Secants and Tangents

This past year was a great one. It was full of ups with a huge net positive. The year started with my admission into the Statistics Department at UCLA for graduate school - a dream come true. Eight months separated my admission and actually starting the program, and it was a long eight months. After turning 22, I really started to feel old, and with college graduation on the horizon, I felt like I was losing my “youth.” I was working three jobs: Sunset Rec, grader for Statistics, and a software analyst for a renown psychometrician.

Spring quarter was particularly difficult being inundated with graduation stuff that I didn’t want to deal with. Graduation was a long weekend, but was largely uneventful. I was acknowledged for having completed both Departmental and College Honors which is something I worked very hard towards. As I suspected, I lost friends. I am actually surprised at which friends I am still in touch with, and which friends fell by the wayside.

Me pondering the future. What is kind of strange about this picture was that I thought the courtyard was filled with graduates and their families. In this pic, it looks like there are people playing frisbee, and no graduates anywhere.	Department of Statistics graduation group photo.	In front of Shapiro Fountain.	My dad usually takes bad pictures. This one impressed me.
My home away from home 2005-06, 433 Midvale #209.	The corner of Landfair and Midvale.

The summer was very busy for me, and was kind of a struggle between the “undergraduate lifestyle” and being a grad student. I actually went to more parties this past summer than I had gone to during all of college! I worked full-time, practically double-time. I worked 8am to 5pm with the Psychology Department and began working on a project to evaluate software designed for classification using mixture models. I knew practically nothing about the subject, but started simulating that data for evaluation anyway. Let’s just say I learned a lot from the experience. I was also moved from the office I was borrowing from a professor into my OWN office. Being a grad student with his own office is a rare thing at UCLA. Towards the end of the summer I went camping at Refugio near Santa Barbara. It was a very nostalgic trip because it reminded me so much of UCSB. I can’t say how many dreams I have had of returning to UCSB, and that it had the same same prestige and program as UCLA without the party reputation. As much as I hated the party atmosphere, that one year I spent in college along the beach will be forever in my mind. Camping is a once a decade thing for me…let’s just say I am not much of an outdoorsman. We spent a day in Solvang, which is always fun. Each time I go, the place gets more beautiful. When I got back, I told my parents I will have to eventually buy land in Buellton (next to Solvang) or somewhere along the central coast.

Me resting on a rock near the tidepools at the northern end of refugio beach.	Windmill at Solvang.	The Aniso Trail heading north toward Refugio from El Capitan.	Aniso Trail heading south toward El Capitan.

My feelings toward my job at Sunset Rec became kind of ambivalent and mixed. The recreation center received a new facilities manager, this girl that was like two years older than me. I must say, she was hot, but way too firey for the position. Everything was a huge deal to her, and the drama that ensued with her in power ended up making the job miserable. Towards the end of my stay with Recreation, my boss got married and took 3 weeks off. Apparently she ended up getting pregnant and quit, leaving a lot of stuff unfinished. In the meantime, we got a new facilities manager, this partying stoner that had no college degree, yet was the biggest prick on a power trip. It was time for me to move on. It was a difficult decision, but it had to be done.

Sunset Rec staff at one of many parties.	The going away party for Irving.

Up until that point, the year had been really good, but it would take a dramatic turn even better in September…

After 8 months of waiting, I finally started grad school. It was nice to spend the majority of my day with smiling faces that I shared an interest with. I had some difficulty adjusting to an atmosphere where I am surrounded by the same people all day long, 5 days a week, but I think I have overcome that. We do a lot of stuff together which is really cool. Each week we play poker, and at the beginning of the quarter I participated in the Tom Ferguson Invitational. Tom Ferguson is this old retired professor that just epitomizes grandpa…it is hard to explain. He is probably in his 70s and has an iPod. Apparently he is a world renown game theorist, a relic from the days when Statistics was part of the Department of Mathematics. His son, Chris Ferguson, was the World Poker Champion in 2000 I think. I won a used television set which was really cool. I keep it in my office and we use it during special events (and sometimes Earvin steals it haha). Anyway, we were celebrating Tom Ferguson’s 50 YEARS at UCLA…amazing. We also went on some hikes, and went kayaking. I am happy to say that I will never go kayaking again, unless it is in clean water, like in Cancun or Hawaii or something. Oh yeah, and I forgot about soccer almost every Saturday lol. I also got to see Bill Clinton speak.

One of our Statistics hikes. David took this picture of Me, Brigid and Chris at Eagle Rock in Topanga Canyon.	Stats grad students kayaking at the MAC. Notice the pirate attire haha. Kevin lost his pirate earrings in the marina.	The Tom Ferguson Invitational Poker Tournament.	I won a TV!

At the beginning of the quarter two other Stats students and I would crash Career Center events and get free food lol. One of them was for Marvell, a semiconductor manufacturer that is in the wireless and networking business. It was actually a very interesting talk, and I think I might add them to my list of possible companies. The “head guy” that spoke to us was actually a statistician!!! I would have never guessed they would have sent a statistician to come talk to us about computer science and engineering opportunities. That was awesome. Earvin and I arrived 20 minutes late, right before the end of the seminar. I had just come from playing tennis and was dressed in gym clothes and everyone else was wearing suits and ties. There was a raffle, so I put my name in for the hell of it. Ariana, another Stats student, drew my name and I won a PSP! For FREE! I also won a game, and we all received nice laptop bags for attending. We also got to take home 2 full pizzas to the grad student lounge. A few months later, I would build a new computer containing an Asus motherboard with an Ethernet controller manufactured by no other than Marvell.

I ended the year with a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s Eve at a cousin’s house. I usually don’t like New Year’s, but I enjoyed it since I had something to do. They live in Chino Hills (yes, the place that smells like cow shit) and we don’t see them very often. On New Year’s Day, after leaving the hotel, we stopped by my aunt’s house before heading home to watch the Rose Bowl.

A pretty big change has occurred inside of me. I am the happiest I have ever been. I am so much less stressed out about life and my work. I have my moments, and there are times when I get overwhelmed, but the difference is that I like what I am overwhelmed about so it is much more manageable. And my friends are very supportive and actually understand what I go through. A sense of ambivalence started to come over me this past summer. That is, there are some things in life that I just don’t give a shit about anymore; some things and people are just not worth worrying about. I guess I have learned that the only thing that matters and that is worth worrying about is my education/work, my family, my good friends and my health.

UCLA is so much better as a graduate student. No comparison to undergraduate. But don’t even get me started on UCLA football…

I am a little sad to see 2006 go, but mainly only because of this stupid superstition I have, that the worst years are those that end with an odd number not divisible by 5, and 2007 is one of those. But a trivial calculation yields that 4/10 = 2/5 = 40% of my life by superstition would be bad, and that is depressing so I need to change my train of thought haha. I graduated (good)high school (hell) in 2001, but it was also when 9/11 happened (terrible). 2003 was just a bad year period. Time to break that superstition.

As I write this I am listening to an awesome song, so I will leave 2006 with this lyric, “when darkness turns to light, it ends tonight.”

Well, I have finally started grad school! As soon as I started I already wanted to do research. But what has been tough is the going to class aspect. Two of the classes I am taking are required…well sort of. See, nothing is /required,/ but it is highly recommended that I take these classes so I pass the quals next September. My third class is really interesting and I am taking it as an “elective.” My required classes are Applied Probability and Data Management/Research Design. Applied Probability is interesting because my professor teaches it with a bit of a theoretical and computer science slant. Unfortunately, it is hard to stay awake in there because he has such a soft voice.”Data Management and Research Design” should really just be called “Intro to Sampling and Experimental Design.” Going to that class is like pulling teeth for me. The books are horribly boring and so is the content. Fortunately, I am not alone in my misery. The professor is really interesting outside of class, and he clearly knows his stuff.

Due to my job in Psychology, as well as my classes and personal projects, I usually spend all day on campus. I try to get there by 9am at the latest and leave by 8 or 9 in the evening. The 8th floor of Math Sciences is quite a happy place, and being in my office so long is not nearly as bad as it may sound. Of course by now I can compile a list of frequently asked questions to graduate students in Statistics:

Q: “Hi, where is the planetarium?”
A: “Go down the little hallway and out the door.”

Q: “Where is the library?”
A: “It is on Boelter 8th floor. This is MS 8th floor. The buildings do not connect here. Go down to 7, walk over to Boelter, and go up to the 8th floor.”

Q: “Can I use these computers?” (grad student lounge)
A: “No, this is the grad student lounge. Go down the hall to the computer lab.”

Q: “Can I use these computers?” (first year office)
A: “No! This is a private office…hence all of the personal belongings on the desks. Go down the hall to the computer lab!”

Q: “Where is the computer lab?”
A: “Go down the little hallway and out the door to the Planetarium. Then take the stairs up to the roof of Boelter, go over the bridge and there you are.”

Q: “Where is the Student Math Center?”
A: “on the third floor, you are on the 8th floor.”
Q: “I know.”?
A: “Then what is the problem?”

The people are really fun too. We do a lot of stuff together. In the past month I have played tennis almost every week, played soccer, went kayaking, participated in a poker tournament and went on a hike. There is talk of a snowboarding trip next quarter, and a softball team Spring quarter. I came in 5th place out of about 31 people in the poker tournament, but I attribute that mainly to luck. The most favorable prizes for me were the iPod Nano (even though I already have one), the used external hard drive, and of course the used TV. I ended up getting the TV which I was quite happy about. One of my officemates (another first year PhD student) brought rabbit ears so we can watch TV in the lounge. I am terrible at tennis, but I play anyway. I guess the same goes for soccer, but I was a pretty good goalie. I am glad I finally sucked up my fear of filthy water and went kayaking. I had dodged the bullet twice before and this time I figured I should give it a try. It wasn’t too bad…but the water was so filthy I was panicking when I got on. The only way I will ever kayak again is in Hawaii or somewhere else where there is nice, clean water. I will be posting pictures from these events soon.

Then there is the story about some of us being regular Career Center patrons…but that is for another time. But hey, I won a PSP!

The other day my best friend Dunc sent me this link to an article about George W. Bush. Apparently he and I have something in common - we both think farting is hilarious!

A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he’s still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can’t get enough of fart jokes. He’s also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that. From US News & World Report, Washington Whispers (on the second page)

The President farts to welcome his new aides? I always knew he was full of shit…

Those few readers that remember that way back when I used to have a section “Lyrics of the Week.” For now I am going to include them in my blog.

[cpg_image:41,6,t] Last Thursday night I actually went to a party…and even better, a Sunset Rec party. I got pretty drunk and I had a great time. It was a going away party for Irving, one of the lifeguards. SCRC is a much better place because of him. People like Irving are so hard to find and seem to come into our lives when we least expect them. Quite a few people were emotional because he is that good of a guy. Thank goodness I was drunk, I’ve been enough of a basketcase this week. A shoutout to my roommate Marc who had to put up with my stupor when I returned really late. Sunset is going through a tough transition right now. We lost 4 of the original building supervisors from when I started: Cesar, Jason, Johanna, and now Irving. And that was after it lost 3 or 4 other supervisors right before I jumped on board. The clerks lost Ting-Ting, and even some of the lifeguards are leaving. The good news is that Edgar came back. He and I sit around and bitch about all of the patrons, and about other shit. He’s an entertaining guy. Going to work there always makes me feel better, even if just temporarily. I hope we can all gel together like the last group did, but I don’t know. Anyway, this is how we “roll” at Sunset. Edgar can verify this: Next week I will be starting my position as a software analyst. It looks like I will be working two five-hour shifts per week unless I can figure out another way to do it. Classes are boring, but I am not complaining. I told one of my roommates, Julian that I plan on drinking a lot more this quarter. I need to have a good time. I will also resume my position as a Stats grader this coming week. ——- In retrospect, this past week a lot of cool things happened, but it was rough on me for some reason. I just feel like such a little kid. I am 22 years old, and I should know how to play with the cards that I am dealt, but there are still so many things I have yet to learn, many of which my peers seem to have already learned. Like I mentioned in an entry from May, my brain doesn’t shut up. I am a chronic thinker to the point that it is almost self-destructive. This feeling just caught up with me is all. I guess that is the reason I have been writing so much lately. It is my outlet. Living with 5 other guys, it is my only outlet. I am experiencing my own “Mad Season.” ——- So I got the Stats project that I requested for that consulting class so I am happy. I spent the rest of my time trying to learn Java the hard way. I tried reading a book and got bored, so now I am just playing around with NetBeans. I am stuck at home for the weekend, not really by choice. But it doesn’t matter where I am, I will be bored since nothing is going on. I am hoping to put up the pics from Irving’s party this weekend, …including the video of Michael giving Irving a lapdance… [cpg_image:41,79,n]

This has to be my #2 song. It has so much meaning to me, I feel like I could have written it. Apparently the entire album is about a relationship that has ended, but to me, it has a completely different meaning. The first person is this melancholic character that at times plagues me. Sometimes the “you,” “we” in this song is some arbitrary person, and sometimes it refers to my usual self. And the happy music is the perfect contradiction to the lyrics. If you connect with music, you know what I mean. Mad Season Matchbox Twenty, 2001 I feel stupid, But I know it won’t last for long. And I’ve been guessing, And I could’ve been guessing wrong You don’t know me now. I kind of thought that you should somehow. Does that whole mad season got you down? I feel stupid, But it’s something that comes and goes. And I’ve been changing, I think it’s funny how no one knows. We don’t talk about, The little things that we do without When that whole mad season comes around. So why you got to stand there looking like the answer now? It seems to me, you’d come around - I need you now, Do you think you can cope? You figured me out, That I’m lost and I’m hopeless, I’m bleeding and broken, Though I’ve never spoken, And I come undone, In this mad season. I feel stupid, But I think I’ve been catching on. I feel ugly, But I know I still turn you on. You’ve grown colder now, Torn apart, angry, turned around, Will that whole mad season knock you down? So are you going to stand there? Are you gonna help me out? We need to be together now - I need you now, Do you think you can cope? You figured me out, That I’m lost and I’m hopeless, I’m bleeding and broken, Though I’ve never spoken, I come undone… In this mad season… And now I’m crying, Isn’t that what you want? And I’m trying to live my life on my own, But I won’t, no, At times, I do believe I am strong, So someone tell me why? why? why?… …do I, I, I…feel stupid?? And I come undone, Oh I come undone. I need you now. Do you think you can cope? You figured me out, That I’m lost and I’m hopeless, I’m bleeding and broken, Though I’ve never spoken… Well, I need you now Do you think you can cope? You figured me out, I’m a child, and I’m hopeless, I’m bleeding and broken, Though I’ve never spoken, I come, ohhhh, I come undone, …in this mad season. In this mad season, It’s been a mad season. ‘Been a mad season.

140 sounds like it is going to be pretty cool. My class was combined with Stats 88. We are going to be assigned to teams where the 140 students will basically lead the 88 students through statistical research. We are going to be assigned one of five projects which were provided to us by real clients!

1. Tuna Project…again Hell no am I gonna work on the tuna project again! When I took Stats 88 I had to work on this project and it was more boring than watching the grass grow. I did not put it as one of my three choices, but I am thinking Rob and Vivian might assign me to it since I know the most about it. :-/
2. Alcohol Effects Study for the Ashe Center. This is basically survey data analysis which can be interesting. It is my second choice.
3. Sony Pictures Non-Box Office Revenue Projection. The goal is to do some data mining (my proposed specialization) to determine how grossing certain plot lines are compared to other types of plot lines. Requires a film buff, which I definitely am not. Next…
4. Jewish Family Counseling Survey. Goal is to analyze data taken from three surveys conducted before, during, and after couples therapy treatment. Another survey data problem, but kind of boring because the sample is only n=100. It is my third choice.
5. LAUSD “LA’s Best” Program Evaluation. This is my NUMBER ONE choice with stars and big letters! LA’s Best is an afterschool tutoring and development program for disadvantaged students that live in high crime, low income areas. The program’s attendance has been dropping over the past few years and LAUSD wants to know why.
   • First, the data is all messed up and scattered, so we must use our friend Perl to write a robot or web scraper to get the data for us.
   • Also this project requires heavy knowledge of statistics because the errors in the study are correlated! So the project requires a multilevel regression analysis. Vivian said she feels sorry for whoever gets stuck with this one…STICK IT WITH ME!

120A is, well, boring. I guess that comes as no surprise since I already took 120B and got an A. But I like Rob’s teaching style. It is also pretty funny that I already know Chris, the TA for my class. The two of them are going to make for an interesting quarter. Today we talked about hypothesis testing and confidence intervals. It’s like 11th grade all over again. And here I am, chillin’ with the toddlers.

Stats 130B is also boring. Vivian is an entertaining lecturer, but the class is 3 hours long, and being lectured about how to use computer software is neither challenging to my digestion, nor fun. I wish I could have taken it independent study or something. Oh well. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

It shouldn’t be too hard of a quarter, and I have deserved this break. Unfortunately, the way my classes work out, leaves me with a lot of free time. I guess I won’t be quitting Sunset for a while…

I had a rough morning for whatever reason. I could tell something was wrong due to the way I reacted over a conversation I had with a friend the other day. We talked again about it and it just made me feel even worse about myself because we both overanalyze everything to death. I just had to be like, “stop, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” But this is for me to sort out; it’s my problem.

It is very important that I say that he is a really good guy and I don’t fault him at all for how I feel, but like I said, having a “heavy heart” sucks. And being a pessimist makes it no easier! I like this quote, and it seems to jive with my 1/10 and 1/9 entries:

Other stuff is on my mind, but it is all a question mark to me, and not worth mentioning right now. Whenever I get into these melancholic ruts everything makes me feel all weird and I end up kicking myself over and over again.

I think 140 has snapped me out of it at least temporarily. I was so messed up this morning I showed up to that class an hour early - the wrong class. I have never done since I’ve been in college. Of course I ran into some more friends that wanted to talk about grad school applications and they started asking me all of these stupid questions…which just made me more upset. It is as if some energy is telling me to “knock it off.” So then I had to go home to take care of something, and then returned to class again.

Aside: I am convinced to improve my vocabulary because doing math for all of these years has really deteriorated it. For some reason I thought “rut” may be spelled “wrut” so I looked it up to be sure, and found this: In colloquial English, “to be in a rut” means to have a monotonous routine of activities or thoughts. But an alternative definition appears to be a “sexual desire or oestrus of…mammals.”

I guess I should find better words.

——————

If it is one person that knows days like this, it is Billy Joel:

Of course, I cannot forget to mention my all-time favorite song by him, You’re Only Human (Second Wind): Lyrics, Story (I was surprised)

I was wrong. Now is the time where I usually start kicking myself for being an ass and come up with some improvement that I know won’t be productive. So as I always say (and never seem to follow thru with), I need to relax.

I don’t know why, but friendship has always been such a difficult thing for me, especially at this school. It seems like everything revolves around it at this place. Why do I surround myself with people whose definitions of friendship are just saying “hi” and “bye” with a smile on their faces? And their empty words: “we’ll hang out [really soon].” They make me want to vomit. And then there are those people that shallowly ask me for my phone number. I so just want to look at them and ask “why? Are you going to call me?” That is a legitimate question because so many people just do it to raise the number of people in their digital phonebook.

I must clarify that there are two types of friends to me. There are the friends that I have made within my major. That is different. In this entry I am writing about friendship independent of school. I will probably remain friends with those people for a very long time, perhaps even professionally, but I will not be at a university forever.

Now that I feel like I might have [a chance at having at least] a couple of genuine friends, we are all graduating. And despite what we all say, we are never going to see each other again, and we are never going to even attempt to stay in touch. We talk about our plans after graduation and mine of course include grad school. Then the question of “what if you don’t get in?” comes up. And it just strikes such a chord within myself to be asked that. As if people, or this particular person, is just waiting for me to fail. I am even being asked what my plans for the summer are! Whoa, whoa, WHOA. Why don’t I just get a lawyer to help me write my Last Will and Testament while we are at it? There was a some type of melancholic song from the early 90s called “How Can We See That Far?” I swear that is my mantra. And what does this person plan to do after graduation? Of course these peoples’ plans rely on their high school friends. It is fucking amazing to me. Had I known that Thousand Oaks High School was going to dictate the rest of my life, perhaps I would have paid more attention…perhaps I would have not been truant all the time. But I have part of it figured out. These people, as pathetic as it may sound for me to say, have something/someone to fall back on. I don’t. I know it is pathetic that I occupy myself with such a stupid thought, but perhaps this is just the sad state of my generation.

That is not to say that I have my own set of best friends from back home. But we are all in different places. And it is doubtful that we are all going to return to Thousand Oaks. Additionally, my life doesn’t revolve around Thousand Oaks High School. And our friendships do not rely on everything being “just like old times” and they do not rely on ALL of us being together at every waking moment. It isn’t the same as with these other people. It is like Saved by the Bell…graduate from college and resume life right where high school left off. I guess my High School Diploma means more than my B.S. in Mathematics. How is that for irony?

Since these friendships of course won’t last they are meaningless and not worth my time. So I must now find a way to sabotage them. I must turn on these people, or I must find some quality about these people that I hate and just go with it and never look back. That way, I will want to never see them again. If I do not sabotage these friendships, I will spend the rest of my time here feeling like shit, or listening to lies upon lies. I can hardly wait for May to roll around.

I know it is not a good way of looking at it, but I do not want to have to say goodbye, especially because I know my bittersweet melancholy will get in the way of the billions of things that I have to do on a daily basis.

But WHY am I not excited at the fact that I am leaving behind such a shallow undergraduate world? Simple. Because I wish I could do it all over again. Pathetically enough, I wish I could go back to 9th grade and start all over again. There is no getting away from high school. Right now I feel like I’ve had a shitty undergraduate experience - both socially and academically and I so wish I could have that back, but most likely somewhere else.

I don’t know why I was given such a heavy heart, but I am stuck with it.

What is everybody’s obsession with high school at this university??? It was 4 years of your life…GET OVER IT. I am so sick of hearing about it. If I hear one more time “I’m hanging out with my high school buddies [even though I am at college and shouldn’t be such a loser to not make any college friends]” I am going to strangle something. If this truly isn’t the case, then please let me know so I can find a new social circle…

One of these days I am going to have to post my spin on the “UCLA Laws of Socialization for Undergraduates”…

First off, thanks to the LA Observer for quoting me in their blog entry about poor Stephanie Edwards getting the boot from the Rose Parade coverage. And a shoutout to BruinWalk.com. Your pseudorandom number generator has good taste!!!

Too funny…here I am trying to help my roommate Marc try to set up both an admin password as well as a WEP key for his “router.” I get it set up and all, and I think to myself “wow, this is a really tiny router you have.” Um…it turns out he didn’t have a router. So…we just locked some innocent person out of their own access point. We are now hackers lol j/k.

So another Winter Break passes by. This quarter I have a bitchin’ schedule. I don’t know what I am gonna do with all of my free time. Get a girlfriend perhaps? Nah. Do more programming? After Winter Break I am pretty much burned out from programming. Although I am still trying to learn Java which has turned out to NOT be one of my favorite languages. I still prefer good ol’ C++ for desktop applications, and PHP for web applications, with Perl floating somewhere in the middle.

It is nice to be back though. I feel vindicated from the hell and horror of Fall quarter. At least I wasn’t the only one that had a rough quarter. This quarter I start my new job as a software analyst with a statistician that has written a psychometrics/Item Response Theory software package. I have left my job with the Math Department after almost two and a half years. It just wasn’t any fun anymore, and the classes were way too big.

My classes seem like they will be pretty cool this quarter. Regression Analysis uses this cool project called Moodle which is an academic equivalent of a combination blog, wiki, and forum that has additional functions like grade reporting. The pre-lecture is even a Podcast!!! The Stats Department is so 2006 .

I shall end with a quote from one of my theoretical math impaired friends:
Dunc: yeah, you made a total 360 between jr high and hs.
Me:…that puts me back exactly where I started…unless I started on a branch cut of course…
Dunc:and u wonder why u r single.
Me:*expletive*

Next time: Class update, and my Statement of Purpose…FINALLY!

If it’s one song that I hate it is Auld Lang Syne. How shallow is this? “May all acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind.” So I guess I am supposed to forget everything from 2005 just because it is a new year. Well, according to Sylvia Browne, 2006 is supposed to be a great year for Scorpio! Well, I hope it is true, lol.

If New Year’s Eve is any indication of what is in store for 2006, there’s no doubt that this is going to be a “weird” year, whatever that entails. Perhaps I am just being superstitious but here are some reasons why:

• Dick Clark, the voice of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, can hardly speak since suffering a massive stroke.
• Regis Philbin was no better as none of their microphones worked.
• The first live performance in Times Square in years was MARIAH CAREY. Yuck!
• Stephanie Edwards, the queen of Rose Parade hosting, was ousted by some ugly boring drone on KTLA. Stephanie had to sit down in the pouring rain and do absolutely nothing during the parade since her parade program containing all of the trivia was destroyed by the rain.
• “Rockin’” New Years Eve was boring as hell.
• Rose Parade was held on January 2nd because January 1st fell on a Sunday.
• It POURED on the parade for the first time in 50 years.

So if we assume there is a 1/50 probability of rain on the Rose Parade and the Rose Parade lands on a Sunday with probability 1/7, we won’t have to deal with such a shitty parade until 2356.

As for resolutions? I have none. Resolutions are overrated, and so is New Year. But as always I am working on not being so hard on myself or others…just not today.

I spent New Year’s Eve day at Sunset Rec where of course the building sup didn’t show up to open the facility, so I sat in my truck until somebody showed up. I could not believe how many people came to swim on a cold and rainy holiday. I had a furry friend with me too - a squirrel. He sat on the ledge outside of the window during my entire shift.

At one point he got brave enough to run through the window into the office and snatched one of my cookies and ran outside to eat it. After that he snuck into the office a couple more times and got stuck on the floor of the office once until I returned. He got so scared he jumped from the floor to the desk and out the window.

Anyway, I am off of my bitch bag now.

Long entry because I haven’t written in a while. Most of it is me rambling.

This week I had my Senior portrait taken. I thought it was so cheesy that my mom was making me do this…but it is the least I could do. As soon as the photographer put all the paraphernalia on me (cap, gown, cord, sash), I felt different. I realized that a chapter of my life is coming to a close. Sometimes when I look back I feel like I have accomplished nothing during my College career. But I now realize that it is because at this point in my life, I cannot yet accomplish my dream: to get a doctorate. This Bachelor’s degree means more to me emotionally than it does academically. It represents all of the sleepless nights, all of the hours spent in offices with TAs and professors, all of the struggles, all of the heartaches and tears I put into this career.

My college career has been about improving myself and teaching me a new way of thinking and looking at the world, more than teaching me anything academic that I am ever going to seriously use. I cannot say that I knew how to prove the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem before I came to college, but material like that is water under the bridge.

Adding Statistics as my second major is the best thing I could have done. I got to discover a department that actually cares about its students. It has made my college career so much more enjoyable…and normal. This last year in college with the Stats Department so far has proven to be more rewarding than the last 3 years combined.

On the Grad School application front, things are going well. My grades are good, especially in both of my majors. My GRE scores are really good although I will probably retake them because I think I can do better. I was freaked out taking a Computer Based Test (CBT) (there is an entire branch of psychometrics [my interest] dedicated to this). I have secured three letters of recommendation from professors that think very highly of me. They have been amazingly supportive. That support I could never ever get from the math department and its faculty. The only thing that I have left to do is write my Statement of Purpose which I am hoping to do this weekend. I need to write about why I want to be admitted to Grad School, why Statistics, and why UCLA. I feel so strongly, and so passionate about this opportunity, I can probably write a very strong statement on the first try…and then read it over and instead lament over it for days. My proposed specializations are Psychometrics, Pattern Recognition/Machine Learning, and Data Mining. They all have their pros and cons, and are all very fascinating subjects to me. Psychometrics (measurement) is a branch of statistics that deals with psychological and educational measurement: how tests and scoring metrics are constructed. My interest is educational testing as opposed to psychological testing but the concepts are all the same. Last year I wrote a paper about a metric I conceived that measures educational growth over a grading period called R******’s Combinatorial Growth Metric. It was fun to write, but there are horrible flaws in the theory and I would never attempt to publish it because even I doubt its purpose. Although I was scared to death to take the GRE, I was fascinated at how much more convenient it is, and how much more accurate and concise the testing and scoring is than the paper-based test (again, psychometrics). My second interest, pattern recognition and machine learning is perhaps the most theoretically math intense branch of statistics. Researchers in this field study how to detect patterns in data (data is much more than just a “rectangle.” It can be a picture, a sound, an energy, a map, you name it) and model those patterns to extract their meanings and make meaningful predictions. Signal processing falls into this category. It is possible to, for example, take an audio sample of an auditorium clapping, and pinpoint one person’s applause. Pattern recognition is also used in face and fingerprint recognition. Eventually I will summarize face recognition theory and how we all come from a small basis of faces: eigenfaces. My Optical Mark Recognition project also relies heavily on pattern recognition (image processing) and Bayesian statistics. Machine learning relies on pattern recognition. Some examples of machine learning are robots, and computer based testing (such as the GRE General). Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning are an exotically beautiful mesh of theoretical mathematics (especially combinatorics and linear algebra, my favorites), theoretical statistics, and computer science. Data Mining is the most applied of the three fields. It is basically a combination of statistics and computer science. It basically studies how to obtain data that are not in a “rectangular” form and how to visualize that data so that the layman can understand it. My OMR project can also fall into this category.

I have also turned 22 since I last wrote. I feel old. My birthday was awesome though. I hate cake, so instead my mom made me a bunch of cupcakes in the shape of a cake and put candles in them. It was perfect. For my birthday I got a new phone (LG VX8100) that does all the cool new things: realistic music ringtones, ringback tones, picture/video messaging, cameraphone, speakerphone, and I can even send the pictures I take over the internet to an online photo album. I also got an iPod. I said I would never, ever, ever get one, and well, I finally said “what the hell.” It makes the long 20 minute walks from MS to my place faster, and makes grading less boring.

Working three jobs has taken its toll on me. Grading 200+ papers a week can get very frustrating and infuriating at times. Grading for Statistics has been great though. The classes clearly understand the material and put in effort into their work. Linear Algebra is a totally different story. I don’t know what this professor is teaching the class. But I can clearly tell you what he is not teaching them. It pisses me off that in week 8 there are still students that cannot row reduce. I have never graded a class where so many of the students put so little effort into their work: skipping half of the problems, showing NO work, cheating, not stapling their 10 crumpled pages, not putting a name on the paper, turning in homework late (repeatedly). It is insane. And the fact that the professor allows his students to turn in their homework late (repeatedly) for every damn reason is even more infuriating. Sunset is still a great job. So clearly, the sore spot is the Department of Mathematics.

There is something else that has taken a toll on me but some things are not worth discussing in great detail. What I will say is that I never thought four (actually five; the fifth I don’t even know) men in their twenties could be so low, so shallow, so selfish, so idiotic, that they would let somebody do something so evil to me…and then not tell me about it. To make it worse, these guys were so spineless somebody else had to relay the information to me. The story is that it is a joke gone horribly wrong but I am still suspicious that the whole thing was intentional, and I am pretty content with that feeling, and I am confident in my personal accusation. What seals my suspicion is the fact that I never even got an apology, and their reason for not telling me was beyond pathetic. I am proud of myself for how I handled it when and after it happened, and quite frankly, I’m pretty surprised at how I handled it. I was never even close to caving in and so they should get it through their thick heads that I will never cave in, especially not to them. And this is the reason why they are now pissed off at me. And that makes me proud. I was right about them, and I have no reason to ever question that feeling again. I want to thank my coworkers at Sunset for their support when this happened. As they say, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But now that I have put my feelings in writing, I feel that I can finally move on, and not need to write about this again.

Classes were very rough but now that I have dumped Artificial Intelligence I have had more time to dedicate to Pattern Recognition and Statistical Programming. The problem in Pattern Recognition is that up until now I have been taught frequentist probability which is the old and conservative way of doing things. This class requires understanding Bayesian probability which to me is a totally different language, but fascinating nonetheless. The theory required in the class is amazing. We have concepts from Analysis, Combinatorics, Linear Algebra and even Topology. I had a very difficult time understanding methods of dimension reduction such as Principal Components Analysis at first because it is very difficult to even attempt to visualize a d dimensional vector space containing data. This is where the eigenfaces come in, and my project that can best be described as a disaster. Then we moved into non-parametric methods of probability distribution learning such as using Parzen windows and the nearest neighbor technique to classify data into 2 or more mutually exclusive groups.

That’s the latest. I am hoping to post my Statement of Purpose when I have it done because it should be interesting. Thanks to Wikipedia for making my blog interactive .

A cool comic from FoxTrot. Thanks Sean!

Source: http://www.foxtrot.com

It’s been a while, so it’s time for a lighthearted entry…

So I see that I have become incredibly nerdy, 200% worse than I was before! Right now I am working on several projects: one of them is called CheapOMR and I will eventually put that on in the “My Projects” section..keyword…eventually. The concept of OMR stands for Optical Mark Recognition, and the hardware OMR stands for Optical Mark Reader (frequenly called “a Scantron”). I have been working on this project since December and am making painstakingly slow progress through the first few steps of the algorithm. This is because they are crucial in the recognition of the scanned document in question. From December to July I worked on edge detection, that is, removing the margin from a scanned document to “standardize” it without having to worry about printer or copy machine specifics. I had to scrap the algorithm I was using so that I could adapt a better edge detection algorithm which would progress to a more powerful and accurate skew detection algorithm. So right now I am using image processing, signal processing, and computer vision algorithms to determine by what angle a scanned document is skewed. And no, it is NOT as simple as using the Pythagorean Thorem or trig. I thought it would be, but I was horribly wrong.

When I am not doing that, I am finally getting some hands-on experience with what was once a “superficial” interest – Voice Over IP. I have two lines through VoicePulse and I am setting up an Asterisk server to serve as a PPBX (I made up the first P) – Personal Private Branch Exchange. Packetizing voice data makes features like call transfer, voice mail, and call hunt much easier to implement…and most importantly MUCH cheaper to implement! So basically, if you call my VoIP line at 1am you will get a stern message that I am sleeping…and then get transferred to my voicemail. If you call me and I am not near the phone, you can be transferred to my cell phone and so on. Oh, and a fun feature to implement: music on hold haha. So far, I have gotten one line on a basic service to work. The other line can call extensions (any phone or IP phone connected to the server by Ethernet or VPN etc.), but cannot call out, and cannot receive calls. But that is my inexperience. So I can use the same phone number here at my apartment in Westwood as the number I use at home and have both location ring at the same time if I want. Or I can dial an extension and be connected to my parents. Pretty cool what we can do nowadays.

I just reinstalled Fedora FC3 on my Linux server and added a sound card. The sound card took up a bit of time to configure. I installed FreeRADIUS and ChilliSpot because I was noticing that one or two neighbors were occasionally connecting to my Wireless AP. Using a WEP key is just too boring…now when they log on, they are presented with a webpage that instructs them to login with their username and password. I also have a NX server running so that I can basically see the server desktop from my laptop at school. I might as well have the server here!

My new apartment is AWESOME! I had to take a walk because I was enraptured by how huge and nice it is. The living room is huge, and so is my bedroom. I practically have to raise my voice just to speak to my roommate…it’s pretty big! We have a balcony too that has a nice view of Landfair. My roommate is a really cool guy. He is from SD and surfs. He is pretty into the school spirit thing which is cool because most of my friends either have no school spirit, or hate the school. The furniture is nice and we get TWO sinks! Oh, and I almost forgot the most important thing…the T1 internet connection! School has never been so awesome…I am either here, or at work which is also a lot of fun. Our place is a little messy but that’s cause we all just moved in…but when you walk into my room it’s like night and day haha. My goal is to get to know each of my roommates. Honestly, I knew very little about my other roommates because we just never really cliqued, or didn’t like each other.

I have met all of my roommates except for two (there are six of us). Three of us are here, and the other three are camping. We are all social, but somewhat on the quiet and/or non-obnoxious side. I have at least something in common with each of them. Not like in the past.

***
Now I must make a brief, yet poignant change of tone to address something that has been kind of bugging me. It’s not as much of a big deal as it once was (since I found a great place to live), but it still requires a resolution. I must say…after everything you tried to do to screw me over with housing, Kevin, you lose. Your plans ended up going south, and you ended up in a dive even worse than my place on Landfair was. I am not going to be braggart and say “that’s what you get for messing with me,” but instead I will just say, “’serves you right.”

***

So today I got a new alarm system for my truck. The other day after I got lunch I set off the alarm but I couldn’t really tell if it was mine because it was so faint. The doors started locking and unlocking erratically. The alarm would not shut off. I had to drive through campus with my damned car alarm going off. Four hours later I just had to disconnect the damned thing or else I would never get home!!

Today I got to work the early morning shift for the first time ever. Yup, 6am. I felt bad for my roommate considering he wasn’t feeling well and we just moved in! It wasn’t that bad but the wildlife and insects that found a home in the office overnight has left me scarred. As if seeing a roach sitting in the middle of the floor wasn’t bad enough, a cricket came jumping out of the swimming checkout equipment. I almost couldn’t kill it…this thing was HUGE. Well, I took a swim find and smashed it. I let live what appeared to be some type of worm or centipede…he was lucky.

“Ain’t that the story of my life…” Of course I have not written because I am busy as usual haha.

I am living on Landfair now and although it is going well, I don’t particularly dig the apartment thing, and I do not understand the appeal but whatever. I had a lot of trouble trying to get internet, but I have found a nice wireless signal that I can use instead. Apparently the cable port and the phone line are damaged for god knows what reason. The landlord (from Housing) does not respond to any of my calls or emails. It is kind of ridiculous. Fortunately this is only for 8 weeks. I will probably cancel my contract for Glenrock next year and find my own place.

Work is going great. I love Sunset Rec. All it is are two pools, a big field, and a Challenge Course, but it is the people and the stuff that goes on that makes it so much fun. My coworkers are really cool. I work with this one girl like all the time. She is blunt, funny, and fun to be around so my shifts fly by when she is around. Not to mention my boss, who is probably the funniest one. She is pretty chill. The building supervisors are a lot of fun too. There is this one guy that has the strongest British accent I can’t even understand what he is saying. There are clerks, building supervisors, camp staff, other supervisors, lifeguards and tennis instructors so it is quite busy around there.

It is awesome just to sit by the pool while studying and watch everybody else have such a good time since there is always something going on. A good 60-70% of the patrons are little kids, so there are not as many women there as during the year, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any eye candy . And all of the lifeguards know it! Haha

I hear the same shit everyday from patrons, some of which get hostile with me. Sometimes I have to walk away from fear of laughing aloud: the parking machine is broken, the pool is (2 degrees) too hot, “why don’t you have change?”, “how am I supposed to park?” The best was this past week when a little kid shit in the pool and we had to close it for several hours. Even funnier, it happened the day before too. So many people were pissed about it since it happened two days in a row during a heat wave. One lady even yelled, “what is the matter with this kid?!” The lifeguards have a new radio call, “code brown.”

I keep in touch with the Bootstrap Camp crew. We are hoping to plan a reunion this Fall!

So last quarter didn’t end up as bad as I thought it would. I did a lot better in Analysis than I thought I would since I aced the final, but I got my first C ever: Physics. I could care less though. Nobody cares about a damned physics class. And of course I got an A in statistics, the subject that really matters to me now. Well, that’s the good news.

I had a streak of bad luck following Bootstrap Camp. I had my laptop stolen right out of my truck at HOME…not even in LA! And I got in a car accident. I got a new laptop that has wireless so life is great now haha. It is a Gateway with a 17” display and a new Centrino processor. I won’t have a truck for 3 weeks but oh well. I was overdue for this. My dad is pressuring me to buy a new truck, because he wants my F-150. I can part with it as long as my dad keeps it .

Some trucks I am considering:

Finally, the Willy Wonka remake is finally out and I want to see it! I doubt it is as good as the original though.

There are some pretty interesting changes to the characters since this is 2005. Interestingly, the “tragic flaws” that each child exhibits is uncannily up-to-date yet similar to the 1971 version.

Mike Teavee is no longer a Western thriller buff, rather an intellectual that is addicted to computer programming, games and television. In the original movie, Mike was an idiot.

Veruca Salt has a mother in this version, but Veruca looks practically identical to the original. Her fate involves the “squirrel and nut room” or something like that which was in the book, but not the original movie. Her flaw is shallowness and materialism whereas in the original it was being spoiled…close enough.

Augustus Gloop looks close enough. Hopefully he still has that funny accent. His flaw is greed and gluttony, which is unchanged from the original.

Violet Beauregarde has a mother as well in this version. She is very competitive in sports (and gum chewing) which was not her persona in the original version. Her sin is her competitiveness, whereas in 1971 it was rudeness (incessant gum-chewing). The actress that plays Violet looks like an ugly version of Kirsten Storms.

Charlie Bucket is a freaking nerd! What the hell happened to him? He sure as hell does not look poor in this remake!

Willy Wonka seems to be the most changed character. Johnny Depp is a good match, but he still too “ Burton.” The original Wonka was sarcastic, clever and scary in a perfect combination. Burton of course makes him scarier and mean than sarcastic and clever. The non-sense one-liners in the original version originated from literary quotes, whereas in this version they seem to be based on…well…cliché and low brow humor.

The Flash website for the movie is pretty cool.

Anyway, this entry has gone on long enough…

What a shit ass year.

I haven’t written in a while because, well, I have had so much catching up to do in my classes. It paid off in one class, didn’t pay off in another, but I really don’t care because I am just glad this year is over.

My Analysis final went great. I have never been so happy to receive a solid B in a class ever. Our professor was this really nice Russian guy that I will be having again for Complex Analysis this summer. I saw him in Westwood once as I was walking home from my nightly Starbucks run. He was carrying a 12 pack of beer. It was pretty funny because I could tell he was a little surprised to see a student. I don’t like Analysis, but I must admit I learned a lot from his class. Our TA was really funny too. He would make these weird motions whenever he wanted to emphasize something. And he had some good one liners:

Me: “What is the difference between 17 and 37?”
TA: “20, I’d say.”

Some Girl: “Instead of rewriting sine and cosine over and over again, can I just write sin/cos?”
TA: “In that case I would really just write cotangent.”

Physics did not go that well. I hate physics. It is useless for my particular major. I could care less about it. I think electromagnetics is a very interesting subject, and I will even say that I think electricity is a beautiful concept. But not when my GPA counts on it. I will be thrilled to get a C in that class. The best part is that it doesn’t count for shit since all that matters now is my math GPA.

Moving out of the dorms was bittersweet. Sunset Village was a nice place and had a good atmosphere, but at the same time, I was surrounded by Freshmen and Sophomores that don’t know what I am going through. All of their damned Mickey Mouse classes gives them so much time to party and distract everybody else that is NOT in Mickey Mouse classes, I am glad I won’t be living on campus next year. Also, I am so sick of the dependence of on-campus housing on residential life. This whole “let’s be best friends!” thing is just plain fake, and “celebrating diversity” is a total joke. What diversity? Celebrating the different parts of Asia we are all from? While the rest of us are just in a mix that nobody cares about. But I wish them the best, since this is all they have going for them.

With that said, I will be on Landfair this summer in a 2 bedroom 4 person apartment. I am looking forward to the new experience. I guess I am just going to look at it as an experience to make friends. The good thing is that I get parking. Next year is still somewhat up in the air, but I know that I will be living on Glenrock, I just don’t know where on Glenrock, or what room type I get. I currently have a 2-person studio, again, something I did not request. I am hoping to get into a 3-bedroom 3-person so I can get my own room. I am excited about moving off campus, but I am also pretty nervous. If I just loosen up and try harder to accept people for who they are and not take things so personally, perhaps I will have a much easier time.

For the time being, I have left my job as a grader for the math department. Right now I need a job that requires interaction with people, not professors, TAs and disgruntled students. I swear, if I receive one more irate email from a student about why I am such a picky grader, I swear… I thought I ended the quarter well though. I basically just recommended that anybody above the median get an A, and anybody below the median gets something else for their homework grade which is only like 10% anyway. I start my new job with UCLA Recreation on the 27th. The people seem so cool, and my boss is really chill. I think think this is a good environment for me.

Today after my Physics final I finally declared my graduation date, since I will be entering my last year at UCLA. Now I am waiting for my thank you card from the College, and my gift certificate to the UCLA Store, since this is such a fucking big deal to them that I get outta here as soon as possible.

I have a nice three days off, then it is back to Westwood for a weeklong summer program for prospective Statistics doctoral applicants. That should be pretty cool. I am really looking forward to seeing how I can apply Statistiscs to Computer Science. If I can do that, then I will dump Computer Science, and stick with Statistics. As much as I like Computer Science, I am not sure I want to spend ALL DAY and night programming. I am also hoping I can do research with my regression analysis professor in sensor networks. We’ll see!

Sometimes I wonder why I even have a blog on my site. Most guy sites that have blogs are pretty short, and to the point. “Today I got drunk. (end of entry).” Or something like that. I like to think of myself as a pretty open person, but apparently it is not always true. This has lead people to act really weird around me, because I am acting weird towards them, and they don’t know why. I should just have the balls to say what is on my mind, but I guess I don’t. So maybe this provides a way to let people know what is on my mind, I don’t know. More importantly, this is the best way to get my feelings out. These things swirl in my head practically all day long, along with all of the more relevant things like “I need to study for my midterm.” Instead of letting it all swirl, I find it better to just put it on “paper” and get rid of it, at least for a little while.

—

I have definitely hit a minimum this week. The good news is I think I finally have it all figured out, and perhaps the saying “what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger” really is true. I think it is time to push the pause button on my life and just sit back and watch.

I feel like the real me is returning. I have been a real ass to a lot of people this quarter, and it has cost me a lot of friends, or perhaps what I thought were friends, I don’t know. STOP! Don’t say that, if you think they were friends, they probably were, until they absolutely prove otherwise. This is the typical shit that has been going through my mind all quarter. The way that I have chosen to treat people is killing me.

My Analysis midterm went shitty, as expected. I did not handle the stress that well either. As soon as the midterm ended, I practically threw my test at the TA and in the process knocked over my 20 oz coffee which made a horrible mess. I kind of went apeshit on a few people when they started laughing and pointed out that I had spilled my coffee. My mind was saying, “No shit I just spilled my coffee: I am stupid, not blind.” This may be my first C in college and it kills me. I already know that my career as a Mathematician is over. Maybe I am wrong, but at least with Statistics and Computer Science I still have some hope. Just a little stressed? No, it’s more than just stress.

It took a very strange, awkward, and kind of embarrassing encounter with a friend to realize that something else is wrong. I have been having problems with a lot of friends lately, but this friend stands out in my mind because he is one of the only people that has consistently confronted me about it. It is something that is bigger than just a personality flaw, and something that I need to deal with myself. I wanted to do something nice for his birthday, as any friend would (especially for 21!). I kept trying to come up with days and times that would work and kept getting this empty “ok” response (even though we never really set a day or time) followed by canceling at the last minute. After playing this ridiculous rescheduling game, and talking to some friends about it, my reaction was just “fuck ‘em.” Yet he kept saying hi to me which nobody understands. So I was a bit immature and just ignored him and went on my merry way. Well, that didn’t work and I was of course confronted about it. My reaction should have been “well, ok I am not being avoided,” but instead I was stubborn. As I tried to explain what was going on, I got repeatedly slapped in the face with a bunch of insults. After apparently repeatedly over generalizing and making false assumptions, *gulp* I was told I was acting like a girl. Damn, that pissed me off. I seriously wanted to fucking punch him at that moment. He did not choose the best words, but I get his point. Seriously though, at age 21 people of either sex should be able to talk maturely about problems, not result to yelling and insults, but hey, if that is the way some people still solve their problems, so be it. And like he said, I cannot judge people like that (at least not friends). He pointed that out to me when I retorted that he was dense and immature, that I was being closed minded which I thought was pretty hypocritical. Somewhere along the lines, I said “I don’t associate with stupid people.” And I got slapped with the “close-minded” and “judgmental” label. He made a good point: friends don’t need to “prove” anything to each other. I see what he means, and I completely agree. I don’t expect my friends to prove anything to me, but I seem to have some ridiculous standard that I hold them to. Why? Because I don’t believe enough in them, because I guess I don’t believe enough in myself. Earlier in the week somebody told me that all of a sudden I act like I better than everybody else. I can’t argue with that. I have never been a narcissist, but I see that I have been acting that way for some fucked up reason. The whole incident almost ended on bad terms a few times, but I could not let that happen. Part of me wanted to truly get to the bottom of things with myself, and part of me just wanted to tell him to fuck off (like I have done with too many people). Even after all the names I was called, something gnawed at me to not stomp away.

Something inside me told me to stop and just listen. Now that I think about what happened, and what was said, there are two things I remember: 1) the insults (which I forgive), and 2) the forest through the trees. I cannot (want to) remember a time when I was confronted in such a way. I guess when I say he is a good friend, it is true because he pointed out something to me that others couldn’t (or wouldn’t), and was patient enough to do it. Perhaps that is why I knew I couldn’t just let us storm off mad at each other…I knew he was pretty much right. At the end we shook hands. He told me to mellow out – something I hear all too often. The next day, we were cool with each other, and I greeted him with the same smile I always used to give people and the usual handshake. I asked him about the time we joked around about us both OCDing over stupid things, and that I think I am OCDing over unproductive thoughts that end up pissing me off, as well as other people. Haha, he responded with a joke about how school is making us all lose it. At times I think we are opposites, but I think we are a lot more similar than we think, I dunno. I am tempted to ask myself a bunch of ridiculous questions, but I just yell at myself STOP! Just take it for what it is now. I feel like if we hang out, it puts this whole quarter to rest…but lo que sera sera. The lesson in all of this is that friends sometimes intervene in ways of which I do not approve, but it is nonetheless an intervention, and for that I should be grateful.

After getting my Analysis score, being stressed out over grades, my future, and my friends, and next year, I could not take it anymore, and headed home.

—

I’ve come to the realization that while I still think quitting ORL was a good move, the way I handled it was not a good move, and that I was not ready for the fallout of my behavior. Quite frankly, since ORL took up an entire two years of my life at UCLA, the vast majority of my friends were from ORL, and since I am no longer involved with them, I have been left with very few friends which is quite lonely. I realized that it was time to do some apologizing. I know that it doesn’t change the way I acted, and I know that I have probably lost those friends for good, but I feel like I need to do it for “the real me.” ORL was more of a “distraction” to a problem with which I now see myself faced. I could care less what the general person thinks of me, but I obsess over what my friends and superiors think of me. And I obsess over what the future holds for me. I am freaked out over having to move off campus, about roommates, about getting an apartment, about the possibility of getting a studio but being lonely… I am freaked out about how I am going to get through the summer. Stupid things that constantly swirl through my head:

“Why did you frown when I said that?”
“Why don’t we hang out anymore? Did I do something wrong?”
“Why are you so weird around me?”
“Why didn’t you respond to my IM? Are you mad at me?”
“Do you think less of me as a friend now or something?”
“When will we hang out next?”

I need to, and will work this out, but the first step is to tell my brain to shut the fuck up.