The OD Life

Literally 2 years ago there were rumors circulating that Paul George would decide to come home and lead the Lakers. Just last year there were rumors that the Riverside-native Kawhi Leonard would join the Lakers and lead them out of their abyss of failure. And last night they both came home. Just not to the Lakers. Within a year Lob City transformed itself into an amazing group of players that excelled all expectations and clinched the 8th seed playoff spot in the West. And now they've replaced two of their solid mid-tier players with some of the best in the game. The Clippers went from having no apparent leader or any top 20 players to suddenly having 2. Although the LA Lakers might have never gotten Kawhi or PG13, they exceeded expectations by bring Lebron James and Anthony Davis to the city within the span of two years. Now with the addition of Demarcus Cousins, they have 3 All-Star caliber players on their team. With the addition of players such as Danny Green and Jared D...

Admittedly, I have been following professional sports less and less in the past few years, ever since I quit playing fantasy football in 2015. I barely watched the 2019 NBA finals, despite the devastating injuries to future hall-of-famers Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson and the potential of Jeremy Lin becoming the first Asian-American to win an NBA championship (which he later accomplished , playing a whopping 1 minute in the final series). Still, I could not help but jump on the bandwagon and discuss my thoughts on the recent blockbuster trade of New Orleans Pelicans star Anthony Davis, which I argue is the biggest sports trade in recent memory, immediately transforming a Lakers team who fell shy of the playoffs this year to championship favorites for the 2019-2020 season, but also provides much needed depth and future consistency for the Pelicans, who are looking to build a dynasty around Zion Williamson, the most hyped NBA prospect in recent memory. Source: ESPN.com The Brow ha...

When I was 8 years old my dad brought an extra desktop from work home. It had Windows XP, Internet Explorer that only worked because we leeched off our neighbor's WiFi, and of course the greatest pinball machine game ever. At the time I was fascinated by the things that desktop could do and how everything could fit into a metal box that seemed to be made up of random colorful wires, loud fans, and way too much dust. At that instance, I'd subconsciously made the decision that I wanted to work with computers in the future. I didn't know how, but I knew that was my goal. At the time I hadn't even heard of college or university, but I knew I wanted to work with computers. All the way from that day to 6th grade where I learned about a '13th grade' to just last semester at Berkeley I always thought that I'd be best suited for a career with computers. Software engineering was the only pathway that I would be taking, because that's all I'd ever heard wh...

Recently I finished a fantastic biography by Walter Isaa cson detailing the life and works of one of my favorite historical figure of all time - Leonardo da Vinci. The Turin Self-Portrait, 1512 | Source: leonardodavinci.net Born on April 15th, 1452 as an illegitimate (and oldest) son of notary Ser Piero and peasant lady Caterina, Leonardo was markedly different from his peers and relatives from a very young age. He proved too curious to follow his father's wishes of him becoming a notary and proved that until the day he died in 1519. Many of us know of the left-handed genius from the popularized Mona Lisa or The Vitruvian Man, and many aspiring artists and scientists have tried imitating his brilliant works. Handsome and social, he was respected by many people in his time as well as the present. Today, our discussion will not draw primarily from his famous works, but what we can learn from Leonardo's characteristics and actions. 1. Be Tremendously Curious ab...

What does it mean to be the best at something? Einstein. Mozart. Jordan. Aristotle. These are often the most recognized names in their respective field of work, looked up to by millions every day.  But out of the billions of people who have ever lived in this world, how many of us can reasonably expect to live up to their status and ability? Short answer: the vast majority can't, and won't ever. But that doesn't stop us from aspiring to be the best at whatever we pursue, including me. Why do some people appear more successful than others? A short formula for our ability to do something is as follows (note that this may not be comprehensive, or entirely accurate, but is meant for simplicity's sake): Ability = Talent x Efficient Work where "Efficient Work" can be further broken down into time spent x quality of work . Making lots of different mistakes and reflecting on them counts as quality work. Gazing at your phone every 5 minutes while practicin...

I just finished an interesting first year at Berkeley. I call it interesting because it's too hard to really categorize. I've had messy years, easy years, intense years, but this past school year was none of those. I had to make new friends, I had to figure out what I want to major in, but most importantly I had to leave my comfort zone and really grow out of my shell.  But all of these things are for another post. In this post I just wanted to recap some of the moments from freshman year and immortalize them in this blog. I want this post to really encapsulate everything freshman year was about into a little package that I can look back at and be flooded with nostalgia.  The first impactful experience would have to start off with Golden Bear Orientation. Before going into college I would always hear about people complaining about how boring and useless orientation is. But I really think GBO is a little different from other university orientations. I don't ...

As my first two semesters in college comes to a close,  I thought it'd be appropriate to briefly describe my first year in words. To my friends, professors, Berkeley, and the Bay Area in general, thanks for making my 2018-2019 year incredible. Golden Bear Orientation:   Orientation was by far the week that exceeded my expectations the most this year. A week filled with magic shows, comedy acts, musical performances, as well as the week when I met my 10 closest friends in college without dread of looming assignments. Silent disco was the bomb, as was the lemonade at Foothill ;) Cal's 150th birthday was special. Classes:   For the most part, I am very happy with the classes I chose in both fall and spring semesters. Astronomy C10 introduced me to one of the greatest lecturers I've ever seen ( Alex Filippenko ), while other breadth classes such as Nutritional Science and Scandinavian shed light into topics I've never previously thought about. Of course, the ...