About Me
Your standard inexperienced high schooler. I was born in California and spent some time there before moving to South Korea. Currently a student at Stanford Online High School (and my eyesight will never recover).
I like physics, especially quantum mechanics. Spent some time learning how to code in middle school, which has been fairly helpful so far—like when making this page. Learned Latin in high school, currently studying Ancient Greek in my spare time.
Go check out my projects for more interesting stuff than this, or the activity page for a record of halfbaked ideas.
Qualifications
You're insane if you think a high schooler should have any qualifications other than knowing how to turn in assignments on time and avoid getting arrested.
Summary of My Life
I was born in California and moved to South Korea a little bit afterwards. Mom was a teacher at the same elementary school I attended, so after class ended I would usually spend time in the library until her work ended. Most of what I learned back then came from the library.
Initially, math drew me because of its logical structure; the "stern perfection" as Bertrand Russell put it. I never really considered it as a major though, because it felt like the scope of math was confined to paper.
After elementary, my family moved to Colorado for a year and I attended middle school there. This was at the height of the pandemic, and I was spending lots of time online. I discovered coding on Khan Academy and worked at it obsessively. Problem was, I hated coding stuff I didn't like. Customer backends, handling bug reports, and maintaining vintage codebases seemed like a chore. I tried algorithms and competitive programming for a bit, but quit them for the same reasons I quit math. So I decided that coding would be a hobby for me.
After starting high school, I discovered Quantum Computing, which was the perfect combination of coding, math, and the thrill of a developing field. Which led me to Quantum Mechanics, which led me to modern physics. The equations and new discoveries got me hooked, so I started reading about it as much as my piles of homework would allow. It felt great because everything was so unexpected, but also followed by logic and math.
Surprisingly, I also found that I liked languages. Though I did like reading and wrote poems from time to time, it was much harder to translate thoughts to sentences than math formulas. Latin had a great structural feel to it; a nice medium to write and read in. Ancient Greek's grammar was harder, but it had more flow to it. Gave slightly more freedom to experiment than Latin. The Romans had the right idea to be bilingual in Latin and Greek. Once you get tired of doing one, you can switch to the other and vice versa.
My biggest regret for most things is not starting earlier. I only really "found" physics in 10th grade, and had a lot of catching up to do compared to kids who had been breathing physics since they were 9.