Return to the Old and Feeling New

You know, there is a certain kind of feeling that comes with coming home after a long trip overseas. You almost feel like a new book, unwritten in, because you haven't been subjected to the kinds of routines you had before you left. It's been so long since you've had a life there that you've forgotten how you used to live. This can be incredibly cleansing; you might stop doing all those bad habits you had before, you might start something new that you've wanted to do for a while but never got around to before. All in all, there's just a new feeling to life in an old, known place. I experienced this when I came back from Paris after 2 months in the summer of 2011, but now as I'm getting ready to finally go home after 4 months of college in the US, it's a totally new thing altogether. I wonder what it will take to get me used to the pace of life in Auckland again -- even home is not how it used to be, since our house is being renovated right now, we're living in a different house and the next time I come home after ANOTHER 4 months is when I'll get to go to the house I left 4 months ago... but by then it will of course be another building altogether.

Someone told me that life in NZ is exactly how it used to be. Nothing has changed. But, I can't remember how life used to be. Someone else told me that a lot of people back home have changed as well. But maybe I will have changed so much also that I wouldn't notice. Will it be like meeting strangers again? Or will we greet each other like old friends should?

The first goodbye is always the hardest. Nowadays, nobody really cares much when the Australians come back for breaks, even though we were in tears when they left the first time. Doesn't that kind of mean that some part of us died the first time we left the country? As if we were truly saying goodbye to a part of ourselves. Well I suppose that is also true. Life would never be the same after that first departure, so I guess we were mourning the loss of that once everyday life. Though, many people said "this isn't goodbye, don't cry", as Lewis Carroll said -- "I cannot go back to yesterday; I was a different person then."

I know a lot of people have criticized me as being someone who is consistently inconsistent, someone who changes with the direction of the wind. Maybe it's because I haven't found the person I'm comfortable being yet. Or maybe I already have, but haven't found the courage to share it with the world. I don't really know myself. But these are supposed to be years of reform anyway, right? There must be something wrong with me if I'm not continuously learning. Though I guess that's not the real issue: people are mainly concerned with being discarded and left behind as I seek new things. But for me that's not the case. I never want to let go of anything, actually. Even things I thought I would find easy to get rid of, nowadays I still find myself thinking about every now and again. I'm human after all. perhaps not the robot everyone thought I was, including myself at times? It's somewhat consoling. I don't think I've thrown my past self away since I've come here. It's just been a different experience, meeting new people who have no knowledge of your past experiences. I've enjoyed having a clean slate. Rediscovering myself and whatnot. It made me realize that I have a lot of holes in my past actually that people were around to fill and I took for granted, especially my parents and their expectations. So I needed to grow things in those places and be braver to reinvent myself and try to really feel what was important to me, not what I thought was important because other people told me they were.

Am I finished with that, a perfect individual coming out of my first semester now? No, of course not. I still have so much to learn about both myself and the world. But I think slowly I am understanding, little by little. I don't think I will really finished, even after my four years here and walking out of these gates -- "Enter to Grow in Wisdom". Grow I shall, naturally: nobody's ever collided with the sky though.

I'm ready to go back and enjoy the summer. I'm excited, a bit apprehensive, dreading the long flight but all in all ready to go home. I will miss college and I will miss the family I met here, but right now I am also missing my friends and family back home. Actually I'm lucky that the world is so connected now that I can just jump on a plane and end up on the other side of the world just like that. It's kind of great. I want to go to the beach and eat at Bruce Lee Sushi and lie in my queen sized bed and roll around without sinking into the mattress, and I want to hug my life size teddy bear and smell freshly cut grass and eat homecooked meals.

July 14 2012 . One Tree Hill

 Well, let's go home and see what it's like. I'm curious. Goodnight world :)

pic dump and monthly update. just to dump it in case I forget about what happened in my freshman year later in life.

So since the last time I updated, let's see what has happened...

There was the Harvard Yale game! We won. American football is a lot easier to follow than Rugby (at least in my experience). 

Thanksgiving has gone and passed. I went to New York City and stayed with Katherine for two nights including actual thanksgiving where I helped around the kitchen and setting up for dinner. It was a really interesting experience, an American thanksgiving. The turkey went into the oven at 12pm. We ate at 7pm. It was pretty crazy and the food was delicious (naturally) :D

Such nice table settings :) Such a nice house as well

Foodddddddd.

The other two nights I stayed with Adam in the city where I also saw [imagespambelow]

Central Park

Metropolitan Museum of Art

And of course:

FOODFOODFOODFOODFOODFOODFOOD (cinnamon buns @ kat's, bibimbap, sandwich panini @ adam's, pasta carbonara @ adam's, raspberry mousse cake, cappuccino chocolate cheesecake, xiaolong bao, shrimp fried rice+pork shoulder+red bean pancake + bakchoyyy, cannoli (and jason's tongue, but nobody wants to eat that), hot chocolate, oreo ice cream sandwich, and sushi :D)

Yay image dump. So that was my thanksgiving in a nutshell.

What's next... oh yeah there was that one snow day on december 1st, which was a nice thing to wake up to I guess. Makes you feel like Christmas is coming (though in actuality xmas is blistering hot in the summer in the southern hemisphere)

Just as it was beginning to snow haha. You can see it gathering under the tree.

Last week was a big work week, I had to finish my photographic project for history of photography (which was fun, but also messed up my room entirely. It's no big surprise why the starving artist stereotype is an unkempt bearded 20 year old male in his messy studio apartment. It doesn't take much to mess up a place when you're working with paper and crafts, and I'm not even throwing in any paints or wet media...). 

Not that it's been all work. At the beginning of Reading Period I took a trip into Chinatown with the HVA upperclassmen and had dimsum. It was a relaxing introduction to what would become a somewhat hectic study period. 

HVA Christmas Event

Oh yeah so I should probably explain the weird relationship I have with HVA. What happened was I went to one of their events (the making Banh Mi one) where I ran into Arthur who I know from Archery, and I met Peter there as well because he was a massive troll. Anyway since then they somehow conned me into joining their mailing list and going to their meetings (even though I have absolutely nothing to contribute, the free food is good though)... but actually everyone there is really nice, and I like how it's kind of a small group so it feels a lot closer than some of the bigger groups like CSA or AAA. I'm not vietnamese obviously though, but I've met a lot of cool people at their events and stuff and I like hanging out with Arthur and Peter despite (/because of?) their supreme troll and annoyingness :) So yeah that's my story of how I somehow became roped into HVA.

I also took a visit down to the Carpenter Center last week to take a look at the VES studios and the work they've done. I was really inspired after going to that exhibit actually, I can't wait to take a VES class. Hopefully I get one lotteried next semester but it seems hard to get into them since there's so much interest. The History of Photography exhibition was also really good, the sandwiches and apple cider were excellent and the inclusion of gingerbread men in the snack tray was a plus one in my book :P

Then there was the CS50 Hackathon/CS50 Fair, which were both pretty good, but only came about after a lot of hard work and sleepless nights (which later induced illness as I found out). 

4am @ Microsoft or something

Then I had to do another all nighter pretty much right before the due date because I'm a silly student who didn't finish earlier. But all is well, everything was ok in the end, I finished and presented at the fair and CS50 is no officially over (sadface). Still got free swag from the fair. 5GB on Dropbox, tshirts from CS50, Dropbox, Quora and Google, drink bottle from Oracle and lots of candy cupcakes and helium balloons haha.

SO MANY BALLOONS

Well, I was kinda sick over thanksgiving and now I'm kind of sick again ....... I spent yesterday sleeping, trying to recover after the dual CS50 all nighters. I got up for a few hours during dinnertime to go and have dinner with an alumnus from an investment company which invests in tech startups thought, and he had a lot of compelling and useful things to say. 

I think I finally realize now the importance of time, especially in college. I always end up thinking about stuff that happened before in my life in the shower, and how quickly it all changed. Because I think when you're younger and adults tell you you'll understand when you're older -- that time's already come for us. We're standing in it right now and we have these four years to find out how to cope without extremely dire consequences. I think it's important to make the most of it then. Actually already 1/8 of my time for that kind of experimentation is gone. I better not waste the rest of it, huh :)

Wish me luck for my finals @_@ Economics this Friday and then History of Photography next Wed. And then flying back to NZ to see all my lovelies again~  ♥

Promise I'll write something actually thought-provoking soon. Maybe. Got a lot on my plate right now gaiz bear with meeeeee

AU vs Harvard and stuff in between

1. I didn't notice before, but my last post was my 300th milestone. :O I've been at this for quite a while it appears. So, in any case, welcome to the 301st post on this blog hahaha

2. I am waiting for about 10am to have breakfast today because the mail room doesn't open til then and I have a package. Hence the blogging. Actually I have two midterm exams tomorrow and my time may be slightly better served studying for those, but I thought I'd update since someone asked me to blog about this topic (maybe as regular decision deadline for college is in 1.5 months, early decision's just passed and people wanna reconsider their options). So, without further adieu, I'll try to answer the prompt as best as I can, though keep in mind that these judgements and experiences are purely my own based on my year thus far, and everyone's college experience is different :)

Academics

Okay, so first off when comparing tertiary education, we probably want to look at academics. Note that I've chosen to major in Computer Science here where the ranking is supposedly lower. Also I was in Engineering for a semester and a half at AU. This is because it's stupid to choose to study something just because the school you're going to is good at it, if it doesn't line up with your interests. But wait, you say, why not go to a college where the CS program is stronger? Because Liberal Arts education. Something that really attracted me to study in the US was a lack of knowledge of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life (and quite honestly I'm still lost now). I was interested in a lot of things during high school -- in my senior year I took classes in English, Math, Chemistry, Physics, Art History, French and Painting. So yes I kind of liked a lot of things haha. At liberal arts college, you get 4 years of a much broader education: for instance, here, my requirements for majoring in CS only involves 12-14 classes (note a standard schedule of 4 classes per semester x 4 years = 32 classes total, so you still have 20-18 classes left after finishing major requirements). Even if I were to minor in something, that's 4-6 classes, leaving me with 12-16. Of course, there are more inflexible paths: a BS engineering track will probably land you with 20 classes requirement, but that's still 12 left for gen ed requirements (we have 8, in varying genres of fields) and electives. Btw the degree I am doing is a Bachelor of Arts, and I'm unsure right now if I want to continue study after graduating and go get a graduate degree. It really depends what opportunities crop up in the next 4 years.

That kind of flexibility isn't something I would have had at AU. Engineering is pretty much a set track (though I was conjoining with BA), as far as I know most people have space for the 2 gen eds required and that's pretty much it unless they want to do summer school or add a 5th course each semester. Note that on the BA/BE track I was doing I would have graduated in 5 years instead of 4, and I was taking 5 courses both semesters while I was there. Also note that the AU degree is intended to be vocational -- I would have been able to start working in the engineering industry right after graduation with a BE (and in fact not many choose to stay to do a graduate degree).

'

Note 21 contact hours at AU vs 12.5 per week, yet I still have more work here

In terms of workload -- it's definitely heftier here. With only 4 classes this semester I am still doing more work than I have ever done before in my life (excluding art in high school), and I have a relatively light workload compared to most other people (actually this may be a testament to how lazy I have been in the rest of my life, but let's not get into that right now). Problem sets are weekly, with one being due on the same day the next one comes out (generalization, definitely varies between classes but just my exp), some classes have 2 or 3 problem sets due per week. When I was at AU there were some days where I went home and didn't do any work for the rest of the day, and as far as I remember there was no regular homework due ever, to the point where even if it was irregular I was unlikely to do it due to lack of routine, plus it would be something like a static equilibrium question to do overnight or a set of tutorial questions that we'd be going over again in class anyway. That just doesn't happen here, because homework contributes toward final grades and if you slack off for a day you fall behind -- a day is worth A LOT here. There are some days where at night I have thought back to the that morning and realized how much I've accomplished, and the morning feels soooo long ago. It's a good feeling :) (except when you don't get it and you realize you slacked off too much that day aad ACTUALLY did nothing ahahahahaha Saturday 3rd November 2012 ._.)

Lifestyle

Yay, now that the boring stuff is out of the way, something to consider is definitely the difference in college life here compared to in NZ.

Canaday. This is where I live, also known as the ugliest freshman dorm on campus (it's really not that bad)

1. We live in dorms, on campus. This really make a difference in the way you interact with people as well as what you accomplish during the day -- because transportation wastes less time, and everything is super close to get to. This also means extracurriculars run a lot later here -- Archery goes from 7pm to 9pm, and I don't mind it. Before, Badminton went until about 10pm at AU and I found that a massive nuisance (but I went anyway), just because I didn't want to go home that late from town. Something I have also done here is watched the GSL finals in the Science Center from 2am to 5am in the morning. Yes that's an extracurricular activity -- but dw it's in the weekend so it's ok, can sleep the whole day after that haha. Also, one of the reasons I never went partying in Auckland was just because getting to town and back was such a massive chore (plus parking is so hard to find) that I just didn't think it was worth the effort. Here it's a lot easier to get around, there's always people to go back to the dorms with at 1am in the morning and so I've gone to a lot more social events because of that. Definitely not every weekend though, but there are people who do. I have also still not been to a frat party or final club yet. I never went to any steins earlier this year because of the cbf-degree associated with going into town. I went clubbing ONCE in Auckland earlier this year.

2. Community and involvement. Something that comes with living on campus is the feeling of being part of a larger group. Whether it's bouncing around the 29304823 emails about club events and choosing which to go to (I attend at least 1 or 2 a week), or preparing for The Game (Harvard-Yale football this weekend what), there is just always so much going on within the bubble here. I think that sense of community is definitely lacking in the AU student body. I voted for UC here and I didn't vote for AUSA or any of those elections while i was at AU (granted, at that point I was no longer enrolled and thought it would be against morals for me to vote for something I wouldn't be part of soon). I've also joined a lot more clubs than I did before, but that may be due to quantity demanded related to price (since it costs money to join clubs at AU)... but even though I paid for KAC and stuff I never went to any events, which was a bit sad. Actually I think I should have done that, gone to a lot more student club events while I was in Auckland. I don't know if I was shy or anything like that, maybe I just thought that since I already knew people there was no real reason to go and talk awkwardly with strangers, but that's something I'd really recommend for people at AU: GET INVOLVED IN STUFF. I actually look up to the 2nd-4th years in KAC like Victor and Seb and stuff and am a bit jealous that they are so close to everyone in their organization and are so involved. I think those clubs are really essential to the college experience where ever you are. Also it's great for networking. Actually I'm not a huge fan of networking myself but there's definitely a lot of that going on here all the time.

Class photo :) See if you can spot me (hint I'm in the front row)

3. People are strangers. Something I'm sure Aucklanders experience going to AU is the fact that you go to high school with your friends and then you go to uni with your friends. Of course you meet new people, but I met more people in my first week here than I met in my whole half year at AU. Most people are strangers coming into college, because people come here from all over the US and all over the world. Something you ask when making acquaintances is "Where are you from?" whereas in Auckland it's generally assumed you're from the area, or at best Dunedin or Christchurch. That's not to say that you don't meet amazing people in AU though. Though I only met some of my Engineering friends in March this year, and we only had 4 months together before I left, we still skype and chat fairly regularly and I'd say they are actually closer to me than many of my friends I've known longer. Likewise, when you are forced to live with strangers, you grow very close very quickly -- the amount of time you spend with those around you here is continuous since there is no such thing as "going home" and avoiding all contact. It's so interesting in the first few weeks when you see a social structure forming from nothing -- friendship groups form, people move around, meet new people and hang out with them, and become really close friends overnight (literally). Something I'll call the Kun phenomenon (named after a friend who invited me over to a pizza night the day after I met him at Karaoke) is exceeedddingly common in the first few days of college here.

Hyperbolic time chamber

4. A new life. Because everyone is a stranger here, because you are entering a new environment where you will live, as if being locked into a hyperbolic time chamber for a period of time, It's as if you are starting a new life. There are no preconceptions -- nobody knows who you are. I remember in high school I wanted to leave and move at one point because I just wanted a fresh start. It's been so nice here. Also, there is no weird hierarchy that I've experienced. Those of you who know me know that I get somewhat uncomfortable when people look up to me too much or put me on some kind of pedestal because there are just so many false expectations that come out of that. It kind of got weird after I found out I got in and people in Auckland seemed to know about it even if I didn't know them personally (it was also kind of ego-inflating to know that I was kind of famous but I feel bad about that haha. At least I'm admitting that I'm self-absorbed?).  But here, everyone's an equal. It's a really nice, humbling experience. It's as if you can create yourself again from the ground up, without the pressure of expectations to change the way you grow. Like the natural recrystallization and grain growth of metal after annealing something that had been cold worked (yeah I went there chemmat 121 reference hi5 engineers).

Ayyyyy dat zebra ass (unrelated diagram of pearlite)

Actually I didn't realize until now, but this is the first time I've really felt free, for a really long time if not ever. I was an emotional wreck before I came out here (and for a long while after I got here as well). There was a time where I questioned my decision to leave at all and whether or not it was worth it to leave everything behind. I actually contemplated staying in Auckland, but I'm glad I made a leap of faith to a new experience.

5. Growth. I've definitely grown as a person (and as a metal grain, apparently) since coming here, in confidence and in ideas. Because there are so many different opinions and mindsets around me, from all different walks of life (the American population, as you should all have noticed, is greatly varied in terms of ideals as evidenced by the close election last week. Compared to the largely homogeneous liberal views of the NZ masses, there is a lot more variety here in terms of how people think the world should be etc), I've had the opportunity of hearing about issues from all different perspectives. Also people here are generally more well read and knowledgeable than me, so I've experienced a nice diffusion of knowledge from high to low concentration. Ie. I've learned a lot, it's been great. Also I'm starting to get less intimidated by authority figures; during FIP my leaders told me about how she emailed professors to ask if she could take a class -- at the time I thought it was crazy but then I did it and got into my phil class (which I was originally not placed into), so from that experience I learned the true power of the question "Is it possible?"... you should always try :)

...
Well it's now 12pm and I haven't done nearly enough work for tomorrow's midterm, I just skyped with Billy since it's his birthday today (Happy birthday Billy :D 21st!), so now I'll actually do some work ._. Hopefully this was helpful to some people, and if there are any other questions please feel free to facebook or email me and I'll do my best to reply, also if you want another blog detailing anything more I'd be happy to do that (I want to keep up my at least once a month updates, so any ideas of blogs would be helpful to me :P)

Colours of Fall

(Fall Foliage, Harvard Yard, Massachusetts, 2009)

These are the colours of Fall: Yellow, Orange, Red, Brown -- with a hint of green on a changing blue sky.

YELLOW
The transition. Summer is happiness, the sun is yellow, the lemony freshness of a slight fall breeze deceives us all before the change. It is a slight colour, maybe off-white or cream, the aging pages of a summer diary that's been left out near the salt water for too long. The green fades to yellow first -- a change so small we almost don't see it coming. Like meeting a stranger, like first introductions, like superficial small talk. All laying the base-coat foundations for a new life.

ORANGE
The beautiful. The turn of fall, before it gets too cold: the heat of summer remains, but the beauty of fall creeps in. Like a tree catching alight. Citrus sweetness flows around the yard and maybe in a strong breeze some will fall and swirl around you, dancing fire fairies enchanting and blessing the turn of a new harvest season. A warm hug, a pat on the back, a brush of the hand.

RED
It is passionate. Full of extremity and urgent as needing to jump into the deep end of a pool. Fall comes quickly out of Summer -- one day you are roasting in a singlet and the next you need to take out a jacket and cover up your legs with jeans: like red-hot urgency in a freezer. Clinging to a heater, kneading your face into the crevice of your best friend's neck, a not-so-subtle hard gripping onto fingers. It is fragile, highly transient and so, so intense. Red leaves are the hardest to keep, red dye the quickest to wash away with water.

BROWN
The Settling. It is not death, or the end of something. It is the start of comfort, acceptance and understanding. It is not the unpleasant colour that everyone makes it out to be: not diarrhea, or rot, or slushy mud. It is rather the familiar smell of hot cocoa after a day out in the wind, a robust trunk that you know would never fall under your weight. The swirling melted pot of chocolate in some people's eyes. Brown makes you feel fuzzy.

(Eliot Porter, Pool in a Brook, New Hampshire 1953)*

Like washing paint down a drain: let's observe these colours transition into and through each other and change into something entirely different. Winter is coming and with it a palette of blues and whites, the stark bathroom tiles will be all that is left after your paints have run down your bathtub pipes.

*Just heard about this guy and his photographs this morning in History of Photography, I likeeee his stufffff so I wanted to include it in a blogpost. SUE ME

One moment I was playing tag, the next I was caught in a civil war.

Last week, I was going to get my badminton racquet restrung (finally... I neglected to do it for so long). I walked briskly down one of the streets with the narrow footpaths between the Yard and the MAC Gym, and on the way I passed a little old lady slowly making her way in the same direction down the street with a walking stick. I noticed her frail but sure steps, each one slow but deliberate, as I approached from behind. I felt a little guilty passing her in my rush, a single one of my strides equated to three of her small wobbles. But, what was I to do? As I walked away and left her farther and farther behind me, I thought about what it would be like to be in that situation as I become older. Would I resent the younger generation for being more able than me? How much nostalgia would I be hit with as the years stacked up and my capabilities degenerated with each new experience gained?

Living in the Now is kind of a strange experience. You know where you have come from, but sometimes you forget. There are things buried in our memories that we don't think about but at random times they come up into our consciousness. You think you know where you are heading or at least can imagine different scenarios -- but they aren't set in stone, ever. We can always change our minds about what direction we're heading in. The present is always moving forward though; like a reference point in motion -- with reference to a stationary time dimension our experiences are actually extremely warped by aging.

I woke up from a dream this morning where I was playing tag in a childhood neighbourhood -- not my own, mind you but a childhood neighbourhood nonetheless. We were running and chasing and running and chasing and emotions skyrocketed from a natural high to something more intense, somehow. People started picking up real guns and real bullets and charged into a backyard to protest about injustice, about equality and hope. Most of us were gunned down immediately. I only remember running in the direction to go home, trying to find my friends and finding out that many of their bodies had been left behind in that backyard graveyard.

Then I woke up.

An October Update

Firstly! I apologize for not updating this thing in the last 3 weeks or so. I've been meaning to for a really long time, I just kept doing other stuff/procrastinating/couldn't think of how to start, but now that I've put it off for so long I have an excuse to introduce a blog post by apologizing about not updating. Yay for excuses!

Anyway, life here has been pretty eventful in the last few weeks I guess you could say. I'm not even entirely sure what's happened. Ummm pic spam perhaps

Mooncake with my cousin for midautumn fest. took like an hour to get to her place due to a disruption in the T so I had to get off at apparently a really dodge part of Mass Bay and take a shuttle to Quincy, so they drove me back later :3 

Starcraft parties late at night lololol korean influence

american footballlll I paid for this ticket when I didn't have to. ): and the guy at the gate thought I was bringing vodka into the game in my water bottle .. do I look like an alcoholic?

CSA cruise boat party in Boston Harbour :) Stole this from Ray's instagram. was a really nice atmosphere, esp since the weather was cool and it was windy on the top deck but it wasn't raining as we had been fearing. Oh yeah and SOME crazy guy climbed on the outside of the boat from the top deck to the lower deck and then got detained by security. No big deal #collegelife

SO MUCH NOMS @ korean bbq

Ok actually I don't have that many photos, I should really take more so I don't forget what's happened haha. 

On the cognitive side of things, I think I'm learning a lot here. Not only about the world but also about myself, which is interesting because back home I feel like I learned a lot about people in general but not so much about myself. Maybe because I was always the observer and didn't really think to include myself in the frame. Since I came here though and I haven't really had anything to hold me back from doing anything, it's really started to help me understand myself. 

I am someone who is very easygoing, but that is only because I haven't really discovered an identity. So, it's much easier to let others define what that is. I don't want to make a statement and in fact feel rather uncomfortable doing so at times because there's nothing really I believe in. So, I just go along with the crowd -- the default option I suppose. In that regard maybe I am a very boring person. But then maybe the fact that I am so malleable is in itself something that sets me apart, making the whole thing very paradoxical. I'm not sure where I fit into the world still, but the future is starting to scare me less ok as soon as I typed that I realized that was a huge lie, it still scares me but I don't know, I see a lot more opportunity in it now? I think I have grown in self-confidence a bit, and I believe I can do a bit more if I just go for it.

At home, I tried to stay under the radar mostly, didn't really get involved in much in my semester at uni and stuck with what I knew. But there are so many opportunities here that it's impossible to avoid, so I just go with it and am discovering slowly the things that I would really enjoy. Since coming here I discovered a multitude of insecurities that I never realized I had hahaha, but I think being here has also helped me work on those.

So, it's a slow process and very tiring among classes and other things but we all come to college to grow as people right? :) 

In terms of classes, CS is great, I'm really more seriously going down the path of possibly majoring in CS now. Ec10 made me like economics a bit less, just because it's all about firm decisions and taxes and alsfkjasl;dfkjas; confusing things that I don't like thinking about, I mean it's not bad and for some reason Econ section cheers me up when I had a bad morning, but otherwise it's really not something I'd want to pursue in life. Which is a pity because the business dept here is amazing and there are always so many events  and internships for people in business and finance, so I feel like I'm squandering those opportunities here, but well there are other things I'd rather be doing I guess. My philosophy class which sounded like it was about friendzoning is actually incredibly philosophically engaging and intense. So far we've read Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine and Sartre, and somehow the ideas I learned actually apply to everyday life. So I'm enjoying that class as well, despite all the readings I have to do hahaha. History of Photography is interesting but the readings are killer and I have no idea how to discuss them in section because I only ever skim them, plus I'm not too sure how well my midterm went so I will have to report back to you... I'm getting it back today. 

Speaking of which it is now 10.45am and I have class at 11, so I need to run to breakfast now :) I'll update soon, I hope haha. 

LIFE IS BUSY, remember to rest sometimes

de-facto Ostrich Pillow

The third stage of culture shock

The concept of culture shock was introduced me in the first week of FIP -- Freshman International Pre-orientation when I first came here. Firstly, it hit me as a bit of a misnomer, since I didn't really think there was all that much difference between westernized countries' cultures so I thought it wasn't really something I would have to deal with much. However, after the talk, it made me a wonder a bit. What stage was I in at that time? However, I quickly pushed these thoughts to the back of my head because they weren't relevant in the busy schedule of every day life here.

Now, as I enter into my second month here, I feel the concept has some new meaning for me. I'm not sure if I have grown much wiser in the little time I have spent here, but it certainly feels like it has gone by really quickly. And yet, I am starting to feel at home. It occurred to me this morning that perhaps I am entering into the third stage of culture shock, finally: integration and acceptance into a new home.

Culture shock is the concept of integration into a new environment; it need not be vastly different from the place you come from, I realise now, but it still takes some time to adjust to new surroundings. Apparently there are supposed to be 5 main stages: Honeymoon, disintegration, integration, re-entry shock and re-integration.

Honeymoon describes the initial feelings of excitement when first arriving in a new place. I feel like I didn't experience much of this, partially because I was on edge at the time and emotional from other things happening in my life, but I did feel a certain kind of nervous anxiety vibrating inside my heart as my cousin drove us past MIT and down Mass Ave that day, towards the red brick of my new home for the next four years. I couldn't help thinking back to the first time I visited, 3 years ago now, and what I had been like then. Completely green, no intentions, no ideas, no experience. Stepping into the yard on that first day incited strange feelings. It was like re-entering a place I had been before, but as a different person, 3 years older and 'wiser' and yet just as clueless. I hadn't thought that I would ever revisit when I first came here.

Disintegration describes the time of trying to get used to the new environment, usually unpleasant and can come with feelings of depression and homesickness. I did get this a little during my first one or two weeks here. It's actually been 5 weeks since I arrived here, which puts things in perspective. These feelings died down with time and as I met more people I could connect with. To be perfectly honest though, meeting new people gets very tiring. It is exhausting to have to put with so much small talk from day to day, in addition to learning ten or twenty new names and faces every day, It's even harder when you have nobody to have a real conversation with. Fortunately, I think I met a few people here who I could do that with. And, I took the time to chat with friends back home so that I wouldn't go crazy. But, it made me miss home a lot more when I saw them.

I am not quite sure if I am still in the above stage right now, but it's definitely improved a lot since then. I realized this morning that perhaps I had already begun to transition into the third stage of integration. I was looking at my own Facebook page actually, specifically at the "Currently living in Cambridge, Massachusetts" line. It suddenly hit me that I am in America. I'm not sure where I thought I was before now, because I knew for sure that I wasn't in New Zealand, but maybe my brain had put itself in a position of perpetual transition before now. I realised finally that I am actually here, in the Northern Hemisphere, in Massachusetts. Might not seem like that revolutionary of a realization but for me it was literally mind-blowing. Plus, the thought that I've been here for a month! How crazy is that. This place is starting to feel like home as well. Actually my FIP leaders talked about how quickly people adapt to new situations, and eventually Harvard feels like home, and you don't want to leave anymore.

It's actually a scary thought. When I came here I was looking forward to going home again after 4 months. And yet, there are only 3 months left now, and I honestly have to say that I can't imagine leaving. Settling into a routine made me forget about that life I previously had. What mattered to me now was the daily progressions of action and thought right here in front of me. Home is of course still important to me; when I skype with friends back home I miss them dearly. And yet, not as much as when I first arrived. Another thing my FIP leader talked about back then was that "Harvard changes people". At that time a small part of me knew he was right, but for some reason the bigger part of my consciousness tried to refute it. "I'll never change," I thought, "I don't want to change. I'll never forget about home and the people there. Nothing here would take that away from me." And honestly, now I'm not sure which way to think. Because on one hand, life is different in these two worlds, but they are both part of me now. Yet on the other hand, should I prioritize my past a bit more? I can't possibly forget about home that easily.

Yet I am scared about the 4th stage of culture shock: re-entry shock. I don't know what to expect when I go home again. "Life will be different when you go home. You won't be able to tell exactly what has changed, but it will be different. Harvard changes people, or people back home will have changed without your presence." In some ways I wish this weren't true, but of course life will be different. I'm not sure if I'm still denying it to myself, but I remember when Lucee came back for the first time it was a little bit different. Or even when Jamie, Yunbin and David came back, or even seeing Chen again in Taiwan at the beginning of the year. It was like old times, but there was some small part of us that had changed. I don't know if we became closer or more distant in their absence, but life was not quite the same after our separation. I suppose it might not necessarily be a good or bad thing, just a phenomenon that happens. I wonder how much re-entry shock I will experience. How Americanized can I become in 4 months? Hahahaaha...

I guess it's just a time in my life where I'm very uncertain about the future and the opportunities to pick up here are limitless to the point where you can imagine many amazing scenarios for your life to become yet you cannot pick any of them. What do I love? What do I value? What am I trying to achieve here, why am I here in the first place? These are questions I must answer. For now though, it seems like I am floating around every day following a superficial routine I have created for myself to keep a facade of progress, yet in the end I am just procrastiwaiting for something to change, for the future and its possibilities to come and slap me in the face. You'd think I'd know by now that if you want something, you have to go and get it yourself. ...Actually that's something I did know, but such a method has no meaning if I have no knowledge of what I want, right?

These are the circular thoughts of someone who needs to sleep now. But actually I am not that sad, I apologize if I come off as privately wistful in this blog post. I am actually quite content with life here, I just wonder at times where it is leading. But I think it is good that at least I am starting to be able to call this place Home.

PS. On a semi-sidenote, I started listening to some Blackmill, which I am enjoying very much. A lot of his songs come up on the Ratatat pandora channel, which is where I learned about him from, so if you're into that kinda style of music/soft dubstep/trance electronica you should check his stuff out :)

My Incomprehensive Harvard Experience

Sup guys, this is a somewhat incomprehensive update on my whereabouts and wellbeing so that I don't have to repeat myself over and over to people and I'll forget who I've told what haha. So, PUBLIC BROADCAST! :D

Anyway my time here has been really good so far. I was missing home quite a bit when I arrived, but it's a lot better now that I've settled into my new room and classes have kind of started and I've met some people I get along with well. Just a little bit less lonely :) I did laundry for the first time by myself yesterday! Aren't you proud? Haha last week my parents were still here so my mum was pretty much overbearingly taking over doing everything...

Canaday F, aka my entryway! :D These are the people I live with haha.

aaand, here's my room! :D

Haha other than that, the food here is surprisingly good for mass produced stuff. People complain about it but I don't think it's bad considering they cater for 1700 odd people. Maybe I'm just not picky / have no culinary taste whatsoever (if you're wondering why I have so many pictures of food, it's because my parents want me to send them a picture of every meal I have so here are some of them hahaha. This is mostly at Annenberg, the freshmen dining hall):

 

Also I'm still typing this on my old as laptop because when the one I ordered arrived, it was broken ): The bottom of the chassis was deformed and the screen was cracked and they only just picked it up 2 days ago for replacement so HOPEFULLY that'll come soon so I'm no longer stuck with this piece of crap that lasts like 15 minutes so I can't actually take it to any lectures rendering its laptop-ness completely redundant...

I'm pretty sad this year that I missed the first day of Spring in New Zealand. I tend to blog on that day every year and I couldn't this year because... it wasn't Spring ): there were no baby calves and lambs jumping around here, no first blossom, no warming of the weather... instead all I had to remind me of a change of season was a slight chill and some drizzle. But that's ok. Life changes, I suppose. I wonder what the turn of Spring in March here will look like.

In terms of classes, they just started two days ago but it's shopping week at the moment, which means none of our classes are finalized so we can go into any class we want to 'shop' it and see if we want to take it. So far I've gone into an Art History class on American art and Modernity between 1865 and 1965, a Science and Cooking class where they gave us this plant extract stuff that binds to your sweetness receptors on your tongue so that you can't taste anything sweet for a short period of time and it made sugar taste like sand and, IMO made cookies taste nicer cos you can actually taste the bitterness of the chocolate but other people beg to differ..., and a maths class that I wanted to take but I don't have enough slots this semester so I'll probably take in the Spring, an Ethical Reasoning class (Justice by Michael Sandel, perhaps one of the most famous here, Jono recommended it to me before I even came here hahaha), EC10 (Introduction to Economics), CS50 (the most famous compsci paper here, looks awesome, I can't wait to start this course like actually -- even though it will probably eat up most of my time), and my freshman seminar (I got Just Friends: I don't love you like that), which I already have 40 pages of reading plus a response paper for due in a week. But it's really flexible here and the classes are really interesting so yay Harvard :) But weirdly I still don't feel like classes have started, and I felt much more hard-working back at AU. Maybe because I live on campus now so it just feels like I'm bumming around alllll the time. It's weird.
[I apologise for my atrocious grammar in this above paragraph but I really cannot be bothered making it fluent in a literary sense since this is my blog and I do what I want so go away Yunbin :)]

EDIT: actually I wrote this a few days ago, I've pretty much finalized my classes now, I'm taking CS50, EC10, C&B30 (History of Photography) and Just Friends. Plus I'm probably going to end up auditing Science & Cooking just cos it's so darn cool. I mean just look at these liquid nitrogen marshmallows. No pun intended.

There have been heaps of random events during orientation as well -- there was intramural house sports, and then convocation (which is like the opposite of graduation, where you dress fancy and people give speeches and a ceremony and stuff). There was an activities fair two days ago as well, where all the extracurricular groups had a stall and gave away free stuff :D I'm getting spammed by groups that I signed up for to get free stuff from now though hahah.

Woodbridge international society tshirt ;) 

In terms of social life, there are heaps of parties going on all the time. It's pretty amazing. Went to a few and have seen a few people getting taken away by UHS from passing out after drinking, probably not a pleasant experience but I haven't drank since I got here. Other than that there are also lots of performances going on, and everyone kinda does their own thing. Went to an AAA (Asian American Association) mixer where it was too hot to be classy despite the dress code, an A Cappella performance last night, a dance group performance last week that I can remember off the top of my head...

You can't tell from the photo, but we're all sweating profusely.

Hmmm, apart from playing a lot of card games and hanging out in common rooms til the early AM during orientation, there's nothing much else I can think of to talk about regarding my current life.* Classes are soon to properly start, and I already have a CS project and a reading and response paper to write to Plato's The Symposium, so I shall go and sparknotes the hell out of it now :) Hope you're all doing well where ever you are, and I'd love to catch up sometime so just chuck me a message and I'll reply when I can haha @_@

*EDIT: actually I just remembered, one night we went to the science center at 12am in the morning to learn the gangnam style dance using the apple store glass doors as our mirror. Good times... but maybe that's a story for another day hahaha.