Caltech

Dancing with the San Diegans

I am on the Ballroom Dance team here at Caltech, and a few weekends ago, we went to a competition at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). The comp was to take place on Saturday, and instead of leaving around 5:00 am Saturday morning in order to arrive on time, a group of us left on Friday night so we could get a decent sleep before the competition. The four of us took a truck down and I got stuck sitting in that awkward space between the truck bed and the front seats. It was oh so wonderfully comfortable sitting in a seat made for someone half my size.

I am (thankfully) in the front seat in this picture. The girl in the middle, Sue, is my dance partner, and the other girl Vivian is also on the dance team. Vivian's boyfriend Riley (the previous president of Lloyd) was kind enough to drive us down for the competition.

We had heard of a great dessert place in San Diego, and so when we checked in to our hotel, we dropped off our stuff, checked e-mail, and then left to go get some cake. This dessert shop, called Extraordinary Desserts was a real hole-in-the-wall, but very nice once you got inside. There were no other shops around the area so when we came upon Extraordinary Desserts, we completely passed it and had to double back. We eventually made it inside though.

Earlier in the day, I had eaten a lot of Girl Scout cookies from the student event Be a Kid Again, put together by Tom Mannion (the Director of Student Activities and Programs), and so I wasn't particularly interested in a whole dessert for myself. I wanted to split a lemon something or other (trust me, the actual name sounded really good), but they were out of that one, so I decided to just chill for the night. The two girls with us ended up getting a chocolate moose cake which they let me taste, and boy, that wasn't a cake- it was chocolate disguised as cake. It was magnificent. I'm still glad I didn't get a whole dessert though, even though it was good, it was rich.

I feel like this has turned into a dessert blog, so to talk a little about the actual competition, it was long, but fun. My partner and I placed first in several of the beginner's heats (there are about 5 different levels of skill, with much variation in each level), but we didn't make it very far in bronze. It was only the fist competition for either of us though, so considering that, we did quite well.

You can see Sue and me in black on the left and Vivian and Brenemer at the top.

The majority of the ballroom team at Caltech. We are a small team, but Caltech is a small school too.

A few of us went out to an authentic (as far as I could tell anyways) fish place for lunch and met up with a couple of alumni in the area. We took our fish sandwiches back to UCSD and ate lunch at the "fake Stonehenge" there. It was cool to see some Caltech grads, since off of campus, I had yet to meet any Caltech people.

The fish place.

Fake Stonehenge! On our way out, we saw a guy doing parkour around the stone structures.

 It was also my mother's birthday that coming Monday, but I wouldn't be able to be with her (in Maryland) and neither would my brother, who goes to Cornell. My brother had the great idea that he, our father, and myself would each take a picture of ourselves holding up a sign. Putting the pictures together would then read "Happy Birthday Mom, We Love You."

 

The design of the idea.

I thought I'd take advantage of the beautiful beaches in San Diego and take my picture on the beach. Unfortunately, it was after the competition when we made our way down, and we didn't quite make it to the beach for the picture, but I was able to get a nice one with the sun in the background from a cliff above the beach.

My part of the picture design.

-Teo

OPI, Island Paradise

It turns out that the work load here is pretty tough, and I must apologize for not necessarily posting exactly at the time events happen. I do have a lot to talk about though, and since I have a 13-hr flight back to the States (from Korea during spring break- there’ll be a post about that later perhaps), I figure I can write a few on the plane ride.

First off, I think I’ll finish the natural sequence to my last blog about building OPI. Meaning this blog will be about the actual party.

If you take a look at my last blog you’ll see how far we were just 2 days before the party. Needless to say, we pulled it all together at the last minute. I have never been part of, nor seen for that matter, such an intricate set up for a party, and it feels great to have helped build it. And though I did not help much with art, I have got to say, that’s what really makes the presentation awesome.

 

The entrance.

The raised platform in front of the volcano. The Ruddock crest is painted in the center.

We also had fog coming out of the volcano at points, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera during the party to take a picture. I was cool though.

 

Our wonderful plane. You may not believe me but the propellers spun! I was completely not expecting that so when I found out I was pretty excited.

 

The DJ's hut.

The plane from another angle. (You can see the entrance in the background if that helps you get a feel for the dimensions of the party dance floor.)

Taken from the volcano platform. To the right leads into the Ruddock dining room, which we cleaned out for the party and was the refreshments section.

The party itself was great. At least better than many I’ve been to, but that may just be the people I was with. Overall, it was fun to get out, relax and dance- even though the music wasn’t particularly great. The food was amazing though! (Part of my enthusiasm may be because I am really hungry right now… but it was pretty good.) We had free milkshakes for people coming to the party, and a whole spread of fruit and finger food on a table. Plus three professional bartenders handled all the drinks.

The inside: 

The last two pictures are the left and the right of the dining room respectively. It's a little empty in these pictures since the party hadn't really started yet. The milkshake station was against the back wall, and was only up during the party.

That old piano has been in Ruddock for a while and has steadily been gaining coats of paint over the years from successive OPI parties.

There were also paper mache made parrots placed around the party at points. If you didn't notice, there are three in the pictures above. The one below hung above the piano and had about a three foot wing span.

All I’ve got to say is I really enjoyed my milkshake, and the fruit was delicious. The fruit display was actually really interesting- I thought we just had extra pineapples for display, but in fact they had been cored and only the empty shell was on display.

At the end of the party someone pulled the fire alarm and though it was effective in clearing out the party, security was having trouble turning it off. In the end, the wire for the sound was cut and we only had to deal with the flashing lights from the fire alarms. 

It was a good night I'd say. 

Build ALL the Things

Whew, these past two weeks have been intense, without any time to write another blog. I suppose it’s necessary to write about why I haven't been writing then!

Mainly, it's because Ruddock's interhouse party is this weekend and I have been helping as much as possible for the past two weeks (though not as much as one of the other freshmen, who has put in over 30 hours easily). The official theme now is Island Paradise, and together with the volcano, plane, hut, and all of the theme-provoking painted wallboards, we might get close to looking like an island. Construction has been working hard, and most things are up now, with two days to go. Here’s some pictures of the rough underbelly we’ve built for the party:

First a picture from about a week ago:

 

And now:

The dance floor is completed! It was harder than it looks to put down- the platforms underneath aren’t necessarily level with each other.

The plane:

It’ll have propellers at some point (see below). It may not look like much right now, but once art gets finished with it, you’ll believe it’s an actual plane. Plus... it'll have wing tip lights! Haha, I didn't expect us to do more than paper mache and paint, but apparently we make it real here in Ruddock.

 

Talking about lights, an upperclassman is setting up the wiring for the volcano. We will have a smoke machine and possibly more lights underneath the volcano fabric to create the effect.

The top of the volcano currently..

 

We also have a raised platform in front of the volcano.

 

The Ruddock crest will go in front of the platform, mimicking flowing lava of course (see below). A few other wall boards are resting beside it, waiting for positioning later.

 

And don’t forget the hut! It’s an awesome piece of construction, and we’re going to reinforce the hut later on and keep it in our lower courtyard for years to come. It will be cool to have a piece of my first OPI (that’s what we in Ruddock call our interhouse party) last through my four years here. 

 

Midterms = Fun?

Of course, the actual midterm-taking was not terribly exciting. I did study for them... a bit, so I felt pretty confident I could achieve at the very least a passing grade. This term I only had two midterms and a quiz (Physics 1b Analytical only gives a few quizzes and a final), all of which were due either on Monday or on Tuesday. Turns out the Physics quiz on special relativity was relatively much harder than we were all expecting. At this point, I'd say quite a few of us are banking on pass-fail in that class. Makes me wonder how it's going to be when we're on grades a little over a month from now. The Chem and Math midterms were not too bad, though I've heard they graded extremely hard on Math- guess I'll find out when pick that up on Monday.

Due to midterms, all my classes except for physics and my chem lab cancelled any homework due last week. And as I mentioned above, all of my tests were due in the beginning- so I had lots of free time during the second half of the week. You know the feeling where you have been working hard for a long time and then quite suddenly you have no work to do at all? Well, without a chem set due Friday, one could witness dazed and confused frosh wandering through the hallways searching for something to do.

For myself and a few other frosh, that something turned out to be ice-skating. In a real rink on real ice this time! (If you have not been reading my blogs, the undergraduate Social Team had organized an ice-skating event in one of the school's parking lots. Except it wasn't real ice, but some sort of plastic. Quite disappointing, let me tell you.)

So anyways, a few of us had decided we at least wanted to go, but at around 7:00 pm (the rink was open from 7:30-9:30 for cheaper) we still did not have a ride… Somehow I had been appointed with the task of driver-finder, and I had bee at track practice before dinner from 4-6:30.

I got one ride secured pretty quickly from an upperclassmen who likes to skate. But on my round around the house looking for rides, we had acquired two more people to our four-person group, which totaled seven including the driver. I was up for attempting to fit us all into one car, but the fact that the one car was a Mustang, and also that Pasadena police are very strict convinced everyone else to play it safe. We searched for another driver until around 8 when we decided we might as well take two trips to get there, and our gracious driver obliged.

It was pretty fun when we (finally) got there. We played some tag and raced once on the ice until one person fell and we realized it might not actually be the best idea to mess around in a crowded ice rink. I also skated backwards for the first time! Just not very fast… And we were all being showed up by some little girls jumping and twirling around as they practiced figure skating. I maintain that they aren't fearless… they just have a shorter distance to fall.

Speaking of falling, I had a few close calls by the end of the night, but it wasn't until the very last minute (and I'm being literal here, THE last minute) that I completely wiped out. It was kind of fun sliding across the ice though, and I didn't get too banged up.

Overall, it was a good trip, and ironic that I had more time and was more relaxed during midterms than any regular week.

 -Teo

Light it Up

I'm not going lie, I might be a little of a pyromaniac. But then again, lots of guys are happy to watch things go BOOM with lots of light and flame. During my senior year of high school, I collected used Christmas trees and waited until they were all dried up. When they were dry and ready, I would invite people over for a bonfire and we'd watch one or two go up in flames- which would sometimes reach ~20 feet in the air. (Just to make it clear, we didn't ONLY burn trees. We did all the normal stuff people do at bonfires too, like roast marshmallows and generally just hang out.) Don't worry either, I was reasonably safe about it. Only once did I burn myself, and it was only about an inch off my hair which was fairly long at the time… and I'll leave it at that. 

You may be wondering why and how this pertains to Caltech. In one sense it really doesn't since I don't think we burn Christmas trees here... and in the other sense we built Roman candles in my Chemistry lab. Although some of you may have built your own flame-spouting test tubes in high-school, I had never done anything similar, so it was pretty cool for me to do so this time. Below is a video clip of my section's Roman Candles. I don't actually know which one is mine unfortunately, but the video after that is of the TA's Roman Candle. I think we measured the temperature inside the TA's metal tube with a laser mechanism and it was above 800 degrees Celsius. The iron or whatever the tube was made of looked ready to just melt away.

(Sorry about the video quality, it was pretty dark and I had to use my iPhone.)

For the first one, if you want to skip the intro, just go to 1:20 and watch from there.

 

: 

 

Hiking

I have never looked forward to relaxing on the weekend as much as I have here at Caltech. At the very least, without anything due the next day, Saturday is the day to just do nothing. This weekend since I had not been hiking, or even off-campus, for a long time, I decided to attend the Caltech Y trip with a few friends to see the monarch butterflies migrating in Santa Barbara and the wind caves in Gaviota. It was great to be able to relax and not care about any work (or midterms) I had coming up. Here's a few pictures from the outing:

If you notice- that orange thing on my friend Renee's wrist is a butterfly.

We went to a monarch sanctuary to see the butterflies, and though I don't have a picture of it, the sanctuary was a stand of eucalyptus trees with an open area in the middle. (Don't ask me why eucalyptus trees... I have no idea.) The butterflies flock to these sanctuaries because of the combination of light and water present in the open circle.

There were actually two areas of butterflies, but my camera lens doens't have that much zoom, so I couldn't get very detailed pictures of the literally hundreds of butterflies resting on this one tree in the more dry place. Instead, I spent forever trying to take a photo of a butterfly flapping its wings in the more wet area where the butterflies came to the water. I eventually got a decent one:

We stayed at the sanctuary until around 12, at which time we left for Gaviota where we ate lunch on the beach before we hiked... and did a little pre-hike climbing. (You must understand, my friend Renee is a little crazy. And yes, I know I'm blindingly white, I hurt my eyes too.)

Renee and I climbed up a rail-road trestle near the beach. I was pretty hesitant to climb since my shoes were at the other side of the beach, but we were leaving in 10 minutes, so what the heck, I climbed up. Admittedly, the real reason I did was because Renee just started climbing- and I can't let a girl show me up! It turned out ok, no need to check the tetanus shot records.

 Now for the beautful scenery from the hike:

 

Now for an actual wind cave (meaning it was carved by wind since the rock is so easy to erode). The contrast of light makes this one look like a painting on a wall. I could have gotten a better angle of the background to increase the effect, but I'm sure you get the idea.

My two friends who came along on the hike.

And that's it!

-Teo

Hovse Voting, OPI construction, and Ice? Skating

It's that time of year- in all three cases if you count 70*F as winter.

Last Wednesday, we had nominations for Ruddock Hovse leadership positions. There was a great range of seriousness among the different positions- from the solemn declarations by the presidential candidates to the raps and skits performed by the social and athletic teams. I ran for the Athletics Team myself. Pretty much what the Ath. team does is help to organize the schedule for the variety of interhouse games throughout the year, and then get people from the house to show up. 

My roommate ran for Social (Soc) Team- they organize house events during the school year such as the ski trip a few weeks ago. 

There's also the BoC (Board of Control) and CRC (Conduct Review Committee), positions that entail dealing with cases of infractions against the Honor Code.

And you can't forget the Secretary, Treasurer, and Vice-President! The secretary and the treasurer hold pretty normal jobs, while the VP in Ruddock hovse takes care of alley competitions and organizing formal dinners. Alley competitions are simply organized events between two alleys, and they can get very creative. Last term we had pirates versus ninjas capture the flag played in the Millikan pond.

I'm sure there's more positions in each of the houses, but those are the basic ones. As a general note, the house system is what I think really makes Caltech a unique place besides its top of the line education. Being in a group of people who share similar interests from the very beginning of college helps one to acclimate, and the integration of freshman among the upper classmen of the house is in one word awesome. We aren't lost to wallow in the newness of college life, where we may make a mistake for lack of guidance, instead the upper classmen help us to learn the ways of Caltech. There are designated Upper Classmen Councilors, but it's great to be able to knock on most doors in the house and say.. ask a question about the internship they had last summer. Or how to get into that one class. Or anything at all really.

OPI (Our Private Interhouse)

Ruddock's interhouse party is called OPI for short, and we have already begun construction. This year's theme is paradise lost- or as close to it as we can get. We'll be building a crashed plane and a volcano as the big attractions I believe. However, we have only just gotten the dance floor started.

We have a time-lapsed camera going on throughout construction and I'll be sure to post the video when it becomes available, as well as update with pictures every once in a while.

On Friday, the student body Social Team had organized for an ice rink to be set up in one of the parking lots. Well after a whole week of being really excited for actual ice (I mean, couldn't we have somehow figured out how to get an outdoor ice rink in 60* weather?) it turns out that the "ice" was some sort of slippery plastic polymer. Needless to say, I was severely disappointed. Perhaps next year they'll just rent out the indoor rink near Caltech. I'd definitely go for that.

That's all for now!

-Teo

The Un-Invited Topic: Work

    There seems to be a lack of academic subjects in my writing so for this blog I will indulge in complaining about the heavy work load I have at Caltech. In reality Caltech does not have to be extremely intense (you do still have to do quite a bit), but it is what you make of it. I'll share my take on the load as I'm sure many of you may be wondering how things work at Caltech. To do this, I'll begin by taking a look at my past week, but who knows where it'll go from there.

    Having had a stressful experience the week before last week, I wanted to alleviate some of my load by doing my Ph/EE (Physics/ Electrical Engineering) lab early and actually getting my math set done before 12 midnight on Sunday. I had planned even more ambitious feats, but suffice to say that it seems like things take longer on the weekends and though I did finish the lab, I went past my target time on the math set. It wasn't as if I was sitting around the whole weekend though, I mean, there is a trade-off between work and fun... but let's get back to the week. 

    At this point I had left for the week a physics set, a chem set, humanities reading (which I'm lucky to complete if I have time), and a chem lab write up. Did I mention that I'm also on the track and fencing teams? And I'm part of the ballroom dance team. That's what I mean about Caltech being what you make of it. You are in no way pressured to be part of clubs or teams here at Caltech, but I have found that many people are. Personally, it helps me to focus on getting my work done since I feel like I don't have the time to procrastinate. If someone isn't part of a group, they usually pick up some sort of self-given project. There's this one guy in Dabney that has taken up glass blowing and he let me make a tiny vase: 

Anyways, I had a tough practice on Monday for track, so when I got back to my hovse, I was only able to get started on physics, do a little hum reading, and send some emails looking for a summer internship-surprisingly time consuming- before I passed out. I almost forgot! I had a chem quiz due the next day, so I was also studying for that. I knew it seemed like too little there... 

Tuesday: Skipped chemistry so I could finish the quiz for the class. I wouldn't have time later, so I had to get it done. I'm probably going to pay for not attending lecture, but I hope I can do some good reviewing before I take the midterm. I found out that day that a pre-frosh was coming to check out Caltech who was in Soccer and Track, so I volunteered to host him on Thursday since I thought I would have the time... That night finishing physics took several hours since there was one problem that we all had trouble with. That's the thing about having the Honor Code and hence a very relaxed collaboration policy. The profs know we're going to ask our friends for help, so the sets are accordingly difficult. Though it's possible to finish them all yourself, it's much faster and easier to collaborate (you still have to understand everything you turn in though, which I have). I do not think I've done a set completely by myself yet.

Wednesday went much the same as I hurried to do my pre-lab after track and before my night-time chem-lab. Spent two hours watching the nominations for hovse leadership positions then started my chem stuff, but it was all due Friday so I wasn't feeling too pressured.

Thursday I found out that it takes two hours to do a chem lab report... not the amount of time I intended to spend on it. That evening the pre-frosh came and we hung out for a bit before I had to do my chemistry set. I took him to my fencing class and he was able to play some pick-up soccer with students out on the field. At this point I was starting to feel the pressure and later, when my guest went to sleep, I stayed up another two hours to finish the set. 

Somehow everything fell into place on Friday and I was able to complete my chem lab weekly assignment along with making it to chemistry office hours to ask some questions.

So yeah, it's difficult at Caltech, but it's manageable. Admissions only accepts those they know can handle it, but if I ever was having trouble, there's loads of services from free tutoring to emotional counseling I can take advantage of. 

Hope that answers some of your questions about life at Caltech.

-Teo

Birthdays!

I am sure every house has their own way of celebrating the birth of its members, but in Ruddock we have this tradition where on the night before a person's birthday we bake some cake or brownies for them, and then with as many people as are around we present it to them at 12 am. And last semester, my friend Sophie's birthday was coming up so two of her friends (Corwin and Sue) and I decided to make a very interesting cake. The idea was to create a flower out of cupcakes, as seen below, which is not the one we made.

 

Seems pretty cool right? We thought so too... but I don't think any of us anticipated how much work it was going to be. 

We estimated that we would need to make about 35 cupcakes, so we looked up a red velvet recipe for 25 cupcakes and decided to double it. We kinda figured that'd be enough to ensure we would have a few cupcakes to eat along the way. It just so happens that my roommate Corwin is a really great chef, so he had this idea to make the icing we would use from scratch. However, he was the only one who knew how to make the icing and wouldn't be back from his cooking class until around 10:30. (The cooking class is only once a week, and it is rare that classes go so late, but some are available then if you want them.) At the time, he thought an hour and a half would be long enough to make the icing and then ice the cupcakes.

On the night before Sophie's birthday, after a few mishaps, Sue and I got all the cupcakes baked and ready to be iced. I don't think I'm that bad of a cook, but somehow I managed to waste about two sticks of butter; I mixed the butter with baking powder instead of with sugar and had to throw out the batch. Corwin got back a little later than expected, but he got started on the icing right away so we were still pretty confident we'd make the 12 o'clock time. 

I'm not going to describe the process of making the icing, (I really don't even remember it...) but I can tell you it was very complicated... or at least time-intensive. Plus it kept slightly melting on us so we had to cool it down before we could use it. Corwin made two batches, one raspberry (pinkish colored) and one vanilla (white colored). And then we had to actually ice the cupcakes. It looked pretty awesome in the end! But we ended up finishing at around 1:40 am... it was a good a thing I finished all my work early.

Take a look:

As you can tell, they are all clearly impressed... and you should be too. I'm just kidding, if you're a master baker, this is probably simple stuff for you, but except for Corwin, we were just beginners. It was fun making it, but I highly doubt I'll ever spend so much time on baking here at Caltech again. Or even have the time for it. 

The reason the title is plural is because I also wanted to talk about my roommate's birthday which was on the 17th of January. To preface it, I just want to say a little about Caltech.

Ever since I have come to Caltech, I have been amazed at the level of support that Techers show each other. From an upperclassmen explaining a math set problem to freshman staying up four hours later than needed explaining the chem set to their peers, people here really try to help each other, and not only on schoolwork. I had never expected to find this in college. Perhaps it's by necessity or perhaps it's by design, but I think it's really great that we have such a culture.

In that spirit of helping, several friends and myself pooled some money together and got Corwin an iPod nano with lots of music on it for his birthday. The reason we did this is because not only had he lost his bike when he got back from break (someone cut through his lock), but when he sent his computer in to get fixed, they wiped his hard-drive. It would have been a little much to try to get a new bike, so I thought the least we could do was replace some of his music content. He also runs a lot, so now he has the option of listening to music while he runs.

We also got Tom Mannion to take Corwin and a few other people out to Korean BBQ for Corwin's birthday. (Tom's official title is the Senior Director of Student Activities and Programs... I think. He is a really cool guy, you should get to know him if you ever come to Caltech. He also runs the cooking class, which is how he knows Corwin pretty well from first semester.) I think we all got completely stuffed from that dinner. It was an all-you-can eat thing, and I got to try cow tongue, kobe beef bacon, and even some intenstine (which was a little too chewy for me honestly).

The picture below is of the intestine cooking. It's burning because of all the fat released when you cut it open to cook the inside too.

Hair Pins? Nah, Lock Picks!

I brought my guitar case with me to Caltech (and my guitar too, inside the case)  when I flew back from Maryland. After settling back in and packing everything else away, I wanted to see how my guitar had fared over the flight. Turns out that on the journey between the airport in MD and my dorm room I had somehow misplaced the case key. Darn.

At first I was a little flustered, but then I thought what a good opportunity to try my lock-picking skills! I mean, how complicated could a guitar case lock be? Besides, it was my first day back to school, and there weren't any sets due soon.

After about ten minutes attempting to work it open with a paper clip and failing, I thought I might need some help. To be honest, I had never picked a lock before and had only the slightest clue about pins and whatever else goes into locks. At around that point, my friend Katherine walked by my open door and suggested that I go ask one of the upperclassmen with lock-picking sets if they could help, advice I was inclined to take. 

Unfortunately Melissa couldn't open the lock either before she had to go finish her work, which amounted to about 5 minutes of effort. She left the lock-picking kit with us and as I began to fiddle with the lock, more people began stopping by to see what was up. At this point I tried fashioning the paper clip in the shape of the key, which was simple enough otherwise I wouldn't have remembered it. Eventually I got the shape right! But then the paper clip metal was too weak to apply enough force...

One of the girls left to get a u-shaped hair pin, which is different from a bobby pin since instead of the two ends pressed down together, the two forks of the pin are like a spring and want to stay apart. As we waited I let Katherine give the paper clip and lock pick set combo a shot. And she got it to turn! Only a little bit though. 

When I got the hair pin, I was wondering if should simply give up and just ask if anyone else had a key for their guitar case that might match, or take it to a lock place and have them get it open for me. Then again, how cool would it be if I picked my lock though?! So I decided I might as well give it one more shot. Again, I fashioned the hair pin into the shape of the key. I had a good feeling about it since it did apply more pressure to the pins on account of its springy feature. After several minutes of re-shaping the pin into the right size, it finally fit into the lock.

With the aid of some tools from the lock-picking kit, I got the lock to turn about 90% of the way- but I just couldn't get that last little bit for all I tried. With no other hope I gave it to Katherine to see if she would have any more luck than me. And what do you know, she did! 

It just took a little determination- and about two hours- and the help of friends- but I got the lock open! Now whenever I travel with my guitar case again, I think I'll leave it unlocked. 

-Teo