Below is a "note" post on facebook.
If you do not know about facebook, this probably won't make much sense.
I might try to explain the phenomenon some day, but not now.
I have decided to try and stop the trend by introducing something different. Instead of answering random questions about random people who have randomly written on one's wall, we could give others some education regarding the classes we have taken.
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Thus the rule of the game is thus:
Go to one's own wall and look at the last twenty-six people who have written on it. Make a mental note about how great these people are, and then ignore them. Write down the classes one has taken, skipping those which have the same number and treat them as one class. Then answer the questions.
1a
1. Ma2
2. Ma5
3. CS1
4. Ch1
5. Lit5
6. PE84
1b
7. Ph1
8. Pl8
1c
9. Ma3
10. Bi1
11. Ec11
2a
12. Ma108
13. Ma121
14. Ph2
15. Mu21
2b
16. En114
2c
17. Ay1
18. PS12
3a
19. Ma109
20. Ma117
21. Ma10
22. Ph3
23. Ec121
3b
24. CS11
25. PA40
26. SURF (Since I am a slacker and have not taken enough courses, I will list SURF here.)
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By convention, I shall anthropomorphize math classes as male and others as female, except En114 (Shakespeare) shall be male.
Q: How long have you known 15?
A: I've "known" Mu21 (Understanding Music; 3-0-6) since I read the Caltech Catalog while I was a high school junior. I've "known" her in person first term of sophomore year. This is a good overview course of music, predominantly focused in history.
Q: How long was your longest conversation with 5?
A: I cannot recall my longest conversation with Lit5 (Major British Authors; 3-0-6). However, the longer classes on Tuesdays were approximately two hours long. Professor La Belle likes to include more Shakespeare to Lit5 than the other instructor.
Q: Should 19 be a math major?
A: Hmm, I think most of my classes should be math majors. Ma109 (Introduction to Geometry and Topology; 3-0-6) seems to know a lot of topology, analysis, and some algebra and combinatorics. It would be my judgment that he is a math major.
Q: What is one word 6 would use to describe 21?
A: Uh-oh, I don't think PE84 (Advanced Table Tennis; 3-0-0) knows Ma10 (Oral Presentation; 2-0-1). Given that PE84 likes to physically propel spherical objects while Ma10 likes to use stationary spherical objects to itemize lists in his presentations, I think PE84 would use the word "spherical" to describe Ma10.
Q: What is 13's favorite food?
A: I remember Ma121 (Combinatorial Analysis; 3-0-6) talk about sunflowers (a sunflower with k petals and a core Y is a collection of sets S_1, ..., S_k such that S_i intersect S_j = Y for all i not equal to j; the sets S_i - Y are petals, and we require that none of them is empty). So I suppose Ma121 likes to eat sunflower seeds.
Q: Does 25 like chocolate?
A: PA40 (Theatre Arts; 2-0-1) persuaded me to eat cheese, bread, grapes, and apples on stage last year. However, she does provide us with chocolate backstage, so she probably enjoys chocolate as well. We are performing Shakespeare's The Winters Tale this winter. Come watch!
Q: What was your first impression of 3?
A: My first impression of CS1 (Introduction to Computation; 3-4-2) was that it required a lot of hours in "lab." This was what I heard before I came to Caltech. However, she turned out to be quite friendly and not a time-consuming monster.
Q: What is one interest you have in common with 26?
A: SURF and I both enjoy combinatorics. In fact, we enjoy talking about the equivalence between strong connectivity and vertex-pancyclicity for hypertournaments.
Q: What is 9's favorite colour?
A: Ma3 (Number Theory for Beginners; 3-0-6) possibly likes violet, for he chooses that colour for his textbook cover. However, mathematicians say that colour is simply a picturesque term that usually refer to numbers. And to provide a colouring is to define a mapping from objects to numbers.
Q: Does 11 know any of your dark secrets?
A: Ec11 (Introduction to Economics; 3-0-6) were never close friends. She was the only HSS class I did not P/F, and I have regretted my stupidity till this day.
Q: Is 17 older than you? Does he/she act older?
A: Affirmative, Ay1 (The Evolving Universe; 3-3-3) is six thousand or so years old. She definitely acts older, as if she was 13.7 billion years old.
Q: Does 10 live near you?
A: A part of Bi1 (Drugs and the Brain; 4-0-5) lives very near me. In fact, it lives inside me. This is the brain. Drugs however, is far from me.
Q: What's 22's favourite way to waste time?
A: The favourite way for Ph3 (Physics Laboratory; 0-6-0) to waste time is to watch students perform error analysis. Her second favourite way is to provide malfunctioning equipments.
Q: What would happen if 2 and 24 were stranded on a desert island together?
A: Facebook does not know whether Ma5 (Introduction to Abstract Algebra; 3-0-6) and CS11 (Computer Language Shop; 0-3-0) are friends. If Ma5 were trapped on a desert island, he would probably bring along the fundamental theorm of finitely generated Abelian groups. CS11 would probably bring The Art of Computer Programming, which was written by a math professor from Caltech.
Q: Does 8 like to bake?
A: Pl8 (Right and Wrong; 3-0-6) likes to bake. However, she cooks up debates regarding morals and the metaphysical nature of mankind. She does not bake any healthy food, as far as I can tell.
Q: What's your best memory of 4?
A: Having not taken any chemistry in high school, Ch1 (General Chemistry; 3-0-3, 4-0-5) was quite hard for me. The best memory was probably folding origami in class. The second best is memorizing the mechanisms for the organic chemistry quiz. It was like puzzle solving.
Q: Does 16 play violent video games?
A: It would be anachronistic if En114 (Shakespeare; 3-0-6), who lived from 1562 to 1616, to play violent video games. His neighbors, however, would play games such as bear-baiting. Shakespeare would ask for bear skins from them to use on stage. This is exemplified in the famous stage direction "Exit pursued by a bear" in Act III scene iii.
Q: If you could take a trip -- anywhere -- whith 20, where would you go?
A: If I could take a trip with Ma117 (Computability Theory; 3-0-6), we would go to his realm and confirm the equivalence of register machines, Turing machines, Markov algorithms, and recursive functions. The only problem is, we would not be able to decide whether we could halt and come back. ;-)
Q: What season do you associate with 23?
A: I met Ec121 (Theory of Value; 3-0-6) in the fall, and would probably always remember her from that period of time.
Q: What's your most common form of communication with 14?
A: Ph2 (Statistical Physics, Waves and Quantum Mechanics; 4-0-5) and I communicate mostly in writing. Ph2 writes to me via French, Phillips, Kittel, and Kroemer. I write to her every week, even during finals. I regularly skipped her lectures because a combinatorics seminar takes precedence.
Q: What's one thing you admire about 7?
A: Ph1 (Relativity and Electromagnetism; 4-0-5) was able to tie relativity and electromagnetism together quite well. I was quite impressed with that. However, I also admire her choice of textbook, for Purcell was a splendid way of learning the material--much better than going to lectures.
Q: If you had an afternoon to spend with 1, what would you do with him/her?
A: If I had an afternoon to spend with Ma2 (Probability, Statistics, and Differential Equations; 4-0-5), I would probably write short stories, like what I have done in lieu of the last problem on the DiffEq final. (Worry not, I incorporated all the required equations and derivation into my short story, and my TA was kind enough to box them for me and gave me full credit.)
Q: What's one gift 18 could use the most? (Assuming an unlimited budget here.)
A: PS12 (Introduction to Political Science; 3-0-6) could really use a budget to buy new movies so we do not just watch four of them. On the other hand, who want to watch movies can we can read textbooks?
Q: What's something you learned about 12 only after getting to know him/her more?
A: After getting to know Ma108 (Classical Analysis; 3-0-6) more, I discovered that I do not have a strong desire for all branches of mathematics. Taking this class while taking Ma121 convinced me to pursue a SURF in combinatorics, and possibly proceed with combinatorics as my concentration.
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This took precisely 61 minutes to cook up--longer than I expected.