High School Victory Lap in Full

After high school I wrote an essay for the St. Louis Chinese newspaper.  I have blogged about it before, but I realized that I should copy it in full before it disappears from their site at some point.  It is still somewhat embarrassing, but it's still interesting to reread every few years.  Regarding what I wrote about persistence, I had no idea how true that is.  However, I don't know if I still like the discussion about happiness.  I still agree with the gist, but the wording is kind of confusing and pseudo-wise. 

High school. HAHA! because high school = OVER. I laugh a laugh of confidence built over years of insecurity and doubt, a laugh of proud accomplishment, gloating over my luck, of excitement for the future, of sheepishness from excessive praise, but also more caustic laughs of grim irony over the hypocrisy and the shallowness of my apparent worth. I don't suck! Cuz I did it! In fact, I ROCK! College is going to be awesome! And I'm getting cocky! And I'm not even that smart! Just really lucky! And upon that my worth is judged, and for that I get respect! Oh, sad.

So that's what I call my posthighschool reaction. Looking back at the last four years, I feel like it's only been four years, but so much has happened and so fast. I could almost feel myself change and change and change again. When I first began my high school career as a hyperactive, self-conscious adolescent, no one expected me to excel academically or socially. Thus, I did not expect much of myself. When I thought of successful model students, I always thought of it as a standard that did not apply to me. I guess it's strange for me to think of now because I never had any conception about my future because I was afraid too many things would change, and then I would be disappointed if I did not reach my goals. So I never even thought of myself as working towards any standard or model in particular. I didn't think about college seriously until junior year was almost over when it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't even know what state Harvard was in. Yeah...like I ! said, people didn't expect much of me, and so I did not think much of myself.

But actually I did. I didn't always have the confidence in my abilities, but I always yearned to be just as good as the best. In choir, to lead my section; in tennis, to play varsity singles; in math, to win at competitions; even standardized tests, to score with the best, etc. High school, compared with real life, was nice and sheltered. It was a great place to get a head start in competition without serious repercussions if you fail. For example, I never got better than moderately good at speech and debate. However, the coach remained supportive and helped me focus on what to improve. In high school, especially during the first two years, I developed diligence and persistence. Diligence because homework still counts, and persistence because improvement is almost always guaranteed. For the last two years, diligence was for studying even if there was no homework, and persistence for being creatively assertive in finding ways to get something done.

One of the biggest lessons I learned in high school is that persistence pays off. I just needed a goal and a plan, and I almost always got what I wanted. A goal, a plan, and NO FEAR! because there is always the fear of difficulty and the possibility of hidden obstacles and failure. Although you should always be prepared to deal with these difficulties, fear clouds judgment and hinders performance. So am I afraid when I organize events such as a chess tournament and take tests like APs for college credit? I'm TERRIFIED, but I do it anyway. Besides, even when I don't get exactly what I want, things always work out in the end. Thus, I am always prepared to revise my goals to adjust to changing circumstances and new priorities. Consequently, my secret weapons of mass getting-things-done are as follows: a goal, a plan, NO FEAR!, and adaptability.

My goals are derived from my priorities, which were cultivated by my strong sense of self. In high school, I learned a lot more of this self; I developed my tastes in things such as music, food, and people. I learned how I like things done, and I learned to get along with people I never thought I'd ever get along with. I found that I like getting involved to get problems solved. Also, how hard I work for something is directly proportional to how important my goal was to me. Biology and government classes were not as important to me as chemistry and math, and so I reaped some benefits and paid some consequences. I made some sacrifices, choosing to put off art classes in favor of academics. And yes, I did do many things to appease parents, especially in the beginning. It's hard to say whether or not I (or my parents) made the best choices. Nevertheless, it's important to me to live without any regrets. I like to think of the things I did as worthwhile because they we! re good experiences, and I needed them.

Now, I seem to have met so many challenges. And yet there remains a sense of irony for me when I think of how some younger students and their parents think of me as a paradigm of success. You are interested in what mistakes I made so you can avoid the same mistakes or what worked for me that might also work for you. It is the way I thought of some of my older friends and the way I still think of them, those who are now at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, some of whom will be my neighbors. Is it right that our worth is measured by our success in high school and what colleges we got into? Then again, who could help but be flattered? And who could help but be interested by such prestige? After all, these are the accomplishments that each of us has worked for and achieved in our own way, on our own terms.

So what am I saying? What is the secret to my success? Does everyone have the secret weapons that I mentioned? The secret is that there is no secret, no magic potion, because success does not equal happiness (success != happiness). However, if happiness IS success, then there is hope for you. As Aristotle said "Happiness is something final and self-sufficient and the end of all action." It is what we live for. Then, have I succeeded? I dunno, do I seem happy to you?

The truth is I am still very young. High school was (relatively) easy even though it didn't feel that way while I was there. On the whole, I had few responsibilities; all I had to worry about were grades and sometimes my mood. My food, shelter, basic schedule, clothes, money, etc, were pretty much taken care of. Plus, I only had to care about my own well-being most of the time. Friends and family mostly took care of themselves. I didn't even have a pet. In other words, I ain't seen nothing, yet. That's what college is for.

In high school, I learned about what was important to me and what are sources of pride for me. I am proud of what I am capable of, and I feel it a shame to waste time and energy when I could be at least trying to get a problem solved. Maybe someone else might find it more worthwhile to hone their skills on the guitar or baseball or maybe spend time on having lasting friendships. Anyway, so this is what I find rewarding to spend my time on. Besides, I think it was worth it for me just because I got to write this article, and you will read it because I did well, and you want to know if I am still human. I think I am.

Freshman Year

I think I wrote this at the end of freshmen year at MIT in 2004.  It's kind of a love letter to East Campus, the dorm I used to live in.

'sscrazy Even though so many things have changed already, it doesn't feel different.  Instead, it feels natural.  Of course, this whole spiel is only about my own experience.  It is specific to my past, my present, and most importantly, it is specific to myself.  This is just a story.
 During the my last few days in St. Louis, I wrote:
 

I feel like I'm entering a door that I can't see the other side of.  What do I not know.  I don't know who I'm going to be hanging out w/ and how I'm going to feel about people.  I don't know what my daily/weekly/monthly schedule is going to be like.  I don't know what it's going to look like when I look out the window, or if I'll even have a window.  I don't know how classes will be.  I don't know my competition.  I don't know the system.  Most importantly, I don't know what is going to be most important to me.  I suppose it's kind of the same every year.  I get a new routine.  I get a new strategy for how I'm going to approach my life; how I do work, how/when I play.  So, here's to the rest of my life. 

As time passed, I got to know some things... When I first came to Boston, the first thing was to find a place to live - a home, not just a physical location but also a community.  Over the summer, I chose a dorm notorious for its eccentric inhabitants.  I thought I might relate to the people there.  Now, all I can say is, man, I was so right.  I love the environment that I'm in.  The people on my hall encourage exploration and activity.  They value intellectual integrity and creativity.  There are tools for building things like lofts, tables, and other addendums to your room if you want.  Art is everywhere as people customize their rooms, doors, and hallways.  The kitchen is another great resource.  Along with these material commodities, the most valuable resource is the knowledge and support of the people you live around.  Thus, college is a sanctuary for learning things in a safe and effective way whether it's learning how to bake a pie or how to play hockey with burning tennis balls.  Yeah, I live with a special bunch.  When I tell people from the other side of campus where I live, they nod understandingly with a hint of pity and fear.
      
Not that the individuals are really all that different from the rest of the MIT community.  In general, we are all bonded by what is best described as "nerd pride."  It's the idea of learning for the sake of being proud of what you know, whether it's mechanical engineering, math, ocean engineering, or electrical engineering.  It's not about the money or making a living; it's not about having power; it's just about being smart and knowing how to do something and being useful.  This point of view does, however, look down on business and certain other less course intensive majors.  This is one of many ways I'm very lucky to be the way I am.  Because I am a nerd, and I came here to do engineering, and I possess that same "nerd pride," I don't have any problems fitting in or being challenged for not being "core" enough.
 

As I sink into the depths of Tetazoo (hall), East Campus (dorm), MIT, Boston, Massachusetts, My Life, I have become acquainted with not only the people around me, but also the sense of overall community, my values, and the school system.  I am beginning to develop a routine.  It took some time to tweak my daily schedule: work, sleep, class, work, eat, class, eat, work, work, play, sleep.  We even have our own vocabulary for our daily meanderings.  Work is otherwise known as “tooling,” while playing is “punting.”  Between tooling and punting, we do what we can in order to keep doing.

In college, you find out about a lot of inner conflicts.  Many people lose their motivation for doing work.  The new environment disrupts their pretty ideas of how life should be, and they scramble to reestablish their reason to live.  I haven't had too many problems with this, since for whatever reason, these questions are not new to me.  Maybe my world has been shaken before, or maybe I was just more sensitive to the smaller jolts growing up.  I have not even really had to struggle much with loneliness or homesickness.  Even insecurities about academic validation, the assurance that I am smart enough to be here, have mostly evaded me.  For me, the main struggle has been to keep myself sane and functional.  In college, you have to take care of yourself, and people here are often much more demanding of themselves than they should be.  In the doctrine of living life to its fullest, it's easy to lose perspective about your own limitations of how much social interaction you can take.  It can be extremely hard to find alone time or just a place where you can feel completely relaxed.  Having fun is fun, but you're still not relaxed.  It also seems like a lot of people here compulsively do work out of a need to feel productive, myself included.  We don't even know what we’re working for.  We’re all trying to figure out what we want.  

Maybe if we live enough, we will find out. In short:college is great

College Admissions Essay: San Mao Showed Me

This was my MIT admissions essay.  The prompt was something like "tell us about something that inspired you."  I always really liked it although it never occurred to me to share it with anyone before.  I found it again recently at my mom's house.  Although some of the word choices are a bit off, I still really relate to this essay.  

About once a year, I take out my box of children's books and sift through the colorful pages remembering how things used to be.  A couple of years ago, as I was indulging my nostalgia, I remembered how the picture stories made me feel and decided that they had much more literary value than I had previously thought.  One such piece particularly meaningful to me is a Chinese comic book called "San Mao," directly translated as "Three Hairs."

It's a pretty bland comic overall - nothing like the vibrantly colorful Disney cartoons, inviting children into warm and fuzzy worlds of fantasy.  "San Mao" was all black and white and most of the stories were pretty depressing now that I think about it.  The main character is a young orphan, who suffers from such extreme malnutrition that he only has three hairs.  Thus, he is dubbed San Mao, or Three Hairs.

The comic starts out with him gazing dejectedly at a sheep and her lambs in the countryside.  He cried (and I cried) because he was deprived of such an unconditionally caring relationship.  He then finds his way to the bustling streets of Shanghai, one of China's most congested cities, hoping for a life of peace and plenty.  Instead, he finds Shanghai in a state of riot and turmoil with multitudes of people just as pitiful as he.  Disappointments abound, he finds that Shanghai also has multitudes of people living in luxury, possessing only disdain for the surrounding poverty.  It made me feel personally affronted.  I was hurt that people were so inconsiderate and avaricious.  How could anyone sit cozily inside with the space heater eating ice cream, while others froze in the bitter cold of winter?  Couldn't the police see that San Mao was just trying to make a meager living by shoe shining?  So what if it's illegal?  Did they really have to confiscate his chair and box of shoe shining equipment?  

Reading San Mao was definitely not a conventional means for moral training.  Written in 1952, the social afflictions and unrest of Shanghai depicted in the comic can seem anachronistic.  However, the lessons are global and timeless.  I didn't know this at the time, but San Mao showed me at an extremely young age how good and bad can be conditional, and that no one is above this conditional scrutiny, not even a policeman.  Furthermore, since everything is seeped in chagrin and irony, individual blame is almost completely irrelevant.  Subsequently, all that remains is an image of helplessness and a yearning for a better world.  

At one point, as San Mao starts to whet his appetite for idealism by reading a book directly translated as "World Enlightenment," he witnesses a man being robbed.  He becomes so discouraged that he rips the book apart.  In contrast, my early exposure to calamity has helped me overcome this initial sense of disappointment.  I decided that San Mao's tragic kingdom does not have to be so tragic.  San Mao showed me things that I do not like and initiated within me a resolve to work for things that I do like.  

Since then, I found out that San Mao is actually as popular as Mickey Mouse in China.  It was written by an alcoholic communist, who was depressed and cynical about the poverty in Shanghai.  Its popularity is a reflection of the trauma and turmoil of modern Chinese history.  I'm sure the children growing up in China now can't really relate to it as much.  

When I wrote it, I felt I was taking a big risk, especially since by then I already knew it was sort of about communism.  I really did want to get into MIT, but I also felt the need to "test" them I suppose.  I wanted to know that mildly unconventional thoughts would be welcome.  I'm glad I did since it did make the admission feel more legitimate, since they accepted me knowing who I am.

Nowadays I still relate to the essay because it's probably the best description of why I don't really get that depressed about the state of the world no matter how bad things sometimes get.  For example, many people will say how they get discouraged when they read more about global warming and how so little is being done about it.  I mean, I know it's because nobody really wants to put in effort for something that might be a lost cause.  But I'm not concerned about that since it's not like I have something better to do, and seeing immediate results isn't that important to me.  Anyway, global warming and everyone else's lives will move on whether you're depressed about it or not, so you might as well give up feeling hopeless and fulfilling self-fulfilling prophesies.

Unleashing Big Money for a Green Economy

I just read the finance section of the Green Economy Report by the UNEP (UN Environment Programme), the Green Economy : Finance I am most interested in the section about new markets and instruments such as the carbon market, green bonds, and green property. The insurance industry is also an ideal vehicle for driving more environmentally sustainable decision-making.

To me, it is critical that assets controlled by the high net worth community, asset pools of insurance companies and pension systems, and the financial services and investment sectors get directed towards driving the transition to a green economy. I would like to do work or research on redirecting assets towards green industry and infrastructure, but I'm not sure where to start. I still need to figure out who works on this already.

High School Hilarity

This is actually an essay I wrote for the Chinese newspaper after I got into MIT and graduated from high school.

High school. HAHA! because high school = OVER. I laugh a laugh of confidence built over years of insecurity and doubt, a laugh of proud accomplishment, gloating over my luck, of excitement for the future, of sheepishness from excessive praise, but also more caustic laughs of grim irony over the hypocrisy and the shallowness of my apparent worth. I don't suck! Cuz I did it! In fact, I ROCK! College is going to be awesome! And I'm getting cocky! And I'm not even that smart! Just really lucky! And upon that my worth is judged, and for that I get respect! Oh, sad.

...

One of the biggest lessons I learned in high school is that persistence pays off. I just needed a goal and a plan, and I almost always got what I wanted. A goal, a plan, and NO FEAR! because there is always the fear of difficulty and the possibility of hidden obstacles and failure. Although you should always be prepared to deal with these difficulties, fear clouds judgment and hinders performance. So am I afraid when I organize events such as a chess tournament and take tests like APs for college credit? I'm TERRIFIED, but I do it anyway. Besides, even when I don't get exactly what I want, things always work out in the end. Thus, I am always prepared to revise my goals to adjust to changing circumstances and new priorities. Consequently, my secret weapons of mass getting-things-done are as follows: a goal, a plan, NO FEAR!, and adaptability.

yup, i am good at personal essays. that's why i got in. i wish i actually had more time these days to think and write. haven't really written anything all that reflective in YEARS.