peti a peti, lay vee fay noso

I have yet to write about A.

Yeshiva

Yeshiva's customs are strange. They separately teach men and women in different campuses, yet Naomi tells me of 'mixing events'. How else to produce the next generation? The Beren campus for women in Manhattan housed the first Blackboard Lectures in physics, organized by Emil. Blackboard is good, it's so much easier to prepare a presentation. I talked about Wilson loops and inversion-symmetric topological insulators, my first project and one of my pet loves. In my preparation, I divided the 30-minute presentation into three segments: 1D  in the first 12 min, some 2D in the next 12, and the relative winding number in the last 6. I was really excited to get to the relative winding, which was a recent baby of mine, so it deserved its own segment.  In practice, I stopped at the first mark, in 29 minutes 58 seconds, as Bo claims. It was a blitz, I talked fast, wrote fast, derived fast (the relation between Wilson and Wannier), but not fast enough. I had to wonder why my definition of unitary is not strictly correct, and why the hell a Wilson line is instead isometric. Pity about the relative winding. Emil got up and told the audience that 'this is what the Blackboard lectures are about, an exchange of information between audience and lecturer; the presentation was very good.' Later, he came up to me and gave me a fatherly pat, saying once again, 'Very good.' Shinshei, whose work I admire from afar, admitted to me that he had tried to derive the tight-binding Wilson loop, but failed. He also told me that he thought of the Z classification in the entanglement spectrum, which surprised me because I thought our group and Ashvin's were the only two. As Kundera writes, many many people, few original gestures. With some satisfaction, I told him that the two formulations coincide. Overall, I am feeling 'very good' about the whole matter, even as I'm typing this in the Starbucks outside my international hostel.

Alexey is going to ETH in Switzerland. We talked deeply into the evening, before he hurried off, saying he didn't want to anger a girl. When prodded, I found out he has a Russian mistress. I really like this guy, and he gave me the idea of an inversion pump.

Haha it was a good moment at the end, when Phil Anderson made a comment, and shortly after, Shivaji Sondhi told the audience that Phil came up with the idea that gauge bosons can acquire mass from broken symmetry, 1 year before Higgs did. I never really thought of it like this, but it's a huge triumph for Phil too.

Hey P.

Chris Tully is giving a Higgs talk in 1.5 hours, at PCTS conference room. I overheard Gettelfinger saying he expects 300 people. Tim and I agreed to camp out at least 0.5 hours before it begins, front row.

I'm glad to hear Higgs has overturned your cynicism. For now.

Life post Higgs = life pre Higgs + a little more faith in physics.

My project on parton-constructed wavefunctions is frustrating the hell out of me. I seem to get mixed results as to whether the method is good or not, and I've put in months of work into this already. It's inexplicable how I can get such good results and bad results simultaneously. I just don't understand it yet. But working towards it.

Imps won her application for arbitration in her first hearing! I hear she had been staying up till 2am most nights to prepare for it. I felt a pang when I heard it from her by email, because I should have been the first to call her and ask how it went, because I felt something of Kundera's compassion - the emotional satisfaction of intense effort bearing fruit. Last week was exciting for me and Imps, because Kelvin asked her to take over the hearing and the pressure she faced placed her on her own trial. It is rumoured that tears of frustration and exhaustion streamed down her face in the morning of her first hearing - she had sat up all night in her chair, an unmoving intellectual giant, so intense in her preparation of arguments and counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments. Unfortunately, these rumours were imperiously dispelled by the Japan Queen herself.  

 Hi Nun,

That was a moving account - the confessions of a retoucher.

It's ok about Laetitia's personal statement. Perhaps if it becomes too touched up, it becomes unbelievable that any PSLE student can write like that, hehe. Reading that account, I felt like a retoucher myself, but I consoled myself - unlike idealized beauty, a good sentence is a reachable, perhaps even admirable, goal. Moreover, I recommended content changes as well.

( I like how two good examples, OLE and carnival, are connected. Even managed to squeeze in math olympiad at the end!
However, the jumping back and forth chronologically is distracting. Why not start with OLE?
I suggest removing some unnecessary words, to clear space for more specific examples.)

Through the Open Little Eyes conference I attended in April this year, I came to understand many global problems in  child welfare. (Don't use the word 'issues'; it's vague to the point of saying nothing. Also, give a few examples of these global problems; expect that the reader doesn't know anything.) I was one of two primary six students who represented my school, and there I experienced a simulation of inequality and exploitation. (simulation? vague, describe a little) The vulnerability I felt made my tears well up in frustration. The feelings of helplessness towards the blatant discrimination that I felt was unforgettable. (sentence is awkward, try: While struggling against acts of blatant discrimination, I will never forget my feelings of helplessness and frustration. )


The conference fuelled my desire to do something special for children who struggle daily against bleak conditions. (saying you're middle-class doesn't say anything important - omit)  Fortuitously, Singapore Chinese Girls’ School organised a fund-raising carnival  in that same month, and many underprivileged children from organizations (such as? Give one/two examples. Specificity is good) have been invited.  ( Don’t waste words saying unimportant things like: …fund school programmes.  I think it’s not important for the essay theme, and neither do you, so don’t bother write it. At the very least, don't say 'More importantly...' because you're not respecting your previous sentence.)  (Too many repetitions like: I was excited to contribute to this event. You imply this in your next sentence.)  I shared my excitement with my three best friends, and we decided to set up an unprecedented horse-riding booth. Our team penned a project proposal, sealed it in an envelope of hope,  and delivered it to our principal. (Notice the previous sentence flows better than what it was) I could not believe my ears when she approved our proposal! (cut unnecessary words, like in previous sentence) The next step was to raise $2,500 – the cost of enlisting Horsecity to provide a booth. (cut out words, as in previous sentence)  Over the next month (don't say next one month, say next month), my friends and I corresponded with Horsecity and pleaded for donations. I often felt demoralised because I could not convince some friends and parents to support the cause. I began to wonder if I had been overambitious (having doubts is implied in previous line, don't repeat yourself) - all the other student-initiated projects were regular small-scale stall activities. However, giving up meant that the underprivileged children may never get another chance to ride a horse - I could not accept this. (Much shorter now)
(sat my friends down is a waste of words) I encouraged my friends to brainstorm for other fund-raising ideas. We raised $700 by organising a flea market, where we sold our classmates’ old toys and books. (I thought of? but that's too obvious, of course one has to think about it, so it says nothing) We sold the idea to potential donors by emphasizing the humanitarian aspect of our project. (There seems to be a sudden gap here of $1800, which any reader would like to know where it came from. Perhaps expand, it it is interesting) Eventually, we succeeded in raising $2,500 in time for the carnival. (project began full swing? these words say nothing.)
On carnival-day, there was much excitement surrounding our booth, and the crowd proved overwhelming. Responding to the pressure, I quickly enlisted additional friends to help the enthusiastic participants as they... (what do they do exactly? be specific) . Unfortunately, I was called away by teachers to participate in the Mathematics Olympiad that same day, and I could only listen to my friends’ happy accounts after the carnival. I was very proud to hear that the underprivileged children had a fantastic time.  (perhaps there is an example of how much a underprivileged child appreciated the ride? something to show instead of tell.)