Trashy

Cell Phone Faces

Since fall, I've taken a few face photos with my cell phone when my camera wasn't handy. I should really start carrying it with me more frequently again. These will suffice for now.

On one of those self-checkout machines at Albertson's (another reason to love them!)

Kush's inadvertent fruit placement at dinner today:

On Joseph's cooler:
Oven mitt burns:

On the back of a shark-themed bottle opener: (don't ask me)On the side of Gayley Avenue:

My phone is also home to a bunch of pictures of other interesting things. But these will have to wait until I'm feeling a bit less lazy.

UCI (and some more pictures!)

Over the past six weeks I've been volunteering for my mom's department at UCI, which has basically become my second home (I guess third if you count UCLA). The work has ranged from bearable to tedious, although the main problem thusfar has been not having enough to do. Hopefully a real office job is a bit more invigorating, but how can I have much confidence when that scene in Office Space where Peter tells the Bobs about his typical day at work depicts my situation perfectly?

Naturally lunchtime is sweet release, so each day I've been begging anybody in the vicinity of UCI to dine with me and protect my sanity. When nobody is around I kill time walking in circles around the Ring Mall - a mix of aimless wandering, listening to all of the campus tours, searching for people I know, and photographing anything out of the ordinary. (You'll have to forgive the low resolution, these were taken with my cell phone)

This little diagram was drawn on the whiteboard in the room where I work - affectionately dubbed "The Cave" by the employees. Apparently there used to be three people in here - remnants of an ancient civilization in which students were affordable. My favorite quote about the Cave: "Oh that? That's not the cave. That's the dungeon."

Two Asian student groups consistently provide excellent signs to look at.

If only the perfect friend cost a mere $2.00 (or if only boba were sentient) :


Nothing says Japanese like Domo-kun:

A confused Psyduck outside an engineering lecture hall:


The most prestigious Cal State:


I'm a sucker for modern-looking buildings so I have grown very fond of the campus - especially the comically superfluous McGaugh Hall (It looks a bit more ridiculous in person.) And at least three more fancy new buildings are currently under construction. I'll have to return when they are completed.

I do exaggerate the tedium in my work - I made some Visio diagrams mapping the flow of sensative information one week and actually felt productive for a while. I'd love to share them with you except they are security diagrams so it would be a bit counterproductive.

In other news, another Post-it from my mom appeared recently:
One of the most disturbing marketing gimmicks I have ever witnessed: free earbuds! Except they came with my sister's Clean & Clear Oil Absorbing Sheets:


My Fall 2008 schedule has been finalized:

MUS HST 5: History of Rock and Roll
MATH 33B: Differential Equations
MATH 61: Introduction to Discreet Structures
GEOG 5: People and the Earth's Ecosystems
MUSIC 90M: Marching Band
MUSIC C90E: UCLA Symphony


And last but not least some new faces (I should really start numbering them)

The lovely ketchup at Johnny Rocket's, where Courtney has been working (I'm not sure if this one counts because it's intentionally a face) :

The entire backside of Claire's car creates one of the most elated smiles I've seen:


And perhaps the most spectacular yet, which we discovered tonight - the mighty Tortillaface.

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:

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!

New quarter, new faces

After two weeks I am ready to make some remarks about my new courses:

Math 33A: Linear algebra is a refreshing break from two years of calculus. A refreshing homage to Algebra 2 in high school, except this time with unnecessarily fancy vocabulary and notation. The professor is a jolly old Mr. Rogers-esque man who likes to call the discussion sections recitation sections (antique terminology!) The TA is a Chinese girl struggling with English and only 7 out of 30 people showed up to discussion last Thursday (therefore my guilt will require me to attend every session). I am now passionately in love with the number 0.

French 3: Just as easy and slow as the first two. This one only covers the last four chapters (as opposed to the usual 5) so I am wondering how exactly we will occupy the last few weeks. Last Wednesday the professor asked me if I was shy (in French of course) and told me to make an effort to participate more.

PIC 10B: So far, the most enjoyable class - though I hear from people with more C++ experience that the material we are approaching is unbearably tedious. On Friday some guy two rows behind me was snoring sonorously enough to fill Humanities A51 which is a HUGE lecture hall (inappropriately large for the size of the class). The professor and us took a few seconds to laugh at him, which he slept through as well. My TA is Chinese guy also struggling with English, though I think I learn a bit more from him than from my math TA. Some random old lady (presumably the professor of the class after this one in Humanities A51) usually shows up about 30 minutes before our class ends, takes a seat in a front corner, and just stares at us in her little sunglasses (yes, indoors) until class ends.

AUD 10B: The class is interesting enough - I only fell asleep once in the first four lectures. I have found it difficult to take the class seriously though - history classes always end up seeming like extensive trivia sessions to me. Not that trivia is a bad thing - quite the opposite, but I forget it quickly (just try asking me about Italian gastronomic literature). The professor is good, except for her criticism of Wikipedia on the first day, but the discussion sessions are the kind that significantly disadvantages us shy people. You know, where participation, which is defined as being comfortable with spouting out the first garbage that comes to mind regardless of how helpful it actually is to anybody, counts as 20% of your grade in the entire course. Not to mention the TA's trite lectures on the ongoing relevance and impact of history, you know, the kind that always makes it sound like they are mostly trying to convince themselves that what they chose to pursue in life is actually going to get them somewhere. The TA is quite friendly though and I feel a bit guilty about being this harsh.


I am SO excited for this - what better way is there to recognize the starved suffering of billions around the world than with free food?
"The problem of hunger lies not within an inability to produce food, but instead in the unequal distribution of power, knowledge, and resources" - For example, while billions around the world will go to sleep hungry tonight, we get to have a lavish banquet!


Two new notation-related faces:

Each statement in C++ and many other programing languages ends with a semicolon. Apparently a class declaration is considered one giant statement, hence the following:
Physicists often use a "dot" notation to signify the derivative of a variable with respect to time. The second time derivative is represented by double dots. This produces highly satisfying results with radial acceleration, the second time derivative of theta (I can imagine u would work as well):

And finally, a face which has been right under my nose ever since I have been at UCLA - the hinge on the large wardrobes in each dorm room:

Picture Post

Some odds and ends from the Ruby's trip near the end of Winter break:

Here are two prepubescent children eating at Ruby's together while simultaneously talking on their cell phones to completely different people. Not pictured: A third boy doing the exact same thing.

We returned to Claire's house and played our usual game of Scrabble:

Left: The final board. Yes, we played upside-down, we are retarded.
Right: The final score. Needless to say, I won.

Left: The story of everyone's lives.
Right: My foot picked a strategic moment to strike. Only Claire foresaw the doom that would befall them all.

Jerel was sifting through the clutter residing on top of the drawers by the TV. We were aware there was a lot of junk there but nothing prepared us for this decrepit banana:

This discovery posed several questions:
1. Who nonchalantly discarded this banana here?
2. Why didn't they eat it before it was a revolting putrid mess?
3. How are we going to transport this to the garbage can?

None of us remember leaving the banana here (but judging by its age this is not too surprising).

Several days later Cassandra was eating from a can of mixed nuts and Phillip decided he wanted some. They were lying lid-side-up on the floor. He grabbed the can but unfortunately it was upside-down and all of the nuts fell onto the floor:

Cassandra of course does not remember inverting the can, but how exactly can one set a can of nuts upside-down on the floor without everything spilling out anyway? Fortunately, this created the perfect opportunity for Phillip to vacuum the floor and me to be unhelpful and take pictures. Of particular interest was the knob on the front which enabled us to adjust the level of shag:


Using my new camera I finally managed to take a picture of a lovely commercial played often on GSN:

I can't speak for everybody but I was a huge fan of Alka-Seltzer before it came with mucus and congestion! Now it's like three in one! Awesome!!

This Tuesday I was walking up the hill to De Neve when some Asian guy started yelling "Fusion lunch!! FUSION LUNCH!" at me. Impressed by his assertiveness and intrigued by the prospect of Fusion Lunch (the next generation of dining) I took the little paper he was trying to hand me. Glancing over the paper quickly I discovered he was actually saying "Free lunch!" or maybe something involving Quiznos, and I inevitably thought of Phillip and Cassandra who are devoid of the willpower to resist free food. Then I looked a little closer:

Yes, you read that correctly. This can mean only three things:
1. To some people applying for a credit card is as casual an affair as eating a toasted sub.
2. Credit card companies have reached the least common denominator of incentive possibilities. Furthermore, they have to limit it to UCLA Students only, as if without this restriction they'd have too many applicants.
3. Fusion lunch will have to wait :[

Two new faces have been discovered:


Left: Remnants of way too many baguette sandwiches.
Right: A hilarious orange.

And let's not forget the two faces of Claire's purse thing:


We have started to see how many desserts we can smuggle out of the dining halls. Today's spoils included the aforementioned hilarious orange and thirteen delicious cookie bars: