyone want to join me?
• Down - Used to mean "want". As in "Are you down for going to Rendezvous? Yeah I'm totally down for that."
  
• Unnecessary prepositions - Mostly the phrase "Where're you at?"
• Catch - Used to mean "meet". As in "I'll catch you later."
  
• Bounce - Used as a synonym for "leave". As in "I think I'm going to bounce."

Speaking of bouncing, two bounce houses appeared mysteriously today outside of Hedrick. Their purpose is still unknown.

Yesterday we drove to Santa Monica to eat at Buca di Beppo for my sister's birthday. And I couldn't help but think the entire time how much of a nightmare it must be to live anywhere in LA. It lacks the efficient mass transportation found in nearly every other large city in the world, forcing everyone to drive everywhere. This might be tolerable if the streets weren't so tiny and if there were any parking anywhere. I'm definitely moving either east of LA or staying in Orange County after I'm done with college. UCLA is nice but the rest of LA is a hellhole.

I am currently about five minutes into a new work for band - which has been my number one goal since January or so. You can see proof that I'm not making this up here. The principal motif for this work is a retrograde inversion of the main motif of the middle section of Clockwork, a piece which is about a year old now. I was messing around with the piece earlier this year and discovered how nice some it sounds backwards. It's both a melodic and a rhythmic inversion - the dotted eighth - sixteenth - eighth rhythm is now eighth - sixteenth - dotted eighth. It's a bit of an unusual rhythm so I hope my notation is clear enough. To make the piece a bit more rhythmically interesting I also shorted the middle pulse of each measure from three sub-pulses to two - Instead of 9/8 with 3 major beats it is now written as 3+2+3/8.

The piece starts with a few tutti passages that most closely resemble the original inversion, then quickly breaks down into a sporadic section, with rapidly changing instrumentation, a lot of call-and-response type writing. The main rhythmic motif is constantly heard throughout. Eventually it builds to a climax of one of the secondary melodies, which is where I am right now. The current plan for finishing is to make it die down a little, bring it back up gradually to a recapitulation of the opening and then a flashy coda. After I finish this I will orchestrate (and drastically revise) the original Clockwork for band and hopefully have a nice two-movement suite.

Picture post 2 (sort of)

I don't know if you are aware of this but as of this year I fanatically collect fortunes from fortune cookies (It gives my life substance.) Needless to say I was elated when I saw this after cracking open a gem from Rendezvous:

Incidentally this is the second of the two greatest moments in my life - The first was when I bought a bag of Sun Chips from the vending machine at Northwood and it gave me three. To my dismay the three fortunes were proportionally lame:

YOU ARE HUMOROUS AND CHEERFUL WITH GOOD FRIENDS
YOU HAVE THE MAKINGS OF A WINNER

And another classic cop-out fortune:
YOU WILL BE TRAVELING AND COMING INTO A FORTUNE

I will photograph the full heap of fortunes I have been accumulating, in all its glory, after the quarter ends.

This is my sister's psycho-enormous mattress, with my foot in front as an excellent size reference. She has tried to convince me that this is standard and all mattresses are ridiculous these days, but I'm not buying it. This is a freak of nature. I can't accept that the extra 2 feet do anything to promote comfort. Nor am I interested in scaling Mt. Everest every time I want to go to bed - isn't that a little counterproductive?

The Mickey dollar, which filled me with irrepressible guilt every time I laid eyes upon it (Mickey must be so lonely without his dollar.) The madness drove me to pay for my cheeseburger with it last time I was at In n Out. It's coming, Mickey.

From 1929-1933 Finnish architect Alvar Aalto created a series of designs to furnish the Paimio Sanitorium. One result of his work is the Paimio Chair, designed to facilitate breathing for Tuberculosis patients. This is great for people with Tuberculosis, but it's also great for me - I'll let you figure out why:

Out of all chairs, Paimio chairs are probably the most expressive. The one pictured above is making a very clear -_- face, which subduedly says "I can't believe you're just going to sit on me." The next photograph is slightly more devious, as if plotting revenge:

PIC 10b quotes, French words, AUD midterm, a face, and music

Lectures in PIC 10b typically start like this:

The professor of the previous class, finishing up talking to his students: "...But let me get out of the way so the next class can get started."
My professor: "No, no, we've got ten minutes. Take your time!"

I have started writing down other notable Wittman quotes.

• About the word queue:
  "I hate that word. Because it just looks terrible. It gives me the shivers. I hate writing it, I hate hearing it, I hate saying it. It reminds me of my 8th grade English teacher, who used to sneeze by saying queue."
• About this image, which was on the title slide of his lecture about binary trees: (Every document he gives us or shows us has a Star Wars image on it. He doesn't actually like Star Wars that much; it's more of a running gag)
  "Is that a squirrel?"
  "I guess so. You search 'Star Wars trees' and that's what comes up. A squirrel on a speeder.' "
  

It's time to update the list of awesome French words! (The bold ones are new!)

Orthographically awesome French words:

• créée - Feminine past participle of créer, to create.
• mangeaient - Third person imperfect plural form of manger, to eat. (I spelled this incorrectly when I first wrote about it!)
  
• étudiions - First person plural present subjunctive form of étudier, to study.
  

Phonologically awesome French words:

• semblable - similar - Because "blab" sounds like "blob."
• souhaite/souhaites/souhaitent - From souhaiter, to wish - Because they sound like "sweat".
• honnêteté - honesty - This one speaks for itself.

In Spanish with conditional si clauses you use the imperfect of the subjunctive mood:
Si tuviera mucho dinero, sería contento.
In French with conditional si clauses you use the imperfect of the indicative mood:
Si j'avais beaucoup d'argent, je serais content.

This bothers me.


Yesterday was the midterm for AUD 10B, which was quite easy - aside from the ten questions about projects that the professor neglected to put on the list of projects we need to know. Much more exciting than the midterm was the 20 minute hiatus that the back third of the classroom and I had to endure while the TAs hunted around north campus for a functional copy machine. The exam was also mysteriously missing a page which had to be distributed to all 120+ students. The girl next to me was clearly bored and slightly insane and started to hum elaborate melodies while we waited. The girl in front of me turned around and gave her a look which combined "Are you seriously singing right now?" and "I am going to kill you immediately."

While reviewing the review slides I stumbled upon another face that I have forgotten to document here:
These lovely gardens are those of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, in Maincy, France, landscaped by André le Nôtre.

It has occurred to me that I haven't written much about the music I have written this year, so here is an attempt:

• I have yet again revised my suite for string orchestra, with significant changes to the third movement, a new ending, and some performance notes - hopefully I am approaching a final version.
• I have also arranged both movements of Winter Solstice for percussion ensemble (which they mostly were to begin with anyway). They are very simplistic, but so were the originals. Plus, I can pass this off as branching out stylistically!
• Last Friday I finished a new MP3 work, in typical style. I'm quite fond of it still, though this is perhaps just becuase it's the first one since November.

A final side note: Today is Tchaikovsky's 168th birthday!