Stanford revisited

Who says grad students don't know how to have fun? I was at a random grad student party on the Stanford campus last night & they sure knew how to have a good time. The 1st thing I learned was that karaoke is a lot harder than some people make it look. The 2nd thing I learned was that it helps if you know the song really well. It also helps to sing with a bunch of other people & use a song with an energetic chorus that falls comfortably within your vocal range.

Although I got a ride home from some random people I met there, I had to take the CalTrain from Mountain View to Palo Alto (3 stops) on my way there. Having never taken CalTrain before, I wasn't sure what to expect but it was quite a nice experience. The only downside to the night is that my bike is now at the closest VTA stop, which is a 5 minute bike ride away. I guess I'll have to go for a walk at some point today...

Quantum cryptography at SJSU

I finally managed to sneak into a class at San Jose State today. It was a graduate level class on cryptography & quantum cryptography was being introduced. The prof started out by going over the differences between classical & quantum physics, then proceeded to explain the math used to describe quantum mechanics. I noticed that I seemed to be one of the very few people in the class that was following along; the rest looked hopelessly lost. I suspect that my strong Math background courtsey of UW helped a lot as there was a considerable amount of linear algebra involved.

I was impressed by how clearly the prof was able to explain the concepts behind quantum cryptography - yes, he used Alice, Bob & Eve - once he had gone through the required quantum mechanics preamble. I certainly learned a lot in this class, especially about polarized light.

The 1st orchestral concert I've been to in over a year

Sarah Chang entered the stage to much applause, sporting a pink conservative 1-piece, and took up her spot amidst the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. She played Shostakovich's opus number 77, which has four parts. The first part was a rather melancholy, slow piece that I wasn't particularly fond of, despite having been starved for live orchestral music since last summer. However, the second one livened up considerably. It filled my head with visions of large goofy creatures; multitudes of them hopping around. The third part started out like a military marching song but soon dropped to a slower pace, not unlike the first. I found it rather inconsistent, which ruined whatever effect it was meant to have. Fortunately, the fourth part was much more to my liking. It conjured up images of friends being gathered together from disparate areas and assembled into a force that kept advancing on an incumbent enemy that slowly gave way, one skirmish at a time, in the face of an inevitable restoration of a once vanquished power to its former glory.

50 with a bang!

What a weekend! My uncle turned 50 on the 3rd so there was a party for him on the weekend. His (and my mom's) cousin, Raynah, cooked dinner. She's an amazing cook so the food was absolutely smashing. She actually made marzipan from scratch by hand! Among the guests was the novelist Vance Bourjaily, who told me the story of how he started out as a writer. He also recited the poem that he'd used to win his wife's heart.

Although the party had ended by 1:30, we didn't get to bed until 3am. The next day was spent listening to Raynah regale us with stories of her colourful globetrotting life.

Campus nostalgia

After about 10 weeks of being away from it, I'd actually started to miss campus life a bit. Fortunately, I have a neat way of dealing with it: I take the light rail over to the nearby San Jose State University campus, plug hermod into one of the ethernet jacks at the library & work there. It's an interesting change from working in my cube, since there are a ton of students milling around at the library.

Of course, I still need to check my Sun email, so I don't head over to the campus until after lunch. Instead, I work in a flexible workspace at Sun's Santa Clara HQ, which is right around the corner from my apt. This way I can eat at the awesome cafeteria there and catch a game of pickup volleyball just before lunch.

My 1st day as a stay-at-home intern

As a result of some organizational changes, my team has moved to a different building and I'm being allowed to work from home since none of them will be around at the lab anyway. On Friday I tried working from home for the 1st time. It has its pros & cons: while I saved some time by not commuting, could play music all day as I worked & was able to hit the fridge for snacks when I felt hungry, there was nobody to eat lunch with.