Dan Luu '15

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven’t been blogging as much lately, I’ve been on Vacation and got sick, and just a lot of things to think about and not think about lately so I haven’t been able to update you as much. I will have a much more detailed blog, possibly two parts, to update you on what has happened. Best wishes!

 

Here are some interesting things I’ve found over break you can take a look at so this doesn’t really look empty.

Today, Jan 15, 95th Anniversary of the Boston Molasses Disaster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster

Camera stabilizing technology applied to a spoon for peoples with Parkinson’s (GIF) : http://i.imgur.com/Ath29UY.gif

21 Toys, an innovative new toy for kids to learn working together, creativity and innovation (if I recall correctly) : http://vimeo.com/47050588#t=1m34s

 

– Dan

 

Hey all, I hope all is well and well the summer is long gone and winter is here.

Fall is just about coming to an end along with the first half of my junior semester. I thought I’d take you guys through a walk and show you what it’s like. Basically for me to summarize, it’s pretty beautiful and quiet walking around after 3PM. You get this quiet rustling wind that blows the leaves around campus. It is actually really soothing and the breeze feels really nice when you are not freezing your butt off.

There aren’t too many people walking around and you can really take a moment to relax and breathe in the Fall season. I hope you guys enjoy. The videos are of me walking from Science Complex (starting from Beaven) all the way to near the entrance of my dorm (Loyola). The videos are really short and I’m not talking or really in them (besides my shoe). So as you’re watching just imagine yourself in my shoes, walking back from class, or lab, or studying and enjoying the windy and lovely fall weather. It’s really beautiful.

I hope you guys enjoy!

Here are also a few photos of the journey.

 

View of the city, it’s much more beautiful and overwhelming to see it in person, it’s very beautiful.

It’s a bit windy so you’ll hear a lot of the wind and it’s best to watch on 720p or higher

Part 1 (9sec)

Part 2 (30sec)

Part 3 (106sec)

Part 4 (56sec)

 

 

Hi guys, sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, I have some pretty exciting news for you all (cool blogs about school and stuff), but I first need to get through this week and then I’ll write more. I hope you all had a great thanksgiving and I’ll update you soon. Really busy with some work but I have a lot of blogs I’ve been working on and haven’t completed yet so I’ll get those up this weekend.
Best,

Dan

Hi all! So school has started, I had my not so great first and second exams in my classes, and I’ve been managing a lot of stress and anxiety built up from being at school already but we had a break, came back and more intense things running. Junior year so far has probably been the hardest year out of all of them at Holy Cross because there just has been a lot of changes in my life (personal and academically). I mostly just played games and hung out with some friends over fall break and had some amazing Korean tofu in Allston. However, I wanted to make a short blog to tell you all little bit about each of my classes.

Physiology- this is a pretty interesting class I’m in right now where I’m learning about mechanisms that work in the body and I learned a lot about the brain and general systems. We’re learning about circulation now and I find the labs to be fun because I get to stick electrodes on me and look like a robot.

Physics – just a general introduction to physics where I’m currently learning about motion, the kinematic equations and we’re doing some energy stuff. I really like my professor and he is super helpful at office hours and the demonstrations he does in class are very fun to watch.

Medical Ethics- for my philosophy requirement, this class is really interesting because you talk about the ethics in medicine and discuss certain cases where I feel like at the end of the day I can’t really decide on one exact correct answer as to what should happen when a controversial topic rises.

American Sign Language – For my language requirement and I must say it is an amazing class and I highly recommend it for your language requirement if you’re not interested in the others. I’ve learned so much and the class is taught in ASL because my professor is also death. Not only to a learn an awesome language, I learn a lot about deaf culture and the differences between Hearing and Deaf culture.

 

Life’s been rough, but it’s been going well and there have been many things to do. Will try and get some pictures up soon! I have a lot to say about living at HC as a third year student in a large room with my own bathroom and 2 new roommates (4 guys, one room, many shenanigans).

 

Best,
Dan

 

 

Hey guys I just wanted to share with you an album I took of while I was on the train ride I’d often take to visit someone throughout the first two years I was at Holy Cross. I’ve road the train many times and became very familiar with the train conductors, union station and my destination area. During the 1hour train rides, I’d either listen to music, take a quick nap, or just think to myself about anything and everything. It was a peaceful state of mind.

Now that I don’t need to take the train anymore because I have my car on campus it just makes me a bit nostalgic for those times again. I hope you enjoy,

Best,

Dan

The order goes from most recent (ie. last winter to latest, 4/20/12 of my Freshman year)

02/17/2013 02/17/2013 02/13/2013 02/15/2013 2/15/2013 11/16/2012 4/20/2012

Hi Friends! [long post but I just have lots to say]

So Summer is over for me and I’ve been out having a blast within the last few weeks.

I first got to hang out with my awesome friend and now former lab mate Jess, when she came up to visit me. We went out and spent our entire day in Boston. We had lunch at the North End and then got a bit lost walking to the museum of science where I saw super interesting science going on. It was really awesome to meet up with Jess and hang out with her again, best wishes to her and Grad School at Dartmouth!

I then had a trip to Montreal, Canada for one of my cousin’s wedding. This was a big wild trip because my friends from Toronto drove down (a 6hour ride) to see me for one day and drove back home. This was really an awesome thing for them to do and I’m really grateful to have such awesome friends who would do such a thing. We explored almost all of the underground malls around St. Catherine’s, ate crepes and some really good ramen, and we made video blogs and took a ton of pictures for our friends who are elsewhere in the world to enjoy. This was all on Friday, the day before the wedding and after they dropped me off back at home I had to get dressed again to go to the family dinner.

Then on Saturday, the wedding consisted of three parts, first we had the “giving away of the bride ceremony” which was basically having the groom and his family driving to the fiance’s house and having a traditional Vietnamese ritual of “bringing together the families” or so to speak. Then we went to the church where the wedding ceremony began, where they actually got married. This was followed by lunch where we ate Pho and then took a 2hour break to ourselves before the real party began. At night, there was a huge dinner party where friends, family, and more friends came to celebrate (this is always the most fun in a Vietnamese wedding). We had a 12 course dinner, a lot of dancing and the bride now changes to her final night outfit to dance with her friends and now husband. I went out to a club that one of my other cousins took me to later and I had a good time, though the music was a bit loud and overwhelming to my ears. (Fun little tip, if you’re a girl and marry in my family you get to be treated like a super princess and you’ll have three dresses to wear throughout the day, one for the morning, the wedding dress, and then the night dress).

Sunday was the last day I spent in Canada and we spent the morning just packing up then gathering the family to go visit my great aunt’s grave. We all took a picture together, said our goodbyes and headed back home to Woburn Mass.

A few days after I returned and before I moved in to HC, I spent my final hours with my high school friends and celebrated my best friend Alan’s birthday eating dinner at an Indian restaurant in Stoneham. We all talked and had our last “horah” before our individuals lives consumed us. I made a joke that we were all married and we would be considered from now BroHubs (brother-hubbys, like how in polygamy you get sister-wives, what would be the equivalent for guys?) Unfortunately, I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do that summer and wish I could have spent more of it with my SO, but that will be another story.

Finally, the topic of the title, what does this have to do with my mum and your parents? Well, to have such wonderful friends is a sign that their parents raised them to really appreciate their friends. Jess didn’t have to wake up really early int he morning, drive from RI to Boston and spend the entire day with me, but she did. My friends from Canada didn’t need to spend 12hours in a car (6hours driving from 3AM to pick me up at 9:30AM so we could hang out around Montreal until I had to leave at 7PM and then drive 6 hours back, but they did.

Even at my cousin’s wedding, on just my mom’s side all of our relatives came over from around the world (France, California, Texas, and more) for a wedding and it’s their excuse for a reunion. I met up with one of my other cousin’s who got married5 years ago in 2008 who now has a baby and it just amazes how loving everyone is. I had a cousin who flew in red eye from Cali to Montreal for the Wedding and they just left in the afternoon the following day. We’re all related through my grandma who was 1 out of 11 children, so that is how I’m related to most of my other cousins. Looking at my cousin’s wedding and then looking at my other cousin’s new baby made me realize how fast I have grown up, how 10, 15 years ago I was in Canada trying to bother my cousins being an annoying brat, and how my mum constantly scolded me as a child growing up. Lets just say on my last day in Canada and driving home I became very pensive and nostalgic with a weird pain in my heart that I still have writing this now.

My friend’s from home have also been so super close to me since our elementary school and middle school, we’ve never strayed as friends and our group has always been tight. Even though we all go to different schools and two of them go to WPI, we will always make time for each other and

Your parents and what they do make you who you are today, my mum was the strict Asian mom who grew angry at me for all the little things I would mess up at, yet she has been the only one to care for me and help me with my education here at Holy Cross. She taught me how to make such strong relationships with my friends, and to behave myself now that I’m older. So appreciate your parents and cherish your friends, if they’re good, they’ll be with you for life. My friends who’ve done so many things for me that I’m grateful for, have awesome parents who taught them to love their friends very well. I really want to thank all my friends who’ve been there for me when I’m down, happy, crying, angry, silly, crazy, wild, random.

Best,

Dan

P.S These were just some highlights at the end of my summer, I have sooo many more friends who are really awesome people and have done a lot for me (they’ll have their own posts soon enough).

Hi Friends!

So my summer so far has been mainly working at the YMCA and just playing with my friends from home. Nothing too much exciting right? Well you would think so but I’ve done a lot of fun stuffs, like I recently just got a fire pit at my house and then we had smores which were delicious.  I’m half excited to go back and start school and half not today. I want to continue the Ignorant Bliss I’m in; enjoying life and being with my friends and not looking at reality of life after HC and so forth.

My job at the YMCA, has been really awesome so far as I’ve gotten back to teaching my parent child classes in the smaller pool at the Y. I’ve socialized with all my parents and I learned a lot about their lives and jobs while teaching them about how their child is going to progress through their swimming life. It was awesome to work with my parents and their kids to see the amount of progress they made in my class. Some of the kids went from deathly crying and afraid of the water to being able to get in on their own, no crying and no clinging to mom/dad. I had other kids who were afraid to get their faces wet to willing jump in and get their face wet and being able to swim on their own with no help. (mind you this is all 18month-3year old babies). It was awesome teaching this class again in the summer.

I’ve also taught my adaptive lessons again and had one child this session. His name was Eric and he is a low verbal and shy person but he impressed me so much this swimming session. The first day of class I spent and hour and 15minutes in a small pool just warming up to him and getting him to do the basics. The next couple of lessons he progressed really fast, from someone who would only stay in the shallow end of the small pool to someone who would jump, get his face wet and swim on his own in the big pool and we even started working to get him to use a three bubble instead of four to help him swim better!

On Fridays I teach the regular lessons and I have kids from all ages around 3-9 with all different levels of swimming ability and each of my kids who came back each week significantly improved, and the beginners I had all passed on to the next class and I even had some of my kids start to swim without any help.I’ve also started shadowing and learning how to teach adult lessons so when I come back for breaks I can help out the Y in teaching adult lessons. Adults are also super fun to work but also very challenging because of the immense amount of fear they have with the water. However, they’re a great group and really fun to work with when they start to get comfortable and you’re able to see themselves improve their swimming and getting over their fear of the water.

Going back to school, I’m going to miss all of these kids, adults, parents, and Eric in my time at Holy Cross. I’m also going to miss working at the Y and child watch where I would just play with the kids while mum or dad worked out or went to zumba. However, once I come back I’ll see my same kids older and doing much more than when I had them which is going to be awesome to say hi. While I was working in the summer I saw a lot of kids I already had before in previous lessons years ago, but now that they’re older and I ask if they remember me most of them don’t. I don’t take it personally, but I find it amazing how fast they can grow.

Other than hanging out with my friends, playing video games, that’s been most of what I did at the YMCA in Woburn. I hope your summer has been well and you start an amazing school year.

Best,
Dan Luu

So I recently watched one of my favorite YouTubers Zefrank and his video on starting college, giving advice to future high school seniors who would be starting college, and I’m here to give my own two cents. So for those of you who are about to start at HC or anywhere else and just randomly read this blog, here is some advice on starting college from someone who is already in college.

As Zefrank puts it, you are the world maker and you make your college experience however you would like it to be. Your freshman year will involve introducing yourself to many new people in and out of your grade, classes with professors who are different from your high school teachers and new relationships that you form. Don’t be shy to go to something your small group of new friends may thing is stupid and don’t let yourself be pressured into doing something that you normally wouldn’t. Don’t drink so much so that you’ll forget everything and you won’t have any memories of what happened the night before.

You should join the clubs you’d like or not join any at all, there really isn’t any pressure to actually do club activities, but clubs are also a great way to make friends. Work out and exercise when/if you have the free time. Also I wouldn’t worry about being judging by others because they’re all going to be self-conscious about themselves rather than judging you.

Most importantly you’re the world maker, make the best of this experience and while I’m not going to say it’ll be the best time of your life, you can make a great memorable time for the better days to come. Here is zefrank’s video if you’d like to watch it.

Best,

Dan

Hi Everyone, So it’s been a week since I have officially been done with school.

Finals all went okay, my physiological psychology final could have gone better but I’d say everything else was fine. Grades came back and I ended the semester with all Bs except for Cell Bio where I ended up with a B+. I have yet to receive my English grade but as far as this semester and last, I did much better this semester.

So what are my plans for the summer? I think I am mainly going to get enjoying my summer break but still be looking out for some internships or looking to see if I can get into research anywhere. I will be working part-time at the YMCA still covering people’s shifts and teaching swim lessons here and there. I don’t have anything big this summer like I did last summer where I stayed on campus and did summer research. I hope I’m going to also get a chance to shadow a doctor at some point. I’m still working out my summer plans and we’ll see where I go from there. I think I’m at a point where I’m starting to just chill and relax to just do things that I enjoy. Caring about your grades is one thing but not letting that stress and anxiety take over you is also important.

I am kind of excited and not excited for next semester to start. I’m excited because I’m going to be taking sign language as my language requirement and I have always wanted to learn how to sign. I’ll also be living with 3 other guys in Loyola and we’re going to have a good time. I’ll be able to bring my crummy car up and I’ll be able to explore around Worcester more and do more things off campus. I’ll also be a junior, 3rd year, at Holy Cross. Time really flies by fast when you’re having fun. There is only 2 more years of college left and there’s so much left to do. At the same time however, I’m also looking forward to this summer as I’ll actually be able to hang out with my friends and catch up on our shenanigans. Okay, now I’m just getting nostalgic but I really cherish my friends and they’re all really great in hanging around me.

Well there is most of my summer plans, I hope you guys enjoy your summer! What are your plans, are you doing anything special?

Best,

Dan

So you got your letter into Holy Cross? Congrats!! Let me swoon you into this school with a couple of key factors to bring to the college.

After almost two years at Holy Cross now, I often ask myself, do I still like Holy Cross as much as I did when I first came in? The honest answer is that I like it actually a lot more than my freshman year. While I did not enjoy Monsterrat, many other people here have liked Montserrat and had a good experience. You’ll get to live with people all in your cluster and make new friends. The academics for what you want to do here is pretty impeccable and while there may not be as many majors as other schools, you will find a professor that you will get in contact with and have a very close relationship (Many of my friends have one or two professors that they always go to).

You will have classes that are very small with professors and I don’t think any class here reaches 100 students, the intro classes are around 75 (large, but still small compared to other schools). A small campus may seem boring at times, but the beauty never really fades, you will see 12903821093 pictures of the same spot of campus yet you probably find something to admire about it each time.

Now here are some other honest opinions, if you’re going to into the sciences, they can be very hard and demanding of your time compared to other classes because you have to take a laboratory class, which are usually a 3-4hour extra class time commitment (but that is at every school). However, it is still manageable and you can do it!

If you like to party, there are plenty of party scene on the weekend for you to enjoy and take advantage of and it is probably the biggest thing to do on campus on the weekends.

However, if you aren’t into the big party scene then you should come here anyways and become friends with me, or sign up for substance free housing. There are plenty of off and on-campus activities to do, things to shop at and place to go around Worcester (I’ll make another post about that).

I hope you come here and if you actually read this blog and actually are one of the people who read it, I’d say you’re an interesting person and you should come and hang out with me. I won’t bite… maybe only a little.

Best,

Dan