WRIT 340

I went to the women's brewing forum with my friend Dana. It took us a while to find because we initially went to the wrong location. The forum was in a little backroom next to the Eagle Rock Public House. We arrived a little late since we had taken a detour, so I was pretty confused initially. I had expected this to be a forum about beer, but when I arrived I realized it was actually about sake! There were two women brewers leading the forum. One of them was an expert in fermentation and the other was an expert in sake. I learned a lot about the craftsmanship that goes into brewing good beer and sake. It's a very scientific process. I sampled some of the sake but not much because I don't really like it straight. Also I was driving. The sakes they had were from the Imada, Kawatsuru, and Mioya Breweries, which are all located in Japan. I felt a little out of place at this event because Dana and I were conspicuously young among the attendants. Additionally, I thought t...

To be frank, I would not consider myself as much of a social activist or humanitarian. Empathy is not something that comes very naturally to me, and I generally believe that everyone should be responsible for their own fates. When my parents came to this country, they had communication barriers, no connections, and only $1000. But with a strong work ethic, they have been able to find success and send me to one of the most expensive universities in the country. Consequently, I do believe in the American Dream and I don't really believe in government handouts. Still, injustice exists all over the world, and we have the power to change that. Growing up in the Bay Area, I was always acutely aware of the lack of representation of female entrepreneurs. People would discuss Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, but where were the successful female disruptors? Even if we examine the list of top richest women in the world, the list comprises almost exclusively of women who inherite...

Unfortunately, I am posting this rather late because I've had a particularly stressful week. Last night, I worked on a tax research project until 4am, and now I have to program a custom compiler for a C++ project before I leave for Coachella. I decided to share my misery with you guys, so in this post I will be talking about how to build a custom compiler. For those of you that don't know, a compiler is essentially a software that reads a high-level programming language (such as C++ or Java) and converts it into machine language that can be processed by the computer. There are five main steps to building a compiler: lexical analysis, syntax analysis, generating the AST, emitting code, and allocating registers. Lexical Analysis: A scanner takes input and serializes it into tokens that our compiler can recognize. It ensures that the lexical components of the input are correct. For example, given the sentence "I hate my life", we can tokenize it into four recognizab...

I went to the Coagula Curatorial gallery opening for the Future Gaze exhibit by Justin Bower and Randi Matushevitz on March 30. I brought my roommates with me who are pictured above. The gallery was a really cool experience and I enjoyed the exhibits a lot. I haven't been to many gallery openings so I picture them as very classy events, but this one was very casual and everyone made me feel very comfortable. They also sold $5 beers which I appreciated. The art was intriguing to me because I also am fascinated in sketching and painting human faces. I'm not very good at analyzing art but I think the artist explored interesting moods and color themes in a common subject. There were certain paintings that I just liked, even though I couldn't explain why I liked them. I would have bought one if I wasn't broke and the paintings weren't $1000. The exhibition was located in Chinatown so we walked around the neighborhood a bit after we enjoyed the gallery. I never re...

This chapter of Born on Third Base discusses the meaning of "bringing wealth home", in the context of globalization and relocalization. It uses three examples to illustrate how to bring wealth back to families and local communities: financial transparency, divestment from fossil fuels, and impact investing. Hiding money is a common practice that steals money from the global economy and governments. 8% of individual wealth is hidden away in tax havens, accounting for about $200 billion in revenue in 2015. The use of tax havens and offshore accounts is not always illegal, but it is definitely unethical. Jacques Leblanc's family has hidden their fortune in offshore accounts for generations, but Leblanc wants to bring the money aboveground and pay his dues to society. Divest-Invest is an organization that encourages divesting from fossil fuels and investing in renewable energy. The fossil fuels industry uses lobbying and money to maintain their relevance and secure politi...

I went to the LA IPA Fest with my roommate Lewis. We arrived at the festival a little later in the day but it was still going strong at around 3PM. I initially expected it to be more of an outdoors festival with stalls and trucks, but instead it was at a very cute bar. Honestly, that was a relief since I prefer to be sitting while I'm drinking my beer. The hosts were very friendly and helpful, and I was able to easily get seated and order. For my drinks, I ordered the Flight 8. I chose this because I thought the names of the drafts were funny. The ones I remember were Cockamamie, Dum Dum, and Deals with the Devil. My favorite draft in the flight was Deals with the Devil, which is fitting. I greatly enjoyed the flight but was unable to finish it because I can't drink too much beer without getting too full. While I was there, I also ordered sweet potato fries and a green salad, both of which were delicious. Although I don't know too much about beer, I do think I know enough...