Journal

This week, our group started working on our google slides final presentation on Wednesday. Matthew and Alex were in charge of finishing analysis on the strawberry dataset, Jeffrey and Ben are working on the flower dataset, and Sue was on the cats dataset (which might not be valid since the pictures of the cats were too similar to make an accurate adjacency graph). I have just finished my convex program and begun running it on other datasets. We have made a vague outline so far and assigned people to slides/topics. Below is the side I am working on:

It is crazy to see how fast time has flown by. Even with the pandemic and its crazy effects on us, I thought school started just last month. With this program, I wish our professor had not missed out as many meetings as he did. Had he not been the technology expert witness for the case, we would be able to do more. Sadly, we can't control that but I still put an effort out there to learn topics like convex optimization and graph theory. I believe that the program is actually about the students rather than the professor. You'd be surprised as to how much we have accomplished without Dr. Hassibi's help. My advice for next year's participants in the program is that the opportunity is only valuable if you make it so. Below is a photo of our group:

I also cannot believe that I will be a senior at San Marino High School. Referring back to what I said, the time has flown by so quickly. I guess now is the time to start writing those college essays and prepping for next year. Speaking of which, I figured out my entire schedule which consists of the following classes: AP Literature, AP Calculus AB, Honors Physics, AP Government/Economics, and Speech and Debate. During the summer, I will take Statistics and Intermediate Mandarin at PCC to get myself familiar with analyzing graphs and fulfill my language requirement. I will also be writing my essays and working on a research topic by myself. I am super excited to close another chapter in my life. Below is a video about what PCC is:

In more relevant news, last week I watched 60 Minutes, a television show that broadcasts America's issues, with my parents and learned about Rick Bright, a former director for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and his story as a whistleblower. He says that he heard about COVID the day it began in Wuhan, China, and warned officials about the potential risk it has on the U.S. He looked at the requirements a virus has to meet for it to become a pandemic and checked all the boxes. He was later then given a position he deemed of a lower responsibility by Donald Trump. In my view, I believe that both parties are at fault here and that it isn't just one person's fault. It is Trump's accident that he didn't believe in Dr. Bright and took drastic measures but it is Rick Bright's fault for not trying hard enough to persuade others. He also goes off in emails with unnecessary messages like "we're in deep shit". It is as though he isn't taking this seriously enough. Below is a video of the 60 Minutes interview