Amy Do Nguyet Anh

Back in January I was scared out of my wits when facing my class 5 driving test. I ended up locking myself out of my car 1 hour before the test so I never made it there to begin with. But I can't forget having nightmares about driving into a ditch, or crashing into a bus, or running over pedestrians. Every time I think about taking that driving test,  I can only imagine disasters. Yet, whenever I take the wheel, I feel completely in control. I almost immediately relax and look ahead on the road with confidence. So why is it that when I think about driving, I freak out, but never have I lost control while actually behind the wheel? Back in my teenage years I wrote about how time seems fast and slow to me at different times in the year. Recently, I've experienced this odd feeling where I feel like time passes by slowly, and I want it to pass by more quickly, but at the same I want to be at this point in time forever. The contradictory feeling of being not completely satisfied...

After this academic term, which I call the worst academic term since I was born (for various reasons), I have come to the conclusion that this is how my teachers give me marks. I have done well in courses I know I am pretty incompetent in, and done badly in courses I know I am pretty competent in. As I move up to more advanced math courses, I start to realize the divergence of 'math' and 'numbers'. In the courses I took this term, statistics is the 'mathy' course most concerned with numbers. There is an entire field dedicated to numbers because it is so mysterious - seriously. “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” ―  Aaron Levenstein How do you know when you look at a set of data if there is a pattern or not, and if there is a pattern, if it is significant or not. Even just looking at my marks this term, I cannot compare them to last term, because the two set of data are different in fundamental ...

Last Friday, UBC Improv had their last show of the year. I have been to UBCi shows since first year and witnessed the audience size of their performances grow into a steady crowd even during midterm and final periods. They are definitely the funniest bunch I have ever seen in improv; their charisma trumps even the professional improv groups I been to. At the end of the performance, the new co-presidents introduce themselves and call upon graduating members to step forward. As the audience burst into a thunder of applause to congratulate them and thank them for their amazing performances, I can't help but feel a sense of nostalgia rush through. I am somewhat jealous of the place these graduates are in. Not only are they reaching the finish line of their degrees, they are celebrated by their peers and embraced by teammates from a group of amazing individuals. I am jealous that they seem to belong to a group that have always worked so well together, and will have such life long memo...

I forgot that I used to blog a lot. It's been an exciting 2 months in this year. I got to travel away from the country for the first time since 2009 and I went to New York City. I only had 3 days but I got to visit the places that I've only seen through Gossip Girl: Central park, Upper East Side, Bloomingdales, Chinatown etc. I thought of why I am so attracted to the stories of Gossip Girl. It is, after all, about some immature people who have too much money but too little happiness. But there is something riveting about how glamorous their lives are. In the end, who can admit that they wouldn't want to live in such prosperity if it was given to them at no cost. But just like any big city in a capitalist society, New York has its slums. Two out of the three nights I was there, I witnessed homeless people get on the train and make an announcement to other passengers about their need for money and asking for help. I haven't seen homeless people do this in Vancouver,...

(originally posted on 7/7/2013) Statistics is probably the most dreaded course among my science/engineering friends. It is known to be boring, difficult and tedious. But many, many programs require it, from business, economics, finance to biology, physics, engineering. It is no surprise that stats is required among so many majors. Statistics illuminate an inherent and unavoidable part of life: uncertainty. When I started reading "How Randomness Rules our Lives" by Leonard Mlodinow about a year ago, I started to become more aware of how probability is useful to my many practical needs, and how random our universe is. If there is one most significant thing I learned from being a teenager, through both my academic and personal life, it would be that certainty is non-existence. Simplest things like measuring contains such much uncertainty that correcting for the error becomes its own subject of study. But in life, are we ever certain about any decisions we make? Maybe w...

(originally posted on 3/2/2013) I bid stability goodbye as I push myself forward. The snow is powdery and crispy as the winter sun. My feet are shaking; my fingers sore from unintentionally clutching the pole for so long. I look down. I see that white thin trail spread in front of my vision, intertwining with the dark green land of mystery that I cannot explore just yet. But my eyes are not enough to keep me going forward; my ears are open for the sound of the wind gushing around me, signalling a safe turn. I want to stop, but I keep going forward. I let go of myself and leap. Leap ahead. My body is moving faster than myself. I see the world open up, swallowing me into its own physical laws. I don't want to stop, though my brain is screaming for control. My feet bounce unexpected as I hit a mogul and a shot of electricity spikes up my spine. I kiss the ground again. It pushes me forward even faster. My tummy jumps. Friction is lost, but I don't want to slow down. Frozen f...

(originally posted on 2/5/2012) When a girl turns 19, she free falls. (void) { Step outside the house, put on heels, a short dress; Find someone (male or female); Do her hair in a sexy; Wish herself the best of luck; Then free fall (let go); } Not a woman nor a girl. (answer?) { Count the number of times she falls in love; Record the length of time she is in love; Measure the days she misses someone; Paint her blue days, and wash her grey days; Look through her playlist, highlight the love songs; Read her books, find her dreams; And you will know if she is a woman, or a girl; } Does she cry at night, does she smile? Does she look out the window and listen to the Weeknd? She asks for cocktails instead of a shot, or does she forget her night? What does she wake up with? A spoonful of happiness, a dose of drowsiness, a pile of work, a sharp thought of someone she loves? The beauty of 19 is the free fall. The algorithm...