Fancy hats that made us smile. :)

My hair…I like it somewhat, but it really was rather long and in the way.


And that right there is pure beauty. <3

This update of Words ends here. :)

The Wandering Minstrels, however, made their mark during this time. Molly Grossman, Jason Curtis, Kory Kautz, Nathaniel Ting, and I worked really hard and really well together to make our band take wing. See, for a Foundations in Business and Entrepreneurship class, we were banded together (any wordplay in any of my posts is intentional, by the way) along with another member who turned out to be somewhat of a bad team player based on our personalities and intended learning outcomes. Soon after coming together as a group, we struck a chord when we came up with the idea of starting a songwriting and performing band. Effectual thinking led us to that decision, and tenacity and a willingness to work together in harmony pulled us through. Many natural responses were later found to be accidental wise choices, for the way we sealed deals and persuaded clients to consider services of greater scale augmented our profits greatly. At the back end, we wrote, rehearsed, and performed songs with discipline, relying on each other to ensure that nobody takes unnecessary rest breaks or is left without a part to play for too long. Every single one of us was instrumental to the success of the business, and our concerted effort earned us a special place in Dr Steve Gold’s heart. It can be said that people will be sure to remember the Wandering Minstrels for years to come, and that no other FiBE team in this class can match the chemistry of ours. P.S: Some people were reportedly even envious of our band’s camaraderie. :P

This update of Words ends here. :)

The first highlight of my second semester at Olin is actually something that I had no part in, except that of the recipient. Some may know that the 31st of January is my birthday. Some did not know, for I removed my birthday from my Facebook profile as soon as Winter Break came to a close. There were a few who did know, and remembered. Kelsey was one such person. There were others, too, and some very worthy of mention, but that would distract from this story. This story has to do with, primarily, Kelsey and her initiative.

You would know, from my previous posts, that I am the mastermind behind the three birthday parties for our three professors. For each and every one of the surprises, I rallied the class to celebrate the joyous occasion, and etched myself as an icon of the Olin Class of 2013. Well, Kelsey and the rest of the class decided to do something for me, in return, and planned that which they called Project “Zed”. Kelsey knew of my favorite band, Westlife, and rummaged through all Westlife’s songs sifting out all the romantic parts of songs (or, if that were impossible, the whole song entirely), compiling them into a .doc file. Then she remixed them with Kory, and they made sure everyone in the class who was planning to attend knew the songs.

On the day before my birthday, I decided to wear my favorite purple shirt. It was exciting because I was planning to wear it the next day too, giving the excuse that it was my birthday and I could wear whatever I wanted. People decided to act as if they didn’t know it was going to be my birthday the next day, which was interesting. I sat in a couch in the WH 2 lounge for the evening, working. When midnight struck, a few people wished me happy birthday, and the order in which they did is as follows (oh hey, what else would you expect from me? By the way, besides the times and names, all else is by memory, so I hope I’m correct):

1. 0012h – Rachel Fox, Monje, and Trevor: It was the night of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and they came back obviously in costume and character. Three birthday wishes. Maybe a hug or two as well.

4. 0028h – Jackie: Rocky Horror as well? One birthday wish.

5. 0048h – Vidie and Margaret-Ann: Walked by and wished me a happy birthday. I asked how Marganet-Ann knew, and she lied: she said she saw it on Facebook…I removed it from Facebook, remember? One hug and two wishes.

7. 0059h – Molly Grossman and Ilana: They went to the MIT ballroom dance team’s winter ball and just came back. One amazing birthday hug and two wishes.

A total of 12 people before I went to bed at 0210h.

After I woke and showered, I heard sounds outside my room and looked out the peep-hole. Apparently a really huge birthday poster was posted on the wall opposite my door. I smiled. I got ready, and went out to get brunch at 1218h.

After brunch, I went back to that same couch in the WH 2 lounge, and people started to ask if I slept the previous night, because I had been in the same position, wearing the same clothes, working, the night before. At some point around 1412h, Molly Grossman came by and decided to sit next to me, and we talked. For some time we talked, and then Kelsey came by and requested my help with something, and we all walked out, only for me to walk into a birthday ambush of people in the WH 2 antelounge. :)

They started singing some parts of Flying Without Wings, Moments, and More than Words. I would have had a recording of it, but the video camera decided to not-work at the end. The singing was beautiful, the people were sincere (those whom I had expected not to show up did not). I was touched. After receiving my gift: a wire-art phoenix made by girl Casey, I was asked to sing something. So I sang a song of tribute and gratitude. :)

I’m glad for the way things turned out. :)

This update of Words ends here. :)

And I made this while I was in New York:

This update of Words ends here. :)

When the time came, the lights went dim, and our grand plan had been executed. Kelsey, ever so eager for Shenanigans, began with a song that I wrote—in fact, I wrote all the songs—that had to do with pasta and the meaning of life. My original version of the verses for the song had this:

Ignorant fool you cannot see beyond your food
Insolent girl you most definitely should
“Put down that fork”

There is no sight as sad as pasta
There is no happiness that it brings
There is no bite as bad as pasta’s
Sinful edible strings

There is no food as crude as pasta
There is no happiness within
There’s no noodle as crudele as pasta
Edible strings of sin

But in our agreed-upon final version we removed the middle paragraph because the mini-musical was too long. Which made me somewhat sad, but for the greater purpose, it was worth it.

Before and after these lines, the whole mini-musical contained many, many little gems of chuckle-inducing lyrics. In the larger abstraction, however, the story involved Eva being upset over the meaninglessness of life, but thankful for the constancy that pasta brings, Gregory frustrated with Eva’s bad grammar, and cynical of the world at large, Sampson annoyed at the folly of everyone, and everyone’s ignorance when it comes to social change, the King of the Dining Hall devil-may-care about life, and Giselle blissfully ignorant about life. Eva and the King seem to have something going on for them at the end, Giselle and Gregory fall in love and cure each other of their weaknesses, and Sampson remains annoyed at everyone. The musical is halted at its musical climax by guest star José Oscar Mur-Miranda who stood up and shouted “You’re at Olin; suck it up!” to the most thunderous applause.

We denied anything happened until a day after it didn’t happen.

This update of Words ends here. :)

For Expo, we each made our own poster for our own subdivision. Kelsey, the most important person that led to the success of surprise number one, was in charge of the presentation for John’s surprise. Matthew, whom I relied on for the success of surprise number two, presented Oscar’s surprise. Sasha, the only reason why I was still alive on the day of surprise number three, presented Mark’s surprise. Again, I was the slavedriving supervisor, and my presentation was a big picture overview of everything:

As a tribute to the people who in one way or another have helped to make the surprises successful:
*Samantha P Becht – Samantha is always ready to help, especially when it comes to food and the kitchen. She was crucial to the success of Eso Si Que Es. She helped with the baking of the cakes for Lagrangian Sneakiness and Elastic Cats too.
*Kelsey O Breseman – Kelsey is one of the mostest awesomest Olin freshmen I know. Amazingly spontaneous and selfless, she would take ownership of projects to see them come to completion, even if she were to do so alone. I especially remember her magnanimous contributions to Lagrangian Sneakiness and Eso Si Que Es.
*Erica D Chin – Erica is a wonderful artist, and always available on short notice. She did amazing things for Eso Si Que Es and Elastic Cats.
Caroline E Condon
*Philip Z Loh – Tada!
*Matthew J Rush – Matthew is another selfless individual who loves to help. He almost single-handedly carried Eso Si Que Es to success. He was extremely active for Lagrangian Sneakiness too. He also came up with the names Eso Si Que Es and Elastic Cats.
*Hannah B Sarver – Hannah does everything. She baked for Lagrangian Sneakiness and Elastic Cats, and was involved in lots of other little things along the way.
*Sasha A Sproch – Sasha is interestingly independent. She made Elastic Cats what it is: a smashing success. Even when I had to leave her working on the stilts to do something else for an hour or so, she did not slack off, and in fact came up with more ideas to improve on the safety and stability of the stilts. She’s wonderful.
*Jessica L Bethune – Jessica is a great help, also when it comes to food and the kitchen. I am grateful for her willingness to go shopping with me the morning of Lagrangian Sneakiness.
*Rachel H Biniaz – Rachel makes a mean snickerdoodle cake. Eso Si Que Es.
*Reyner L Crosby – Reyner is so helpful he’d wake up to drive people to grocery stores in the morning even when his first class for the day is at 1pm. Lagrangian Sneakiness.
*Rachel Fox – Rachel is another of my cherished drivers. Very dependable. Eso Si Que Es.
*Anton Frolenkov – Anton is amazingly ready to help at all times. He coordinated the gift purchase for Lagrangian Sneakiness, drove the fabric store shoppers to get tartans for Lagrangian Sneakiness, and drove us to get wood for Elastic Cats. We filled his car with 8-foot long wooden square poles.
*Molly R Grossman – Molly is amazing with her hands. She is also amazingly available to help. Her felt flowers made all the girls look amazingly pretty for Eso Si Que Es.
*Kory W Kautz – Kory is good with wood. His insights helped us make our decently-built stilts. Elastic Cats.
*Jacqueline J Rose – Jacqueline is a wonderful cake decorator. She made the intricately-frosted plaid cake for Lagrangian Sneakiness.
*Timothy C Ryan – Timothy is another amazing artist. He made the beautiful giant pig poster. He did it all by himself. His artwork is amazingly beautiful. Elastic Cats.
Kristopher M Belland
Paul H Booth
Kathryn M Brookshier
Andrew P Carmedelle
Andrea P Cuadra
Ian T Daniher
Erin V Du Vair
Thomas W Dugger
Mariah S Dunn
Blair J Emanuel
Molly L Farison
David N Gaynor
Geetanjali Gubba
Victoriea L Hamilton
Jeffrey A Hart
Michael G Heyns
Christopher S Hill
Lucas P Hill
Graham E Hooton
Trevor W Hooton
Jialiya Huang
Eric P Jones
Casey M Karst
Jared A Kirschner
Aiswarya P Kolisetty
Eric B Kolker
Mandy B Korpusik
Tara Krishnan
Jing Li
Jenny Ma
Celeste D Maisel
Sarah E Mathew
Seungwhan Moon
Heidi E Nafis
Jessica L Noglows
Thomas P Pandolfo
Geoffrey M Pleiss
Kendall E Pletcher
Vidie Pong
Rebecca H Schutzengel
Margaret-Ann J Seger
Emily B Shackleton
Yoonkyung A Shin
Benjamin L Smith
Travis L St Onge
Brittany L Strachota
Michael T Sullivan
Elizabeth F Threlkeld
Lillian Tseng
Noah L Tye
Tara M Vaziri
Teodora S Vidolova
Ilana Z Walder-Biesanz
Amy L Whitcombe
Samantha S Yang

What a wonderful way to end the ModSim Shenanigans, and what a wonderful way to end the semester.

This update of Words ends here. :)

I stayed composed and reflected. This was what I asked for. This was exactly what I wanted. Initiative. A source of initiative that was not me. An independent voice that would be different from mine, friendly not hostile, yet stubborn enough. Communicative, open to suggestion, but capable of her own thought. I had wanted such a working partner, and I found her in an email that was not initially welcome. This self-discovery has led me to discover more than my self. I sent a more authoritative-sounding email soon after, with all that Sasha said and more. Having a giant pig poster as a gift was financially pleasing for me. This meant that our funds would only be required for the ice cream and the cake. We would have origami cats on pipe-cleaners hanging from the ceiling, true to our theme “Elastic Cats”.

All this mention of a giant pig poster is in reference to a childhood story that Mark told us one day. When he was a little boy, Mark would pester his mom to bring him to this ice cream place where they’d have a giant bowl of ice cream called a “Super Duper Double Dipper”. The promotion for that ice cream was that if someone could finish the whole bowl of ice cream in one sitting, that person would get that ice cream on the house. On top of that, that person would receive a giant poster of a pig at the window of the ice cream parlor, to remind them that they made a pig of themselves at that place. Mark’s mom would never allow Mark to go there because ice cream was expensive, until this one time when she relented. Mark ordered the Super Duper Double Dipper and went at it, and before long he was halfway through. With a third of the ice cream left, he started to feel sick, but he continued to plow through the ice cream. By the time he was done, he had to use the restroom, and started to walk towards the back of the ice cream parlor. Somewhere in the middle of the parlor, Mark threw up onto the floor, and his mom brought him into the restroom to wash him up. After she carried him back into the car, she went to look for the manager of the ice cream parlor, and asked for the poster. She got it for him, and he “finally knew how much his mom loved him”. Through the years he lost the poster, but he still remembered the story. This formed the inspiration for the idea for our gift to him. We were going to recreate a giant pig poster for him.

Mark is super tall. With this as inspiration, some of us wanted to come for the birthday surprise on stilts. None of us had any idea how to make the stilts, but we were Olin students. I convened an emergency meeting of four people on Saturday night and decided to get the wood on Sunday afternoon. Making the stilts would come after that. Another sweatshop operation began.

At about 2pm on Sunday, Anton drove Sasha and I to Lowe’s and we bought the 2-by-2′s we needed. Interestingly to me, 2-inch by 2-inch wood planks were 1.5-inch by 1.5-inch. In fact, every single measurement for every piece of wood would be overstated by 0.5 inches. That was the first thing I learned from the first time I stepped into a store like Lowe’s. We then bought the ice cream we needed and some more foodstuffs, and reached Olin at dinner time. After a rushed dinner, Sasha and I went to work on the stilts. Kory came along and helped for some time too. We measured the wood, we cut the wood, we drilled the wood, we sanded the stilts, we tested the stilts, we modified the stilts, we beautified the stilts… All in 13 hours. Sasha did more work than I, I have to admit. By 3am, we had taken our original design and had improved on the stability and the safety of the stilts. We were crazy, but we were satisfied. Nine sets of stilts in thirteen hours. Sizes were 2′, 1’7″, and 1′.

On the cake side, Hannah worked her magic again. I had requested an ice cream cake, and an ice cream cake was what I got. And it was amazing. So delicious that no cameras were able to snap a photo of it; the cameras ate the cake.

For the decorations, I had Erica’s help with making some paper cats. And then I made them mostly by myself, with some assortment of helpers at various times. The elastic cats looked totally cool:

The various dress code suggestions we gave people were: Ninjas, stilts, turtlenecks, cats, and cross-dressing. Ninjas, well, we had some stories about ninjas with Mark; I forgot them. Stilts, I explained earlier. Turtlenecks were because Mark always wore turtlenecks. Cats were because Mark loved cats. Cross-dressing was because Mark cross-dressed a few times for Halloween. We were fully exploiting the inside jokes. When Monday came, people were all dressed-up and excited.

I had sneakily made sure that Mark would be on campus on his birthday. To further solidify this assumption, I sent him a meeting request on Outlook requesting Matlab help at 1pm on Monday at his office. I was going to meet him and bring his invitation to him. The other Modeling and Simulation professors were informed about the surprise earlier too, and they showed up early. At 1.10pm I went over to Mark’s office to seek Matlab assistance. I asked him a few hypothetical questions about our assignment and painted verbal pictures about how my graph had oddities. With that, I swung open my laptop and swiveled it toward him. It enveloped the invitation card and had an inspired background:

The invitation card was beautiful too!

The funny thing was that Mark was not wearing a turtleneck that day. So he laughed and smiled and said he’d attend, and I walked him to the studio. People were already packed inside, and we sang him a birthday song. For once—once in a long while—Mark was shorter than some of us:

At the end of it all, the Modeling and Simulation professors said something to me that I repeat with utmost pride: They said that our class had set the bar for awesomeness so very high. I am going to add that incoming classes might need stilts to reach our bar. Three out of three, the ModSim Shenanigans had finally come to a close. And I did not do it all by myself.

This update of Words ends here. :)

My own scheduling, however, was not terribly friendly. The Pen and the Sword (TPatS), an original play that I was a part of, was going through hell week (when shows move into the theaters) that week, beginning the Sunday before the Monday. By the end of Saturday, we had just barely decided on what we would do. Oscar, like John, was foreign. He was Puerto Rican, and had Spanish roots. Playing along these lines, there were people who wanted to make a pinata, who wanted a salsa dancing session, who wanted a Spanish food feast, and more. There were just so many ideas; Kelsey and I made executive decisions on going ahead with the pinata idea at about 1.30pm on Saturday, and that had been our only firm decision until late Saturday night. Oh yes, we decided upon having a snickerdoodle cake baked by Rachel B. Oh oh we had decided upon our dress code too. It was to be semi-formal, because Oscar likes to see his students all dressed-up. But those were not financially-crucial decisions.

I had decided upon the total budget since Jessica informed me about Oscar’s birthday, with help of a survey sent out to the class asking people about their willingness to contribute; it totaled 159 dollars, with 53 people contributing 3 dollars each. If the abundance of ideas were my only problem, it would have been easy: We could simply do everything and take up all suggestions. But nothing that is epic is ever that simple. On John’s birthday, someone had asked Professor Mark Somerville when his birthday was. Not exactly a very very sneaky thing to do, I know. What’s worse was that someone asked Oscar when his birthday was, when I clearly informed the class via email that his birthday was the following Tuesday. I guess being sneaky is just a me thing, that I shouldn’t necessarily expect everyone else to have. Yet I digress. Mark had told someone that his birthday was two Mondays after John’s birthday, on the 14th of December. By then, I had to take up planning for Mark’s surprise, and I very much was against asking people for more money that I had initially announced. The budget for John and Oscar’s surprises now had to accommodate Mark’s surprise, and we had spent about 50% of the budget on John’s surprise. Cautiously, I took a risk and planned for an Oscar budget of 40% and a Mark budget of 40%, knowing that doing so would mean only one thing: Money had to come in, somehow. That also meant that money, more than ever, was tight. I could not find the financial prudence to green light all suggestions, and upon much discourse with some initiators late Saturday night we decided on a Spanish food fiesta, and a bottle of some kind of alcohol as a gift. Matthew, Samantha, and Rachel F were to purchase the food the next morning, and proceed with the food-making as they saw fit. I would be with TPatS, as I had sold my soul to theater.

They blew it. They blew the budget. They blew a huge hole in the budget that I allocated them. I had said 35 dollars, and they spent more than 150 dollars on the foodstuffs plus the candy for the pinata. I received the news when I was working on the TPatS set and it was rather disturbing. Many things went through my mind: Buy a cheaper kind of alcohol? Be heartless and only reimburse for some portion of what they spent? Conjure more money? I was a troubled set-builder. People saw me in that condition, and inquired about what was on my mind. I was plain, and they were pleasantly wise; they said we actually don’t really need a gift in my understanding of a gift. That would expand the allocation for foodstuffs and candy to 65 dollars, and will be a less difficult task for me to handle. Matthew and Rachel F met up with me too, during dinnertime, and we decided that we could return some of the food, reducing the balloon to 108 dollars. A crisis was averted.

I had wanted a gift for Oscar to keep. That was the main thing that was holding me back. And then I was reminded that I can gift him a memory to keep. And so I attempted to do so.

On the day of the surprise, I enlisted John’s help to make Oscar turn up about 10 minutes late for class. He did. He walked into a studio decorated very much like a dance floor. I had amazing help from the amazing Erica in painting the pinata the red-blue-white it was supposed to be. Those were Puerto Rican colors, and they were amazing:

We first sang him the birthday song in Spanish; most of us did not know Spanish so we had Ilana write the lyrics on butcher paper and tacked the lyrics on the wall. Then made Oscar do the whole pinata thing blindfolded, and he was spectacularly sporting. I have a video on Facebook for those of you who are my Facebook friends.

As you might also have noticed, the floor was decorated with Hollywood stars. I made it so, with the intentions of decorating the floor because we decorated the walls for John’s party, of making it look like a dance-floor, and of playing with the dress-up theme. The central star had a more elaborate design, and the rest of the stars were, well, less elaborate:

Then the cake happened. I use that term because it was, almost exactly how the cake was presented: Not much of a mysterious feeling, not much of a theatrical sensation. And again, for the third time, I am reminded that not everyone functions like me, not everyone thinks about money like me, and not everyone works the way i work; but when you work with people—lots of people—somehow, it all has to click. There are things I can control, and there are those that I wish I could. There are also those that I don’t bother about, but who wants to hear about that anyway. These parties have become a journey of self-exploration and improvement.

And we began the food feast! The food, I must stress, was amazingly delicious. After biting into one of the tapas, I turned to Rachel F and Matthew and said that I was extremely happy that they broke the budget. They laughed. I did too. Oh you might notice the flowers in the girls’ hairs and dresses. Molly and Kelsey made them one Friday evening, for all the girls in our class. And once again I am greatly grateful that I have a group of spontaneous people to do crazy things with. I am not alone.

This update of Words ends here. :)

It started out on a Monday, the 30th of November. I had walked into the dining hall and had wanted to swipe in for a meal. At the swipe-in counter, Stefania, the lunch lady, was talking to a group of people, of which I recognized Professor John Geddes from Modeling and Simulation. It was Stefania’s birthday, and they were giving her their best wishes. John (we call most of our professors by their first names because we’re cool that way) went further to tell her that the upcoming Friday, i.e., the 4th of December, was his birthday. I, being the sneaky eavesdropper than I am, swiped in nonetheless, giving no observable signal that would tell John that I heard what he said. I kept my knowledge to myself for most of lunch, and shared it with one or two people to gauge the extent of support I would get if I were to proceed with a surprise plan. After lunch, I sent a class-wide email requesting replies of interest. From there it began: The first of three epic birthday parties masterminded by yours truly. I named it Lagrangian Sneakiness, for he was an applied mathematician, and had just lectured us on Lagrangian mathematics.

From the email replies I received, I started an email loop of 41 people discussing ideas for our surprise. People threw out ideas, comments, and offers to help. It was apparent: People were more or less excited about the prospect of a birthday surprise, possibly because it was new and fresh. No decisions were made though, until the afternoon of the day before the surprise. I looked through all the initiatives and, upon gauging support, chose a few more feasible ones. Within 19 hours—from 6pm on the Thursday to 1pm on the Friday—everything was bought, made, and prepared.

John is Scottish and loves his gin. We decided upon a big bottle of Hendrick’s Gin, the only Scottish gin out there, but we were to relabel it Scotch Whisky, for the simple fact that John is a Scot. Matthew conceptualized a label design inspired by Glenfiddich, and I used my mediocre Photoshop skills to make it happen:

1997 was the year that Olin College was founded. 2013, our class. 15-20 years would be our age range: Ilana, 15, to Matthew, 20. Applied Math Proof, you get the reference. 25m * 40l gives 1000ml, the volume of gin in the bottle. The names in the background were people in our class who agreed to participate by contributing 3 dollars to the surprise fund. I had so much fun.

A cake, a cake, of course, a cake. Hannah, our resident baker, baked an amazingly tasty cake, which Jacqueline decorated superbly well with the Geddes family tartans:

Kelsey made the decorations work. She compiled a list of miscellaneous math jokes and wrote them on butcher paper, then attached them to the walls of our studio: ground zero of our surprise. It spanned the full studio:

If that were not enough, we even started a “sweatshop” operation to produce 32 kilts in 6 hours: Kelsey, again, together with Brittany, Mariah, Matthew, Sasha, and I. From having absolutely zero knowledge in kilt-making to making decent-quality kilts, we grew. We measured, we cut, we folded, we pressed, we sewed, we delivered. Look!

On top of all that, we got some licorice, for we knew that John was big on licorice.

To top it all of, a flag-card!

We knew John would be his usual slightly tardy self, so we packed into the studio just before normal class time on the 4th of December, in wait for his arrival. Professor Oscar Mur-Miranda, Professor Mark Somerville, and Professor Lynn Stein, all of whom lecture us for Modeling and Simulation, arrived early and looked impressed with our work. They had no idea, but they liked it. Our course assistants who happened to pop by stayed too, intrigued by the fanfare that was about to happen. John appeared 10 minutes into class time, and he was surprised. He really was.

This update of Words ends here. :)