The Masochist's Institute of Technologyanecdotes of an ambitious MIT student

On the second-to-last day of the school year, after I finished my last exam, I returned home to pack up my room. It’s always a really emotional experience for me, especially since I’m really a sentimental sap underneath my tough-girl exterior. as I was shuffling through my binders, I found a copy of my first 6.02 exam. One of the questions asked about a normal distribution (I believe the context was error correction in convolution). At the time of the exam (September 2009), I had absolutely no idea how to interpret a normal distribution. I had an equation blindly memorized, and on the test I wrote it out and applied it incorrectly; I believe I set the bounds of the integral wrongly. Truth be told, although I “knew” the equation, I was severely lacking the knowledge of application.

After taking 18.440 this semester, though, I was able to easily look back at my entire 6.02 exam and understand the minute details of each question. It’s amazing how much 18.440 has taught me. I then realized that – even though it never felt like I had learned much these past two years, I actually have grown a lot, both intellectually and as a person. At the end of each semester, I always look back at my 8.012 problem sets with tears in my eyes. Every semester, they seem to get easier and easier… and those good old times of group p-setting and struggles seem farther and farther away.

So what have we learned this semester?

• 欲擒故縱 (To catch something, first let it go)
• The ones who care most about you will accept you for who you are.
• So long as you are happy, everything else will fall into place.
• Sometimes you find friends in places you least expect. Sometimes the ones you considered enemies, losers, and jerks… end up being your closest friends.
• Even if it’s last-minute, even if it’s the day before a large event and you have no participants, even if it seems impossible… with enough resourcefulness and willpower, you can make anything happen.
• It’s just as much (if not more) who you know as what you know.
• Stick up for those you care about; they will do the same for you when the time comes.
• There is such a thing as being over-ambitious. The difference between an ambitious person’s success and failure is their ability to understand their priorities.
• If a student group or activity makes you dread attending events, hate their guts, and stress yourself out, it’s probably not for you. Leave now while you still can.
• Don’t fight the emotions – embrace them, set them free into the open sky, and face tomorrow with a clean slate.
• Finally… there is no such thing as impossible.

Introducing my newest [revived] hobby: translating songs!

While I have a difficult time expressing my deep emotions in concrete words, there is fortunately a medium of expression that can explain fairly well my general views in every day life: music. The combination of lyrical beats, intricately-written lyrics, and ornamental piano riffs are somehow always able to characterize my thoughts to a T.

On Portrait of a Lady in Melodic Sequence (yes, it’s named after the novel by Henry James), I will share various lyrics with you all that describe my innermost thoughts, principles, and values. If you have the time, definitely check out the songs themselves, since the music is every bit as much a part of the experience as the gorgeous lyrics (provided in both the original and usually very mangled translations). Please enjoy =)

Click to visit Portrait of a Lady in Melodic Sequence!

Yesterday, while I was waiting to meet up with someone, I took a brief detour into the Coop and made a beeline for my favourite section of the store: the journal section. While flipping through several of the notebooks, I realized how much I missed journaling. Yes, I have my blog, but it’s not quite the same thing. When I envision a journal, I see something that is much more personal and much more private than a blog. Anyone on the Internet could read my blog, but only I and those I choose may read my journal. My feelings are purer and more honest when written down on paper.

Someday – when this domain expires, or if/when my external hard drive crashes with my blog backups, or if I lose interest in blogging – all my thoughts written here will disappear. All it takes is a single click of the mouse to delete all of these thoughts and memories. But a journal is something else: it’s concrete. It’s physical. Unless I lose or damage it, it will never disappear on accident or as a result of a technological disaster. In addition, someday when I’m older, I would love to give it to my daughter or grand-daughter, so that she may also experience my hopes and dreams.

It’s been a while since I’ve journaled, though, and I want to make my writings somewhat more profound than, “Today I went to class. I think I’m doing well in 14.05, but not so much in 15.401. I need to study harder.” That seems so petty; it’s the kind of “journaling” you do in elementary school, when you took your mother’s advice to “document your life” a little too literally. I want to use my journal as a method of reflection and inner discovery.

Thus, to start out, I’m going to use the quotes from Quote-a-Day to prompt my reflections. It is my goal to journal at least once a week =) Wish me luck!