circles

Because Blogspot doesn't have email notifications, unfortunately. https://v4913.substack.com/  :)

Not only is it energetic and catchy enough to vibe/dance to when focusing is not a necessity, but it carries a strong rhythm that can keep your mind going when you do  need to focus, and it's simply beautiful; the notes and lyrics carry so much more meaning than (most) popular music nowadays. It's optimistic, empowering, uplifting -- some of the most popular classic NCS albums are even called "Infinity", "Uplifting", "Elevating", "Colors". Song that I'm listening to right now:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK2aIUmmdP4 Ignore the words (because they basically don't exist) and just focus on the beat... it runs so smoothly, like a river, like a continuous function, not discrete... you can predict what's coming next. Your brain isn't caught by surprise by sudden changes -- well there are beat drops, but they softly melt back into the song. There aren't really good  parts and really bad parts to the song; all of it is go...

I've always been an unusually smiley person. In elementary school, my classmates would compete with each other to get me to stop smiling (specifically, to frown), and I would see this as a challenge to smile for as long as possible. I'm often smiling for no reason, while walking down the street or in class or talking to people. Why? Well, I'd definitely attribute a large portion of it to my parents being really optimistic people. They'd never get discouraged (or at least not show it), smile through the pain (metaphorically) -- they saw pessimism and the defeatist mindset as the one true enemy. From a young age, I was taught not to complain -- to be thankful for what I have rather than distraught by what I didn't. In my household, sadness was the one thing that didn't belong. It does materialize in suboptimal ways sometimes though -- when an actually serious matter is being discussed, and the last thing I should be doing is smiling, I sometimes have the subconsci...

There’s a reason why people do “special” things such as going on vacation, watching movies, running math competitions, etc. aside from personal pleasure. It’s because taking a step back from the tiny sliver of the world that you’re constantly zoomed in on can lead to realizations, for example that you’re very lucky to have X thing or that you should change Y thing that you’re doing. You take a step back and think: what even is my role in society anymore? I was a Caltech Math Meet (CMM) organizer yesterday, and honestly I can’t really believe that CMM actually happened. It seems so surreal, like maybe it was all a dream. It’s so different being an organizer vs. being a contestant; instead of bending over a paper with your mind racing as fast as possible, you’re standing peacefully at the front of a room, scanning for raised hands and letting your mind take a break. When I was a contestant before, I’d occasionally long to switch places with the organizers for just a few seconds to give m...

Like... was I really a TA at G2? I'm still a pretty quiet and introverted person who gets a few nerves when thinking about physically leading a group of people several years younger than me. Now that I'm a freshman in college, I've gotten used to following leaders again, and can't really imagine myself as *that leader*. Did I really go to all those places during the summer before college, traveling around the world alone? Here I am taking the 28X (Pittsburgh airport bus) for the 100th time, as if I've always been surrounded by the familiarity of this city. Did I really compete in international math competitions in high school? I don't think there's anything particularly unique about me anymore; I'm just another college student with normal college student abilities. I'm slowly losing the ability to solve hard problems quickly like few people in the world could. I'm no longer flying in a spaceship, and it's crazy to think that I once was. Did I...

I failed my driving test for the 3rd time today, but I don’t really care at all. The first time was because I didn’t stop for long enough at a stop sign + didn’t know the driving course so I almost missed some of the turns, and the second and third times were both because I was too far from the curb in parallel parking. Ironically, I actually parallel parked correctly the first time which is really sad. Parallel parking is really hard for me because my family’s car doesn’t have rear view camera and I’m kinda too short to see through the right mirror properly so I just park based on *vibes* (aka I have like a 50% success rate). But I literally don’t know where the car is when I’m parallel parking, I just guess… recently I have been trying to use vague reference points to figure out when to turn. I should probably figure out how to adjust the mirror properly. Anyway, I was not expecting to pass the test today so I’m not really sad. I’m not really in a hurry to get my license because I’m ...

and I can't slow down. Life is pretty circular. In some ways it feels like freshman year of high school again, poring over books and trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible. Not really having accomplishments or a direction or knowing exactly what I’m interested in. Success can’t come without blood, sweat, and tears, and I feel like I’ve coasted off of my hard work from 9th-10th grade for the past several years (I was kinda just relying on luck and not really putting in effort to learn skills that I didn’t already have), but now it’s time to put in some raw effort again. External validation from having a place in society due to your accomplishments feels good, but so does the internal validation from knowing that you put every moment of your day to use and worked toward an internal goal of yours, albeit far away. It’s been a while since I was obsessed with a textbook, or trying to learn a completely novel concept, but it feels really good. For this reason, I’m glad that most...

might use this sometime in the future