… love means not loving for a while
… we have to take a risk
… singing offkey is the best sound in the world
… a hug from the right person makes all the difference
… we just want a piggy back ride
… we don’t know why
… it takes being apart to appreciate being together
… you are my sunshine
… it takes a detour to show us where the real path is
… we just have to leave it up to faith
… life has funny little surprises
… even our best friends can’t help us
… it takes a really really long time to realize the values of a decision
… life is unreasonably hard
… life shows us unexpected rays of sunshine
… we contradict ourselves
… it’s okay to just float along because we honestly don’t know what else to do
… we have to trust that everything will work out for the best
I read this quote somewhere recently: “Why is it that when we are young we spend our health for wealth, and as we get older we spend our wealth for health?” Kinda made me think … am I spending my health for wealth? I think I’m spending my health for pleasure, whatever that may be.
On another note, I am utterly undecided about a halloween costume. I think this is the first year that I have truly cared about a costume. I sure as hell didn’t bother with one last year. I remember going to somebody’s party in Tang in wind pants and a white tshirt (Ed’s? Liangs? dunno …)
So this year, I want a costume that is nice, clever, recognizable, but not slutty. Nice as in looks nice, not dress up nice. I would also prefer to buy as little stuff as possible, because I’m cheap like that. I’ve got a couple of more days to think about it …
I feel like I am at a major cross roads in my life. I want too many things, and it is impossible to have all of it, but it is also impossible for me to make a decision. Phil’s right … I do have it pretty good … but I’m still not quite satisfied. I don’t think that makes me a bad person. Sure, I am selfish and sometimes inconsiderate maybe, but I don’t think I am alone in being selfish, and I still don’t think that I am a bad person.
Maybe I try to make myself older than I actually am sometimes. Maybe it’s because I never lived the “typical” college life that I somehow want to start now. Or maybe I just don’t quite know what to do with myself and how to rein in with some self-control. I think it is bad when I have to think about how to justify my decisions to others: friends, family, and then of course myself. I don’t want to hurt other people, but in the end I don’t want myself to get hurt. But maybe that’s just it … my selfishness has gotten to a level where I am seriously considering letting all else go and just make myself as happy as possible right now and then deal with consequences, say 3 months later.
I keep running into UVA kids everywhere. For how huge that school is, and how varied its graduates are, I sure as heck run into a lot of people from there. In addition to the episode over the summer, I ran into a girl I know on my most recent plane trip down to DC. My department sponsored a Sam Adams Brewery Tour Friday evening, and I ran into a girl wearing a Virginia Nursing shirt.
Last Thursday night, Ryan and I went to a schmoozing event at Ropes & Gray, one of the law firms who hired him for next summer. I randomly ran into a girl I knew from UVA. Her husband goes to UVA Law, and got an offer from the same firm, so they flew up here to Boston for the same mixer event.
Saturday, while walking home across the BU bridge, I stopped to check out the traffic on the river and watch some scullers start their Head of the Charles race. While stopped and gazing at the river, I heard my name called. It was an UVA friend who came into town to watch the races. How random that she happened to walk by where I was standing on the bridge?
Anyway, that’s 4 random UVA sighting in less than a month. That’s not to mention all the people I saw at the UVA vs. BC football game, but that’s not exactly random since many alums went.
I went schmoozing today. No joke. TechLink had a LeaderLink event, and although I still have reservations about TechLink, and I have issues with a rather elitist/exclusive “LeaderLink” event, I became the hypocrite and went and schmoozed over wine and lasagna. TechLink is supposed to bring together MIT main campus (ie the scientists and engineers) and Sloan (MIT’s business school), but the events are really just occasions for people to get wined and dined. I did not see much accomplished by tonight’s event except an opportunity for some people to feel rather self-important.
The event did clue me in to the fact that maybe I’m not so angry anymore. Being able to schmooze and endure two hours of small-talk with complete strangers with a semi-good attitude probably means that I am out of my angry/depressed phase. It also gave me new confidence in my newly-found ability to ask questions regarding just about anything.
The questions-asking is a part of me finally following the great advice that someone once gave me regarding schmoozing … the key is to keep asking the other person engaging questions about things that they do, things that they are familiar with. So what student group are you a part of? Ah, isn’t there also a venture capital interest group as well? What is the difference between entrepreneurship group and the VC group? What interactions do your group have with main campus? Do you see one department dominating the entrepreneurial pursuits coming out of Sloan/main campus interactions?
Anyway, my semi-good mood was killed by a semi-not-so-good phone conversation later tonight. It brought back bad memories of the angry phase, and made me question some of the decisions that I made afterwards. But questions are just that … questions … for now. Should I just shrug off the bad phone convo and move on? *sigh* maybe … we shall see.
My first real bike is now gone forever. Sometime between Friday 6:30pm and Saturday 1:30pm, my beloved bike got stolen. I have only had it for a year, but what a year it has been. I loved that bike and learned many bike-related skills with it. Adding insult to injury, also stolen with the bike were the following accessories: bar ends, front/rear lights, relatively new brake pads, and a pump attachment. I don’t even have a picture of the bike … only memories, and some remants of the ability to semi-fix/adjust derailleurs.
The bike got me hooked on Gary Fisher, though. In sticking with the Fisher loyalty … my new bike is a Gary Fisher Wahoo. It’s even a few steps up from the Tarpon I had before the thief came along; I also now have front suspension. I’m also out some cold hard cash and some serious sentimental values. *sigh* what do you do?
bye bye old bike: 
hello new bike: 
Today, I successfully sorted through all of the random files that I have accumulated over the years and neatly categorized them into labeled hanging file folders. I found my old MIT admissions letter welcoming me to the MIT Class of 2004, as well as a couple of confirmation “we have received your application” letters. One of these instructs me on how to check my application status online using my MIT ID number.
Lo and behold! That number given to me in a letter dated September 1, 1999 is the same ID number that I now have at MIT. Talk about keeping records! They kept my records and ID number from the first time I applied to MIT. When I applied again as a grad student, they gave me that same number back. Amazing
Some people say I am a pack rat, but I would have never discovered this intriguing detail with the ID numbers unless I were a pack rat. I guess the argument also goes that if I weren’t such a pack rat, I probably wouldn’t really care anyway that my ID number has stayed the same through two separate admissions applications to MIT.
Once again, I have neglected to post pictures until much later after they were taken. Here are three sets of pictures from the past few months. They are also accessible through my gallery page.
Acadia National Park - This trip took place at the end of June. Originally, I was just going camping with some friends. Then, as circumstances had it, I joined an adventure race team that was missing a female teammate at the last minute. The trip was tons of fun, with the first day full (12 hours) of biking, hiking, canoeing. We biked a total of 40 miles, including a 45 min, 5-mile uphill climb of 2000 ft. We hiked to the top of 5 or 6 summits, and we canoed across and back the length of a lake. Exhausted, my second day at Acadia was spent eating and swimming in a warm warm Lake Wood.
Chicago, IL - At the end of July, Ryan had to go to Chicago for a large patent law job fair/interview conference thing. Because he was to be there for interviews on Thursday and Friday, I decided to join him in Chicago and see the city together. I also got a chance to see an old friend from junior high school in West Lafayette, IN, who drove up to Chicago to meet us. We also met a couple of friends of hers in Chicago. All in all, it was a lot of fun: we took a skyscrapers tour, went to the top of one of the tallest buildings in the world, and ate dim sum at Chinatown :)
Charlottesville, VA - I had an alumni event back in Charlottesville during the last weekend of September. So, Ryan decided to join me in going back to UVA, and we visited with some old friends, went to our usual eateries, hung out on the lawn on a beautiful day, and reminesced about our times at Ole Virginia.
I scare myself sometimes. For example, the last entry on transient friendships. To some extent, that wasn’t an over-exaggeration; I really don’t care about certain people enough to want to talk to them right now. On the other hand though, I find that I am still perfectly capable of making small talk and being “cheery” these past couple of days … despite the more ugly side of the current thoughts running through my head.
Thus, on to a related subject … small talk and saying “how are you”. Many foreign/international students have told me about their confusion regarding the phrase “how are you?” What does it really mean, and why do we use it so often here in the States? I suppose in most other countries, asking “how are you?” is still genuine, and it is a sincere extension of the asker’s wish to know how one’s life is. We here in America, on the other hand, use it as a substitute for hello.
Countless small talks over the past few days have started with “so, how are you shan?” to which my response is always: cock my head for a couple of seconds as if I’m seriously pondering the question, followed by “I’m doing pretty well actually”, followed by an internal struggle of “do I let the beans out of the bag, or don’t I let the beans out of the bag.”
Really, my small talk partners have no intention of hearing everything that I have to say about “how I am doing today,” nor do I have any desire of telling him/her my whole life story. I have actually consciously tried to stop asking people “how are you?” in an effort to make some actual conversation instead of small talk. I hate it that I use a seemingly empty phrase. Most of the time however, no matter how hard I try, I find that it’s just too hard to find something else appropriate to say besides the idiomatic hello. Usually, when I start to sense that split second of potentially awkward silence, I avoid it at all costs and pick the easiest thing to say. So, how are you doing today?