Caltech

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... Read more →

LA Zoo Lights

There's nothing more festive than beautiful holiday decor. Something that has gotten quite popular in recent years is light displays. Around Pasadena, the LA Zoo, LA Arboretum are a few venues that have elaborate holiday light displays. This past weekend, I went to check out the LA Zoo Lights. The general admission is ~$15 on weekdays and ~$20 on weekends, which is certainly not cheap, so if you do go, be sure to take a ton of photos. I went... Read more →

New Years in Amsterdam

I visited Amsterdam for a brief two and a half days during my vacation. There were a few landmarks and neighborhoods I wanted to checkout, but did not plan the visit in detail. As such, when it came down to destinations with ticketed entries, I had to skip most of them, since they did not have day-of tickets left for sale. Fortunately, I was able to walk around most of the city and it was generally a good time. I'll... Read more →

Snowboarding at Cypress

Snowboarding with my friend Cecilia is an annual occasion when I go home for the holidays. Cecilia and I actually learned snowboarding a few years ago. We signed up for these intro lessons, but arrived at the slopes early and thought that we would try a run before the lesson to see where we at. We were slightly confused, so took the lift to a green run instead of the bunny hills. We got down that run 80% on our... Read more →

Castle to E4, Checkmate

(Yes, I know they’re called rooks, but I needed a pun) Hiya lads and lasses! I did my final wee bit of Scotland exploration this week, which is to say, I finally did the one touristy thing I’d been avoiding doing for all too long. I went to Edinburgh Castle. AND I went INSIDE Edinburgh Castle. I’ve been avoiding this a bit for a few reasons. First, it’s rather cold and windy in Edinburgh, and the castle is at the... Read more →

Drizzles in Durham

There, and back again. A Caltech student’s tale. I went back to the land of my enemy, my mortal nemesis. Or at least, the nemesis of our school. Durham, the only team currently ranked above us on the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) point list. Only, this time, I went with open arms. I believe I mentioned somewhere deep buried in this land of blogs that my dad had studied abroad in Durham, 40 years ago precisely. And on... Read more →

It’s Studying Time

Well, the week before finals week is finally here. And I spent that studying, but also, doing the ever-important finishing of reports, and honestly, taking a couple of much-needed naps to catch up on everything else. Studying is a bit different here in Edinburgh. The biggest difference is that every single lecture is usually recorded. This means it’s very easy to have a lazy day of staying in bed and re-watching the lectures you missed or that you zoned out... Read more →

Ice Skating

Ice skating seems rather uncommon here in Southern California as there are only two year-round rinks within driving distance of Caltech. One is the Pasadena Ice Skating Center which is only minutes away, the other is the Santa Monica Rink which is way out west. The interesting thing is, the Olympic figure skating Mirai Nagasu is actually local. Her family owns a sushi restaurant in Arcadia that is only 10 minutes away. There are a lot of Caltech events at... Read more →

Thanksgiving in SF

I spent this Thanksgiving with one of my good friends in San Francisco. My friend is an Techer alum and she currently works in asset management. Since she did not have enough of a vacation to fly down to LA to spend the long weekend with her family, and since I was free, I went up to spend with her. Needless to say, it was a very untraditional Thanksgiving. We did not have any turkey or stuffing. Instead, we went... Read more →

Cold, Wet, And Happy

Well uh, good evening from a cold and rainy Scotland. I spent the whole of today in beautiful St. Andrew’s Scotland. Funny, I know. I’m Andrew. In St. Andrew’s. And even funnier, it was my mother who told me I had to go to check the place out. So, I suppose in some sense it was destiny that I woke up bright and early on a Saturday to take the two-hour bus out to St. Andrew’s. It was actually a... Read more →