Christmas Break 24-25

Christmas break this year was really fun. I came home early from UCSB on my birthday because I didn't have any finals, so I basically had an extra week and a half of break. The early days of break were mostly spent playing poker and pickleball with my friends. There was one night where we slept over at Cheney's house and I made $170 playing PLO! I was running so hot that day, I think I had the absolute nuts 3 hands in a row at one point. And oh yeah, we played from 10pm-6am that night, which is basically a whole school day. (Another cool poker fact, we got to play in the Stanford dorms one day because one of Colin's friend lives there).

I also visited Gunn for SEC and to see the basketball team. It was kinda awkward seeing Mr. Paley again because he was about to get on a call, and I didn't really say much when I got there. I had to go to leave for lunch so I didn't really get the chance to see how everything was going. I went out for lunch with Chris and Josh, and it was pretty interesting to see how everything was going for them, and I was especially curious what the culture was like at Cornell. It seems like they're both doing well; I need to get involved with my school a little more.

Singapore and Thailand

The highlight of the break was definitely seeing my little cousins in Singapore. It was so nice there—even the subways had bidets! The airport had an indoor forest with a giant waterfall in the middle, and we even tried out some of the Michelin star restaurants there too. On the first night arriving, we went to the street market that was made famous from the Crazy Rich Asians scene. I thought the food was good and unique, but not particularly special. The next day, we did a duck tour, which is like a boat and land vehicle that goes around Singapore; I got to see all the cool attractions like the Merlion and Apple's spherical Singapore store.

We also hung out in the mall quite a bit for food and shopping. My grandparents bought me some Birkenstocks, so that was really nice!

Once we went to Thailand, I was excited for the chance to relax by the pool/beach. The resort was pretty nice, it had a lazy river that looped around the entire place, and it wasn't too crowded. Nothing like Vidante though, that place was insane. But anyways, it was really nice to escape to this resort. We all got Thai massages where they walk on you. That night, I slept like a baby at 8:30pm.

The next day, we tried Muay Thai, which brought back memories of my Tae Kwon Do days. Kevin seems to have practiced a lot; my uncle wants me to take some classes here at UCSB this quarter.

Unfortunately, the trip was cut short by all the flying. I'd say we only had about 4-5 full days because we had to fly back and forth so much. I wish we had more time because I really liked it there.

We also got to see my uncle's work building. It was on like the 40th floor of some super nice building and we enjoyed eating lunch there with the breathtaking view. I hope to work in a place like that someday.

That's basically it. I remember we also had some really good crabs that were famous in Singapore. The flight back was a few hours shorter so that was also really nice. I timed Oppenheimer on the plane so that the bomb would go off on New Years.

Side Note About Ping Pong Project

Just before break I finished my ping pong project. Instead of keeping track of the score, I decided it would be cooler to recreate the scene in 3D. The process is mostly manual though, so it's not that practical. You can see a demo here:

I don't think I'll continue, but if I do, it's actually really easy to change this into a point tracker, since all you need to know is where the last bounce on the table is to determine who wins.

Next CCS Project

I think I want to create a diffusion model that can help you preview different clothing items on your own body so that online shopping is easier and leads to less returns. This is good for both the buyer and seller, so it's a win-win opportunity! There are companies developing this technology, so I'm not sure if it's best to try creating a packaged product or just a recreation of the model to research purposes. The idea is to have a lightweight extension that would work on any shopping website, thus making the experience much better.

Or I can create a smart glasses app to look at poker and tell you the best move to make.

Conclusion

Overall, I had a great break. Looking forward to what I'm going to create this quarter!