Doing the Laundry

And other short stories.

I do a lot of weird things. Like taking the time to fold the corner of each paper in a stapled packet to ensure that the packet has a clean 45° edge where the staple holds it together, even on my time-constrained midterms. And actively seeking out retractable pens with the point sticking out so I can do it the justice of clicking it closed. And dispensing ice cream directly onto my bare hand from the soft serve machine in the dining hall. And blogging about all the weird things I do.

The list goes on (just ask my younger brother). The point is, I can seem a little loopy to people that have met me in a non-professional setting, because that's where I'm more expressive of my quirks since there's no employer there to say "Yeah... that's weird. You're weird. Please don't apply to my company." It's not that I have something to hide; I just want to give peace of mind to people that rely on me to get things done by showing that I have the professional capacity to act professionally when it comes to professional things in my profession. You can't get more professional than writing "professional" and its conjugations in a paragraph so many times that it doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

Despite all this weirdness, I spend most of my time being serious, between classes and attending various activities like job fairs, but it's these little things that add spice to your life.

For instance, summer session was my first time living away from home by myself for an extended period of time. On move-in day, I was super proud with my setup: desk by the window, mattress in the corner... yeah, desk by the window and mattress in the corner. It was pretty sparse. Still, I was really happy with it. And it was on the first floor, which was an awesome bonus perk.

Well, except for one thing. I liked to keep my window open at night because it got hot really easily even if it was cold outside. So there I was, sitting down at my desk, enjoying the cool air as I browsed memes on Google, when I noticed a droplet of water on the window screen. Then, all of a sudden, a stream of water came jetting from the window like I was being assailed in some urban-warfare water gun fight. I was lucky enough to save my laptop, but everything else on my desk got soaked. You know how when you're at your desk and you accidentally spill a glass of water or whatever you're drinking and it's the worst because there's a ton of papers and stuff on it? That's what happened, except instead of being one-and-done with a glass emptying its contents that gradually spread across the surface, it was like there was a shower head constantly spewing out water from an infinite reservoir that could only be turned off by a switch that wasn't there. And the corner where my mattress was also was in range of the window, so my beddings got wet too.

Really, why does the path of the sprinkler include a direct shot into the window? There aren't even any plants in there. Regardless, it's still a fun story to tell, and part of what's made college exciting for me so far.

In a separate episode, I found a cricket in my room while I was doing my homework. At first, I had no idea what to do. I considered just ignoring it, but then I realized that I really didn't particularly like the idea of a cricket crawling on me in my sleep, or worse, me accidentally crushing it while rolling over and leaving a stain on my bed on top of being guilty of insect manslaughter. Insectslaughter? Whatever. I couldn't just leave it. I didn't have a cup on hand, and even if I did, I figured the jump range on a cricket at a few centimeters off the ground was larger than the radius of any cup, so I looked around and saw the pot lid from the cooking stuff I brought from home (that I never actually used, now that I think about it) and spent about 20 minutes chasing the cricket around my room before I finally got it under the lid.

I still had to get it outside. I didn't have any thin, rigid surface to slide under the lid that actually spanned the vertical projection of its outer curvature, so I nudged the lid with the cricket inside over the folder I'd been given at the beginning of summer session. I then crawled on the floor, gradually pushing the lid and the folder all the way out my room, across the kitchen, and out the front door. Woohoo! I felt accomplished; figuring out how to move a cricket out of my room with limited resources was definitely more productive than staring at a screen of image macros with text in Impact font. I subsequently turned around and saw that the other person that was living with me, who was someone who had just finished grad school, had seen the whole thing and had a look on his face that clearly said "What even... well, you're a freshman I guess."

I think one of the weirdest things I've done so far (in college), though, was sleep in the dryer. Yes, the public dryer in the laundry room on the first floor of my dorm.

How did I end up there? Well, a little context: being the procrastinator that I am – come on, everyone is to some degree – I put off doing some online assignments on a Sunday night when I was staying in Irvine for the weekend. Everyone else had gone to bed and it was about 4 in the morning. I had a lot on my mind, mostly because I was overthinking some small decision as per usual. Should I go lie down in my bed? On one hand, it's cold and lying down is nice. Plus, I'm tired, and I could use a break. On the other hand, I'll probably fall asleep and not get my work done. Well, it's not due until 11 AM, so if I wake up a couple hours before then I'll have time. But will I wake up early? Probably not. But my bed has a blanket, and I like blankets. Then again, it's just physics, so I can probably finish it quickly now and be able to sleep in peace. Then again, it's just physics, so I can probably finish it quickly tomorrow and be able to sleep now. What about lying down with the laptop so I can rest my body but also do the assignment? Nah, I'll probably just fall asleep, so we're back to the first question. I guess sleeping now isn't so bad. But then I won't be able to sleep worry-free. But is there such thing as worry-free? There's always work to be done, and too little time to do it. And aren't all of our fates sealed to the slow decay of our bodies, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, as they succumb to the grips of time until the finality that is the end of our days?

Whoa, that escalated quickly. </stream_of_consciousness>

After pausing to think about what I had just thought about and concluding that taking an arbitrary philosophical approach probably wasn't the best way to come to a decision, the idea of using an economic approach popped into my head. I'm taking microeconomics right now, and I couldn't help but think of drawing out a production possibility frontier (PPF), so I did. It was bowed out, since this was a case of increasing opportunity cost. Naturally, this meant that I should've sought a middle ground to balance out the benefits of both options while maximizing efficiency, but again, that would lead back to the "lie down and work" option, which didn't seem likely to happen. I proceeded to write down opportunity costs – like time and energy – of each option and eventually had the whole back side of one of my old physics quizzes covered in random econ stuff. I often think about times like this and of how dumb it is that I do extra work I do to avoid doing other work.

Then I remembered I had to do the laundry, so I put my clothes and Tide Pods in the wash and ate some of the Tide Pods went back upstairs. I finally decided to do my physics homework, since I was already locked in to being awake to finish doing the laundry. While I was doing it, I contemplated whether that was the most efficient decision, constantly worrying that I wouldn't wake up on time and looking up articles on REM sleep and Circadian rhythms to see if I could find a way to determine a time at which to set my alarm guaranteed to wake me up (unfortunately, I found no such method).

Once I was about halfway done with my physics homework, I went back down to throw my stuff in the dryer. I went upstairs to continue doing my homework, and in between problem's I'd look at one of the many PPF curves I'd drawn and mentally mark where on the graph I was. For you econ people out there, I'll just say I was inside the bounds of the curve and Vilfredo Pareto would not be proud.

Finally I finished the homework, and I went downstairs to get my stuff from the dryer. I had no idea what time it was, but there was already faint blue light illuminating the blinds on the windows in the laundry room. When I opened the dryer and grabbed some clothes, it felt warm. You know the feeling: pleasant, comforting, cozy. I'd gotten used to how cold it was, so the warmth felt even better. It was like my reward for finishing my homework (albeit at the last minute). On top of that, I was mentally exhausted for simultaneously doing a physics assignment and arguing with myself over economic and philosophic principles. So I stuck my head in the dryer and hugged all the warm clothes. Before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep. I am so glad it was at such an odd time in the morning that there was no one there to see that. I mean, just imagine coming down to the laundry room in the morning and seeing some kid sleeping in the dryer. Like I said: weird.

While all these events might seem like small, trivial things that have no bearing on what I'm going to do with my life, thinking about them in retrospect does make me more appreciative of them. Especially for college students, it's important to enjoy the little things when you're swamped with classes, clubs, work, and side projects. It's important to unwind a little, be weird, and have some fun. And having stories like these in your memory to tell your friends and family to laugh over or just think about when you're in the mood for it is essential to staying happy.

I've probably made my life sound super boring to you by writing almost 1,000 words about how I did my laundry that one time at 5 in the morning, but that's because these are the things that nobody writes about. You might see something about how going to parties or taking a vacation on a cruise or going to Disneyland helps you stay composed when your life starts seeming too hectic, but like I said, I think the little things that you might not think twice about are what ultimately keep us afloat when we're stranded in a sea of stress between islands of determinedly significant times of relaxation. That, or college has just made me that crazy. ∎

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Too Many Thoughts: Doing the Laundry

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Music to My Ears

My mind, body, and soul, too.

There have been times when I've resented being able to play the violin. Like every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday during high school when I had to go to rehearsal or lessons even though I was already tired from being brutally abused doing drills during wrestling practice. Or on Saturdays when I had concerts, because tuxedos are not comfortable. Or pretty much any time when I had to go play violin somewhere and I had an online assignment due that night, because, let's face it, there was no way I was going to start homework early. That is not the way of the IB student.

Bad procrastination habits aside, violin – or, more generally, music – has been an integral part of my life that I couldn't imagine being without.

I thought that the start of college for me would be the end of my days as a violinist. This saddened me, because I really liked being able to whip my violin out and play Darude - "Sandstorm" on random occasions where I'm with a group of people in a non-musical context and have my violin on hand, which actually happens a lot more than you'd think. However, making the transition to college actually had the opposite effect: more often than before I've found myself cracking open my case and just fiddling around on my instrument (is that where the expression comes from?) while I'm reading something online, watching a video, debugging some code, hanging out with friends in the common room, have nothing to do, or have something to do but would rather procrastinate.

As a kid, I grew up with music that's become an essential contributor to the fondness of certain memories. I remember Saturday mornings when I'd wake up and hear my dad playing classical music from The Best Classical Album in the World... Ever! while cooking breakfast. Whenever we saw True Lies on T.V., we'd wait for and watch the scenes where they were doing the tango to a string quartet playing "Por una cabeza" just because we liked the song. And it wasn't just classical music: my dad also had a mixtape (before it was cool) of Burt Bacharach's greatest hits and some other songs, which he'd play in the car every time we'd make the drive over to L.A. to visit our cousins. My older brother, who usually sat shotgun as we dropped off our older siblings to school before my younger brother and I were in school, would play Smashing Pumpkins or Weezer over the radio in our green 1999 Chevy Astro.

When I started playing violin, it was because my older brother had played violin before college and I thought it was super cool when he played Canon in D at our cousin's wedding. During my first few years of playing, my end goal was to be able to play Canon in D. Now, if you've played violin before, you probably know that it's a pretty easy piece to play, but back then, I didn't get the concept of a song being melodic and sweet but not very technically challenging. So once I had learned it, I became bored with violin and only stuck with it as a means to an end, the end being – what else? – having another thing to put on my résumé, though back in middle school I didn't even know what a résumé really was; I pretty much just knew that a résumé was a thing you put things on.

My interest in playing the violin was initially revived when I became involved in theater performances, most significantly in joining the Temecula Valley Players' production of The Fiddler on the Roof as the Fiddler and playing as a pit musician for Fine Arts Network's production of Spamalot. As a soloist in a non-classical setting, I found that I had a lot more creative freedom with my playing style; there was no conductor to yell at me for not playing it according to their interpretation of centuries-old music, the music itself wasn't very technically demanding, and, most importantly, I wasn't stuck in a tux.

What made it more rewarding was the people I was playing for. Fellow actors and actresses certainly got a kick out of hearing music that wasn't prerecorded and played over some speakers. The audience was receptive too. These people were not the classically trained, snobbishly judgmental critics of the stereotypical stuffy concert hall; they were theater folk, who came to enjoy a good theatrical performance. For them, any live music was just a pleasant addition to the content they'd come to watch, which meant they were more conscious of the craft behind what they were listening to. Small things like people personally complimenting me on my playing after a showing of Fiddler or coming down to the pit to applaud all of us after Spamalot really made my day, and it reminded me that even if I didn't think I was particularly good at playing myself, it provided enjoyment for others, and that's what mattered the most.

After a dry spell without theater performances, I experienced a renewed interest in playing when I took a music class in high school. Because I still had the mindset that I wouldn't be playing violin anymore once I started college, I'd known for a while that if I wanted to actually get good at it, I only had until senior year, and on top of that, I had to submit solo recordings for the class, which meant people would be judging my playing. And those people definitely weren't going to be casual theatergoers.

I'll let you in on a secret that you can't tell my private teacher or symphony conductor: before that music class, I didn't practice at home. I was just too lazy busy with school and extracurriculars like wrestling to pick up my violin. But I was determined to improve: my dad's favorite classical piece was (and still is) something from The Best Classical Album in the World... Ever! – "Winter" by Antonio Vivaldi – and I wanted to be able to play it. In the span of a few weeks, playing the violin became what I did in my spare time, not just because I liked the fact that I was getting better at it, but I was actually enjoying playing. Something about the combination of things involved – the finger placement, the vibrato, the bowing, the shifting – had a therapeutic effect that couldn't be compared to. I have no idea why I didn't enjoy these aspects of playing before. It might or might not have had to do with the fact that in the back of my mind I knew that playing was actually getting academic me credit for once, but hey. I still liked playing.

In my senior year of high school, I'd bring my violin every Thursday because I had lessons right after school. I'd pull it out while my math teacher was lecturing and silently place my fingers on the fingerboard, and between classes and on breaks I'd grab the bow and start playing random songs. And by random songs I mean selections from my meme repertoíre – "Sandstorm," "We Are Number One," the Nyan Cat song, "All Star," and many other songs that have ascended to legendary meme status – because I liked making people laugh. To this day, I have no idea why my math teacher tolerated all that.

Apart from meme songs on the violin, I do enjoy other kinds of music. I always play my older brother's CD of the Blue Album whenever I'm driving in the green van, because it reminds me of the times when he'd put Weezer on the radio in the and drive places using the green van. Like a lot of people, I also listen to music when I go to the gym, because it gives me something to focus on other than the fact that I've been totally out of shape since I stopped wrestling. And I absolutely love video game music, especially orchestral pieces; it really completes the immersion of the game. Most recently, I've been trying out Destiny 2, and the sad violin music that plays after the opening sequence, in which the characters' world is pretty much turned upside-down and destroyed, perfectly captures the mood of the game. Of course, sometimes the music turns intense when I get spotted by an enemy that I don't even notice until I get killed because the music causes me to panic and frantically look around, but other than that, it adds to the enjoyment and experience of the game.

I also developed a guilty pleasure in K-Pop during the summer session (and you can decide whether or not it's a coincidence that it was in Irvine). It's what I'd listen to when I didn't bring my scooter and I had to walk home without it, and it's probably a good thing that it was at night, since there were less people around to witness me ridiculously bobbing my head to lyrics I didn't understand but still would try to sing to myself. I still listen to K-Pop, which is something I don't really like to advertise to people. Then again, I just wrote that. And you just read that. And this is on the Internet for anyone to see. Oh well. Good thing nobody really reads this blog.

When I was starting to get involved on LinkedIn, I read an article by Jack Weast, Senior Principal Engineer & Chief Systems Architect of the Automated Driving Group at Intel, about how important it is to strengthen the link between the arts and sciences, detailing his own experience as a classical musician growing up and how it's shaped his career and him as a person. It was great article that I read all the way through, not just because I was thinking "Man, I really want to work at a company like Intel" in the back of my mind while reading it, but because his story and message resonated so well with me. I was reminded that violin and classical music were still what I enjoyed listening to the most, and as the fall quarter approached, I realized that I couldn't just stop playing violin, so I set up an audition for the university symphony and began practicing.

It was going well until I went on the website after a while and saw that the music I'd been practicing was the audition repertoíre for the year before, so that was cool. Thankfully, though, the new music was not only easier, but also a lot more fun to play. I did end up making it in (much to my surprise), and we recently had a weekend-long retreat at Alpine Meadows Retreat Center where we rehearsed the music for our next concert. There was extremely limited Internet access, which was why I posted late last week, and definitely not because I procrastinated too hard to write the post early and have it auto-post on Hootsuite. But the retreat itself was nice, and it provided a refreshing experience that reaffirmed my passion for playing the violin. The part that made it more than just a bunch of rehearsals was the fact that it was all I was doing; without Internet connection, I really could just focus on my music and unwind.

That kind of calming focus, I've found, is what makes music so important: it gives you a chance to relieve your stresses by giving you time to recompose yourself, unburdened by the worries of external stimuli, and achieve that work-life balance that is so essential to living your best life. Ironically enough, though, I had to take out my earbuds while writing this, because K-Pop is just too addicting. ∎

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Too Many Thoughts: Music to My Ears

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