Erwaman's Personal Journal - May 2010

Feelings at the End of the Semester

I felt pretty burned out this semester. (Hmm, seems like a common feeling for me.) Even though I liked all my classes, and I thought they were all well-taught, they still wore me out. I just couldn't keep up with all of them. I was late to diffy-q 95% of the time (couldn't wake up in time for the 9am class or was finishing up a pset for the class). I often skipped Philosophy of Religion to write reactions (required) to papers we were discussing in Databases class. I would be late to Algorithms class because I was finishing up a pset, or I would sometimes skip it because I was too tired and decided to nap instead.

The two classes this semester for which I didn't inexcusably miss a single class for were Databases and Elementary Musicianship I (henceforth Music). Part of the reason I always showed up to these classes was their small class size. Databases only had 7 students and Music only had 6 students. The small size made the classes feel more intimate, so I felt more personally invested in these classes. I think the intimacy made these classes particularly enjoyable. Everyone knew everyone else's names, and it was much easier to ask questions and have discussions than in a large lecture class.

Despite enjoying my classes and turning in most assignments on time, I still felt like I was scrambling all semester. I'm not sure whether it's because I have really poor time management skills and don't work efficiently or because I have overextended myself with extracurriculars or a combination of both. But my assessment is it's a combination of both along with a poor ranking of priorities. I feel sometimes even when I know I have an overwhelming amount of work to do, I still end up going to band parties, playing random intramural sports like badminton and dodgeball, and volunteering to do miscellaneous things like playing clarinet in a pit orchestra and making a website for the Yale Historical Review. Part of my rationale for justifying my actions I guess is that I know if I didn't do these things and just had more time, I'd probably be spending more time watching YouTube videos, cubing, and playing StarCraft.

Another problem with my overextension is I don't feel deeply involved in any one activity and I don't feel like I know anybody in any of my extracurriculars really really well. I go to a chess club dinner here and there, I go to a band movie screening now and then, but I don't really feel like there are people in these groups that I really feel comfortable around. Everyone's sorta just an acquaintance. We talk and mingle a bit at the events, but outside of them, we never grab a meal together or hang out. I feel like I know a lot of people, while not really knowing anybody at all.

I think I would enjoy myself more and be happier if I could focus my time and energy more. I want to reduce the number of all-nighters and times I stay up late just wasting time. I don't want to be skipping classes and coming to them late because I was finishing up a pset. I want to be prepared for classes and able to follow along in every lecture. I want to sleep at more reasonable times and get longer chunks of uninterrupted sleep. I think I should trim the excess activities and engagements I have and focus myself on the few that most interest me. I want to feel like every week is manageable, instead of each week being a survival test to endure until Friday.

First though, I think I needed to get off my college campus and get my mind off all the dinner engagements and the concerts and the sports games and the band parties and the guest talks and the million other campus events. There's so much going on at a college campus and I find myself distracted and unable to choose which things to commit to and which to drop. So it was very refreshing to exit my last class and head to Baltimore. Finally, for a little while, I could get away from it all and have some time to reflect without all these distractions.

I was glad to be on a train, and then a Bolt Bus, on my way to Baltimore. Long rides are always really peaceful and relaxing to me. Next time, I'll tell you about all the fun things I did in Baltimore.

Johns Hopkins visit, Day 1, Friday, 4/23

First off, ever since I came to college, every time I've traveled, I've never brought along a sleeping bag. It's such an enormous waste of space and adds significant extra weight to your luggage. I don't mind sleeping on the ground. If it's a little hard, I just put some clothes under my head as a pillow, and under my butt and feet as padding. If it's cold, I'll just wear a sweater or jacket to sleep. Also, my pajamas are whatever I'm wearing when I decide to go to sleep or whatever I plan to wear the next day. In fact, never in my life have I ever set aside any clothes to serve specifically as sleeping clothes (what most people call pajamas). When I go to sleep, I also don't care if I'm wearing jeans or have a belt on. It feels very normal and comfortable to just fall asleep in whatever I am wearing when I decide to go to sleep.

That said, I still prefer sleeping on a couch or mattress over the ground, if I have a choice. A couch or mattress is more comfortable, and I probably get a better night's rest as a result. So I was glad when I got to Andy's place that there was a couch in the living room. But better yet, Andy happened to have a spare mattress (for when he is living with his sister over the summer), so I was able to sleep in luxury on his spare mattress for four nights.

Speaking of Andy's place, it wasn't your standard cramped two-person dorm room. Andy's place was more like a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, kitchen (four-burner stove, oven, microwave, fridge), and bathroom. There was quite a bit of furniture, too, including a 3-seater couch, a couple 1-seater couches, two low coffee/lamp tables, and two high cushioned stools for eating at the kitchen counter. The floor was carpeted, too. It was quite a luxurious room, certainly better than any room I've lived in at college.

So after getting there around 6pm and dropping off my stuff in his room, it was still bright out, so we headed toward campus, where the annual Spring Fair was taking place. It was a humongous event, with vendors of all sorts - people selling arts and crafts, jewelry, clothes, and of course lots of food. There was lots of tasty-looking treats like Korean barbecue and fried Oreos, but Andy and I just bought ourselves a couple of small strawberry smoothies. [Also, everything was overpriced, as expected, so neither of us really wanted to buy much.]

From the beginning, as soon as we stepped onto the Beach (which is the grassy patch surrounded by a circular drive in front of the Eisenhower Library), Andy was greeting friends and friends were greeting him. It was kind of ridiculous how many people he knew. During the hour or so we spent at Spring Fair, I met many of Andy's friends that I would see again later on during my visit. I also saw Angela Li (or rather, she found me) for the first time at Spring Fair.

After touring the vendors and booths and not buying anything else, we were both still hungry and decided to go to the Freshman Food Cafe (FFC) to eat more. Andy is no longer on a meal plan and I'm obviously not a Hopkins student, so we both had to pay $14.63 to get in. Since I was really hungry, wanted to get a good taste of Hopkins dining, and wanted to get my money's worth, I temporarily suspended my vegan diet for the month of April while in Baltimore. While getting a lot of food, to make things easier to carry, I stuck my fork under some food on my plate, balancing it as shown below:

Then, while getting a drink and holding the plate with the fork in my left hand, I accidentally brought my right hand down on the fork, catapulting it and some tomato sauce onto the back of Andy's shirt. I wiped his shirt with napkins as best I could, but some pretty nasty stains remained. Fortunately, it was just some free T-shirt his friend got from Buy.com and gave Andy and not some nice dress shirt.

Well, after dinner, we went to the Mattin Center where Andy and the rest of the breakdancers (henceforth breakers or bboys) were meeting to discuss the logistics of the Bboy Competition that was happening the next day. They divided up tasks, and Andy volunteered to make a giant $500 check for the winner. He started by duct-taping a cardboard box flat. [He finished it the next morning by taping large white sheets of paper onto the cardboard box and then handwriting the standard check information on the paper.]

It was getting late, so we headed back to Andy's apartment, picking up some detergent and toothpaste at the Charles Street Market on the way. Andy was gonna do laundry, so I recommended he throw in the Buy.com shirt I stained at dinner. First, though, he took the shirt to the bathroom, presumably to try to remove the stain with soap and water, but shortly afterward, he came back to his room and tossed the shirt into the trash. I said, "Wait, if you don't want the shirt anymore, I'll have it." Andy replied, "Oh, I peed on it." I didn't believe him, so I reached into the trash and grabbed the shirt, and it was indeed wet. "Okay, nevermind then," I said. Then I asked him why he would pee on the shirt. "Is peeing on the shirt your way of parting with a shirt you don't want anymore?" "No, I just heard pee was good for removing stains, so I tried it out." WTF? "Andy, I don't think so. That's pretty weird." "Well, you know, I'm a weird kid sometimes." "Agreed." It wasn't until the next day that Andy told me he didn't actually pee on the shirt. He had fooled me all this time.

But anyways, after this pee-on-shirt incident, I helped Andy do laundry, during which Andy called me a noob several times for throwing clothes into the washer/dryer without opening them up and making sure they weren't crumpled or caught around other clothes.

While we were waiting for the clothes to wash and dry, we visited Angela Li's suite. She wasn't there, but we met her suitemates and saw a girl sleeping on the couch. Andy and I also played a 1v1 game of StarCraft - a Terran (me) v. Protoss(Andy) on Fighting Spirit. Early on, Andy decided to be greedy and double-expand, but I discovered his second expansion and made him pay for his greediness by taking it out. Later on, he decided to recall (teleport) his army into my main base while simultaneously, I dropped about 5 dropships-worth of tanks, goliaths, and vultures into Andy's main base. I did significantly more damage than Andy did, taking out most of his army production buildings, while Andy left most of my factories intact, and soon after, I won the game. This might be the last game of StarCraft that Andy and I ever play together. [More on this in a subsequent post.]

We picked up Andy's laundry, and Andy folded his clothes while I showered. Then he showered and we both went to sleep. End of day 1.

Johns Hopkins Visit, Day 2, Saturday, April 24, 2010

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JHU Visit, Day 3, Sunday, April 25, 2010

Ah, today was Sunday, and we could finally sleep in. I still woke up around 10:30 though (Andy was already up). I ate more of Andy’s delicious Quaker Oat Granola cereal and finished up his soymilk. I still needed more milk, so I used some of Jose’s (Andy’s suitemate) milk. Andy got pretty annoyed at this because he finds it really disrespectful when people use other people’s stuff without asking. I pointed out though that both of us download a lot of stuff illegally, which in a way is like using other people’s stuff without permission. However, in general, for non-online stuff, I tend to agree with Andy. That said, I feel when I do use people’s things without permission, I am fairly reasonable about it and don’t abuse my use. If someone were staying in my room, I’d be okay if he used my tape, stapler, post-its, etc. He could also use my printer if he needed to. Of course I realize it’s hard to draw the line between what’s reasonable use and what’s not, but I think in general I’m pretty reasonable when I use other people’s things. Andy makes a good point though that I should realize not everyone is as open about sharing his belongings as I am. I will make an effort to ask first in the future.

After breakfast, we headed to Hodson Hall, where we both did some work. At one point, Andy started practicing windmills. Soon after, we both got distracted and wanted to play StarCraft with Jeffrey Huang. I was on the Hopkins Guest Network and wasn’t able to connect to battle.net. So Andy set me up on the Hopkins Network for students, and then I was able to go on b.net. However, when Jeffrey, Andy, and I tried to play a game together, there was incredible lag. I suspect it was due to Andy and I sharing the same wireless router and perhaps because port forwarding wasn’t properly enabled. Eventually, we gave up trying to play on b.net and tried using Hamachi instead (which simulates a LAN over the Internet). However, after downloading and installing Hamachi, I was unable to connect to the server. We eventually gave up all trying to play together. Instead, Andy and Jeffrey 1v1’d while I practiced cubing.

From what Andy told me afterward, apparently he had a big lead in the game from a successful early attack, and somehow he blew his giant lead and ended up losing. Andy said this was one of the most frustrating games he has ever played, and this prompted him to uninstall StarCraft and vow never to play it again. [Note: Andy has uninstalled SC before, but has always reinstalled it later. However, he seemed pretty serious this time about quitting once and for all. Perhaps he’ll play SC2 though, which is officially coming out this July.]

Shortly after Andy’s game ended, three people came in to study in Hodson as well, one of which Andy knew. We chatted a bit and then Andy and I left to get lunch. While walking down the street, Andy was in a pretty bad mood and wasn’t very conversational. I can definitely relate to his feelings though, having suffered many frustrating 1v1 losses. I know how stressful 1v1s can be and how disappointing it can be to lose after trying so hard, and that’s part of reason why I much prefer to play team games on money maps. Sure, the level of play is not as high, but everything’s a bit less serious, and it’s so much more fun playing on the same team as a friend than against him. You’re in it together, so losses are easier to bear, and wins can be more joyful, especially when they result from great teamwork.

While I was in Baltimore, I didn’t want to eat at the same restaurant twice, so we skipped Subway and Chipotle and ended up going to what seemed to be a family-owned bagel place. It was already 2pm, and Andy and I had plans to get dinner at 6pm with Angela and Jessie, so we didn’t order too much – I got a peanut-butter bagel while Andy got an egg and cheese bagel. The PB bagel was delicious! It was toasted and the peanut-butter was very warm and oozy, even dripping over the sides of the bagel.

The atmosphere in the place wasn’t too great though. There seemed to be only one Japanese lady running the whole place, and there were half-finished soup bowls and newspapers lying around on tables. Andy and I were the only people eating there.

After lunch, we walked around campus a bit, and Andy showed me the room where he does his computer simulations for his research [though he said he often just does his simulations remotely]. Then we went to the game room in McCoy Hall, where we played some pool (stripes & solids) and ping-pong. I won game 1, and was about to win game 2:

All I had to do was hit the 8-ball in and it was already lined up for an easy shot. However, I joked it would be funny if I scratched on this easy shot, and due to my laughing at the thought, I whiffed on the cue ball, and instead of hitting the 8-ball, it went like this:

I scratched and lost the game.

For the deciding game 3, Andy broke. Conveniently, after his break, the 8 ball was parked right in front of one of the corner pockets, pretty much barring off that pocket from non-8-ball attempts. However, at one point, we reached the position below:

For the sake of opening up the corner pocket blocked by the 8-ball, I was planning to shoot the cue ball into the corner pocket and hopefully knock the 8-ball out of the danger zone. I was willing to take a scratch in order to free up the corner pocket.

However, there was another ball to the right of the cue ball, as shown, making it difficult to get a clean shot on the cue ball. In order to avoid hitting the other ball, I had to angle my pool stick nearly perpendicular to the pool table when trying to hit the cue ball. I went for the shot, and instead of knocking the 8-ball out, the cue ball just leapt off the table, as shown below:

Andy laughed pretty hard at my failed attempt, describing my shot as “axing the cue ball off the table.” He said, “Who the hell takes a shot like that?” In the end though, I ended up getting all my balls in first and knocking in the 8-ball to win the game.

We left around 5:50 and met up with Angela and Jessie at the bus stop in front of the Hopkins Barnes & Noble. We took the shuttle into Downtown Baltimore, where we ate at Iggies Pizza. It was an interesting pizza place: it was self-service, meaning you bussed your own plates, there were cartoon pictures of dogs all around, and there was a giant handwritten sign in the back that said “STOP! That’s sea salt on your table NOT cheese!,” referring to one of the shakers on the tables. We ordered a bunch of vegetarian pizzas (since Andy and Jessie are vegetarian). The one I chose was called a Pepe pizza, and it was just ricotta and arugula and looked something like:

Ugh, it was like eating a freakin’ salad. The arugula wasn’t even attached to the pizza. I think they just baked the pizza and then sprinkled the arugula and ricotta on top. I felt like a rabbit eating that pizza.

Even though we ordered and ate three 14” pizzas, I didn’t feel too full afterward, nor was I too satisfied with any of the pizzas we ordered.

At dinner, Angela reminded me that Roger Chiu (also WP ’06), whose mom I get haircuts from, also goes to Hopkins, so I called him up on the shuttle ride back to campus and we arranged to get dinner on Monday night.

Andy and I got back to his room around 8:30ish, and not too long after, Andy went to lay down on his bed and soon fell asleep. (This seems to happen often; I’ll be chatting with him on GTalk and then all of a sudden he’ll stop responding and he’ll tell me later it’s because he went to lie down and rest for a bit and then fell asleep.) While he was snoring next to me, I played some 2v2v2v2 Big Game Hunters (StarCraft) with Jeffrey Huang until about 2:15 am, at which point I went to sleep, too.

End of Day 3.

JHU Visit, Day 4, Monday, April 26, 2010: First Day of Classes (for me)

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JHU Visit, Day 5, Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Sadly, every trip must come to an end, and just like that, it was the fifth and last day of my visit to Baltimore. I got woken up at 8:50 am, when Philip Shao called me about the Databases final project he, I, and Doug von Kohorn were doing together. Then I went back to sleep and woke up for real around 9:45 am. I was going to use Jose's dirty bowl in the sink to eat some cereal (so that there would be one less bowl to wash), but Andy brought up the issue of using other people's stuff again, so I used Andy's bowl and spoon instead (but still used Jose's milk). I ate my cereal and then washed all the dirty dishes in the sink.

Andy didn't have class until 4:30 pm (!) on Tuesdays, so we lounged around in his room for about an hour. Then I asked Andy if we could go rock-climbing, since Andy seemed to have quite a few rock-climbing friends (Jessie, Harris, Jennie), and I hadn't gone rock-climbing for a while. So Andy called up Jessie (conveniently, she's assistant manager for the rock climbing facilities and has access to the climbing walls), and since she was free, too (wow, doesn't anyone have classes?), we met up with her and went to the rec center. There, I got a guest pass for $5, got some tight rock-climbing shoes (they're supposed to be tight, so you can feel the rock under your feet) for free, and then Jessie led us to the super-secret hidden bouldering cave inside the rec center. Seriously, we had to go downstairs, walk down several corridors, walk through an emergency exit door, down another dimly lit hallway before getting to the bouldering cave, which Jessie unlocked.

Jessie, Andy, and I were the only people there (probably because the bouldering cave wasn't normally open during those hours), and we bouldered for about an hour. So in case you're wondering what's the distinction between bouldering and top rope (another form of rock-climbing), bouldering is done with no equipment (except a pad to cushion any falls), while top rope is done while you're connected to a rope that suspends you in the air in case you fall and is held taut by another person on the ground.

At first, it was a bit scary climbing up too high because I wasn't sure how much impact cushioning the pads would provide if I fell, but after a few falls and experiencing that indeed the pads did do a good job protecting me from injury, I became pretty comfortable and stopped worrying about falling and focused more on climbing technique.

After fooling around for a bit and climbing free-form, utilizing any rock available, Andy and I then started doing climbs with designated difficulty levels, only using the rocks that were marked with the same color tape. We went in order of increasing difficulty, and knocked off the 50-point, 105-point, 220-point within one or two attempts each. Then we tried the 325-point climb. Andy and I both failed our first few attempts, so we asked Jessie to demonstrate how this climb was supposed to be done. She did it fairly easily in about two attempts. Then Andy and I tried it some more, and after a few more tries, Andy succeeded in grabbing and holding on to the topmost rock. I tried a few more times and made a bit more progress, but still had trouble towards the end, when there were no more good rock grips left and you were left in an awkward position. At this point, my fingers and arms were getting pretty fatigued, and Jessie had to leave soon. But they told me I couldn't go back to Yale until I had completed this climb. So I rested a bit on the pad, stretched out my hands and arms, and focused my remaining energy for a few last attempts. I went as high as I could, climbing very methodically and carefully, until I reached the same problem spot as before. There were no more handholds for me to ascend higher except the final topmost handhold. Jessie and Andy told me to just trust in myself and go for the final handhold. To reach it, I had to make a leap. If I didn't catch the handhold, I would definitely fall. I went for it, but I didn't get a good grip on the ledge and fell. But I tried again, now that I knew what the motion I needed to make was, and this time, when I leapt, I got a solid grip on the topmost rock. I brought my other hand onto the topmost rock as well and I just hung there for a few seconds, very glad at having successfully completed the 325-point climb.

We returned our rock-climbing shoes and then we headed to Sandella's Flatbread Café for lunch. It was a chain restaurant that had just opened a store in Baltimore the day before. I ordered a California Quesadilla. It was very tasty but also light. Quite good. I paid for it in cash and in the change I got back, there was an Arkansas state quarter, the last U.S. state quarter I needed.

With that, I headed back to Andy's place, packed up my bags, said goodbye to Andy, and headed out. Andy let me borrow a short book he had read recently - How to Win at College by Cal Newport - which I finished reading on the trip back to New Haven. It was definitely a very refreshing change of genre from the books about religion (Christianity in particular) and God I've been reading recently.

In recap, here are some final statistics and thoughts. Total spent in Baltimore ($97.57) + transportation to and from Baltimore ($58.38) = $155.95 for the trip. Definitely not bad for a five-day excursion. I thought the classes I attended were on the smaller side, which I think is definitely a good thing, but perhaps this was partly due to Andy being a materials science major, which is not too common. Some other thoughts:

• The Hopkins area in Baltimore seemed very spacious, in comparison to NYC or New Haven. The roads seemed wider and there seemed to be more grass and trees. The campus wasn't so small, like Columbia's; it was a bit more spread out but still relatively clustered, like Yale's, but not so spread out like Cornell's or Stanford's.
• I thought there were quite a few good eats around campus, and the shuttle service was nice for bringing you into downtown Baltimore.
• In general, I felt the facilities at Hopkins were very modern, and the music practice rooms were particularly nice.
• The late-night food was also pretty sweet, but fattening :).
• My reactions toward Spring Fair were mixed. I thought the prices were all super-overpriced and I wished they had a free outdoor ongoing concert along with free food. However, comparing it to Spring Fling at Yale (which was actually happening the day I came back from Baltimore), which is basically just that - a free outdoor concert with free food, I thought Hopkins's Spring Fair had much more to offer. There were many non-profit vendors, arts-and-crafts sellers, a bboy competition, a garage dance party (which we heard about but didn't go to), and many other interesting events which we saw listed on the Spring Fair website. It was a massive event, which I wish I explored more if I had had more time.
• Finally, I really enjoyed meeting Andy's friends. In general, they were all very chill like him. Some of them, like Anna and Kathy, were really good listeners but also had much to say when Andy and I weren't talking. Also, Andy and his friends would joke about a lot of racist and sexist things, in mixed company, and I thought it was admirable that everyone was very tolerant and understood that everything was said in good humor. I know some people are more uptight and can get very offended and defensive when such sensitive topics are joked about, but it was nice to be able to talk about these topics in a humorous light.

All in all, this was a fantastic trip I had to visit Andy, Hopkins, and Baltimore. I think I'm getting to know the Hopkins campus pretty well ;). Next time I go I want to do more bouldering (and perhaps try top rope, too), as well as go explore the underground steam tunnels. Good times!

Brushing Your Teeth First Thing in the Morning

It seems like one of the first things a lot of people do when they wake up is brush their teeth. I wonder whether they brush it again after breakfast or if they don't brush it again until later.

Personally, I don't usually brush my teeth first thing after waking up because I will eat breakfast shortly and will brush my teeth after eating. Of course, ideally, it's probably better to brush after waking up and then again after breakfast, but if you only chose one of the two times (perhaps because you were lazy like I), I think it makes more sense to brush after breakfast.

I know a lot of plaque and gunk accumulates on your teeth overnight, and bugs fly in and out (and you probably swallow a few), but if the bacteria have already had eight hours or so to work on your teeth while you're sleeping, will waiting an hour or less more (until after you've eaten breakfast) to brush your teeth really make that much of a difference? I feel if your teeth were dirty the night before or if they got dirty while you were sleeping, most of the damage has already been done.

Now, when you eat breakfast, you introduce a lot of food into your mouth including much fresh bacteria, and you might clog your teeth with food particles as well. So with a new round of bad stuff put into your mouth, it definitely makes sense to try to get rid of it and clean your teeth ASAP, and that's why you should brush your teeth after breakfast (and other meals, too).

One reason I can think of why people might brush before breakfast is they don't have time to brush after breakfast. They pack their backpack and head to the dining hall for breakfast and then go directly to their first class, not having time to return to their rooms to brush their teeth. One solution for this is to bring your toothbrush and toothpaste along with you and keep it in your backpack or purse. However, that might be a bit tedious if you only have one toothbrush and tube of toothpaste which you have to keep taking out of and putting back in to your backpack.

I'm curious, what do you all do? What's your brushing routine? What are your thoughts on this?

Bingham Hall

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