Junior at MIT majoring in math.
As some of you may know, I have recently been upset with my lifestyle. In an effort to get myself out of that slump, I decided to reinforce my quota of a post per week. I used to do this back in freshman year. I used some excuse about wanting to write better posts to excuse my lack of activity. This time, I will not be using that excuse. I expect great quality whilst still maintaining this upload…
On the desk in my room, there is a stack of unread books, museum pamphlets, crumpled receipts, unused tissue paper and napkins, emptied and washed glass bottles, food crumbs, knots of wires, and a bit of space cleared for my laptop and my mouse, my cracked dinner bowl and the free Heineken glass that I got in Amsterdam. My weekdays are simple: I wake up around 8 or 9 to the sun shining through the…
A young man wearing a white wool vest from his canvas tote bag placed on his dark navy jean shorts retrieves a bag of loose tobacco withdraws a slip of wax paper measures the leaves onto the sheet positions the filter at one end rolls and evens the contents brings it up to his lips licks the edges seals the cigarette and places it on his right ear. It rubs against his dark navy snapback worn…
On this day, I seem to be a little bit caught up in my emotions and can't focus on working. It was a public holiday yesterday, Corpus Christi, and thanks to someone else who is not in the math department where I work, I was informed that I don't need to come to work. I came in anyways, and spent the afternoon wrestling with Macaulay2, before going home in the rain. But today, I can't get myself…
This was written for 21W.775 Writing about the Environment and Nature. It is highly likely that I edit this again and repost it. I also was experimenting with footnotes in this piece, which cannot be realized in this medium, so I've just left them as asterisks. I am dropping 18.726 Algebraic Geometry II. I am dropping it after gritting my teeth, forcing my way through Algebraic Geometry I, getting…
This was written for 21W.775 Writing about the Environment and Nature (or some bullshit like that). I may change/update this in the future. When my younger self was shooed off the television, I would look out the one window of our HDB flat that did not face the hallway, out at the Singaporean night sky. The other high-rises of the neighborhood framed my view on both sides. Below were the tops of…
This is a warm up before I crank out my essay due on Tuesday on stars and light pollution. I am at Pepita right now. This is where I wrote my first cafe review during spring break my freshman year, kickstarting my cafe-hopping hobby. I went on to go to three other places over that week: 1369, Curio, and Render. The next post I wrote two weeks later was on Gypsy Place. Of these five places, Curio,…
I did not want to go to the last day of my Intro to Arranging class. I would much rather study for my AG final. However, being the goody two-shoes I am, I dragged my lazy butt there. I walked in a couple minutes late and plopped myself into my usual spot in the back of the classroom, where I could slouch down in my seat and lean my head against the wall. For this last class meeting, we had a guest…
should be dated about the middle of spring semester last year (march 2025, let's say). I guess I never posted it cuz it gets kinda abstract at the end and a little ranty. and also it's kinda like vent writing LMAO, but I read it again and I was like damn that's so sweet so let's post it (i'm sure the past me would have no problem with this!) I woke up today with that dryness in your throat that…
Okay guys! My now once-monthly post this month will be about a note-taking method that I picked up like a week ago. I've not used it for very long but I genuinely like it so much. I used to be somewhat interested in productivity back in the day, and one of the hype trains is Obsidian. People were raving about how it revolutionizes the way you take notes because you can link notes together.…
a pseudoupdate Here is a list of things that I need to do: School (obviously), which includes staying caught up on lectures, psets, and general making sure I understand stuff. 18.725 Algebraic Geometry I - this is going to be my main focus this semester. No matter what, I have to understand everything thoroughly. That's the goal I'm setting for myself. I'm already struggling bc I just fucking hate…
I was lying on my bed, legs dead tired from standing for an hour and a half cooking, scrolling reels as one does. I saw one that was captioned "when you start your internship and realize that your free time is 90% cooking and cleaning." In preparation for writing this post, I looked back at the last time I wrote about cooking ( https://listed.to/@angelofd3sth/46706/cooking-update ). Wow, so many…
i don't want to call it my sophomore spring review because i've done more things than just take classes, but it'd be too long to put them all in one post, so here you go School's over! Well, it's been over for weeks now. I've just been... processing? The last month has been an endless flurry of assignments and miscellaneous things I had to do. But I survived all of that like I survived IAP.…
hi hi hi hi gang, my bad i've been gone, there's just been life lately Well, there are some changes that happened this semester that I'm still adapting to. New problems, old problems, have been popping up (in relation to my mind, I don't mean people at least). So it's spring break right now, and I suppose we're like halfway through the semester? Crazy how time flies. I'm sitting at a cafe (Bloc…
"There was one time when you were a little kid, you had your arms full, trying to carry too many things at once. And then they fell out of your hands and you would cry," my mom told me over winter break. I can imagine clearly my 5-year-old self, tears streaming down her face, trying desperately to hold onto everything. An apt metaphor. When you're at MIT, you find yourself trying to do more and…
"i actually might burn myself out before the semester starts" "Is that exactly what you said you would learn from last semester?" "lmao" So what have I been up to these days? What is it that takes me away from writing? What is it that takes me away from giving myself time? Well, to be fair, I think I have been taking good breaks. I've really locked into the 3 hour grind session with Honkai Star…
Oops, it's been a while, hasn't it? This post has gone through a few revisions and editing since I came out of PROMYS, considering how it's the end of the year. I promised a student that I'd get it done by the end of the year, so here I am making sure that it is done. (at the last moment, I'm not in EST so it's still 2024 for me lol) PROMYS has always been near and dear to my heart, and of course…
One of the requirements for obtaining a course 18 (math) major is differential equations. We have a standard diffeq class (18.03) which almost everybody at this school takes because understandably, it's an engineering school, and one needs to understand how to model things that change over time in their engineering lifetime. There are also other classes that fulfill this requirement, like 18.032,…
I went over the long weekend 11/9 - 11/11 (Veteran's day) to a retreat/lodge place in Cape Cod. It's not far away from the beach. The lodge itself is kinda old, like all lodges are, and it was also pretty poorly insulated, which was not ideal in early November. I think it's used primarily as a Christian retreat lodge, judging from the fact that the other group that was there was a Christian camp…
it's been a weird time I suppose. My vision is worse than normal today. My glasses don't have the correct astigmatism prescription, so everything is slightly blurry, but it's fine most of the time. Not today though. I suppose my eyes are too tired to focus or something. But right now, walking back to my dorm between the tennis courts and the track field, I look up and I can see the stars. I stop…
"You don't deserve to suffer", a recurring motif recently in my conversations. The people who have told me that don't understand how much that means to me. I mean, there has been a lot of sweet and kind things said to me recently because it was my birthday this past Friday and people wrote me nice, sweet, kind notes. Reading their heartfelt words, I realized how easy it is to forget how much…
I have a pset due tonight that I haven't started. Oh and a midterm in two days. After I finish writing this I gotta lock in hardcore. Unfortunately today is not a coffee day, so we're doing a matcha review (because I've been thinking about matcha since the Maruichi popup with that one famous matcha guy) Phin Coffee House Rating: 2/5 Location: 10 High St, Boston, MA 02110 Ordered: large Matcha…
actually, I think about this place almost everyday And I wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you, and that I made some uh mistakes over the last couple weeks with what I'm doing with my time, and that came from starting to think "I don't have time this week to write, I'll write when I do have time" because it's all about making time to do the things that are important to you, and…
PROMYS 2024 had just ended. Caught up in all the goodbyes, getting lost with two other students, and the bus to the airport getting super delayed, I was really worried that I wasn't going to make my flight on time. That's okay though, because while we were walking in circles at South Station trying to find the goddamn bus to the airport (and the ironic part is that I've taken this bus multiple…
I can't shy away from hard things. I have to continue to challenge myself to do hard things, like be forced to make decisions about people so that I can help even more people down the line. It's so important to me to help any person I come across be their best self (though it's not true for anyone. I feel the calling more for some people than others. There are people we're destined to help, I…
This post was written as part of my submission to MIT's Blogger Applications for 2024 What is something totally inconsequential that you have a strong opinion about? No, there isn't a best symbol to represent multiplication. If there was a best symbol, it definitely would not be the center dot. Different occasions call for different symbols, and it's crucial that you use them for the right…
This post was written as part of my submission to MIT's Blogger Applications for 2024 Write at least 400 words about a random monotonous small thing in as much detail as you can. Every Sunday, I'll wake up quite early (mind you, at this school quite early means 8am), and I'll spring out of bed because Sunday is laundry day. The sooner that I get done with laundry means the sooner I can sit down…
I literally spent 30 minutes choosing places today, and then I decided that I was going to hop on the T and go to this spot that I've had bookmarked for a long time now. Man, was I impressed. Ogawa Coffee Rating: 5/5 Location: 10 Milk St, Boston, MA 02108 Ordered: Kyoto house blend (3.5), smoked salmon bagel (13.25), matcha cake roll (10.75) Vibes: Immaculate. The baristas have uniforms of white…
PROMYS means I'm in Boston means I can continue cafe hopping :) Phinista Cafe Rating: 3.5/5 Location: 96 Peterborough St, Boston, MA 02215 Ordered: Iced Phin Ube (6), Matcha Bun (4.5), Saigon Breakfast Banh Mi (11) Vibes: A cute little coffeeshop just a little distance away from Fenway. Dark wood furniture against a white backdrop. Lots of real flowers and plants everywhere. It's the kind of…
I swear I'm not a stalker. I'm pretty sure other people do the same too! There's this guy with amazing style and he's the reason why I got a wolf cut. He's a senior, or, he was a senior. He graduated this year, and I'll never see him again. He's never going to know that he has inspired me to change my hair style. He's never going to know that he's literally changed a part of me. I will clarify…
Where have I been? Traveling. First of all, I am Singaporean, but my parents were born and raised in China. It was a very interesting time. My parents (and by extension, my grandparents) witnessed the rapid development that China underwent. I once interviewed my mother for my final project in my 7th grade history class, and she told me about food rations, coal stoves, and going to bed cold and…
Oh, it's summer again. Last summer, I started this blog. How time flies. I'll be really busy this summer compared to all the summers in the past. I'm going back to my home country of Singapore for the first time in ages (I was still in elementary school when I last visited, I believe). Since I'm kind of pooped from traveling, I've asked to just chill for a day at least. And so I'm sitting in the…
I'm on a flight out of Boston, having slept approximately 60 minutes in the last 36 hours in the form of ten minute naps and microsleeps, and I lost my left Galaxy bud to the depths of the airplane floor. The turbulence is going kinda crazy, but I'm only bothered in the sense that every little bump and jerk the plane does, my earbud rolls a little further away from me and my chances of finding it…
I'm going back to Singapore for the first time in like 7 years with my mom, and we're flying through Japan Airlines, stopping in Tokyo for a couple hours (enough for me to do some touristy stuff). But that's irrelevant. The important part is that I'm on the flight right now and they have Weathering with You as part of the in-flight entertainment. It's one of those shows that was really big and…
I had to come up to this side of Boston to run an errand, and so I decided to hit up a coffee shop and be super, duper productive because I really need to lock in for my finals (and here I am, spending at least half an hour writing this review). I had seen this place mentioned a couple times on r/boston, and so I've been waiting to try it out. The guy next to me has a sketchpad out and Canvas…
Quick update, because I don't want to leave y'all hanging. Unfortunately, I have a final in every one of my classes. I've organized a notion with the grades I need to get an A in the class. For some classes, it's not very high (like 8.02, of which I just need a 60%). For other classes, I need to get a B, and I don't know if I can guarantee that. I know I have a tendency to stress out about stuff,…
I cut my ankle and it lowkey bled everywhere. I was standing in a puddle of blood that was gathered in my knock-off crocs (thank god I wasn't wearing an actual shoe because that would be annoying asf to deal with) and it was a rather awkward situation to deal with overall imo. Now I'm seated at my desk, which is next to my bed, and I have my legs up on my bed (which is so very nice and warm and…
OMG ALL THE HAPPY PREFROSH ON CAMPUS their excitement is contagious (i'm literally more excited than some of them). Why study for test when I can talk to prefrosh and write about talking to prefrosh. But seriously though, why is there even class over cpw??? Why do I have a test during cpw???? I want to hang out with the prefrosh and pump them up and get them to comMIT. Oh yeah, btw, CPW (Campus…
It's Marathon Monday, and I don't have anything to do, nor much work to get done. And so we continue on the coffee shop grind. It's also such a nice day, it'd be a shame if I spent the entire day indoors. I might make this into a series. I should really lean into the foodie part of me. According to online reviews, this place is highly rated for vibes and their healthy food options. There is a wide…
It was raining today, but since there wasn't a very strong wind, I push forwards on my cafe hopping journey. Today, I crossed the river to hit up this coffee shop near Berklee and Northeastern. I've been trying to taste more local-crafted coffees and this was one of the shops that did that. I actually biked here so I was soaked when I arrived. I also did not sleep as much as I should on break last…
I did not have breakfast this morning, and I was rushing to go to a meeting that I found out was cancelled when I arrived (I did not have time in the morning to check before I left), and so I made my way here without much preparation. It's a bit away from campus, but since I was on the east side of campus, and this place was located east of campus, I decided to make my way here. Unfortunately for…
It's located in Central, where Hmart and Target is, which is where I plan on going after I have my little lunch here. Good location for grocery shopping after :). I don't know what a kouign-amann is, so I purchased one because it would be a shame if I kept going to coffeeshops without buying at least one pastry (ouch wallet). 1369 Coffeehouse Rating: 4.5/5 Location: 757 Massachusetts Ave,…
dragging myself out of my room every morning to avoid the brainrot, but also developing a caffeine addiction and wasting my mother's money (sorry mom) I make no claims about being a food expert and knowing anything about coffee (i've never drank coffee seriously before). These are obviously my opinions, and there are people who are way more qualified to give their opinion on food than I am. As I…
It's such a nice day outside. The sun is shining and I don't have to battle the wind that bites at your skin and chills you to the bone whenever I walk outside. It feels like it's summer, and it just makes me smile and be happy in general. There are people outside in the field that my room overlooks playing frisbee and soccer. They're blasting some kind of rap music which is just a little bit…
Disclaimer: obviously this is my personal opinion, so don't flame me? Every library has a 24/7 space that is a strict subset of the entire library that is open 24/7. When the library closes, students (and other members of the MIT community) must relocate to the 24/7 space to work. It's probably the only places that have security cameras or something so they know you're not destroying books or…
I went to a cafe to grind out some psets today. I ordered myself a little latte (I've decided that I'm a latte girl now), a slice of pistachio cheesecake, and a chicken pesto prosciutto sandwich. I got there with my friend at around 11:30. We were planning on visiting another cafe called Cicada, but it's really popular and there was a wait to get inside. So we ended up in some chain Italian cafe…
That too familiar, too dreaded clench in my chest, a disgusting taste of dry acid in my esophagus, I want to spit it out, heave it out, but nothing comes out except stale air. It's all in my head. Remember, it's not real, your mind is just confused, tricking you, it doesn't know you're moving when you're not moving, or was it the other way around? I forgot. I forget easily. I get lost easy, lost…
Tomorrow's a snow day and I'm sitting on my bed looking all silly with a face mask that my friend gifted me on my birthday four months ago, that I haven't found a moment in the last four months to lay it on my face for 15-20 minutes and just chill. It's not really that I don't have time, because that's never really the case, it's just that I haven't made time for it. Like how I haven't made the…
I was catching up with a friend yesterday and I asked her: "What is the hardest thing for you to adjust to in college?" Her response was that maintaining friendships was hard now. She talked about her experiences, and I realized that she was vocalizing what I also felt. So here I am today to talk about it. When you're in high school, she explained, your friends were people that you meet on a…
I started writing these a really long time ago, and I was scrolling through my old drafts and I thought this one is one of the easier ones to polish up and publish. I see so many people on campus ride bicycles without their hands. They aren't going that fast either. And they can also turn?? I can barely take turns without falling over. Well, being on the weird BlueBikes is definitely not helpful.…