Other Interests

This page is dedicated to things outside of academia that I have particular interests in so as to not just have the whole site being only my professional life, but a glimpse into the personal! Excuse if things here are not super well-written or “professional” so to speak, this is just to get to know me a bit more. My main everything is my family, but for privacy reasons I won’t give details on them!

Music

Music has been an enormous part of my ife. Though my parents weren’t musicians themselves, they encouraged me at a young age to learn to play piano, for which I’m eternally grateful! I started when I was about 6 years old and continued to play regularly until the end of high school (where I also taught piano to kids in my community).

However, my main instrument these days is the trombone! I started learning in 4th grade and never put it down. I joined any and all groups I could while I was in high school (e.g., jazz, marching, wind ensemble, honor band, honor orchestra, banda sinaloense started by my brother, Swiss polka). I got really into jazz and almost decided to be a music major when going into college!

While in college, I was honored to be a part of the Columbia University Orchestra for all four years of my undergrad. That’s when I got really into classical music (with some of my favorite pieces from Stravinsky) and it is now a staple of my study music!

Unfortunately, during my master’s (and more specifically, during and subsequently after COVID) I stopped playing in groups and haven’t been in a group since (which drastically decreased my playing overall). I hope to join a music group (regardless of genre) who needs a trombone to get back onto one of my main hobbies of my life!

Film

I started to get really into movies in 2019 when I was getting my master’s in CS at the University of Southern California in LA. USC is known for having one of (if not) the best film programs in the world! So while I was there, I would just sit in during the intro to cinema courses to see what people were learning. I remember going and sitting in during lecture and after every lecture there’s a screening of a movie and it was absolutely amazing! Though I really liked movies already (e.g., in high school I rewatched Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman over and over with my family because we were amazed), this time is when I got REALLY into movies.

During this time I made my own document of movies I liked and some ratings that I had for them, and realized that there had got to be a better way. That’s when I found out about one of my favorite apps, Letterboxd where I got to log movies, review them, and give them ratings for my own personal stats. I’m a patron of the service, it’s truly a great application that I highly recommend! You can check out my profile here where you can see what I’m watching. My four favorites are constantly moving around, but rest assured, I love whatever I have listed there.

Film Podcasts

I’m so into movies, that I started a couple podcasts about them!

One is called Reel Latinos which covers Latin American cinema. Proud to say that we have covered a movie produced in every Latin American country! We’re on a little bit of a hiatus right now because of outside commitments (e.g., me looking for a job currently), but we hope to be back soon with maybe some monthly episodes!

The other podcast is The Wright Stuff where my buddy Mykah and I go through one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) director’s, Edgar Wright’s, filmography. We do this monthly (and sporadically sometimes), but it’s a blast to go back and see everything that he has done!

Filmmaking

I also dipped my toe into filmmaking myself! I’ve only got one short film shot, edited, directed, and composed by me, and it was a LOT of labor. And when I look back at it, I already see so many flaws with it! However, I’m still super proud of what I did and hope to make more in the future! I have a short that I shot and directed already, but is yet to be edited (for literally the last 5 years …) that I think would be great! Just need to find the time for this now.