Caltech

We've Moved!

Hello everyone! 

Typepad has treated us well, but we've moved to https://caltechadmissions.blog. You'll find many of our old and new stories there. 

See you there!

Hello everyone! We've moved to https://caltechadmissions.blog ! You'll find many old stories (the ones on here) and new ones there. See you!

Paint Your Dreams

What’s crackalackin’ my parrots! (get it? Because… Crackers?)

Last night was the department of geological and planetary sciences (GPS) paint night, or, as it’s colloquially known, “deepening the GPS ++++++++++ love” (Dustin adds a + to the end each time that it happens). GPS as a department is fairly tight-knit; it’s hard not to be when you’re all taking classes together and going on field trips to who-knows-where. As such, we have lots of bonding-type activities throughout the week: we have social hours on Fridays, events throughout the week with research presentations and discussions. We even run our own softball team during the summer season (cleverly called “strike-slip”, just like the infamous San Andreas fault). But every now and then we have nighttime activities for bonding purposes, and painting night is truly the classic one of those.

Especially for me, paint night has been a great way to deepen friendships with grad students in our department. GPS is very graduate student heavy. As of right now I know maybe 7 other undergrads in the department, and most of my classes (at least, at this point, are majority graduate students). So, with paint night basically we get a bunch of canvases, a bunch of cheap paint, and we all get together and just paint for a couple hours. It’s a very wholesome evening and a very nice time altogether.

There’s a big range of artistic abilities in the department, and not everyone is painting either. Emma, one of the grad students, is an extremely talented artist and spends her time during paint night just working on whichever beautiful drawing she’s working on that given week. Then, there are people like me and Toby, who, although not completely artistically untalented, are certainly not the creators of beautiful art every week. This week, I decided to try something new: making the geometric art that I’ve always hated seeing in galleries in Los Angeles. Specifically, I painted one small white canvas. I like to think deep down that the white represents my deep lack of confidence in the world and in the love in the world that we live in. I mean, I did TRY to outline a heart in white paint. However, it really didn’t show up, so it’s just white paint like any other white paint. Or is it?

Art is what you make of it,

--Chandrew

Sparky, Stand Back! It’s SCIENCE Time!

Happy Friday y’all! In all my abundant free time (which *obviously* exists) I’ve started volunteering with the Pasadena Unified School District. I’ve been working assisting their after-school program LEARNS, specifically helping with the Chemistry Olympiad and also running experiments for the kids to keep them engaged in science.

One of the thigs I love about Caltech is all the opportunities for volunteer and community work. The Caltech Y ensures there are great opportunities for all types of service work from what I do with LEARNS to work in LA homeless shelters, and more. It’s a great organization and honestly doesn’t get enough love most of the time.

This week the experiment we ran was the “whoosh bottle”. I know that sounds mysterious, but what you need is ethanol, and one of the 5-gallon water bottles that they sell at Home Depot or your local grocery store. (ALSO DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!!!!). Luckily, both of those ingredients are fairly easy to obtain, although we really confused the lady at the Home Depot by specifically requesting empty water bottles. So, once you have the ethanol and the empty (and dry – this is very important to maximize the “whoosh”) you pour a small amount of ethanol in the bottle, swish it around, and then light it on fire. To properly practice safety with this experiment, we attached a long reach match to a dowel rod. It looked bad but keeps your hands out of the range of the flame. Usually you use a normal match and just drop it in, however we couldn’t find normal sized matches at home depot and figured this would be a suitable substitute.

I learned how to do this experiment as a part of chem club, a club that does chemistry outreach similar to what we do with LEARNS, however a lot more infrequently and for shorter periods of time. We have a few other great experiments planned for LEARNS, including the ever-classic gummy bear in potassium perchlorate (maybe even the GIANT gummy bear in potassium perchlorate), an osmosis egg, and all sorts of other wonderful science things. In-terms of projects for chem Olympiad, we’ve made slime and built some bridges out of notecards. All of their activities are pretty fun and low stress and so they do a great job of keeping the kids involved.

Don’t “bottle” your emotions”

--Chandrew

Reflections

After a week being back, I think it’s about time for some reflections on what it meant to be abroad, and what I’ve taken away from it. I’m really happy to be back, but it’s just been almost a culture shock of sorts being back in California, and back at my true home (for now, at least).

Of course, my parents wouldn’t say that Caltech is my home, but I think that may be one of the first things I realized when I was abroad; when people ask me where I’m from I’d always say that I was born in Denver and I live in Los Angeles. In a lot of ways, bit by bit, I’ve become more and more of a Los Angeles convert. Still a Colorado native at heart, but a Los Angeles native. I really do love Los Angeles. When I stepped off the plane in Burbank flying in I remembered a bit of that. The rolling hills, warm air, and palm trees. It is its own kind of magic.

I’ll be honest, I miss Singapore. I miss waking up knowing that one of the best roast duck plates I’ve ever had is a 2-minute walk and $3 away. I miss fencing in the suffocating humidity, and even taking the bus to work every single morning. Singapore in a lot of ways felt like a place I truly belonged, an Asian country with a huge British influence, just like how I’m an Asian person with a large amount of American influence.

I miss Scotland too, but a little bit less so. I don’t think I connected to Scotland quite as much as I did to Singapore. It was scold, for one, and as I’m sure y’all readers have figured out, I can’t really deal with cold weather. I really do miss all my friends though. I miss the late evenings out with Justin, the lack of homework, the constant, nonstop travelling. It was a great time being abroad, and it feels almost wrong to be stagnant in one location for the rest of the year.

And my takeaway from all of this is that I can find those same things back here at Tech too. I can take a weekend and go down to San Diego or camping in the mountains. I can hunt for that cheap and delicious roast duck.

So that’s my takeaway. Life doesn’t need to change, but instead expand from all of the experiences that you live through. Take those same life lessons and apply them to your daily life.

Think deep and learn,

--Chandrew

CaltechY Winter Quarter Friends Dinner

The CaltechY hosts a Friends Dinner once every quarter to thank its supporters and provide them with an opportunity to network with the Y's student leaders. Each event features one special speaker. In the past, there have been artists, professors, film makers and more. This time, it was one of Caltech's chemistry professors, Peter Jonas, who spoke about the vision surrounding the new Resnick gift.

The dinners are all held at the Athenaeum. Since this event was pretty close to Christmas, the Ath was completely decked out in holiday decor, making it venue seem extra grand. Of course, since its the Ath, there is great food. The menu that night featured a fancy salad, roast chicken and veggies and the most delicious chocolate lava cake I've ever had. I gave an intro for the evening, welcoming people to the event and welcoming the featured student speaker of the night, and while doing so, people were already distracted by the food. Luckily, the main speaker of the night was programmed after the dessert.

I mentioned previously that the talk was centered around the Resnick gift, but it also touched upon a lot of the current sustainability research at Caltech. One of the major incentives is artificial photosynthesis. I won't go into details about the content of the talk, because my understanding of the contents is actually quite shallow. However, the idea is that we are quite close to being able to synthesize sugars from more abundant sources in our atmosphere. This makes me a lot more hopeful and excited about the sustainability of carbon-intensive industries.

I am not sure who is speaking at the next Friends Dinner in the spring. When it does happen, I will provide you with a more detailed synopsis. The photo below is taken by photographer Bob Paz.

 

New Year, New Me

Man, 2019 feels like it was just yesterday.

See, I’m hilarious, I promise.

Happy new year y’all! It is 2020, and with that I figured it was time to chat about the great New Year’s Eve barbeque that I prepared with my best friend from home, Morgan. Actually there isn’t exactly too much too explain. Morgan was a bit sad that I’d missed what I’d generally consider to be my favorite holiday, the 4^th of July, and we decided to make up for it by having a good ol’ fashioned charcoal grill-out. With the one caveat being that it was Denver in December, so it was absolutely frigid. We still managed to assemble all the essentials, a bunch of friends, burgers cheese, chilli, potato salad, chips, soda, and some nice music. And we all huddled around a space heater and enjoyed out turkey burgers. I decided to head out a bit early to catch some Zs and a Waffle House waffle.

New Year’s day was a bit more of an adventure. I fenced in a tournament and ended up making top 8 in foil and top 16 in the other two weapons (all of these events with 40+ people). But it was also a bit bittersweet because my big brother left for Japan and so I didn’t get to spend that extra bit of family time with him.

I think next year is going to be pretty great. I’m going back to Tech, I’m fencing better than I ever have, and life is going to be good. I have a lot of goals for the next year, but the one that I’ll share with y’all is that I want to finish my book. For the last two years now I’ve been working on a wee collection of short stories. It’s written in a minimalist style a lot like Carver, my favorite author. Although I haven’t quite been able to replicate it completely, I like to think that I’ve been able to combine a lot of the styles I’ve read into something that’s truly excellent. But it still has to be finished and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a bit of a ways to go on that. And that’s why in writing, on this blog, that I’m going to finish this book. And it’s going to be a dang good time. So cheers to that!

Hopefully hindsight is 2020,

--Chandrew

String food = new String(“Too Much Food”);

Hello, Java monsters! If you couldn’t tell from my EXCELLENT punning, I’m taking CS 2 this term, a computer science course about the wonderful world of Java. That’s one of my new classes for this term. Also included: plate tectonics, seismology, field geophysics, physics lab, and a design-your-own English class about American minimalism as a prep-course for my thesis (which I’m hoping to start next term).

So far, it’s shaping up to be a great term. It doesn’t look like I’ll have any midterms (the perk of being in all graduate-level geosciences courses) and my homework load seems mostly… doable? I’m glad that it is after a couple months of not really having formal homework in Scotland.

Anyways though, this post is more about my weekend than it is about my week. I spent the entire weekend cooking with the Caltech Senior Director of Activities and Programs Tom Mannion. First up, we made… more fruitcake?? Yes, I did just make fruitcake like last weekend. But hey, I never say no to more delicious combinations of fruit, sugar, and coffee. Plus, Tom did the intelligent thing and ordered our fruit for the cake off the internet, so I didn’t have to candy any peels this time around.

Next up, sorbet! The University president has orange trees and had sent over a delivery of a bunch of oranges from them. Us, being the savvy chefs, we are, did the reasonable thing and made many iterations of orange and lemon sorbets. We mixed fruits, sugar, and a menagerie of everything else to end up with a few delicious icy combinations, although it wasn’t all too fitting since the weather was actually a wee bit chilly for Pasadena (a shocking 50 degrees!). To celebrate a day of hard work, we went to the home of the original French dip for some delicious sandwiches.

Sunday, we baked out fruitcakes, and prepared live lobster and crab for a proper New-England style shellfish dinner. It was my first time ever having whole lobster, and man, was that a delicious dinner. Also, it was much easier to dissect for its meat than the crab was. I can see why people are a fan of this lifestyle. We also served it with some scalloped potatoes that Tom made, and a bit of a vegetable medley stir fry that Susan cooked up.

Home in Pasadeeeeeeena

Well, I’ve returned to Caltech. And my first observation: it’s warm here. Really warm. I got off the plane and it was a balmy 21 C (70 F for all you yanks). And, after 11 countries (not including layovers) my trip around the world in about 180 days has been completed.

I’m home. I have to say though, it didn’t really feel like home until I had my first boba back. While I was gone my true home away from home, Labobatory, opened their second location in Pasadena. First thing I did when I got in: started moving into my new apartment.

Oh yeah! That’s a good note here – I’m living off-campus this term. I figured I’d be used to cooking for myself by the time I got back from abroad. So, I didn’t really fancy the idea of going back to a world of pre-prepared Caltech dining services meals. More on that to come. But anyways I’m living a block North of campus with Marcel; together we form the flat of… well… all the geophysics majors at the California Institute of Technology. It’s super spacious, and generally pretty nice, but it’s definitely a bit weird living far away from campus (and by far I mean a 10 minute walk). Although, having been about that distance from uni at Edinburgh, I guess it really shouldn’t. Anyways, I had to move in there right when I got in Sunday. And then, I went to LABOBATORY!

The new Pasadena location is quite excellent. They’re making all of their pearls in-house, so basically, it’s now objectively and subjectively the best bubble tea in Los Angeles. I missed good bubble tea. Like yikes Chatime looks bad compared to this.

It’s nice to see all of my friends too, it’s a bit wild that it had been a whole 6 months. Unpacking was a bit more hectic than I thought it would be. Turns out I have a lot more stuff than I thought I’d left. And I forgot about my typewriters! Get ready for some artsy writing posts. Last thing: I did some grocery shopping. It was really great being back in LA Asian markets. Kinda felt like a nice breath of Singapore and everything came back to the start of the summer. So, I waltzed off with my 3lb can of milo into the California sunset, breathed out a sigh, and thought about how nice it was to be home.

--Chandrew

Baker’s Dozen

Why hello there! I’ve spent the last few days baking. No, I haven’t been out baking in the sunshine; although it is a balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit in Colorado. Instead, I’ve been taking advantage of my home’s superior kitchen to concoct all the baked goods I wanted to make (but couldn’t) while I was abroad.

And it all started (as it usually does) with fruitcake. This was actually the same fruitcake I made last year on Caltech campus, only with a few special twists this year for our family’s annual holiday brunch. Every year my godparents (yes, the same ones that were in Ireland with me!!!) and my family go out for brunch. This year, however, my grandmother is staying with my family, so we decided to have brunch at our house instead. My brother was preparing the main, and I the dessert.

The adventure of the day was candying my own fruit for the fruitcake. Funny enough, there isn’t a store that sells candied orange/lemon peel at this time of year. And I candied my own Yuzu lemon to go along with it! (it was a substitute for citron). Beyond that, the fruitcake was pretty straightforward. I messed around a bit and made a caramel sauce as well as some caramel art to class it up a bit, and there ya go! Instant dessert!

Next up was a red velvet cake. I’m not going to speak about this one too much. It was red. It was velvety. It contained 3 cans of beets. Yes. Beets. I know. I didn’t choose the recipe... It had a nice cream cheese/mascarpone/whipped cream frosting though!

Finally, I baked cupcakes. A now annual tradition, my brother issued me a challenge. This year the theme was to make cupcakes that were lighter than air. My design: an angel food cake cupcake with a lychee-strawberry filling, and a dragon fruit buttercream. The buttercream gave me some issues – I started out by making an Italian meringue buttercream, which relies on double boiling some eggs and whipping it all together, but when I added the dragon fruit my buttercream curdled! A sad time, I know. Luckily though, I had just enough time and ingredients to whip up a traditional buttercream. Traditional buttercream is heavier, but still delicious, so no complaints from me or my family. Plus, it looked beautiful too, a nice end to my baking adventures. Maybe there’ll be some Asian cooking in store for next week.

Bake it till you make it,

--Chandrew