Newest pages:

1. The advantages of attending a prestigious name-brand university 2009-09-21
2. MathViz: Math expression code visualizer 2009-09-20
3. Social tips for geeks 2009-09-07
4. My advice for kids: The 1,000-hour rule 2009-02-09
5. On remembering and dealing with people's names 2009-01-19

Recently updated pages:

1. Advice for applying for graduate science fellowships: NSF, NDSEG, Hertz 2009-11-12
2. Academic - Ph.D. Candidate, Stanford Computer Science Department 2009-10-19
3. On the Move: An Immigrant Child's Global Journey 2009-09-10
4. Emails About My Website 2009-06-05
5. Attention: Overbearing Asian Parents 2009-06-05

Overview (for those who don't mind scrolling):

In recent years, I've mostly used this website to showcase my articles on topics ranging from:

• Theories of middle and high school popularity and managing expectations in social interactions

• Negative consequences of overbearing Asian parents pushing their kids to excel academically

• Life lessons and tips I've learned from people far wiser and smarter than I am

• Advice for getting accepted into graduate school and winning science research fellowships

• Evangelizing the benefits of synchronizing and backing up your data across different computers using Unison

• Thinking about how to teach useful programming skills to young people and supporting Python as a teaching language

I've enjoyed writing in my free time since I was a teenager. My first (and only) book, an autobiography of my early life entitled On the Move: An Immigrant Child's Global Journey, was published in 2007.

In March 2009, at the request of some of my readers, I started an online discussion forum for issues related to dealing with Asian parents.

Before I started sharing my writing, this website was mostly a showcase for my photography hobby. Click on any of the thumbnails on this page to see a gallery of related photos, or reload this page to see more photo thumbnails randomly sampled from my collection. Some of my favorite photos are from my Summer 2000 and Summer 2005 tours of rural China.

I also enjoy creating and sharing software. My largest hobby project is the web-based XML Photo Gallery; I use it to display all of my website photos, and over a dozen people have adapted it for their own websites.

Back in college (2001-2006), I took some classes, worked on several research projects, created a few short amateur videos, and (most importantly) had an unbelievably wonderful time with my friends doing things like making up inane slang terms.

One of the most rewarding aspects of maintaining this website is receiving email feedback from around the world.

Last non-trivial update: 2009-09-22