circles

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 ...