sigh

Quarter is already half done.

meaningless post

dislikes:

-people who brag about how little they study, how little they sleep, how much they procrastinate...
-people who open with their mouthes open

"We live in a society where comfort has become a value and a life goal. But comfort reduces our motivation for introducing important transformations in our lives. Sadly, being comfortable often prohibits us from chasing our dreams. Many of us are like lions in the zoo: well-fed but sit around passively stuck in a reactive rut. Comfort equals boring shortsightedness, and a belief that things cannot change. Your comfort zone is your home base, a safe place not to stay in, but to return to, after each exhausting and exhilarating expedition through the wilderness of life. Take a look at your life today, if you are enjoying a shelter of comfort, break through it and go outside where life awaits."

college-esqe essay for bank of america scholarship

Tell us about your educational and career goals and objectives. (1000 char)


for the future...

this past weekend

1. NYR #4 Find a group

I had just spent a few hours with Esther and her friends, showing them around campus, sneaking them into the dining halls, then exploring Evanston, I dropped them off at the concert hall they were going to (to watch their friend perform in a concerto), and I left to celebrate one of my friend's birthdays at Cafe 527. In the end, it wasn't that worth going to (I know her, but not familiar with her group), but I, luckily, was forced to leave early because I had to return an NU ID card back to a kid. I went to Focus (AAIV's large group) afterwards, then went to Redmango with some people. Started walking into Evanston to RedMango with some guys a met a while back during AAIV Fall Overnight.

I didn't have any Froyo (because it doesn't taste good and it's overpriced, although Yofurt Parfait is another story =P), but the guys I was with talked about watching a movie back at their dorm. I agreed - really, I had nothing better to do.

These two guys, Silas and Brandon, and I walked back to Silas's South-Campus dorm, and soon we were joined by Eric and Yuchi. Five guys (harhar) in one dorm room watching Zombieland.

Five guys is definitely enough; I don't know why, but we all seem to hit it off well with each other. None of us were party animals, but none of us were super anti-social...they were just...REAL guys. Descriptions..

Brandon is black. He reminds me of Raishad actually. He met Silas at FUP.
Silas is asian, and he actually doesn't remind me of anyone. He's just one of those chill guys..
Eric actually sort of reminds me of Billy--tall and skinny. However, he follows sports, but he did graduate from a huge nerdy school, so yeah..
Yuchi is a piano major. He actually reminds me of Phil...before he became so open with his opinions on girls. Of the 4, I probably know him the least, but he seems like a very sociable type of guy.

So, that was an epic day in my college career. Of course, I still have a long time to go, but this group definitely seems much more promising then my other ones. AAIV this year for some reason has some great influx of females, and the other college guys are just after girls. I was going to say alcohol and partying, but that's only a substep.

I ended up watching the Ravens - Steelers with those guys the next day, and 8 episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender on Sunday night.

2. I met my client for EDC today.

3. Internships

I will expand more later on those topics (maybe), but I have entire classes I don't understand right now, in which I have midterms in 2 weeks. I plan to sleep at normal times this quarter (pre 2am?)...so far I have failed.

--
PS..I also watched "The Following" by Christopher Nolan with the camera girl/Birthday girl in this post and 2 other people on Saturday night. Interesting movie....definitely recommend it. It's only an hour long.

3 movies in 3 nights! wooohooooo....

When I say, "orange," phonetically, I say, "ah-range."

The "Ah" as in squirrels saying Allen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaPepCVepCg

Everyone else I know says "or-range."

I've had a semi-accent on one word (I think it's New York) for 18 years and had no idea...

I have eaten
the COLD BLACK COFFEE
that was in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
it was delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--

sitting in the library and drinking cold black coffee. i don't know why it taste so good, but it does!

i hope you caught the sexual innuendos in this poem of mine.

and the quarter has kicked into its 1st gear, slowly but surely getting busier.

I celebrated my roommate's birthday today with his family and girlfriend. Put simply, his family is extremely wealthy. Yet they're so down-to-earth. His dad has a goof-ball sense of humor and his mother has...a motherly sense of a humor (I don't know how to describe....but one that would be appropriate for a mother to have) which translating into my roommate and his sister having this goof-ball humor.


We went to a fancy Italian restaurant, and I ordered a soup ($8) with Salmon Pasta ($15), only because everyone else was getting soup and salad, and I didn't want to be the odd one without a "Primi." They sipped glasses of wine and casually bantered, throwing stories hear and there (my roommate is quite the storyteller).

It's just an entirely different vibe from my family (and I daresay) and Asian households.

Better...or worse? I'm not positive, but I would say better. Asian households always seem to be in a rush, extremely goal-oriented people. You make a list, and you finish it. When you finish it, you better start making another list.

SATs? Okay good, College? Great, Job? Excellent, wife? Nice, kids? Awesome, college for the kids?

Them? ...I don't know.

The dinner was delicious though, and the waiters looked like Mario and Luigi.
----

On a side note, I went on a 1 day 1 night ski trip this weekend. Slopes were tiny, so I decided to work on rails. After many times of chickening out, I started going on them. Hard, yes. But not as painful as I thought....sometimes. Grinded my first rail =P

Also I should've known that overnight ski trip with college kids = alcohol at night. Luckily we played a dare or drink game, so I just did all the dares. And again, luckily, I didn't get any sexual dares, just nasty ones, which I'm fine with.

Drunk people are funny until....

One of my good friends (when I say good, many like....top 5 people I got to know at NU) had ONE shot. But she's a severe lightweight (think 5'7" and under 100 lbs), and she was just out of it after 30 minutes after she took it (she was also running on an hour of sleep after a day of snowboarding).

The other guys got drunk, and one of them was clearly trying to flirt/take advantage of her inebriation.

Not fucking cool.

I don't disapprove of alcohol. But I disapprove of a lot of activities it is related too, and I fear for girls who don't realize the danger, especially someone like her who can get pretty tipsy after a single shot.

To give you an idea, I talked to her on the bus this morning, and told her about how one of the guys tried to get her to keep drinking (after she was clearly wayyy too drunk). She was going to accept until me and the other part-sober girl in the room quickly decided to intervene. When we stopped the interaction, she told me in the morning, her mind slowly was like "Yeahh...maybe it's not a good idea I don't..."

Maybe.

Career, Happiness, and the Future

tbc

First College Break..the End

I should go to sleep real soon since I have to wake up at 5 tomorrow for my flight, but...

college right now...feels like a dream. It almost feels like I never left. Weird...but back to reality tomorrow.

Tomorrow-

-Organize dorm room-check
-See what books I need-check
-Get a schedule for the quarter (study, eating, exercise)
-Write stuff to people, goodbyes
-get quarters for laundry-check
-deposit money-bank was closed
-notebooks for classes?
-finish and submit resume-finished, but website was down

12/28 to 12/31

Memorable week, I feel like I should record it.

12/28 - Hadn't seen Grace in a while, went to visit with Esther and David with plans to go sledding...but ended up heading to JLi's house, playing games, watching SlumDog

12/29 - Battery Park with Billy, Eddie, Jenny, Jia...acme for ingredients, then dinner afterwards, then Black Swan after that. "Spam and Cola"

12/30 - Bollywood Night at Neelima's house. Went with Eddie...interesting. started watching Lady Vengeance...weird film. Just wasn't in the mood for it, but good to chill with a new group and not feel awkward.

12/31 - Breakfast at Friendly's, Infection at my house, then n64 smash, then WCEC for Sarah Yeh's going away party, Allen's for the annual new years countdown

1/1 Hasn't happened yet, but today will be a great family bonding day....for the crap I put my parents through for this week

Another goal:
Keep in contact with more people. TIME, TIME, TIME MANAGEMENT.

Hello, 2011

I have many hopes and ambitions for you.

1. Be Me. That day at the mall with Billy? That was me.
2. Be sincere, be real. With my faith, with my parents, with my friends, with strangers.
3. Find a passion
4. Find a group. Sadly, I don't have one settled group at college. I have scattered ones...
5. Reserve judgment, be humbled
6. Love my family better (they definitely deserve it)
7. Be a better brother (not just biological)
8. Get good grades, Learn two more programming languages. (Over $9000 of tuition says this should be here.)
9. Exercise, be healthy (I say this should be here)
10. Budget better (this one may be surprising to people)

Most of these are vague and hardly quantifiable...but this will be it.

Basically, this translates to...Be more open-hearted, get more involved with AAIV, study/exercise in the afternoon, socialize at night, love my family more.

Goodbye, 2010.

 I want to say you were the best year, but I'm afraid I can't forget a plethora of shit that happened. Let's be open here, I could pretend to be all pretentious and austere and use grandiloquent words...but let's be real and sincere. I don't think "negatives" suffices.

Don't let me be mistaken, there were plenty of spectacular and exciting moments and seasons that happened in 2010.

///"End" of Senior Year.
I remember Billy and I celebrated at Friendly's a year ago for finally finishing applications. The feeling of going through High School and just not studying for tests is unmatched. Sure, the application results were nerve-racking to wait for...but I applied to reasonable schools, schools within my reach. Except for three of course, but I never really cared for Brown (at least not nearly as much as a certain person), I only applied to WashU for the Multicultural Week, and Cooper Union...well. Honestly, I'd rather go to Northwestern for the "true college experience," but the fact that CU was mind-numbingly cheaper made me want to go. I dreamt of that full scholarship, but never achieved it...but I didn't really expect it.

I got into my dream school of my early high school days, but didn't go. (Okay, let's be honest about this one. I  definitely did NOT deserve to get into Cal, but CA was poor, therefore Out-Of-Staters=CashMoney.)

I guess I'm painting my college application process and bit to picture perfect. I feel like the most important decision out of the entire process was settling on engineering. What a decision of pure luck--

(Man, I am mad tangenting.) I think I've written about why I chose Northwestern, but I'll summarize. Fall 2009, during application process, I dumbly thought that I wanted to become a doctor, so I applied to all these silly 7-year medical programs, making up stories about why I wanted to become a doctor. Most of the schools were schools that I never would have gone to without the program, so when I say I got into 10 schools...really it's not saying much at all. Northwestern was one of the few (next to Brown's PLME program) colleges that I applied to that had an academic reputation for their school, even without the program.

The reason I applied to Northwestern was for their HPME (Honors Program in Medical Education) Program.  When you apply, you can choose between applying for a science or engineering undergraduate, and I remember this conversation with Billy where I simply chose engineering on a whim. This was crucial later on in 2010...

Basically, once I finally came to my senses and decided on Engineering, even if it did have lower pay than Pharmacy (at RU) or MD's...it was what I wanted to do (or closer to what I wanted. I still don't know for sure).

Sure, my mom still bugs me every time I come back about going Engineering Pre-med, or switching to Bio-Premed (she thinks I'm amazing at Bio because I did well in AP), but I shrug it off. I'm at ease with Engineering though--I couldn't imagine myself studying for anything else.

Future Topic: My thoughts on Pre-meds

///Senior Year In General

I'm cheating here, but I hardly think of years as in actual years, but more like academic years. Basically, I'm going to include 2009 winter break in this 2010 summary too. Vermont Ski Trip - one of the best seasons of my life. Two full weeks of snow days? Epic senior year. Not having to pay for it in make up days because we're seniors? Even better. Getting out of Charter before it started sucking? Great.

///Senior Summer
Honestly, I don't remember much of it, but I do remember it was fun. FIFA parties every single day, camping,  VBS, workcamp, Six Flags...honestly, I could probably write a paragraph about all of those, but I'll save you (the reader who actually stays awake reading this boring, sub-par crap), the details. I will note that workcamp was really good for me in that I finally got to know some of the younger YG kids.

///Graduation
....was kind of boring, but I feel like it's sort've a big deal. It's nice to finally be able to put "High School Graduate" on those drop-down menus for random websites rather than "Middle School Graduate" or "Didn't Graduate." I guess it was the feeling of finally getting done with High School.

///Taiwan/Japan
I regret not being happier during these trips. I'm terribly sorry for my Mom and the things I make her go through. What an awesome trip. Delicious food, great sites....it's still weird for me to say "I've been to Japan."

///Beginning of College
-My awesome awesome roommate. I could not have made a better roommate (think Sims).
-Great people that care. I've never been "surprised" on my birthday, so being surprised by people I'd only known for 2 months? Quite surprising.

//2010 Winter Break
-Living in a Presidential Suite for the first time! (and most likely, only time)
-Learning to snowboard (check off the bucketlist!)
-Getting to know people better. This one is surprising, I didn't expect this to happen after everyone left for college, but...it did.

Notice my college list is a bit short. I came to college with a lot of goals and expectations, and I'm afraid I just didn't work hard enough for them. Therefore, a lot of my NYResolutions will be my College goals...again.

As for the "crap" that happened during 2010, I don't really want to put it in print. Most likely, all of it was directly and completely my fault. Lack of judgment, lack of trust, stupidity, poor time management--all normal causes of problems, but it just happened during such a big transition year that everything was (or seemed) much worse.

2010....the highs were so high, but the lows were so low. I might prefer a more moderate 2009 though, I'm not quite sure. What I can say though is that 2006-2010 overall...were pretty much the best years of my life. Far, far better than life in New Jersey. Thank you, Delaware.

I don't consider myself a New Jerseyian.