Dear 15YO me,

This past semester, I received a letter in my mailbox from myself. Well, it was a Freshman Spring version of myself; I signed up for a self-reflection group for freshmen where we met a few times during the semester and talked about setting into Harvard. On the third and final meeting, we were supposed to write a letter to ourselves and the FDO would send it to us when we were seniors. Of course, I completely forgot about this letter until I received. When I read it, I must concede it honestly didn't say all that much. It was 1 page of mostly waffle, I'd guess because I hadn't expected having to write it and having not much to say at the time.

When I was 15 and at Kahunui, I also had to write such a letter. I didn't read it until just now, and man, as a 15 year old I was apparently way more eloquent and interesting than as a college freshman. Wonder why that is. Maybe because 7 years is way more than 3? I almost feel sad for 15-year-old-Winnie, because she'll never know how she turned out. Well, here's a good chance to do a quick recap of what's happened through the years to answer all her questions:

So luckily, you did not become a hobo on the street. Yes, you are still friends with Steph, and yes, you still remember the box of blue pens that Kim gifted you for your 15th birthday; you never did finish them all before just losing the entire box.

You are still in university, you haven't graduated yet -- even at 22, which is a year later than you were supposed to get this letter haha. You did make it to America. In fact I don't even recall you thinking about it back then, but I guess it was definitely on your mind already.

You're right, there are definitely a lot of new technologies. Isn't that funny, you ended up going into the technology sector even though I definitely remember that this was an extremely fleeting thought. You didn't end up picking Architecture in the end, but it was definitely on your plate as an option right up to the point you had to pick.

You still technically live with the same ol' family, though you move around a lot now and are moving to San Francisco this year. Grandpa died 2 years after you wrote those words; there's definitely been a lot that's changed in 7 years.

I don't think you're immature. I think you're surprisingly wise for a 15 year old and I definitely don't remember being this way, haha.

You learned a little cooking in these few years! It's been fun. You watch cooking shows in your spare time now. Gordon's your fave. Also Cooking with Dog (as in, there's a dog on set -- not like dog meat. D: that would be awful)!

You can't find the diary with the dog on it anymore. It was lost a long, long time ago, but yes I too remember the hilariously cringeworthy things that were in there.

You didn't keep in touch with all those people on your MSN list. But that's okay, because Facebook became a thing and you can now stalk them and find out what's going on in their lives at all times without even having to talk to them!

You are also a bamf for providing the password to your childhood email account, also ENCODED and not in plaintext because 15-year-old-Winnie cares about cyber security. I'm seriously impressed.

Your handwriting has seriously deteriorated. I'm sorry, I have failed you. But as for your other requests -- you still love art, you picked up photography, and you have visited Japan and Korea! You did never end up going on that Shanghai trip with the Mollies. But hey better late than never? Maybe it's still possible. You're having dinner with them later this week. :)

I'd like to think that you've taken every opportunity. Sometimes there are too many to choose from though. You also did end up getting jaw surgery and getting braces. Welp that sure was an ordeal. You sounded unsure, but you're glad you did it in the end.

And nope! Your hair isn't short anymore. I didn't realize people threatened you if you let it grow haha -- maybe you should go short again? Probably not though, it's nice to be lazy and only get two haircuts a year.

And yeah, you're totally right. I definitely miss being young and at school.

Why am I asking all these questions, it's not like you/I will be able to reply.

It's okay kid. You did good. :) You're a hell of a lot more interesting of a person than you became in Freshman Spring. Maybe I should become more like you. Seems like 15 year old me was super ambitious and had her head and heart in the right places. In 2016 and beyond, remember to make her proud and not squander this time on Earth! Is this reverting back?

Life should be lived as if you're walking in the bush: if you focus too much on what's ahead, you trip up on what's beneath your feet, but if you focus too much on what's beneath your feet you end up unprepared for what's to come. You have to find the spot on the ground where you can see both where you are walking and where you are walking towards -- then walk there.

Good advice for 2016.
Oh yeah, and gotta keep flossing daily.

Between 22°C and 22°F

The first time I saw snow, it was Christmas Eve. I was walking around a shopping mall in Paris, and a light dusting of icy flakes started to fall innocuously, lazily drifting around in the breeze before settling onto whatever it reached. I watched them melt between the weavings of my gloves quickly, and marveled at how temporary its existence was. The next morning, the city was blanketed in white.

The power of snowflakes to accumulate over time and become that huge hunk of white at the side of the road in the winter is both amazing and somewhat infuriating. Small differences building up over time.

The irritating crust of salt that stuck to the top of my suede boots in freshman year served as a constant reminder of my unsuitability to the new environment, the chilling winter gusts cutting my face and constantly threatening to blow me out of Cambridge because I simply did not belong there.  A filed Non-Resident Alien Tax Return Form.

A glance at the weather report told me it was 22 degrees outside, but it was simply not the right kind of 22 degrees. Instagrams of picnics during a blizzard.

The mutual exclusivity between summer and winter and the ability of a body of matter to only exist in one place at a time; these are the things that I lamented the last two Christmas Eves when I was sitting at some airport or on some plane, suspended in some nondescript location walking along the line between these two seasons and these two countries. But it’s not just a line we walk along around this time of year. For some, it’s all year round.

Of course, I am not just writing about the weather. I am writing about immigration.  Maybe ‘immigration’ is too strict of a term; at least when I think of it I think of the thousands of migrants moving in waves from Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa with their families to start new lives. However, the world has become connected enough now that I think this definition of ‘immigration’ doesn’t entirely encapsulate certain experiences, for instance moving to another country for study. Can this be considered an immigration of sorts?

“So if you’re from New Zealand, how come you can speak English?”

Like the snow, the differences I perceived upon arriving in America as someone from another first world, democratic, economically stable, English-speaking, westernized country were small. Maybe just a smatter of slang, some odd habits and an overabundance of squirrels, on top of the obvious accent. But it became clear to me over time that background matters. Though on the surface the current states of the countries are similar, their histories are surely different. That history dictates a lot of the psyche of the population, the decisions made in politics, the issues that are on the forefront of media coverage. The differences snowball into two distinct nation identities that those like me, who have stakes in both countries, have to navigate.

I often wonder, considering how similar New Zealand and the US are on the surface details, how other international students must find the experience. I suspect Canadians have an even lesser difference felt, but even they celebrate Canada Day and take pride in Canadian-specific activities. But what about the experiences of a Pakistani student, of a Chinese student, of a Kenyan student? They must have a lot of interesting perspectives.

“What can you bring to the Asian American Association, being an international student?”

At first I thought that perhaps America was unaware of its superiority complex, but I realized soon after living here for a while that it was simply unsure of what it really considered one of its people. There is absolutely no homogeny to the population’s values, which can be both a great thing in terms of multiple perspectives, but also a source of many conflicts. 

Of course, there is the image of the quintessential ‘American’, the blonde hair, blue eyed, draped in red-white-and-blue nuclear family who lives in suburbia, patriotism spilling out of their Statue of Liberty-worthy facial features and Constitutional gun collection in the basement. This image, I believe, is largely no longer regarded as the sole image of Americanism, thanks to larger multicultural populations, growing populations in urban areas and a rise in non-traditional family settings.

However, I would say that a lot of time, the image of an ‘American’ does not include those who have recently immigrated. Of course this makes sense. They just arrived, so how could they possibly understand the culture (wait, what is America’s culture?) and fit in with everyone else (wait, is there really an ‘everyone else’ collective, considering the lack of homogeny?)? How long does someone have to be in America to be considered ‘American’? Enough time to get their permanent residency? Citizenship? What about those who were born with American citizenship but since have moved abroad, but then moved back? Are they American too?

Sure, my experiences growing up will forever be tainted by the distinct smell of sulfur, the feeling of Pohutukawa bristles while playing hide and seek and the tickling of a teacher’s brush on my face as it carefully traced out the shape of a Koru fern. Even until college, my memories of Christmas Eve were often rooted deep in the sand of some New Zealand beach, sun blaring down past a weakened ozone, not a cloud – rain or snow – to be seen.

However, as someone who looks to be of Asian descent living in America, my experiences suddenly and inexplicably merged with those who have called themselves ‘Asian-American’ since birth. Because despite my New Zealand upbringing, I still entered the country with a Chinese passport many years ago. I grew up with weekly family dimsum outings, having to memorize traditional Chinese poetry, bringing chopsticks with me to every meal before being taught how to use a knife and fork at age 15. Of course, these experiences are synonymous with many Chinese-Americans as well as Chinese-Kiwis. Being from New Zealand is not stapled over my face, and even after I speak most people do not pick up on my slight accent anymore. Likewise, my childhood in New Zealand does not shield my clearly Asian appearance from the same discrimination that any other Asian might face in America.

“At what point am I a resident of Massachusetts?”

Looking up driver laws for immigrants in America is likely to make you more confused than you already were. There are certain laws that pertain to those who hold foreign licenses who are not residents of the state, and different ones for the people who are. A lot of times, it is also dependent on how long you have been in the country. But does that mean since the first time I came to the country, disregarding trips back home? Or does it literally mean the length of stay since I last landed at an American airport? Also what does it even mean to be a resident of Massachusetts if I’m staying in a college dorm with a temporary address?

Roll forward two years from the first time I came home drenched in sleet, cotton socks wet from slush, teeth chattering as I scrambled for the heater dial? I still don’t much enjoy the snow, but at least I can survive in it.  A pair of trusty Bean boots to blend me into the New England crowd, gloves peeping out of pockets, scarves lining my wardrobe, cashmere lining my drawers, wool lining my far-too-warm-for-Auckland coat.

I guess after all this time of facing the weird differences between my now two home countries, you kind of learn to live and adapt to both. The result? Now I’m just a semi-foreigner in both countries. My kiwi friends love to make fun of my semi-American accent nowadays =_= When at school, I miss New Zealand and sometimes just want to come back to hear the bleating of the sheep across the road and relax with no worries for days on end. After I get back, of course I would miss the busy-body movement in the packed cities and late night adventures in America. Being stuck in the middle is part of the job description I guess, but we have to try to live in the present as much as we can since every place has so much to offer.

Again this Christmas Eve I am sitting in a summer bach up north of Auckland with a killer view of a lagoon. This year, it is overcast and the clouds threaten to spill over with rain. But the temperature is 22 degrees high, and right now at least, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Holidays everyone! I guess the next time I write will probably be after new years.

Narratives of our lives

Story sheep

(Context for people who don't know who this is: This is SHREK, a merino sheep from New Zealand who avoided capture and being shorn for 6 years between 1998 and 2004 by hiding in caves. He took 20 minutes to shear and he produced 27kg (60lb) of high quality merino wool, enough to make 20 large men's suits.)

(Context on context ie. why I am including this story: because I always include a themed picture of a sheep on my blog posts these days, and he is kind of the sheep with the most impressive story.)

Over this summer, I started to get into a weird habit of asking people to tell me a story. I'm not really sure how it started, but I think one day I was sitting on the edge of a comfortable silence, ready to fall into awkwardness, when the words kind of rolled out of my mouth.

"Tell me a story."

Not like a polite request or an aggressive order, more like a curious command. The other person looked a little surprised, but obliged. Fascinated by the power of this simple phrase, I ended up using it over and over and again and again until my new friend was all out of stories over the next few weeks. I felt like I gotten to know a stranger and I had gained a new friend. And so I was satisfied.

I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they are boring people, or that not much happens in their lives compared to others. I'd like to contest that; I think most if not everyone has such interesting things to say if only they would pay attention and try to present it in book form. I'd bet that a lot of people would pay attention and be interested in what they have to say. In the end, I wouldn't say the stories I was told by others this summer were super extraordinary of anything, but they carry with them a sentiment of the familiar, of nostalgia that I too had once put away in a box in the back of my mind.

These are the narratives of our everyday lives, the stupidly ordinary tales we tell of silly things we used to do and think and eat and play with. Not only that, but they comprise an ever-changing narrative -- as we grow and learn and change, our narration reiterates into a more cynical, or dismissive, or hopeful lens through which we look upon the past.

Story-telling is a social habit with startling longevity. It's how we propagated our history before records existed, it's how we accumulated experience through generations and, of course, it's how we make friends and get to know people today.

I decided that stories are probably my favourite way of getting to know the inner workings of people's minds. You can learn so much about someone by their choice of language and their perspective on their experiences. In the purest form of translation, intangible thoughts and feelings are translated into something that can propagate to and blossom in others. And for each of us that tells a story, many more also gain something to retell through their own lens, leading to richer and richer experiences.

Can these still be considered truth, given that they've been pulled and stretched and warped beyond what the original storyteller ever intended? I'm sure different people would say different things, but my opinion is that it's irrelevant; the experience of sharing a story is like retweeting a tweet through a chain, where eventually you run out of characters because there are so many @tags of people's usernames -- though maybe the original tweet is lost, you now have a net of friends tied together with 140 characters. Storytelling is like the glue that dries transparently on relationships, so barely noticeable that you probably would never even attribute your friendships to it.

Maybe I'm just too metaphorical of a thoughtster, but I really enjoy the idea that such subtlety in language can reveal the beauty of an undiscovered mind.

Am I still a kid for making people tell me stories as if they were my grandparents? Yea I'd say probably. Still going to enjoy them though :) 21 and hungry for tales of adventure! Message me if you know a good one :D

heres me and the cheesecake my friends bought me for my birthday :3

On nationalism, travel and culture

^ by Garry Gay. 

So I was sitting in my Math class a couple of weeks ago, mentally reading out the equation I was supposed to be solving. "x + y + z" ... "ex plus why plus zee" --

Hold up. ZEE? Had I really just thought that in my head? As someone who learned the alphabet ended in Zed, this was a mindblow moment for me. Had I spent enough time here in the USA to become, God forbid, one of them? Had all the teasing of my slightly curled 'r's over the summer really been a reflection of a changed national identity? Should I try to turn back? Should I just plow forward and become full blown 'MURICAAANNN?

Yeah, it's comical. Here I was questioning everything I had ever known about the alphabet in a multivariable calculus class in my fourth semester of college. To be fair, this experience, coupled with a few other things I've been thinking about for a while led me to wonder what my thoughts were on changing culture as a result of travel, and how this all fit in with nationalism. So I guess here's my exploration of my thoughts in writing.

To start -- Let's be real, nationalism is huge in the US. From awkward Annenberg dinners where people would stand up and sing Stars and Stripes, or Primal Scream where dozens of naked bodies chanted "U-S-A!" with a large American flag while they ran through the Yard, American patriotism is kind of inescapable here, and it's led to the 11% of us who are international students to be left confused and awkward in our seats waiting for the national anthem to end and for our friends to sit back down to continue our dinner conversations.

I've never really been a fan of nationalism, since I think it leads to a lot of unnecessary competition and unhealthy antagonism purely out of "my country is better than yours". Sure, I like to wave around New Zealand's history of social progressiveness and recent ranking of #1 in the world in terms of freedom and social mobility, but that's really out of a response to the rampant patriotism here than anything else. Given the possibility, I'd love for all countries to have such good records of freedom and social welfare, as well as all the things that New Zealand is perhaps not so good at.

Furthermore, as an international student who is not only from New Zealand but who was also born in China, I'm not really sure what to make of my national identity. I feel like a lot of my experience gained from all these places I've lived has impacted me and the way I think about things now. So, why categorize myself under only one nationality? Like a magpie, I could just collect customs that I like from places that I visit. If this means I prefer and use the pronunciation of the letter 'z' to be Zee rather than Zed, so be it. Someone did bring up a particularly convincing argument that it makes the alphabet song rhyme.

There are many things I've picked up in the states, which I'm not going to be ashamed for on accounts of "becoming one of them", thanks friends at home who will nonetheless tease me about it. Likewise, there are plenty of things I've grown up with and probably would never change about myself brought over from New Zealand and as part of my family's Chinese background, even if it means being a perpetual foreigner and being seen as "Un-American" (to be honest, the Americans have enough of a problem accepting their own citizens as part of their nationality, so I'm not even going to try to qualify).

Another thing that makes me go "Hmmm" is the recent-ish (okay, like one or two months ago) controversy surrounding a Harvard Grad's opinion on Auckland University's policy for international student, which Alice Wang has an excellent piece in the Herald about. What makes me go Hmmm is all the comments saying that the university exists to serve its national students and its national students only. Also talk about immigrants ruining the country. I don't really understand it, possibly because I live in Auckland and have no concept of the rest of the country's perception of multiculturalism. Regardless,  I feel like this inner-country centric thinking is somehow doomed to fail. The world is more open than it ever was and you get weird people like me who don't really know where they belong floating around everywhere, and that's kind of a great thing.

Maybe because I've been an international student here, and it can be kind of isolating when you're constantly reminded that you are second-class (what are the words the government uses? Oh yes, NON-RESIDENT ALIEN) compared to regular citizens.

In my ideal world, one would be able to travel around until they find a place where they feel like they really fit in and enjoy the culture of the place and just be able to live there like anyone else. And if or when they get bored of it -- go somewhere else for a few years, why not? This of course would only be truly ideal after we fix all the problems in most of the world right now, but let's at least try to work toward that goal instead of turning inwards and shutting off our borders to everyone outside out of what -- xenophobia? fear of culture dilution? economic failure? 

In whatever case, my passport has a silver fern on it but I'd like to be considered a citizen of the world if I could. All I want is to be able to ride an American sheep while eating escargot with foie gras and have Gelato for dessert with chopsticks. On top of a kangaroo. (And those those are just the places I've seen so far :p!,) 

I do not know how to construct a "good" sandwich

Google images because I can

inb4brokenlink in 2 months time

"Bacon, lettuce, tomato and pepperjack cheese", he said excitedly, biting into his self-made sandwich. I'd always been somewhat impressed with his sandwich-making abilities, but it wasn't until he said that that I started questioning what exactly makes a "good" sandwich? Did it make a difference that he'd chosen pepperjack cheese instead of some other kind? If not, why would he have specified what kind of cheese it was? I'd made sandwiches for him in the past, though I can't quite remember exactly what his feedback was at this moment, but he'd always think I was weird for putting certain combinations of things together between slices of bread. I grew this expectation of a "proper" framework for sandwich-making, which I suppose is kind of true -- for instance, bacon, lettuce and tomato do seem to go together quite well, but in my opinion the turkey-lettuce combo that the dining halls here offer can be majorly improved with a slice of cheese and a fried egg. A lot of people give me alien looks when I say I like to put eggs in my sandwiches.

"That's not what you're supposed to do," they say. But the more sandwiches I have made, the more I started to realize that though certain things are 'supposed' to universally go together, there's definitely no real rules to sandwich construction -- just because most people I've come across think I'm strange for putting eggs in my sandwiches doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it anytime soon. Though, disclaimer here, I still don't have much of an idea of what to put in a sandwich given the ample choices of the ingredients bar here, and oftentimes I experiment with salad dressings on my salads and I'm pretty sure certain vinaigrettes that I use are not meant to be used with the things I put in my salads. However, this whole dining hall debacle has made me realize something bigger about the world, which is that nobody really knows what they're doing.

There are lots of 'accepted' rules about how we should do certain things, but there are just as many, if not more, ways to experiment with our own ways of doing things. Since I've always been a pretty logical person and tried to define everything in terms of rules and exceptions to those rules, it was a weird thing to realize growing up that not everything fits into boxes all the time.

The first time I bought something and it didn't work, I didn't know what to do with myself. It just seemed ridiculous that something professionally made could ever be imperfect. What's more, it started happening so often that I thought there was something wrong with the way I was doing things. I am still weirdly frustrated when things don't work because I don't know how to respond to the event. I am never quite sure whether I am doing something wrong or whether the thing I am using is actually just broken. For example, I am pretty sure that the fender that came with my bike over the summer actually just doesn't fit in the wheel, but I was also equally convinced that the rack didn't fit on either, but at the end of the summer I was able to work out how to attach the rack, so to this day I still have no idea whether the fender's inability to attach was my fault or the manufacturer's.

What complicates this whole ordeal is the fact that it's often positive to be creative and come up with better ways to solve problems that might be unconventional. However, I always second guess myself because I figure that if it were really a better way, surely someone else would have thought of it already, so the way that I thought of must be inefficient in some way since it's not widely accepted. I always get excited when I think of something and start doing things in a certain way, and then find someone else who does it in the same way, even though it's not conventional. I guess it's just confirmation that I'm not totally on the wrong track if someone else prefers it my way too.

I wish I had some moral here like people shouldn't be afraid to make up their own ways of doing things, because the world is not always going to provide a defined way for you, but I'm not really sure if that's the answer.

Being in college and growing up is kind of a weird time in my life. Though my ego likes to think I know all the answers, that's really not the case.

Why Facebook Matters (my experience from the inside)

 

NOTE: If you work for Facebook, you really don't have to read this. My intended audience is my friends from college or New Zealand who frequently use Facebook but have never considered it as anything other than a way to procrastinate, all of what I say below will be probably extremely redundant and obvious to anyone who works here.

So, as those of you who have known me for a few years and/or have followed my blog before will know, I have always been pretty pro-facebook. I have made posts before about how I think it's an advantage for everyone around me to get Facebook as a way to stay connected and remain "in the loop" about the current affairs of those who they care about. I made that post 3 years ago, at a time where 500 million people were on Facebook. Today, that number has more than doubled. There are 1.2 billion users on Facebook today, and 700 million of them are active daily. I spoke at that time because speculation was starting about whether the website would last, whether they would fade into the background as something new came to take its place, as many of its predecessors did. I watched in the last few years as Facebook became more and more invasive, and that little blue "Login with Facebook" bar seemed to pop up more often on other websites I visited. I thought to myself as I watched this that Facebook is probably something different, with far greater potential than the other social networks that people kept comparing it to.

My belief that Facebook was special began to be reaffirmed by my experience here this summer. I started my summer internship on July 1, and in less than 4 weeks Facebook has proved itself to me as an employee that what it's doing in the world matters -- and now I'm writing this because I want to share that experience with my friends who are not of the tech world, as a response against those who see it only as a distraction from exam studying, who are annoyed by the ads and the constant changes, who see social networking as a sad replacement for real life interaction.

Facebook aims to provide not only a service, but a great one. There is no way 10 years ago you would have been able to reach a billion people on Earth, even with the internet. No forum was that huge. Facebook is not meant to be a closed circle between you and your closest friends only; it serves as a complement to real life interaction between you and your best friends, not a substitute. Many complain that their Facebook 'friends' are not really their friends at all, but the power of the social graph is undeniable -- 70% of jobs today are found through networking and personal connections. Obviously you will be close to your closest friends regardless of whether or not they are on Facebook. You will always find time and ways to reach those who you love the most. But what about those connections that you would like to keep around but maybe don't always have the time for? Friendships are not an all-or-nothing kind of deal, and this is where Facebook excels.

My thoughts on why Facebook has not fallen the way Myspace, Friendster, Bebo did -- they bring together not only people who already know each other, but potentially great future friendships and connections. Furthermore, their monetization strategy is reverse-motivated -- there is a poster around headquarters which essentially reads "We do not make things to earn money, we earn money to make things". Zuckerberg as a CEO truly cares about the positive social impact that Facebook has on the world. These are positive externalities far beyond the reach of a dollar symbol -- today, he addressed the entire company at headquarters in person (similar to the way he does every week, by the way, and answers any questions anyone in the company may have, including interns -- not something you would see at most other companies) and told us this story, as well as showed us a video that the men made to thank Facebook for making changing an entire village worth of lives possible. You'll have to take my word for it, but it was very compelling. This is a software company which monetizes on the people that use its service, yet keeps in mind that these people have real lives and real connections that transcend the statistics they sell to advertisers, and prides itself on bettering those lives with its service.

 

^ A poster design I see around campus a lot

On that point, ads -- people who complain about ads have really just never experienced real ads. Real ads are great content. It is the role of an advertisement to be entertaining, because that's how you engage your audience. Real ads are things that people actually do want to watch, which is why there is always so much talk about the ads which show during the Superbowl (and we all go and watch them on youtube even tho we supposedly hate ads). Facebook aims to deliver the same quality. Ads are a way for entrepreneurs to let you know about their product -- which, for a lot of companies, is an awesome product that you might actually have a use for (shock horror), which you would otherwise not know about. Think about your friends linking cool Kickstarter projects on Facebook. Proper, quality targeted ads are the exact same thing, and Facebook aims to be able to direct you to that really good niche Italian restaurant a block away when you're wandering around Melbourne at 7pm looking for something to eat. After all, Facebook should know you better than anyone -- creepy as it may be, once you get over the irrational fear of letting the service know more about you, you realize that you're just helping it help you better (more on privacy in a later post, perhaps).

So you can imagine, with such lofty goals and only having reached 1/7 of the world's population, why Facebook needs to be constantly changing. It cannot afford to become stale and settle and fade away like so many others have. It knows its potential and aims to keep going to better its service to you as the user. Cut Facebook a little slack, nobody's ever done this before and of course mistakes are made. They are cautious though and test extensively to make sure the changes they make are good ones, which may be why you feel they are fickle sometimes. Working here has made me realize just how hard these people work to bring the world such an awesome service -- and they're all super awesome people too! They try to move really really fast to bring the future to you ASAP, but sometimes Facebook is a little derpy and leaves things undone which may or may not cause that iOS app to crash unexpectedly; but honestly, what piece of software is perfect? Not that they're satisfied with this, even -- they are constantly aiming to bring you a more polished product and bugs are fixed live around the clock.

I really don't believe that Facebook is a waste of time in any sense, unless you make it so yourself. It's a great service that has managed to connect the world in ways people never expected, and is hungry for even more growth and improvement. Fortunately I think people are now starting to see, after the most recent quarter's financial report (and subsequent 20% rise in stock), that Facebook is not "just another social networking website". It truly has the power to change the way people connect in the world, and make us better off for it. The knowledge economy is non-rival, absolutely sustainable and is just beginning to be grown.

I was actually also going to talk about the Facebook paradox of privacy/making the world more open and connected as well as more about my own experience, but that can wait til another day, I don't want to make this post any more monster haha.

Last piece of food for thought: would you have known about any of this if not for Facebook bringing you to this page in the first place?

I have something to say about rape

So I've noticed in the news lately that there have been a lot of articles about rape and sexual harassment cases, whether it be rapists being acquitted easily or victims being blamed or important people trivializing rape. My aim in writing the below is to make people on polarized ends of the opinion scale when it comes to rape realize the complexity of the relationship between the law and society's opinions, both of which are legitimate in their own right. I'd like for people to consider both sides of these cases and try to reconcile them so that we are not over-virginizing or condemning victims in these situations, incite more discussion and create a potentially fairer (or at least less contested) way for such cases to be handled in the future.

I'm not talking about stranger-rape or assault-rape or roofie-ing which is generally agreed upon to be outright disgusting and wrong and power-motivated, but rather the fuzzy-lined acquaintance type rape which seems to be coming up in the media more frequently lately. I'm also not going to talk about stupid politicians saying brainless things because that's not worth my time and I'm pretty sure most educated people know when their politicians are being idiots.

There are some things I'd like for people to realize about the justice system:

1) Rape is not necessarily sex without 'consent' in the regular sense. If a drunk girl throws herself at you, it is obvious that she "wants the D" (as one twitter user so eloquently put it), but it is considered rape in the eyes of the law if you then have sex with her, because she is in no state to give proper consent. If she sobers up and is fine with what she did, then okay. But if she regrets her actions and feels you took advantage of her drunken state (which you did), then from a courtroom's perspective you are a rapist. Plain and simple.


[apologies for assuming rapist is male and victim is female, this was in response to a particular case I read, obviously also applies for all combinations of genders]


2) Similarly for underage partners, the issue of one person taking advantage of another is the one that the law punishes, not the actual act of sex itself. A 13 year old cannot be held accountable for their deluded idea of what they want because they aren't old or mature enough to rationalize those decisions yet (note this is the same line of logic which allows underage offenders to have lighter sentences and have their own juvenile prisons, so if you believe minors should have sexual freedom then you are also saying you want all minors to be tried as adults in court). Statutory rape is not rape in the sense of having sex with someone against their will but the act of taking advantage of someone who cannot make legal decisions for themselves (and as an older person one should take responsibility of the situation). A lot of people are irked by the idea that if they turn 18/16 half a year before their significant other they are somehow in violation of the law if they are having sex, but it honestly can't be helped if you think about it since it's the law's job to put concrete boundaries on things and there has to be a line somewhere (if you think it's creepy for a 65 year old man to have sex with a 15 year old then you have proven that point to yourself already).

3) If a girl is wearing provocative clothing, you can't just say she wasn't raped. Someone likened this to walking around the street waving hundred dollar bills around and expecting not to get robbed. Yes, obviously there is risk, but in that case as well, is the thief innocent? There is only risk because we live in a society where people do things like cheat and steal. In an ideal world (which is what the law aims to propel), people should be able to walk around with hundred dollar bills hanging off them without the fear of being mugged. That's just a baseline of trust. In the rape scenario, the act of wearing short skirts is not a green light for rapists. You should ask a dude if you can borrow a hundred bucks from him just like you should always make sure your partner is willing, even if they happen to be wearing provocative clothing.

4) Perhaps the most important point in that it's the counterpoint: The justice system is not perfect, and it certainly does not dish out all the judgment. Society itself judges: this is why rape cases are so complex and have had so much coverage lately, because of the polarized opinions surrounding each case. In response to the points above:

4-1) In terms of victim blaming: a lot of people believe that nobody should get drunk enough to lose control of their senses like this , so since they gave up that control when they decided to drink those 12 consecutive shots, they should be responsible for their actions. Being drunk is not an excuse -- when it comes to cheating on your significant other, when it comes to accidentally killing someone, and of course when creating disorder on the streets at 3am in the middle of the night, so why is it okay to let rape victims off the hook if they were drunk? People should be responsible for their own drinking and know their own limits.That's also a common perspective.

4-3) As clearly demonstrated, people are more likely to blame victims if they were wearing provocative clothing, and though the law protects the ideal world, it's obvious that we don't live in one. So, if you do choose to wear such short dresses, you are basically accepting the risk of backlash from the community if you do get raped, though you are protected by the law. Just like you risk getting robbed if you flash your money, though it doesn't mean the thief is innocent, and you will probably not be punished for it by a judge, people are still going to talk about your stupidity in throwing your money around even if that's not what you intended by it. After all, what are you trying to achieve by wearing such clothing? Obviously to be more attractive to potential mates, says society (however I'd like to reiterate the point that attracting potential mates does not mean attracting every mate -- obviously she should still have freedom of choice in who she decides to sleep with, right?).

Society has an amazing capacity to criticize people who get by the law but they whom see as at least partially accountable. This really needs to be taken into account when people decide to do the things they do and expect only to be judged by the law. After all, why do you think there are so many memes about rape and girls "asking for it" online? People want to stop rape culture and rape humor but the fact is it exists and we should probably question why rather than trying to just block it off without reviewing where it came from.

I honestly think that in a lot of rape cases, it is not a cut-and-dry and only the rapist is accountable. A series of events unfolded prior to the act where there was possibly miscommunication of some sort, or alcohol involved, or any variety of things -- the reason that people blame the victim is not because they are horrible people, but because it is true that victim could have decreased their chances of being taken advantage of in some cases.

Though it is never okay for someone to have sex with someone without their outright consent, the amount of rape and trauma could be decreased if both parties watched their actions and understood what was at risk before doing anything. People often blame society for teaching "don't get raped" instead of "don't rape", but it doesn't make much sense to simply flip it and only teach "don't rape" either --honestly if we taught both wouldn't the number of cases of rape decrease even more? People should watch their own safety and watch out for potentially bad situations as well as make sure they don't hurt anyone. We shouldn't have to live in fear, but it's unrealistic to believe naively that we can walk outside and there is no danger anywhere and we can do whatever we want without risk. Everyone has to pull their weight for a better world.

thoughts about photography

So I was sniffing around my old photobucket account earlier tonight and came across some of the photos I took during china camp in 2006-2007. It's funny because I can remember all the little things that happened in and around those times, just by looking at those pictures. And it made me rethink something --

Last semester, I took a class CB30: History of Photography (taught be Robin Kelsey, he's a boss and it's a super interesting class and if you're at Harvard and interested in art history you should totally take it), and before that I never really considered how much of an impact photography had on the world. Well, first and foremost the class changed that notion for me at least haha. Photography was pretty much the only visual arts subfield I'd never dabbled in properly at all (I didn't count tourist shots, or "bellybutton photography" as we call it in CB30, as real photography). I also developed a notion sometime during my childhood that I didn't like being in photos because they were usually fake and posed, and I didn't like taking photos because for me it took away from the experience of actually being there in the moment and doing the action, since you had to be either focused on the camera or on the real sight in front of you. Also, there are certain scenes that cameras just can't capture -- I've always found that shots of sunsets for eg in particular, though beautiful, lose some of the essence of being there watching one in person.

And yet, here I was looking at photos which were 5 or 6 years old and reliving those moments, memories triggered only by images. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't give past experience a second thought if not for the reminder of photos. The capturing of "the decisive moment" encapsulates a moment in time, forever frozen though real life moves on and forgets. But when we take a look at the film again, it's almost as if that moment is brought back to life in our memory. In fact our memory is flawed, but the evidence on paper (or pixels as it may be these days) is difficult to deny -- these are how we validate our experiences and know they happened for real. That explains why so many celebratory events are shot, because people like to know that there was a time where they achieved something, and they want hard evidence for that past just their unreliable memories.

Man I'm not even sure if I can find myself in this picture but yay swords

How awkward can I be? Oh let me count the ways ... derp hi

Before coming to college, one of my uncles brought me a camera as a gift. I had no clue how to use it (and to be honest am still quite fumblesome with it), but wanted to use it as much as I could so it wouldn't be wasted too much. Actually when I first got it my thought was "ah... but I don't take photos of anything". Last summer though, I put it to use (though I'm sure a lot of my friends were irked by a constant lens in their face) and took a total of 1300+ photos in the span of 5 days (I used it less outside of road trip, but I'd say my extensive use during this period more than made up for it). It's been kind of nice having more photos of events to remember in the future. I guess the fact that I'm no longer an awkward 13 year old blob with too-thick and unshaped eyebrows also helps somewhat.

I guess I've come to appreciate photography more as an important technology in human history as well as a valuable part of chronicling my own life as well. Yeah I'll finally admit it, I used to be a snob that thought people who take photos weren't fully appreciating the moment they were living in then, but now I kind of understand its importance since you can look back at them and relive those moments. They might not be as clear or all-encompassing as actually being there, but sometimes a nostalgic reminder is nice.

"Take a photo, it lasts longer."

Of course, none of this is to say that I would condone taking 50 pictures of the sunset while watching it through your viewfinder over taking 2 or 3 and then putting your camera away to really watch the sun go down and feel the sky change above you either.

"Tell me about yourself"

WHO I AM is a 6 letter phrase that begins to try to encompass a person. It's really not enough, is it? How can I, with all my extremities and quirks, likes or dislikes or fence-sat opinions, changing all the time in response to experience, be encompassed in such a short phrase?

I -- it stands tall and straight and perfect, in line with a one dimensional utopia that does not exist in our real lives. How can I, with all my dreams, both practical and naive, and with all my failures pushing me along to the next hurdle, even begin to be described by such a flawless, clean line? I am not a straight contour, deliberately drawn and sure in its placement. I cannot be described by its articulate serifs, or its loud capitalization.

I am not I, and yet neither am I i.
Though it is quieter and broken, a more tentative spot placed carefully over a halted body, and though it is grammatically incorrect and falls short of everyone's expectation, i am more than this --

I am not perfect but I am not small.

It is difficult to describe who I am when asked to tell someone about myself, because it requires that I construct my very essence on a canvas of silence, empty and expecting.

No: I am not a construction built from the ground up; I am rather a whole pile of things, with things that do not suit me thrown away -- I am a sculpture at the center of a marble block, not some perfect statue that has fallen from the sky -- I am a collection of history that I did not decide, with memories that have stuck with me but also others that have washed away -- I am the negative space that has been cut out of a magazine, not the planned collage that someone has put together deliberately and thoughtfully.

I can spend all day telling you about people I am not, and things that do not apply to me, but I cannot say with definition what that implies about who I am. Understanding myself seems like something that is probably important to be able to do, but for me the suggested lines that are drawn against the things I decide not to include in my life are just as good a description as any.

Just like my messy desk, I can tell you of the possessions I do not own, but I do not necessarily know exactly what I have sitting on top of it either. Trying to describe oneself to someone is kind of like that, don't you think? You may remember the big things, but if it were only those on your desk that giant mountain might collapse without the things in between to support the structure. It's a combination of those big and small things that construct our personalities too.

-- is not necessarily easy to say; 

though a crooked "I" with a body that peeps awkwardly above its head sometimes is a better description than just 

"I" 

-- I know what I am not, so I guess that's a good place to start.

A lost fish, eating trays, a lack of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase and a bit of work on the side

Snowstorm Nemo hit last weekend and I had one of the best nights (if not THE best night?) I've had since I came here -- sledding down Widener Library's front steps on cafeteria trays at midnight? Priceless. We had snow almost up to our knees and my lack of waterproof shoes would hinder me in the slush-filled days ahead, but in the moment it didn't matter -- what we were getting was pure, fluffy snow, sweeping across the yard horizontally in a soft blizzard and at taking away with it the feeling in my fingers and face. A yard-wide free-for-all snowball fight saw 200+ students chucking snowballs at each other and tackling each other in the cold, forgetting about work for the week and settling into the weekend as the snow melts in their back pockets and leaves a wet patch on the futon. So. Much. Fun.

Live life? Water pong on a makeshift pong table and a suitcase full of beer -- the backup plan for the quickly dry bar at that house party that everyone shows up to. The pounding bass vibrating five stories high as we approach the penthouse, the drop in the music accompanying a growing in volume as we step in the door. Glow glow glow glow blacklight smiles. How does something so liquid honey in color and consistency paint my face red? Oh right, yeah, I'm Asian.

Conclusion: Last weekend was fun.

yay snow!

The week was somewhat pensive. I enjoyed an elucidating walk to the Natural History Museum on Wednesday morning with VES -- it's not often that you walk somewhere and not have to think about where you're going because you're just following someone. It's that feeling I used to get from sitting on the bus, just letting it take me whereever. Blue skies, white ground. Nothing to worry about. Observing the young fisher weasel about to pounce and trying to capture its decisive petrified form, my thoughts began to wander away from my charcoal stained hands.

For the future... I think I would like a house or apartment with anything I could ever want in it. I would have things like longboards and rollerblades and a basketball court and gym in the basement. A dark room to develop film in and a projector room to show films. A lab full of electronics to play with 3 monitors to a desktop computer. A fully shelved grand bookcase in the study that is almost like a mini library, and a walk in color-organized wardrobe with a wall dedicated to just shoes. Also shiny cars in the garage. I'm so materialistic. It's not even that I'd use all of these things, in fact I know I probably wouldn't in day to day life. But it's in times like these when one gets weird urges that it's so convenient to just have these kinds of things around. Ah well, maybe when I'm rich.

Yeah I obviously have a creative urge right now hence why I am describing everyday events with overflourished language. I haven't written for so long, I wanted to update. But when I sat down to write because I had nothing else to do and didn't feel like doing anything else, these words just came pouring out. Write like crazy, live like mad -- just do whatever you feel like.

There is no place like 127.0.0.1

3 years in China
16 years in New Zealand
4 months in America
29 days in New Zealand

Home changes all the time. The longer you've been somewhere, the harder it gets to leave; the human tendency to 'settle' and colonize a certain area and call it 'home' is inescapable. It's so easy to get used to routine and often we're disturbed when we have to move. Of course there are prolonged travels, there are nomads and gypsies -- but in the end, we all come from somewhere and in the end we end up somewhere.

A certain kind of emotion is stirring in me again, not nearly as potent as it was when I first left this place but definitely the pain of severance rears itself against my nerves these few days. I will be gone for a longer time than I was before. Lots of things happen in a year, people can change a lot in a year. Maybe it will be interesting in the end.

So, where is home for me now? Maybe it is exciting to always be moving around at this age. Never really belonging anywhere, always darting between this place and the next and making new discoveries? Or perhaps... Home is where the heart is; home is 127.0.0.1.

(btw, does anyone know why pictures of the internet visualized are always blue? what's up with that)

Whoever I need to call, whenever I miss them -- these days we can be connected through the internet. This is the home that has never changed through the years for me. I was first exposed to the internet at the age of 6 or 7 by my dad, who gave me a personal computer in my room at the time. I set up my first email address at 9 and started using MSN. This was the beginning of a beautiful 10 year relationship that put me in contact with more people than you could ever imagine. Then facebook came along, naturally, and nowadays it seems anyone I want to keep in touch with is only a few clicks away. Whether in the northern or southern hemisphere, regardless of the miles that separate us, the simple act of logging in is enough to teleport our hearts closer together. I think there's something very homely in that, as if there is some virtual country where we can just appear and disappear from whenever and we feel close to the ones we love.

It's like a town right? You can go to the pub and catch up with friends (Facebook), hang out in a variety of places (MMOs, dota/sc2/lol), go to the library (Wikipedia), or to school (edX, TED), go to the movies (YouTube), go shopping (asos, amazon, ebay), do dodgy back alley drug deals (craigslist)...the list goes on. Honestly it's almost like an idyllic society where the only thing you don't do is eat. It's a utopia where people escape from their daily lives, but it's just as real as any other environment -- and because of that, we should aim to keep it accessible for everyone. It's almost more equal than the physical world in this way, since on the internet everyone starts off equal and everyone has an equal opportunity to resources regardless of where they are from.

Therefore, the death of Aaron Swartz is of course a tragedy -- one of the leading activists promoting open-source and free knowledge and information, purportedly driven to suicide by an arbitrary lawsuit. The upcoming and already-existing cyber warfare is probably only going to grow in the next few years, with governments repeatedly trying to instill more control and censorship, in an effort to create some kind of hierarchical system within the web. But let's think about this -- what we currently experience is perhaps the true democracy; the internet is truly run by the people. Anyone can become revered, and tossed aside again in a matter of seconds, depending on what the majority want or say, regardless of who they are in real life or what kind of background they come from. It's fast paced, instant, and absolutely addictive. And yet, the internet seems to be running generally smoother than the real world right now. Maybe we should let it be and see where it ends up, if only as a simulation model in a study of interest?

Obviously more complications come by in the physical world, but there's no need to instill the same level of control we have there into the virtual because of that, right? For some, it is the only remaining voice they have to voice opinion, and the access to free knowledge grows a better educated population not only within countries that can afford it but for the entire world -- we learn so much about people in places we have never even heard of, all within the time it takes to read a single forum post. For many, it is but an invaluable tool, and that is enough. But for me, it is one of the places I can truly consider home, the home I have grown up in and have relied on to be the baseline support that never changes. I'd like to keep living in this home with all my friends please, so let's try to keep it that way.


3 years in China
16 years in New Zealand
4 months in America
29 days in New Zealand
For everything else, there's Mastercard the Internet. :)

Keep in touch guys, I'll miss you kiwis in the next year eh.

And here we go again. 2013

The Last Sunset

NZ is a lot more beautiful than I remember, if that's even possible. I just got back from a 5 day road trip with friends over new years, where I actually made use of my camera for the first time properly (took over 1200 shots over that time haha). The story behind that photo... we wanted to catch the last sunset of the year, we were trying to find a high point around Kerikeri and we couldn't get to the coastline, it was about 2 minutes until sunset and we hit the end of a road we had been going back and forth on (did 4 U-Turns!), we figured at that point we couldn't really do anything except go forward and lo and behold, we found the cutest bay with an awesome view of the sunset. We also managed to catch some fish there, and it was awesome for photos :) so that went much better than expected. Sometimes the best experiences are unplanned. 

Anyway the road trip was a lot of fun, I didn't have many expectations of it beforehand, to be honest I only really agreed to go because I had nothing else to do over new years so I thought heck, why not. It's the first new years I've spent in New Zealand since 2010. Northland is freaking beautiful in the summer, I don't even know how else to put it honestly, so here's a scenery picspam.

 That's what I've been up to lately :) It was nice after two years of Christmas and New Years in winter to come back to NZ and experience summer during this time of year again. Though I actually arrived on Christmas day so I didn't really get that this year, and honestly felt a bit out of place after getting home because of the change in environment (since our house is being renovated, I couldn't actually return 'home', I had no clothes or any personal belongings that I didn't bring back with me because my parents just left it all under a plastic sheet at the old house), but the nice weather brought everything back together and I suppose some things just feel the same. Should be interesting to see more people during the next three weeks and see how interactions change haha.

It's the time of year when I make my new list of NYRs and look back at last year's and see how well I've done!

2012:
1) do your best in uni. No slacking off even if other people say it's easy - get your grades first and then play around :) 

I didn't miss a single class this whole semester! And even at AU I didn't miss many lectures either. I guess I did reasonably on exams, could have been better but I can't complain about my grades. I also really enjoyed the rest of college this year as well, growing up and meeting new people and all that, so overall I think I did a good job of balancing work/play this year.

2) if you are in America by the time you read this again, you are the man. 

Ok so I'm in NZ right now but the general gist of this is HIGH FIVE PAST WINNIE you did a good job on your applications. 2011 Winnie I love you so much for putting in the hard hours so that I can live such an awesome life right now (ofc also thanks to family and friends for continued support haha, it was a group effort obviously).


3) try new things - especially in uni, look for the things that might pique some genuine passion. Find the spark you lack. 

I think I tried a lot of new stuff this year. Moving to a new country and reinventing the self, trying out archery, taking econ for the first time, taking a computer science class on a whim and discovering what might turn into a major. Wow actually if I think about the year, in January I had no idea what I was doing in uni. I applied to Engineering/Arts and nothing else because that's what I wrote on my Scholarship form, I disregarded Architecture altogether, in hindsight that might have been because of a subconscious thought that I would be leaving the country so I didn't take my AU applications as seriously which is probably bad, but it paid off. Actually a BA/BE would not have been bad for me anyway, but I was going to major in Film/Media Studies except none of the classes fit with the first year Engineering schedule, so I decided to take Compsci 101 and Econ 111 instead -- both things I'd never really tried before. I discovered I like programming and I learned a lot about the world in Economics (it's actually applicable to everything I swear, it's just too bad I'm not good at it haha but I learned a lot this year through Econ 111 and Ec10). I also tried new hobbies like Archery -- I was just walking around the extracurriculars fair and saw the stall and signed up. Actually, I was really into Archery when I was younger and always wanted to try it because it seemed awesome to be able to shoot arrows, and now I actually do it :D Oh also I went to an intro breakdancing session where I learned the basic 6 step and baby freeze which I am still useless at, but it was fun.Trying new things is pretty cool, I want to do more of that.

4) GO AND FREAKING. WORK OUT YOU FAT SLOB. 

Ok so Billy and Will somehow convinced me this year to start working out at the gym with them, which I never thought would happen to be honest but I really enjoy it. It turned out to be easier than I expected actually, just a little bit every few days makes you feel really good even if your body is tired. It's a pity my routine kind of broke when I moved to America because of other things, I really want to put more time into gymming actually in the next year since it makes you feel good. As a result though, I got fatter when I returned from the US compared to how I was at the beginning of the year even though I worked out more this year =.= Dedication is key zzz. And I gotta lay off the honey butter on Sundays at Annenberg clearly.


5) get a job and earn some money :) becoming more independent even when support is there 

Oh sup CNSST tutoring job. Oh sup NCEA Campus tutoring job. Oh sup HSA Rover. This year was a good year for job exp. Oh yeah and there was that one afternoon at Bakers Delight where I almost dropped a platter of pastries and realized those kinds of jobs just aren't for me hahaha. Man I actually did a lot this year now that I think about it, tutoring feels like soooo long ago but it was only within the last 12 months. Crazyyyyy.

6) be socially conscious 

I'm not exactly sure what this means ._. Sorry Past Winnie. I'm sure your intentions were good. If it helps, I gave $3.50 to a contact juggler the other day at mission bay? He was pretty legit though.


7) keep in touch with old friends 

I did, I think. Well it's been a rocky patch in terms of friendship since I moved countries. Hopefully things return (/have returned?) to normal. I met a lot of new people this year through uni and college as well though, its been cool. It's also been kind of hard to keep in contact with certain people from high school -- really made me realize that if you want to stay in touch with some people you have to put in the effort, and sometimes they aren't interested as well so that's kind of a bummer. I pretty much skype high school friends once a month though, and other close friends even more frequently than that. FB message is a thing. I stopped using MSN this September. It's been a cool 10 years.


8) again -- have more reasons to smile than frown :)

Well, it's certainly been an emotional year, that's for sure. Between the tears and laughter (both uncontrollable mind you), I've enjoyed both sides of life. Actually this is the first time I've felt something touch me on this level. Maybe I was just emotionally stunted before, but I think I've gained the ability to feel something real finally. Something like I'm no longer a robot. Someone told me once that Life is much easier if you just don't care, but I think it's more along the lines of, Life is easier if you care -- but not about yourself, about others around you to the point where their decisions become yours. It's not about being apathetic, but about being more easy-going and open to others' points of view, to be more accepting and less stubborn. This is still something I have to practise especially with my family whose intentions and mine seem to conflict a lot these days, but I'm learning I guess. 

Actually I'm not sure how that was relevant to the resolution at hand here ahhaaha, I just thought of it though. That's ok too. It's been an overall good year. I regret nothing; I've learned so much and though there was sadness it made me into a better person. So at the end of the year when I was watching that sunset, I was smiling. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful year.

This years NYRs??

1) The Usual Academic Resolution

2) The Usual Exercise-Related Resolution

3) The Usual Social Resolution -- New and Old Friends

4) Create a more comfortable self. Don't slip back into fickleness.

5) Be more patient with others, less self-absorbed, think of others' needs.

6) Gain experience in the field. Try get an internship, see if CS is the right path for you

7) Read more

8) As always, Have more reasons to smile than frown.

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I don't know where else to put this, too.

I don't know if you think of this at all still, but anyway on New Years day, I was listening to music on my phone and that song came up. It reminded me of you and a lot of memories came up and it made me somewhat emotional, but I realized that things weren't right at that time anyway. It's probably for the best that things happened the way they did, though I know I caused you a lot of pain at that time. Because I realized that you can't say you wrote this, you wrote this for me -- when you have sang the same song for others before. One day you will find someone for whom you won't repeat the same songs for. That person will be worth a new leaf in your story, a fresh playlist. I want that for you because you are worth it. I'll always be around, just not in that way. 

Don't talk to me about this, I just like to know that you've read it. I hope you understand.