the eXternal mind

These days, I’ve been taking midterms, doing problem sets, etc. But I’ve also been watching this anime series called BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. It follows the life of a boy who discovers rock and then becomes part of a band struggling for success. It’s a very good anime, I’ve finished the 26 episodes two days ago, and it’s very moving in some areas. In some ways, I can relate to the show which left me silently nodding at many of the scenes thinking: “Yeah, I know this…”

Heh, I remember the days too when my fingertips were so sore after playing the guitar for hours trying to form bar chords. Or the days when I come upon a song so awesome that I loop it for hours and then immediately try to figure it out on the guitar.

One of the big themes in BECK is that music is supposed to save people. The author of the manga (when was then made into an anime) supposedly got through some hard times with the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Under the Bridge. There was been many times when music has helped get me through tough times, and it still does. The best bands are the ones whose music can save people and change their lives.

So my roommate and I are hosting a prefrosh for Caltech’s Prefrosh Weekend. The way it works is that prefrosh fill out this interest sheet which are distributed to each of the houses and each house allows their members to pick who they want to host.

When Avery had it’s prefrosh picks, I got there fairly on time and scanned through the interests sheets. Within a few sheets, I was astounded and exclaimed: “They’re all the same!” And a bunch of people agreed. Really!

Well, I suppose some things had to be similar like academic interests. Of course they all put something like science or math. But then there are fields like: Who is your ideal host? The general answer (on over 90% of the sheets I’ve read) was something like:
Nice, sleeps early, someone who doesn’t listen to loud rock, etc.

Then there is this other question: What do you like to do besides science and engineering? Now this question was pretty funny. Here’s the 90% response:
I like to listen to soft Jazz, read books, and I play [insert some classical music instrument]. Some of them play a sport like Tennis. But overall, there was virtually no distinguishing characteristics between prefrosh. I kind of understand admissions officers rejecting applications since they were the normal boring “science and math” person now.

Another question was: What kind of music do you listen to and how loud? What kind would you avoid?
90% response was: Soft jazz or classical at a low volume. Avoid loud rock or rap.
One response included: I detest heavy metal.

The final question was: What are the top three things that interest you at Caltech?
90% response:
1. Academics/Research
2. Meeting smart people.
3. Getting freedom/Being able to manage own time.

So I bet you’re probably saying to yourself: “Well, Mike, weren’t you like that when you applied too?” Okay, I admit I wrote down some of the same things like academics/research and playing musical instruments, but I wrote a LOT more than that. While 90% of these kids wrote like one liners, I filled up the spaces with my interests ranging from music (all sorts of intruments and styles) to anime/manga and martial arts. And hell no, I didn’t write classical/jazz music as my favorite type. I mean, I like playing classical and jazz, but I don’t like to listen to them for enjoyment. They get boring pretty quickly whereas rock is much more energizing with catchy beats and lyrics. Somehow I get this feeling that a lot of the prefrosh are religous so they have this thing against supposedly immoral music like rock and rap.

Alright, I must also admit that I’m slightly misrepresenting the prefrosh here since I was only reading the sheets that were distributed to Avery (selected by a group of Avery students). And they just had to select some of the most boring people around.

Finally, if you happen to be offended by this rant, I apologize. In retrospect, there’s nothing wrong with doing whatever one likes to do. That’s right, be your own person!

Don’t take this post seriously! And if you took the last sentence seriously, then there is no hope for you.

I was eating McDonalds for lunch today and as I was sitting there, well, eating of course, I was pondering a lot of things. People mainly. It’s always been depressing to me to go out into the public and observe people. In more urban areas (like places around McDonalds), one usually observes a wide range of people from all sorts of socioeconomical classes. The thing that is depressing is that certain groups of people have a certain look to them. There are a lot of traits to look at and they all add up to a final analytical picture of a person, but a few of the more explainable ones are physical traits (usually the face), how one dresses, and how they move. For instance, you might see someone with a worn down and tired face, dressed in bland clothes (of the working type), and they move with less confidence—maybe with a little less posture or speed. One might conjecture from these observations that this person is from a lower class. I suppose the thing that bothers me the most is that these people have a little bit of hopelessness in their face. It’s kind of like they resigned themselves to be the laborer. It’s like waking up every day to the same boring job or maybe even to uncertainty about keeping that job. It’s about hating that job, but persisting with it as a way of life. The uncertainty in the face is about not being in control of their lives and always having to worry about having enough green little slips of paper.

And I hate that because I can’t really do anything about it. I can’t think of any way of remedying such situations. A staggering proportion of the population is in such a situation. It might require more educational programs, but it’s really difficult to educate someone to be really competent in a technological world when they are competing against younger people who grew up with technology. Non-technological jobs are largely gone. And again, there’s always a big language barrier of populations whose native language is not English. Without good jobs, they don’t have good health insurance either. Without the means of taking care of their health as well of those more fortunate than them, they would probably need the health insurance more than any other class. But it’s not that way, and so more problems result. The despair for me is that it’s impossible to solve this. It’s not an easy formula like: 1. Pour billions of dollars into here. 2. Problem solved. It involves something like changing a lot of politics, education, and the government. And that’s just a few of many things.

Now, the other thing that depressed me was seeing kids and then applying the observation technique to them. I realized that you can just as easily stereotype kids and predict what their future will be like. Well, okay, it’s mostly probability not some magical skill of having an oracle’s eye or something. For instance, maybe one observes a kid about 11 years old from a low to middle class family and he dresses in a kind of hip-hop style. Well, connect that observation with statistics and just general experience from living close to a city and attending public high school and one might be able to predict what the future of that kid will be like. The sad part is that one could possibly be 60-80% correct in these predictions (of course, the predictions are general like what class this kid will be in, what type of job he or she will have, etc.). Imagine! What kind of depressing world is this that I can look at some child and foresee a (possibly negative) future for it? How one is affected as a child can really carry into adulthood.

And then here I am, in college, living in some kind of artificially crafted environment where kids worry about socializing and getting good grades eating $14 lunches and dinners every day amusing themselves by wasting food or breaking things; Sitting around talking about abstract ideas—being totally disconnected from the real world…