Life

Dear me, remember your purpose.

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Donner Lake

I will be working as a software engineer at Facebook starting January next year.

I have many reasons why I made such a choice. Frankly, money tops this list. Many of my school friends are aware of the numerous jobs I held while at Mudd. Few know of the exact number of hours; even fewer know the reasons behind why I had to work so hard; why I had to sacrifice my learning and health. Just a handful understand that, to me, graduating early with a job in hand is not an achievement, but a punishment.

Working at one of the highest paying companies sitting at the heart of Silicon Valley is a magic wand to my financial problems, many of which have been crippling me inside out.

But this note isn’t for me to brag about how hard I worked or how successful I am — quite the opposite.

To ____, I am yet another person joining the programming bubble, making six digits as a newly graduated 21 year old.

To ____, I am yet another privileged and spoiled being chasing money because I was given all the chances to do so.

To ____, I am a fraud who blabbers about her interests in math and education, yet turns to work at something entirely irrelevant.

To ____, I am a daughter who gave her mother bragging rights during afternoon gossip sessions.

To ____, I am a person of which envy and hatred is deserved and received.

To me, ____ is me.

Dear me,

Remember your purpose. What you wished to do was far from what you could do. It is not your fault that you’ve had to trek rougher paths. It is difficult saying yes to things that would help you farther down the way; it is difficult saying no to things that would help you at the moment.

Remember your purpose. You are young; you have time. Let time bring you the resources and people you need in your life, but don’t let time erase what you can really do for the world with these resources and these people. You are young; you have energy. Work hard to earn your worth and reciprocate by remembering this world is not lived alone.

Remember your purpose. You have experienced the bitterness of the cold winds that blow hope away, and you understand the feeling of despair and grief. Do what you can to never let anyone experience the same. Bring others help when you see that they are standing in your shoes from the past. Remember that light at the end of the tunnel is from a source; be the source when you’ve once received from it.

Your workplace does not define you; but have fun, and never cease learning. Keep in mind the consequences of your actions, and the impact it will have on literally billions of people.

Your education does not define you; but remember this regret that you feel from cutting yourself off from the fountains of knowledge, and return to them when you are able.

Your purpose will define you. Hold onto it tight; tighter as you drift off, swayed by life’s storms.

Dear me, remember you will have all the time and energy and resources one day to make the impact you wish to make; be patient and wary.

Dear me, remember your purpose.

A reminder to keep sailing

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Before anyone begins reading, these are reminders made by myself for myself. Seek help from friends and loved ones if you don’t find solace here.

This week I received news, from both far and near, of both distant and close, that so-and-so was no longer with us. Five separate incidences from five very different corners of this growing aquarium I view the world in. I let my work sweep me away, I decided to move on, move on, move on… but this wasn’t going to just move on.

Here’s a gentle reminder that moving on isn’t a thought but a process.

We forget, naturally.

Today, I got on a SF Muni bus for the first time in a year. As I sat, staring in agreement at the “May need to make sudden stops” sign, I saw from the corner of my eye a child, sitting on her mother’s lap, eating a cookie.

I became aware of her youth. Will she remember this day five years from now? Will she remember where she was going, what cookie she was eating, or the old man in front of her mumbling Shakespeare quotes and garbled Cantonese?

No, probably not.

Today, I got on a SF Muni bus for the first time in a year. That’s sort of a lie. I don’t remember the exact day I was on a Muni. I don’t remember what I was doing, where I was coming from, or who I was with. I just know it happened at some point, and it was around a year ago.

This is most days in our life. When I learned about photographic memory, I thought that was the best thing ever (The number of history exams I could have aced in high school!). It was much later when I actually met someone with photographic memory that it was more pain than bliss.

She remembered the weather of every single day of her life. Every road she’s ever taken, every meal she’s ever eaten, every word she’s ever heard. She remembered her very first experience with grief with the same amount of detail as her latest one.

I realized then, I had been the lucky one. Programmers might call an average memory like mine a lossy compression. We only keep the juicy details, throw out the rest.

But these details are too hard to look at sometimes. I tried this week to stuff it away into a pocket, before its fat ass began seeping through the seems. The brain begins to slow down trying to do anything else, as it tries harder and harder to compress, compress, compress, boom. Where’s the clean up staff when I need one?

There is a drain for these things. We have the tendency to not use it. We also have the tendency to try to flush everything down at once and end up needing a plunger. I usually stare at a clogged toilet kind of hopelessly (especially when self-inflicted), in utter embarrassment and annoyance. But with time and some patient effort, it solves itself. Usually. Plumbers should really be paid more.

Insert cliché quote here: this, too, shall pass.

Remember love is constant, and reciprocative.

Every viral video I see on Facebook of rescued dogs acclimating into society after abuse and other horrors reminds me of me four years ago, and who knows, maybe n years later.

In her commencement speech today at MIT, Sheryl Sandberg reminded us a quote she was reminded of by the superintendent of the US Naval Academy: Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.

Franklin D. Roosevelt sat firm in the midst of a war as he said this quote. Bearing on his shoulders was the fate of millions; with one word, hope could turn to misery. Vice versa.

The sea we’re on will never be always smooth, ever, to any sailor. The conditions of a storm can be constant, but so is the sun. The skilled sailor remembers that it is still shining behind the darkness, and that its warmth will be blissful and good, but also remembers that it doesn’t come easily, that they must work for it.

I forget that there are many suns in our lives. I forget to seek them out and relish in the rays, and to remember to let the storm pass. What words make me all warm and fuzzy inside? How often do I say these words to others? How often do I receive them in response?

When times are low, this is hard. It’s like I’m telling myself a lie — forcing myself to be happy, forcing myself to laugh. I’m not happy. But happy and sad aren’t black and white. Just as movies can make us cry one moment and laugh in another, I can do the same. Let myself be sad, but let myself remember to be happy.

to be happy = to spread happiness + to receive happiness

stay strong 💓 keep it beating

A reminder to keep sailing

Dear Teacher

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Dear Teacher,

The moment we say goodbye to our mommies and daddies and nannies as we walk into our first day of classes, you are our now our guardian. From here on out you are the one holding our hands; the one to tell us what to do and what not to do; what to love and what to laugh at; what to learn and what to be curious about.

Your every “hello” and “goodbye” and “have a great weekend” are signs we are loved and cared for; even your scoldings are bittersweet ordeals, if met with candy, literally or figuratively, afterwards. You introduce chords and melodies into the orchestra of life; ones we have never heard of before.

Sometimes they sound so beautiful and harmonic, but other times they sound awful or, worse, don’t sound like much at all. Your ignorant dismissals make us feel insignificant. We are not machines that take your orders. We do not produce the same result every time. You sometimes forget that machines are not taught, they are programmed. We are not machines.

Still, you are the reason why some of us willingly wake up at 6am ten or so years into school. You are the reason why on cloudier days we can still find sunshine. Your hand reaches to help us out of ditches in our roads, and you are the guide and pacer in this marathon when we have no sense of direction or speed. You help us build the bridges to cross many rivers, you lend us your shoulders and backs to reach higher peaks.

You are also the reason some others of us forever shove our backpacks into cobwebbed corners. You are also sometimes the reason why the lightbulb dims and the melody turns monotone and sad. You become just as insignificant in our lives as we are to yours. You forget we have lives, we forget you do, too.

Indeed, you are also the one to push us into things as well as push us away from them. We recognize your love and passion for a subject and mimic the same excitement as our heart beats just as rapidly as yours. We are asked to remain curious and inspired with every thoughtful question you hand us. We are challenged to love challenges and to stand back up from falls.

But we also recognize your boredom and distaste. It is difficult for us to remain colorful in dullness. Each of your requests for uniformity and correctness erases a little bit of us. We become machines. Bored and boring machines. Nameless, faceless.

One day, we will have students of our own. You will have told us many things when we were your students, but you will have also told us many other things that we will only understand once we stand in your shoes. Some things, you will not have told us at all, left as a door for us only to discover what’s behind on our own.

When such a day comes that we have our own smaller hands to hold, it is our hope we understand what intentions you may or may not have had.

When such a day comes, we hope to have a hand to offer. We hope to have the same energy that we so delighted in; we hope to learn to love to teach others just as we learned to love to learn; we hope to sing the same beautiful songs and wave just as many “hellos” and “goodbyes”.

So, dear Teacher, please remember:

we will be you one day, so be the You you want us to be.

Dear Teacher

Lost in Translation

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From Day 0, we are taught to translate from one language to another. No newborn understands what “ma” means until the brain develops the connection to link the sound to the figure that provides us love and care.

And since day 0, we continuously learn to translate. We are asked (perhaps forced) to translate “1, 2 and 3” to the quantities we observe. We are asked to translate “Mary had a little lamb” to a imagination of a figure who possesses another figure of some shape. We are asked to address more complex translations, or translations of translations. Society teaches us how to translate, or more so, what the correct translations are.

Correct. We are lauded for proposing the correct translations of things. 1+1 = 2. A reading comprehension problem on the SAT. The most recent news on why Trump just tweeted what he tweeted.

So then the big question arrives one day: what is correct?

After an awkward moment of silence, some propose a translation for correct: “it’s what’s right,” they may say. It quickly becomes apparent this answer is unproductive, and so is every answer that is an attempted translation for correct. Maybe we can translate such situation as “running in cycles.”

This is a difficult question because we don’t really have an answer. Our entire lives have been based upon translations of ideas, ideas rooted in societal contexts and human observations. Science, as objective as it is claimed to be, is nothing but a human translation of universal observations agreed upon by a good chunk of the population. Thus, science does not hold the key, either.

We can direct our question, then, to what is actually being translated. When we count the fingers on our hand, we are making a “logical” connection. Objectifying and separating each finger first, then connecting it to the translation we learned to associate it with. When we learn to speak full sentences, we identify the subject and the object and establish a relationship. The only “logical” relationship that, again, we as humans have established.

That is to say, logic is entirely subjective. We may say that the particular logic that dominates the current era or even just the environment around us is the logic that determines how we make our translations. It is almost surprising how adherent we are to which logical ideal we entertain. I need say no more to describe the sorts of issues that arise with conflicting ideologies.

Disregarding what I claimed about science for a moment, let us suppose that our current biological viewpoint on the idea that the greatest necessity for most living organisms including humans is survival. Back to day 0, we need our motherly figure for survival. It was necessary to the very core that we learned how to say “ma” to survive. This is where I’d like to believe we have a commonality shared by all — no translation needed.

It is difficult to even hope that we can all agree on anything. At some point, the translations become absolutely meaningless and repetitive. Since we are creatures based on survival, if we feel as though others’ ideas are threatening to ours, instinct tells us to flee or fight; either way, create separation.

Therefore I leave this subject here, merely hoping that one day we can learn to understand why others think differently. Things lost tend not to be found.

Lost in Translation

If my father hadn’t immigrated:

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My brother wrote his college application essay on the immigration story of our father and his family. A non-English speaking 17 year old who climbed his way up from rags to riches through the American Dream. A story a lot of us second-generation kids were told since young.

The dinner table monologue always started the same way — “When I was your age…” or “If I hadn’t moved to America…” and back then it was a drag, a lecture that I didn’t have to hear for the 129th time. “I know, Dad, I know.” But I don’t think I really knew what he meant.

If my father hadn’t immigrated into LA at the age of 17:

  • I would have gone through the regular, disgusting public school system in Korea.
  • I would not speak English, or Spanish, to this level of fluency.
  • I would not have traveled and visited more than 15 countries before the age of 15.
  • I would have a brother who would have had to serve in the military for two mandatory years.
  • I would not have a younger sister. Likely, I would not have been born either.
  • I would be busy caring about my physical appearances.
  • I would be struggling to find a job under a dysfunctional government and a declining economy.
  • I would not be able to receive grants and scholarships.
  • I would have been working far more part time jobs and studying far less.
  • I would probably have been part of the OECD statistics on teenage suicide rates.
  • I would not be here today, writing this.

The “American Dream” we like to put in quotes is not so glorious, and I’m not trying to say that Korea is horrible in every aspect. But it’s true that the America that raised me despite my immigrant father and my skin color was a kind one. The sheer number of opportunities that were available for me shines light on how lucky I was encouraged to live to look further and to think beyond limits.

It saddens me that I have to constantly think twice about whether I should be using present or past tense. It saddens me even more that I’m having a harder time writing in future tense.

America was great. America is great. America will be —

fuck you, Donald. America will be great without you.

If my father hadn’t immigrated:

The Sound of Farewell

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Being an auditory listener isn’t really that fancy as it sounds. Most people have it.

Turn to page 476.

How easily can you read that in Professor Snape’s voice? It’s really not that hard. But what if that happened to you every time you read anything? typed anything?

That would be me. I read every text message in the voice of the sender, even if that may be just a “k” or a “lol.” I read every narrative in every story with a neutral, standard narrator voice, but it’s not my voice. I read every dialogue in the voice I think the character deserves. This is still nothing too uncommon.

Here’s what’s a little weird, then: I hear them. I hear the words that the lecturer says. Well, okay, duh. But for me, those words never take the graphical, syntactical form in my head. They are just, sounds, like musical notes. I need to put in effort to think of the word “medium” —to form each letter in the alphabet that make up this word — in my brain, or at least until it echoes in my auditory canals for a good two to four times.

Naturally, I associate common words and phrases to a lot of people. I often remember a person’s voice and vocal idiosyncrasies before their face. My brain seems to pick up the way a person’s footsteps sound better than the visual picture of how they pace.

And this is how I heard the sound of anger — from my mother, whose steps were almost inaudible and soft on the wooden floor of our house stairs, oh how they would turn ever so slightly louder, as if it held the tint of her rage for whatever I did wrong.

This is how I heard the sound of joy — on the playground in the rainy weather, a consistent pat-pat-pat as my peers would run across the cement floor, excited for a rare instance of precipitation in southern California.

This is how I heard the sound of dedication—from my former boss, whose pace was quick but steady, never missing a beat as he walked through the halls, no matter the time of day.

And thus, this is how I heard the sound of farewell — the unavoidable silence that befalls upon both sides of a conversation that once had ripened with fruits of avid curiosity and interest; the hum from the receiver on a phone that dragged on for a second too long; the sigh that meant everything from disappointment to relief to retirement.

The sound of farewell tears the tear ducts to pieces and pierces the heart with sharp pain.

The sound of farewell rings and rings, something that haunts you till the break of dawn.

The sound of farewell is confounding.

It is a good-bye perhaps expected, perhaps unexpected. “Farewell” literally means you hope the other will do good and be good. “Good bye” literally means you hope the other has a good “by,” the hope that one’s journey may be good. The bittersweetness of these words highlights an irony, overlooked.

The sound of farewell is blinding.

It is as though you become an athlete, so focused on the game that everything else disappears from sight. The world around you fades into the dark void that needs no attention. What others say to you start making no sense. The departure of love is a void that needs constant feeding.

The sound of farewell fades.

Yes, it hurt. Once. Twice. Likely for long time, continuously.

But like any sound, it fades, and it must fade.

Then it becomes much like the distant memories that you try to conjure up from kindergarten. A fog sets in, and remains. The tolls subside. Amp off.

Unplug those ears. It’s time to seek the sound of hello.

The Sound of Farewell