I haven’t really been posting that many articles or blog entries lately. It’s become ridiculously hard to find people to interview because my network only extends so far. Might need to find another purpose to my main site unless I somehow find a new network of people who are really passionate about things they do.
It’s been rough dealing with everything that’s happened these past few months. I’ve definitely learned a lot of lessons and changed a lot of my work and personal mentalities. I think I’ll post a list of important takeaways from my semester in a next post. My semester is finally clearing up though and I definitely won’t be taking as many classes next semester because of time commitments to ABA so I should be focusing more on posting.
Today a young African American man named John Raynor came to my door with a clipboard, showed me a school certificate, and asked for a donation of $15 so he could pay for tuition to attend San Jose State University and study Computer Science. I wrote him a check, received a receipt, and he continued on his fund raising journey.
When my roommates came home, I told them what happened and immediately they jumped to statements and conclusions such as “I bet you got scammed,” “He pretty much stole your money,” and “I bet he took the San Jose State University certificate from someone and is using it to trick people.”
It’s somewhat frustrating how pessimistic some people can be about those working hard to get by in life. Regardless of what his true intentions were, I gave this man the benefit of the doubt and decided that if I had the privilege to pay for and attend UC Berkeley, then this man who is out in the freezing cold asking for donations door-to-door sure as hell deserves the same chance to attend college and get a degree.
Sometimes you just have to put your doubts aside and do what you feel is right. The world’s a better place that way.
I remember exactly one year ago, someone told me “don’t let this consume your life because once you’re out, you’ll find no one left but yourself.”
I’m scared of those words. I’m scared that at the end of this all, I’ll come out and find that no one’s waiting for me and I’ll be all alone. I’ve sacrificed it all to do what I have to do and I’ve gone in with a clear conscience but what will happen? Will people grow tired of waiting for me or will they stay with me until the end?
No one likes to hear their own flaws. Our egos tell us we’re decent human beings and yet other people can still list flaws that we’ve never taken into heavy consideration. When friends give their opinions on what you can improve, you have two choices to make. Either you can become defensive, argue and rationalize, shift the blame to the other person, and potentially lose a friend or you can listen, reason it out, and do your best to improve.
Every once in awhile, it’s good to receive a reality check. If your friends were truly good friends, they wouldn’t mind telling you what you could be doing better so don’t be afraid to ask.
As a parent, you will undoubtedly protect your child from all the dangers of the world. You will teach your child all the knowledge you possibly can to give him/her a push in school and you’ll love someone like you’ve never loved before. And yet, no matter how much you never want to let go, there comes a time when your little baby bird simply has to spread its wings and take flight.
My parents sent me to a private elementary school called Challenger. Challenger was well known for its students, who were all taught at least 1-2 years ahead of the standard grade level in other schools. I wore a standard uniform consisting of a white buttoned up shirt and grey slacks, with an occasional maroon sweater on cold days. My dad set a rule that every day I must study one chapter ahead of the curriculum in all my classes and soon I found myself weeks and even months ahead of my school’s pace. Every few days, I was required to practice Mandarin Chinese and piano. All these extra little pushes at an early age served as a foundation to my education and without them, I wouldn’t have developed the right mindset or discipline to study on my own.
When 8th grade of middle school came around, I noticed that my parents were slowly loosening their rigid control over me. I was allowed to stay up later, my studies no longer had to be routinely paced, and the language lessons dwindled. And because of this newfound freedom, the day I entered a public high school was the day I finally spread my wings. My parents had without saying one word, allowed me to understand that my life was my own, and I would deal with the consequences or rewards of any decision I made. And thus, I studied and I played, and every time I began to lose balance, my parents were there to tap me back into line to make sure I didn’t drift too far.
I think this style of upbringing has been the best any child can ever receive and I am grateful to have been blessed with such understanding parents. By ensuring that my foundation of education and self-discipline were rock solid, my parents were comfortable with letting me do what I wanted, and as a result, I developed a sense of independence and confidence to do anything I wanted with my life.
I can only hope to be what my parents were for me.
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.
Two days ago, a friend of mine bought me a book for a belated birthday present. (If anyone’s interested, it’s a great book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell) As I got ready for class the next morning, I decided to carry the book with me in case I had any free time during the day to read. While walking to class, I found myself opening my book and reading while I walked, oblivious to my surroundings. Gradually, as I became aware of my actions, my first reaction was, “Oh jeez, I must look like such a nerd right now.” Yet, after that first initial thought, I realized that I really don’t care anymore. And then I just kept reading. And ran into a bush. Tripped twice.
Point is, you can do a lot of things if you don’t fear possible embarrassment. It’s your life; do what you want and forget what people think about you. The more you fear, the less you will end up accomplishing and that is a kind of lifestyle you don’t want to live.
There’s something nice about waking up every day excited for school. I generally start class around 9:30 and end at 6:00 every day but even though I’m drop dead tired by the time I walk back to my apartment, I feel productive and proud of my use of time. I’m actually excited about at least 6 of the 7 classes I am taking this semester because they all delve into subjects I am interested in. Even Korean 7A, a literature requirement where we study ancient folklore and history of Korea, has become a class I look forward to attending.
Sadly, I don’t find myself too interested in my Economics class, simply because I find the study of the graphs tedious. Not to mention, some of the concepts don’t make any sense to me. We had a problem that said, “An earthquake hits a neighborhood, destroying 10% of houses in the area. Draw the supply and demand graphs.” So this is a fairly simple econ problem but to my surprise, I discovered in my section that the only change that happens to the graph is an inward shift of the supply curve, but the demand curve remains unchanged. So I can understand the supply part, obviously if 10% of the houses are destroyed, there’s less supply but who in the right state of mind would want to purchase a house in a neighborhood that just got destroyed by an earthquake? Am I just bad at economics or am I the only one who thinks that in the real world, the demand curve would go down as well? There’s an obvious reason why no one bought airline tickets right after 9/11.
So that was my little economics rant that I still can’t understand and if someone could please enlighten me or prove me wrong, please do so in the comments.
Apart from that, classes are still fun. I apologize for the lack of interviews lately but I’m taking a class that has weekly speakers who have acclaimed positions in well-established companies so I’m thinking of doing a multi-part segment for www.kevinleeme.com where I try my best to transcribe the main points I found most interesting in these lectures. We’ll see how it goes.
Yesterday evening, I sat in on a lecture from Ted Hoff, the co-founder of the very first microprocessor and the now deemed “rock star” of Intel. I’m not going to lie, he wasn’t exactly the most fascinating public speaker and I might have accidentally taken a quick nap in the middle of his speech, but I was still conscious enough to catch some of the most important points of his lecture. He started off with a twist on a famous line saying, “Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it definitely helped THIS cat” whilst pointing at himself.
Ted claimed that nothing but curiosity and luck led to his success. At age 12, he received his very first subscription to a science magazine and ever since then, he has remained curious towards the miracles of science. He mentioned how lucky he was to receive older mentors early on in life who helped guide him in his journey and before he was 18, he became an official inventor by U.S. patent for his work on train circuits.
Sometimes as you get older, you’ll begin to settle in at a day job or whatever it is you happen to be doing, and you’ll realize that you gave up curiosity a long time ago. You’ve accepted your fate, closed off your doors, and settled for something you might or might not enjoy doing. I remember reading a friend’s blog (Victor Shih) and noticing one specific passage:
“Epitomics is a mainly customer service based company so there are protocols on all procedures, which bring tedium to every day activities, but I cant help but look at all these adults and see in them something I have always feared. The end of the road. School is filled with so many opportunities and avenues to explore. Discovering and rediscovering oneself. But at the point where many of the adults at work are, they’ve already found all the things theyre meant for. Theres no more excitement or innovation. I feel as though this is it for me. Schooling will be great and exciting, but in the end I’ll end up just like these adults: stagnant.”
I feel the exact same emotions Victor feels and I fear the day I lose my ability to stay curious. I urge you all to keep that curious cat inside you and occasionally drop in a ball of string for it to play with.
