2011 JHU Visit #1(I say Visit #1 because I hope I can visit again at the end of April or mid-May.) (Read about my visit from last year here.) Spring break started for me on Friday, March 4, and goes until Sunday, March 20. Since I had no plans for this spring break, I decided to go visit Andy again at Hopkins during the first week of my break. I had bought the round trip Bolt Bus tickets from NYC to Baltimore back in January, when they only cost $25.50 total (50 cents for online transaction fee). My bus going to Baltimore left at 1:15 PM on Friday, March 4, so I had to take the 11 AM Metro-North Railroad train in order to have time to catch the bus. (The MNRR arrives at Grand Central, but the Bolt Bus leaves from Penn Station, which is about 15 blocks away.) Friday, March 4, arrives, and I have a paper due for my American Literature class at 3 PM. Since I have to take the 11 AM MNRR train, that means I have to finish my paper by 10 AM in order to give me enough time to pack and head to the train station. That's the plan. Well, I wake up at 6 AM that morning, and I still haven't started my paper. I'm feeling tired and am still not in the mood to write my paper, so I go back to sleep. Many snoozes and readjustments of my cell phone alarm later, it's 9 AM and I still haven't started my paper. I realize there's no way I'm finishing my paper by 10, and thus, no way I'm catching my 1:15 PM Bolt Bus I've already bought the ticket for. Resigned, I decide to just take until 3 PM to write my paper and then buy a bus ticket for later today or tomorrow. Now that I've made this decision, I realize I have six more hours to write my paper. Feeling relieved, I decide to cube. I do 33 solves, with a best average of 12 of 15.22 and a best single of 11.90. Still thinking I have plenty of time, I shower and bike to Commons for breakfast, where I also spend some extra time leisurely reading the Yale Daily News, as I normally do each weekday morning. By the time I get back to my room, it's around 11:15 AM, and I'm starting to feel the pressure. I look at the writing prompt again and still don't really know what to write about. I force myself to make an outline and jot down some ideas. I don't think it's enough to write five pages on, but I have no choice but to start writing. At around 1 PM, I pack up my laptop and bike over to Connecticut Hall on Old Campus to write the rest of my paper. Linsly-Chittenden Hall, where I have to drop off my paper in the English Department Drop Box at 3 PM, is also on Old Campus, so once I finish, I can just dash out and drop it off. I struggle for another couple of hours, and at 3 PM, I simultaneously run out of stuff to say and out of time. I print my paper and turn it in. It's only four pages. Fortunately, I'm taking this American Literature class Credit/D/F, which means as long as I get a C- or above, I'll get a "CR" for "credit" on my transcript. I already got a B+ on my first paper, so I feel like I'm still in the safety zone for getting a CR for this class. You might be wondering why I'm taking this class when I'm already done with all my distributional requirements. Well, there are several reasons. I enjoy reading, especially novels, and I know in college, there's no way I will find the time or motivation to do non-textbook reading unless I take a class that requires me to do so. I am glad for this opportunity to read more American literature. Also, I think it's important to force yourself to think in ways you're not used to and not good at. I'm really bad at literary analysis because I tend to think very logically and so I have a hard time seeing the metaphors and symbolism in works of literature and drawing connections between various parts of a novel. I can read a whole chapter and not really have much to comment about it, whereas the professor and most students in the class could spend an entire class period discussing one paragraph. To me, it's important to challenge myself to think differently, and this class helps accomplish that. Anyhows, after I finished and turned in my short, cheesy paper (I wrote my paper on a novel called The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead, which is about elevator inspectors. There are two kinds: Empiricists, who inspect elevators very analytically, checking cables and gauges, and Intuitionists, who inspect elevators by riding in them and feeling the vibrations and listening to the sounds they make. The protagonist, Lila Mae Watson, an Intuitionist, is the first female African American elevator inspector in a racist company and city. The book clearly deals with race and racism. However, I felt my paper was a very superficial and clichéd analysis of these themes in the work.), I did some Student Tech work. I went to a room in Berkeley College to investigate an access point that was having issues. I unplugged and replugged it, and all the lights on it matched up with the lights on another access point, except it had a flashing orange light where the other had a flashing green light. I emailed my manager about it, and he forwarded it to the Yale Data Network Operations team, who said the orange light just means the access point is transmitting at 100 Mbps as opposed to 1 Gbps. (No big deal, since it's unlikely you're ever going to get a 100 Mbps connection speed since (1) most laptops have an 802.11g card that only supports up to 54 Mbps, and (2) even if you have an 802.11n card, you're sharing the connection with lots of people, so it's unlikely you'd get a 100 Mbps connection.) When I returned to my room, it was about 4 PM. I had already told Andy I had missed my Bolt Bus, and that all the Bolt Buses for later in the day were already sold out. He called me back, though, and suggested I try the MVP bus. I looked online and saw there was a 5 PM bus and a 7 PM bus. There was no way I was making the 5 PM bus, so I bought a ticket for the 7 PM bus. Then I checked the MNRR schedule. There was a 4:20 train and a 4:50 train. I still needed to pack and get to the train station, so I couldn't make the 4:20 train. I decided to shoot for the 4:50 train. I threw some clothes into my duffel bag, packed the books and folders I needed over break, packed my laptop, grabbed my sax and clarinet, and headed out. I made it to Phelps Gate around 4:35 PM, just as a Yale shuttle was pulling up. First close call. The shuttle got to Union Station around 4:45 PM. I rushed to buy a ticket from the machine and made it to my train just as it was arriving. Second close call. But I wasn't home free yet. I knew the MNRR train would arrive at Grand Central around 6:45 PM. That gave me 15 minutes to travel the 15 blocks to Penn Station, where the MVP bus would be leaving from. I could try to run it, or I could take the subway. If I ran, I might tire out from carrying all my stuff and not make it; if I took the subway, I'd have to factor in time spent waiting for the subway and making transfers. Last time I took the subway in a rush, I ended up taking the wrong subway. I got on a subway heading south, instead of west. I missed the NJ Transit train I was aiming for, but fortunately, there was one that left 15 minutes later, which I did catch. I decided to take my chances with the subway again, because I was carrying far too much weight to run quickly. However, navigating through Grand Central from the MNRR train platform to the subway took more time than expected. Then I had to buy a ticket from the machine and find my way to the right platform. When I got there, it turned out that the line I was taking was experiencing delays. Ugh. Eventually, I got to Times Square, where I had to transfer to another line. There were two tracks, both headed downtown. One was local, one was express. When I reached the platform, the express train had just arrived, but I wasn't sure if it would stop at Penn Station because that was the next stop, and I assumed the express train would only stop at stops where you could transfer to a different subway line. So I missed the first express train. While waiting for the local train, I asked a lady standing near me whether the express train stops at Penn Station. She said it does. The next express train arrived before the local train did, so I got on board. I finally made it to Penn Station at 7:10 PM, ten minutes after the scheduled departure time of my MVP bus. I prayed that the MVP bus was delayed and behind schedule, like Bolt Buses and Greyhound Buses usually are. Another problem was I couldn't remember exactly where the MVP bus's pick-up location was. Penn Station has so many different exits; I wasn't sure which one to take. I vaguely remembered that the pick-up location was between 7th Ave. and 8th Ave., so I headed for the exit on 33rd St. by 7th Ave. When I reached the street, there was a Bolt Bus right in front of me. It was the 7:15 PM Bolt Bus, which had been sold out online when I checked that afternoon. I asked the Bolt Bus guy whether I could use my 1:15 PM Bolt Bus ticket, and he said to get in line. There was one person in the line, so in about five seconds, I was talking to the Bolt Bus guy again. He looked at my ticket and waved me onboard. Yes! I love public transportation. I'd be at Andy's place before midnight. The bus was pretty crowded but quiet. Awesomely, there was free wifi and power plugs in the back of every seat. The guy next to me graded some papers and then did some reading on a Kindle while I sent some emails, Gtalked, and made a piano reduction of a song for my Elementary Musicianship II keyboard lab. It was a pretty productive bus ride. I got to Marc Penn Station around 10:45 PM and was planning to walk to Andy's place, but after Andy very animatedly told me about the high crime rate and the recent crimes and urged me to take a cab, I relented and took a cab to his apartment. At around 11 PM, I arrived at Andy's place. I was pretty hungry, since I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so Andy steamed some huge vegetable bao1zi, and we each ate four. I was still hungry after that, so I microwaved like fifteen chicken nuggets (his roommate William Chung said I could eat them) and ate them. In my rush to pack earlier that afternoon, I forgot many things. I forgot to bring the Baltimore Ravens sweater I meant to give Andy; I forgot to pack Cal Newport's book How to Win at College, which Andy had lent me last year; and I forgot a toothbrush. Fortunately, Andy had a pack of two new toothbrushes, so he gave me one. Andy also had an inflatable air mattress, which I slept on during my stay. He had an electric pump for it, too, but unfortunately, the pump was not charged when I arrived, so the first night, I just slept on the deflated air mattress, using my clothes as padding. It was comfortable enough by my standards. Andy also provided me a blanket, though his heating was so high that a blanket wasn't necessary. Saturday morning, William, Andy, and I went to One World Cafe, which is known for its vegetarian and vegan options and its organic ingredients, for breakfast. I ordered a salmon omelette, which was very good and filling. The breakfast was one of the most expensive I've had, though, costing about $15 (a "muy" (extra large) glass of OJ, which we each got, was about $4.50 and wasn't even that big a glass), but Andy and William generously covered for me. After breakfast, we went back to the apartment to chill for a bit, and then Andy and I headed to the recreation center to go bouldering with Jessie Young. I am very jealous of Hopkins's top rope and bouldering caves in their recreation center. Rock climbing is so much fun, and it's awesome that Hopkins students can climb for free. Yale does not have a climbing wall at all. Apparently, Silliman College used to have a climbing wall, but when it was renovated in 2006, they tore the wall down. Now, students who want to climb have to go to the Connecticut Rock Gym, but it's pretty expensive to buy a day pass and rent shoes, a harness, a belay device, and chalk. At the Hopkins rec center, students can borrow all this stuff and climb for free! I'm quite envious. Man, rock climbing is so much fun! It's a great upper-body workout and also works out your forearm and finger muscles - muscles that don't normally get worked out. I'm seriously thinking about buying some rock climbing shoes and all the top rope gear (harness, belay device, and carabiner) so that I can climb more often without having to rent shoes and gear. This summer, when I'm interning at Google in Mountain View, I definitely plan to do some climbing at night or on the weekends - I might even buy a month pass. After bouldering on Saturday, Andy and I went to a lacrosse game between the JHU Blue Jays and the Princeton Tigers. Unfortunately, Princeton dominated the entired game and won 8-3. Saturday late afternoon, I spent a few hours practicing in one of the music practice rooms in the Mattin Center. I really like these practice rooms. There are so many of them, so no matter what time you go, there's almost always one available. They're new and clean, and the baby grands in them are all in tune! It's so nice to play on an in-tune piano without stuck keys. I practiced the Easter Anthem (for my keyboard lab midterm) and also played through the clarinet and saxophone parts in the Reed 1 book for the musical Chicago, which I'm playing in after spring break. Unfortunately, the woodwind parts I have are not very melodic or interesting. I think Chicago is more brass-oriented. Saturday night, Andy and I met up with Angela Li at Coldstone. Andy and I got smoothies while Angela got an ice cream. Afterward, we checked out Angela's apartment, ate all her left-over cookies, and headed back to Andy's place, where we soon crashed. Sunday, Andy, William, his girlfriend Jeska Lai, and I went shopping. Andy brought this MASSIVE bag of change on his desk and exchanged it all for an Amazon gift card. The bag of change ended up amounting to over ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! At the supermarket, Andy bought two gallons of soy milk, four boxes of Cheez-Its, and two boxes of Captain Crunch cereal, among other things. Over the next five days, Andy and I devoured all four boxes of Cheez-Its and both boxes of Captain Crunch. We are ravenous pigs. Sunday night, Andy and I teamed up with Dennis Mou and Jeffrey Huang for some 4v4 Big Game Hunters StarCraft action. We pwned pretty hard and won all our games. On Monday, I went with Andy to his Kinetics class and his Intermediate Programming class. Kinetics was super boring, and the teacher did not seem like she really knew what she was talking about. However, his Intermediate Programming class was very interesting and his teacher was very chill. I went to this class on Wednesday and Friday as well, and it was a very good C refresher. After Intermediate Programming, we met up with Jasmine Wang (who graduated from Hanover Park in 2010) at Ajumma, a Korean place, for lunch. Then we checked out her dorm in Building B - yes, it is actually called "Building B". See this JHU campus map. Andy had lived in Building A his freshman year, and Jasmine tried to convince Andy how much better Building B was than Building A. However, to me, the room layouts seemed EXACTLY the same, so the buildings really were about the same. Monday afternoon, I did some linear algebra homework in the basement of the apartment building where Andy lived. I fell asleep for an hour or so while doing it. Apparently, Andy came downstairs and found me while I was asleep and lol'd. Monday night, I went with Andy to the gym (he lifts MWF), and did some top roping while he lifted. I did six climbs ranging in difficulty between 5.6 and 5.8 (I'm a noob.). These climbs are all set and rated by Hopkins students, and I like how they're also given names in addition to difficulty ratings. The climbs I did were "tl;dr", "So OP", "Awesome Warm-Up", "Dear Loser...[Chris]", "Counts As 2", and "Season 13, Episode 12". My favorite was Counts As 2 (rating 5.7/8) because even though it looked difficult from the ground, when I actually tried it, there turned out to be some nice foot holds along the side wall and the climb became very fun. Tuesday was my last day. My Bolt Bus would leave from Marc Penn Station at 2:15 PM. However, William and Andy encouraged me to stay and bro out longer. After thinking about my plans for the rest of spring break (none), I realized I had nothing to do and could stay for a bit longer. So I extended my stay until Friday, and bought a ticket for the Friday 1:15 PM Bolt Bus. Tuesday morning, we woke up early in order to meet Jessie Young at Hackerman Hall (I pointed out to Andy that Hackerman - "hacker man" - was a fitting name for an engineering building), a building that houses computational science, engineering, and a robotics lab, for a tour of the lab she works in. Most of the robots that were being worked on were for biomedical use. There was a robot designed for eye surgery, and there was a rig that tested precise puncturing of gelatin with a needle, I suppose to simulate puncturing of human skin. However, Jessie could not demonstrate any of the robots because none of them were hers (her robot was apparently in New York). The tour was still cool, though. Afterward, the three of us went to Gilman Hall to do some studying. I finished my linear algebra homework for the break there. At noon, I practiced some more piano at the Mattin Center while Andy met up with his lab professor. Then we went to his Materials Science Lab lecture class. This class was at 1 PM, and about 75% of the 11 students were eating their lunch in class. The professor lectured using a PowerPoint but wrote notes on her slides using her computer's tablet input. However, the material was very dry and I still fell asleep. After the lecture, we ate lunch at Silk Road Cafe and then went back to Andy's apartment and bummed around for a bit before we left to go to the tutoring place where Andy works. Andy picked up a Zipcar and three other tutors and then we headed east to the tutoring place. My original intention was to tutor for free, but since there were no students for me to help, I decided to go outside and try to read some of my professor's notes for Randomized Algorithms. I soon fell asleep again. When we got back to Baltimore, we dropped off the Zipcar and then went to Sandella's to get dinner. Last year, when I visited Hopkins, Andy and I ate here the day after it opened. When we went again this evening, it was also Andy's first time back as well as mine. We were both pretty tired (especially Andy, since he didn't nap in his Mat Sci Lab lecture and during tutoring like I did) when we got back to his apartment, so we went to sleep early. On Wednesday, I skipped Kinetics (since Monday's session was so boring) and met up with Andy in Intermediate Programming. Today, the professor covered I practiced some more piano Wednesday afternoon. The piece - Easter Anthem - I'm playing for my keyboard lab is actually an SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) arrangement with lyrics. For my midterm, in addition to being able to score-read the piece, I also have to be able to sing any of the parts while playing it. So I thought it would be fun if I got some other people to sing with me. Wednesday afternoon, Andy gave the bass and tenor lines a shot while I played the piano. Excited to try this with more people, we invited William, Jeska, Anita, and Jessie to sing with us the next day. I emailed them the score, a recording, and a MIDI of their parts, and we scheduled two singing sessions for the next day. Wednesday night, I practiced piano a bit more and then met up with Andy at the gym. Haris Ali, a beast rock climber who sets most of the climbs, was in the top rope cave, and he kindly belayed me. My first climb was "Season 13, Episode 12". This had been my last climb on Monday, and since I was pretty tired by then, I fell twice during the climb. This time, being my first climb, I was fresh, and I nailed it without falling. Haris then challenged me to attempt a 5.9 named "Big Hass Foot". This was my first 5.9 attempt in my life, and I fell thrice, but eventually made it to the top. Part of the problem was I was trying to figure out where the hand holds and foot holds were as I went along, and I didn't see a lot of them at first. But now that I've climbed it once and know where the hand and foot holds are, I think I could do this climb without falling when I'm fresh. After this climb, my upper right arm was really hurting, and I couldn't even untie my rope because my right arm hurt so much. I think I overclimbed a bit (three times in five days), and now my body was complaining. That was my last climb of this JHU visit. My injury was conveniently timed to occur during my third gym visit, after I had used the last of the three guest passes Andy had bought for me. My right arm stopped hurting later that evening, but my right middle finger still hurt a bit. The past few days, when I have tried to do U2 turns on my cube as index-middle double flicks, my middle finger has hurt. However, today (pi day!), my right middle finger has stopped hurting. Thursday morning, it was raining super hard, but nonetheless, I biked to Twenty 20 Cycling and got Andy's bike's tires pumped. On my way back to campus, I misnavigated and ended up biking an extra mile in the torrential rain. I had an umbrella, but my pants, shoes, and socks still got soaked. I went to the Mattin Center and practiced the Easter Anthem in preparation for our singing sessions later in the afternoon. Then I ate lunch by myself at the Silk Road Cafe, which is located in one of the other buildings in the Mattin Center complex, before meeting Andy in his Mat Sci lab, where he was measuring the capacitances of various materials with his lab partners. After his lab, we went back to Andy's apartment and lounged for a bit before heading back to the Mattin Center for our first singing session. Andy sung the bass part while Anita and Jessie sung the soprano and alto lines. I filled in the tenor lines every once in a while. Singing is so much fun! Our next session was with Will and Jeska. However, the couple ran a bit late (Andy: "You know how it is with couples."), and so, before they arrived, Andy had to leave to go work on a database implementation with his partner. When they arrived, we sung the Easter Anthem, with Will and me singing the bass part and Jeska singing the soprano part and sometimes the alto part. Then we listened to, and played and sang along with a piece called "In Your Courts" written for and performed by Adoremus, a Christian a cappella group at Hopkins. (I had the score for the piece, but it did not have the lyrics for the solo part written. The night before, I transcribed the lyrics from a performance of the piece, and amusingly, I thought the lyrics were "I bow at your feet in your course", even though the title of the song is In Your Courts.) After this, we messed around, did some vocal exercises, and tested how low Will's voice went (a B1). Then I met Andy in the computer lab in Shaffer Hall. Andy's program wasn't working properly, so I helped him debug it. It turned out that he forgot to close a file pointer he was using to write to a file before he opened a file pointer to the same file for reading. That solved, we left for Andy's APTT (A Place To Talk) shift in Alumni Memorial Residence Hall 1 (AMR1). There was another person, Ann (sp?), who was also working the same shift, and for some reason or another, she asked Andy and me if we were atheists (I am). That question reminded me of the Easter Anthem, so Andy and I started singing it. Then the guy who was staffing the front desk in AMR1 asked if we knew any other songs. I said I knew Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, so Andy showed me the Glee all-male version of the song with dance choreography. Ann then suggested we go into the study lounge next door and perform the Glee version for the students. Andy was very excited to do this, but I refused because (1) I didn't know the lyrics well enough, and (2) neither of us had practiced the dance moves. Later on, some people came to hang out in the APTT room and eat the candy provided, and we decided to perform the Glee version of Teenage Dream for them before we left. Our audience was very kind to us and applauded us for our efforts despite a terrible performance. We got back to Andy's apartment and played some Tekken before sleeping. On Friday, I skipped Kinetics again in order to pack, and then I brought all my stuff and met Andy in Intermediate Programming. Today, the professor covered function pointers, something I have never learned or used before, so it was cool to learn about them. The syntax is insanely confusing. Afterward, we ate lunch with Jasmine Wang at the Freshman Food Cafe, where I made sure to sample as many entrées and desserts as I could to get my eleven dollars and fifty cents-worth of food. At 12:45, it was time for me to leave and head to the JHMI (Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) shuttle stop. Andy came with me, and on the way, we passed several people carrying super soakers. Very curious. At the shuttle stop, we saw another person carrying a super soaker, so I went up to him and asked, "Excuse me. Why are you carrying a water gun?" "It's for a fun event going on around campus." "Oh. What event?" "Sorry, I can't tell you." "Oh, I see. If you told me, you'd have to shoot me, right?" "Yep." "Then can you tell me and then shoot me?" My guess is it is probably some fraternity initiation ritual. My trip back home was uneventful, except my Bolt Bus took 4.5 hours to get to NYC instead of 3.5 due to traffic. Some observations, reflections, and memorable quotes from my trip:
As always, it was very rejuvenating to spend time with Andy. |