Saturday, July 10, 2010

Author Context

Here's a brief bit of my history to help you put things in context.

I was born in 1987. I grew up in Hacienda Heights, CA. It's a sub section of LA County, close to the San Gabriel Valley. So, eastern suburbs of LA.

Overall my parents do a great job. They exposed me to a variety of recreational things, even ones I was horrible at. They also had a policy of being OK with whatever grades I got as long as I tried my best. For me, that meant getting almost straight As. They exposed me to a variety of sports to keep me active, encouraged me to try new things, and in general were excellent role models and teachers. Although they perhaps had a bit too much reliance on teaching by osmosis and observation than I might have liked.

My primary recreation until high school was playing Basketball in the church's basketball team and piano. I later transitioned into Flute for Band, Tennis on the off-season, and Piano. I never applied myself seriously to sports, and tended to perform poorly. However, I was always able to play smart and think ahead, letting me get back a bit of an edge on other players. Still, the reason I use slice so aggressively for tennis is because I am lazy and do not take the effort to set my feet up for top spins.

I apparently had an incident with a poor teacher in 2nd grade who reprimanded me for being not attentive. I was actually being very bored and continued to perform well. However, this incident prompted my parents to move me to another school district that had a class specifically for highly gifted students. It was a rough transition and being the new kid I was picked on for several years. For middle school I transferred back to my original school district to find all my former friends radically changed and fractured into various sects. Being an outcast of sorts continued through High School.

In High School I found a few niches. I excelled academically and I made my mark by being a bit out-of-sync with the rest. For example, I explicitly dropped out of the IB program because I wanted to take Calculus BC my Junior year. That kind of backfired a little bit since then I had no interesting math to take my Senior year. I also entered into the Band as one of the last male flutes for a long time. I eventually rose to Section Leader and had one of the most successful sections in those years of the Band. Turns out being the only male in the section has its perks, including being able to avoid the favoritism drama. Plus since I pushed myself so hard I led by example while pushing the whole section to succeed. I was so strict and set the "Trevin standard" so high I gained the nickname "Big Bad Trevin" within the first few weeks. At the same time, I was patient and diligent when teaching individually, so that softened the blow a bit.

I wasn't very interested in grades. I merely performed. At the end of High School we made the startling discovery that I was ranked 7th in my class. Surprising since I was taking Band for all those years, which only provides a 4.0 to my GPA, instead of AP courses which gives a 5.0. I was the second ranked male in the class by GPA.

I applied to college like all the rest and was accepted to my top choice Harvey Mudd College. In summary, it is a high octane science and tech school with a huge liberal arts component and amazing community. Here, I thrived. I was not the top of the class, but that was OK. I was used to being not first. Some of my classmates had to make a hard adjustment in that respect. I expanded my gaming, took some martial arts courses, thoroughly enjoyed music, and made some awesome friends. I also was mentored by some amazing professors who also helped open doors, including helping me land a great internship for the summer of 2009.

It was also a hugely challenging time. For all my previous years I had been under the protection of very active parents. My mother continues to be a pillar of leadership and organization in everything she puts her mind to. My dad is one of the friendliest and helpful dads around. In short, they helped mold my ideology and when things got rough I knew I could rely on their notoriety with the authorities. In college I had to finally stand on my own.

This was especially true when it came to being a Christian. I grew up in the church and really took most of what they told me to be law. In college, I met people who were well versed in trying to prove me wrong. I had to play catch-up, checking assumptions I had made and correcting false facts I had been fed. I still consider myself a Christian today, just a much less naive one.

After graduation I decided I should at least get a Masters Degree. I thus applied and was accepted to UC Davis to work with a professor doing some very interesting chip design work. It has been a very different shift from a small private school where teaching is the top priority to something where it is much more sink-or-swim and the clunky bureaucracy permeates and corrodes everything.

In terms of personality I am rated to be about average in everything on the Myer-Briggs except for being a fairly strong introvert. That being said, I sometimes surprise people who think I am extremely talkative and interpersonal. The reason is that I have learned the importance of being interesting. No one will pry me open to discover all the crazy knowledge I have, my odd wit, or anything really at all. I have to offer it up. So, I always try to have a vignette or story to tell, something to close up the silence, and always on the lookout to try and invite others to speak up. I also am very free about personal information, even sometimes very private information. I find it is because I consider it to be purely facts about me. Oddly, I find it hard to actually feel anything emotional. Probably still a defensive mechanism from my bullied days, but I often can't feel or express emotion. I can fake it, but internally I am solving and analyzing coldly more often than I would like.

So there you have it. A bit of a mini-autobiography of my life up until now. It has its ups and downs. It has some oddities and some normalcy. Maybe this is useful to understand this blog. Perhaps it is all just words in the void.

Not like anyone reads this crap anyways.

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