New and Old
I’m sitting in my “childhood” bedroom (at least, my middle school, high school, and pandemic-era bedroom, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it). It’s 3:48 pm on a late December day, meaning that it is twilight. Yesterday was the winter solstice, which I didn’t realize until my mom called to me late last night to eat tangyuan (sticky rice balls) for the special occasion.
Many things look the same. For instance, my two BTS posters (dated 2016/2017), Hunter X Hunter and another anime art (pre-2016), the map of Tajikistan (2018) are stuck as stubbornly onto the wall as ever, and my slowly growing collection of stuffed animals that line my bedframe and dresser tops (except for Paul, a stuffed dog that I take with me to college, back home, and pretty much anywhere I go). And, the sun streaming in from my window, which faces the neighbors’ backyard. Peacefulness peaks both at around 11 am in the morning and right about now, when the setting sun slides in, over their chimney in pale yellow and periwinkle and the unnamed colors in-between them — right onto my lap.
Of course, there are also some new things. The little satin bags of earrings I brought back from college, ever since I started liking adorning my ears with cute dangly shapes (my necklace phase has passed). A couple of new wintry sweaters shoved into my laundry hamper, fuzzy and relieved at their release from my frantic shoulders. A new comforter cover with pastel floral patterns, that my mom tucked onto my bedding while I was away. Some books, newly obtained or unearthed from the recesses of our shelves — poetry (Franny Choi’s Soft Science, Joan Naviyuk-Kane’s Dark Traffic — she was my prof!), a memoir or two (Danielle Geller’s Dog Flowers), and one of those nonfiction books where saying you’ve read it is more satisfying than actually reading it (Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow; I know people highly recommend it but I’ve failed to make it past 20 pages).
And altogether, these old and new things form some kind of new-old thing, a timeless thing. A memory, if you will. In their amalgamation, I approach each parcel with the fractious and fluid framings of everything around it, and seeing each through the transparencies of the others lets me perceive it with much more lyric.
(Though it still feels as if my words are escaping me — sometimes, they come out and I don’t know what they mean, though I guess if I had somehow produced them, that some part of me is formulating that essence to give rise to meaning, that will take form in its own time.)
Regardless, this rumination is tenuously tied to how I have felt about the past few months, returning to “normalcy” in my college life.
There were many of the old things — my favorite spots in Harvard Square (Smith Campus Center, Flour Bakery), dining hall catch-ups with friends and acquaintances, brisk walks through Harvard Yard as I marveled at the autumn leaves scattering light like colored glass, many hours spent fast-walking, speaking Japanese, and dancing in Northwest Building (a long story), and the pace of social and academic expectation pulsing like an undercurrent vein until I couldn’t even tell whether it was the vibrations around me or just my own heart, doing its own little freakout.
And, the new things, so many new things — the few hours of piano-destress time I stole from my Google Calendar, basking in the silliness of Currier coffeehouses, weekly virtual lunch dates with my sister, the engine exhales of the shuttle pulling up to the Quad at 12:15 am (home), lots of tendu-ing and cha-cha-ing, self-ejection from recruiting and toxic CS culture (mostly), untimed and spontaneous heart-to-hearts, and an opening of my own self more readily than before.
So, being back in college for the past few months was a serendipitous deja vu. I felt ages older (unexaggerated, two years), yet oddly new. I felt like I was returning home to a territory I didn’t need a map to navigate, but I still had to gather a few threads of light to discern where it was that I really wanted to go —
— which was someplace with more of my honest joy. (I think).
Even though I had to literally carve out that time for me at the price of sleep and career advancement and other life factors pertinent to young people, I am still glad that I did it. For instance,
for at least 2/3 of the semester, every Thursday, I had ballet class 7:30 - 9 pm in the Quad, then hitched a shuttle to head to ballroom in the Yard at 9:30 - 11:30 pm (and we had ballroom dance at the same time on Tuesdays as well).
On some early evenings where I got back to the Quad, I would just grab my piano books and bang out some old songs to destress, even with assignments looming.
I’d bring my journal to the Yard and schedule in journaling time on the 10th floor of Smith, instead of doing work.
I decided to not recruit after one week of attempting to do so, with take-home assignments and the whole shebang that really ruined my schedule.
I took a creative nonfiction writing class to make a lil mental alcove for my inner writer :) Related to this, I did not take any Computer Science courses (only STAT110, Introduction to Probability for my math requirement), and took EMR133, a class about race & gender!
Reflecting, I still feel twinges of guilt at my seeming non-productivity, most of which relates to recruiting and CS — I didn’t recruit for product management internships like I intended, while everyone around me seemed to be achieving that & other tech-related milestones. Not having really done that much formal CS at Harvard, I also felt behind and a bit isolated from the CS-heavy community I felt more immersed in during the prior few years because of my involvement with WECode (Women Engineers Code). (This maybe is also because a lot of CS classes are now in the new engineering complex, which I did not have to travel to at all).
At the same time, I know these decisions were wholly by and of me, what I needed and/or wanted, so while I still feel guilt, I do not feel regret. Instead, I recall the absolute exhilaration when I finally got the quickstep, the buzzed tingle of my fingers after a piano session, the sheer honesty of my sleepy scribbles, and even how my writing professor simply affirmed to me that I was a writer (a statement I would contest, and still do sometimes). All of that and much more than I can mention in this piece: I will mosaic those time snippets into my conception of joy for as long as I can remember.
And now, a more summarized retrospective about my semester (and I guess a bit of my summer, since I didn’t get to write an explicit post reflecting on that time & prepping goals for the fall), along with my continued goals.
1. Stay connected with people you care about; actively reach out to those you connect with / find cool! With less worry!
I am really happy that I was able to deepen a few relationships with people that I met earlier, freshman year, or during the pandemic — my mom asked me if I think I have met lifelong friends in college, and I can wholeheartedly say that I have <3 I can be quite cynical, but the fact that in this warped world, I have encountered people who are so lovely, kind, passionate, cool, and so... them, makes my heart happy.
Unfortunately, because I got busy and stressed as the semester went on, I was less on top of reaching out to those I haven’t seen in a while, and also new acquaintances. I also have dropped the ball a few times. Like last blog post, I still get really stuck in my head & and don't reply for a bit, and then I blink and weeks fly by and then I get so guilty it's even harder to reply...
So for the spring, I hope to challenge myself by
reaching out more to new people in my classes (at least twice?), and
to be more proactive when it comes to acquaintances that I don’t intentionally meet up with enough.
This entails reaching out when I drop the ball & being as sincere as possible about it
I used to keep light track in my planner, which I think worked well (This winter, I hope to reach out to a few people at home!).
One point I worry about is that because I often prefer, and have, one-on-one friendships, and don’t really have a “group,” is that I might end up lonely or deprioritized by others. In essence, those I call my friends seem to have other groups that they are a part of, whereas I do not. So, I sometimes feel like I’m floating in the galaxy, drawn into solar system orbits but never enough to be enclosed in a central sphere of gravity.
(Perhaps another goal will be to better cherish & cultivate my relationships as they crop up, instead of feeling inferior to those who seem like they have it “better” than I do.)
2. Advocate for yourself, and be honest with your needs and wants; set your boundaries.
I did well with my internship at least! Although it caused me significant stress in the latter half of my internship with my project scope change and my unfamiliarity with virtual “networking,” I really advocated for my own learning, visibility, and exposure to new fields.
I also did a decent job at honest communication within personal relationships — I give less of a shit what people think about me and that’s finally starting to show (I think), so I wonder if that is off-putting. But that doesn’t really matter, does it? Although, I know it makes me more adverse to group social situations, where I feel like I have to put on more of a face to accommodate whatever culture is dominant — or at least play up certain sides of me while suppressing others (ex: tech-oriented vibes, “wholesome” vibes). And now that I’ve gotten tired of doing that (which I did my best for, in freshman/gap year with doing linguistics, CS, artsy activities, etc.), I really hate pretending I’m something I’m not anymore.
This got a bit long-winded... but now, I hope to continue advocating for myself with
friendships! Though I’ve gotten better at honesty, I still have trouble expressing my wants & boundaries (ex: I often ask people their preferences first & tend to go along with it) because I am a people-pleaser to some degree. So, I hope that I can confront issues when I feel uncomfortable or simply have another opinion.
career & interest-advancement! A repercussion of my slant away from career-oriented stress, to prioritize my own joy, is that I’ve developed a more intense fear of judgment on my professional/ambitious self. So I want to take baby steps — learning more about PM jobs, and even about writing submissions.
academics & extracurriculars! being confident in expressing my expertise, seeking help, and perhaps even volunteering responsibility (though, to a healthy degree that isn’t at the cost of my mental sanity; see next point).
3. Take care of your mental and physical health.
Both this summer & this fall, I made time for myself (mentioned earlier)! I recorded one of these self-dates here — and I made many treat-myself-lunch-dates to Flour Bakery, though they often doubled as cafe work sessions.
I did read in the summer (Goodbye, Again by Jonny Sun; Breasts & Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, parts of Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino) and journal or write 1x a week! I journaled ~5-6 times this semester, which I’d say is quite successful. I did fun physical activities (yoga/outdoor classes in NY, ballet/ballroom at school), but unfortunately did not get enough rest in the fall — I had to wake up at 8 am every day, sad.
I fell off the wagon a few times w.r.t. ED things: incidents were (thankfully?) mostly composed of negative thought spirals that chased me for days, meaning I was definitely half-distracted at any class, meeting, or appointment I had (but I mostly didn’t engage in self-destructive physical behavior, hence the thankfully. though that success can make the bad thoughts louder). I’m better at rescuing myself though, which is an improvement :’)
This spring semester, I hope to take care of myself mentally by
Going on self-dates & taking alone time when I want to,
Doing 1:1 catch-up with friends,
journaling or writing every 2 weeks!
limiting screentime to ~3 hours a day (this will be difficult, hmm)
reading one book (seems very minimal... but the count was 0 this semester. tears)
maybe find a therapist (I meant to do this, but it didn’t work out)
weighing marginal cost vs. benefit (such as when doing homework! so I hope to continue this so I don’t put in too much effort at the cost of my sanity, for very little reward)
And physically,
eating enough & when/what/how much I want regardless of dumb food rules and "shoulds"
engaging in gentle nutrition!
doing fun movement activities when I want to (bonus: with friends), like yoga or Pilates — and dance of course!
resting when I want & need to
sleeping by 2 am!
This winter, I hope to work on all the physical-related goals, and also read a lot! I’m rereading the YA fantasy series Fablehaven (I reread all of PJO/HOO last winter), and I also hope to read Let’s Not Talk Anymore (a graphic novel my sis got for me), Dog Flowers (Danielle Geller), White Magic (Elissa Washuta), and Burn this Down (essay collection). And of course, I hope to do a bit of gardening to tidy my overgrown thoughts with blog-post-writing, journaling, catching up on shows, etc. :)
4. Dare to learn what you are genuinely excited to learn without worrying about being “great” or “perfect.”
At least the first part: yes, I did it! I’m glad I got to stretch my creative energies with my writing class, and learned about fascinating theories, methods & perspectives in my Ethnicity, Migration & Rights class, and a lot more about Japanese.
For writing, I was so inspired by my peers, and also my writing professor — and was also encouraged by how they pointed out my unique strengths <3
And, about 2/3 of the way into the semester was when I finally could slowly string together my spontaneous thought in Japanese. That made me super proud of myself because most of the time in class, I’m too anxious & rushed to gather all my thoughts and knowledge to piece together complex utterances.
This is open to interpretation for the spring! I trust in you, self :)
5. Create and/or do something you’re proud of and excited about.
I did end up writing 8-ish poems this summer, and also got a return offer for my internship :) Some other things:
Wrote my poem “dance is”, which was published The Wave Art Magazine’s Fall 2021 issue! (part of the creative essay from my writing class, though that is still a WIP)
Created this clickable Figma journey-zine about the experiences of Asian-American women (from my Ethnicity, Migration & Rights class)
Learned the basics of four styles of ballroom dance!! (standard: waltz, quickstep, tango, slow foxtrot kinda; latin: cha-cha, rumba, samba; rhythm: cha-cha, rumba, swing; smooth: waltz, foxtrot, tango kinda)
Wrote a long-ass essay about the glass ceiling in Japanese companies
Helped Harvard Tech for Social Good run a successful second semester of UX projects!
Planned an elaborate birthday-note poster & cake celebration for my friend!
Got the physical copy of Doublespeak translation magazine, with my translated haikus!
Some more things listed under good memories below :)
6. Give yourself time to breathe.
During the summer... I definitely should not have done the Radcliffe research internship. Though, as mentioned during the fall, I was able to do this much better than before.
I’m still concerned about taking on too many extracurricular commitments, especially with my harder coursework next semester... we will see how this pans out. sweats again
7. Take detours; understand better what you aim for and what you hope to do.
I’m glad I tried ballroom (even though I really miss K-pop/hip-hop dance), since the feeling of collaboration to produce movement and rhythm is unparalleled to anything I’ve done before. And, I think I’m more confident in my decision to venture back into tech-oriented classes and activities.
8. Don’t overthink. Be more spontaneous. Take more risks.
The past summer, I did indeed meet new people & do fun things in friend groups (friend brunch, dinner reservations, some activities, etc.)! I hope to continue this trend for springtime social situations and go for it even when I’m not 100% in my comfort zone.
I also hope to improve my risk-taking and confidence in academic & “professional” spheres — speaking up in class, applying to a cool opportunity, and reaching out to at least two people in areas I hope to explore, whether that’s tech, writing, or something else I discover.
A last thing I want to work on: be more spontaneous with time.
My entire life, I’ve lived day-by-day with my to-do lists, scheduled classes and self-imposed work times, and predetermined, timeboxed fun. Whenever something challenges my agenda, such as a last-minute invitation or a hangout that runs “overtime,” I am unable to stay present because of immeasurable guilt and anxiety at the thought of my plans being violated. So, I hope to allow myself to flow more with the tides of time, and to relish in breaking my own imposed structures 🙂
And, here we go — an incomplete list of highlights, both good and bad, from the semester!
good memories
Celebrating my friend’s birthday (Isabella-Stewart Gardner Museum), planning her birthday surprise!
Getting Honeycomb Creamery with friends
Currier apple-picking!
Autumnal walks through Harvard Square
Getting boba with a previous professor
LANY/keshi concert on a Wednesday night during midterms
Peaceful Sunday brunches at HUDS (the zucchini bread? that broccoli-stuffed chicken? amazing)
Solo walks to Porter Square (Caffe Nero!)
Deep cafe conversations ❤️
self-dates :D (mostly Flour bakery lmao)
Going to a Halloween event at an amusement park with friends!
Harvard Beginners ballroom comp! (getting ready for it hehe)
Northeastern Ballroom Social, where I realized that I had learned a lot!
spontaneous music sessions with my roomie
Bringing home a Tatte pie for Thanksgiving
Courtside seats to a Celtics vs. Raptors game! (thanks mom)
performing at Currier coffeehouses (karaoke, piano/singing, my own piano!)
T4SG retreat (got to know people better, tried soju for the first time and it was amazing! the Airbnb was SO comfy)
Weekly DOPs dinners :’) (Source, Posto, Maharaja, etc.)
silliness at the Quad Formal
reading my poem at The Wave open mic for their new launch (and some of my friends came!)
bad memories
Periods of bad mental health ☹️
Finding partners for ballroom (this was stressful and led to some self-deprecation)
Social anxiety during Japanese class and STAT110 office hours
The problematic/racist guy leading our dumpling-making class at T4SG retreat, though we bonded over the experience so maybe this wasn’t entirely bad?
Stressful midterm & finals studying
Missing the shuttle, the Evening Van being too busy, too-infrequent shuttles
All of this is to say that, my fall semester as a sophomore/social junior enmeshed pre-pandemic me and post-gap-year me in just a flurry of joy and busy-ness and stress and wonder, so it’s been a bit difficult to disentangle and really capture what it has been like (hence this runaway train of thought.) But, I do know that newness in something old, and seeing something old in a time anew, deepens the hues of the past and present (and future!), and helps me recognize the threads entangling it all. No need to unravel them though; I quite enjoy how the colors clash and complement each other ❤️