I’m writing this post on the train because I have nothing else better to do and I can’t fall asleep :(.

Winter break this year was pretty uneventful and unproductive, which in a way was good for me I think. I literally didn’t do anything. Except get my drivers license (yay!). Those wide right turns though (my only mistake lol). I also started playing this MMORPG called Tera, and it was pretty fun until it got boring, cause you basically do the same thing over and over again (killing monsters, getting items etc). I kinda wish I did something a little more meaningful though. I guess I’ll tell myself that this blog counts.

I also watched Frozen with a couple of my high school friends, and I have to say, it was one of the best movies I have seen. The soundtrack was especially powerful and captivating, and even now, I’m still listening to Let It Go on the train. Apparently they’re going to convert the film into a broadway show, which would be awesome (haven’t watched a broadway show before #shameful).

Also, so much for New Year’s Resolutions. I guess I never really made any, but I did want to learn how to cook more of my dad’s dishes and lose some weight. The past couple of days, I’ve been eating way too much and gained back all my weight (omg green tea mochi ice cream is so good). I did learn how to make a couple of dishes though, which hopefully prove to be useful.

Here’s my first attempt at fried rice!

Here’s an attempt at shrimp fried rice along with some fish maw soup that includes cilantro!

I also learned how to make the tomato egg dish that Chinese people seem to love.

Too bad there isn’t really a kitchen in Dunster, which kinda sucks.

Anyways, there are still around 10 days before class actually starts, and so I’m free to do stuff. I got into the ski trip, which should be exciting and pretty fun hehe. Some of my blockmates and linkmates are also doing the innertube waterpolo, which should also be fun :D.

I think I might take 5 classes next semester. I already have 4 classes in mind, which are:

• CS124
• CS262
• Stat 111
• VES40a

Probably going to shop around for more classes, like CS181, CS207, Ec1010b. Hopefully CS181 will be much better this year if I decide to take it, because last year, it seemed like everyone had complaints.

Anyways, here’s to a great semester!

Sophomore fall was one heck of a wild ride.

Academics

In terms of academics, I took Kenny Yu’s exact sophomore fall schedule, which consists of:

• CS153 (Compilers)
• CS61 (Systems Programming and Machine Organization)
• Stat 110 (Introduction to Probability)
• SLS 11 (Molecules of Life)

This was by far my most difficult semester.

CS153 was a time-consuming class that took over my life most of the semester. I’ve come to appreciate functional programming, as writing a compiler in an imperative language such as Java would’ve been a real struggle. Hopefully I’ve learned thing or two about compilers and am a little better at programming.

CS61 was also a hard class, but super interesting as well. The whole notion of a kernel, processes and threads is really cool and after taking this class, I think I have a better understanding of how my computer works.

I thought Stat 110 was a really cool and interesting class. My favorite part of this class was learning about the distributions and how they related to each other. See my answer on Quora for more.

SLS 11 answered pretty much all my questions about the biological sciences, including molecules, diseases, and treatments. I’m glad I took this course because I gained exposure to a lot of useful information that may prove useful in the future.

Extracurriculars

CS50 Teaching Fellow

This semester, I was a teaching fellow for CS50 (Introduction to Computer Science I). I found the experience quite rewarding, as I not only taught to my students but learned from them as well. As a TF, I held a weekly 90 minute section for 15 students, held weekly 3 hours of office hours, and graded problem sets. I have to say, being a TF was a lot more time consuming than I originally thought, and although I ended up fine at the end of the semester, it did add a bit more stress than I would have liked.

CSA

CSA has remained every bit awesome as it was last semester. The events we threw were really fun, and I had my first experience having a party on a boat! (To be honest, I didn’t really feel the boat too much). Also, this year’s frosh reps are all really cool and I’m glad to have bonded with some of them. Elections didn’t go as I had hoped, but I’m glad that I’ll still be on board next semester! I’ll be working on making the sib fam experience more memorable :D.

AADT

I remember my freshman year where I saw AADT’s booth at the extracurricular fair at the Quad. I was extremely reluctant to dance, and I ended up only signing up for their mailing list. I am so glad I decided to try a dance this semester, as AADT rehearsals ended up being one of the few things I looked forward to every week. Dancing has definitely been one of my favorite destressors, and I’m probably going to join a few more next semsester :D.

Chinatown Afterschool Program

My 5th graders are growing up! Teaching and doing fun projects with them has always been a blast, and I’ll probably continue with this next year. This marks my 3rd semester with Chinatown, and all of them have been on Thursdays. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’ll grow in the next semester.

And that’s the end of my sophomore fall experience! It was definitely way different from my freshman fall in both good and bad ways. Looking forward to the spring!

Hi everyone! I’ve decided to start my own blog that will have just about anything! (food, code, math, etc) I figure it’s time to do something useful and productive over winter break instead of bumming on Facebook all the time. Hopefully I’ll learn something new! I’m using Octopress for my blog and it’s been a relatively straightforward process :D.