androong
"waow"
- Name:
- Andrew
- Location:
- Las Vegas, NV
- Education:
- B.S. CS @ UNLV
- Occupation:
- Undergrad TA, CS218
- Status:
- Studying
- Member since:
- 1337 A.D.
♫ Now Playing
Blinkies & Badges
Collecting more...
Interests
| General: | compsci, polisci, philosophy, math |
| Music: | many things! grunge too |
| Movies: | Airplane! |
| Heroes: | me :-) |
| Hobbies: | writing, learning, logging onto Twitter to say "waow" at plushies |
About Me
Name's Andrew - nice to meet you!
I'm an undergraduate TA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for CS218 Introduction to System Programming - a class affectionately known to all the students as the "weedout class."
I've an eye towards systems-thinking, abstractions, and architectures that shape our perception of the world - whether it be machine or human, philosophical or political. Looking to turn that into a career!
Skills
Here are some of the languages and technologies I've worked with:
I first learned C++ in my first year of college, and it's been a passion ever since. It's an incredibly miserable language with archaic features and an even more archaic syntax - but it's my language. I first learned it with little understanding of the syntax and semantics - however, after being introduced to x86 assembly, it's become one of my most favorite languages. I had zero clue why I would need to care about a pointer until I ventured into x86... and now I absolutely enjoy some of the grind and toil that comes with memory management and I love the idea that I can make a data structure with less overhead than in most other languages.
I learned x86 assembly in my second year of college, and it's been a fascinating journey. It's a very low-level language that gives you direct control over hardware, and it's incredibly rewarding to see how everything works at the most fundamental level. What is the heap? What is the stack? It's fundamentally changed the way I code, learning what the computer's doing on-metal.
HTML is the backbone of the web. Incredibly easy to pick up (for me, mentally!) and it's been a constant companion in my journey to build interactive and accessible websites.
I love it. I hate it. I have to constantly look up which flexbox property does what - but I love the fact I can visualize this in my head. "How do you center a div?" you may ask yourself, and then you may copy & paste whatever solution you find only for it to not work. Your solution? Flexbox. Our problems have been solved with modern technology.
A mainstay of modern web development, JavaScript is the language that brings interactivity to the web. I've been using it for years and it's become an essential part of my toolkit.
My Mission
Here's what I'm intent on doing as part of my guiding compass.
Public-Facing Mission
Leverage my insight born from my love for both STEM and the humanities to live on the forefront of technological innovation and ensure that problems of scale, reasoning, and complexity are addressed with a creativity and understanding that only a multidisciplinary approach can provide.
Personal Mission
To remember, every morning, that I get to love the most amazing people in my life - and the person behind my very two eyes, whom I should remember and care for just as much.
Hall of Fame
Albums that changed everything for me. In no particular order:
Currently Exploring
Stuff I'm actively digging into right now:
- None at the moment! I'm stagnating - someone please send help!
Music Philosophy
I'm not entirely sure if I've ever really been a big music person. However, you get songs that make you cry just listening to it, and - even worse - you get songs that make you cry once you take a look at the lyrics and the meaning.
KINO.
By Genre
My music taste, filed and categorized for your convenience.
Playlists
Curated listening for specific vibes and occasions.
More playlists coming as the collection grows...
Deep Cuts / Hidden Gems
Tracks and albums most people haven't heard but absolutely should.
Tanya Donelly's post-Throwing Muses project. Criminally overlooked. "Feed the Tree" was a hit but the rest of the album is just as brilliant.
The grunge supergroup nobody talks about enough. Layne Staley and Mike McCready together. "River of Deceit" is transcendent.
Russian post-punk from the Soviet underground. Viktor Tsoi is a legend in the post-Soviet world but virtually unknown in the West. This needs to change.
Japanese jazz fusion that feels like sunshine filtered through a prism. Hard to find, harder to forget.
Know a hidden gem? Tell me about it in the guestbook!
On Building Things
Feb 14, 2026Building is the only thing you've got left. Please keep up with it at all costs - and do it for yourself. Otherwise, you'll wither away! Your creative juices always need exercising, you know?
Having grown on old websites and forums - and with a whopping 2gb of RAM at the most - I've grown pretty sick and tired of having to deal with new UX. Unfortunately, there's also really incredibly wonderful things about the new choices in design that older sites didn't have. I suppose there's a fine line I'm trying to tread on - how do I ensure that I get to express something well without it being miserable to use?
The logic needed for that and seeing something get built in front of your eyes by your own two brain-hemispheres is second only to a runner's high.
And that deal - about building things. Websites are the easiest thing for me to build, since I've got immediate feedback. However, programming something else is also quite wonderful, too! The nerd's nerd of Computer Science - the data structures part - is miserably exciting to work with!
That is to say - build! Please! Before it's too late for ya.
On Nostalgia
Feb 14, 2026Mm. Nostalgia... it's a drug. Don't get stuck in the past, now! Those really were the best times of your life - and unfortunately there's nothing you can do about that. Feel free to reminisce, but at some point, you'll be neglected the person right behind your very two eyeballs if you keep staring into the phantasm of what once was.
On Teaching
Feb 14, 2026Being a TA for a "weedout class" means you see people at their worst. That's okay. If you're the TA, it is your responsibility for you to meet them where they're at. Do not beg or yank or pull them to get them to where they need to be; don't feel as if someone can even be lesser for daring to not be good at something. Just meet them where they're at, and encourage them to take the next step forward. And then the next - and the next.
Just meet them where they're at, and encourage them to take the next step forward.
But to be there for them - it's the most absolutely wonderful thing. You get to see them grow, and you get to be a part of that growth. It's a privilege, and I hope I can do it justice.
On The Most Wonderful Thing I've Been Told
Feb 28, 2026
yeah.
i would love that for you.
to see you just lift off,
no anchors, no weights, no memories clawing at your ankles,
nothing left but sky and distance and the cold thrill of being out of reach.
if you could fly,
all the old pain would shrink beneath you into just rooftops,
just blurs,
just shadows swallowed up by altitude and wind.
maybe you'd circle the world until you felt the ache slide off your back.
maybe you'd leave it all behind,
or maybe you'd just rest on some unreachable ledge
where no one could ever touch you, or demand you open the door again.
i'd watch you go,
and i wouldn't beg you to come back.
i wouldn't call you down or say “what about me?”
i'd just hope you finally felt light - really, truly light,
for the first time in forever.
you deserve wings.
and if you find them,
i hope you soar so high the hurt can't even name you anymore.
On Self-Loathing
Feb 14, 2026It's a drug. You can get addicted to being your own abuser and victim. It'll stick with you for a very long time and won't ever fully worm its way out of your head once it's entered.
I was never really "good enough" in my mind. It's a miserable way to live, without a doubt. There was never anything I could do to prove myself otherwise - so what's the next best step? Delusion!
The more socially acceptable term is "fake it until you make it" - but that's essentially what it is. If you forcefully, for weeks and months on end, fight to try to cement this brand new identity within yourself, it will work.
Game Reviews
Welcome to my Steam library. These are just some of the games I've played - and are the only games I've made a review for.
Select a game to see a thorough and honest review of my experience with it!
Images by © Valve Corp. via Steam. Auto-load in Settings.
“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
store page →
“waow”
storepage →
“RimWorld”
storepage →
“10 years in development for such a garbage game.
Edit - Aug 5, 2025:
12 years in development for such a garbage full-release game.
‘Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.’”
to Die
storepage →
“My computer gets so hot. It's 105 degrees outside. I burn so the numbers on the charts go up. I only like this game because I'm on Concerta. There is nothing for me here except numbers.”
storepage →
“An excellent pastoral farming simulator. Gameplay is slow and labored with calm music. There's a variety of plants to choose from. I don't profess to know much about gardening - but the fact of the matter is, I can come home after a long day to unwind and relax with an albeit digital connection to the outdoors.”
or Not
storepage →
“very good game! me likey”
2077
storepage →
“i am a moron and can not be trusted with building a city”
Skylines II
storepage →
“The writer - the Southern writer - William Faulkner once put it:
‘Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.’”
FINALS
storepage →
Currently Playing
| Cyberpunk 2077 | STALLED |
The Backlog
Games I own but haven't gotten to yet... the pile of shame looms.
- Resident Evil 3
- Resident Evil 4
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Borderlands 3
- Europa Univeralis V
and much, much more... :(
Where are all your games?
I'm contemplating whether or not to put my Steam page here - on the one hand, it'd help wonderfully to show you just how much money I've dumped into the games since I was real young. On the other hand, privacy... hard choices!
Bookshelf
The reading list. Some of these I've read cover to cover, some I've absorbed through osmosis, and some are sitting on my nightstand judging me.
Favorites
Very cool books. I liked them. Descending order!
This book speaks to me on a very personal level. It's a bit of a miserable read. So it goes!
What makes a story worth telling? Is it truthfulness? Tim doesn't seem to think so. I completely agree.
vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas
A deeply emotional and moving novel about friendship, trauma, and the human condition.
This, too, is vanity.
Dale Jr. gets knocked around his head a lot. Not good!
A deep dive into the world of political influence and money in American politics. The first time I've ever been able to put words to what I saw.
Extremely critical examination of that intersection between democracy and corporate power. Damn and blast!
A deeply personal account of living with schizophrenia. Do not skip this.
Good book. Thank you, Ed!
Currently Reading
Help! Help me! Egads, help me!
~20% throughWant to Read
The aspirational pile. Accepting recommendations.
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- Finnegan's Wake
Reading Philosophy
Reading sucks! You spend the first four hours on the first ten pages, and then the next two hours having read the entire book - which you then come to realize has actually taken two weeks out of your time, not two hours!.
Guestbook
Welcome to the guestbook! A staple of every self-respecting personal homepage circa 2001.
...except this one doesn't actually work yet. There's no backend - this is a static site! The form is here for the vibes. Consider it a tribute to every guestbook that ever existed on GeoCities.
If you'd like to actually reach me, hit that Email link up in the nav bar. I promise I read those.
Sign the Guestbook (decorative only!)
⚠ This form is purely decorative. No data is sent anywhere.
