grudges

"Crows can hold grudges for about 17 years, scientists say." 

astronomical autumn > meteorological autumn [letter]

Hiya Moses,

I fear it has been far too long (a full two months) since my last letter correspondence, but better late than never!

Having just finished watching Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), I also fear I will sound as if I am in a Jane Austen period piece. Nonetheless, I persevere.

Actually, this form of correspondence reminds me of sixth grade, when my friend Jasmine (a self-proclaimed Shakespeare nerd), convinced me to roleplay as Celia from As You Like It, while she embodied Rosalind. I confess that I learned most of my Shakespeare from reading manga adaptations and listening to Jasmine, but it was fun to slip dramatic letters to each other through our lockers. I also have vivid memories of us practicing Banquo's monologue on the walks afterschool from Taylor (which you recently visited!) to the public library (de facto childcare), while switching off who carried my bass clarinet each block.

But I digress with this bucolic image of middle school. 

[Optional Playlist to listen to while reading: The Great Gatsby!!!! https://open.spotify.com/album/1ROa0bSRzWi67kUyzfyfq6?si=U0a4P3HCTl-zAi7j8PbpoQ]

Though we've touched on a few of these topics during in-person meetups (biking in GGP, whale watching, origami in Bernal Heights), I've been really treasuring the archival effects of sitting down and reflecting on life every month or so. I reread my June 9th letter and your June 27th response to refresh my memory, and just two months later, forgotten memories and emotions were able to resurface.

 

Beauty [continued]

Shaky eyeliner and tinted lip balm have been my boldest forays into makeup. It is either an indication of my overflowing self-esteem or poor makeup skills that I think I look better without.

As of late, I've been disliking the downsides of emphasizing beauty (though perhaps I conflate it with gender norms), after hearing some HR-adjacent anecdotes from my friend at work. However, I would be interested in any new thoughts or experiences you may have had recently re: beauty.

Ising Models [continued]

The concept of the order parameter is new to me! At least in the Ising Model, I believe that the magnetization is a net average of the spin states, and exhibits temperature dependence (possibly related to annealing and using temperature as a hyperparameter when attempting to simulate the spin states of the system). This does seem to indicate that the local magnetization is approximated as an average over the entire system, a simplification that apparently scales better in higher spatial dimensions. So, I think magnetization is still a vector in the sense that each electron may have 2 or 4 nearest neighbors (in 1 or 2 spatial dimensions), but the dimensionality is flattened when calculating a total energy ("but the energy is often pretty much independent of the direction of the magnetization" Source: https://sethna.lassp.cornell.edu/OrderParameters/OrderParameter.html). I am sorry to answer your confusion with more confusion, but let me know if you have more insights on the order parameter. 

"Is the idea that you use a physical Ising model realization with its initialization representing some other system with some problem of interest, and letting it evolve and measuring a certain property (energy) solves the problem?"

This was exactly the use case when representing the Ising model as a neural network with known initialization (i.e. the edge weights for a max cut problem), then letting it propagate in the direction of energy minimization. 

Media

Recent re/watches: InitialD, Didi, Baby Driver, Westside Story, Sense and Sensibility (1995). I also followed the NBC sports recaps of the Tour de France! I think the other movie that is most strong in my mind as of late is Anatomy of a Fall. I also enjoyed Past Lives/La La Land/Whiplash/Kung Fu (Stephen Chow). Anything with a good soundtrack :)  

Some Responses to Teresa's Movie List (no need to share to her haha)

2. Spider-Man into and across the spider-verse (sound track!)

3. The Half of It (also a fave of mine, and I also like the Cyrano book + movie)

Some other faves:

Shrek (esp in spanish) -never really got on that hype train :')

A Quiet Place 1&2 -I am unfortunately too chicken for horror

Moonlight -still need to watch :')

Dope -will have to check out

Monkey Man -very fun, now a Dev Patel fan

Love Lies Bleeding -will have to check out

Juno -also a fave but I could not understand the Dad

(500) Days of Summer -the manic pixie dream girl of my dreams, but Premium Rush is also a very fun movie with JGL

Sparkle Identification

It was indeed the weekend. For your entertainment, here is a note I wrote to myself on June 10th, and the sparkles ended a brief month later. 

Normal things that seem to sparkle when you are drunk on a weekend (as in drunk on the weekend itself, not on alcohol):

• driving

• running

• the night sky

• miatas

• roses

• table cloths

• playlists

• dreams

• cinnamon bread

• derailleurs

Pending recalibration on Monday:

• earth bound

I empathize with the feeling of loss due to evolving friendship dynamics. I thought about some platitudes to declare the changes as natural, an opportunity for growth, or having the potential to revert back someday, but sometimes, it just truly sucks.

Backpacking

The trip to Henry W. Coe state park with my mom was simultaneously peaceful and an adventure. It was her first time backpacking (as opposed to car camping), and I think she was quite proud of surviving the trip! We saw many shooting stars, talked to other friendly backpackers while hiking to the campsite, and managed to ration our water (though we were slightly more parched than preferred). As a remedy, I bought a water filter so we won't have to roleplay the Fremin (Dune) on future trips.  

Potpourri

The lyrics of Marry Me a Little capture my thoughts towards relationships quite a bit, but the rational part of me thinks that "I'm ready!" is more accurately, "I'm (not) ready!" Maybe that is the intention of the song? I don't know the fuller context of the musical it comes from.

Oh man, I re-read your 16A first week recap. To Past-you: nooo rest and food are non-negotiables! To Present-you: you survived! To Future-you: take care!

Is the Audio Processing Unit in the 2A03 still on the docket as a course project? Would be excited to learn more! You also mention a mind-mapping program (in your letter from Vivian's birthday). Has it helped with course planning or motivating/organizing your broader tasks/thoughts?

Re: Accommodating one's self: I think it is a mix of accepting of things we cannot control (the need to eat fiber, the necessity to go to work for self-sustenance, general responsibilities), pursuing things selfishly for the hell of it  (triathlons, driving manual transmission, reading books), and trying to contribute to a slightly wider microcosm beyond yourself (spending time with friends/family, engaging in community events, contextualizing your existence in the broader world, composting). Some ratio of those three aspects are roughly what I am working towards in life. What do you think?

~~~

It is around 1AM and my coherency is rapidly decreasing. Please excuse the lack of proofreading.

I realize I did not ask too many questions this time around (since we've IRL caught up!), but please take that as an opportunity to write freely whenever you have time to respond. No need to continue old threads :) 

Thank you again for your continued thoughtfulness, and the lovely birthday card and gifts. Their cuteness and practicality are very much appreciated.

Sincerely,

-

saturdays vs mondays

Normal things that seem to sparkle when you are drunk on a weekend (as in drunk on the weekend itself, not on alcohol):

1. driving
2. running
3. the night sky
4. miatas
5. roses
6. table cloths
7. playlists
8. dreams
9. cinnamon bread
10. derailleurs

Pending recalibration on Monday:

1. earth bound

northern lights, May 11

bikes, NY [letter]

Salutations 'M (00).

Thank you for your patience in awaiting this response! To be honest, I am curious about the redacted 700 words that shrunk your word count from 2000 to 1300. Were they embellishments/footnotes, or an entire anecdote omitted for brevity?

I will do my best to address your questions, but please don't hesitate to reiterate if I missed something.

~~~

Your prom outfit and makeup were so classy! I'm squinting at the picture you took at the pier, but are those heels? I like the pointed toe silhouette. Do you have an everyday makeup routine now, or is it more for special occasions? Though I am still quite the novice with regards to makeup, I have picked up some knowledge from Susan/Iris/Vivian (Iris is our resident Redditor and she is the one who frequents r/namenerds). Recently, they've been discussing the beauty approach of being "high maintenance for low maintenance", which as paradoxical as it sounds, makes a lot of sense. Instead of spending 10 minutes a day fiddling with an eyelash curler and mascara, Vivian performed her own "lash lift", which is some sort of equivalent perm one can apply to their eyelashes that lasts around a month. Just some food for thought in case you have opinions on beauty (practical/theoretical), as I believe that is a topic we have yet to discuss.   

On the theme of beauty, I like the idea of attributing "evolutionary reinforcement" to positive phenomena of nature. Yes, these electrons knew to orient in this manner to facilitate cellular processes. All good things are intended; the bad are outliers.

While I am far from having a physical intuition for Ising models, I am slowly making my way through this resource (https://web.stanford.edu/~peastman/statmech/phasetransitions.html)  to learn more :) The way I have learned about them, I look at Ising Models as a graph where the node states can be statistically predicted based on spin states of magnetic dipole. It turns out natural phenomena (such as phase transitions, magnetic fields), as well as computational problems like combinatorial optimization can be represented with the Ising Model. In relation to the research, we used the energy of the system as an optimization function to map NP-Hard and NP-Complete problems onto, reasoning that the graph structure can be compatible with hardware systems that are already buff for ML (et voila, slap a neural network onto it!).  

Media

I have watched Bottoms (I'm a budding Rachel Sennott fan after Shiva Baby) and enjoyed the ridiculousness of it. How was Drive Away Dolls -I've been thinking of watching it! Does Teresa have a top-movies list, as I think our movie taste may align (sample size N = 3).

Currently, I am still reading Dune (our book club at work has serendipitously chosen it as well, though most of them had read it "many years ago in high/middle school"), Additionally, I am reading Wind, Sand, and Stars. For Dune, I am still diligently plodding through the world building and name-dumping exposition (having never watched the movie, I am going in blind). The lyricism of Wind, Sand, and Stars caught me off guard (though I should have seen it coming given The Little Prince), but the exploration of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's life through his passion for flying makes consulting a dictionary every few pages tolerable (or maybe French is just inherently more romantique /s). So far, it reminds me of Roald Dahl's Going Solo.

The African folklore booth had some books that were indeed in the vein of Percy Jackson in that modern characters were inserted with African deities. Though not present at the booth (since it is a retelling of Arthurian legends combined with African American spiritual traditions -rootwork), the Legendborn series is one that I really enjoy as well. 

Thank you for sharing about Little Blue Encyclopedia! Let me know if there are more thoughts on it if more progress has been made (np if not, though).

Wheels and Friends

"Flavors of resuming and growing" are apt words to describe the nature of friendship with Ant. My disorientation comes from the discrepancy between my high school image of his persona, versus the more up-to-date iteration that I've slowly been seeing. I think the high school friendship was a typical one of proximity, mutual friends, and an obsession with the same webtoons, whereas the post-grad one is built on common interests (biking, running, cars) and similar experiences at this point in life. In terms of intensity, I am determined to keep it very low-grade and preferably hobby-oriented, as I suspect a lot of positive/sparkly feelings may be conflated with my general enthusiasm for the weekend (Susan literally laughed out loud when I said this; Iris suggested AB-testing on a weekday).

Do you have any friends with a similar relationship dynamic where you might have had to reconcile past with present versions?

I've recently switched to a road bike (acquired off craigslist), and I have the exact same concern as yours (in relation to motorcycles) in that actuating the brakes is actually kind of painful with small hands. We did some city biking around SF this past weekend, and I noticed that I was riding a lot more cautiously on the downhills, for fear of not being able to stop as quickly given my lack of grip strength in pulling the brake levers if my hands are on the hoods of the drop bars. 

How was your trip down to LA? Was the drive up on the I-5 tolerable in the Camry? 

We went to SF to watch T100, a professional triathlon race. 

Lots of interesting fancy bike designs. This one lacks a seat tube, as it sits on the top tube.

Bike 1, Bike 2, Bike 3

We biked up Twin Peaks, as well as a few other hills in SF.

Visited a bicycle co-op called The Bike Kitchen.

They were very friendly in telling us about the workspace and advising us on bike maintenance basics.

Also conveniently located next to Tartine :3

New York Recap

A quick, but sweet trip to the Big Apple, as I escaped from the other big apple. 

Day 1: Hong Kong cafe in Chinatown, walking the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Terminal, Times Square, running in Central Park, cookies from Levain. 

HK Cafe

Day 2: Bagels and lox at Barney Greengrass, the Highline, hiding from the pouring rain with the rest of New York at the Met. I especially appreciated the Central Asian art section, as I don't think I've seen a lot of it before. My favorite piece was The Ceiling (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451373), as I liked the geometry as well as the historical mush of Islamic, Sephardic, and Christian influence. Other favorites were this really beautiful room (https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/islamic-art/damascus-room), and this exhibit that juxtaposed art from the Ottoman empire and modern day Turkish artists (https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/islamic-art/modern-artists-ottoman-past) -I was surprised to see a lot of Chinese styles in the Ottoman porcelain (silk road I suppose). 

The Ceiling.

Day 3: Turtles at Central Park, really yummy Korean tofu (no pictures unfortunately) at Cho Dang Gol. 

Turtles in Central Park.

I indeed enjoy bossa nova and musical numbers, and watching The Great Gatsby on Broadway was the highlight of the trip. I was surprised to love Eva Noblezada's stage-talking voice as much as her singing voice (impeccable), but hearing Jeremy Jordan belt out his hopelessly-in-love ballad ("For Her"-I'll send a better link when the album is released) was my favorite vocal piece. The lighting and stage design were as glamorous and extravagant as the roaring 20's, and I was surprised to see actual cars being driven on stage. Samantha Pauly (as Jordan Baker) was also girl-bossing very admirably, and I thought that she was leaning into a queer subtext until I was reminded of her romance plot-line with Nick (:skull-emoji).

Three bridges on the way back.

Rapid Fire

My toxic personality trait was being Debbie Downer (I forgot the exact breakdown).

O: 4.67 / C: 2.83 / E: 2.33 / A: 3.83 / N: 2.33

Congrats on finishing the SF semester, and good luck to the Berkeley one! 

Looking forward to June 23rd,

-

[https://open.spotify.com/track/1lnWb1e7XWFBnwiKmBq9ZS?si=96f04ac90343475a]

roses and response [letter]

Hiya Moses/Em/Momo/Mo,

x

How was "prom"??? Just today, my coworker was asking me about my high school prom experience, since her son was attending his own soon. Fun fact, my high school prom was hosted at the Exploratorium as well. I mainly remember my feet hurting and wandering around the exhibits.  Please send outfit pics if you have any!

Your interpretation of "not overlapping tires" is spot on. Usually, it is the person in the rear who is at most risk of crashing if their front tire catches on the rear tire of the biker in front of them, should the front biker suddenly veer. 

On the topic of the Bay, this past weekend I stopped to smell the roses at the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. My friend, Ant, had a corporate event involving a "walkathon" fundraiser at the rose garden, so I tagged along to appreciate the spring bloom. Here is a photo he took, since my film is still undeveloped. This is entirely empirical, but I found that the yellow rose varieties usually smelled much sweeter than any other color. On the drive back north, we stopped by Mussel Rock Park to take pictures of his car (I was trying to emulate the vibe of the movie poster for Drive My Car). Anyways, the drive along Highway 1 with the view of the Pacific Ocean and California coast was just breathtaking.

I also thought about your hobby of roller skating, and how it has elements of risky exhilaration (at least in my newbie experience) and pain, albeit in a form much more spontaneous and sharp than the more sustained and predictable kind that comes from cardio.

I didn't necessarily anticipate a complex plot for Monkey Man due to NPR's coverage; I think I just am uninitiated to that particular genre of "John Wick"-esque action movies (i.e. I never watched John Wick before). There were moments in Monkey Man where we flat out chuckled in disbelief at the over-the-top violence (no spoilers in case you watch), but I can see a cathartic component in the over-abundance. I watched Monkey Man also with Ant, whom I suppose I was never disconnected to, but never mentioned to you before. We tend to bike and Bart together, so I admit these new hang out activities were a little disorienting.

I actually am terrified at the notion of a hobby car, given my lack of formal mechanic training and the fact that I would have to operate a vehicle potentially sabotaged by my untrained monkey hands. The most I'll do is change a tire.

As for LA, we (Vivian, Iris, Vivian's old roommate Michelle -Susan was busy) took a rental (Camry!) down. We had so many conversations in the car, from analyzing our values, to discussing recent abortion legislation, to strange names that parents name their children (r/namenerds). I last took PTO around Christmas, so I think I was still adjusting to the dearth of academic Spring Break when I made my escape to LA.

I'm not sure if we discussed this before, but I also owe a lot of my younger music taste to my older brother, by virtue of sharing an iPod. However, he had a taste for Glee covers and bossa nova. (Btw I'm listening to your Wee(b) kid days (nice) while writing -ah Nujabes! I'll let you know my impressions of visceral after listening.) Hmm, in terms of song recommendations, I've been listening to Fujii Kaze (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1wt1xM3SE7MlUQfZUTfGnv?si=7f1b77a315304acb) and this playlist lately (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6l4ttPHUT14g5IR3Wag9zc?si=f3cab5e5975242f1). I also like The Last Dinner Party!

The festival was indeed crowded, but we didn't acquire any new books. The amount of self-published authors was pretty cool! Two booths that I remember are one of children's books written by children, and one of African folklore/fantasy YA. I did finish Boys in the Boat, and it made me curious about the concept of "swing", which apparently is this magical moment when the crew is entirely synchronous and the boat feels as if it were flying. I've also heard about body asymmetry from my dragon boat friends! Which side of the boat did you row on? Julia also joined the Cal rowing club her Junior year, and I have memories of tagging along to the rowing cage in the basement of the RSF to try out the rowing machines (erg). The amount of sweat I saw from her team members erging was astounding. 

1. I'm glad you are okay!!!! How are the car insurance shenanigans going?

2. I think the midterm is nicely balanced! Overall, it felt pretty conceptual, and I liked the puzzle-ish feelings on the ones that did have some computation. It's great news that the class is improving! 

3. Ahh I've been very curious about your motorcycle class experience -thanks for sharing! What was so terrifying about the motorcycle that came to light only when faced with the physical task of operating one -was it the clutch? As in, I can imagine a bunch of scary things about riding a motorcycle right now, but it seems like you were okay with that notion up until the practical portion (if that question makes sense). I'm glad you got the hang of it in the end 🙂

4. Congrats on your teaching position(s)! Have you initiated your intra-Berkeley move yet? And yay, I hope to see you more in SF as well!

5. Is there anything particular in biophysics that has caught your interest? And how is the diffusion simulation going? For me, stochastic simulation reminds me of phase transitions and Ising Models 😀

6. I'm glad you've been so social and active in connecting with others! I admire your social battery, and I've been wondering how to expand my own capacity. How is Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian), if you started?

7. Ahhh! Did it hurt? Are you happy with the results?

Now, a question for you:

Do you have thoughts on personality quizzes? Pseudo-science? In any case, here are two I took recently: https://nsq.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_09skGWMAzEiru3s,

https://www.truity.com/test/toxic-traits-personality-quiz.

P.S. Is there meaning behind the various names in your signature?

Here for the foreseeable future, 

-

triathlon, cars, LA [letter]

Hiya Moses!

Unfortunately I'm not free next Saturday, but please tell me more about the dance event!

This past April, I've finally joined a triathlon club. I've been on two group rides around the Los Altos/Palo Alto area, with each ride being approximately 32-34 miles. The people in the club are very friendly to beginners, and they made sure to check my gear and explain some basic safety principles of group riding (i.e. not overlapping tires). To be honest, I thought I was an okay rider, but these people were super fit and fast! Even as I fell behind, they made sure to pause and regroup every so often along the route. Towards the last five miles of my first ride, I was slowing down considerably out of exhaustion, but one of the riders was kind enough to ride directly in front of me to give me a draft (by decreasing the air resistance). I used to complain about South Bay being a kind of tech purgatory with nothing to do, but riding through the rolling hills and shaded woods while admiring the horses and farmland (in such close proximity to industry and urban civilization) made me more appreciative.. 

In addition to biking, I've dipped my toes into open water swimming, which I am very enthusiastic about. So far I've only swam in the Foster City lagoon, but something about bobbing about in cold water with no sight of the bottom or restrictions in the form of lane lines or walls is very peaceful. I hope to join other open water swims in Aquatic Park (SF) and Santa Cruz once I become more experienced.

Though I haven't registered for any races yet, my goal is to start out with a sprint distance this year, perhaps at the one hosted by Cal Triathlon. It is motivating to see people be fit and take care of their health! My friend lightly teased me about cardio being my hobby, but I think having small amounts of pain and endorphins in a controlled environment is satisfying.

Two weekends ago, I hung out separately with two old friends from high school. I went with the first friend to watch Monkey Man, which I had heard about on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. One of my favorite sequences of the film was of a pickpocketed wallet traversing from a woman's purse, to a fake beggar's wheelchair, to a shopkeeper's back store room, to a child's backpack, etcetera etcetera, all in a continuous flow of motion until dropping into Dev Patel's waiting hands. The fight scenes reminded me of Stephen Chow's martial arts movies, and once I dropped my expectations of a complex plot, I accepted the straightforwardness of Dev Patel's revenge mission. I definitely missed a lot of Indian cultural context (I think there were clips of real life civil unrest / political corruption), and I didn't understand why people at the temple were outcasts until reading the movie's Wikipedia page afterwards. But, it was an entertaining watch overall, and "better than John Wick" according to my friend. 

As for my second friend, he used to live across the street before moving out. While he came over to water his parent's plants, I noticed that he had bought an old 1991 Toyota MR2. Shamelessly, I asked if I could drive it and he agreed. It was my first time driving a "sports car" and the noise coming from the rear engine was a bit jarring at first. However, the clutch was surprisingly shorter than the Corolla's, which made shifting gears a lot quicker. The MR2 also had cute pop-up headlights, a T-top roof, and my friend had modified the steering wheel to be detachable. It was actually really fun to drive, and I can see the appeal of having a hobby car. Coincidentally, my first friend had recently purchased an old car for fun as well, and hopefully I can drive it too >:D My grand plan is to drive my friends around in the Corolla and convince them to get more unique manual cars so I can try them out for fun…

This past weekend, I went on a road trip with college friends to LA! We drove down Friday afternoon, and I think those 6 hours spent in the car were my favorite moments of the entire trip. Something about taking PTO on a Friday afternoon and relishing the freedom of not being at work is very delicious. Anyways, we had a Spotify jam session in which I was introduced to Muse, and now I am a fan of "Won't Stand Down". I'm not usually a fan of bass-heavy songs, but when the bass is melodic I can understand the urge to head-bang. 

The main motivation for visiting LA was to attend the Los Angeles Times Book Festival at USC, but we ended up adding a bunch of other activities. Some highlights include being disappointed at how tasty the Erewhon smoothie was (we split a single smoothie four ways, but went back the next day for another), visiting a jimjilbang in Ktown, sipping tea at a very aesthetically pleasing teahouse in the Arts District, and watching Hazbin Hotel in the AirBnB late at night. 

I also took some film pictures, which are still stuck on my camera, but I will share them when developed!

I'm almost done with Boys in the Boat, and I will start Dune soon after having borrowed a copy from Vivian.

Please tell me about how you've been doing!