Congratulations to Professor Bhargava!

It was announced this week that Manjul Bhargava won the Fields medal! I'm not that surprised to hear this; after all, in the months prior to this one, I heard so much speculation that he would win the award. And I heard many times about his amazing mathematical achievements. When the Princeton math department celebrated Yakov Sinai winning the Abel prize this May, I mentioned to people how sad I was that I would not be around when Professor Bhargava wins the Fields medal.

What did surprise me was that many of my friends started contacting me, telling me they saw me in the video on Bhargava that was released together with the announcement of the Fields medalists. (In fact, it was played on big screens to thousands of mathematicians at the International Congress of Mathematicians.)

I'm watching the video from my desk at Facebook!

How did I end up in that video? I knew Bhargava was away from Princeton the whole school 2013-2014 year, so I was quite surprised to see him appear in the common room one day in May. I went up to talk to him and he explained he was back because the Simons Foundation wanted to make a video about him that was set at Princeton.

Then he asked me if I wanted to be in the video. I decided to go along with it. (It sounded like fun!) There were several other students that were also pulled into this video production.

The videographer following him around (who I didn't notice at first) asked me and the other students to do several things with Bhargava, including:

1. walking into the common room and taking seats at a table
2. listening to Bhargava teach us a card trick
3. walking out of the common room

Only the card trick parts made it to the video though.

Weeks 3-5

Week 2 (6/16)

On Saturday, Facebook took the interns white-water rafting! (I don't have pictures of actually being on the river. You can probably guess why.)

On Sunday, I walked down to Chinatown (and bought some Asian groceries).

Week 3 (6/23)

Mini-golfing in the middle of the week.

Facebook has "Free Lunch Wednesdays." A group of us went to lunch in Capitol Hill at a restaurant called Sitka and Spruce.

Princeton students in the area went hiking on Tiger Mountain (very appropriate for Princeton). We went on a trail called Poo Poo Point. (I don't know if that name is appropriate for anything!)

Everyone seems happy to be at the top!

I joined Facebook in the pride parade.

It was a large group of Facebook people. And the interns were at the front.

Week 4 (6/30)

I checked out the 4th of July festival at South Lake Union park.

Another Free Lunch Wednesday!

Week 5 (7/7)

Facebook had a Hack-a-thon this week (Wednesday to Friday).

S'mores-making on the first night

And they ended the Hack-a-thon by inviting a soccer player to the office.

Picture with DeAndre Yedlin

Weeks 1-2 of Facebook internship (out of 12)

Got back to California just in time for PHHS's math team party!

Followed by Facebook's intern orientation in their Menlo Park HQ!

We sat in this room and listened to many people talk.

There's too much food in the offices. Hopefully I won't become fat this summer!

After the week-long orientation ended, there was a Rubik's cube competition in Sunnyvale!

Then it was off to Facebook in Seattle!

Breakfast in the cafe on the first day!

The cafe has a nice view.

Two graduations in one week

I graduated from Princeton on Tuesday. Making it through the commencement ceremony was probably the hardest thing I had to do to get my diploma. We sat in the hot hot sun for hours while important people talked (either in English or in Latin). I solved my 8x8 once but then the puzzle got too hot (!) so I put it away.

It was super sunny! Luckily I had my hat.

After surviving that morning, Princeton kicked us out so I went to visit some friends in Boston. On Thursday, I attended the number theory conference at BU in honor of Glenn Stevens's 60th birthday. (Prof. Stevens founded PROMYS.)

Conference banquet!

Also on Thursday, I sent an email to some friends in Boston asking if they were free on Friday. One of the conversations went like this.

Me: I'm in Boston! Are you free on Friday?
Rachel: ... Friday is our graduation!
Me: !!

Congratulations!

Also, Jennifer and I made scallion pancakes! We need to figure out how to make them layered though...

Scallion pancake!

Dead week so far

The last two days have been very nice and warm days. (They've also been sunny, but anyways...)

Yesterday I tried to read Thoreau's Walden outside. But after 10 pages, I fell asleep.

Today I tried to go for a 30 minute run through the Institute Woods (at the IAS). I got lost in the woods and the run ended up being 60 minutes. I entered behind the Institute and somehow emerged near the Lawrence apartments...

Google CodeJam, 5am, again!

Just see my post from a year ago. The exact same thing happened.

Highlights of this week

On Wednesday night, I ran into the grad student teaching History of Mathematics.

grad student: How did you find Descartes?
me: Descartes? ... Oh, is that what our reading for tomorrow is about?

Friday morning, I was interviewing for Microsoft.

me: "I run Linux on a Mac."
[few seconds later]
me (in my head): *oops*