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60th anniversary

Last summer if it hadn’t been for work, I would have volunteered at the 2008 Olympic Games.  While watching the opening ceremony on TV, I was awe struck at the drummers, fireworks, and dancers, pure meticulous preparation for the glory of a country and a people. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think about the sacrifices made: “urban redevelopment,” wasted marketing, and self-aggrandizement (very atypical for Chinese traditions) among many other criticisms. On a more personal level, I was reminded of a dance once performed in the third grade.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of an elementary school’s opening, my classmates and I were asked to perform a “walking dance.” Imagine a very large track and soccer fields and hundreds of girls forming seemingly impossible shapes en mass. We had no idea what we were doing, but was told we would look beautiful as one, when watched from the stands. My mom couldn’t even spot me during the entire performance, but I remember being told, again, by her how wonderful we/I looked.

With the People’s Republic of China’s 60th anniversary around the corner, my heart reach out to little girls, lost and oblivious, but putting a smile on her face because she has been told how wonderful she would look as part of something undefinable. Part of me wants to go back to China for a couple years, but I think I would feel more lost there than here.

Say hey

“I’ve been a lot of places around the way. I’ve seen a lot of joy and I’ve seen a lot of pain…I say hey I’ll be gone today, but I’ll be back all around the way. It seems like everywhere I go, the more I see the less I know.”

The evening before first day of freshman year is supposed to be memorable at Penn. At an event aptly named Convocation, it is the first and only time an entire class is gathered as one before graduation. It’s usually a time when administrators sing arias to the entering class “as the best class the University has ever seen…until next year’s.” It is also where eighteen-year-olds are told that the future leaders of America and the world must venture beyond comfort zones and pave roads for posterity (note the sarcasm here).

Convocation in front of College Hall

Convocation in front of College Hall

I don’t remember much from my Convocation. I was supposed to feel inspired and yet I felt my shoulders sagging from the onerous task at hand. It was already difficult trying to figure out, plan out what to do with the rest of my life. I didn’t need some stranger to tell me that posterity depended on the choices of my peers, of me. What a piece of $%*&, sautéed with a pound of “privilege.”  However, it was a chance to begin anew, and I ate it up. It didn’t turn out all romantic. I struggled with the idea of facing the unknown.

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that I started and ended freshman year as a premed. I am a product of a doctor and a chemist. While my parents advised me to not enter medicine or science, I adamantly refused to give up the idea. I was the typical “organizational kid” who planned out every class I would take for all of college. It wasn’t until summer of 2005 when I realized every piece of life cannot and should not be planned.

Backcover of the last issue of The Whole Earth Catalog from the 1970s (?)

Backcover of the last issue of The Whole Earth Catalog from the 1970s (?)

In June that year, I stumbled upon a YouTube recording of Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford. As his closing, Jobs suggested the newly minted cum laude’s to “stay foolish, stay hungry,” to find what you love. To date, Jobs rarely made plans and took everything in stride. It was very inspiring precisely because his life was the exact opposite of mine. Jobs’ speech, a month in China, a summer living in West Philly, and a few other developments led me to reconsider my college plans. To NOT make plans. Like everything in life, word and action aren’t always in sync.

The idea of trusting in the Mysterious is a serious leap of faith. I continuously struggled with this for the rest of my college years. I was a definite planner. While I didn’t travel a straight path (gave up the premed track), I didn’t stray too far from familiarity (I stayed in math and science with a touch of the humanities).

By senior year, I was sick of school and lost myself in the job search. The culmination of my undergraduate years, the thesis, was a disappointment. My majors became a bore. Job interviews started to sound alike. I was especially sad to say goodbye to college friends whom I wouldn’t see every day or week. I was never good with geographical separation – ask my old friends from New York or Chicago, ex-boyfriends, etc. I foolishly thought if I could plan out my life, I would escape the immeasurable pain of moving on. Graduation eventually came. After a month of wunderlust in Europe, I entered the working world.

It has been exactly one year since I said goodbye to the Quad. Another difficult “first year”, and it isn’t getting any easier. It isn’t supposed to be. And a meaningful life is even more difficult to find, to define. Haha! Oh if only life could be as easy as writing a paper, a maximization problem, or a spreadsheet. Convocation may seem like it was a million years ago, but that exhilarating feeling of adventure lives on; I just have to soak it up here and there so the blast of color from each rising sun doesn’t fade.

“and let the future come into each moment like a rising sun” - Mason Jennings’ “Be Here Now”

“and let the future come into each moment like a rising sun” - Mason Jennings’ “Be Here Now”

Life…please define

I’ve recently made a couple trips to Philly for friends’ weddings. We have been blessed with glorious weather, amazing friendships, meals, conversations, etc. Out of my conversations, one question to which I have yet to find an adequate answer is “How’s life?”

For the past year whenever I was asked about life, the answer started with “Work is….” This isn’t a surprise. When college was the priority, the answer started with “School is…” For the post-collegiate crowd one or a few years out of the Quad, life is work hard, play hard. Sounds similar? Why not. We are still living with the same mentality, just a room upgrade and more spending money. I have desperately been holding onto a thinning thread of life outside of work.  Tried. Tried. Tried. Nothing makes sense. How is it that I can succeed at work and yet fail at life? This isn’t the worst part.

work_life_balance_sign

Oh what I’m about to describe is horror. Before this weekend, I usually talked about work in a few sentences and limited myself to that. I ask the “How’s life” question back with more specifics like Philly, family, or recent events in my conversationalist’s life. At the wedding yesterday, I ran into a friend whom I haven’t seen for more than a year. I had avoided the life question and wanted to ask how his girlfriend was. I bit my lips…wasn’t sure if they were still together. I paused and let my friend take control. He asked where I am now. I gave a geography. Then out of nowhere the horror rose in my throat – I inadvertently went straight into an annoying, two-sentence summary about my being very busy with work (understatement). I stopped at the third sentence, saved by the onslaught of everyone rushing from wedding to reception. I avoided the friend’s empty gaze and went my way. Granted he caught me after three conversations on work with other mutual friends. Still…no excuse.

For the rest of the night, answers to friends’ curiosity and caring words were filled with nonwork related stories. I don’t ever want to repeat what I did to this friend. (Oh and he and his girlfriend are back together. Yeah! And what a sight – quite a pair on the dance floor I must say!)

It is one thing to learn that life does not equate to work. It is another thing to practice, to live.

I’m still in the process of figuring out how to piece together this crazy puzzle. In the mean time, if I ever go overboard with talking about work, slap me will you?

Bird moonwalking

I have got to share this. It’s too hilarious:

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