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:

Take off

The guy who works in the same room as me (but only for this week) always says "I'm going to take off" when he leaves. Naturally, only one thing comes to mind:

Weekend in Irvine, Spring finals week

Last Thursday was a bit hectic because I had my French oral final and my AUD 10b final. My last assignment of the quarter was the 9th homework for PIC10b. My printer had run out of ink the previous night, so I wanted to finish the written part of the homework during discussion (It was held in the PIC lab on Thursdays, so I could use a printer there.) It didn't take much time at all to finish so I printed it and left early to go "study" for AUD which I had immediately afterwards.

The next day was the last day of class. (As a side note, the only one of my teachers who received applause this quarter was my French teacher, who ironically won't be allowed to return to UCLA next year.) I turned in the written part of the PIC 10b homework and then realized that in my haste on Thursday I had neglected to place the homework's programming part (C++ files) into the submit folder by the Thursday, 6 PM deadline. Needless to say I couldn't pay attention in class. At 10:50 I hurried to the PIC lab and submitted my homework - I was going to talk to the professor but then I saw on the syllabus: No late homework will be accepted for any reason.

I pretty much gave up hope until I woke up this morning and checked MyUCLA to see that I have received normal credit on the assignment. I guess they didn't collect the files until the reader graded the homework. This pleased me.

Later I went back to Irvine so I could watch the Northwood Philharmonic play some of my favorite pieces:

• Maurice Ravel's Tzigane - Ian did an absolutely fantastic job with this. The orchestra did quite well too, considering it was Ravel.
• Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings - I think a lot of us were spiteful about this one because we all wanted to play it after sightreading it last year. I thought it was amusing that the high parts (including uncomfortably high treble clef passages for the cellos) were much more in tune than the low one. But this allowed them to pull off the climax very successfully - quite good overall.
• George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue - A pretty difficult piece and the orchestra did alright. Ellen played the solo piano part well too, although there were balance problems between the orchestra and the piano (I'm not sure if it's her fault or the piano's - I had previously only been on the opposite side of the piano)

And now for two lovely food-related photographs- first, the most glorious Sun Chip yet discovered (Phillip's countenance depicts our awe):
My brother likes to eat entire cans of pineapple at a time:

I had to return to UCLA Sunday morning so that I could take the PIC 10b final exam at 3 PM, which was relatively easy. They handed us a sheet with the solutions on it immediately after the exam. My algorithms for many of the programs we had to write on the exam varied from those on the solution sheet, but I'm confident they work just as well. Except for one, which I later realized would be an infinite loop (oops).

My next final was French, on Tuesday night - at least that's what I thought. I ate dinner and walked over to Rolfe Hall and became a little uneasy at the lack of anyone I knew there. However, all the French 3 finals are held in the same room at the same time, so this was only somewhat unusual. Then a girl a few rows in front of me asked another girl "You're in French 2? Oh, the French 1 and 2 finals are at the same time?" So I concluded that the French 3 final was at the same time as well. Then a bunch of French teachers entered, including mine - except it was mine from last quarter. So I left the room and took out the syllabus: Final Exam: Wednesday, June 11. Oops.

The actual final was easy as expected - except it seemed to neglect over half of what we learned this quarter. I guess that benefited the majority of people in the room.

Last night I went to bed around 2 AM and was having a wonderful dream until someone in my dream started hacking at my guts with a giant ax. Then I woke up and realized it was just the fire alarm going off, though these have basically the same effect (my ears are still ringing). I put on a sweatshirt, grabbed my key, put on my shoes and trudged down the stairs half-asleep. As usual the Hedrick Summit staff was whining at us to cross the street, and then to get out of the street. This time there was a cranky police officer telling us the same thing ("What part of get out of the street do you not understand?") We were slowly herded into Parking Lot 15 as usual until 30 minutes passed and they told us we could go back into the building. Unfortunately for Summit 4, someone had set off a fire extinguisher and they weren't allowed to return there yet.

Everyone was pretty pissed off and pretty asleep throughout the whole incident but I couldn't help but feel a sense of unity. We were completely screwed over the night before our last finals, but we were all in this together. One of the more memorable experiences of this year, to be sure.

Today was the Linear Algebra final, much easier than expected. It basically mirrored the practice Final which we got last week, except with slightly more irritating problems. Even checking my work, I finished in under 2 hours. I may actually get an A in math this quarter.

Now I've entered that awful limbo between the end of finals and actually receiving grades for them.

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.

Spring concert

Tonight was the third and final concert of the year for UCLA Symphony. (For some reason this quarter it was on Wednesday of 9th week instead of 10th, and now I feel like there are only two days of class left.)

The program included the following:

Wagner - Overture to The Flying Dutchman
Quintessential Wagner, doused in romanticism I might have appreciated more a few years ago. It's a bit over the top and thick for my tastes now. The string parts are filled with quick runs but it doesn't matter if you can play them or not because the brass dominates the sound, the strings are mostly for texture. I got a little shaky during the performance and didn't fake it as well as usual. Despite my gripes it's still very satisfying to perform as an overture. The andante sections are beautiful and it ends with a nice, fat D major chord.

Poulenc - Concert Champêtre
I am in love with this piece and I am in love with Poulenc. He's like Ravel or Debussy except less pretty and more deranged (Not to say he doesn't create some gorgeous moments too, though.) I'm not sure if you've listened to much Baroque harpsichord music, but it seriously drives me nuts. To get an idea, imagine a bunch of metal bees being passed through a blender over and over, while buzzing. That's Baroque harpsichord. But this piece makes me love harpsichord, that's how amazing it is - too bad you didn't come see us perform it, jerk. It's a harpsichord concerto, written over a hundred years after harpsichord was mostly abandoned in favor of the piano. Though the harpsichord is much less powerful than a piano, Poulenc chose to accompany it with a full Romantic orchestra. Scored lightly and colorfully, this piece shimmers - absolutely gorgeous orchestration. The same modal writing and extended chords you'd find in other French impressionist music. Rapid meter changes towards the end - reminds me of some modern band music. I definitely need to hear some more Poulenc - he's certainly deserving of much more attention than we give him!

Beethoven - Symphony no. 6, "Pastoral"
I'm not the biggest fan of Beethoven; playing his 7th symphony in November 2006 at NHS left me a bit pessimistic about performing his work. The Pastoral symphony is a bit nontraditional in that it is programmatic unlike most of Beethoven's work. It depicts a countryside and from what I have gathered, a bunch of frivolity. It also breaks from the standard form of a symphony, set in five movements with the last three played attacca. Unfortunately the second and longest movement puts me to sleep as swiftly as Pachelbel's Canon. I've never really understood Beethoven's string parts, with constant string crossings and awkward intervals, they are about as far from idiomatic as possible. On older bows this must have been even more difficult. The same arpeggiated figures appear in the woodwind parts, which I can imagine makes them very awkward as well.

Tonight I found that a more-experienced orchestra is bit more successful at reaching the audience with this kind of music, though - more attention was paid to the dynamic contrast and lightness that is vital to interpreting Beethoven, this symphony in particular. And there's something immensely rewarding about sounding the last F major chord of a 50-minute symphony, feeling like your back is going to give out any second. It's like finishing a great novel or something. But I'd still rather play Schubert.