User:DragonnRising

About me

"And so I was born and raised in the South, with the deep dark of her pines and the white-gold of honeysuckle around me. My loyalty to her can never be greater, and I will always assume myself a Southern gentleman anywhere in the world. People here tend to talk less and speak more, where subtle Nature around them has silenced their thoughts to peaceful understanding. But in my eternal summer haze, in my lazy creek-side dalliances, I saw danger in those stillborn moments, in my captious cycle of life; the world around me would become small as I sat there on the river bank, and my dreams and wonder of the world would wither with it."- J.X.

I came from a small town in Alabama; weekends were for football and the people I met back in first grade were with me all the way till graduation. Our doors were never locked, and everyone knew everyone else. My friend circle never really shrunk, it just became tighter as everyone knew each other through the ten-odd years we've taken classes together.

I didn't have much math and science background and never really did until the AP grant came to our school. As soon as it did though, the closest friends around me - those with a quiet, frenetic energy in their thoughts - took every single AP course they could. Everything was so absolutely beautiful as we learned it: every function could be approximated with a single polynomial; gravitational energy ruled in the vastness of space, but electrical energy ruled on the scale of atomic particles; we, creatures who started out as chaotic, random molecules, then single- and multi-celled organisms have evolved to a more organized state, almost as if against entropy.

Even though I grew up with Thoreau and Vonnegut, Montaigne and Shakespeare, I fell in love with the way the universe was written, and I wanted to read more. So I guess that's why I've decided to become an engineer. I wanted to help interpret that well-written code in the machinations of our universe.

Justin Xu, Class of 2017, Biomedical Engineering

Interests

I've played trombone for 4 years in high school. I loved it so much that I can honestly say that I wouldn't be here without the things that being a part of a band taught me. I've practiced for hours on end and made the National Honor Band of America three times. I've played with the NY Philharmonic trombone player as principal bass trombonist. I currently play in the Duke University Wind Symphony. I've met my loved ones within and because of music. It gives me illogical passion that keeps me in check when I'm overwhelmed by the sensible logic of math and science.

I also love drawing, origami, etc. Poetry also keeps me entertained, but I've never written seriously (or I've never taken myself seriously enough).

Grand Challenge Article of Interest

Reverse Engineering the Cognitive Brain , Gert Cauwenberghs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , published 12 September 2013 , accessed 15 September 2014 (Reverse Engineering the Brain)

Favorite MATLAB Demonstration

The Game of Life demonstration was interesting. Having so many seemingly factors accounted for in code and math was the most interesting demonstration to me.