🌱 retracing my steps
i took a detour...
nearly 9 years ago, in april 2015, i walked into my first speed-cubing competition. a few years later, i started uploading youtube videos about rubik's cubes.
i was 12 then, and in some ways i was more brave than i am now. i had filmed a travel vlog. i had auditioned for the main character in the class play—with a comical impression of a british accent. i had rickrolled an entire class.
college-sophomore me couldn't be more proud.
perhaps i paint pieces of my past with extra color—but where did that shameless, cringeworthy part of myself go?
it wasn't middle-school, where we ran laps in a collared shirt and tie. it was my high school—where we ran laps in shorts and a t-shirt.
for context, one of my biggest goals in high school was to get into mit. at my bay area high school, therefore, college admissions crept into nearly every decision i made.
it was in some ways a blessing: it gave me the extra push to work on fulfilling projects like jadeocr and discover a love of teaching in the computer science club. but it was also a curse.
why didn't i learn to play the guitar or go bouldering? i was afraid that it was too late to start something new. if there were six-year-old guitar and climbing prodigies, how would i ever compete?
clearly, i missed the point. i forgot how to have fun.
instead, i busied myself with things that didn't really matter—like contests i hated—for my applications. i eventually spent so much time studying and working on projects that my social skills also declined.
my time became so centered on "work" that i neglected everything else i could spend time on.
in college, i finally realized how absurd it was that:
- i've been afraid to make eye contact with people.
- i've thought too much about asking friends to eat lunch/dinner together.
- i've hesitated to ask strangers to watch over my bag at a coffee shop.
- i forgot how to start new hobbies.
but over the past two years, i've been re-learning how to:
- embrace discomfort. even in small things.
- i've attended bhangra practices with no dance experience and joined 45-mile bike rides with near-strangers.
- i've attended friends' casual gatherings, even with few familiar faces around.
- write and publish blog posts like this one.
- ask for what i want
- ask people to watch over my items at coffee shops.
- this skill has also helped my academic life. i've asked professors to make me the first learning assistant for an ml course and allow me into classes that i don't meet prerequisites for.
- have fun
- i'm finally learning to play the guitar, cook, and climb!
i don't want to be a copy of my 12-year-old self, but i have some lessons to learn from him. that's why i'm retracing my steps.