User:Jiangty

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Tian-Yi (Damien) Jiang
Room H307
Year 2014
Course Mathematics


Hi guys. I'm Damien Jiang. I'm a mommy for the 2012-2013 school year. I'm also apparently a famous professor, but don't believe that. (A shirt with the former picture exists as well.)

About me

I am obsessive and compulsive, in the sense that I compulsively obsess over stupid things like editing wikis, reading wikis, writing forum posts, reading forum posts, giving bad advice, heeding bad advice, playing games, watching games, etc. Basically, my self-control is lacking. Moreover, I'm easily distracted while working, and my procrastination skills are well-honed; this commonly forces problem-set all-nighters and sometimes causes poor academic performance. I'm also simultaneously elitist and naive, loud in public and shy with strangers, competitive and lazy.

Despite all this, I'm relatively friendly, and my door is almost always open, so feel free to talk to me!

Things I do, except for video games

Don't be fooled; I actually spend all my time gaming/interneting (on Teamliquid, facebook, Art of Problem Solving)/IMing/eating. Sigh.

Academic

I need a work ethic and some sort of anti-distraction mechanism.

  • Major: Course 18 (Mathematics). May be interested in algebraic topology or number theory, but who knows?
  • Other subjects of interest:
    • (Theoretical) computer science: Though my coding skill is lacking, and my tricky-algorithms skill is lacking, I find TCS pretty cool.
    • Linguistics: I did linguistics olympiad, which is really a puzzle contest... but I've taken a few linguistics classes and done a linguistics UROP, so hopefully I'm not totally clueless.
    • Physics: I am terrible at physics.
    • Econ: I guess I'm concentrating in this. I don't know why (something money something?)

Classes Taken

  • 2010 - 2011
    • Fall 2010: 3.091, 8.022, 18.701, 12.A32 (Cellular Automata Seminar), 24.906
    • IAP 2011: Battlecode (with Josh, Vlad, and Alex Zhai), 6.096 (Introduction to C++)
    • Spring 2011 : 14.01, 18.312, 18.702, 8.04, 21M.302, 18.03
  • 2011 - 2012
    • Fall 2011: 18.100C, 6.046J, 24.902, 14.12, 8.05
    • IAP 2012: Battlecode (with Josh and Tim, and Jon as a consultant). (Somehow a finalist!)
    • Spring 2012: 18.901, 6.004, 6.005, 6.875J, ES.S61 (Introduction to Trading)
  • 2012 - 2013
    • Fall 2012: 18.905, 15.411, 18.404, 21F.043, 18.112 (dropped to listener right before drop date)
    • IAP 2013: Battlecode (with Josh, Vlad, and Tim.

Sports

I'm fat and unathletic, and with my sedentary lifestyle and voracious appetite, have been getting progressively more so.

  • Swimming: Horribly, horribly out of shape.
  • Ultimate: Can't run; hopefully improving at throwing while being defended?
  • Ping-pong: Disgustingly bad backhand, but can rally with forehand decently.
  • Badminton: Took a PE class! Woo!
  • Basketball: Can knock down Brandon while defending him; having mass is useful!

Music

I like harmonizing a lot, and fancy myself a musician... though the list of pieces/songs I know is horrendously short. Please introduce more music to me (except maybe death metal.)

  • Singing: Formerly part of XLinked, a summer version of the Christian a capella group XProducts. Currently in MIT Concert Choir.
  • Piano: Stopped taking lessons in 9th grade (after 12 years), at which point my skill rivaled that of my friend who had played for two years. Now, I improvise, heavily overusing left-hand arpeggios and pedal.
  • Clarinet: Was first chair in high school, playing in Wind Ensemble/Orchestra/Pit Orchestra; now I sound like a 6th grader.

Other activities

Things that I wouldn't terribly mind for an interviewer to know.

  • Grading captain and teaching assistant for AoPS; in particular, I work mostly with the Worldwide Online Olympiad Training (WOOT) program. We also grade for the USA Mathematical Talent Search.
  • (Inactive) writer (and sometimes translator/Liquipedia editor) for teamliquid.net. I am a Brood War elitist, despite my lack of skills at the game. I'm also a (non-contributing) member of MIT Starleague.
  • I usually teach a class for ESP's Splash and Spark programs. In the past, I've taught:
    • Splash 2010:
      1. Maxwell's Equations for Dummies (with Josh): self-explanatory, though Josh took 1.5 of our 2 ours teaching multivariable calculus, resulting in disaster.
      2. Intermediate Olympiad Geometry (with Vlad): turned out to be more like AIME-level geometry.
      3. Canada, and why you shouldn't live there (with Josh and Jon): a horrible but amusing class.
    • Splash 2011:
      1. My Little Set: Compactness is Magic (with Josh): it turns out that explaining Dedekind cuts really sucks.
      2. ZT Stacking and T-Spinning: stole (with permission) my former roommate flamewheel's guide.
      3. Extreme Math (with Jon): Kids came up to the board and solved problems on the spot! Jon did most of the work, but it was entertaining!
    • Spark 2012:
      1. Coloring (with Josh): checkerboard and graph coloring.
      2. Extreme Math (with Josh and Jon): Again, Jon did most of the work. Again, it was amusing.
    • Splash 2012:
      1. Extreme Math (with Jon): people didn't do quite as well this time :(

Stupid Catchphrases

I mindlessly repeat stupid lots of stupid catchphrases, including, but not limited to:

  • "How rude!"
  • "The following,"
  • "et cetera" (replacing the end of a sentence, clause, or phrase)
  • "various" (generic pronoun, usually used when it's unclear what is being replaced)
  • "thereof" (generic pronoun, usually used when it's clear what is being replaced)
  • "(Holy) buckets" (variations include "what the buckets," etc.)
  • "Holy carp"
  • "Saucebag"
  • Who are you / Whoa re you

Other interests

Other things I'm probably willing to talk about:

  • Christianity: I attend Redemption Hill Church in Medford.
  • Chinese culture / language: my knowledge of Chinese is extremely lacking, but I can try.
  • Food.
  • Professional/competitive Starcraft: Brood War: though this is a game [which, incidentally, is about to die as a sport in Korea], it's special enough that it warrants being here.
  • North Carolina, and how it's so awesome.
  • Basketball (college and NBA), competitive swimming. To a far lesser extent, large tournaments in other sports.
  • Star Wars / Lord of the Rings.
  • Webcomics:
  • LaTeX and Linux.
  • The US Civil War, though my knowledge thereof is but a tiny fraction of that of Ian A.

Games

Video/Computer games I've been playing for a while

Usually I play these sporadically, but in huge (and devastating, to my health and grades) bursts.

  • Game Boy games, usually on VisualBoyAdvance: Pokemon (Gen I/II mostly), Zelda, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars.
  • Tetris. I'm #2 now #5 on the Ultra leaderboard.
  • Starcraft: Brood War on iCCup. D/D- Terran 1v1, D/D+ Terran/sometimes Protoss/rarely Zerg 2v2. I don't own Starcraft II, and will likely not be persuaded to buy it (though I may begin playing if someone wants to donate an account to me and if my computer can handle it without crashing...)
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee (see SmashBoards.) I mostly play Samus/Sheik/Zelda/Ganondorf/Link/Falco. I'm among the worst players on hall; I can't L-cancel, frequently do things I don't want to, and don't know what to do besides.
  • The Two Towers MUD. I've been playing on and off since 2005 or so.
  • Minecraft--the only game I paid for on this list!1
  • Not technically a computer game, but online Dominion. I'm not very good.
  • Neopets!

Video/Computer games I started playing in the past year

Video/Computer games played on hall

  • Super Smash Bros. Melee, again.
  • Mario Kart. Haven't really tried Double Dash, though I've played Wii a fair bit.
  • Rock Band. Can do the singing part, expert bass, and medium drums. Urgh.

Other video/computer games I found fun at some point

Puzzles/Word games

  • I participate on the hall Mystery Hunt team each year.
  • Ian has lured me into doing puzzles such as Slitherlink, Nurikabe, and Shikaku. I also do Sudoku sometimes.
  • Scrabble (Words with Friends), Contact.
  • 24 (and its cousin 161, with 6 cards).

Evil games I once played

  • League of Legends (no link because it's evil).

Notes

1 This excludes: old games my parents/grandparents may have bought for me, hall games.

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