SO MUCH TO SAY.

GAHHH WHY HAVE I NOT POSTED IN SO LONG.

Don't think I don't have anything to say.
I have a shit ton to say about the summer,
                                    about California, and Google...
                                    about the couple of weeks I've been at MIT before going home,
                                    about being a PRC,
                                    about realizations,
                                    about my next goals.

Mind blown. That's how I feel so far. And infinitely elated.

Breakdown of Google:
1. My team is awesome. I lucked out.
2. Google. Holy crap.
- all the perks
3. Everything works out.
- hockey
4. Random cool happenings
- high school, MIT, alum
5. I'm bad at keeping in touch with people
6. All the adventures
7. Misconceptions
8. Things I worried about that worked out fine
- marathon, people, coding, hosts, performance so far
I like company coding (!)
9. The Future
10. What I've learned so far

Breakdown of California:
1. The Weather.
2. The Food.
3. The People.
4. The Places.
5. The Mood/Music.

Breakdown of Leaving MIT soon:
1. How I'm homeless
2. How fun it is to be a PRC and the lessons I've learned
3. How worried I am of the things I'll miss
4. How weird it feels coming back

I'll touch on these things in the next few days while I have time to process and record them :)

I'm an OxyMoron.

Today, I looked over some of my previous blog posts. Then, out of shameful realization, I stood up to bang my forehead (lightly haha) against the wall of my room.

Why?

Compare my October post to a recent February post.

Yeah...who the f*** do I think I am??

One day I'm proudly proclaiming being the Course 6 hipster triumphing alternative energy and the next second I sell my soul to become another Noogler. Oy.

Baby Lohan: What are you doing girl??

A few days ago, I found myself finishing my work up at 2am and, instead of jumping straight to sleep, sitting up and staring at the Boston skyline and the cars zipping across the Harvard bridge... and just thinking. Well, not just thinking, but stressing about the future. 

You know how I said I would stop regretting? Well it was like the f***ing reservoir of regrets busted open and flooded every nerve in my brain. Every classification of philosophical thought was exposed to my self-doubting mind. Who am I? What the hell am I doing? Will I just become a code monkey? But I thought I was going towards the EE side? Why am I doing a CS internship and then going to study EE at Cambridge? Why am I going to Cambridge? I'll miss out on all the entrepreneurship initiatives I wanted to explore on campus! What do I want to do my junior year summer? What if I just become one of those "social" engineers? Fixing small problems and not worrying about the waay cooler bigger problems that are hanging over our world like a cloud that is so massive that it makes you think it's actually just the sky and ignorantly live the rest of your days. Ughhhhh. Nooooo. I'll stop Google and just stay at my lab. All of those people are so smart so what they're choosing to do is obviously the smart thing to do right? Wait, I've been so excited about Google and I'm going to learn so much while I'm there. But how will it help shape me to be someone who can make big things happen? Gah. It's already 2:33am -- why am I doing this now? Wow this pillow's really soft. No, focus! No, this is stupid wallowing in self-regret in the middle of the night. Okay fine, good. night. Ugh. 

...followed by a restless sleep. 

So that's my state of mind right now. The bigger me knows this is all very STUPID thinking and that I should be grateful for the opportunities I have and embrace the decisions I make. So it goes. 

Where I Love

Why I love Boston:

1. The people here seem to love their lives. Whether it's the hustling, black-suited commuters heading towards the Pru, or the early morning runners, or the sarcastic homeless people asking for your money to save the 'Hipster Apocalypse,' there's a spunk to everyone here.

2. There is a charm in the air. Every corner I turn, there's character in this town. I love the tiny stores and cafes that rip you off and the brick paths that make my bike jingle up and down.

3. Every brownstone looks so pretty. The doors look so elegant and each balcony, window, rooftop has its own touch.

4. It's small. If you look at a map of Boston, everything is close to one another. You could technically take a bike and travel around all of Boston in one day if you wanted to. And yet, there's so many obscure and beautiful places you will overlook and these take years to discover :)

5. I feel energetic here. I go on morning runs because it seems like the whole city is up and running at 7am in the morning. Fenway is a single, collectively boisterous human fort before and after a Red Sox game. There are always street bands and singers jamming on the weekends. It's a great place to grow.

6. People are friendly. When you're running, sometimes people greet you as they pass by you. When I'm on the T towards South Station with a bunch of luggage, people let me have their seats. There's a lot of random places where people will strike up conversation with you. And these conversations aren't usually awkward, because Boston kind of brings people together and you end up discovering you have something in common with them.

7. It is a wander-friendly zone. You know how I like to wander and explore and get lost. Well, Boston is perfect for the nomad in me. Once I walked from Mass Ave to Park Street and found some awesome stores. Once I ran to the North End and found a new zen spot. I wouldn't have known where the Christian Science Church was and the awesome fountain by it if I hadn't decided to one day run past Berklee.

8. People are fashionable. There are so many creative people here, and I always pick up some inspiration on my runs.

9. There's always people visiting Boston. Whether it be for a history class field trip, visiting colleges, or seeing the sights and visiting family, I love that I can sit down somewhere and know there's someone there who's seeing the place for the first time. There are constantly people appreciating what Boston has to offer.

10. Boston is an intersection point, a crossroad if you will. People come here to become better people. They leave to pursue their dreams. It's a place to grow. People don't seem to settle down in Boston as much as live here for a few years and then depart. Yet everyone looks back fondly at their time in Boston :)

**
This is something I've been compiling and editing since I stayed in a brownstone in Back Bay Boston over the past summer. I love Boston. A lot. I'm going to miss it next year!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Why I'm Going to Cambridge.

This is one of the surest things I've done in a while. Which is sad, because even on this decision, I wavered a bit.
But it's one of the first occasions that I feel like I'm doing something for me. And I feel like my mind and my heart agree. I feel free. For once, I've broken past any expectations of me or the pressure I feel from comparing myself to my peers.
I am doing this one for me. In my first few semesters at MIT, I developed a four-year plan without even giving thought to what or why I wanted something in the first place.
I have a Word Document (typing that made me feel archaic for some reason...) that contains all of the most interesting or inspiring words I have ever read online. Today I pull one out from Steve Jobs at the 2005 Stanford Commencement. It's one that I remind myself of often and quoted around the sides of one of my paintings:

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

 

I know my education is important. But what makes education more valuable is what you put into it - your ambitions, dreams, and confidence. Currently, I lack the latter two, and it terrifies me. Hopefully, by making myself realize that I can do something very different from my peers for a year and survive and feel phenomenal, I can believe that life can be lived without a dictated roadmap. Well, being the paranoid individual I am, I will still at least have a loosely designed plan for everything :)

I'm young. So I shouldn't live life scared of whether I'll fail. I should do things that interest, inspire, and intrigue me. And I am.

W.O.W.

W.O.W. = What. Obvious. Wonders.

It's crazy how blessed I've been these past few months. 

Two big (I know - kind of cliche) things I'm very very thankful for:

- I am interning with Google this summer! (And had the problem of deciding between that and GE, a company I've wanted to work with for a long time!) 

- I am studying abroad at the University of Cambridge for my junior year! 

This is one of those opportunities I never dreamt taking, and now that it is becoming a reality, I am in awe. My heart literally starts freaking out every time I think about it, and I'm pretty sure I'm banned from the topic around my friends because I've exhausted it into annoyance. 

So now I've just been compiling a Google Doc Bucket List based on places I want to go to and activities/foods I want to try!

Now allow me to freak out about this on my blog for a while (betches, it's my online space!): 

holy carp*, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, 

 holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp,

 holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp, holy carp ♥

I deserve neither of these opportunities, and yet they're happening. I feel like the luckiest most blessed person in the whole world. 

I feel like Ron here. Ooh, or Cam. Better yet, this winner here. (I still love SNL.)

But in all seriousness, I am so grateful and undeserving of the blessings around me and I hope I can remind myself of how good my life is as the semester rolls in.

*see this blog post

And just for kicks:

Happy Birthday to the Non-President

It's my 20th birthday today!

I'm trying this new thing (we know how that goes...) where I try to act like I'm a year older than I am so that I have a year to prepare for my age next year. 

Wow, that sounded so much stupider once I wrote it out explicitly. I swear that sounded mature and brilliant in my head. 

Things I want to try doing:

1. Get the little things right:

- Send emails when they come to mind

- Reply to emails when I first get them!

- Regard money as a tool.

2. Take advantage of my life:

- Get serious about my education and practical about how I want it to benefit me in the future

- Invest more in my friends - show them I care every single day :), even when I feel like absolute carp*

- Talk to my parents more when I'm home and absorb all the advice and share with them my stories

- Take care of my body: Eat smart (healthy but delicious), Run hard (make it burnnn), Feel happy (worry... never) 

- Keep things in prospective: A balance of "what's one year next to the rest of your life?" vs. "live today like it's your last" 

3. More to come as I think of them!

*I really like the idea of inverting "crap" to "carp" -- it's one of the weird ideas I come up with and think it's brilliant, even though everyone else thinks I just misspelled "crap"

Black and White

During the winter, I get depressed. 

It's a simple fact of life. 

Even if I have all my friends around me and I'm never really alone if I don't want to be, I get depressed. Introspection dominates my thoughts and I overanalyze and dramatize everything. It's crazy and unreasonable. (And no, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to do with hormones... it's just wintertime.)

And so, to provide myself with some inspirational relief, I've put together some beautiful images from my web-surfing to give you and me a glimpse of paradise amidst the dreary Boston weather outside. 

one.

two. 

(Tromso, Norway)

three.

four.

 (At.mosphere: 122nd floor of Burj Khalifa in Dubai)

five.

six.

(Gullfoss Waterfall, Iceland)

seven.

eight.

(The Maldives)

Oh man, there's so much I haven't seen yet.

A Breeze from the Past

I was looking through some high school files from my old laptop when I happened upon a language and composition assignment from my junior year. This was one of my favorite assignments ever, and my teacher, Mr. Trainer, had made it into a contest. The assignment was to write a fictional scene based on Pierre-Auguste Renior's 1881 painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party. I remember spending so much time (out of enjoyment) writing and editing my piece and being furious after handing it in when my teacher announced that he eliminated any piece that used the word "wifebeater" or "beater," claiming that it was inaccurate to use that term since they did not exist back in 1881.
I was so mad. I wanted him to at least recognize how well thought out my writing was and to receive some acknowledgment for my talent, or at least my hard work. It's funny but thinking about it gets me a bit tense even now, haha.

Anyways, here it is for your perusal! 

Rebecca Zhang

Mr. Trainer

Lang and Comp

3 December 2009

Pierre-Auguste Renior’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881

Finally, she had some time to talk to him. Well, if only the man hovering over her would walk away and reunite with his admirer, the flushed-face girl who rested her lovely face and hands on her elbows by the railing. The young woman eyed the man above her kindly and politely, pulling the corners of her lips apart in a tense smile. She wore a cerulean afternoon dress, most appropriate for resembling the waves made by the boat she was on for the luncheon. The dress was decorated with a patterned, frilled lapel and she wore a soft, brimless, sailor-themed hat that limped on the top of her burnt-orange curls. Her scalp must be protected from the beating sun, as her mother had reminded her. Across the small table, her sister, only eleven of age, sat alone, still too shy and naïve to relinquish the staged infatuation over her puppy and introduce herself to the many eligible bachelors.

            The young woman could see from the periphery of her view her childhood companion whom she had not talked to in years. He seemed happy. Unlike her, he was content with just sitting next to her on the rocking ferry and staring out into the lake to rest his eyes on the rows of sailboats and trees floating there. She wanted to talk to him. He had taken off his catering uniform and was wearing a relaxed white wifebeater and a boater just like the rest of the workers. He was leaned back in his seat with his hands anchored on the antlers of the wooden chair to secure himself. He smiled just as he had when he was only a boy, with the ends of his lips slightly curled up as if he could see many happy events happening in the near future. She didn’t know why he hadn’t stopped smiling. His father had left his mother and his mother died soon after-from heartbreak they said. He has been earning his own livelihood since then. And he catered for all her dining needs this whole morning while she indulged herself with imported champagne and sweet fruits. What could she say to him- “I’m sorry?” For what? Maybe it was better to allow the other man to keep talking.

            The towering man wore an ivory knit sweater over his clothes and no boater, probably to stand out among his workers. One of his hands wrapped around the far side of her chair and the other gripped one side of the chair beside her. His hand was too close to hers. She wasn’t even listening to the smooth words scurrying out of his mouth. How could he be trying to impress her when he knew he was slowly breaking the heart of another girl?

            The scratchy white fabric of her dress was itching her skin- was it the heat? Her thin hat could slip off her head at any time. She wished the burly man would stop leaning over the railing. He could tip the boat over. There was too much chatter and … she needed a break.

Riversong

I love this song:

Riversong by A Fine Frenzy

I laid down by the river’s edge
I laid down wondering where it led
I laid down by the river’s edge
And I woke up in a river bed

There were flowers in my hair
River flowers floating everywhere
And all the fishes came and kissed my feet
Dear old fishes, they said to me

They said oh, we could love you
But we are not yet what you want
Because oh, anyone could love you
You’ve got to find where you belong

All my needles, they were gone so fast
Not a needle left on a branch
I grew weaker
And the river strong
I said, hey fishes
But the fish were gone

Now the boulders
I know they heard me cry
But they were stone-faced
And they stood aside
So I went on at the river’s pace
With my eyes closed, I thought I heard them say

They said oh, we could love you
But we are not yet what you want
Because oh, we would only crush you
You’ve got to find where you belong

How does it feel
To be so certain
Without question
Of your purpose
Your position
Of your place
Of your home?
Of your place
Of your home

You cannot catch the river though
It makes you think you can
It trickles through your fingers
While you hold it in your hands
Just like I am

...listen to it here

(An interview of her is here.)

große Elefant im Zimmer

I can't stand it any longer.

Some of my friends are going through rough times and I don't know what I can do to help.
Today I just talked to one of my friends who is going through the worst time ever.
It was her birthday today.
It was the worst birthday she ever had.
Her studies aren't going well. She was sick and felt like poop.
And all I could do was sit next to her and listen.
I honestly didn't know how to reach out to her.

What scares me the most is when I have the opportunity to make someone feel even just a little happier and I don't know where to start.

Sometimes I'm so mad at the fact that sometimes this place demotivates people. And confuses them and makes them forget why they wanted to come here. They forget about the dreams they had when they first heard about MIT. The ideas that flooded as they wrote their applications. The anxiousness of waiting to hear back. The thrill of getting in. These are moments we all went through and an accomplishment we all celebrated. They weren't just moments - they are life-changers. We experiencing a phase in our lives that we all dreamed about and wished so hard for...

And then it fucks* us up. It makes us do things that aren't like ourselves. It makes us say things we regret. It makes hate ourselves and think we're worthless and undeserving. We forget about our dreams.
*sorry. you get the idea.

I'm a firm believer in dreams. All my proudest moments could only have been possible because I dreamed some part of them. Sometimes my realities surpass my dreams. It's freakin' awesome.
The fact is that we're all awesome. Seriously.
I've felt like a piece of shit many a times at this place, but at the end of the day, I'm insane if I keep thinking that way. If I expect myself to be perfect, I'll fall short. But if I give myself room to grow to become someone better, stretch my comfort limits and keep trying new things, stumble inevitably but learn from my mistakes, jump higher and set new goals, I can get through this in one piece.

I want to get to commencement in one piece. Furthermore, I want my sanity with me. But better yet, I want to be the person I imagined I'd be at the end of college. I want to be proud of me and look back and think, "Fuck yeah, this place was hard, but man, I did some amazing things here. And I'm looking forward to the rest of my life, which will be epic, thanks to what this place has prepared me to do."

And most importantly, I want all my friends by my side so I can celebrate that beautiful day with them.

Rest.

Though I'm not Catholic, I'm going to begin this post with a series of confessions.

Confession 1: I haven't been to church in months.

Confession 2: Today I went to church and fell asleep for most of the sermon and mouthed most of the lyrics because I didn't recognize the worship songs.

Confession 3: From what I picked up from the pieces of me waking up suddenly from the sermon, the passage was from Luke about Jesus sitting with the tax collectors. Which made me feel a bit uncomfortable because in my current spiritual state, I see myself as the tax collector.

Maybe this is because of the nature of all sermons,  but sermons have the tendency of being pretty applicable to everyone in the room in some way. When the pastor kept talking about how we need to transmit the Word of God to all the "tax collectors" in our lives (which I kind of brushed aside because of Confession #3), I did feel selfish about my introspective thoughts. There were other people who had it much worse than me and I shouldn't tuck myself into my private bubble of stress. It was super unhealthy of me. And I started thinking that it was time to change my priorities in life...

But what really got me during the service was the last prayer.

During the pastor's prayer, he prayed that we would all get rest. Rest. Not sleep (though I badly needed that too), but rest. 

Rest - security from God and the constant reminder that God is taking care of you and it will be okay. As long as we do our part (or even if we just dropped the ball epically), God is there and He is good. 

I can't do life alone. Sometimes I convince myself it's possible, but life is so much better with God by myself. He is my Rest.

Plan Z

What is self-fulfillment?

For the last, oh I don't know, 10 years of my life, I've been annoyed by the kids around me with elaborate life goals that almost sound like prophesies that they are determined to fulfill.

...what the hell?

How did they possibly know what they wanted to do so early in their life? I was madly jealous of them. I still am. I go to MIT - some of these kids have been dreaming of chopping up bacterial plasmids for the last decade of their lives!

But I stumbled upon (not literally) this New York Times article by a man who is now a professor at Georgetown in computer science and he claims that things like passion comes from investing time into a particular project or activity. No one has to know what they want exactly, but choose something and go with it and don't look back. It's unrealistic to choose something and be disappointed with it because you don't feel like it's your life calling. If you stick with something and invest enough of your time into it, you'll grow to care about it and love what you do, even if it's know according to your original plan.

Check out these beautiful words over here.

I think that applied pretty well to my life so far. MIT was not the school I thought I would end up in, and yet by senior fall of high school, it was my top choice. Engineering was not something I considered as a major until I started thinking more about MIT. (I was going to be pre-law!) And I didn't know what I would be invested in during my time here so far. Now I'm involved in quantum dot solar cell research and just gave a poster presentation on it. People came up to me and thought I was a senior. (I laughed really loudly which probably made them uncomfortable. My bad.)
So I'm not sure if the whole solar energy thing is going to work with my degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. When everyone's trying to find the next hottest job (Google, QualComm, Intel, Microsoft...) and I'm looking at the less-publicized startups and consulting companies in alternative energy, I definitely feel like I'm taken the unbeaten path.
   Where will this lead? I sure as hell do not know.
   Will I regret not delving into a hotter field where there is more money? I've learned not to regret decisions I've made. It's so bitter and frankly, you feel like shit. Choose a direction you like and never look back. There's going to be rough patches in any path you take, and the grass is probably not much greener on the other side.

The other day, I saw a sticky that my friend had on her desk:

"Determination is knowing what you want."

For me, I don't know what I want yet, but I know I want to work hard and make the most of MIT. There's a certain law I follow in my head. [It's a law so I don't ever think about disproving it.]
1. If I want x, I expect to get it.
2. If I expect to get x, then I will work as hard as I can to get it.
3. I will get x.
4. Repeat.

There's also a law regarding MIT that I follow to suppress any doubts that what I'm doing is not severe masochism but simple self-discipline:
  I can handle anything post-graduation if it is not as bad as what I've endured during my 4 (or 5) years at MIT.
  A follow-up to that is: The harder the experience at MIT is for me, the more I can endure and survive in the real world.

Now, I don't know how naive or maybe simply stupid those laws are. But if you're an MIT beaver who has floated away from the MIT bubble, I request that you allow me to incubate in the MIT bubble for the entirety of my time here. My sanity and determination thank you.

Road Trip: Pause

Paht 1

We went on a road trip to Ohio to visit my dad's summer research stint at the Air Force Base. 

Western Pennsylvania has mountains, cornfields, farms, and ... grass. (Oxford comma.)

The rest stops were probably the most interesting parts of the drive. 

Just kidding, there were some awesome tunnels and the bridges next to Pittsburgh were beautiful. It was fun being weird and rambunctious and creating embarrassing moments with my siblings again.

Here's some randos taken on the daddy-o's DSLR:

in the middle of singing another ad lib song to entertain.

I hope those videos never get out into the public.

we got bored. i guess.

oh, sorry: Western PA has trees too. my bad.

 my brother has huge ears. gosh.

Hope you have at least one dysfunctional road trip this summer too :)

It's good for the soul.

Harbor Arbor

My metals class brainchild from senior year of high school:

I scoured the internet for all types of jewelry stands as inspiration and weighed out how difficult it'd be to create one with the limited tools and one month's time we had in school.

I had little mementos on each corner.

The bird on the top is supposed to resemble one of those rooster weather vanes and symbolize a moral compass for the more independent times ahead. 

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself any direction you choose. 

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

 And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” 

“You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. 

You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. "

"And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! 

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.” 

~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Duct Tape

DUCT TAPE IS SO AWESOME. 

This clutch was something I made while babysitting. I like knowing I'm still a kid, no matter how harsh school gets. Why do harsh times make you grow up? Why does growing up make you shed kid features? I don't like these inferences we learn to make as we grow up. 

Why can't we be everything? I want to grow up to be a responsible kid, or something like that.

Adante.

Going home after a long semester at MIT just felt weird. Every time I come back home from school, it's like I completely shed my skin from school and reassume whatever I was at home before school ever happened.
When I got home, I literally threw my suitcase in a corner of my room, pulled out what clothes I had remaining in my closet, and pulled out my Mac and did everything I didn't do at MIT. I blogged. I put together outfits. I browsed through magazines. I used my hands and adjusted things. I thought about painting things and writing things. It's like slowly rebuilding my sense of self and slowly re-familiarizing myself with what thoughts I used to have in my mind. It's like rehab for the creative side of my mind. Slowly taking steps again. It feels awesome.
MIT is allegro. And I know August will be allegretto. But for now, adante feels just right. There's no rush. Yet there's a decisive rhythm to my work. Because I know I won't have this calm time forever and I want to savor each second. Each sound.