A Template

Even before my 4th college year started, I felt as if I was already finished with Berkeley. Sadly, I didn't anticipate the same excitement that I'd experienced during grade 12. Rather, the unsavory prospect of truly growing up and working didn't make me very happy.

A lot of kids are going to continue on to graduate studies, but for me, I neither qualify for the program I want, nor do i have the stamina to power through another 2+ years. But why did I even care about pursuing a master's or Ph.D. anyways? Probably for the supposed pay increase or the ability to look cool when introducing my qualifications. As a result, I sometimes find that I betray my own desires to follow the template that the community lays out for me to see. I have so much interest in learning, but now, I feel like the UC is not the right environment for me. The pressure, competition, and environment threaten me to work hard, rather than inspire me. Come May, and I'll have my own diploma boasting my four years of hard work. But why do I still feel a bit discouraged?

But why does it feel like my life is over? I'm resentfully acknowledging the fact that the next 30 years of my life (if I live that long) is going to accelerate to really high speeds, and not in a good way. Instead, it's the curse that so many adults warn you about, that your time after college is just going to fly by...as if it hadn't flown by already. I remember sitting in my 12th grade government class soon after my college acceptance letters had come in the mail. I closed my eyes tight and pretended that I was in my final year of college, trying really hard to imagine the feelings of pride and nostalgia that I'd be feeling at that point. Then, I opened my eyes, relieved that I had somehow traveled back to the high school for a second chance to have fun.

Why is it that time flies for so many people? I think I've known all along. When i start my first generic job, I'm not gonna have many opportunity to tell my boss I'm gonna go to Singapore for a 6 months, nor am I going to be able to tell him that I want to ride a motorcycle across the states, just cause it's my dream... or can I? I think that time flies by in an adult's working world because we don't have cycles anymore. Falling in the repetitive routine of the middle class working world blurs the years together with no end in sight. Right before I ended my summer job, an full-time engineer told me, "Wow, you're leaving huh? I can't even imagine what it'd be like to have a 'last day of work.'" Hearing that comment didn't make me happy. Throughout the past 20 years, there have been blatant checkpoints to remind us that every year has been an accomplishment: numerous graduations, new classes, new schools, new sports, summer vacations, first kisses, and finally, the right to buy alcohol. I didn't want to subject myself to decades of continuous redundancy only to ask myself at the end where all those years went.

So what has made me happy in Berkeley? Definitely not the bulk of my coursework. Theta Tau, since the beginning, has helped me grow. Even when we started out as a questionably useless organization, we developed into a legitimate presence, and I'm glad to have been intimately involved in that. Danceworx, surprisingly, was a rewarding, new experience and I'm amazed I'm actually still doing it for a 4th semester (not that I've improved that much at all). ME104 gave me the opportunity to have an actual relationship with an excellent professor, even though that relationship is rather underdeveloped. You'd think thousands of students in your midst everyday would give you tons of friends, but most of the people I've become acquainted with simply remain acquaintances. The drinking nights with the close friends are what really made me happy. Getting bad grades made me feel disappointed only because I felt average compared to a lot of the other ME dorks, but I've learned to be satisfied with my best performance.

Of course, my responsibilities still require that I wisely utilize my skills to earn money, but I'd rather do it in an unconventional way, one that gives me a friendly "memo" every year or so to remind me to stay away from the dangers of a cyclic lifestyle. There so much I still want to learn and I don't think Berkeley can provide that for me any longer.

I think I still need to create my own bucket list and follow my own path to distinguish society's expectations for me with my personal goals. So, is my life over? Definitely. But now's my chance to close my eyes, think ahead, and start a new one.

TL Rave

I seriously cannot stop watching this.

DIY Detergent??

Detailed Guide

Video

Third Time's the Charm

Bicycle accident #1: August 2008
Location: Shattuck Ave.
Cause: excessive shifting
Result: severely warped rims
Solution: Ian helped me true them back

Bicycle accident #2: October 2009
Location: Outside Barrows
Cause: Traction loss, an inattentive pedestrian, and a day's worth of fury
Result: Messed up arm
Solution: Caro disinfected me; got mad at the world

Bicycle accident #3: April 16, 2010
Location: Memorial Glade
Cause: Pedal Strike
Result: Hurt ma knee and ma shoulder
Solution: Get some smaller freaking pedals!!!

Gutters

Miss Tinaballs

Teehee

Annamarie Cabarloc

Sunny Friday: I Love Red Stripe

What a good day, for the most part.

Firstly, a funny ass Chinese debate about Simplified/Traditional characters at 10am.

Frantically finishing ME108 HW in class at 11am.

Riding my bike around at 12pm and 3 pm and seeing so many people on sproul. For those of you who purposely avoid sproul, you should reconsider it because that's the place to socialize. Even if you're turned off by flyering, give the flyers a chance and you'll be surprised at what shows and cool clubs are out there. There are also almost always free shows around noon from the a capella groups. In addition, I bumped into Justin and we saw so maybe 15 people within 20 minutes. I felt nice and sociable.

Skipped ME109 because it was useless and at this point, a failing grade is imminent.

Hung out with Mups for a bit instead and delivered her damn sleeping bag and red blanket. I hope she had fun at FICB retreat.

Then, at 4:30, I finally got to hang out with my partners, the THREE TRES, at Betsy's house at Cloyne. It was the most carefree and fun hour of drinking with the two of them that I've had in a while. I love my Red Stripe; it's ma favorite.

Then, I biked to Downtown Berkeley Bart to meet up with Chris Wong to try out Berkeley Critical mass. I didn't realize until I got there how much beer I had, and yet I was able to bike for a good hour up into way north north berkeley. I almost fell a few times, but I'm surprised I didn't crash! dunno how that was possible. sadly, it wasn't that large of a group, but it was a fun chance to ride maybe 7 miles. Good thing I had ma helmet on.

Then I separated from the mob and took a break at the end of the tunnel on a bench where met this soccer girl named anna waiting for the bus. We chatted a bit and I found out she was from Sweden. Then, when we separated i THOUGHT i was biking in the right direction until i saw a sign that said "welcome to albany." .... screw me. So after getting lost, i google mapsed my 2.5 miles and got back home at 8pm. So hungry that i microwaved some food with the tv on and didn't even realize that I had fallen asleep until Sam and Peony woke me up from their trip to the bars.

I had planned on going to Jericho or to see Sherlock Holmes, but that didn't happen, lol. I
showered and went over to beverly cleary to hang out with the rube goldberg building team. Betsy was there and Justin came and made a sombrero man sculpture. haha. Do well on your PCN dance, Justin.

Then i went to bed with jonjon. good day. hopefully, today, i can practice the dance with the other DWX guys. it's crunch time.

ΘΤ Delta

Here's a post that I never published from a while ago

I'm feeling pretty shitty for not having gone to a lot of fraternity events

Theta Tau Events I've missed out on:

Poker Night
Marina Cleanup
First Ficomm meeting
Sports Day with SWE
Day in SF
Pledge vs. Active Basketball Game
Baseball fundraiser
Telephone fundraiser
Broomball
Party with PSP afterwards
WESTERN REGIONALS T_T

in order to make myself feel better, I'm gonna have to list the events that i didn't miss

Events I didn't miss:
Snowboarding trip. so fun.
Infonight
Professional Night
Blake's Rush Social
Bid Night/Afterparty
LJ's birthday
Danica's Birthday
Tie Dye Party
Pre-spring break party
Discovery Expo
Meeting the Grand Regent
Burrito Project 1
Chris Alabastro's Kickoff
Graduate Student night
Feed, not Greed: Blake's Fundraiser
GQ Dinner at House of Curries
14 ways to save the world

Event's I'll half-attend
Constitutional meeting
RG night (T_T wtf i thought it was in the daytime)

but i will absolutely NOT miss:
Delta retreat... now freaking way at all

It hits me several times how proud I am of us, and the Deltas in particular, currently, for how much influence we've achieved. Reading the Pi Tau Sigma emails and the Engineering mail newsletters to see our events advertised reminds me of how all of our amazing members have helped us accomplished the goals that we were so stressfully striving for several semesters ago.

Dori - really mature and confident
Skippy - so real and with good musical tastes
Leo - omg, you're the opposite of lame. Hilarious and always down to do anything.
Jessica - really sweet and eager girl who's gonna learn a lot from going to university
Jennifer - just too cute. MechE ++++++
Riaz - GTR
Stacey - so loud, outgoing, and smiles so much her eyes are always crescent shaped. GQ GQ GQ
Andrew - SLUT (i don't even really know the true meaning behind that, but i'm sure it's wonderful)
Spencer - knows how to have a good conversation
Amy - extremely sociable and hospitable. love her
Brandon - bomb-ass websites, wtf.

Absentminded

Always oblivious and preoccupied. Maybe that's why I can't learn anymore. This sucks.

Taylor

Taylor Swift:
Just another country/pop artist I'm not afraid to admit I enjoy listening to.

Two Door Cinema Club's pretty cool too. They look pretty geeky.

Grudge

I guess 7 months of work and anticipation amounted to nothing.

Up yours, Nikolai. There's a reason why they tried to kill you off.

Pitch Moment & Load Transfer

Stage 2: Brake safely installed






Stage 2: Brake safely installed

Keyboards

I FREAKING HATE IT WHEN PARTICLES FALL IN BETWEEN THE BUTTONS ON MY KEYBOARD!!!1

BICYCLE BICYCLE

Omg so excite today. after so much talk and so many delays, the project that I started back in July is nearly complete!

For the first time, I took my newly assembled fixed gear bike out for a test ride. Instead of studying for ME108, I went to Missing Link for the day and finished putting stuff together. But even though I got a fixed gear now, I resent being called a hipster.

I still need to go to the machine shop an drill out that hole for my front brake.


I gotta find a damned 26.0 quill stem for my pursuit bars, which i'm dying to use. What I've learned: keep in mind material properties when trying to pull a crazy stunt like forcefully prying open the stem clamp or sanding it down. That shit causes plastic deformations and stress raisers and shit that will cause catastrophic failure. Good thing I got that backup black stem that has been untouched by my foolish attempts. I would have probably killed myself when my handlebars randomly explode while I'm riding.

Building your own bike, even such a simple one as this will likely cost you more than just buying one from craigslist, but at least I can say this one's my own.

and FUCK! I tried carrying both my panasonic and univega on my shoulders while carrying a bag and backpack and my fucking brand new wheel fell out of the dropouts! and with both my hands full, all i could do was stare at the tireless, beautiful rim hit the concrete several times before slowly slowing down like an Euler's disk. .. sigh.. I probably need to get a new rim or risk another form of catastrophic failure. But thank you, Vu, for helping me carry a bike during the last stretch.
That's why I'm using that mismatched front rim for the moment. I ended up taking my saddle, seatpost, tires, and pedals from Sonic anyways.

Scott, I hope you're as excited to see this as I was. Now we can compare "before and after" photos.

Thank you QQ for those toe cages and SOMA straps. I should probably post my final budget later. This cost more than I had predicted. geez

o and if someone steals this shit, then i'll hate your soul forever.

Univega viva sport
44t origin8 chainring
17t Surly cog
Surly lockring
Weinmann DP18
MKS steel cages
SOMA leather straps
170mm sugino GT
Shimano BR-6614 Dual Pivot Brake
Tektro bar-end lever

Family Love

I went home for the weekend and found my baby portrait in the garage. I hung it up on the empty wall of the new house hoping my family would be excited to see it up there. When I woke up in the morning, someone had taken it down. FML

Release My Thoughts

I have never been a fan of writing blogs, but recently, my life has become so busy and my mind is on so many things that I need an outlet. The urge was so strong that I'm already late to our Theta Tau constitution meeting to write this and I don't even expect people to read any of it.

I told myself early on that grad school is not for me. But over time, having gone through so many courses and making friends with grad students and GSIs has made me appreciate them. Aaron Kleinmann from Math 1B and Vincent from E28. Recently, Andrew Gray from ME131 has been awesome. He's so helpful with homework and is always happy in discussion. Plus he has a little lisp. Kinda cool. Then I talked to Lee Fok from ME109 about bikes. I can tell he's eager to get his grad student signature and get outta here. haha. I ended up going to the BSAC poster session with Liana to support Ryan on his research project and was able to talk to Adrienne too. We had a brief talk about how great it is for her to be ME118 GSI. lol. I met this 28-year old guy named Tyson Kim doing cardiovascular arterial research here and at UCSF. I feel like he's gonna cure heart attacks in the future. Furthermore, it turns out that one of the guys from Beauty and Geek was presenting a project there too, but we had to discuss him quietly cause wer weren't sure if he was ashamed of having been on the show. We got so many Berkeley celebrities. Frenklach on mythbusters, Smoot on 5th grader, William Hung on Idol, that one old professor on survivor. Damn. The GSIs are all so intelligent in their own focuses and it makes me admire their uniqueness and knowledge. I hope I'll be as respectable someday.

I then went to a last minute infosession to study in Osaka. This might be the opportunity I've been waiting for for so long. I'm gonna hop on that shit and hope I can end up in japan. Learn some japanese language shit and watch some anime. Maybe study along the way.

Rube Goldberg. Lana's been doing such a good job with her Professional Devlopment shit and this RG is gonna be big for us. I wish I had the time to contribute and I know it's OUR event, but I can't do it this semester. Sucks that i missed the meeting yesterday.

Good news is that Coleman and I met with Hedrick and we finally got a faculty advisor. Epsilon Chapter status is almost thereeee.

Thanks to Gloria for signing me in to Tutorial today. Thursdays are just too packed. Got ME108 labs and shit.

I haven't even had time for GQ. QQ just called me about the dinner she's been trying to plan but I can't even have meals anymore. Meals are for children. jk, i wish i could be there right now, even though you just told me I got kicked out of the family that I ...started... with John Kim. Rebellious kids.

Aw man i gotta go to Danceworx too. How did "I'm not joining DWX" turn into two dances. O well, it's a fun break from school.

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What was your SAT score?


Sincerely,
Tom

--
Tom Mao
Recruitment Director
O.Y. English
U.C. Berkeley
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1990

Sincerely,
Chris Luong
UC Berkeley, 2011

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Thank you for your interest in O.Y. English and the time you took in filling out the application. Unfortunately, we have an extremely competitive applicant pool this year, and we cannot accept you in our Summer in China Program.

Sincerely,
Tom

--
Tom Mao
Recruitment Director
O.Y. English
U.C. Berkeley
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Who knew those SATs would come back to bite you in the ass. Hilarious.