User:Jmin
From MariachiWiki
Contents |
Biography
Jie Min was born on October 1st, 1991. That's probably all you need to know. She has no siblings, but that doesn't mean she gets everything she wants. Actually, she is often left home-alone (but don't tell social security that!). Perhaps she's going to grow up weird, but we'll see.
Interests
Her interests range from Erik Satie to Gafawwing. She finds Erik Satie fascinating because he is French and he is a pianist, two very important characteristics she uses to judge people by. That and, he composed furniture music, or as the French call it, musique d’ameublement. Jie Min does study French at her High School, if you wanted know. In 10th grade, her French teacher required everyone to memorize a French poem, "Demain, des l'aube". That was during the same week her English teacher required her to memorize an English sonnet. That was not a good week.
Music
There are some embarrassing songs on Jie's iPod, but she blames Deepa for that. Other than that, She has been enjoying a lot of Björk. Yes, she wore that swan dress at the oscars, will you people let it go already?
Sufjan Stevens is another one of her favorite artists. In fact for the States page, you may notice the album Michigan on there in addition to a small blurb about Sufjan. She also recommends listening to his other album, Illinois. This is part of his grand scheme to write 50 albums about 50 states. Impossible? She thinks not.
The Postal Service, yes it is a band, no, it is not the postal service. It is a combination of Jimmy Tamborello (backing tracks) and Ben Gibbards (vocals). Tamborello is also the founder of Dntel and Gibbards is part of both Death Cab for Cutie and All-Time Quarterback.
Iron & Wine, better known as Sam Beam, makes beautiful music. That and, he makes great use of the "&" Perhaps you've heard of his rendition of the Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" on that M&M commercial. If so, wasn't that a great rendition?
She also enjoys listening to classical music such as Erik Satie, Arvo Pärt, Camille Saint-Saëns, Frédéric Chopin, and Jean Sibelius. Once again, it's the French thing.
Although she could probably go on and on about her favorite music on her iPod, there probably isn't enough room to do so. So here they are: The Shins, Spoon, Regina Spektor, Raphaël, The Postmarks, Modest Mouse, Loney Dear, Kaiser Chiefs, Jens Lekman, Jamie Cullum, Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, Hope of the States, Muse, The Flaming Lips, Franz Ferdinand Feist, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, Elton John, Eels, Dntel, The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, Beirut, Architecture in Helsinki, and All-time Quarterback
 The Postal Service |
 Sufjan Stevens |
 Franz Ferdinand |
 The Flaming Lips |
Flims
Some of Jie's favorite films include: Little Miss Sunshine, Running With Scissors, Waking Life, The Pianist, The Science of Sleep, Wallace and Gromit, Proof, The Piano, and Art School Confidential.
She also enjoys Will and Grace (at least until they cancelled it). This is mostly because of Jake and Karen. In fact, she wouldn't mind if the entire show was just Jake and Karen enjoying chocolate and mocking all the other characters.
The Simpsons and Futurama, both created by Matt Groening, are her favorite "guilty pleasure" TV shows.
 Dr. Zoidberg (my medical degree? uh..I lost it.) |
 Little Miss Sunshine |
 The Pianist |
 Science of Sleep |
Arts and Leisure
Jie enjoys oil painting, watercolor, but not acrylic. She also enjoys photography and owns a Canon PowerShot SD630.
She plays tennis and has been on the Tennis 7th and 8th grade team during her Junior High school years. During that time, she was also on the North Shore Swim team. In 9th and 10th grade, she played for the Ward Melville Junior Varsity Tennis team. Unfortunately, it does not seem the tennis program will be running for her Junior year. However, she does play regularly on her own time.
Do not ever ask Jie if she plays in orchestra, because the answer is a resolute NO. Jie participates in various band activities as a clarinetist.
Academics
Academics are an important part of Jie's life, just not that important. She will be a junior this coming school year.
Schedule
- AP Physics
- AP Language and Literature
- AP Calculus AB
- AP U.S. History
- AP Psychology
- French D
- InSTAR
- Symphonic Band
Summer Camps
Jie is also an avid attender of geek camps.
During the summer of 2006, she attended CTY (Center for Talented Youths) at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
This summer, she will be attending NYLF (National Youth Leadership Forum) at Boston, Massachusetts. It is the MED program, in case you were wondering, I know I was. Although it was advised to not put addresses on their user pages, feel free to drop Jie a letter while she is at camp (July 7th - July 18th).
Jie Min
National Youth Leadership Forum
Summer Programs Forum Office, Millea Hall
Babson College
Babson Park, MA 02457
USA
Clubs
- National Junior Honor Society
- Foreign Language Honor Society
- National Art Honor Society
- French Honor Society
- Science Olympiad
- Business Honor Society.
Mariachi
Currently, Jie is with the Mariachi Workshop at Stony Brook University. She had heard about the program through her Chemistry teacher and subsequently, one of the Physics teacher. At first, she had thought to herself, well, what exactly does Mariachi Wiki mean? Sadly, Mariachi reminded her of mariachi bands (which she thought was probably wrong), but Wiki did remind her of Wikipedia, which she remembered was an online community that is a subsidiary of Wikipedia. Fortunately, she finally did find out that Mariachi stands for Mixed Apparatus for Radar Investigation of Atmospheric Cosmic-rays of High Ionization.
June 25th, 2007
On the first day, I arrived around 8:30am. For the next 20 minutes, I wandered around aimlessly, trying to find the Mariachi center. I had finally found the room, but it was eerily quiet, which is not uncommon for a group of people meeting for the first time. Helio Takai then introduced himself and gave us a lecture on Cosmic Rays. The other speakers included Mike Marx and Zejie Zhang.
Around 12, we were sent to the SAC for lunch, but I suppose the pressure of twenty hungry people was a good incentive. Later on, Rich Gearns gave a little demostration on how to use Wikipedia. I was assigned to in a group with Adam Lamson, Sam Bryant, Mike Lopez, and Rob Velte. Our research topic is Is there any other way to detect a cosmic ray? Infrasound?
My contribution to the topic is the article on Geiger Muller tubes. Later on, everyone was encouraged to ask questions by writing them on post-its and putting them on the "post-it" wall. "where is a hair scrunchie when you need it?"
June 26th, 2007
Today started off with the Scientillator activity led by Mike and Dima. We collected data and graphed an efficiency curve. First, we graphed the efficiency of the scintillators and then discussed why 100% efficiency is nearly impossible to achieve.
Afterwards, it was off to the SAC for lunch. However, as I was walking back from lunch, something seemed to be amiss, my surroundings seemed..unfamiliar. Unfortunately, it appeared that I was lost once again. Wandering around haphazardly, the heat and humidity slowly stifling my judgment and intellect, I stumbled upon some of the other Mariachi students who guided me back to the air-conditioned building.
In the afternoon, group 2 moved on to videoconferencing (led by Helio Takai and Rich Gearns). We started off with an epic battle (PowerPoint slide) between particle physics and biology. A few bad physics jokes later and we all became masters of video-conferencing.
Seen on the door to a light-wave lab: "Do not look into laser with remaining good eye."
Richard Lefferts then gave us a tour of the Van de Graaff generator. He beckoned for us to walk into the caged area, the one with the glaring high voltage signs all around it. "I see some of you are cautious about stepping into this area, that's good! But..come on in anyways!" I wearily eyed the High Voltage signs all around me as I stepped into the cage. He then showed us some isotope charts, which showed every isotope of every atom. Soon, we stepped out of the high voltage cage (whew) and Richard introduced us to some parts of the Van de Graaff generator, including an interesting historical background about hand-sewn leather conveyor belts.
Helio Takai closed up the day with a question-answer session.
 Scintillator Set-up |
 Here you can see Ian and Adam (as well as Cosmic Chris!) enjoying a game of cards |
 Particle Physics VS. Biology |
 Particle Physics VS. Biology: The battle continues |
 Ohm Humor |
 Helio teaching |
 High Voltage Signs |
 Richard Lefferts excitedly gesticulating for us to enter the High Voltage area |
June 27th, 2007
I woke up around 8:30am today, which led to a slight delay in my arrival. However, the session seems to start when everyone has arrived. We started off with "It is time to make your question" with Helio and John Hover. Most seemed to be actually relevant. Eventually, the group became intensely immersed in a heated discussion about Cosmic Chris and his possible super powers, super wife, and super kids. Speaking of super acquaintances, we also started discussing possible super friends for cosmic chris. Helio came up with Cosmic Carlos and Cosmic Chin. We then took turns visiting several stations that were set-up.
One of the stations, Cyber-Infrastructure For Control and Carbon 14 Dating, allowed us to control several objects using a computer. Out of nowhere, a loud blast of air was heard, although nobody was that startled, it did grab everyone's attention. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the cacophony. The computer was also capable of controlling a volt meter and nobody was really able to compose a pleasant melody. The goal of the station was to eventually let other users around the world access this program.
After that, almost everyone was crowded around the cloud chamber demonstration. It may just be a fish tank on top of a projector. but once you were finally able to "see" the particles, it was difficult to restrain yourself from jumping up and down.
Around 11pm, everyone was probably feeling a little anxious..or maybe I was the only one feeling a little claustrophobic after the arrival of so many people. Several impressive people made several impressive speeches with one person expressing his approval of the mariachi logo. This would prove to be foreshadowing for later events (gasp!). The ribbon-cutting was a little difficult to see from where I was seated, but from what I saw, well, all I saw was a giant scissor, really.
Finally, it was time for the fiesta to begin. As we walked outside, I exclaimed: "No! It can't be! Is..is that..mariachi music?" I stared incredulously at the scene before me, a real live mariachi band, it's as if people read what I write on this page or something! They were complete with matching uniforms and spectacular hats! Along with the mariachi band was a delicious Mexican fiesta buffet. After that, I have to admit that I did not do anything productive except play Hearts for about 2 hours, ponder where the mariachi band came from and if it was possible for Ward Melville to start our very own mariachi band.
Although the fiesta was fantastic, it was about 90 degrees outside and it was extremely gratifying to be re-entering the air-conditioned mariachi basement. John Hover then gave us a small presentation on grid computing and certificates. Afterwards, we rejoined our group and brainstormed new ideas for our topic.
However, I was suddenly distracted by someone who was walking by with a glass of what appeared to be smoking water. Obviously, it was dry ice submerged in a glass of water, but as he raised it to his mouth to drink, I was shocked..until I remembered dry ice was merely Carbon Dioxide and this was essentially just cold water. "Oh, we normally chill our water in liquid nitrogen."
Helio then walked by with what appeared to be bubbles and a dry ice bucket, providing several moments of amusement.
 Helio answering "possibly relevant" questions |
 Cloud Chamber |
 Taped on top of the Cloud Chamber |
 Jie's arm and the magnets she's controlling with that arm |
 "hmm..what's everybody looking at?" |
 VIS (Very Important Scientists) |
 Cosmic Carlos? |
 John Hover teaching the class about Grid Computing (somebody is still in fiesta attire!) |
 Helio distracting everyone with bubbles |
June 28th, 2007
I've come to immensely enjoy these "It is time to make your question" sessions with Helio, mostly because of the way it is named (I love awkwardly stated sentence constructions). However, what we seem to go off on tangents on is also great. Today's session began with a short "moon sand" demonstration by Helio. I've thought about it and decided that if I ever want to show someone how impressive my reflexives are, I would purchase some moon sand (possibly ebay?) and a magnetic tube.
As I wondered about how fast the week seemed to pass, I noticed that the screen saver seemed to be different from Helio's usual one. Mike Inglis, the astronomer, had come to talk to us about black holes. But first, a small lecture on astrophysics: The Sun, Red Giants, White Dwarfs, and Planetary Nebulae.
I found the presentation to be fascinating (and I'm not just saying that, I try to be honest on here). Most of the information was difficult to visualize, but I was enthralled by the concept of the singularity (a single "point" that represents the center of the black hole). Using Einstein's theory of relativity, Inglis defined gravity as a bending of spacetime. At first I couldn't grasp the idea, having always thought of gravity as an attraction between two objects.
However, as Helio bravely ventured towards the event horizon of the black hole, Inglis explained that time would increasingly get slower and slower until Helio reached the event horizon. From our perspective, Helio would never get further than the event horizon, because once he reaches the event horizon, one second where he is would be an infinite amount of time on Earth. Technically, the entire future of our universe would flash by in an instant as Helio slowly falls into the black hole, waving a fond goodbye. In reality, Helio would only see about 15 billion years of history because the starlight (that is harmless to us) would become blue-shifted and turn into radiation due to the intense gravitational pulls of the black hole and vaporize Helio.
Now, I don't want to be redundant, so let's move on to sunspots. Inglis set up two microscopes, but it seemed as though the astronomy Gods were not happy with us today. As soon as the telescope was set up, a clump of clouds drifted by covering the sun. About 20 minutes later, the sun made another appearance, but as soon as Inglis finished adjusting the telescope, well, you know, the clouds again (sigh).
The unbearable 90 degree temperature and occasional warm beams of sunlight drove everyone to the SAC for an early lunch. After lunch, it was time to resume our prior activities (group rotations). The last station for my group was the Radar demostration with Zejie Zhang. After a brief presentation, we tuned into the WiNRADiO (800 Hz) trying to search for contact from alien life-form..or maybe that was static. Later, we learned how to use the MATLAB.
I shared a laptop with Christopher Wankel. After staring blankly at the screen for about 10 minutes.."well.." "alright..so" "..do you understand any of this?" "no, not really". Luckily, Zejie Zhang was within the vicinity and came to the rescue. Eventually, we seemed to have muddled our way (I'm not going to lie, a lot of it was just "well..shall we try this?" "I suppose..") through the entire PowerPoint with a partial knowledge of how to program.
Around 3:30pm, we all convened back in the main Mariachi area to discuss future plans and projects for Mariachi. I have to admit I was already feeling nostalgic about the program, having stayed for only such a brief time. I've certainly enjoyed meeting several interesting people at this program.
It appears as though I've lost my camera in the SAC around 4pm today. I'll be searching for it tomorrow, but it does not seem likely that I will find it. This is very, very, very horrible. |
