Revision as of 18:33, 17 July 2012

Hello!!

Hey, I am Brandon Tran. I'm currently a course 18 sophomore. I was originally Derplet, until Nathan Pinsker and Amol Aggarwal joined hall, evolving me/us into Derptrio. I'll usually have my door closed, since I don't want mice getting in, but I guess when I'm in my room, I'm tooling anyways. For the most part, I can be found in the lounges or Damien's room (because his bed has comforters and so I steal the bed often).

Random Thing

Also at some point, when Damien Jiang said, "Holy carp", I added "on a stick!" and so Damien got really mad. I proceeded to look up if this was a thing, and found bowfishing. Arrows are basically sticks, so yeah, it's a thing. Anyways, I'm often now associated with carp, like for Secret Santa, I received many tasty fish-resembling snacks. It's now my tag for Smash.

Non-Academic Things I enjoy

Manga!

In my free time, I read a lot of manga and have read or am in the process of reading Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Reborn, Beelzebub, History's Strongest, Liar Game, Prince of Tennis, New Prince of Tennis, Eyeshield 21, Slam Dunk, Gantz, Air Gear, Deathnote. I've watched FMA and Rurouni Kenshin.

Video Games

I play a lot of smash, maining Marth and trying to pick up Fox and Sheik. Leon gets mad when I play not-Marth though, and I don't really do so that much unless I'm getting annoyed at doing Marth-Sheik, which is impossible. I also use Fox when Vlad wants to play his Falco I guess. I guess I'm not really picking up Sheik; she's just easy to play so "picking" her up wouldn't require too much effort. There are too many things I can't do with Fox, though, like short hop double lasering with Y, shine out of shield, multishine, etc but I'm working on it! I guess I sometimes also play Falco/Falcon, but only when I'm really messing around, like when we do Free-For-All 7-stock Falcon on Yoshi's or Falco on FD, or 99 stock matches, since after a while my hands get tired and I just use C-stick to walk.

I also enjoy random RPGs or MMORPGs, although it's probably a bad idea to play these during the school year. I've probably played nearly every MMORPG at some point or another, though the only RPGs I've played are KOTOR and DAO.

Not Video Games

I also like playing random card/board games with hall, like Fish or Galaxy Trucker. I also play bridge, but I'm nowhere near as good as the other hall members.

I also have a bad habit where if I start reading a book, I'll have to finish the series, no matter how bad it is. This is not actually that bad on its own, but together with the fact that every time I'm in an airport, I buy a book for the flight, it becomes a pretty bad habit. Recent things I've read are lots of Star Wars (Wookiepedia yeah!), Song of Ice and Fire, and the last book to Eragon (Books of Inheritance). I'm in the process of reading Malazen Book of the Fallen, recommended by Leon (I think). I finished book 1, and am halfway through book 2. It's pretty good and pretty similar to Song of Ice and Fire in its epic fantasyness.

Things where I have to move?!

I've heard that moving is pretty hard, though I wouldn't know cuz I don't do it.

On a more serious note, though I'm pretty much a lazyass, I'm usually up for a game of Ultimate Frisbee. I guess I'll also play basketball if there are enough people who want to, maybe. I used to play competitively, for some definition of play and some definition of competitively. I guess I also go jogging, but that's because the doctor said I had to, and so I use it as my alone time to think.

Food

I also love food. It's one of the three main pleasures of life, besides math and smash. I'm always up for trying new cuisine or a new restaurant, or going to something like O'Sullivans for the nth time.

The only thing I don't like is Ethiopian food, and maybe Persian food, but anything else is fine. Alternatively, I could have just gone to shitty Ethiopian or Persian restaurants, so I guess I'd be up for even that. I joke that I'll eat anything that doesn't move, and maybe some things that do (I think I had a snail that moved once in Vietnam, not sure). This is pretty much true. I've eaten weird things. Motto: Eat first, ask later.

Academics

As I said, I'm course 18, declared early sophomore standing. I don't really know what math interests me yet, but I did a number theory REU over the summer and liked it a lot. At some point, I thought I didn't like analysis, but the REU has given me cause to reconsider that. I probably will take some Harvard courses over the years, so people who are also interested in some Harvard classes should let me know. Besides math i'm also interested in TCS, though maybe this is basically math, I don't know.

Classes Taken

• Fall 2011: 18.701, 8.09, 24.900, 7.012, knot theory seminar

• Spring 2012: 18.702, 18.901, 18.312, 18.783, 6.851, 21L.011

• Fall 2012: some subset of 18.905, 18.415, 18.405, 3.091, 14.01, Harvard Math 223a

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Feel free to ask me about anything: classes I've taken, life on hall, how to survive. I've already made tons of mistakes, so I'd be more than happy to share them so you don't do the same. Also don't be fooled by all I put up there. My typical day is something like wake up at 1, go to a class, go back, eat, pset, smash, sleep at 4. Vlad says my sleep schedule is one of the most normal on hall.