Murod Aslamov

I don't know what my friend Azimbek has cooked, but I am so happy to see him pursuing his interests and actually making a progress. We had fun together during last summer doing robotics. Now, he and a few of his friends are actively working at NewUU robotics lab.

Interesting observation

Knowledge is a big topic, but the absence of it is a bigger one. There are beautiful words that describe this state in three languages. Funny thing is that people often have confusions about all three forms of the word.

In English, it's ignorance: the lack of knowledge or information about something. People confuse it with the verb 'to ignore'.

In Uzbek, it's jaholat: ilmsizlik, nodonlik, qoloqlik. People whom I talked to confused it with the word 'jahldor'. Although the word has a second meaning of "not controlling one's anger", it mainly means"not having knowledge".

In Russian, the word is невежество: недостаток знаний, необразованность, отсталость. I think it's a perfect translation of jaholat. This russian word also sometimes confused with 'невежливость'.

This is my favourite word. What's your favourite word?

Quite an introduction

My friend and classmate at Sodiq School finally got into a top university on his gap year. The amount of work he put into his growth during this time is note-worthy. College application stress is real, and the relief at the moment you open your scholarship package is surreal. I felt that for Mustafo. Good luck at college, mate!

Btw, Shokhi Zinda is my favourite, even better than Registan for me. If the latter is the face of the city, then the former must be its soul.

2. Then, we went to Silk Road Samarkand (the place that hosts all big events in sam). The place is good to just walk around and enjoy the scenery. Because we went there on a cold afternoon, there was no soul and it was a complete silence. Before, I thought noise pollution in cities wasn't a big deal. But, when you experience this setting of zero human and machine noise in Boqiy shahar, your mind feels an unusual sense of relaxation. (I felt like the guy on insta who claims himself a time traveler and his videos are taken in the future) Also, because the location is outside the city and buildings are not abundant, the view gets so good that you can see how the horizon touches the ground. The presence of a canal along the pathways further complements your experience.

I will try to go more often for such walks.

3. For lunch, I advised them not to have the outspoken samarkand plov, but rather try another gem—xalisa (or halim). I honestly prefer the latter. I don't understand why it's so underrated, some people haven't even heard of it.

Rediscovering home

Last weekend, I took some walk with my friends around Samarkand. We went to Shakhi Zinda and Silk Road Samarkand. I decided to share some interesting aspects of my experience of my hometown.

1. It might seem that for locals and people visiting the city for 3rd or 4th time, the historical places are boring and have nothing to offer. I thought the same way until I started noticing small details that are present in almost every monument—scripts written in arabic calligraphy. Top edges of every wall, every door header are decorated with beautiful work of calligraphy. Once I heard that because drawing pictures of people or animals are not favoured in Islam, our ancestors immersed themselves in calligraphy as a form of art.

Most scripts are ayats from the Qur'an. And they are chosen very wisely. For example, the name "Shakhi Zinda" (The Living King) is derived from an ayat, which is also written on the gravestone of Qutham ibn Abbas raziyallahu anhu, who is known as Shakhi Zinda. Incidentally, the old door that brings into his tomb contains an ayat about the doors in Jannah.

After noticing this, I decided to rediscover the historical places for myself. When I have a full day to spare, I will take a tour to Registan and take photos of each script. Then, I will try to decode the meaning of them and understand the context of why they were put in the place they were.

Along the tour, I distinguished at least three styles of calligraphy, all of which I couldn't read. My friend who can read and understand arabic also had hard time understanding them.

I have this weird tendency that when I am in a large gathering of 5+ people (dinners, classes, big events), I find myself largely uncomfortable, overwhelmed and exhausted. I seem to struggle to tune in to the vibe of the group.

This predisposition makes me a bad public speaker. On the one hand, I have to admit that I need to master this skill at some point. At Sodiq School, I had a very good opportunity to realize this in Public Speaking classes, but I took those resources for granted, which is probably my biggest regret. On the other hand, I believe that the notion of an influential public person is overemphasized by media. This can explain why some influencers often make statements that are manifest nonsense. I still put intelligence over persuasiveness. If we talk extremes, I would rather prefer to be a rational but unpopular than a stupid but favored by many.

Funny how my expectations inversely correlate with the quality of my work. Last year, I was delusional and expecting big things despite the atrocious quality of my application. This year, I very much love the components of my application, but I somehow have zero expectations.

Maybe this is when you work for the process and not for the outcome

Out of 4 application cycles (2 EAs, 2 RDs), the last one was the most productive and transformative one. In the past 2 months, I could produce much better work than in I did in the past 2 years. I could put even more effort, but I am still grateful for the work done.

Also, this RD cycle has taught me a very humbling lesson. That to write well is a luxurious skill, with many people possessing fakes (including me). To think clearly is even more rare. After I wrote 3-4 drafts, I reached the point where I can't come up with anything novel, fresh ideas.

After the admissions, aside other things, I want to continue developing two habits in myself: reading and writing. These look like the most elementary skills, but they remain among the most hard yet fruitful skills.

A slap in the face.

Yesterday was the ED deadline for most universities. I seriously started preparing my application in September. I got my essays written, test scores increased, rec letters ready. And yet, one day before the deadline I decided not to apply to my target university and keep it for ED 2.

All of this was due to a single big mistake I made throughout the last two months: I never got expert feedback on my essays. And just to confirm my essay was "good", I sent it for review a day before the deadline. Then, I was told I wasn't ready and would likely get rejected if I applied. I decided not to repeat last year's mistake of applying a raw application and changed my mind of applying ED 1.

Conclusion: Always get feedback on your work (especially when the work seems good). The lack of feedback creates an illusion that everything is going good and you've got wonderful ideas. And constructive feedback is an interruption, like a slap in the face.

A computer scientist jointly winning a Nobel Prize in physics for his works in machine learning using artificial neural networks.

And two other computer scientists winning a Nobel Prize in chemistry for creating an AI model that predicts protein folding. What a year for AI.