My teenager days in Berkeley

So.. This is my 17th day in Berkeley (not including my first night when i directly went to sleep) and there have been lots, lots of things occupying my time so far. A lot of friends asked "How are you in Berkeley ?", so to keep things more efficient, I would like to share a not-so-brief writing of my experience here.

Welcome to UC Berkeley !
"Let there be light !" - Genesis 1:3

I came here with  my parents at August 5th evening, homeless. Then I found a place to live in my 2nd day; 3 single rooms with a bathroom. I ain't staying with Indonesians as I was my whole life (with my exchange program as exception), but the other two are also a new PhD student, one in Mathematics (a Romanian), another in Logic (USA citizen). And although no furniture was provided, my parents were so eager to grab things from IKEA and Voilà ! My empty room magically turned into a wonderful single room.

My first single room ever, more furniture to come

The location is also pretty strategic, about 15 minutes or so from the campus, and public places are within walking distance. Thus I was, and am happily settled at the moment.

Anyway, UC Berkeley is; as some people already mentioned; a very impressive place both for students and even a mere visitor. Compared to the joint structures in NTU, they have different buildings called 'Hall' for the learning activities. As for math students, our activities will mostly revolve around Evans Hall.

Route to School

Everyday, you can see people are sitting on the grass. Chatting, having some coffee, studying, enjoying the sun.. But isn't it an incredible view ? I mean.. I never saw such thing in Singapore. Either they're too busy or maybe because it's too small to have these big fields. Whatever.

The Evans Hall with the grass-eating.. I mean grass-sitting people on the foreground

As usual, there is an orientation session for new international students held by the BIO and there's another for Math Grad students held by the Math Department. I was acquainted with dozens of people from all over the world in my first few days. It's amazing how diverse the students admitted here. There are some fun facts to know. UC Berkeley declared itself as the best public university in USA (which I believed so), and its eternal rival will be Stanford. The rivalry is too 'evil', they even had some pranks about Stanfurd in the orientation book, indoctrinating all these new students with such hatred. And no it's not a typo, I also wonder why they named it that way. Never, I repeat, NEVER come here wearing any Stanford attires or accessories. 

Stanford - Berkeley rivalry

Now, although there are only approximately 7% international students, BUT add all those with American citizenship (including the ABC and such), it could go easily pass the 60% mark of the students population in UC Berkeley ! If you never visit the States and let's say you got sedated then brought up here, you would most probably say that it is an Asian university.

All the time before coming here, my friends encouraged me (like crazy) to cook. Yes, I've tried and did a lot of cooking my friend, probably more than what I did in Singapore (minus the instant noodle of course). And what did you expect ? Failed, simple cuisine right ? Well, fortunately among those, there's something I can cook which actually tasted nice.

Introducing my first Spicy Teriyaki Chicken Rice. Somehow, it's better than I thought, looks decent huh ?

Still trying to make a proper Aglio Olio though.

As for graduate matter, I've talked to my academic advisor about what courses to enroll. My interest clustered around Combinatorics or Number Theory, thus I planned to take both Algebraic Combinatorics and Algebraic Number Theory. But he saw me as a not-very-algebraic person, so he suggested me to take a look at Probability Theory instead. 

These won't let me sleep tight this semester

As with my advisor himself, he is a very attentive and sharp person ! Definitely a good care-taker. I'll be very happy to advise to him often.

In addition to the graduate courses, I will have a 'part time' job as a GSI, Graduate Student Instructor. Basically, GSI will be teaching undergraduate courses in discussion sections, while the lecture will be still taught by a professor. As expected, US universities took teaching in a very serious manner, especially in here, they even had a pre-semester teaching workshop for all the new GSIs. It was fun and so much knowledge, tips & tricks, and excellent advice to be accumulated in 2 days. Not comparable to my teaching experience in Singapore. 

The positive thing about it is that I'll be teaching Calculus 1 - the most basic math class, and that we are given full freedom to do anything we consider useful for learning purposes. Including playing games if necessary. The not very good news is that it will first take away 6 hours of my life every week, plus the office hours where students are expected and WILL DEFINITELY COME (and sometimes they said, might screw you with geeky or childish questions), plus the time I need to prepare for the material.  Also, 3 of which are 8am classes whose place is about 30 minutes walk from home. But in some sense, it can turn out positive that I will be forced to cultivate habit of waking up early and more fat will be burned away.

My current schedule. Consume much more time than it looks like.

My last few days are bad as I needed to take preliminary examination. Too lazy to define it, just click the link to know what it is. But I was super nervous before the test, not expect I'd be able to get more than 60 out of 120. If not for the grace of God, I would be cursed to take the exam. I meant it literally, as I somehow did manage to solve all the problems required, minus a little typo. The results will come out this Friday, hopes up.

It won't get any better, the class start this Thursday and the teaching already begin the next day. In short, my playing time just reduced to ashes, but anyway, it's time to get serious in life.

Psst.. I'll tell u some secret. UC Berkeley people are ADDICTED TO BEARS. All the names are related to that animal. What's the website to add/drop classes ? Tele Bears. What's the website that provide all student's basic information ? Bear Facts. What's the name of the store to buy your textbooks and souvenirs ? Bear's Lair. I need to bear all of these as long as I'm still in Bearkeley.

The honored logo of  UC Berkeley's sport club : Golden Bears

Okay, I should end this now and start preparing. Go Bears !