Thesis

Eight Years
Date: (Summer 2006 – Spring 2007)

“Thesis” is just one word. One seemingly innocuous word. Oh sure, I had read all the documents out there about how it would be “one of the most challenging experiences of one’s college career” and other tidbits about how difficult it was to write one. But, I’m a Harvard student. Those words don’t normally faze me — why should they faze me in this case?

Why did I do it? As I mentioned in my post about the impact of my experiences with the pharmaceutical industry, I had realized that a PhD was necessary for any meaningful research position that I would want to be in. Realizing this, I decided to devote my time towards writing a thesis, to not only improve my chances of getting into a graduate school, but also to get a feeling firsthand as to what graduate school would be like.

The project? An extension of my 91R research in the Maniatis Lab on two proteins that the postdoctoral fellow I had been working with, Dr. Benjamin tenOever [incidentally, the figure on that page was created by Ben and is actually in my thesis], had identified as involved in innate immunity (the cell’s natural and internal response to viral infection). It should have been very simple. Extend the preliminary work I had already written up and proceed with a more complex and insightful analysis.

It wasn’t. I spent that summer attempting to attach fluorescent tags to the proteins of interest (in other words, attaching little lights to these little proteins so that I could see where they were in cells and get an idea of what they do with little success. It was only halfway through the summer that I realized that the reason I was having so much difficulty was because I had made a major error in my preliminary work — an error which meant I had to start back at square one upon returning to the lab in the fall, a little annoyed but certainly a little wiser.

But, return I did, and start over I did — of course, that was easier said than done. While in the summer, I spent hours and hours everyday in the lab, during the schoolyear, things weren’t nearly as simple. I was involved with research in Professor Michael Brenner’s group on mathematical biology (my new big interest), multiple classes, and job hunting. And, although I put in as many hours as I could, it just wasn’t enough as my experiments faced setback after setback: oh this week, the tissue culture is contaminated — go to Jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. This week, the antibiotic plates weren’t made correctly — go to Jail, do not pass go, …

And then came Spring Semester — and boy was I really in trouble. It was January 2007 (the thesis was due in April) and I had circumstantial evidence, if one wants to insult the word “circumstantial.” So, I upped the hours that I was in lab. I had always put in several hours a day except for rare occasions, but now I was putting in many hours per day. With the exception of late nights, I was in lab on a daily basis by 9 AM (oftentimes 8:30) and except for classes and one section which I could not schedule in the evenings, I was there nonstop until the evenings. And all of this was done while taking some of the hardest courses I’ve ever taken (Stochastic Processes got very difficult once we got to continuous time and state-space processes and Stat Mech was very difficult as well) and while my laptop was broken, making it much more difficult to do anything. Starting in March, my hours upped even more as I now began the final haul — I had gotten some actual data, and Ben and I had worked out an experimental approach which I now threw myself at. Weekends and weekdays alike were spent in the lab, carrying out experiments with a panicked desperation that I had never known. If an experiment failed, I barely had time to troubleshoot, as it made more sense to simply repeat the experiment and hope that it worked a second time and to do troubleshooting in my head when I had a spare moment. I missed meal after meal and lost countless hours of sleep as the deadline grew closer and closer…

And then — my laptop was fixed. And over Spring Break I finished the introduction — and through brute force and hard work, despite the tests that intervened and the constant stream of difficult problem sets — I finished. A LaTeX’d 45 page monstrosity[available at that location until around July 15th when I lose my Harvard FAS account], but nevertheless — it was my thesis. It seemed almost anti-climactic. A year of hard work, of little sleep, of stress — and it was just 33 pages of content, 2.5 pages of references, 5 pages of materials and methods, and 4 pages of beginning (contents, title page, etc). It was 16 figures and 4 tables. 57 references. Done the day before the thesis was due, as a result of an all-nighter which involved not so much writing as figure editing.

And there I was. Confused, in a way — because it was over. Disappointed, as I thought it would be longer — or more magnificent. A bit nervous, as I wasn’t sure if my data or the last bit of systems biology theorizing was valid, let alone good enough to earn me a commendation. Relaxed — because it was over.

Over the next couple of weeks, I had time to reflect on the experience. I had dinner with Ben at Harvest where, via a nice bottle of wine, we discussed the past one-and-a-half years and, as cheezy as it sounds, I was very happy when he relayed to me his, and Professor Maniatis’s, admiration for the dedication and the amount of the work I had put in. And, though I might not have won a Hoopes Prize for my thesis (as JG did), and even had I received a low mark on my thesis, that one sentence more than made it worth it.

In the end, I did receive an A on my thesis. But, that has nothing to do with how rewarding the experience was. It was rewarding, because it was my project — my sweat and my toil got it done. My initiative and my creativity and my time put it together. And, in the end, the ones that are best in a position to judge and whose opinion matters the most to me deemed it a fine effort. That’s why it was rewarding. Was it worth it? In retrospect, no. I almost certainly would have continued research as I love science. And, while this was certainly one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever been a part of, I’m not certain that it was worth all the time and sleep I sacrificed. Takehome message: if you’re thinking about doing it, only do it if you really really really want to and have a very good reason to. If you do choose to do it, then give it your all — as it will be one of the most rewarding experiences ever.

Pharma

Eight Years
Date: (Summer 2003 – Now)

Through high school, I was positive that I would become a Computer Science/Engineering major. While biology seemed too soft, too fluid, too intractable to study, Computer science, on the other hand, seemed to be concrete, precise. It was interesting — trying to figure out how to think like a computer, how to come up with better ways to think about problems. It also helped that, as I grew up in the Silicon Valley, it seemed that everybody and their mom had made a dot com fortune off of nothing but a desktop computer and passionate dreams. It could happen, right?

But, in 2001, when the tech bubble burst and when people began complaining (unfounded-ly) about outsourcing, I began reconsidering. My parents, especially, were concerned about my future career prospects and urged me to consider something else. A bit concerned myself and a little interested in the biological research that my friends A. Phan and J. Sanghvi had performed at the Young Scholar’s Program at UC Davis, I decided to try AP Biology. Much to my shock, I found that my previous conceptions of the field were not only off-base, but they were also reasons that the subject was so interesting to me (I understand that sentence is somewhat self-contradictory and paradoxical but its the best way I can describe it). But additionally, what I formerly believed was the commercial irrelevance of biology was replaced by an increasing awareness of the success of the various biotech and pharmaceutical companies and of the difference that these companies could make in the lives of patients and doctors.

With that enthusiasm, I signed up for the Ohlone College Summer Biotechnology Certificate program which culminated in an internship with a local biotech company at the end of the summer along with A. Hu, N. Thangaraj, S. Zhang, A. Phan, V. Ngyuen, and J. Yu. At the end, all of us were placed with Abgenix (which was recently acquired by Amgen), a company in the business of making antibody therapeutics. I had a very fun summer even though in retrospect I realize that the work I did at Abgenix was not only somewhat monotonous (it was new to me then so it seemed cool) but had very little impact. This can be due to any number of reasons including my sense that I was doing something of value by participating in something which could be in my future, the fact that I was actually “putting science to work” (as corny as that sounds) — but I think a big part of why I loved it was that the environment in which I did the work was very collegial and friendly. A big portion of that impression came no doubt from the fact that we were mere high school graduate interns, but even factoring that in, the environment and the culture that I witnessed was very open and friendly.

Having experienced that environment, I became fairly certain that I would major in a biological science and pursue whatever track record I would require to become a scientist in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology arena. Following Freshman year, I had even been offered an internship at Tularik (who ironically was a firm that was also recently gobbled up by Amgen). Although I eventually turned down the position to do research at Stanford, the following year, I obtained a position as a research intern in the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics department at Roche Palo Alto, in an attempt to find out what life was like at a big pharmaceutical company (as opposed to a small biotech). To my surprise, I was greeted with the same collegial, relaxed, and friendly environment that I found at Abgenix.

With a bit more maturity, however, I began to look beneath the surface of what my job was and what I learned from it, and began to understand what people meant by “glass ceiling.” Smart individuals were limited by the degrees that they obtained and, in fact, there seemed to be some resentment, at times, when talented individuals were passed up for promotion due to a lack of academic credential. I also began to sense a strange divide. Yes, of course, there was always a divide between “biologists” and “chemists”, although my use of the quotations comes from the fact that these were artificial distinctions — there was no one who was doing chemistry sans biology or biology sans chemistry in a pharmaceutical firm they’re both intertwined. But the real divide was between the bean counters in marketing and HR and the sciences. Sure, they were friendly — but I never got the sense that the two worlds really mixed — there was no real communication or understanding between the two segments. And with careful reflection, I realized that these same divides were also there when I was at Abgenix.

This is not to say that I did not enjoy my work there. Nothing could be further from the truth. I developed a close relationship with my mentors. I learned a great deal about science (immunology and process sciences at Abgenix and pharmacokinetics and physical chemistry at Roche), about how the industry is structured (clinical trial schedule, the role of each of the departments, experimental/risky ventures in new technology, etc), about how rich (both financially and intellectually) corporate research is, about the challenges the industry faces, about new technologies, etc. In both summers, I met many very talented and very nice people. I was rewarded handsomely and given an amazing amount of freedom (you have no idea how awesome it was to have my own office/phoneline/computer/ordering account while at Roche). It was not a negative experience in any way; those observations are simply realities that every profession, to some degree, faces.

In the end, with these experiences beneath my belt, I decided that I would both continue expanding my involvement in business-related activities and pursue a PhD in a biological field with the hope of being able to break through the glass ceiling and the divide between the more science-oriented and more business-oriented sides of the biotech/pharmaceutical industry. Of course, plans change, and I have more recently leanedtowards management consulting as a job, at least for now, but those lessons are still with me, and my ambition to join a pharmaceutical/biotech venture has not been dampened. Those two summers, I not only had a great deal of fun meeting new people and doing new things, but I also learned a great deal about science, about labwork, and about people, but more importantly, about the industry and its practices, and about careers. And, while I know that corporate science firms are of course not “do-no-wrong” panaceas for society’s medical ills, I have had experience which has shown me that, despite the great challenges they face, they make valuable contributions to science and society.

Tentacle Rape and Mary Jane Watson: Comicbook "Respect" for Women

Marvel has recently been hit by a deluge of criticisms regarding two of its — well you’ll see:

Exhibit 1: the cover to Heroes for Hire #13

… so, Marvel is taking scantily clad women with 6 inch wastes and 90 inch chests in costumes that can’t possibly work except with enormous amounts of superglue and subjecting them to tentacle rape. As one can imagine, the comic blogosphere is not very happy. This of course, inspired one enterprising individual to take the original Heroes for Hire before this incarnation (Luke “I am Powerman” Cage and Danny “Iron Fist is an awesome name” Rand) and subject them to similar treatment:

Mmmm… titillating

Exhibit 2: Sideshow’s new Mary Jane figure designed by renowned artist Adam Hughes

Ahh yes, Mary Jane Watson — in all of her impossible bodied, sexually posed, big boobed, LAUNDRY-DOING goodness. As before, the comic blogosphere is not happy. And it’s not just the comic blogosphere, as the New York Post, MSNBC, and Fox News have also commented negatively. Creator Adam Hughes attempts to defend the work by stating that it wasn’t his intention to make this a piece about the proper role of a woman (as a sexy laundry washer) and was supposed to be a playful piece about Mary Jane discovering Peter’s identity…

Right. So, why not create something with an equally sexy Peter Parker doing his own damn laundry — oh wait, like this one?

Gee, why didn’t they make this into a toy?

In all fairness, while each piece may have its own legitimate merits as to why they’re not misogynistic constructions (although the Heroes for Hire cover has, in my humble opinion, absolutely no excuse or redeeming qualities whatsoever), they do seem to underly a very disturbing trend of employing the sexual and physical demeaning of women to sell comics to a male-dominated customer base who seem to not only turn a blind eye to it but seem to encourage it. Comic writer Gail Simone crafted a website Women in Refrigerators which details some of the worse aspects of this trend (the name comes from the fact that Green Lantern Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend was cut up and put in his refrigerator in one of his earliest adventures as a means of … character development), showing just how prevalent and far-reaching this goes. This is not to say that any particular comic book company or author or artist is particularly at fault — many of the stories detailed in Women in Refrigerators were, in my humble opinion, good stories — and taken one at a time there is no problem with the occasional “pinup girl” or use of the “damsel in distress” motif — but the far-reaching trend suggests that this is, above all, a trend, not an imaginary excusable problem, and it’s a trend which I think needs to be whittled down if the comic industry is to grow beyond its current diminutive out-of-mainstream mode and if society as a whole is to progress beyond traditional conceptions of femininity as merely subservient and sexual.

Risk

Eight Years
Date: (May 2007)

What do Harvard kids do for fun? Play meaningless trivia drinking games? Watch marathon sessions of extremely nerdy television shows? Discuss the finer points of random philosophers? Yes, yes, and yes (all personal experience).

But, what better way to spend the month leading up to finals in a school full of nerdy people, than to play a massive online multiplayer game of the classic world-conquest board game, Risk?

The game was put on by the (Harvard) College Events Board using a platform by Gabe Smedresman. While in traditional Risk, players face other players for control of the world, this game of Risk pit Houses against Houses in a bid for control of all of Harvard, with students joining a particular House team and being allocated units. Each player could move these units according to standard Risk rules (they can move to adjoining territories, they can attack neighboring territories, etc.) but there were a few twists (such as territories were allowed to be unoccupied, the game was turn-based to the point were units could only be issued one order — one could conquer territory after territory with the same batch of soldiers as in the board game, combat is issued by randomly pairing attacking and defending soldiers, increase in unit count was given to each student equally and contingent on territorial conquest and control, etc.). Each House thus had a message board which allowed a House war council to issue commands to the students.

What started as a very nerdy game quickly became something which sweeped the Houses, as more and more students in each House participated. Soon, allegations of cheating (there were apparently hacks which allowed some houses to vastly increase their unit count) and espionage (students looking at other War Council orders).

The precise war history is recorded in very precise detail. Early on Lowell, through superior coordination and luck, steamrolled its neighbors and quickly gained control of a vast empire in the South, seizing two continents in short time. It aligned itself with Mather who also quickly seized control of a continent — leaving the two most powerful armies allied to one another and with a territorially contiguous empire. In the north, Pforzheimer House and Quincy House established an alliance to cyclically control a continent. Towards the middle of the board, however, the unluckier houses, including, sadly, mine of Leverett faced an endless battle for survival. Much like the middle of a chessboard where the fighting is fiercest, over the next couple of turns, Leverett saw its ancestral territory (Leverett House proper) become conquered by enemy forces, as Leverett units retreated.

This is around the time when I entered the game — and to my dismay, for the next almost 10 turns, we did nothing but retreat and consolidate. It was a big blow to our morale, being forced to retreat constantly in the face of superior military force as we fled battle after battle. All the while, the battle was being split into three zones — a Mather/Lowell alliance dominated in the South, eventually crushing the armies of Eliot, Adams, and Dunster. In the North, the Pforzheimer/Quincy alliance expanded form their sole continent into the regions dominated by Kirkland and Cabot. And in the middle, little Leverett constantly ran, surrounded by hostile forces and with insufficient political and military capital to execute any offensive strategy.

Over time, however, it became clearer what the War Council was doing — essentially the only (and quite possibly the best) strategy: it was impossible to destroy us if all of our forces were concentrated over a small area. While the vast “evil empire” of Lowell was difficult to defend due to its accessibility on multiple levels, our small area made it very easy to defend, and also very difficult to attack in mass force through coordination. There were certainly moments when the general populace of Leverett demanded a more aggressive strategy, the war council held firm and while our neighbors fel, Leverett survived and even re-established its own military presence in the dangerous middle of the map — the so-called “Gold Coast.”

However, time was not on our side. Lowell’s evil empire sought our destruction once again and with a massive army, besieged the center of our forces. And with a single blow, they massacred the vast majority of our armies. The consolation, however, was that our line held against their massive assault — and we retreated so that we could live to fight another day. Yet, our trials were not over. During our retreat, we were again assaulted by the forces of Kirkland, once a if not friendly, then neutral “we stand against Lowell” neighbor, in a vicious backstab as we retreated — again decimating our lines.

Yet, in our darkest hour, we still prevailed. Beaten, but not yet broken, we forged a new alliance — with Quincy and Pforzheimer who had witnessed Leverett survive two frontal assaults, one by the supposedly invincible and unbeatable Lowell. With this new alliance in place, we quickly rebuilt our forces and, through coordination, our three forces launched a new offensive. Within a few turns, Kirkland’s treacherous forces retreated into the protection of Lowell’s territorial domain. Mather’s forces were beaten down by Pforzheimer’s. Quincy pushed against Lowell. And within several more turns, the Quincy armies decimated Lowell’s remaining armies, and our armies entered their territories.

On the 45th turn, the alliance of Leverett, Quincy, and Pforzheimer declared victory.

And this is why I failed my stochastic processes final!

Videos

Eight Years
Date: (2003)

My roommate Eric made an observation back in Sophomore year that really stuck with me:
“What is with Asians and making videos?”

I simply shrugged off the comment — I might have offhand made some stupid remark about “Koreans and Kimchee”, I don’t know . . . the details are lost to history. But, the comment did stay with me as it did describe a good chunk of high school and my first year in college (and to a lesser extent, subsequent years as well, although I didn’t play nearly so much of an active role in their creation). [Did I mention that my high school was overwhelmingly Asian as covered by this CNN piece?]

I don’t know when it started precisely, but I do remember the first time I was really into videomaking was in Junior Year AP US History — when our “brilliant” teacher Mr. Ha designed an exercise in videomaking to illustrate some major concept in US History. My immature self, of course, recommended first that we do the Trail of Tears but instead of with Native American “Indians”, with Indians (as in from the Subcontinent in Asia) — that suggestion, I am grateful to say, was shot down immediately, and we (A. Eilbacher, A. Lee, A. Hsu, and myself) did a very inspired (but ultimately lame) explanation of the Baby Boom — ahh, I can still remember filming that great masterpiece…

Of course, the two groups that outdid us completely, and, at least for me, inspired a great deal more interest in video-shooting, were the videos that A. Phan, D. Blincoe, et al and R. Chang, W. Koai, A. Garvin, S. Wu, et al made. The former made a piece called “Foresto Gumpo” (I think) which dealt with immigrants … or I could be wrong here — as you have probably guessed, the videos were only tangentially related to the topic being covered — but there was a reasonable degree of bloodshed and offhand humor.

The latter made a video “Prohibition Must Die” which cast A. Garvin in the role of Al Capone (who like all evil villains has a furry cat to pet) and S. Wu as the Elliot Ness-style character who struggles to bring him down. Directed by W. Koai, it featured guns, guns, and more guns, ketchup blood, the most ridiculous but deadpanned Matrix “I’m Neo and I can dodge bullets” moves, and, if memory serves me correctly, an incredibly well placed Big 2 joke.

The following year was the Mock Convention (a model political convention whereby our Senior class attempts to represent the far-right, right, left, and far-left elements of a party) — which I’m certain I’ll post about at some point — which meant more videos — but this time about our candidates and their “issues” which just happened to include R. Chang (the conservative) and A. Garvin (the far left). Those involved with former videos were also involved in the other campaigns (far right and left) making a gun-filled, martial-arts enhanced, emotion-wracked, over-played classical music/action theme song video-fest, including a campaign shot where Garvin rejects my man-love for him in order to hug a tree (those darn hippies) and my personal favorite, the story of baby Garvin whereby I, one of the evil evil right-wing gods, attempts to corrupt his innocence and purity (including my favorite shot of me employing my awesome lightning powers on one of the agents of the left).

Later that year, came the Shakespeare projects. A. Lee and A. Agrawal (who had both been Garvin’s official video guys) and I had wanted to do something more than perform in front of the class. We came up with the idea to create a special effects-laden video allowing those of us who feared acting on stage to rest assured that it was all going to be edited, and allowing A. Lee, A. Agrawal, and myself to attempt to show off what we could do. Wanting to choose something which would enable us to more plausibly not be true to Shakespearan costume and to allow us to “creatively interpret” scenes which might have involved (or might not have) fighting, we chose Hamlet.

Assembling our motley crew of K. Teng, A. Phan, B. Hsu, M. Chan, T. Wu, and F. Chen and employing a legion of extras (J. Do, D. Yeh, B. Chen, A. Jiang, C. Ngyuen, A. Hong, and much much more), A. Lee and I (essentially the executive producers) took the script, chopped it down to size, and made a shooting schedule which we, for the most part, actually stuck to — making the project run a lot more smoothly than I had thought possible. We filmed in people’s homes, their backyards, a church (there is a scene where choir singers leak on — unintentional, but it kinda worked), an abandoned school (yes, seriously), and even a rented pool house to stage our final fight scene.

A. Agrawal was our special effects guy coming up with a myriad of ways to deploy bullet-trails (we modeled a glass tube in the shape of a bullet trail and overlaid that with the film), a ghost (yes, A. Agrawal was ACTUALLY translucent) by creating an “Orange-screen” from bright orange poster, and, my personal favorite effect, lightning.

This, mind you, happened over the span of weeks, taking up almost all of my free time — making me question whether or not it was worth it. This was especially true in the days before the video was due, when I essentially pullled my first all-nighter (and to date, one of four) to complete editing.

And, I have to say it was worth it. I missed out on doing some fun things, yes, but in the process of doing this, I did something that I am, to this day, still very proud of, still think of with very fond memories (I still have the DVD). I became much better friends with A. Lee and A. Agrawal through this. I got to know T. Wu, and, at least on a superficial level, the construction of shots, editing, special effects, and a little fight choreography. Is it the best piece of work I’ve done? No. It’s definitely very shoddy — but as any of my friends whom I’ve shown this to will attest to, its something I’m very proud of and, although its impractical, I kind of want to shoot another…

Opera

Eight Years
Date: (spring 2005)

At Harvard, we have a set of General Education requirements which have been pigeonholed into specific components of “the Core”, 7 subjects outside of our field which we Harvard students, as we are getting a “broad liberal arts education,” were supposed to experience.

In January of 2005 (second semester sophomore), I was considering the answer to that semester-ly question: “So Ben, what core do you think you’ll take?”

I had decided at the beginning of the school year in the Fall of 2004 that I would just get the Literature & Arts requirements out of the way — especially as I was not a big arts person. Yes, I loved listening to music and browsing art galleries, but I never really understood it in the sense that a music theory/musicology (whatever the hell you call yourself) does or an art history/artist type does. To me, art was just something that you took in — studying it seemed, at least to me, contrary to the purpose of it — the pure, raw enjoyment that it’s supposed to just elicit.

Of course, that was probably just my philosophical rationalization for why I didn’t take art classes — the real reason was because I wasn’t any good at it. I can talk endlessly about economics and comic book stories, but ask me to talk about music or art — and I can’t. I can say that a painting “looks nice.” But I can’t talk about its composition in any sensible way. I can’t remember the names of anything — is it Picasso? Or Pointillism? I don’t know. Is it Brahms? Or Bach? Oh wow — they’re two different people? Is this an oboe, or a piano? Uhh… I don’t know?

But, surprisingly, the previous semester (sophomore fall), I had taken a Literature & Arts C course on the concept of the Hero in Greek Mythology — something I had actually done well in and enjoyed. Fresh from that victory, I was willing to take a chance on the Lit&Arts B straight Music/Art requirement.

But what to take? I scanned the course listing and the syllabi for the classes that were available. No — I don’t care about the art of people conquered by the Mongols. Yes, I suppose I could learn about “the American city” but that seems a little too crazy/lefty/out-of-the-box/neo-modernist-whatever for me. “Frank Lloyd Wright”? Interesting — but, having written a biography on him a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away (7th grade I think) I know that I can’t stand writing about buildings. Uhh… Modernism… no. Bach? Who’s that?

And then . . . Opera?

It was a new class. No prior ratings, but the first lecture was nice and simple-seeming. The lecturer, Professor Anne Shreffler, seemed kind and seemed to emphasize that the class had no prerequisites. I had a couple friends in the class — making it more fun and likely that I’d attend lecture and making it more easy to find help if I needed it.

And besides. I rocked last semester’s “Literature” class — something I was positive I would fail no matter what. And opera is one of those upper-class things that I’m supposed to pick up while at an Ivy, right? So — I’ll take a nice intro class on opera and then *bam!* entertaining cocktail party stories. [You think I'm kidding with my thought process here. Believe me, I'm not.] Besides, how hard could this opera class be?

Sure enough, it started out nice and slow and easy, and it was certainly interesting hearing about the history of opera, its basic structure. “Yeah, I can handle this,” I told myself. “I can identify instruments… kinda. I can sorta understand rhythm . . . barely. Yeah I… a what paper? On what? Composition? What?”

And before I knew it, I was spending every free waking moment listening to opera. Handel’s Rinaldo. Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Rossini’s Barber of Seville. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And — it wasn’t that bad. As I said above, I actually do like a lot of music. So, even if I didn’t understand what was going on — hey, at least I was learning some of the more famous operas, and I was learning something interesting.

And then — I learned what atonal (or pantonal) music meant. I listened in agony to Berg’s Wozzeck — “Jahwoll… Herr Hauptmannnnnnn” — and with the papers with topics I didn’t understand piling on, any illusion that “this class is okay” vanished.

So, end of the story, what did I get from this? An abysmal paper, crap final, and enough experiences with atonal music for several lifetimes — that and one of the worse grades on my record. Oh, and a re-affirmed fear of the study of music.

But– if I were to be perfectly honest, I would have to admit that I did gain an experience into the actual study of music — however superficial — that will last with me. I can now talk to F. Chen about what she sings without being completely lost. And when P. Kehayova (new postdoc in the Maniatis Lab) invites me to an “opera night” at her house or plays the new Don Giovanni recording that she is absolutely raving about — I can politely decline but still discuss what she loves to listen to and sing without sounding like a total fool. Yes, you lose some — but you win some.

Government

Eight Years
Date: (fall 2000 – now)

It seems odd that a part of my description of how blessed I’ve been these past eight years would include The Bush Administration, but it occurred to me the other day that for as long as I’ve been reasonably aware and cognizant of politics, George W. Bush has been President of the United States of America. Sure, one could argue that in elementary school I had a slight grasp of the Clinton impeachment scandal when I talked about how I felt that we really shouldn’t evaluate a President’s worth by his own personal conduct (or misconduct as the case may be), but I wasn’t in any real sense of the word aware of what was going on in the world and why until high school.

I recall the general mood on campus (and in the media) following the Gore/Bush election — the scandal, the debates, the partisanship. No matter who won, it seemed that there would be enormous contention over the winner, not only because the winner would’ve won by only the slightest of margins, but also because the nature by which the winner won (via a Supreme Court decision) and the scandal leading up to it would wear down the winner’s credibility.

It was in this air of skepticism and pessimism about American democracy that my awareness in politics began. Everytime the Bush administration made a mistake, it seemed natural to blame it on the shady election, on the poor (at least in my humble opinion) process by which the “winner-take-all” electoral college system makes decisions, and on Bush’s complete lack of eloquence and grace. In retrospect, I see that these criticisms were not particularly fair or useful, but that was the environment in which my awareness of politics came from — it became natural and easy for me to simply deem the government incompetent, without really thinking about it.

And then came the recession from the tech bubble bursting, the attacks of September 11th, the controversy over No Child Left Behind, the nonsensical nature of the Bush administration policy on embryonic stem cell lines, the Gray Davis California gubernatorial recall, the Enron scandal, Halliburton no-bid contracts — I was bombarded by mostly leftist criticisms of the government and the Bush administration as my education about politics.

In high school, I was also involved in debate, and through research and attending tournaments I became exposed to more political theory and more skeptics (Noam Chomsky et al.). Regardless of whether or not they made sense, they left a strong impression in me about the fallibility of government and of the complete amorality of politicians and the political process.

This skeptical pessimism was only reinforced when I began to talk to J. Lonsdale (interestingly, this family consists of three sons, each of whom have first names that start with “J”) and when I actually studied Government for the AP US Government test and became involved with probably one of my favorite high school teachers, Government & Economics teacher Mr. Rich Larsen. Lonsdale is a libertarian — and in my opinion, a very extreme one. Regardless, he introduced me to a world of more conservative economic views which I had never before considered or even thought about. I found that a lot (although not all) of what he said made sense to me. This was reinforced by my study of US Government and US History — a process which showed me that as screwy as the Bush administration was, this was something which seemed endemic to the US democratic system — criticisms can just as easily be leveled against the more liberal politicians just as well as the conservative ones. It was almost as if which party they belonged to and which side of the aisle they were on didn’t matter — they all acted the same.

I’ll admit I sound a little like some sort of anarchist or someone anti-democracy, but I’m not. As Churchill once pointed out, “Democracy is the worst form of government; except for all the others” — but, with the Bush Administration and my exposure to libertarianism and the study of US History/Government, I have to say — what other sane option is there than to be somewhat disgusted by and skeptical of the US political system?

So how is this a description of the past eight years being a good thing? At the surface level its a depressing story of a student who’s watched his optimism and innocence dashed to pieces by reality — but I have learned many valuable things. To some degree I’ve learned how the world works. I’ve learned what makes the policies and the movements of our society tick. I’ve learned to not expect a free lunch, not to expect someone to look out for anyone’s interests but their own — and depressing as that may seem, these are important lessons. And, at the core of it all, I’ve also learned that motivating change for the better probably will not come from politics, but will probably stem from understanding it.

Leverett Dining Hall

Eight Years
Date: (fall 2004 – now)

I’ve been to almost all the dining halls at Harvard, and I have to say that while the architecture/lighting for some of the houses may be better (ie I love Mather’s setup), while the dishes or view may be better in some, and while the food is better in some (I think that the Eliot/Kirkland kitchen is as good as dining hall cooking can get), I have yet to experience a dining hall staff as nice and as helpful as the staff in my own house, Leverett.

Almost every time that I go to the dining hall, I see our dining hall manager Arthur Robbins briskly walking about, making sure that everything is running smoothly, helping to handle spills and shortages as best and as quickly as he can. Given that he has to manage a fairly large staff and feed several hundred angry, busy, and demanding students, its safe to say that he has a very difficult job to do. Yet, never once have I seen him angry or impatient, neither with the students nor with his staff. He is almost always talking to some student or another, asking them how they’re doing, what they would like to eat, how they are enjoying the food, if there’s something else he can bring out or do to make their meal a little more enjoyable. And, there’s something almost intangible about it — but the way he goes about doing it is, unless he’s an amazing actor — sincere. He is sincerely nice, not merely saying platitudes because that’s what one is supposed to say, he seems genuinely happy that you are there, and genuinely interested in how to help you.

When I visit other dining halls most of the time, the staff is disengaged. They’re not doing anything wrong, they don’t seem too particular about whether or not you’re enjoying yourself. They don’t seem too particular about whether or not they can do anything to help you. And, while they are courteous and helpful if you approach them, there’s a lack of the congeniality that I’ve come to experience from Leverett (and in some particularly bad cases, they seem annoyed or impatient when you make a request and they even seem to pick fights with one another).

Robbins isn’t the only friendly face. His dining hall staff, while not up to Mr. Robbins’ degree of hospitality, are also very nice. They greet us warmly at the checker line, they are nice, and they do go out of their way to make sure that we get everything that we need.

And, I’m not alone in this. There is a chance at every dining hall to provide feedback, and although I haven’t read the feedback from other houses, I know that in our house someone replies to all the feedback cards promptly and considers the suggestions seriously. And from the cards that I’ve seen, it seems like those of us in Leverett House are very happy with the staff and what they do for us [not to mention the Facebook group "Arthur Robbins Brightens My Day"].

I can’t honestly say that I have enjoyed the food that the dining hall has provided me these past four years. To be perfectly blunt, there is a reason that I eat out so often. But, with that said, I will say that I am very grateful for the efforts of our dining hall staff — they provided us with meals, of which I was probably not sufficiently grateful for or appreciative of, and they did so well and with a friendly face.

Wedding in Style!

I will make an Eight Years post later, but this was too cool of an article to pass up posting on.

How do you get married if you’re one of the world’s richest tech nerds? Answer: you avoid the paparazzi and fly somewhere nice and tropical:

Google co-founder Sergey Brin and long-time sweetheart Anne Wojcicki, a biotech entrepreneur, exchanged vows recently in the Bahamas, guests confirmed to the Mercury News, in a ceremony so hush-hush that word didn’t leak out for more than a week.

Even the date remains secret: All sources would say was that it occurred sometime between May 4 and May 6.

The secrecy surrounding the ceremony was extensive. Wedding guests who boarded the jetliner owned by Brin and Google co-founder Larry Page on May 4 were not told the destination, for instance.

Awesome. And how did these two star-crossed (and unbelievably rich) lovers meet? He was trying to sublet an apartment from her older sister (who was then a friend of his girlfriend!)!

Silicon Valley cognescenti, however, have known about the Wojcicki-Brin relationship for some time. It is a kind of only-in-Silicon Valley romance – a tale of two brainy entrepreneurial spirits that involves a garage.

Said garage was part of a rented Menlo Park house that Susan Wojcicki, then a recent UCLA business school grad, sublet to Brin and business partner Larry Page in 1998, after they had left a Stanford graduate program to launch Google. They knew Susan through Brin’s girlfriend at the time, and later, Susan introduced Brin to her sister Anne.

The arrangement worked out well. Susan is now a Google vice president of product management. (And Brin’s ex-girlfriend is still said to be a friend.)

And, I thought I might as well add that Benjamin tenOever, the postdoctoral fellow that I have worked with for the past two years, is getting married tomorrow (May 18, 2007) in Harvard’s Fogg Museum to his lovely bride Loveena (who has a last name that is so incredibly long and hard for me to pronounce that I won’t even try to butcher her last name). I want to wish the two of them a very happy wedding, a very wonderful honeymoon (in the fabulous land of prostitutes and transsexuals, Thailand), and a very delightful time together [I posted on the cute story of his engagement back in June].

Binoculars

Eight Years
Date: (fall 2000 – summer 2001)

Ms. Graves. Second Period. Honors Integrated something (whatever came before pre-calculus). Sophomore year in high school. While most people can only remember sleeping or making snide remarks about Graves, I remember my awesome math group which included A. Phan, myself, A. Cheung, and some other Asian who’s name slips my mind at the moment.

There are two distinct eye-problem memories from that period of time that made that class, despite how stupid the Integrated program was and how menial the class was for me, memorable. The first was that it was in that class that I got the set of glasses that would serve me into my senior year in college. They were a set of black, thin-frame Calvin Klein glasses which, at this point in time are beat up and dirty like crazy and have finally been retired as my casual glasses. Up until receiving them, though, I had been using these tacky old glasses which had lost one of their screws due to mis-storage. To remedy that problem, I took staples and molded them into a screw-like contraption. Whether or not this was good for my eyes, I don’t know, but it was essentially holding my glasses together with chickenwire.

On that great and wonderful day that I received my new (in my opinion nice-looking) glasses, I wore them with pride knowing that I would not have to resort to tape and staples to hold together my means of looking at the board.

A. Phan, of course, noticed the change and of course poked fun at the fact that I had been using staples and tape to hold together my glasses. To which I replied in my best sing-song voice:

“I can see clearly now… the rain is gone…”

This became a running joke for us as we soon sang that line very often. One day, I became fed up with the fact that I only knew the first two lines: “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone | I can see all obstacles in my way” and I got A. Phan to go home and print us up a copy of the lyrics. I’ll admit that time has dimmed my memory such that I don’t remember the lyrics anymore, but I do remember singing the song on car rides to debate tournaments.

The other big eye trouble-related memory from that class was that A. Cheung, who was a totally crazy guy, also apparently had some contacts/glasses-related problems during that year. In order to see the board, instead of using old glasses or asking to sit closer to the board, brought BINOCULARS to class! Every now and then, A. Phan and I would see him attempt to surreptitiously take out these massive binoculars and set his sights on the board.