I was born in Seoul, Korea, on December 8, 1974. That, by the was, was the 33rd aniversary of the day that the US declared war on Japan. From Seoul, I moved to Boston, then San Diego. I currently reside in the little city of Encinitas, California, though I only go home for a total of 3 weeks out of the year.
I graduated from San Dieguito High School in 1993. San Dieguito was a good time, and I can honestly say that I learned more there than I have at MIT, because "Repetition is the mother of learning!" That's what my math teacher, Mr. Ringstrom, would tell us! Chemistry was a lot of phun becuase a bunch of us became independent study lab students. This meant that we were allowed in the chem lab unsupervised (being the model students that we were) and could run whatever experiments we felt like doing. These included making grenades, thermite, elephant toothpaste, glow-in-the-dark liquids, and other hazardous materials that have been banned from most chemical weapons facilities. One simple reaction that we liked to perform was to melt Potassium Iodide in a test tube, then drop sugar cubes into the tube. The light show reminds me of the glow of afterburners coming out of the back of an F-14. Make sure you do this in a fume hood and wear goggles too, since melting Pyrex is mildly dangerous.... And for those in the class of '94, yes, it was me that made that big explosion spring term of '93. I remember this well because I really thought that I had burned off all my hair and the substitute teacher that day took it out on me 'cause she nearly had a heart attack herself! Not all of my work was inspired by pyromania....although by far, they were the most memorable!
I did do a useful project on water testing for the biology students at the school. I researched several different tests and made little test kits for the students to use in the local San Elijo Lagoon.
Coming to MIT is definitely a real trip. Snow sucks. Crossing the Harvard Bridge to go swimming in the middle of Janurary definitely builds a lot of character. So does shoveling snow off our roof to keep our room from leaking. Quite the fun time! Our fraternity house is over 100 years old, I think, and it's a big job trying to keep the physical plant of the house in good shape. Over Janurary, we had a problem with the roof in my room. All the snow and ice that accumulated on the roof started to melt and drip into my room, making a huge mess. Darius and I ended up putting a 1' wide hole in our ceiling and stapling tarp to it to drain the water into a bucket instead of onto our desks! A month later, there was a break in the electrical conduit in our room, and we couldn't find where. So, half of our room is now without power. It's amazing that the original electrical wiring of the house lasted that long; it was done in a time when electrical tape was made from cloth!
Now I live in a little box. It's true. Normally, I would post a picture of my room on the web, but since it is so small, my camera can't focus on the back wall of my room! I would need to get a fish-eye lens to take a reasonable picture, and the depth of field would just suck.
We just got back from National Convention down in Orlando, Florida for August 7-10. It was great to meet brothers from all across the nation, and to see the members of the Grand Chapter of Theta Chi. Driving back from Orlando, we got stopped in Georgia by the police. Spencer was swerving into the emergency lane so Darius could throw produce at signs.... but anyway, the cops thought that Spencer had been smoking marijuana and they started searching us, then the car. While they were searching the car, Darius in his infinite wisdom proudly proclaimed "I'm really, really, hungry!" Yep, the cops definitely thought we had been smoking pot. They were real pricks about it, too. But, they couldn't find any seeds or joints or whatever, so they had to let us go. It was pretty classic! Going through South Carolina, we were able to restock our munitions. Luckily, no more cops stopped us 'cause they'd have had a field day going through all the explosives in the trunk!
Here is a link to SPaik Anatomy! It's a very little known subject, but is gaining wide attention from scientists around the world that wish to study higher forms of life!
Enough about me, now here are some neat-o pictures that I've been scanning in from time to time.
Last Modified: January 19,1998
