<p>was on a funny sleep schedule this week -- sleep before midnight, up at 6am. i like this interhouse though so i wish i'd stayed. was it good after midnight? the dj kinda sucked a little bit.</p>
<p>i did something out of character last term. if it hasn't become clear by now, i place an outlandishly high value on intellectual purity and conceptual beauty, due to some twisted combination of watching a beautiful mind too many times and being told by my dad sometime in high school that i probably wasn't good enough to be a real mathematician.</p>
<p>despite this, i (through some combination of bamboozlement and experimentation) became involved last term in an internship run by the Business Economics and Management department with the Los Angeles Times. the project was to be a consulting gig -- we would work with their high-level corporate management to help them plan the design and rollout of a major new online product.</p>
<p>at the start of this project, the CFO of the times (a big big corporation) came to visit Caltech. the prospective interns, including me, had dinner with him at the Faculty club. first discovery: professors are a lot more fun than corporate people. i warn you, if you take advantage of the copious opportunities to befriend your professors here, you will be easily disappointed later by how boring "real" people can be. this, in hindsight, makes a lot of sense. professors are people whose vocation in life is to know interesting things about the world, and CFOs are people whose vocation is to read spreadsheets. (see, what i said in the first paragraph is true.)</p>
<p>but exposure to this world would probably be useful, and so i decided to join up. the actual work involved designing competitive strategy, running financial projections, and telling these people things that nobody on the inside would tell them. (that is, presumably, the point of hiring consultants.) two things surprised me. they paid us $20/hr (timesheets on the honor code, and some of us opted for class credit instead) for work much easier than our easy econ classes. second surprising thing is that we came regularly to present our findings at meetings to the CFO and other high level management, and they listened to us. it is hard for me to be particularly pleased with all this, since that doesn't look to me like a world i want to enter. however, it seems that the usual corporate intern work is a lot more trivial and gets a lot less respect. i am, to be honest, somewhat surprised to see caltech excelling in an area which is not close to its original mission.</p>
<p>amusing story: the corporation has a box at the Staples center, where the LA lakers play, and we were invited to come watch the lakers-rockets game at the end of our project. i know nothing about sports, so this was an enlightening experience. this "box" is a fairly large private room, whose front end faces out onto the game and has about 20 seats to watch the game from. the back end of the room is stocked with a buffet of food and drinks, and people behave like it's an ordinary party -- eat and talk. a few glance at the game now and then. (i am told these seats are expensive, so it is puzzling how few people pay much attention to the main event.) i've always disliked big public exhibitions, especially sporting events, because of the herdlike atmosphere, but this was significantly more pleasant. you can come and go as you please and the view is good. the beer is free, as is everything else. this is probably as close as i'll ever come to having fun at a sports game.</p>
<p>so, there is my slightly surreal brush with the real world. if you come to caltech, you can get involved in a project to consult corporate leaders. you can eat pretzels with one of the five most powerful men in publishing while watching a lakers game. and you don't even have to claw at or kill anyone to get this opportunity (unlike, say, some other places) -- such things are quite easy to come by if you express interest.</p>
<p>so if the decision between industry and academia is one that matters to you, and you end up coming to caltech, it's not a decision that you'll have to make in the dark, or with a view of one side only. i think that's a nice thing to know.</p>
<p>before i got to college, i was angry a lot. not destructively, but constantly. i felt like i was pushing, all the time, against mediocrity dressed up as inclusiveness. i certainly never felt before getting to caltech like anybody (including my teachers) cared about intellectual achievement quite as much as i did. back then, i was sure that there was one pure, best kind of accomplishment, which was -- of course -- the kind to which i was best suited. and nobody else recognized its supreme purity. as a result, i was a general pain in the neck.</p>
<p>i'm not angry anymore. it's hard to be angry at caltech in the same way i was before. the institutional ethos is exactly what i dreamed about as a kid; (careful what you wish for). not just for the faculty, but for the students, too. not just for show, but really. it is a community that truly values, in all its precincts, the pursuit of truth and knowledge. it is a remarkable thing.</p>
<p>amusingly, caltech got here a little too late for me. i studied a little philosophy and decided there was no such thing as a best kind of accomplishment. (nevertheless, philosophy or not, i'm pretty sure i'd still be angry if the spirit of the place were not so well-suited to my preferences.)</p>
<p>mostly when i give people advice, i give them excellent guidance on how to live my life. (most advice-givers do this sort of thing.) but for once i think i can universalize a piece of advice to be somewhat more general and useful. when you choose a place to be for a while, choose one whose value system coincides with yours if you can. make sure the things you think are important are also important to the place. it is an incredible feeling to see that, generally, the things you consider meritorious are perceived that way by those around you. this seems like a ridiculously simple notion, but you only have to look around most colleges to see people who seem to have paid no attention to it.</p>
<p>i do miss being angry a little bit. it's a good motivator, to feel like a prophet among the pagans. </p>
<p>still, it feels better to live in the same world as the others around you --- to have a mutual understanding about what matters.</p>
<p>The 3:1 student:faculty ratio is bogus. True, but bogus.</p>
<p>The 3:1 student:faculty ratio is bogus in the sense that classes aren't as small as they could be. There are about 1000 undergrads, and there aren't 600 professors teaching classes every term. So most classes end up in the range of 20-40 students, a lot more for core. And even for those professors that do teach in a given term, many of them see it as a secondary activity to their research.</p>
<p>The 3:1 ratio is NOT bogus in the sense that you can very easily find a professor to talk to, or a research mentor, if the need arises. That's something you couldn't manage somewhere else.</p>
<p>Hmm... also, whence emanates your expertise on this, Slorg?</p>
<p>LOL, it's bogus depending on your major. With ChemE down to 7/8 ppl for the sophomores now, we're guaranteed a fairly low student/prof ratio for the remaining ChemE courses.</p>
<p>it's better than 1:1, no? :-D</p>
<p>some nights you don't sleep, mainly due to earlier laziness. my tolerance has gone up a lot. freshman year, a night without rest would leave me nodding off in my 9am class, my head a slow-mo version of one of those bob-toys that jiggles in all directions. now i can easily handle almost twice that much time.</p>
<p>it's a fun place to be awake at night. it's summer always; but especially this time of year, there's a honeysuckle scent that soaks all the air through and if you're not falling in love you feel like you should be.</p>
<p>it's fun to go to the inhabited lounges in some of the houses, each its own littls subculture with its own denizens. the south house lounges -- last year and next year, though not this year -- are beautiful and huge in way they don't make them anymore... people sprawl like rags on couches in front of fireplaces, and dull the brunt of the work left til too late with talk and laughter and fatigue. sometimes the dulling doesn't work and people decide to go microwave a piece of iron at 3am at night in a courtyard, or to beat a shopping cart to death. and then beat the old microwave to death with what's left of the shopping cart.</p>
<p>most of us have developed fairly agreeable relationships with this summery night -- though the first date was probably involuntary. you should meet her when you visit.</p>
<p>I suppose for the sake of those reading this board (and my free time, in case I need to hear a case about this)</p>
<p>Here's the prefrosh rules:
<a href="http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/%7Eihc/documents/prefrosh.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~ihc/documents/prefrosh.html</a></p>
<p>These apply after you apply and before you decide to matriculate. Once you decide to matriculate and before the cannon fires to mark the end of Rotation, Rotation Rules are in effect:
<a href="http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/%7Eihc/documents/rotation.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~ihc/documents/rotation.html</a></p>
<p>These are intended to prevent bias between the Houses. They are all unique and each person gets a different perception of each House. What works for one person will make another uncomfortable. We recommend that you check out each House before having someone else tell you his/her thoughts about a House.</p>
<p>Ok, that was official me. To follow up on some of the things said so far:</p>
<p>I came here for the people. I'm really not too interested in doing ground-breaking research or even getting to know many professors. The other people here are what sold things for me. I like the random discussions or the utter insanity that results after a 12-hour set. I don't care for the set, but I sometimes enjoy the results. Personally, I can't wait to get out into the "real world" and start leaving a mark there, but Caltech is a great place to forget about all the problems out there and focus on the bubble that we exist in.</p>
<p>I'll leave at some point, but I think I may very well look back on all the stresses and strains this place applies to one and think fondly of it... Very odd, considering I was planning on transferring almost immediately after arriving.</p>
<p>i don't remember much of my prefrosh weekend, but one snapshot of feeling remains.</p>
<p>america is odd. anywhere else in the world, go 3000 and miles and you'll meet eskimos or people speaking another language or a big ocean... here you can go 3000 miles and see the same mcdonald's and the same billboards and everything everything almost the same.</p>
<p>nevertheless, for someone from the chilly northeast, there was a difference. i was shocked by how warm and relaxed and happy and sunny everything seemed. lying on the olive walk in the soft evening talking to other prefrosh, then sitting on a roof to see the sun come up over the palms seemingly a few minutes later. few shoes, fewer worries. caltech was almost disturbingly laid back.</p>
<p>my view of this place is obviously different since it's become so unmistakably home. but it's interseting to think of what it looked like back then.</p>
<p>enjoy your stay.</p>
<p>Ben, you almost convinved me that the average techer is happy and laid back. You should drop out and become a writer!</p>
<p>PS A retaliatory strike has been made on your board...</p>
<p>7:30 wake up, shower, get dressed</p>
<p>8:15-10 coffee with CFO of LA Times at the Starbucks up the street to plan business strategy. run into his friend Brad Whitford, guy who plays Josh on the West Wing and looks pretty homeless (probably intentionally)</p>
<p>10-11 Riemannian geometry</p>
<p>11-12 think about what to say at Option Talks (see below)</p>
<p>12-1 meet prefrosh at lunch, talk randomly about David Lewis' legendary philosophy paper Elusive Knowledge;</p>
<p>1:30-2:30 Option Talk for Humanities and Social Sciences. Convince people that econ at Caltech rocks.</p>
<p>2:30-3:30 Option Talk for Math. Don't need to convince anyone of anything. Make jokes.</p>
<p>3:30-4:30 Talk to prefrosh.</p>
<p>4:30-5:30 Club fair. Watch Patrick Hummel eat innocent prefrosh, simultaneously beating 15 of them at chess.</p>
<p>5:30-6 walk around looking for someone</p>
<p>6:15-7:00 Fleming dinner. offend people by saying I hate rotation rules. Meet prefrosh choosing between Olin and Caltech. Find out about Olin.</p>
<p>7:00-midnight hang out with prefrosh. watch Tommy (5 foot, 120 pound kid) be ponded by 10 people with half an hour of effort. Play campus-wide Capture the Flag.</p>
<p>sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.</p>
<p>Ben, your post leaves a very important question unanswered: Red team or white team?</p>
<p>white! teehee.</p>
<p>Where in your schedule does stalking me fit in?</p>
<p>EVERYWHERE. (And who do you think "someone" was?)</p>
<p>Loveliest of trees, the cherry now<br>
Is hung with bloom along the bough,<br>
And stands about the woodland ride<br>
Wearing white for Eastertide. </p>
<p>Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,<br>
And take from seventy springs a score,<br>
It only leaves me fifty more. </p>
<p>And since to look at things in bloom<br>
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go<br>
To see the cherry hung with snow.</p>
<p>A. E. Housman</p>
<p>I like this one:</p>
<p>"Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."</p>
<p>Why, if 'tis dancing you would be
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh, many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie god knows where,
And carried half-way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.</p>
<p>Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.</p>
<p>There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt
- I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.</p>
<pre><code>-- A. E. Housman
</code></pre>