talent - SSP International https://summerscience.org "The educational experience of a lifetime"...since 1959 Sun, 21 Jul 2024 22:27:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.5 Astro GCSU: Kal’s Burning Castle https://summerscience.org/astro-gcsu-kals-burning-castle/ Sun, 21 Jul 2024 22:26:10 +0000 https://summerscience.org/?p=22917 Today was the talent show day. Interestingly, the SSP GCSU astro program has a high concentration of talented performers and […]

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Today was the talent show day. Interestingly, the SSP GCSU astro program has a high concentration of talented performers and musicians. It made me wonder if being good at music has something to do with physics (e.g. Einstein playing violin and Feynman playing bongo drums). Here are some performance highlights I was able to obtain good photos for:

Michael N.’s Liebestraum no 3 (Love Dream) by Franz Liszt

Gwanpil’s magic card trick with Dr. Ice as a volunteer

Ian’s high-quality low budget drum performance

Dr. C’s “Nel blue dipinto di blu”

Aditya’s stand-up comedy

(from left to right ) Katie, Viktoria, and Isa’s jazz performance. Isa also had an amazing origami story show but the lighting was not ideal for photos.

Jean’s angelic singing of “Time to Say Goodbye” 

After being robbed by the airline for a 140-dollar special checked bag ticket for my violin on the flight to Atlanta, I knew I had to play something in today’s talent show despite the 3-year hiatus from playing the violin. I had never been especially skilled with the instrument so I lost my interest after playing in an orchestra full of perfect pitch prodigies that practiced 4 hours per day. In addition, transitioning to boarding school life in the US made me lose many of my former hobbies, including playing the violin. Thus, the 5 weeks of consistent and inconsistent practice sessions on the piece “Howl’s Moving Castle” with my fellow trio musicians, Kal (flute) and Sara (violin), was like a “renaissance” of my life back in China as I continued to wreak havoc upon my fellow musicians with my out-of-tune notes and “chronic rush syndrome” (hence “Kal’s burning Castle”). Despite countless hours of practice, our performance was below the average quality of our practices but I guess things in real life don’t have perfect endings as they do in stories. Nevertheless, even if the performance was perfect, it would not have been more meaningful than the reconciliation with my former passion and the friends I made along the way. For this, I would like to thank Sara and Kal for keeping me on this wonderful journey (and for your infinite patience in tolerating my playing):

“Kal’s Burning Castle” with (from left to right) overqualified page flipper Alan, Kal, Jonathan, and Sara

-Jonathan

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All the Good is Fading Away https://summerscience.org/all-the-good-is-fading-away/ Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:18:01 +0000 https://summerscience.org/?p=15153 Today is the last Saturday we have in SSP; today is our last TA lecture; and today is our last […]

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Today is the last Saturday we have in SSP; today is our last TA lecture; and today is our last day to Armory. I’m pretty sure people will remember the experience in Armory. It’s like adding carbon dioxide to limewater.  Everything that has happened in the past is carbon dioxide. Now the bubbles are gone, only the precipitation of memories is left, and it will stay forever.

Unlike usual, we had Indian food for lunch!! (No more sandwiches!) It seems that people enjoyed the food, and some of us decided to have Indian food for dinner. Although it looked unappetizing, it tasted really good. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s Chinese food at lunch! After lunch, we went to Gabby’s TA lecture. She talked about situations when lying is a good idea. She said that  when you want to hide the unsavory details of life, win the approval of others, or spare the feelings of your loved ones, lying is a good idea. I was listening so carefully and then she told us that what she just said was a lie :(((((( But overall her lecture was very interesting. After the TA lecture, most people went to CHAS to work on their final reports. 

We had talent shows today! We started with a super amazing string’s orchestra performance by Alexis, Diego, Grace, and Joseph. Then, we had a piano show by Cory; magic show by Konnor; K-drama by Seyhun; another piano show by Ritvik (extremely amazing, basically it showed the result of his years of constant practice); ballet performance by Payton; poetry recitation by Nathan and Aniyah; HIV protease inhibitor design by Eric; singing performance by Colin; Tetris visual feast by Jamilla. After that, we had a large group of people doing karaoke together. Our four dear TAs also performed a song by Lady Gaga (I like Colin’s body twisting). We had another karaoke group singing a Chinese Song. Finally, our talent show ended with Dimitra’s guitar solo.

Indian food!
Gabby’s TA lecture!

Quote of the day: 

  1. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (roaring). — Colin (during Gabby’s lecture)
  2. Hahahahahahahahahaha (roaring). — Colin (during Seyhun’s talent show)

Hi, my name is Zibin (William). I am a rising senior from Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science. I love chemistry, especially organic chemistry. I was doing organic synthesis in my Junior year. I like to play League of Legends, and I am super good at Yasuo (my friends call me YasuoKing).

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