“Three hours ago, the clock struck midnight. The room erupted in cheers and confetti as we welcomed a New Year. As I sit here now, I reflect on what the year has taught me.”
That — or something equally flowery and stupid — is what I wanted to write last night, when I got home from a New Year’s Eve party. Everyone else would have driven home and passed out, but not me. I would be sitting in my room at 3 in the morning, gently wading in the pool of youth and memory, brooding over change and the passage of time. It’s the stuff of self-absorbed blogging legend!
Instead I stumbled home, spent fifteen minutes throwing up the pound of fudge and chicken wings I inhaled at the party, and went to bed.
Now it’s the much less significant Post-New-Year’s-Eve Eve, disillusionment is in the air, and mediocrity holds sway! Still, I feel like a little reflection is in order. After all, it was an eventful year, and there’s definitely value to looking back. So I’ll try to probe my memory beyond that regrettable fourth plate of chicken wings, and give this “taking stock of the year” thing a shot. Rather than trying to list everything that has happened, I’m going to try to pinpoint a few events which may have been significant: some mark new beginnings for me, some are representative of a broader change in lifestyle, and some were just cool, isolated events. I’ll try and make it roughly chronological.
January 8-10: The Well Winter Retreat
If you had told me on January 7th that this would be a significant experience for me, I would have laughed at you. I had been to the college group at my church (The Well) a handful of times to please a friend, and really didn’t care for it. As reluctant as I may be to admit it, I didn’t just feel a little out of place: I felt embarrassed to be there. Worship songs felt corny, sermons felt contrived, others praying out loud made me painfully awkward, and the differences between myself and every other student seemed irreconcilable. And things would certainly stay that way. While I professed Christianity on an intellectual level, any outward manifestation of it, and any community built on it, felt like a joke to me. It was a crutch for people who didn’t want to face the real world, and it was completely beneath me. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t being “intellectually honest” or “real”; I was being an arrogant douche. I’m embarrassed of the way I scathingly labelled others while keeping up the pretense of friendliness, and regret the way I talked about people — many of whom I am now friends with. I’m very sorry for that, whoever it might concern.
Back to the story: my friend (Steven) convinced me to go on the retreat, but I was less than enthusiastic. I would be spending a three-day weekend in Big Bear with a bunch of strangers. Not to say I didn’t know anyone: I grew up at the church, and was at least acquainted with a few people. But they didn’t know me; they vaguely knew who I had been in high school. Even if I put on a friendly smile, I felt no connection with them. Which is possibly even worse than not knowing someone at all.
I took the early bus up on Friday, but opted out of snowboarding. Instead, I followed Steven and a group of people to IHOP. Then walked around the town of Big Bear. Then went back to the cabins and played a few rounds of Catchphrase. Then joined a group of 10 or 20 people playing Mafia. Before I knew it, I was learning names and joining in random conversations. Not only was I not clinging to my closer friends: I was practically avoiding them, so caught up in meeting new people and having a genuinely good time. I couldn’t explain it, but there was just a sort of rightness to it. Analyze however you want: call it the innate desire to be a “part of something”, or the refreshing feeling of being around new people, or a pathetic need for social acceptance. All I know is whatever it was, I craved it badly. By the end of the weekend, I knew nearly everyone by name.
You know the rest. I made at least 20 new Facebook friends (score!), left for Berkeley days later, and spent an embarrassing time online that semester just hoping I wouldn’t be forgotten. When I came back, people genuinely seemed to remember me, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good. From there, it’s history. I now am an active part of The Well, and consider many of the members close friends. Whether or not you understand/share my enthusiasm, there’s no denying this has made a huge impact in how I spend my time. I realize that those of you who are not a part of the church group were caught off guard by this. Devoting time to one group of people means taking time away from another, and I completely understand if that is frustrating. All I can say is I am very happy with all of the new friendships I’ve made, and really hope I haven’t left anyone behind in the process.
March: Started Running
Spurred by the belief that I had heart problems (see below), I decided to take up running — three mornings a week, 2.5 miles a run. At first I was pathetically slow, and needed to take a break every couple blocks. As I persisted, I started being able to make the run without stopping, usually in about 15 minutes. When I came home for the summer and found that running in Escondido just wasn’t as fun, I jumped at the chance to start playing soccer with friends from the college group. I’ve never been a particularly athletic person, and have spent a heroic part of my life sitting down, eating junk food, and staring at a computer screen. I still do those things very often, but more and more, I’m finding that getting out and exercising feels great.
May 22: Diagnosed With a Panic Disorder
Whether you realize it or not, this was huge for me. I’ve talked about it far too many times, so I’ll be brief. Spring semester was full of very weird things; one minute I’d feel like I couldn’t breathe, the next I’d feel like I was having a stroke, and the next a heart attack. Weird, personal, and almost impossible to describe unless you’ve suffered from panic attacks yourself. You know that feeling you get when you fall down in a dream, and wake up with a sensation that can only be described as “falling down without moving”? It’s that sort of experience. Physically unnoticeable, but inwardly jolting. Nothing real is going on — just like you’re not really falling — but the sense of dread, or of the world spiraling out of control, is very real. That would happen off and on and it felt scary and debilitating. After the diagnosis, it more or less vanished. Not literally; I take a very mild SSRI daily, and still get mild panic attacks sometimes. But the mystery is gone, which makes the very occasional symptom (racing heartbeat, vague discomfort) completely manageable. A little annoying, but nothing more. Considering by May I assumed I would fail my classes and either die of a heart attack or become a hermit, that is a very important change. I got a 4.0, my heart is still beating, and am less hermitian than ever — though I still enjoy moments of self-reflection, complex though it may be. (There were about 3 really bad Math jokes hidden in that. Let’s see if you can find them.)
May 22: Started this Blog
You may think the above “new lease on life” event might have had something to do with this, but you’d be wrong. The true catalyst was much less exciting. After an evening of Facebook stalking, I found that two friends (Miles and Paige) had blogs. I recalled that I had been meaning to start one for a while, figured I’d give it a shot, and wrote this.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the result. Reading through my first post, it feels like I’ve stayed more or less true to my initial goal, and I’m glad to know that at least a few “you”s chose to read after all. I’ve posted a slightly neurotic 54 times, and doubt I’ll be stopping any time soon. But even if I were to stop now, it really wouldn’t matter. Writing out my thoughts has been a good way to organize them, and overall I feel like a much more focused and consistent person than I was a year ago. Even if no one read it but me, it would have been worthwhile.
May 23: Turned 20
I like being 20 much better than 19. It has a much more mature ring to it. I think I also played softball that day.
June 11-14: Went to New Jersey
In 2009 my grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary. We flew to New Jersey to surprise them; yet another example of a weekend-long trip which ended up being very nice, despite my expectations. I got to spend some quality time with cousins — people I don’t get to see often, since they live on the wrong side of the country. More importantly, though, I got to fulfill my Food Network-inspired dream of eating cheesesteaks at both Pat’s and Gino’s. Within 20 minutes of each other, no less. You just can’t put a price on that.
July 2: Accepted to the Honors Program at Berkeley
That was a shocker — the first in a steady stream of undeserved opportunities the year brought my way. In the middle of finals week, I got an e-mail inviting all eligible students to apply for the “highly esteemed” EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, my major) Honors Program. It stressed that students who were accepted must have shown a high level of interest, both curricular and extracurricular, in the field. Involvement in student groups, enrollment in honors-level courses, and research opportunities would all be taken into consideration. I had done…none of that. Still, I figured I’d apply; so, on the eve of my last final, I threw together an “academic plan”, an essay explaining how I had proven myself, and another telling how my honors area of interest (Quantum Mechanics) was relevant to my major. The academic plan was a poor sketch at best, the gist of the first essay was “I haven’t proven myself yet, but I’d like to”, and my reasoning for choosing QM was about as vague as my blog introduction.
But somehow I got in. What it means for me: heavier course load, minimum GPA of 3.7, and a slightly cooler degree. And, of course, the requirement that I do undergraduate research. Which leads me to…
July 17: Got Invited to do Robotics Research
I still remember how shocked I was when I got that e-mail. It was about 11:00 on a Thursday evening, and I had just gotten back from the beach (exactly the same way I found the honors acceptance letter). I knew I needed to find a professor to do research under to fulfill the honors requirement, and wasn’t sure how I would make that happen. Turns out I didn’t do anything: the professor saw that I had done well in my AI class, and decided to invite me to join his research group. I was thrilled: he had presented his work with automated machine learning in one of my classes before, and I was blown away. Throw in the convenient fact that one of my better friends in Berkeley also turned out to be doing work for him, and I was thrilled. He asked if I’d like to be on his surgical robotics team, and knowing that was the team my friend was working in, I gladly accepted.
Since I came on board I’ve worked insane hours, spent countless nights in the lab rerunning experiments and debugging terrible code, and put a good deal of my own ideas into practice. My schedule revolved around research, and schoolwork took a firm backseat. It felt reckless to detract so much time from my studies, and I really wondered if I could handle it all.
Yesterday, I found out our research paper was accepted to ICRA — our professor’s top choice of venues. This means one of us (my stage fright is begging that it’s not me) will be presenting our work at the conference in Anchorage in May, and our paper will be published and distributed there. Then I checked my grades, and found that rather than getting the C I expected, I somehow got an A in Quantum Mechanics, and a 4.0 for the semester. While my luck will run out eventually, for now it looks like reckless is working just fine.
August 2 – Rapped at Taco Bell
Not even remotely significant. But boy, without that second “p”, wouldn’t that be a story to tell? Here’s the video.
August 22: Spent My First Night Alone in My Apartment
From birth through senior year of high school, I’ve shared a room with my twin brother. Freshman year of college, I shared a room with one guy, in a suite with two more. First semester of Sophomore year, I roomed with friend-since-kindergarten Dylan. Second semester, friend-since-3rd-grade Matt moved up with us. Junior year, I’m living alone.
I was upset to learn that I would be alone, and to some extent, I’d still love to have a roommate. But I’ve also learned to enjoy having my own place, and the freedom which comes with it. It’s peaceful, and lends itself well to my current, busy schedule. As a kid I had a distinct fear of ever living alone (a distant cousin of my fear of the dark). Now, I can easily see myself living the bachelor life for quite some time. I can cook, do the dishes, do the laundry. Even clean! In theory, anyway.
August 27: Decided to Stop Drinking
This decision in particular wasn’t too important. While I had the occasional drink, it wasn’t very common — deciding to wait till I was 21 was all but drastic.
What is important to me, and the reason I include this on the list, is that it was one of the first times in quite a while that I was convicted to stop something. In the past 5 or 6 years, I had changed quite a bit; but almost always, the change meant abandoning or at least rethinking a long-held conviction. As a Junior Higher I wanted to date without kissing — by the time I was in college, as long as I wasn’t having sex I felt like a saint. As a Junior Higher, the idea of my parents drinking a beer was horrifying — in college, there was a beer bong in my roommate’s closet. As a Junior Higher, I probably would have stopped being your friend if I knew you smoked cigarettes — in High School, I felt pretty hip sneaking the occasional cigar. As a Junior Higher, I would watch a movie if it was PG-13 and had no sexual content. The night before I left for my first year at Berkeley, I was at the midnight premier of Superbad.
Not all of those convictions were necessary, and losing them wasn’t always wrong; but there was a clear trend. Every decision meant abandoning some previous standard, attributing it to “growing up”. This time, I was avoiding something readily available, which no one was criticizing me for, solely because it didn’t feel right. The bottle of Stone IPA is still in my fridge from August 27, 2009, and I plan on opening it on May 23, 2010.
November 25: Got Ten Grand
Continuing the trend of “great, undeserved things happening to Stephen”, I was awarded a grant for $10,000 for “Excellence in Computer Science”, funded by a private donor. Never applied, no idea who nominated me, not asking questions. I’ll just take the year of tuition and run! But like a lot of surprises this year, I can’t help but see it as a sign that my life is headed in the right direction.
—–
So yeah. Bye, 2009. Hello, 2010.
You deserve all of it. Rock on Stephen.