Tag: Life

Island

“If you were stuck on an island and had to pick three songs to listen to for the rest of your life, what would you choose?”

Well. I’m glad you asked. Here’s what I would pick.

Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen: This is (in my humble opinion) the greatest song ever made. Freddie Mercury’s mesmerizing vocals, Brian May’s incredible guitar work, the changing sections and tempos — all combine to form a masterpiece. This is also my favorite karaoke song.

Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin: The guitar solo is gorgeous.

Master of Puppets by Metallica: This song defines heavy metal music for me. It was the first Metallica song I ever heard and I fell in love instantly. When I started playing guitar this was the first Metallica song I tried to learn. And no, that didn’t end too well for me unfortunately.

What would you pick?

 

Discover

I discovered The Folio Society yesterday. I instantly fell in love with a number of their books, and I’m currently trying to decide which book(s) I want to purchase for myself. I’ve always loved books, and am starting to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of art (SF MOMA and the de Young Museum are some of my favorite places in the city). I can’t wait to add these books to my personal library.

Quotes: September Edition

I wrote a blog post talking about how I write down lines from books I’m reading. Here are some lines that I loved from the books that I read in September:

(I also just realized that both the books I read in September were about World War 2)

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore. — Slaughterhouse-Five

But sleep would not come. Tears came instead.  — Slaughterhouse-Five

“That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.” — Slaughterhouse-Five

“Other people’s dreams aren’t very interesting, usually.” — Slaughterhouse-Five

The worst can always be true. — The Nightingale

Inside, the house echoed the voice of a man who wasn’t there. — The Nightingale

I belong to a generation that didn’t expect to be protected from every danger. — The Nightingale

Vianne finished the letter and immediately began reading it again. — The Nightingale

But when he looked at her — and she looked at him — they both knew that there was something worse than kissing the wrong person.
It was wanting to.
— The Nightingale

“Now that you’ve met me, you’ll never be able to forget me. That’s something.” — The Nightingale

I see the surgeon in him suddenly, the man who is used to staring past blood and bone to find what is broken. — The Nightingale

How can I start at the beginning, when all I can think about is the end? — The Nightingale

“Some stories don’t have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.” — The Nightingale

Goal Tracking: September Edition

At the beginning of the year I published a post outlining what some of my goals for the year were. In the spirit of being transparent, here is the progress I made on them over the course of September –

  1. 100% self availability over the course of the month.
  2. Volunteered for 0 hours  😦
  3. Little to no procrastination. Minus a tiny bit of laziness regarding buying tickets for Hawaii.
  4. Continued being honest and open over the course of September. 
  5. Made a tiny bit of progress on learning Rust. This was mostly just reading blog posts about Rust.
  6. I read 2 books in September — Slaughterhouse-Five (I read this book for the first time in 2012. And I was unimpressed. But re-reading it in 2016, with a new found appreciation and understanding of Kurt Vonnegut, made me realize how brilliant and amazing this book is) and The Nightingale (I LOVED this book! It’s beautifully written, with an engaging story, a haunting backdrop, and well developed characters. It made me cry quite a bit. This is one of my favorite books of all time).
  7. I read 1 research paper — Design patterns for container-based distributed systems. I wrote a post about it as well.
  8. I wrote 4 posts.
  9. I didn’t really play much guitar in September.
  10. (a) (goal achieved)
    (b) (goal achieved)
    (c) (goal achieved)
    (d) (goal achieved)
    (e) (goal achieved)

Quotes: August Edition

I wrote a blog post talking about how I write down lines from books I’m reading. Here are some lines that I loved from the book that I read in August:

It’s tough to live with people stuck in the past, isn’t it? — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

I exist to serve. — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Thank you for being my light in the darkness. — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Goal Tracking: August Edition

At the beginning of the year I published a post outlining what some of my goals for the year were. In the spirit of being transparent, here is the progress I made on them over the course of August –

  1. 65%-75% self availability over the course of the month.
  2. Volunteered for 0 hours  😦
  3. An embarrassing amount of procrastination.
  4. August 2016 was, by far, the most honest and open I’ve ever been in my life. The experiences I’ve had during this month have helped me grow a lot and certain moments are most definitely imprinted on the fabric of my mind.
  5. Made zero progress on learning Rust.
  6. I only managed to read one book in August — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (a good, but NOT great, book).
  7. I read 2 research papers — Real-Time Twitter Recommendation: Online Motif Detection in Large Dynamic Graphs and High-Availability at Massive Scale: Building Google’s Data Infrastructure for Ads (I LOVED this paper. I will be writing a post about it soon).
  8. I wrote 5 posts.
  9. I learned to play 2-3 songs on the guitar.
    (Note to self — I need to learn more non-metal songs. Any time someone asks me to play a song the interaction is always along the lines of:
    “Oh cool! Why don’t you play something?”
    “Sure, but you probably haven’t heard the song.”
    Yes, almost none of my friends listen to metal music)
  10. (a) (goal achieved)
    (b) (goal achieved)
    (c) (goal achieved)
    (d) (goal achieved)
    (e) (goal achieved)

100

I’ve been tracking all the artists I’ve seen live since 2013, and a few weeks ago (at my third Outside Lands festival) this tally reached 100.

The first artist I saw live was Chevelle at the Fillmore in San Francisco, CA on July 8th 2014. I remember standing on the fringes of the mosh pit and being extremely scared that I would be sucked in (I didn’t). I also remember being amazed by how good the band sounded live, and how talented each and every member was. Needless to say I had a fantastic time — I was blown away by the whole experience, and by the time Chevelle came back on stage for their encore I’d already decided that I would try and see as many concerts as possible.

It’s really hard to pick a favorite show of the 100+ I’ve seen. A top 5 list (in no particular order) would probably feature Tame Impala (at Coachella 2016), AC/DC, Metallica, TesseracT, Deafheaven. Not only do Tame Impala sound sublime live (I’m so excited to see them again on September 3rd), but the lights and videos they use during their live sets elevate their music to another level. AC/DC and Metallica hold huge sentimental value for me since they were the bands I grew up listening to, and seeing them live was an emotional experience. TesseracT is my (current) favorite band and the first progressive metal band I enjoyed listening to, and they were awesome live (very excited to see them again with Gojira on October 7th). Plus I got to meet the band before the show which was very cool! Deafheaven was easily the most intense show I’ve been to. Though given the type of music they play this is to be expected.

The bands I’ve seen the most times live are Tennis and Mastodon. The last time I saw Mastodon was when they played the night before my 25th birthday. It was a great birthday gift (yes, I do know it was a day early).

The Chevelle show ignited a love for live music within me that still shines brightly today.

Sunrise

I got to see Haitus Kaiyote at Outside Lands 2016 last weekend. They were one of the best bands I’ve seen live so far. Seeing them live gave me a newfound love and appreciation for their music and I’ve been listening to their songs all of last week. Not only is their music beautiful, but the pictures they paint with their lyrics are gorgeous as well, and some of them seem to appeal to my current state of mind.