Origin XT Blog

He can rhyme too! What was that part about Amy about, anyway?

Mr. Wen: Jinghao, why aren’t you composing your “indirect boasts”?
Me: My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them–by which I mean what I turn into you may convey no ideas at all, so I am working to tone down the mental agility.

Cheponis is really nice. He contacted me as soon as he found out I was waitlisted, and gave me options on what to do if I still want to go to MIT. And when I responded, he immediately replied. Here’s an excerpt:

You will make fundamental contributions to Human knowledge. I strongly believe that.

If you really really want to go to MIT, do exactly what they suggest, returning the card, etc. I can write another note to the committee if you like. My personal guess is that 20-40 spots from the wait list will be used. As the note, below, says, you’re qualified, else you wouldn’t be on the wait list!

And, again I’ll mention as I mentioned to you in person, if you go elsewhere for undergrad, be _sure_ to apply to MIT for Grad School, as you mention.

I hope he won’t mind my posting this online, but it isn’t anything unflattering to him.

I am accepted into Caltech, although I am not quite sure whether I’d want to go there. The size is the biggest reason, and the lack of diversity only makes it worse. Plus, it looks like a place where people work diligently 24-7, not something I’d be comfortable doing. To make it worse, this year 10 guys got accepted for every girl! At the beginning of the year, I didn’t expect to have this dilemma; I only expected acceptance into Cal / UC Berkeley.

It’s strange I got waitlisted from MIT but accepted into Caltech, since the number admitted to Caltech is 1/10th of the number admitted to MIT. Oh wait, what did I hear? Caltech does not endorse discrimination on the basis of sex! That’s right. If MIT turned a blind eye to sex, I’d be in, but apparently it considered “diversity” a more important point of consideration than fairness.

Directly from PIV:

ENGL LIT AP 88/B+
PHYSCS B AP 100/A+
BIOLOGY AP 2 100/A+
MACROECON AP 99/A+ (I wish I did that one homework assignment…)
BADMINTON 100/A+
DIFFER EQN 100/A+
CHAMBR ORCH2 100/A+

And directly from PIV for Lit AP:

Paris / Eleven Revision (2007-02-05) 96/100 — A
Prose TW - Henry James (2007-02-09) 76/100 — C

Apparently I regressed 20% in the two consecutive essays. Wow, I suck.

EDIT: Orchestra is 100%; 100% on an econ test!… but that’s still a 99%

Japan Reassures China Over Defense Pact
http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_18568-Japan-Reassures-China-Over-Defense-Pact.html

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his country’s new defense pact with Australia is not aimed at containing China. Abe and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who is in Tokyo, are to sign the new security agreement Tuesday providing for closer security ties including joint military training and intelligence sharing.

The Japanese leader told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the pact was not aimed at containing China’s influence in the Asian area, “… nor do we have any specific country like China in mind,” he said.

Abe said the agreement is in the security interests of the Asian region and builds on the longstanding cooperative relationship between Japan and Australia.

Wow, that’s as ridiculous as burying 500 gold nuggets in a definite plot of land and specifically telling people that there is no gold there.

I get spammed twice whenever I submit an entry here. Does any of you have the same problem?

Now there is a new category made exclusively for stocks

In January I ordered the Math-78 textbook and Crime & Punishment from Amazon, chose the 5-10 day shipping, and hoped the books would arrive by the time I needed them. (M78 for the first quiz and C&P before the first “reading check”) The cost was immediately deducted after I got the confirmation email, too.

To date, I have received neither of them, and to my knowledge it’s been around a month since I’ve placed the order. I have received no notifications, emails, updates from the sellers as to why the shipment is 20-25 days overdue (and still not here), and I’m greatly displeased with the lack of “checks” Amazon places on its sellers.

Last semester, I didn’t get Candide or 1984 until the week before summer ended so there was no possible way in hell I had enough time to spend on the books as I wanted to (those two were definitely much better than TA and Asher, so it’s quite a shame). I thought it was a one-time deal–until then, I’ve never had similar problems with Amazon–but apparently it’s quite common. It seems like all the books I cared to (or wanted to) read never arrived on time, leaving me with the crap books from Borders (TA and Asher, for example). 1984 would have been a good slow read, and Candide would have been a good source of entertainment many times over (something that I can re-read), too.

Of what we’ve read so far and what we’re going to read, C&P is probably one of the better ones; Brave New World? Blah, too unrealistic. Oedipus? Too pointless. Hamlet? Well, not bad, but that’s expected of a Shakespearean classic. Heart of Darkness? Get to the point already, Conrad! The Stranger? Worst piece of crap I’ve ever read in my Senior year. But Crime and Punishment sounded interesting–the investigation of the mind of a self-congratulating murderer who thinks he is handsome and too good to work. And unfortunately it’s also the book I never got, so I’m stuck with reading (or not reading) the crappier version I pirated off the net, translated by Garnett. Speaking of Internet version e-books, the producers really need to figure out how to work encodings. Some characters don’t render.

I got Pride and Prejudice though, so I’m hoping for something good in contrast to the not-so-inspiring stack of literature (if you call The Stranger literature) we’ve read.

EDIT: I got a response to one of my complaints:

Hello,

Your book was purchased on February 1 and was mailed on February 2 by USPS. It usually takes 4 - 14 days for the delivery of standard mail. I don’t know what has happened. We will get another one out to you on Monday, February 26.

Thanks

Gee, thanks for telling me this after the book’s use is over.

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=BVSN

It’s pretty funny that at one point this stock was 840 dollars. And it dropped as low as 0.3 dollars in 2005 before recovering to a mildly decent 1.x. Does anyone think there’s a chance this might increase to 840 again?