25 Aug 2024 -
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” - every statistics textbook, but most relevantly to me, Modeling Social Behavior by Smaldino.
This post is super late and thus will be super brief, but in February I went to ASPR, a camp similar to SPARC, but held in rural Taiwan rather than UC Berkeley. I went to SPARC back in 2022 during the summer, and was excited for ASPR.
My flight was first from BOS to SFO, then from SFO to TPE in Taiwan. The whole trip was a little over 20 hours. The food was delicious and I completed all my schoolwork for the week (ASPR was held during winter break but still overlapped with a few days of school).
I had met another person from Boston going to ASPR in BOS (and they were who I was assigned to introduce during third-party introductions, a twist on typical introductions) and we met another person at SFO. A third person was also going to ASPR but we didn’t see them on the plane. Once we landed at TPE, we met up with a larger group of students headed to ASPR. An instructor was there to drive us to the camp, which was held on a sheep farm in the mountains, and, as I learned later, the last (and only) location permitted to be built on those mountains as a touristy spot. The ride was 2-3 hours and filled with so many twists and turns that I felt sick by the end of it. At camp I met everyone, fed sheep, and picked up Modeling Social Behavior from the book pile. Jetlagged, I fell asleep at 9 and awoke promptly the next morning at 5.
I spent my time walking around the balcony and exploring the place. It was truly beautiful, from the sunrise and sunshine to the nature that surrounded us. It felt like paradise.
I had a few more one on ones the next day, herded the sheep, said hi to the local puppy, and felted wool I sheared from the sheep. One instructor tried to teach me to do handstands, and I hiked through the forest in the mornings. I cut bamboo for the first time, led the grill at a BBQ, danced, sang karaoke, and then went on a midnight surprise adventure where we only returned at 3. I visited TSMC’s museum, a mall, Daxi bridge, ate street food, ran a game theory game, then had hot pot and boba for dinner. I fed the sheep from my hand and tried new fruit that made me feel fuzzy. I raced to Taipei 101 with friends, and walked along the road, ducking when cars came near (we yelled “Car!”). I learned why “black sheep” is a phrase - people did avoid the singular black sheep in the flock, LOL. I read books and enjoyed nature and had fun.
On the flight back, I tried beef noodle soup (a staple of Taiwan) at the airport, and it was soo good. I took home a couple of books, as well as some pokemon plushies and an IKEA golden retriever plushy. Our flight from SFO to BOS was cancelled, so we flew to NJ where we overnighted at the airport (no hotel because none of us were over 21). I felt exhausted but happy when I finally returned home.
I met so many new friends and I truly think ASPR was an amazing experience that changed who I am as a person.