So Much More
What just happened?
I normally have a good reflection on each "semester" but it quickly turned from an innocent, "I'll write my post after two weeks of my internship when I'm actually settled into New York City," to me being halfway through my stay in NYC. Yikes!
At any rate, this marks the vague end of my nebulous gap year as my timeline re-merges with the rest of the world. So naturally, one question I have gotten quite a bit is, "what have you done during this gap year?"
It's an ordinary conversation starter, perhaps a curious question from someone who didn't take time off, or a fellow gapper interested in the similar or differing experiences of their peer. And I often brush it off with a short 'n sweet abstract, like:
"Unlike normal times where someone would gap because they have a concrete goal or activity planned... I mostly gapped because I didn't want to do virtual school and needed some time to myself and to spend with my family, so I just ended up doing things here and there. In the fall, I did SWE recruiting, learned some front-end coding at a student non-profit startup. In the spring, I took a CS knowledge-prerequisite class, and managed a UX project with Harvard Tech for Social Good..."
And I think this statement would elicit a diverse range of internal or external reactions (or at least, my brain thinks there would be), anywhere from "oh, that's cool!" to "wow, it seems like she had some great experiences" to "I guess she didn't actually get a job" or "I did that too while taking classes" or "wow, she had it easy."
And that shouldn't, and doesn't (most of the time) matter to me. I think my little summary that I've been chucking at people, to deflect from the more intimate and complex pockets of change I've been nurturing or that have been spontaneously cropping up, hasn't been great for my self-esteem, especially when I hear about the whirlwind adventures and accomplishments of others: doing venerated internships and founding startups in countries across the world. I've been scrapping together a presentable image because if I were to try to explain the depth of everything that truly mattered to me, it would be a mish-mosh of intangibility and immeasurability.
In other words, I don't like that summary because 1) I have definitely done "much more" than that, and 2) those are not what I necessarily found the most defining, precious nor vividly descriptive about this time. So what else is there?
"much more"
I definitely applied to 30+ jobs for the fall and spring but didn't land anything,
I helped launch The Wave's Family Portraits,
I was the Director of PR for the virtual Harvard WECode Conference,
I designed for Datamatch,
I took an online Human-Computer Interaction course in the fall,
I did a 1x a week at a casual virtual Japanese class with a local adult school!
I think the fact that I still felt the need to prove the above "much more" section is still a symptom of our toxic productivity culture, but the fact that these activities might not seem that impactful, profitable nor... cohesive, makes it seem like what I did with my year is inferior. And I obviously have the privilege to not worry about expenses during my gap year... Regardless, this definitely makes me think about all the work and energy put into the world that is not measurably recognized.
At any rate, some of these ambiguous changes (and honestly, better parts of my gap year) are below :')
My sis, me, and my mom! With matching hats :)
defining, precious, vivid
I have never been closer to my sister and mom!
after working through many issues very emotionally (WIP)
I am kinder and more patient with myself & take care of myself better (& I am also more confident)! WIP
hello therapy (that's been disrupted though whoops)
I care less about what others think of me and go at my own pace (WIP!),
I actually met / got closer to a few new friends virtually; mostly kept in touch with others!
I have a much better sense of what my purpose is & what I enjoy pursuing, at least for now (at least, what I don't want to do. Goodbye formal / computational linguistics... hello EMR, CS + design + HCI, Japanese, some humanities sprinkled in so I can hopefully help people)!
I am SO much better with healing from physical & mental ED-related issues. And that's saying a lot. I am much more in tune with myself and my body after (clears throat) a few bumps in the past year <3
I wrote more for myself! In my journal, in private notes, some on my blog.
This might overlap with the "so much more" section but I read my piece for the Radcliffe Institute's conference on Asian-American women & recently got some of my haiku translations published in UPenn's DoubleSpeak student poetry translation magazine!
I am challenging my former judgments of poetry :) aka, I've been writing poetry lately while loosely following the Billy Collins Masterclass on poetry (to be honest, I don't want to consume content by older white men when I can't help it, but I watched Roxane Gay's Masterclass series and just want to get the poetry basics from Collins anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk).
I was mostly inspired by the fact that 1) My thoughts aren't coherent enough and my attention span isn't long enough for me to write clear prose, and 2) Franny Choi's Soft Science was the first poetry collection that actually spoke to me and that I could actually... hear. Kinda cheesy, but I swear it's true!
I read more books! even created a lil Notion database to keep track. I reread the whole Percy Jackson & Heroes of Olympus series, and one of my faves from the past year is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu.
Reading Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, ft. an iced latte and blueberry muffin from Twisted Tulip!
To be honest, reflecting so far has made me recall micro-moments that I had forgotten. For instance, I was actually doing a part-time spring internship at a budding startup before I seriously began to get burnout from.... life, obligations, and just not having time to address my mental health. It's like, the higher the pendulum swings on one side, the more intense the rebound is (as you can see, I have forgotten most of my basic physics knowledge for this simile to make sense... Maybe, "the higher the pendulum swings on one side, the higher it swings on the other, or the higher its max velocity is?" hm. would love advice on this.). So I'm glad I set aside time for this, since some minutia might have otherwise slipped through the memory cracks.
Well now... time to reflect on the spring goals I set (as usual, I probably did not do great but let's give it a shot). I think I'll structure this by keeping the same header for both old and new goals! :D
1. Stay connected with people you care about; actively reach out to those you connect with / find cool! With less worry!
I tried my best :(
This summer, I hope to keep meeting up with college & high school friends in NYC, and also tie up loose ends, restart conversations with people I haven't talked to in a while. I don't know why this happens to me, but I get really stuck in my head & stressed 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. Yikes! I also need to keep in touch with my family! :D
One of the short ballet sequences we learned for my mom for Mother’s Day :) Teaching her simple ballet was like. a 6-month endeavor, and gave her a taste of her own medicine from when she was super strict / borderline mean to us when my sis and I did skating/piano/anything :D We enjoyed it though!
2. Advocate for yourself, and be honest with your needs and wants; set your boundaries.
On a personal level, I have gotten better at expressing needs and wants to my family and closer friends! On a professional level... I overcommitted, once again. But at least I quit the internship in the spring to have more personal health time! So a half-success?
This summer, I hope to continue advocating for myself for
work, since I tend to struggle alone rather than asking for help or collaborating.
friendships, since I know living with others & navigating busy schedules sometimes means I try to endure and accommodate at a cost to my own preferences,
other relationships! with clubs like Tech for Social Good, new acquaintances, perhaps other types, etc. Like Vanessa: just say what you think and want! (I am definitely better at this though. Quarantine might have given me a shorter fuse, and I think I give less of a shit overall).
3. Take care of your mental and physical health.
I was pretty good at this! I got more writing & reading time and also kinda got better at dance & strength, although I don't really dance in my NYC apartment. I lost touch with yoga I enjoyed because of **.... but I am glad I got to do some ballet classes virtually with @balletforeverybody, who is body-neutral and supportive of dancers of all ages, bodies, levels!
This summer, I hope to take care of myself mentally by...
Going on self-dates & taking alone time when I want to,
Reading at least 3 books (currently reading Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino, finished Goodbye, Again by Jonny Sun)
journaling and/or writing 1x a week! (kinda working?)
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!
resting when I want & need to
4. Dare to learn what you are genuinely excited to learn without worrying about being “great” or “perfect.”
Looking back, I'm so proud of all the work I accomplished for Tech For Social Good since I was mostly terrified the whole time I was doing it! I worked with the ACLU — isn't that so cool?! Unfortunately, I had too many courses that I wanted to explore in the spring that my mental and physical capabilities could not handle... nevertheless, I did well in CS20! I'm glad I got to check in on Japanese occasionally, even though the level was lower than I hoped.
For the summer? This goal definitely applies to my software internship because I feel so slow and dumb with my work at times... also with my Radcliffe research work (see #6), since I'm not some deep humanities, WGS / history concentrator who knows a lot about communist or feminist theory. This goal also applies to me whenever I try to write, because I sometimes think to myself — "who do you think you are? you're just a wannabe in tech, not someone who's actually good at design, coding, or who can actually be a writer.” Sigh. But let's not box ourselves into labels, shall we? I promise to myself that I will just do what I enjoy, regardless of whether my given labels accommodate for that or not.
5. Create and/or do something you’re proud of and excited about.
I didn't end up making some coherent project, but I did re-read Percy Jackson! And that counts! I'm also very proud of the Radcliffe Institute writing piece I did :)
This summer,
I have a goal to write 8 poems this summer! No matter how "good" or short — I think I'm at 4 or 5 so far! Reach goal — submit to some magazines maybe??? Peep my writing blog for some ~ content ~ soon!
I also hope that I can end my internship on a finalizing note, even if I don't finish my Milestone 2 project. Fingers crossed it'll go well! Reach goal — return offer???
Just learn a lot about women in resistance movements through my Radcliffe Research Institute part-time work (it's pretty... straightforward and inspiring too, but sometimes heavy :( )
6. Give yourself time to breathe.
I did it! I quit the spring internship :')
I also succeeded (so far, kinda, kinda not, not — yeah never mind) with this summer because I declined a potential self-publishing writing fellowship for students. Because hello, I am doing a full-time internship and also a part-time research position with the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, not to mention Tech for Social Good.
Okay, it seems like I'm prepared to just crash and burn. But you know what? Let's just set boundaries for time commitments. sweats
7. Take detours; understand better what you aim for and what you hope to do.
A continuation from last “semester” (again)! :)
I think I did do this, particularly with poetry! Watching Roxane Gay's Masterclass has encouraged me to keep writing, even if just for myself, and to discover new forms like poetry (which I totally thought was pretentious before). I don't think I'll become a poet, but I do know that I want to prioritize my creative world to keep myself sane, and to savor the life that I'm living before it's just swallowed whole by the ethers.
Goal for the summer? Open to interpretation!
8. Don’t overthink. Be more spontaneous. Take more risks.
I... couldn't do this much when I was just staying at home, but I think taking the leap to arrange my summer in NYC was quite risky for my homebody-self! And I'm so happy that I did.
This summer, I hope to ~
Meet new people!
Be open to new activities, especially group ones. I was wary of going to the beach, but I'm so glad my friend brought me along! Being in groups gives me a lot of anxiety and can make me spiral, but I hope that I can get better at being myself and connecting with others regardless :')
Now, here we go with some memory excerpts!
Bad Memories
Superb stress, especially at the beginning for Tech for Social Good where it was 20 hours a week. Like, I was meeting with the CIO of the American Civil Liberties Union, for goodness' sake!
More rejections from internships :(
Some lapses and hiccups w.r.t. mental health... !
um. anti-Asian hate.
Good Memories
More dance covers with my sis! most iconic was Dynamite by BTS (pls follow us :D)
Taking virtual ballet classes
Dancing with my mom and sister!
Doing yoga with friends over Zoom
More Twisted Tulip coffee runs
rewatching anime! the day I meet someone in person who also loves Diamond no Ace, is the day I will gain a new best friend
Receiving positive feedback on my Tech for Social Good work!
Getting lunch & shopping with my mom and sis,
celebrating my 20th birthday in NYC and raising like $1000+ against anti-Asian hate!
I pointedly kept my NYC memories and updates from this post since I'll save it for my post-summer reflection — this post was also delayed because I wrote a post about one of my days off in NYC! Very Jonny Sun-esque, since I was feeling even more introspective than usual.
At any rate, happy moments don't last as long as they should, and when I'm still living inside them, I can't tell that they're special enough to be worth remembering. So I hope that I can appreciate the seconds trickling by and the people I encounter in such fleeting moments.
And then, I hope to remember that I don't need to always be doing to be at peace, find joy, and believe my life is vivid and so much more than I could ever explain with these simple words of mine :)
See you soon! (that's a promise!)