Frank's All-in

This might be the last blog I will ever write, or it might be the beginning of a new journey ahead. In this blog, I am going to reflect over my writing, reading, and my biggest life lessons over my four years of high school. Whatever I’m sharing, whether or not it’s relevant to your current life right now, I wish to provide you with even a little bit of inspiration, or add a little bit of sunshine in your life and future. Whatever the case may be, I hope you’ll enjoy this blog. 

Blogs:

From years of writing essays with the goal of getting a good grade, I must admit that I had an intrinsic repulsion towards essay-writing. This year, however, I really enjoyed the AP Lit Blogs as a form of creative writing and expression of my inner self. Unlike the tedious, College Board-inspired essays analyzing short stories and poetry that I often felt – to be honest – forced to write, the blogs were free-spirited writing adventures that I found joy in writing more. 

Blogging gave me a newfound perspective on writing in general. Writing doesn’t have to be a tedious task, and it can sometimes be really fun. Some of my blogs got really popular because they were genuine, and I was speaking my mind. I specifically remember sitting in my car in the NPAC parking lot during Blended 8th period AP Macroeconomics, hearing the raindrops falling on my car’s roof as I typed out my blog “Try Something Crazy, Let Your Feet March On.” I was so focused on writing that blog that I didn’t want to leave the car even though I am supposed to go to a Ping Pong competition right after. That blog got really popular, and from it, I learned that writing can be genuinely enjoyable and that people appreciate my writing style. 

Indisputably, my best blog was “Try Something Crazy, Let Your Feet March On” not because of the popularity it reached and the fact that it was a “meme blog,” but because of my fearless expression of my genuine self and the amount of time I spent fine-tuning it. This was the first blog I’ve written after the college application season, and I wrote it like a college essay. I searched my memories to find my most accurate feelings possible, and I carefully selected every word on that blog to accurately narrate my nervous yet YOLO-ish mental state during that embarrassing cold approaching experience. That blog was a bold endeavor, but I’m glad I wrote it. 

Voices Project:

To be honest, I chose my Voices project book, Interpreter of Maladies, because it was the shortest and I was familiar with Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing style. However, the book was an enjoyable read. If you’d prefer splitting your reading into multiple sessions instead of having one, 5-hour long session to read the whole book, I would definitely recommend that book because it was a series of short stories and each short story was a refreshing and interesting read.    

Big Lessons on NNHS:

1. Take no shortcuts; consistency beats talent. I’ve heard stories about this over and over, and I cannot agree more with this statement. But sadly, I have to admit that I made many mistakes of being too inconsistent with my pursuits, leading to a ton of regrets. As a piece of advice as well as self-reflection, I have to say that it’s the little things you do everyday that makes the biggest difference in the long run. For example, my grandfather grew up poor. As a result,  as a child he had to help his father with woodwork everyday after school. It was a painful task, and he did it for ten years. Everyday’s tedious hard work filled his childhood; but it gave him a healthy body and lifestyle. Today, my grandfather is 96 years old. He has outlived all of his childhood friends and maintained a healthy body. Passion and talent are not enough. Very often, the wisest decisions involve tedious work that looks even a little bit “dumb” on the surface; yet, they yield far better results than the apparently “smart” shortcuts. So, do your homework everyday. Practice your sport everyday. Be on time everyday. Have no doubt that your hardwork will eventually come to fruition; not a single bit of it will be wasted. 
2. Be a good human. Be genuine, be kind, and love others. Being nice may sound like a no-brainer advice, but we very often neglect maintaining a good personal character for the sake of short-term benefits such as comfort, winning, and looking cool. Thus, it is easier said than done, and honestly, I don’t truly meet this standard. But try to do it. People are smart. They will know whether or not you are genuine, and everyone wants to associate themselves with genuine and good people. By simply having (keyword: having, not showing) good will, you’ll win better relationships, and you’ll be happier. Note that I’m not saying you should be nice so that people will like you more; rather, I’m saying that you should be nice just for the sake of it, without deliberately doing it and expecting a certain return. In the long run, it’s the most basic things that matter the most. By being genuine, kind, and loving others, you are building yourself a sound character, which will  take you a long way for the rest of your life, helping you in ways you may never even notice. 
3. Be bold. Most of my regrets from high school come from not being bold enough to openly pursue what I really wanted. Don’t overthink everything, do them instead. Savor every little experience of your youth, and don’t leave high school regretting that you missed something because you never dared to try. 

And that’s it for my blogs. I genuinely hope that from reading the many thoughts I’ve had throughout this year, your life and curiosity could be benefitted and satisfied by even just a little bit. In whatever path you are choosing to take, whatever endeavor you are trying to make, and whatever stages of your life you are going through, I wish you the very best. 

Signing off. 

Frank Su

Many of you guys have probably played or heard of the game Texas Hold’em. If you’ve ever played the game, you’ll know that at the beginning of every hand, you will be dealt two cards (we call the two cards “hole cards” or simply one’s “hand”). Each hand varies in strength and playability, and there are better hands and worse hands. For example, hands that are typically considered “good” usually either contain high cards, are a pair of two same cards, are suited, or are connected; whereas “bad hands” are usually those consisting of weak cards and don’t make any visible pattern. 

Beginners tend to play almost every hand they’re dealt (we call it “playing a wide range,” with “range” meaning a list of all possible hands one could play). Yet, as players get more experienced, their range of playable hands tends to narrow down as they realize that a lot of hands like 46o (meaning “4 6 offsuit”) and J3s (meaning Jack 3 suited) are not worth playing. Eventually, your range should approach what’s called a “Game Theory Optimal (GTO) opening range,” consisting of only good hands like suited aces, pocket pairs, suited connectors, and two high cards because such a tight range statistically makes you the most money in the long run. 

However, just because a hand looks pretty, it doesn’t mean you should play it. Some hands, while naturally strong, are extremely difficult to play with. Playing them might lead you into many difficult situations and potential mistakes at the poker table. Since these strong hands often put you into difficult spots and create many rooms to make mistakes, their full potential (or “equity”) were often never realized. As a result, these strong hands may lose you money. On the contrary, there are also hands that are apparently weak that allow you to make clear and easy decisions postflop (“postflop” means “after the first three community cards — the flop — are dealt”), making you money despite their initial weakness. 

In this blog, I would like to show you my tier list of some poker hands that were most often played.

 

S Tier – QQ (meaning pocket Queens), AKs (meaning Ace King suited). 

QQ is just my favorite, period. They have won me the biggest pots of my life (“pot” means the total amount of chips involved in a hand. When you win a hand, you win the “pot,” which is all the chips in the middle of the table). With QQ, your decisions are clear-cut because when your opponent calls (means matching your bet) you and you see the flop, you can almost be sure that you have the best hand if there are no A or K on the board. This is because AA and KK will almost never call you preflop. However, if your opponent bets into you aggressively when there is an A or K, it’s an easy fold (means “to surrender,” stopping your losses and giving up your chance to win the pot).

AKs are also great. If you go all-in preflop, AKs lower your opponents’ chances of having AA or KK, have near 50% equity against pocket pairs, and win very often (we call it “dominate”) lower high card combinations. If there are no preflop all-ins and you see the flop, AKs dominate every lower Aces and Kings and allow you to make nut straights and nut flushes, which are huge moneymakers. 

A Tier – AA, KK, AQs, AKo, JT (suited or offsuit), Low Suited Aces.

You might be surprised that I put AA and KK on tier A instead of tier S. While AA and KK are great hands (statistically, the best and 2nd best hand in poker, respectively), they don’t play very well postflop. It is very easy to go overaggressive with AA and cause your opponent to either fold or call you with a better hand, causing you to lose money. And it is very difficult to fold KK when an A hits the boards, also causing losses. 

AQs, AKo are strong when they hit a pair. You can very often be sure that you have the best hand when you make a hand with AQs and AKo, making their decisions easy. JT is the opposite. When it’s strong, you will often have a straight or a flush, but when it’s weak like a singular pair, folding won’t be a difficult decision. 

Low Suited Aces like A4s and A5s are amazing because they are either very strong or easily foldable. When you make a flush, you almost always win; but when you make a singular pair of Aces and your opponent gets aggressive, you won’t feel bad folding them. Also, they make amazing bluffs and do a great job balancing your range. 

B Tier – Low Suited Connectors, Pocket Pairs, Suited Broadways, Medium Suited Aces.

Low Suited Connectors (like 45s, 56s, 67s) and small Pocket Pairs (like 33, 44, 55) are great drawing hands that either make very strong hands such as three of a kinds, straights, or flushes or completely miss. They are very easy to draw with, they surprise your opponent, but they rarely lose you a lot of money because one can easily fold them when they don’t make very strong hands. The only drawback is that they don’t win very often and you’ll have to be patient.

Medium Suited Aces (like A8s, A9s, AT), suited Broadways (like KJs, KQs, QJs), medium Pocket Pairs (like 88, 99, TT) are strong hands, but they start to enter the horrifying territory of “Trap Hands.” While Suited Aces and Pocket Pairs are capable of making nut flushes and three of a kind, they are also much more difficult to fold when your opponent is strong. When you have A9s, an Ace comes to the board, and your opponent bets aggressively as if he has an Ace, it is hard to tell whether you’re winning or not, making it possible for you to either win or lose a lot of money. 

C Tier – KJo, KQo, ATo

These hands are classic “Trap Hands.” It is possible and easy for you to lose a lot of money with those hands (aka. “Reverse-implied odds”). For example, when you have KJo and hit a K on the board, you lose to KQ, AK, two-pairs, and completed draws very often; and with top pair and a high kicker (meaning the 2nd card), folding is very difficult, resulting in you getting “stacked” (meaning losing all of your chips). This is the reason why, despite the fact that KJo, KQo, and ATo are strong hands, you’re actually supposed to fold them a lot of times preflop when your opponents are aggressive.

F Tier – JJ, AJo, JQo.

These hands are the extreme cases of the horrifying family of “Trap Hands.” Personally, these are the hands I hate the most because they lose you so much money and it is so difficult to fold them at any spot. 

JJ gets you excited preflop because they look so good, but they lose very often postflop to an A, K, or Q. 

With AJo, you tend to call big bets preflop, but after you hit any hand post flop, you win the minimum and lose the maximum. For example, if you hit an Ace, you get stacked by AK and AQ and don’t make much from weaker hands like QQ, TT, and A5s. If you hit a Jack, you get stacked by AA, QQ, KK, and lose to a ton of draws that hit on the turn and river (the 4th and the 5th card, respectively). 

With JQo, you rarely beat your opponent when both you and him have a high pair. Yet, just like AJ, it lures you into calling a lot of big bets. 

So here you have it: my ranking of the most common poker hands after playing the game for about two years. On a final note, it is important to notice the importance of not playing marginally strong hands because they can lose you a lot of money against players who play the GTO Preflop range. For example, you should almost never play hands like A7o because it is an even worse trap hand than AJo when both you and your opponent hit an A. Yet, it doesn’t have the equity to make nut flushes without your opponent noticing like A7s could. 

Therefore, hands like A7o are simply out of our range. We’ll never play them, so we won’t have to worry about them. So, they’re not on our tier list. 

To the college applicants in 2025 and beyond,

My hope in writing this blog is that someone from the class of 2025 and beyond will find it, read it carefully, apply it to action, and get admitted into their dream schools. Even if this blog was going to benefit just one person, I would be satisfied and my efforts would be worth it. 

This blog was inspired by the many college admission decisions that have been released over this past month, as well as the thought of even more decisions that are to come within the next two weeks. Here, I will breakdown some of my biggest mistakes and realizations while applying to college. 

Advice #1:

Start your essays in the summer. I know we all like to procrastinate. Me especially — I am a big procrastinator. But when it comes to writing the essays that will determine your life path for the next four years, procrastination is stupid. I’ll be honest — I started my college essays in November, and my personal statement around 10 days before the ED deadline. I remembered sitting at the library, hands on my forehead, squeezing my little brain for the few words it has in it, and spending over two hours to write a single sentence. When I eventually finished my first draft, I remembered showing it to my friend Kai, who honestly criticized that the ideas in my essay didn’t connect with each other, and I had to ditch that whole draft and write two more. 

I turned in the 3rd draft of my personal statement to UIUC and Purdue (I didn’t ED to UChicago as planned because my essays were simply dissatisfactory). But when I revisited my personal statement a week later, I realized that the story did not make sense yet again. I scratched my idea for the 3rd draft entirely and spent another week in December writing three more drafts, finally turning in a satisfactory personal statement to the rest of my schools. 

Procrastination was my biggest regret. I wrote about 60% of my supplemental essays over the last 5 days before all essays were due, averaging around 9 essays per day over that time period. As you can imagine, the quality of these essays were not great. And how did I get to that point? I knew that writing college essays was painful and the deadlines were far away, so I delayed it throughout the first semester of Senior year. Everyday, I would prioritize school work, clubs, and games over college application, which should have been my first priority. And eventually, I ran out of time. 

Imagine this: you have worked hard for over three years, taking the hard classes, competing in competitions, and earning leadership positions in clubs, only to procrastinate the most important part: putting yourself on paper to be acknowledged by colleges — how pathetic was that? 

Now that the admission decisions are coming out, I occasionally found myself revisiting the essays that I turned in. I realized that almost every single one of them — including the 6th draft of my personal statement — could have been improved significantly. Believe me, even when we are not writing, we are constantly thinking. Newer and better ideas are continually formed as we walk through our everyday lives. If you start your essays earlier, you will have the time to capture them in paper. I often thought to myself: it’s been two months since I submitted my college applications, and I have so many better ideas for revision. What if I started two months earlier? How much more competitive of an applicant could I have been?

Therefore, start your essays during the summer. Don’t just plan it, make sure to do it. You’ll thank me later. 

Advice #2:

Apply to more colleges. Unless you are a world-class applicant, having national-level awards, and knowing that Harvard will be dying to get you, you are probably in the Crap Shoot. Being in the Crab Shoot means you stand near average among the students applying to your dream school, and whether you get in or not depends more on luck than anything else. Yes, writing amazing essays will help; but it will probably only increase your chances of being admitted to Harvard from 5% to 10%, or from 10% to 20%, depending on how strong of an applicant you are overall. As you can see, when it comes to reach schools, it is almost always more likely that you will be rejected than accepted. Therefore, it is important to apply to many reaches to build a statistical insurance that you’ll get into at least one of them. (Think of the $80 application fee per college as — literally — an insurance. If you apply to 20 schools, you are paying $1,600 for a better chance of a 4+ year education that is potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if you are applying to schools you know you probably will not attend for financial reasons, $80 is still worth it just in case you were rejected from your main options.)

College admissions are sometimes very random. I never expected myself to get admitted into UIUC’s CS+Physics program (which only takes 25 people) with my crappy, 3rd-draft personal statement and rushed supplements, but I did. While I believed I got very lucky there, luck does matter. I have highly qualified friends who were denied from the colleges they certainly deserved, and I certainly hope that you will give yourself a better chance by simply applying to more schools. 

 

One semester ago, I was just like you — applying to college for the first time in my life, knowing little about the process. Even now, I must confess that I am no expert. I cannot explain to you an optimal strategy for applying for college, for I too am just a learner. I am waiting for most of my college decisions, which will come in two weeks. Summarizing some of my biggest lessons from my own experience and that of my close friends, I wrote you this blog, hoping that you won’t make the mistakes we made, and that your journey through the college application process will be smooth and fruitful. Therefore, I ask you to apply my advice into action, beginning by starting your essays in the summer and applying to a lot of colleges.

Please remember that your hard work will always eventually pay off, whether or not you were admitted into your dream school. 

Good luck,

Frank.

Charm

By: Karen Leona Anderson

 

Am I plastic enough. Did I

mold to the right shape—obedient

as water—feel hot, cool, smooth

 

to the touch. Was I flexible,

was I blue-green, and when dirty,

need just a slick of soap, and then

 

did I hold you in and repel

all else. Could I take it, heat, cold,

frozen, molten, could I

 

cover it up. Could I wrap myself

around what you wanted kept,

invisible almost, clear as ice. Could I stretch

 

and not crack, when I broke

could I break down to powder, to glitter,

to nothing, you hope,

 

to lace fish or bird or whatever

else except your flesh, could I stay

away from you, when told, get out

 

of your face. Was I buoyant. Was I

suddenly everywhere. Could I then

be recalled, remade, the strange

 

clear metal of myself come

back together in another,

fresher shape. If not,

 

could I just end. If not, could

I teach you how to bend,

to escape, to float—

 

After reading this poem, my first impression was that the author sees herself as far less important than the one whom the poem addresses, willing to turn herself into whatever they desire in order to please them. This is clearly seen in the first stanza, from the line “did I mold into the right shape — obedient as water,” which reminded me of Bruce Lee’s quote of “empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle,” referencing the Taoist idea of water’s ability to bend itself into whatever its surrounding requires in order to fit in the environment seamlessly.

This selfless attitude from the author has caught me off guard — the mainstream values of American society center around independence, individuality, and superiority, so why would anybody in 21st Century America write a poem that expresses such an intense degree of selflessness and even inferiority? While the society values personal identities to be loudly stubborn and proudly individual, the poet, Karen Leona Anderson, depicted an identity that is soft, malleable, and obedient, which goes against the values of today’s society.  

This left me perplexed on the context from which this poem was written and the poem’s intended message. And after reading the poem for a second time, I was able to narrow down my cloud of confusion into a few key questions: who was the author writing to? What was the author’s attitude towards change? And most importantly, how in the world is this related to the title of the poem, Charm? 

The first question was the poem’s intended audience, as Anderson never clearly stated who she wrote the poem to. If Anderson wrote this poem to a friend or acquaintance, then this poem embodies some key strategies in communication such as active listening and altruistic attitude. If Anderson wrote this poem dedicated this poem as a prayer to God, then the Christian value of submission and redemption was apparent. If Anderson wrote this poem as a presentation of some life philosophies, then they are consistent with philosophies taught in Taoism and Buddhism. However, all these assumptions seemed a bit off, and the puzzle just didn’t seem to fit together. 

So I delved into research. From a few google searches, I found that Charm was a poem from Anderson’s book titled Receipt, where she examines the daily duties of modern American culture, particularly regarding feminine expression of identity and womanhood.  

Feminine, identity, womanhood; that rang a bell for me.

Looking closely at a few details, I deduced that the poem was written in the context of a romantic relationship. For example, from lines like “did I hold you in and repel / all else,” and “could I stay / away from you, when told, get out / of your face,” Anderson showed a selfless dedication to someone who does not appreciate her very much — someone willing to tell her “get out of my face.” I see this most often in unhappy marriages or relationships, where a man is preoccupied with his troubles at hand and fails to appreciate the support from his wife or girlfriend. So, a more reasonable answer to my first question of “who is the audience?” became apparent: that she wrote it to a male romantic partner. 

From that point on, finding the answer to the rest of my questions became an easier process. The submissive diction and tone of the poem corresponded with the way women were expected to behave in the traditional culture: that they were supposed to serve the man and have little sense of identity. Furthermore, by looking closely at the structure of the poem (“Am I plastic enough…was I flexible…Could I wrap myself around what you wanted kept…” ), in which the author repeatedly asked herself whether she has done enough to be submissive and feminine, I sensed a bit of satire, protesting against the expectations of selflessness and obedience that the society has set upon women. 

Finally, I realized why the poem was titled “Charm.” Femininity was generally seen as a charming characteristic in women when it comes to romantic relationships, since a supportive, altruistic woman was generally seen as more attractive by men. Yet, this very charming quality has negatively affected the lives of women, leading them to reject their individuality and depriving many of their freedom. Perhaps, this poem was a satirical demonstration of the negative influence of the traditional value of femininity in a woman’s emotional well-being.

Nonetheless, I have not entirely understood the poem. Some diction and symbolism in the has still kept me perplexed and wondering, why did Anderson write about “fish” and “bird” from 6th stanza in the poem? What does “Was I buoyant” (7th stanza) mean? To grasp a deeper understanding, I will have to figure them out. 

My feet continued to march forward as thoughts flowed in and out of my head. How should I introduce myself? I should first ask if she’s busy, then tell her my name and why I’m here — shoot — what if she’s busy? What if she’s not? How should I explain why I, a complete stranger, am here, walking into the library, starting a conversation with her? What’s my plan? Do I even have a plan? 

Before I could find an answer, I found myself already standing next to a girl with long, brown hair and blue eyes, who sat in front of a library table with her eyes fixed on the homework problems from her laptop. 

Here I was, in the middle of the IMSA library after sneaking out of the gym where I completed my ping-pong tournament, attempting to cold-approach. Motivated by a deal with my friend, and further motivated by my friend’s victorious attempt on the same day, I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone — standing clueless in front of a pretty girl I didn’t know. My heart rate rose as the memory of whatever plan I had seconds ago disappeared at an exponential rate and approached 0.

Here we go. There is no backing down now, I thought to myself.

“Hi, do you have a second?” I asked her quietly, afraid to disturb the eerie silence of the library.

“Yes,” she said, looking me dead in the eyes with her beautiful blue eyes.

 Surprising that she’s not busy! I thought joyously. Yet, another thought quickly followed, now, what do I say?

“Nice… okay… my name is Frank, I came from another school for a ping pong tournament and I was walking around … ” I began rambling as my mind blanked out, speaking gibberish and asking dumb questions. Awkward, awkward, awkward, I told myself. Curiously, my brain seemed to spend more energy evaluating how awkward the situation was than actively thinking about how to make the situation better. The interaction went worse and worse: from asking “what you’re doing” twice to responding “I’m a senior” when she said she’s a Junior, I made the dumbest comments and all the mistakes of cold-approach. 

Unsurprisingly, I took an embarrassingly big L. I didn’t get her number, I looked like an idiot, and my friends laughed at me during the bus ride back to North. 

However, on the bus, staring at the passing streetlights through the window, I thought to myself: do I regret this experience?

Although my cold-approach attempt ended horribly, truthfully, I did not regret it. Compared to the countless times I spotted a good-looking girl at a public place but never dared to approach her out of shyness, my failure at the IMSA library was a success in itself because I dared to take the first step. 

A great physicist named Mr. Farrell used to say, “to F.A.I.L. is the First Attempt In Learning.” Without pushing oneself out of their comfort zone, or trying things one has never done before, one will never have the opportunity to grow. Without the embarrassing interaction with that girl at IMSA, I would never be able to know how good (or horrible) I am really at when it comes to attraction, and I would not have learned the areas that needed work (in my case, it’s quirk and relaxation). 

As 2nd-semester seniors, the number of days we will spend as NNHS high school students are very limited. During the final semester of our high school years, it is very tempting to fall for senioritis because all our hard work during our previous years had led us up to this relatively stress-free time period where we can sit back and enjoy the fruit of our previous sweat and tears. However, it was during this time period of senioritis that I realized the value of high school activities, especially after college applications. 

Imagine you are in your 60’s looking back at your high school career, the only things that will truly matter are the knowledge and friendship that you’ve acquired during your four years and the fun memories you’ve had of your youth. After we graduate high school, we will never be able to live the life of a high schooler again and do the fun little things that we’ve wanted to do as high schoolers. Thus, it might be better to be a little bit bolder, try things we’ve never dared to try before, and step out of our comfort zone more often — be it cold-approaching, starting a crazy club, or joining more student activities. 

Do something fun and a little bit crazy so that you’ll be rich in memories. Don’t worry about failures, for they’re better than the regret of not trying. The next time you’re debating whether or not to try something outside your comfort zone, let your feet march forward and see where they will take you.

In all my blogs this semester, I tried to dive deeper into some concepts that came across my mind. I wrote about concepts that I find interesting, and I tried to think about them and offer some thoughts perhaps beyond the surface level. 

For example, for parallel parking, I argued that individuals should invest their time on useful skills that might not leave immediate gratification; for gambler’s fallacy, I went into expected values, variance, and mental heuristics; for “why rules”, I theorized the strategic benefits and human tendencies to establish and follow rules; and for Fermi’s Paradox, I explored human-alien interactions from a game theory perspective. 

All those blogs were essentially about me exploring a concept and showing the reader what I’ve learned. It is not just about me sharing my knowledge because, to be frank, I did not fully comprehend some of the concepts I wrote about – especially the nitty-gritty details on things like the Dark Forest Hypothesis – and writing about them forced me to do some wikipedia geeking, which helped me learn a lot more about these concepts. 

So, let’s answer the questions. 

What blog did you enjoy writing the most and why?

My favorite was my latest blog, titled “The Fermi Paradox and the Dark Forest,” which was on a theory about human-alien interactions. The last time I read the book The Three Body Problem was a year ago, and I read it mainly for fun and did not fully remember its theories in detail. While writing that blog, I had to do some independent research, and the Dark Forest Hypothesis fascinated me. 

I originally planned to list a couple of alien theories, but I quickly ran out of space due to the amount of words required to explain the Dark Forest Hypothesis even on a basic level. I enjoyed not only the details of the theory but also the thought process of deriving and questioning it: what basic principles are involved? Why do certain statements have to hold true? Are there any exceptions? Any conditions that the Dark Forest Hypothesis might fail to consider? 

In fact, after I submitted that blog, I continued to think about it, and I discovered some conditions that the hypothesis did not take into account, like the possibility of a weaker civilization using the very fact that the Dark Forest exists to destroy a stronger civilization that they discovered by exposing the stronger civilization’s location to the rest of the universe. 

There are a ton of thought experiments and puzzles involved with this one, that’s why I liked it the most. 

How did you change or evolve as a writer over the course of this semester?

The biggest thing I’ve learned about writing from this semester is this: be genuine, don’t filter. I used to write in a very bookish language, contemplating over every word, and fixing up every sentence before going to the next one, resulting in a messed-up paragraph or essay that sounds pretty nice. 

This semester, through writing blogs and (of course) college essays, I learned to write down my thoughts as they appear, as raw as they were (or at least leave them all on paper before making edits), and not worrying about perfecting the details. I’ve learned that perfection is a distraction.  And I believe I tend to write the best when I write freely, because I lay all my thoughts on paper without having to worry about forgetting a key point or losing the focus of an essay. 

What have you learned about writing by reading other students’ blogs?

I’ve learned that the best writing focuses on the expression of ideas rather than the use of language. 

For example, I really liked Kai’s blogs because every blog offers his unique personal insight. Through reading his blog, I learn a lot about his philosophy, such as talking to strangers, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, conscious labels, and identity. Reading his posts was an intellectual experience, and I enjoyed it very much.

Through reading these blogs, I’ve learned that the quality of thoughts is vital to the quality of writing, and in order to write well in my future blogs/essays, I need to first think clearly and deeply. 

What lessons are you taking away from this semester that you will carry with you next semester?

1. 1. About writing: Give yourself time. The best writing takes time, so writing a college essay a couple days before its due is probably not a good idea. If you don’t give yourself enough time, you might think that you wrote something good right after you finished because your mind is still bugging from all the writings and proofreadings. However, if you give it a week and come back to it, you will see the flaws that you could not see earlier and realize that your original piece is, in fact, trash. So, start as early as possible.
   2. About writing: Let your thoughts flow. Don’t stumble upon word choice or sentence structure. Put the thoughts down first while they are in your mind because chances are, later, you won’t be inspired anymore and generating ideas will be a pain. Remember the 80/20 rule: you do 80% of the meaningful work during 20% of the total time you work, so make sure you utilize that 20% completely.
   3. About life: life is long. Don’t get so result-oriented (that means, worrying if you get into an Ivy League) because life is a marathon, and the determining factor of your success is not whether you win a competition or get into a good college, but whether you have a good set of characters – diligence, righteousness, wisdom, bravery, kindness, and humility. Make sure you spend a lot of time building your character, and don’t worry about the good things that are destined to come to you.

      

   4. About life: 撑死胆大的，饿死胆小的(The brave overspills, and the timid starves.) Do not spend your days worrying about the risk involved in doing something that you believe should be done. Do it. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Failing is better than regretting that you never tried.

Are we alone in the Universe? 

This is a question that has kept scientists and folks alike puzzled for centuries. Archaeological mysteries like the Pyramid and Annunakki, or mythological stories the Greek Mythologies, Chinese Mythologies, and Old Testament of the Bible seem to suggest the existence of some supernatural, superhuman beings in the ancient ages; and UFO footages or urban legends about Alien Kidnappings seems to suggest that aliens exist. However, to this day, none of these has been officially confirmed, nor is there any concrete evidence about whether aliens really exist.

The Fermi Paradox is, in essence, the contradiction between the theoretical likelihood and the lack of concrete evidence about the existence of aliens. According to Wikipedia, It states something like this: 

• • There are billions of stars in the Milky Way similar to the Sun.
  • With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets in a circumstellar habitable zone.
  • Many of these stars, and hence their planets, are much older than the Sun. If Earth-like planets are typical, some may have developed intelligent life long ago.
  • Some of these civilizations may have developed interstellar travel, a step humans are investigating now.
  • Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.
  • Since many of the Sun-like stars are billions of years older than the Sun, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial civilizations, or at least their probes.
  • However, there is no convincing evidence that this has happened.

To try to answer this question, people over the last decades have come up with multiple theories explaining the existence of aliens. This is my favorite one. 

“The Dark Forest”

The Dark Forest Hypothesis was brought up by novelist Liu Cixin in his trilogy The Three Body Problem (my favorite book). 

Imagine two snipers in a dark forest, and each sniper has the ability to completely destroy the other one. Now imagine that you are one of the snipers, and you have discovered the other sniper. You don’t know whether or not the other sniper has spotted you, or whether the other sniper is friendly (that is, not shooting at you when they spot you). Your only goal is to survive. Now, what are your options?

1. You can decide to not shoot. If so, you want to make sure that once the other sniper discovers you, they won’t shoot at you. But how can you be sure? Think about this. 
   • If you are friendly and the other sniper is not, you’ll be shot.
   • If you are friendly and the other sniper is friendly too, will you be safe? The answer is not necessarily. How does the other sniper know that you are friendly? If they think you’re not, they would see you as a threat, and since you’re a threat, they’ll have to eliminate you. You’ll be shot. 
   • Furthermore, even if the other sniper thinks that you are friendly, how would they know what you think of them? Will you fire first because you see them as a threat? They’ll shoot you.  
   • This “chain of suspicion” goes on and on. No matter what happens, without communication, you’ll surely be shot.
2. You decide to communicate. But remember, interstellar communication is slow and inefficient (stars are usually light years apart, and the speed that information can travel is limited by the speed of light. This means it will usually take years to get one message across). But one thing is for sure — if you communicate, you’ll surely expose your location. But due to the limited capacity of interstellar communication, the aforementioned “chain of suspicion” still exists, and the other civilization might still view you as a threat. Now, it’ll up to them to decide whether or not to shoot you, and based on the above logic, you’ll likely be shot.
3. So, your only option would be to shoot them first. Whether you like it or not, because that’s the safest choice.

So, what does this dilemma have to do with aliens? Think about how humanity has grown over the last few centuries. Our weapon systems are developing at an exponential rate, since we went from swords and arrows to nuclear weapons within 1000 years, a blink of an eye in the grand time scale of the universe. What will happen to our weapon system in the next 1000 years? What unimaginable power will we be able to harness?

 If we continue this trend of technological advancement, we will be able to destroy planets and solar systems at ease; and to other aliens, we will be a sniper, capable of destroying them at any moment. 

But what about other aliens? Suppose a civilization began its technological development 1000 years before we did, they would already have such power. To us, they are snipers too. 

But for now, humanity is not a sniper yet because our technology is not advanced enough to destroy planets and stars. What if we were discovered by an advanced alien civilization that knows that we aren’t capable of destroying them? We would still be shot. This is because that civilization cannot know precisely when you will grow advanced enough to become a real threat. If you grow too fast and discover them, you would be able to shoot them. 

Now, imagine a universe filled with aliens. The universe would be a dark forest, filled with snipers; and if you were to expose your existence and position to other snipers, you will surely be shot. Even if, for some unknown reasons, that many civilizations that discover you decide to not attack you, it will only take one “evil” civilization to completely wipe you out. 

You would never want that to happen.

Therefore, the only way for a civilization to survive would be to hide. Aliens have to make sure that nobody ever discovers them. So, they would hide themselves in voids of darkness, concealing themselves from the rest of the universe.  Therefore, we discover nobody. 

Bright stars, supernovas, and quasars might not be where the dangers of the universe lie; the dark places were. So, the next time you gaze up at the night sky thinking about aliens, don’t think about the stars, think about the voids of darkness.

Caution: This blog is totally unrelated to UChicago. But please comment on how this draft could be improved (if it were to be a supplemental essay).

There are unwritten rules that everyone follows or has heard at least once in their life. But of course, some rules should be broken or updated. Recently, for some totally unknown reason, I found myself thinking about unwritten rules that shouldn’t exist.

One unwritten rule that upsets me the most is the newly established Small Cafe lunch line. For all my academic career at North, the lunch line has always been extending along the side of the hallway, next to the wall with the alumni pictures. This year, however, instead of standing next to that wall, someone (probably a confused freshman) decided to stand closer to the middle of the Small Cafe, and some other confused freshmen followed and stood behind that original confused freshman. As a result, the lunch line, instead of extending along the wall like it has always been, was turned 90 degrees and cut the Small Cafe in half. Days later, people grew accustomed to this unwritten rule, and this lunch line will probably exist for the rest of the year. Furthermore, as these confused freshmens grow into sophomores, juniors, and seniors, they will probably keep their tradition, and this lunch line might just exist forever.

So why did this happen?

From Psychology’s perspective, it’s called “conformity”.

In 1951, Psychologist Solomon Asch conducted an experiment where participants were given three lines of obviously different lengths and asked to judge which line has the same length as the target line. The correct answer is obvious and objective. But here’s the catch: before the participant could give their answer, a row of “fake” participants in front of the real participant would uniformly give the wrong answer. The result was shocking: about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority.

Interestingly in our case, less than ⅓ of the students at the lunch line were actually freshmens – the rest were all returning students, students who knew that the lunch line was going the wrong way! We know that it’s wrong, and all of us are probably annoyed by it. But nonetheless, no one spoke up, and everyone conformed. Furthermore, through our very act of standing on the back of the wrong lunch line, we are perceived by others as if we knew what we were doing, and we are setting an example for others to follow. By being part of the lunch line that we knew was wrong, we are spreading the message to everyone else that “Hey! I know that the lunch line goes this way! Come join me!”, thus unconsciously advocating the very thing that we despise.

Humans don’t trust their own judgments enough. We trust too much of what appears to be other people’s beliefs. In life, we ask directions from others (how do you know that they know the way?), judge ourselves based on other’s preferences (do they know you more than you know yourself?) apply to colleges based on their rankings (does US News know what colleges fit your interests and goals?). As seen in the lunch line, the people that we conform to might not necessarily know more than we do. Hundreds of intelligent North students have literally been following an example set by some clueless freshman everyday for 2 months! We need to have more faith in ourselves and think more independently. We need to do our own research and come to our own conclusions. We need to question unspoken rules. And if necessary, we might even need to speak up.
From Game Theory’s perspective, rules can lead to mutual gain.

Imagine it’s finally your lunch period, and everyone is starving! There is only one place to get lunch, and the amount of food is limited. Imagine if no rules exist. In such cases, a lunch line would not exist at all: out of hunger, everyone would run to the one food site, trying to hoard as much food as possible. You would have to fight for your food; for every bite, you risk injury. Don’t believe me? (if you questioned my last sentence, good job!) Think of what happens when someone finds a bool during Halloween. Clearly, competing for food doesn’t feel awesome. So, instead of pure competition, we began to collaborate: forming a lunch line while trying to be first in the line.

Another example of this is the “Bro Code”, or “Bros Before H*es”. Understandably, most men want to rizz up the baddest girl in the room. But as we all know, that ain’t happening. So, to prevent blood and broken friendships, and to ensure that every man gets a girl (assuming that the amount of males and females are the same), the Bro Code was invented, an unspoken rule that you don’t try to rizz up a girl with a boyfriend. We are still competing against each other, either by being the first to the lunch line, or being the first to ask the girl out; but now, we compete while following the rules. By establishing order, humanity saves a lot of the energy from fighting against each other, which leads to mutual gains.

Having rules is in general better than having no rules; but as the lunch line has demonstrated, the rules that we have today – spoken or unspoken rules that are ingrained into our society for decades – might not be the optimal solutions. Just like the new lunch line is likely to persist for years, some rules that we accustom ourselves to for life can be flawed. Humanity tends to leave these rules unaltered as long as the discomfort does not exceed a certain threshold. But if we want to further optimize our rules, we need to challenge our comfort zone, which surely leads to temporary discomfort.

But will it be worth it? I’ll leave it to you guys.

But as for the new lunch line, it surely will.

Two summers ago at church, I played a game with Jack Ding.

Bored at the church youth group’s ice-breaker introductions and the “beginning of the year” stuff, I pulled out a penny and showed it to Jack.

“Heads or tails, bet a quarter?” I asked.

“Sure. Heads,” Jack said.

I tossed it to the air. The coin flicked, spinned, glistened, and wobbled before finally landing on my legs. When it did, it was tails.

“Wait — wait, go again!” Jack demanded.

So it was like that, at the corner of our church’s gym, that we started this game of chance. Initially, I was pretty lucky, and I won a couple of dollars. As I won more and more, Jack demanded higher stakes; a quarter turned into fifty cents, and fifty cents turned into a dollar.

And it was then that I started losing.

For around 4 coin flips in a row, the coin landed heads, and I called tails. At one dollar per flip, my net gain quickly dropped to zero, before it started going negative.

“No way,” I said to Jack, frustrated, “go again. Tails for two bucks.”

Jack agreed. I tossed the coin. It was heads. At this time, I owed him three bucks.

“Nah, nah, nah… go again! Three bucks!”

Jack agreed.  I tossed the coin. Heads again.

“Bruhhh! go again!  Five bucks!”

Jack agreed. It was heads again.

“Ten bucks! go again!” I said.

“Nah, let’s do five,” Jack replied.

“Eight!” I bargained.

“Five,” Jack insisted.

“7.5 or nothing,” I bargained again,

“Nothing then, a tail is coming anyways” Jack said.

“Sure let’s do five, ” I subdued, losing my bargain due to desperation of winning money back. But luckily, Jack agreed and didn’t actually stop playing. Yes. A tail is coming. I called tails.

But it was heads again.

At this point, I owed him 16 bucks already. But am I going to quit playing? Heck no. I knew that tail was due. It has been 8 heads in a row, and I knew that it is statistically very unlikely (an 1/256 chance!) for this to happen already. One more heads, and it would be a 1/512 occurrence. And am I going to root for that 1/512 occurrence to not happen to me? Of course yes.

“Six bucks, go again,” I said to Jack, and he agreed.

And… heads again.

“F—,” I thought to myself.

“Last round! 20 bucks!” I told Jack, thinking that I will definitely win this one. It has been 9 heads in a row, and the chance for 10 heads in a row less than 1 out of 1000. Am I going to be THAT unlucky? Of course not. A tail is definitely coming.

To my surprise, Jack took the offer. I tossed the coin — and can you guess heads or tails?

I’ll wait.

Ready?

It was heads.

 

Confused, frustrated, furious, and in debt, I threw that “cursed penny” into a trash can and raged quit. How am I this unlucky? Ten heads in a row? What the hell?

 

Well, looking back at this experience two years later, I could affirm that I was unlucky; but I also fell for a dangerous illusion and made a serious mistake that I hope you will never make after reading this post — the Gambler’s Fallacy.

See, we humans have a tendency to believe that things will even out. If the chance of flipping tails is 50 percent, we expect that tails will be flipped 50 percent of the times — and when it doesn’t, we think that tails are going to land more frequently so that the numbers will even out, or that they are “due”.

This is why gamblers like to “double or nothing” after they lose a bet. They believe that the chance of them consistently losing are so low that they will make consistent profit if they just keep doubling their bet after they lose, as they will eventually make their money back plus the profit they intended to win originally. For example, when a gambler who wanted to win $1 from betting $1 loses his first bet, they would bet $2; and if they lose again, they bet $4; lose again? No problem! Bet $8; bet $16; bet $32; bet $64; bet $128… They believe that the Universe owe them a win, and if they keep betting, they will eventually win back everything plus the $1 they originally wanted.

Pretty dangerous mindset, huh? This strategy of “doubling after losing” is so notorious that it has its own name — the Martingale System, and it was responsible for robbing away countless people over hundreds of years of every last dime they had.

See, when people who fall for the Gambler’s Fallacy thinks they are “due” for a win,  they don’t care how much they lose before the Big Win hits. However, they forget that probability has no memory, and the outcome of each future bet has no relationship with the outcome of the bets in the past.

This means, after they lose, gamblers are essentially tricked into wagering exponentially more into a game that gives them the same odds. And in chasing after their win that is “due”, they risk sums of money that they cannot afford to lose.

And everything above assumed that the game is a coin toss, a game of even odds, when in reality, the odds are almost always against the gambler.

When you are playing a game of negative expected value (which is almost always the case with gambling), you would should expect to lose some money every time your play it, and the amount you lose is directly proportional to the amount you bet. However, people who fall for the Gambler’s Fallacy usually ends up betting enormous amounts, meaning that for each large bet they make, their expected value is enormously negative. They go broke way faster than your average quitter.

Wonder how they built these beautiful hotels at Las Vegas?

So hold your chips guys, do not chase after your losses.

Or better yet, do not gamble.

As a frequent visitor of Nichol’s Library, I am more than used to navigating through the intersections, stop signs, construction sites, and scattering pedestrians of Downtown Naperville. But during Sunday afternoons, the prime times for the library’s parking lot traffic, finding a parking spot there can be a real headache.

One Sunday afternoon, I arrived at the library’s parking lot at 1:30pm, sandwiched between two cars, and counted around five other cars looping around the parking lot from the opposite direction. I drove around loops after loops,  looking for a spot. After loops without success, I suddenly saw a black pick-up truck backing out from my right. FINALLY, A SPOT! –  I said to myself excitedly as I switched on my right-turn signal, ready to fill it in.  As the truck moved out of my way, however, I saw, from the opposite direction, a stationary white SUV, also blinking its turning lights. My intrusive thought was to hit the accelerator and steal the parking spot before they get a chance to take it. But when I glanced at the white SUV again, I saw an old lady in the driver’s seat. 

It must be hard for her to get a parking spot here, I thought to myself, she probably needed the spot more than I did. So I kept my foot on the brake, waved at her, and gave her that precious spot. 

Even though parking spots at the library are rare, I don’t need them so desperately because I’ve always had my other option – I can parallel park (in fact, I found a parallel parking spot at Jefferson Avenue just a

few minutes later).

When it comes to parking in the library, knowing how to parallel park could save you a lot of headache; outside the context of library parking, the ability to parallel park comes in handy too.

For example, you won’t get as many tardies. 

When I was a Junior, I would drive to school once in a while; and when I drove to school, I was notorious for being late to class. But hear me out: there’s no parking lots for Juniors, so roadside-5th Avenue was the only way to go. But when you are slightly late, the road would be filled with cars of other students.  As you drive down 5th Avenue, you would see a long line of parked cars – and occasionally gaps large enough for your own car to fit in. However, poor Junior Frank did not know how to parallel park. So he would drive past these golden parking opportunities as if they never existed, all the way to the front of that queue of parked cars, a point so far that Naperville North is not even visible, and walk all the way back to NPAC entrance, then to his first-period math class, before finally getting clowned on by Mrs. Moore. 

Had I known how to parallel park, I might not have been late because instead of parking at the front of the queue and taking a 15 minute walk, I could have parked at the middle of the queue and taken a 10 minute walk; that’s the difference between being late and being on-time. 

For comparison, one day, having missed the morning bus to Central for my first-period class, I drove to Central myself. As I drove down the road next to Central’s tennis courts, I found myself in the same situation I was in for many times as a Junior: a long road, and a long line of parked cars. I scanned the line of cars to my right, and BOOM, I saw a gap! Had I not known how to parallel park, I would have driven past it; but this time, armed with my masterful ability to parallel park, I swerved right in, got in class on-time, and even helped someone else parallel park on my way to class.

See – being able to parallel park gives you a back-up plan wherever you go and saves you from a lot of potential troubles. 

Parallel parking is the kind of skill that may feel unnecessary to deliberately learn: you can definitely survive without it, and most of the time it’s not even clear when you will need it. Learning any skill takes time and effort, and we’re lazy. It’s therefore tempting for us to ignore the importance of learning small skills that do not yield immediate or obvious return: if you are busy with school, why bother to learn parallel parking when you can take that time to work on your College Apps? But nonetheless, these little skills come in handy when you do need them; and over the long run, they can be greatly beneficial. 

In today’s digital age, people are used to getting immediate satisfaction with the clicks of buttons. This fostered a culture in which people seek immediate return and overlook long-term benefits. We prioritize things with immediate gratification and overlook investing our time in things with long-term benefits that aren’t so obvious. We study not for personal growth, but because the exam is tomorrow; we look for internships not to acquire working experiences, but because they help with college apps; and we don’t workout for physical wellness, but instead, we bench our max weight every once in a while because we can’t wait to see the numbers go up.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe,” says Abraham Lincoln. Instead of focusing on cutting down that tree, we should take our time to sharpen our axe. Maybe, instead of focusing on what we get, we should take our time to hone our skills and enrich our minds. 

If a small skill like parallel parking might benefit your life in the long run, maybe learning it is worth some of your precious time today.