Random Questions About Life

33, 57, 203, 190, 336

Posted on October 4, 2018

So it’s been kind of a while since I’ve written anything, and that’s party because I’ve been busy, but also because I haven’t really been sure what I wanted to write about. I thought about writing about my school life in the last couple of weeks, but there really isn’t a nice theme yet and I tried writing about it and it didn’t flow very well. So I thought I’d choose some random questions out of the table topic questions and just answer them.

33. If you could choose one book as a mandatory read for all high school students, which book would you choose?

I’d choose Algorithms, by Dasgupta, Papadimitrious, and Vazirani. And that’s only half jokingly. I’d honestly never thought I would like reading a textbook, but it’s such a very well written book and gives you the high level overview of algorithms. And I’m a firm believer in that algorithms aren’t only related to computer science, but to many fields. I mean, algorithms are just a way of approaching problems. You use some sort of algorithm everyday to go through life, so wouldn’t it be good to formulize those ideas?

I think the Harry Potter books would also be a strong contender. And if I had to choose a single book, it would be the first one, because why would I make for example the 4th book mandatory and not the previous ones? You would have no background. Although I guess if I made the 7th one mandatory, that would kind of force the curriculum to also include the previous six…But anyways, I think it’s a really good series that’s a great mix of fun, adventure, fantasy, seriousness, and all of that other good stuff.

I’d also recommend The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. It was recommended to me by the manager of the UXD team at Illumio, and it’s a very interesting book. I’ve only read through the beginning parts of it though, because then my housemate wanted to read it so I’m currently going through some other books. But design is a field that I’ve taken interest into recently. And I don’t mean like web app design, but just…how things in life are designed. Why are things the way that they are? Is there a better design out there for even simple things? I think somehow, the world would be a better place if we had a better grasp on how to design things.

Well, I mean since I only get to pick one book, I guess I’d go with The Design of Everyday Things. Everyone kind of reads Harry Potter sometime, and maybe people don’t find algorithms as interesting as they do to me. And design is something that’s kind of lost on most of society.

57. Have you ever regretted something you did not say or do?

Oh, of course. I regret many things I didn’t say or do. I’m not sure if this counts as an action, but I regret not believing in myself more in the past. Especially when I was playing pingpong back then. Is believing in yourself an action? And of course, there are times where I wish I spoken up or asked for things before the opportunity disappeared, but I was too nervous or shy. But like I said in my post about Illumio, you gotta voice your thoughts and questions.

203. What motivates you to go to work each day?

Well, I don’t go to work. Easy answer. But what motivates me to go to school? I find computer science interesting. I think computer science is also a rapidly growing field and I'm excited to be a part of it. I think that you can also apply computer science to many different other fields, so I could make an impact in many different areas especially due to the rise of technology in every field these days. I'd also like to think that school makes me think in ways that I would never stretch my mind in otherwise, and being at Berkeley really makes me grow and learn more about myself.

190. What will you never do?

Kill someone. Put in milk before cereal.

336. What is your favorite quote?

Well, my favorite quote throughout the years has been, “It’s just a bad day, not a bad life.” But recently, I heard this one and I thought I found it very interesting: “There are many ways to get there, and there are many there’s to get to.”

Maybe I’ll start a page of just books I’m reading/read. And maybe I will write my thoughts about quotes. That would be fun, I used to have a lot of cool quotes.