ucla bruinwalk - "[bleep] the war!"

bruinwalk is a happenin' part of campus. there's always tons of spammers (ppl who pass out fliers, promoting their organization )... if you think about it, they are actually similar to homeless people: they ask for your attention, try to persuade you for your help, and they won't take no for an answer.

iraqi war protest starting:


honoring a moment of silence, then mentioning some names of young fallen soldiers. (sorry for the bass):

"tha block is hot"

ok, lil wayne was horrible back then. anyway, i found it odd that there have recently been fires near both of my homes:

• southern cali
• norcross, georgia, within 2 miles from my house (the lumber yard caught on fire)
  

someone's obviously tryin' to burn me.

ucla != florida tech

i had my 1st ucla exam today. it was an undergrad midterm, and i haven't had a quiz or anything yet, so i had no idea what to expect. also, there has been almost no class interaction in the class so far, so i didn't know how good the students were either. well, we were allowed to make a 1 full page cheat sheet. i wrote small and comprehensively summarized the 300 pages we've covered, along w/ the 300 slides. it ended up doing me no good at all! the test required you to apply what you know to modify, critique, or come up with new ideas. it was 2 full hours and was all theory, requiring thinking outside-the-box. when i left the exam, it definitely seemed understandable why UCLA's cs program outranks harvard, columbia, yale, etc on the lil u.s. news report rankings. those lil undergrads are good. at FIT, i prolly would have gotten a high A. here, i just hope i passed. seriously.

on my way to the gym, i saw some break dancers monkey'ing around. so i recorded them at their worst, non-eventful moment. i thought the shaky-cam approach would make it appear more realistic. jk, sorry about the shaking.

okay, some actual dancing here:

2pac - changes

my cali license finally arrived in the mail. so, after 5 months of being in cali, i've slowly acquired a california bank account, driver's license, bills, residency, college enrollment, job, and car. yay, i am finally an official california resident.

man, i just realized how much i've changed since i was 16 (not just physically).

below is my license picture from 2000 when i was 16 (the 2005 exam date was not an exam; it was merely license renewal, and they keep the same picture). laugh it up:

ucla classes

okay, due to popular demand (aka brian), i will mention (1) my ucla classes and (2) the student body:

(1) i am taking 4 courses:

• CS246 (web information management):

we learn about the most novel and monumental ideas of the web by reading the academic papers that started everything. for example, we read some by the the creators of google the 1st week. each week we are assigned 3-4 papers to read and write reviews on them. we get to pick any cool project we want to do. past projects have produced papers that were later read in the course. it's like a recycling program.

• CS118 (fundamentals of networking):

the internet was invented at ucla back in ~1970. so, they are pretty good at networking. this is just a course i have to take to fulfill my breadth requirement for my master's.

• CS495 (teaching assistant seminar):

at florida tech, this course wasn't even a course; it was a 3-day-long session of what not to do in the classroom. here, it's amazingly thorough. we meet 2 hrs 2 times a week and really learn about all the minute subtleties that go into teaching well. we each have to do a simulating teaching lesson to the class, and they even video record current TA's and critique them...

• CS201 (computer science seminar):

we hear (2) 2 hour lectures a week from smart ppl. last week, we heard a great talk from douglas comer (he has been a prominent member of founding the internet and its direction for the last 40 yrs).

(2) the student body seems clearly divided:

• undergrads:

everyone is white or asian and is from cali. about 70% of all undergrads are really pretty white girls.

• grad students:

everyone is from taiwan or is named chris tanner.

i love the dmv so much

i need to get my cali driver's license ASAP (actually last week) so that i can claim to be a cali resident for tuition purposes next yr. last week, i went to the DMV, hoping to freestyle the writing test and luckily pass. i get there, wait in line, then am told that i need to bring my birth certificate (not listed on their website.) i drive back, wait in line, then am told that my birth certificate isn't real. i need my REAL one. i told them this is my REAL one. i spoke w/ manager. i explained that my past job w/ the government accepted this document as my REAL birth certificate--along w/ every school ive ever attended--possibly because it lists my birth info, has doctors' signatures, and has a golden sticker that reads 'birth certificate.' manager said i need a different one.

week later, my parents mail me a different one (hopefully the DMV will deem good enough). wait in line, they accept it. whew. i wish i had studied for the written test, but not really. a guy walks out, explaining to his friends that he missed 4 (you must get 33/36 for renewals) but they let him slide and gave it a license anyway. weird. that guy gets leniency but i don't. i take the test. as i wait in a huge line to get it graded, i see a med student in front of me as he's still in his gown. the grader only graded the 1st page, and said, 'man, u missed 9 out of 18 already! u didn't study at all did u!?' great. well, i luckily got a 34/36 and was excited, thinking maybe i won't have to pay the extra $15,000 non-residency fee next year. as i wait for my license, i was told:
lady: "thank you, please bring this with you when you come back"
chris: "come back?"
lady: "our computers just went down. we can't issue any licenses today. please come back some other day w/ these documents..."

as partying gifts, they gave me my forms to take home, along w/ my dmv test. so, if anyone wants culver city's DMV test #6b answers... jk. no cheating.

man, i love the dmv so so much.

trader joe's

my internship ended last week. below are uneventful pics from the 3-month long pool tournament. (my team lost to the winning team in the semi-finals. 28 teams total.)

(most of the teams)

today, i fell in love w/ trader joe's. it surely makes me feel like a californian everytime i walk into that strange, strange, hippie place. their prices are amazing. notably, the 'extra long spaghetti pasta' is longer than my legs and is 2 lbs worth

1st day of grad school - GO BRUINS!

preface:

• ucla has 28k ugrads, 11k grads (50% female)
• florida tech has 2k ugrads, 2k grads (25% who are technically female)

i took the free bus to school, just like in grade school. the girl who sat next to me went to mit for ugrad and coincidentally had heard of florida tech! turns out, 2 of the 4 of us FIT'ers here are in her program and she had met them. weird.

walking around campus was crazy. it was gigantic, and i've never seen as many model-looking ppl in my entire life. the sheer volume was crazy. just imagine: tons of college kids sprinkled all on nice green grass in front of old architectural buildings; a real football stadium; and tons of clubs and organizations doing shameless plugs within a condensed walkway.

i get to my first class--web information management--early, yet i barely got the last remaining seat. the course has a 25-person limit, and the old-school (literally) looking classroom had 30 seats. however, 50 people showed up. so, the 20 extra people just stood against the walls. having no idea what to expect, i start to glance around and realize i am pretty much the only white kid in the entire class. nearly everyone was from taiwan and had glasses. we each had to introduce ourselves and say what school we came from. almost everyone was from a world-renowned school (national taiwan university, india institute of technology) or a california school (berkeley, caltech, stanford, ucsb, us irvine). it was at this time that i realized i was at square one all over again.

we will be reading and reviewing ~4 of the most impacting, novel web-related academic papers per week, and our first week's worth includes one by the google creators. we will eventually create a project and write our own paper. the professor mentioned that once the course is over, many students spend some extra time and actually get their papers published. pretty impressive since the work started as just a class project. more impressive, he told us that some of the papers we will be reading are from former students in this exact class. wow. he casually mentioned that if we need access to a repository of saved web pages, he can give us access to one that ucla gathered. it includes 70 million web pages and is 600 gb. wow.

i had TA seminar (teaches you how to teach and you have to teach the class eventually.) it was very good. i later had cs 201 seminar which just welcomed us to the CS program and was followed w/ a reception. there was free wine, food, and desserts. very good. i met my adviser, who is now the vice chair of the entire cs department. during my introduction:
adviser: chris what?
chris: tanner. t-a-n-n-e-r
adviser: ah yea, you worked at google this summer, right?

wow. apparently his former phd student mentioned me once. he has a very good memory. we talked about my past research work and my current research interests. it was very good. i met many cool ppl, and i am definitely glad i chose ucla. i feel like a true bruin now.

ucla orientation with magnolia coincidences

on a serious note (sorry), starting ucla soon has caused me to recall the past. specifically, i remembered being the typical industrious, overachiever in grade school. i would aim to turn in all assignments first, and i enjoyed memorizing pointless trivia. i felt like an outlier and wondered why everyone else was so slack. in high school, this faded; i became somewhat apathetic towards obtaining great marks, and having fun w/ my friends took higher precedence. in college, i returned to my original roots and re-founded my fascination with learning. throughout this time, i've been fortunate enough to have some amazing internships that surrounded me w/ crazy, smart (and sometimes dynamic) ppl. yet, my undergrad college was still a repeat of the past in that i was surrounded w/ tons of slackers, and that the coursework wasn't renowned. well, after 18 yrs of starting formal education (man, kindergarten was really that long ago), i'm finally entering a rigorous academic environment for which i've longed. watch it be too hard for me, and i start whinning. ha.


anyway, as orientation started, only about 100 of the 1,400 registered new grad students had filed in yet. i immediately spotted a fellow Florida Tech student! what is she doing way out here? we talked, and she started to mention 2 other Florida Tech'ers who got accepted! as she said this, they walked in through the doors. so, oddly, 4 of us out of the ~100 people were from a random, small florida school w/ 2,000 undergrads.

oh, at ucla, parking's a [bleep]. so, i'll be taking the free bus to school each day. i'll occasionally eat a school lunch and probably carry a bland-colored tray. it's like i've regressed to grade school all over again. lol. in fact, i assert that grad school is actually just grade school minus the e.

cheapskate and old people

lately i've felt like a cheapskate by getting some really good deals:

• laser printer (samsung) = $30 (retail = $270)
  
• video card (128mb geforce) = $27 (retail = $35?)
  
• skecher shoes (new) = $35 shipped (retail = $64)
  
• car insurance for 1 year in LA! = $496 (others quoted at $1k)
  

last week in ralph's grocery store, as i entered the checkout line, i witnessed a crazy old white lady fueding w/ an african-american entertainer of some sorts. she claimed to be scared for her life and kept requesting to see the manager, despite the fact that the guy was on the phone and not paying her any attention. he was doing business calls and talked about doing photoshoots up in hollywood. next time i entered the grocery store's checkout, i looked around and saw the same exact crazy woman entering the checkout line w/ me again. (i think she lives there.)

i went to long beach to see brian this weekend, and our adventures included going to an irish pub. we witnessed an 80 yr old man (i'm not exaggerating) in a full suit dancing with the best looking girls in the bar! no joke. we were later explained by various females that he's a pervert who highly frequents the place... he attempts to kiss the girls at the end of each dance and often clings on and attaches himself as he is eye-level with certain female-specific attributes. :-/ pretty pathetic but at least funny to watch.

crazy LA drivers

i dislike it when people stereotype geographical regions as having a certain class of people: "oh, those people drive crazy in that city"; "well, you know how those southerners are"; "oh, you must be from new york." i doubt that people differ drastically, although of course some general, minute differences surely exist everywhere. of these, LA driving seems to be one!

• coming home yesterday, within my 5 mile expressway journey, i saw 2 car wrecks. each time the cars weren't even pulled off to the side of the road, and the scenario was that a car hit another in the rear.
• in the past week, i've almost been hit twice while walking across the street (legally; the AIM Instant Messager signal appeared). the last of which, the driver and i completely stopped and looked at each other... the car was a benz. i know this because the metal logo almost prevented me from ever having children.
• a co-worker has gotten in two accidents in the past month--the last of which a car cut her off on the freeway.

192-car pile up in LA:



my mom recently scanned to me a drawing i did when i was 6:



i drew exactly what i could see during our long van ride... and it epitomizes my family's driving perfectly:
dad: "no no no, we are fine! do you want to drive? i had plenty of time to get over! the car was at least 1 foot away!"

mom replies: "okay, i'll just let you drive! i won't say a thing! ...

(5 seconds later, dad does crazy stunt)

mom: "you need to slow down! how fast you drivin'-- 75 mph?! he's braking!"
cocoa the dog thinks: "where are we going"
chris thinks: "it's going to be a long day!"

rock climbing and camping

last week, google took the interns and hosts rock climbing. it was a blast, and turns out, i'm pretty good at it. however, 2 interns (who i think were monkeys in disguise) had 7+ yrs experience and were amazing... they convinced me to try their wall (aka ceiling):


this weekend, brian (good friend from DC internship last summer) and i met up and went camping east of LA. along with us were some of his fellow boeing employees. we reached perris state park 2 hrs before we were allowed to setup at our campsite. so, being the impressionable, addict-inducible person i am, i quickly (jokingly?) suggested climbing a huge rock mountain that was in sight:



the small white thing is a huge water tower. brian quickly (foolishly) took me up on the offer. so, brian and i began to ascend the mountain without shirts, cameras, water, or common sense. it was either the most stupid or smart thing i've ever done. as we started off, we treaded through the tons of brown brushes that are visible. there were snake/rabbit/ferret? holes every 3 ft or so, and a flock of vultures constantly circled the mountain's peak. i was in trouble once but made it. we reached the peak 1 hr later and eventually made it back down. after which, let's just say we drunk water like the crazy lunatics we are.

anyway, the rest of the camping was a blast, too. we swam in a lake, cooked out tons, and had many laughs. i saw sunrise:

watching history in the making

barry bonds (booo, i know, whatever) is 2 hr's shy of breaking the all-time hr record. hank aaron's record has stood for over 33 years so far. well, google had long ago planned to take us interns to a dodger game on aug 1st. turns out, it's against the giants (bonds' team). coincidentally, bonds is close. so, kedar and i bought tickets for july 31st too. my dad shipped me my old high school glove, and imma catch the hr ball that'll easily sell for over $1 million. bye bye student loans!

also, someone at work, who ive never even met, replied to my email to offer my his nice camera lens. turns out, it retails for $1,300.

now i'm just wondering how i'm gonna simultaneously take a picture of the winning swing while being in the homerun stands catching the ball...

in google we trust

last summer was the best summer of my life. luckily, this summer month (july 2007) has also been very very good. once again, it centers around the interns.

7/7 = my bday. weekend was great w/ 3 of my best friends
7/14 = party at my house w/ dan and brian again (from the eastcoast). tons of laughs.
7/19 = google-hosted scavenger hunt throughout santa monica w/ geo-tracking cell phones, cameras, and disguised city-passerby's who would discretely spy on and mess w/ us
7/19 = google-hosted promo event w/ famous director kevin smith. the hotel was very high-class and kevin was hilarious. i had front-row seats and was 5 ft from him :-)



7/20 = outing w/ the interns
7/21 = google picnic in malibu, cali. huge, very nice resort type area. and all for free... valet parking, full chef-staffed food, open bar, swimming areas, lil events, tennis court, wild animals like zebras and llamas, etc. it was anything but a standard company picnic.

frisbee was much fun, as u can me playing below:

23rd bday on 7/7/7

it was awesome: 3 of my best friends were in cali, so we hung out on my 23rd bday...
dan = works in FL but his job flew him out to CA (3hrs north of me) on 7/6.
brian = great intern friend from DC last summer. just accepted a job out here (1 hr south of me).
kazi = gonna start school at berk, flew out to CA (8 hrs north of me) on 7/7.

tyler (from work) had his bday on 7/6, so the partying began early. dan met us at "the lobster" restaurant and accidentally spent $100 on his meal. (he didnt realize the listed $30 was PER POUND). dan then spent $15 for parking. so, within 1 hr, dan had already exceeded his $100 weekend limit that he set for himself. he then considered joining the mass of homeless people who line the ritzy streets.

on 7/7/7, we started the day by treating dan to santa monica beach. he had never seen the pacific. brian ate the seaweed and almost died. we then painted the streets red, starting w/ 3rd street and hollywood. dan met borat and later asked paris hilton, "how much?" true story.

we ate at roscoe's chicken n waffles and met up with kazi in hollywood. the old school crew was finally complete.


we went to the scribble jam pre-lims in beverly hills. (scribble jam = largest underground hip-hop show in world). the freestyle battle was amazing. we finished off our triple-date with some good ole' 3am in-and-out burger. at the end of the night, i was almost 2nd-based but told the boys i'm not that type of girl. however, i did take them back to my place (but they slept together in the living room).

it was a perfect bday.

siskel and tanner movie reviews (w/o siskel)

i recently saw (1) aria salata, l' (salty air) and (2) transformers:

(1) aria salata, l' (salty air) was part of the LA film festival. only 7 rows of seats and all were fully leather :-) the movie was amazing and told a story of a prison keeper (fabio) whose job was to evaluate if inmates were well-behaved enough to have their punishment reduced. fabio realizes the current inmate is his cold-hearted father who left him 20 yrs ago after murdering a family, causing much internal battle. it was very well done, had an emotionally-poignant musical score, and through its depressing tone indirectly made the viewer appreciate having good friends and family. (score: 9.5/10)

(2) "transforme" (NOT the spanish version of transformers) sucked big time. it was about 2.5 hours long. more specifically, it was 2.5 hours longer than it should have been. well, the beginning actually had some funny parts, but the movie was laced with so many cheesy parts and at times was deliberately making fun of itself. at the end, people clapped. yet, i don't know if they were clapping because they liked it or because it was over. good thing google paid for us to see it. (score: 3/10)

it's all good in the neighborhood: 7 / 7 /7

"it's all good, baby, baaaby" --biggie. i turn 23 this saturday (7/7/7). i already started to dread getting older, but a good turn of events has happened:

thursday (7/5) = dan, my best friend from FIT, is flying from FL to CA thanks to his job. he'll be 300 miles north of me.

friday (7/6) = kazi, a best friend from FIT, is flying from FL to CA for grad school. he'll be 400 miles north of me.

friday (7/6) = brian, a good intern friend from my internship in DC last summer, just arrived in cali 30 miles south.

so, we are all gonna meet up and party like it's 1999. hopefully somebody gets alcohol poisoning. just kidding. anyway, it's good to have good friends (with cars).

toto, i don't think we're in atlanta anymore

apparently l.a. and santa monica have a higher standard of living. i'm used to hearing homeless ask, "can you spare some change?" or maybe ask for $1. these are definitely some high-class hobos. i have also seen one listening to a creative zen mp3 player, and another wearing a gap sweatshirt. true story. maybe i should start asking them for change. i took the above pic on 3rd street promenade (my fav place)--a very ritzy area where the girls are gorgeous, shops are expensive, street performance is top-notch, and the homeless are rich.

in the gym i recently saw 2 people in front of me. one had a princeton ecomonics shirt on, the other a 'berkeley alumni' shirt. i then realized that this didn't surprise me. i thought about work and realized that not a single fellow employee came from a school less prestigious than mit, harvard, berk, ucla, usc, cal tech, carnegie mellon, or waterloo, or another ivy-league. in fact, i can only list 1 person who came from a school OTHER than those. it's not impressive anymore, it's just my new environment. it's funny to think that just 6 yrs ago i would scribble on my homework or textbooks about 'mit' or other imagery of supposed eliteness. well, i finally made it.

L.A. film festival (part 2)!

the previous post mentions my excitement from seeing the film "it's winter." specifically, hearing the director, rafi pitts, speak afterwards made it an amazing experience.

that night, sonia and i were walking the streets, checking out film festival stuff when we randomly saw the director walk right past us! i wanted to speak to him and tell him how great it was, but it all happened too fast and he was w/ ppl. darn. well, that was exciting.

the next day (today), sonia and i were walking around downtown as i was on the phone w/ tim. i look up and notice the same director again! he was just talking on his cell by the curb w/ nobody around him. we were gonna go up to him, but he was deep in conversation. we were really excited and i wished i could said something to him. dangit.

later, sonia goes to the grocery store. i'm telling the person on the phone about this and how i missed 2 chances to speak to him. it was at this time that i look up and see the director coming my way for the 3rd time. he turns right in front of me to head into the store. i introduce myself, we shake, talk, and i tell him what i loved about it. he initiates to shake my hand again and looks as if he's about to cry. he tells me how much i made his day and repeatedly thanks me. we each walk away smiling. job done. magnolia-style.

i get back to my car, start to back-up as i notice he's sitting in my back seat! k, just kidding. he wasn't in the car w/ us.

L.A. film festival + pharrell = amazing

the 'film independents' series at the film festival got me excited about like a little school girl. i started off my festivities by getting tickets for 'it's winter'--an iranian film in persian w/ english subtitles. the harsh weather and dismal job opportunities sets the depressing tone throughout the entire movie. it basically involves a young lady who is left by her husband as he attempts to find 'better' money/job for his family. he never returns, and her new husband does the same. the story involves love, complacency, and the pain of work and of always wanting something better. afterwards, i think i heard ppl killing themselves in the back of the theatre, but here are the cool parts:

(1) before the movie started, the iranian director and main actress prefaced the movie and the actress said this is the 1st time she's ever seen the movie. it was very emotional for her.

(2) afterwards, the director answered questions and blew all of our minds. it was overwhelmingly deep. it was hands-down one of the most amazing entertainment-based experiences of my life. for example:

(a) the cinematography was so carefully chosen that in important scenes, the background was "complex like a maze," which symbolized the males' interpreted path to solve their problems. yet, the focal point of the picturesque scenes focused narrowly down the center, which represented that their best solution was to merely continue their current roles and not leave what they currently have.

(b) he hired normal, real manual laborers as his entire cast instead of hired actors so as to make it more genuine.

(c) the climax/entire development of the couple's relationship involved no audible words--but merely music and the unusually warm colors--so that the audience can stitch together the story with their definition of love, and because "music invokes imagery, but imagery does not invoke music."

tons of many more comments, plus, i later saw the director walking next to me on the street just like any other passerby.

movie:

at night, sonia and i went to see a 90-minute interview w/ the famous hip-hop producer pharrell. (he's done beats for jay-z, britney spears, justin timerblake, p diddy, etc.) he couldn't hold a conversation and ended up just talking about youtube, startrek, and saying 'uhhhh' a lot. disappointing. nevertheless, i acted as a spy by getting amazingly close to him and taking the following pic:

so basically, the movie turned out to be one of my favorites and pharrell disappointed me.

california - "it was all a dream"

just as background info for all 2 people who may read this blog that may only last for a few entries:

after many years of lusting, i finally moved out to cali in may. i imagined it would be a long, arduous, eventful drive across the country while blasting eagle's 'hotel california' and phantom planet's 'california.' instead, it was a minimal flight that included my packing my entire life into 2 duffel bags. i arrived at my new unfurnished apartment w/ no belongings, food, means of transportation, and i knew nobody. "i don't even have my 88 accord anymore" :-) i'm starting from scratch. still just a man tryin make it in this world. back to the basics starving artist.

this summer = interning at google.
this fall = grad school at ucla

by june, i finally had some stuff: