Aslan

eh, been a terrible week for me, hope things have been going better for you

always hear how much you enjoy history so I wonder why you didn't take it in senior year? to make room for other courses more relevant to your university plans? hm I don't think we visited many major tourist attractions, just walked around downtown at night admiring the bright lights and architecture. also visited a lot of cafes. I actually took a course on modern architecture last semester, we didn't study any ancient buildings but we did cover Chicago school architecture so experiencing it in person was lovely. interesting that you should mention ancient roman architecture, I was really into that stuff back in elementary school, and in high school I took a trip to athens where we looked at some ancient Greek buildings so that was neat

actually pretty cool that I'm reading 'A Secret History' now because I have never had any serious background in the classics, so the change in scenery has been a long time coming. I'm in part 2 now, curious to see what direction it will take, since the narrator is talking about everything in past tense and without much regret, so it's not like they ever get caught or anything? guess I'll just have to read on

I have absolutely no ideas yet for what a future business might look like, but my friend I mentioned has a really strong background in life sciences (in typical asian fashion he's being forced to study for the MCAT. also his dad's a doctor, mother an orthodontist) and AI/machine learning so in all likelihood we'll be looking to do something relevant in bioinformatics, if we ever actually create a startup

btw currently reading 'A Secret History' and the protagonist reads a Raymond Chandler detective novel at some point which is beautiful (I mentioned before that he's my favourite writer!)

so glad you mentioned Carrie and Lowell, with such memorable lines as "we're all gonna die! we're all gonna die! we're all gonna die! we're all gonna die! we're all gonna die!" it never gets old

yeah, I actually didn't eat any of the steak, I had a hamburger (but I ate one of the pancakes and it was 8/10)! I'm told the steak was very bad. agh I can't get over how much I love Chicago, there's a Sufjan Stevens song called 'Chicago' where he sings about the trips he made there with his friend when he was younger, and how he's grown from his experiences. so I made sure that entire album was played multiple times during our time there - a lot of interesting contemporary classical/jazz influences that show up throughout but yeah, there were lots of albums/CDs I had on my mind

hm GH Hardy's book was more of an essay than a novel, he wrote it mainly to give an idea of how mathematicians think of the subject, of which beauty plays a large role. actually I'm not sure how I ended up finding him, but most philosophers I read are famous and generally taught in introductory classes

it's hard to say what goes on at uni, like it depends on what school you go to, what program you're in, and even what professor is teaching it. this year our real analysis class is taught by someone who's really familiar with the Chicago school of analysis (his phd advisor was Charles Fefferman, a world leading mathematician who taught at UChicago - Fefferman graduated from uni at the age of 17!) so we ended up doing a lot of Fourier analysis, rather than the Lebesgue measure stuff that is usually taught in real analysis. also depends a lot on how talented you are, some unusually strong students will be able to take more advanced classes sooner.

I'd like to hear about what interests you have with regards to uni/future careers! I was lucky that finding something fulfilling/interesting came so early, don't know if it's reasonable to expect people in high school to already have even a rough idea of what they want to spend the rest of their life doing

I WILL BE WAITING

Sureprised there isn't more sun form art tbh! It would be so cute in a collab of summer pokemon

Growlithe has such good art! I find so much of it online

i caught a growlithe today in GO in case you needed a puppy update today!!

well, I especially loved the endings. having Kathie and Stevens reflect and stay strong through all that in a believable way was really powerful. there was also the trip in Never Let Me Go where they travel to Norfolk and Kathie explores the streets/shops with Tommy, looking for that cassette tape Kathie lost. it reminded me of my trip to Chicago, my friend and I walked down this small, cozy street of mid-rise buildings going into every shop along the way just to check out what they had. the entire time I was looking for a place that sold CDs, and I did eventually find one

also Stevens' mannerisms in Remains of the Day reminded me of back in highschool when I was obssessed with GH Hardy's writings. Kazuo Ishiguro absolutely nailed the 20th century English high-brow attitude and I love it

oh I've actually been meaning to read The Secret History for some time now! uhh it got backlogged, I ought to start now then. ah, no rush with the reply, atm I'm supposed to be working on my differential geometry pset due wednesday.... and here I am on PC! funny how that works out

btw I wanted to say I finished reading Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go a while back. they were both beautifully depressing but inspiring reads!
can't thank you enough for the suggestion

aslan confirmed for best taste

aaa big hero 6<3

:D

I made homemade cake today!!!

I'm teaching English. Not my life ambition but it's been good for my mid 20s and it's a fairly good way to save money while also being able to enjoy life (if you find a good deal of course). It's funny you talk about peak hour because using the metro at that time itself is an...experience. But I've learnt the art of pushing haha.

I like the Tianhe area just because it's very international which is good for food (since I'm a vegetarian). Also around the Ximen area there's some quite nice historic stuff. I'm a temple obsessive, every time I go somewhere new in Asia I have to check out the temples haha.

Yeah the first time I came to China I actually lived in Beijing for a month which I loved. On Shanghai I only visited there 3 days on a whim but didn't really like it, to be fair I don't think it was Shanghai's fault and I'd be willing to give it another chance.

In Guangdong I've been to a lot of places around the Pearl River Delta area also to a nice island city 'Hailing Island'.

Also outside of Guangdong I've been to some parts of Inner Mongolia, Yangshuo (Guilin), Zhangjiajie, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Sanya. I don't think I'll have much time to do anywhere else while I'm here since I'm saving/I'd need to find the time. I might go to Changsha at some point since it's close.

It's such a huge country there'll always be so much to find to think about seeing haha. Something I want to do in the future is take friends who have never been that far away from home and show them China.

good avatar!!!

Well I moved for work so both haha. It's a massive city but I love it, especially the metro system which makes getting around so convenient. I'm leaving at the start of August though actually. It's the right time for me to go, but I will miss it. Guangdong will always be my second home.

Have you done much exploring around China?

imagine not liking quagsire

waking up to FOURTEEN quagsire VMs may just be the single best thing to ever happen to me on this website?? this is literally the peak of 2019 so far

Hey! I've been here for 3 years and I really enjoy it. I like a tropical climate and big connected city so it's great for me really.

Have you ever visited?

brownies > cake > cookies