No, this isn't another one of those "I need to do well on MCATs and get into med school" sort of posts, but rather one of those "I can't sleep at night and started thinking about life and came up with some stuff that I need to write down to remind myself" sort of posts. Aside from school and study things, I've been thinking about some things I want to do after I'm school-free and working. I've thought of a list of things I want to do after graduation. This wasn't something I just thought of today; I just decided to post it today because I can't fall asleep. This is why I don't take naps. I was feeling a bit sick at noon today and took a 2hr nap and now I can't sleep. So here's a list of things I want to accomplish in the next year or two.
1. Improve my relative pitch. I want to be able to recognize notes very well and be able to sing notes on sheet music.
2. Learn Japanese (master hiragana and at least katakana and learn some Japanese grammar)
3. Learn Korean (master hangul, improve vocabulary and learn some Korean grammar)
4. Compose some more simple pieces like the one I did for music class. Sure it took time, but it was lots of fun.
5. Learn to play another instrument like the guitar if I have enough money to buy one.
6. Maybe draw a bit more, like take some time learning to draw anime/manga, etc
7. Write more. Maybe I'll join one of those fanfic sites or something haha, but in all seriousness, at least update this blog a lot more than I am now and maybe write stories (not crappy anime-type stories) and post them online anonymously or something.
8. Learn to cook non-stir fry, American/European food
9. Be more social, though all of the above would make me more antisocial... maybe just more social at work
10. Find emotions - not sure if I can control this, but I would really want to find my emotions
Basically, improving myself artistically and socially. I should learn how to talk to people too. I'm actually really excited about these things because it's finally something I want to do that isn't study/school related.
I've also been thinking today how I've changed quite a bit after coming to college. During high school, I'd be afraid of letting others know what I liked or wanted to do outside of school. I think it might've been fear of judgement. What if other people didn't like what I liked? What if they thought I was weird? Those questions would come to my mind, so I never had any favorite anythings. I still don't have favorites I guess because I have this mindset that having favorite things is naive and immature and when you're older, you shouldn't have "favorites", just like and dislike, but at least now, I have a criteria for what I like and what I don't like. My mom always asked me what I enjoy doing since I don't like to study and I've never been able to say what I wanted to do because I hadn't wanted to do anything. Back in high school, it was like play Maplestory, Stepmania, watch anime and dramas; basically, I just wanted to be with the computer.
I'm surprised that I'm actually writing things I want to do. I guess I'm understanding myself a bit more now that I'm not afraid of judgement and I care less about what other people think. Each year, I'm surprised at how much more of myself I'm able to reveal to others. I remember in high school, everything I said was mean and sarcastic. I think that was a way of self-protection, it was so people couldn't get close to me. I'm still a bit cautious about people getting near me, but I'm trying to break that barrier and I think eventually, it'll shatter. Life is more fun when you don't care as much about what people think of you and when you're around more people. My mom always said to have many friends and acquaintances, but only a few really close friends that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I'm still in the process of making those really close friends, but as of now, I have a few people in mind.
I've noticed I've been reflecting a lot these days about my life. Most of my post in the past few months have been reflections and me thinking about my life. I guess it's because of this graduation thing and that my life outside of parental protection and school is starting. I'll have to be in charge of my own life now, so I need to start thinking about what I should do with it. For next year, I actually really want to live in another state, or somewhere far enough that I have to rent an apartment and live on my own, so I can experience what it's like. I'll probably be going back to the protection of at least school in a year or two, but for the next year or two, I would like to live by myself. I want the experience of driving to work, making my own breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or buying lunch at work. Working on my own projects during work and hopefully not making too many big mistakes. Making my own Asian and maybe even white friends that aren't even close to my age, but rather my parents' age.
That reminds me of another problem I've realized in my life. I'm afraid to talk to people my parents' age, Asian or white. It might be because I dislike the "you're young, so you don't understand" attitude my parents and many of their friends give me, or that most of the Asians and white "adults" in the company know my mom, since I've been working mainly at AstraZeneca. My mom warned me that if I make a mistake, it will not only hurt people's view of me, but also jeopardize her job at the company. Working in those circumstances gives me lots of pressure and afraid to talk to people in case I say something stupid, so I usually just don't talk. Also, if I make a mistake, I don't want them telling my mom and my mom yelling at me for it afterwards. But in another state where no one knows about my past and no one knows who my mom is, I think I should be fine.
Today, while I was in my research lab, I found out I didn't know how to answer the question "What's up?" because I usually just say "the ceiling". I realize that's an annoying answer, so I only do it to friends, but someone said "What's up?" to me today and I didn't know how to answer. I just muttered "nothing much" but I want to be able to give an answer that might end up taking the conversation somewhere. I never used to know how to answer "how's life" or "how are you doing" questions, but nowadays, if someone I don't know well asks me, I just answer "good" and if someone I know well asks me, I just jokingly say "life sucks", or "busy". But those answers are pretty bad too. I'm going to start paying attention to how other people answer those questions and find an answer I like to stick with.
This has been a pretty long post and I'm not too sure what to say about my life now. Guess we'll have to wait for the next reflection before I post, haha. But hopefully, I'll post happier and maybe less serious things before that. I'm going to need to sleep soon, or I'll get another 2/5 on my stats quiz tomorrow. That happened last time I got 3hrs of sleep before stats, but good thing we get to drop like 4 quizzes and I only have one 2, and two 4s out of 5 so far after 15quizzes, so if I fail tomorrow's quiz, it wouldn't matter too much. I just won't be able to fail anymore after that.
