Friday, August 11, 2017

A Tribute to my Piano Teacher: Ms. Ruo Balko

Today I was listening to the Grieg Holberg Suite during my internship, played by Dr. Hastings, who passed away last year. Dr. Hastings was my piano professor when I went to the FSU piano institute four years ago. Listening to the Holberg Suite made me feel very sentimental, and I suddenly started crying. Dr. Hastings had a reputation for being hard on his students because he pushed them to be the best that they could be. I loved Dr. Hastings; he was the best, and being reminded of Dr. Hastings reminded me of my piano teacher who had pushed me to...

Monday, August 7, 2017

Finding your Utility Function, a Discussion on Existentialism

As a preface, this essay reflects my beliefs and opinions at the moment, which I felt would be interesting to capture for future references. I want to emphasize that my beliefs change over time and that I don't want to impose anything on you; feel free to form your own opinions. I found this paragraph from Vitalik Buterin's personal website especially interesting: In late 2011, I participated in a high school programming competition where players program the code for a team of simulated robots that then fight each other. I won third place. Someone...