Dear reader:
It's time that I confess one of the most soul-wrenching facts of the blogging profession. (Pardon me, did I just call it a profession? Sorry to those of you who have actual careers like car-washing and running lemonade stands. I'll get a real job someday.) Moments of pain are mercifully scarce in a job that regularly involves glorifying the trivialities of college life, self-deprecation, making fun of Harvard, and (best of all!) fully enjoying the anonymity of the Internet as I subtly brainwash the latest tides of prefrosh, but nonetheless I do want to totally sound like Oprah's novelist of the month right now. Here it is: every sentence I write, no matter how stupidly punctuated, is fraught with tightropes of joy and frustration. The two are inseparable, like most differential equations you will encounter. Joy is fluidly woven into the silk of human experience, gently tugging on the writer's (aka, my) natural tendency to share with you all that I have felt and loved. Frustration frays the corners like loose threads, ceaselessly pulled into existence by the thick fingers of the writer's (aka, my) own limitations. Words, no matter how deceptively suave, are nothing more than clumsy stunt doubles for the breathlessness of an unforgotten moment.
There's an infinity of worlds that I can't wrestle into the confines of language or photography. But I forget this and try anyway, occasionally tumbling into a tangled corner of half-meant sentences. Those translucent seconds into which I concentrate my love of language are the substanceless dragonflies that I chased after as a kid. I wish: to pluck the wings of a fleeting moment, spread it out in the sunlight, crystallize it in glass forever. Sometimes I succeed, but it's never as beautiful as I would want.
And that is the story of my blog.
I could leave you here, but once again I have something to show you. Two nights ago, I cut across Killian Court on my way home from campus. It was around 6:30 PM, around 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and above me I could feel the evening sky slathered on the grey-blue brink of dusk. As I traipsed through the grass in the gentle, incandescent light echoing off the walls of the Infinite, I remembered running across the courtyard last August, dashing from Building 4 to Building 3 in a brief whirl of disorientation during Orientation. (Where was I going? I have no idea, but I was lost.) I had been at MIT for a week. I was comparatively oblivious to the importance of having friends. Last night, I had played Mafia with a large group of strangers at Random Hall, still feeling like I'd been displaced into someone else's home. I was unsure about classes. I wondered whether I would need help with problem sets. I wanted to meet Noam Chomsky. I still thought Paul B. was at least 5 feet tall*.
*Actually, he might be over 5 feet tall. Paul, can you confirm this?
Time is strange. There, at 6:30 PM on Tuesday, I was eighteen hours away from finishing my first year at MIT. Realizing this was like downing a cocktail of haphazardly-mixed emotions, wincing at something that tastes like sadness buried within the burning thrill of untempered joy. Ten months ago, I couldn't have imagined the conversations that I would have after midnight about the consequences of Maxwell's equations. I couldn't have imagined that I would cook for 30+ people on a regular basis, or that I would forget the existence of misery in the world as soon as I discovered the structural and thermodynamic properties of homemade bread. I couldn't have imagined the strength of friendships forged in the heat of impassioned arguments with my classmates about Question #11 on the problem set due in 12 hours. I couldn't have imagined the eye-watering clarity that fills your entire soul after you finally finish the last proof on an 8.223 assignment at 2 AM in the morning after realizing that the instructor had made (another) typo. I couldn't have imagined making dumplings with my roommate and discovering far too late that neither of us knew how to thaw meat, or cook meat, or separate dumpling wrappers, or make dumplings. I couldn't have imagined special relativity. I couldn't have imagined that in the midst of relentless intellectual challenges, I would find a home.
As I write this now, life since August has become a continuum of brilliant, perspective-altering moments that glow in hindsight like stars glimpsed in an expanding universe. I watch the light reach me through unseen corridors of space and time, and I deeply wish that you could see it too.
So I do something that I have not done since August. I climb up to the roofdeck of Random Hall and I transcribe the sunset that plays over the Cambridge skyline. It's a small gesture of remembrance, for you and for myself.
It's not perfect, but I tried.
Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)
I always imagined him as an average -- if not slightly above average-- in height.
Posted by: 0 on May 21, 2009
I always imagined him as average -- if not slightly above average-- in height.
Posted by: 0 on May 21, 2009
P.S. I'm five foot five.
Posted by: Paul on May 21, 2009
If you're five foot five, that makes me, like, five foot seven. Or maybe five foot five point five.
Posted by: Yan on May 21, 2009
Posted by: Paul on May 21, 2009
But there were no pictures of food on this one
Posted by: MaXweLL on May 21, 2009
I don't know you yet, but I could hear your voice in this blog. It was so honest and heartfelt, I am getting the same warm-and-fuzzies I got on Pi Day, and again at CPW. I am so excited to be at MIT next year. Thanks Yan, and all the bloggers for making MIT shine so bright.
~JB
Posted by: JB '13 on May 21, 2009
Posted by: shawn'11 on May 21, 2009
Posted by: Camera Obscura on May 21, 2009
We have to settle this once and for all. "Yan vs. Paul: a 3-round duel of height, intelligence, and good-lookingness."
@ JB:
Thanks! Glad to hear.
@ Camera:
Canon G9.
Posted by: Yan on May 21, 2009
To everybody who said that MIT students are not silly?!
Posted by: Someone on May 22, 2009
I hope my freshman year at MIT will be more than I expect and better than I thought, as you said in your blog.
Good luck and see you this fall! :D :D
Posted by: Sheila '13 on May 22, 2009
Posted by: Sam on May 22, 2009
I think I'm going to go weep now.
Posted by: Yan on May 22, 2009
Additionally, there should be an official competition for "Best MIT Blogger" (considering all aspects). Everyone gets one entry to state his/her case. Judging can be done by the public or by Admissions staff (though I really think the latter should participate), and bribery for votes is strongly encouraged.
Posted by: Sam Range '13 on May 22, 2009
You make me smile every time Yan.
Posted by: Chris Praley on May 22, 2009
Posted by: Sam on May 22, 2009
Posted by: Frank Attah on May 22, 2009
Posted by: Kristina '13 on May 22, 2009
O_O
Posted by: Sara D. on May 23, 2009
Unfortunately, it seems you and Yan have another 98 days until you become sophomores. Conservation of frosh.
Posted by: Sam Range '13 on May 23, 2009
i envy you
Posted by: 0 on May 23, 2009
Posted by: Anon on May 23, 2009
Posted by: 0 on May 24, 2009
Posted by: zahid on May 24, 2009
Posted by: Anna on May 24, 2009
P.S. @Sam Range, there would be no point, as Yan would disintigrate the competition as skillfully as she does everything.
Posted by: Jacobi on May 24, 2009
The sky is quite beautiful in those pictures~
And I definitely think you're shorter than 5'5".
Posted by: NathanArce on May 25, 2009
Posted by: Ashish on May 25, 2009
@ Nathan:
I'm 5'1 last time I checked. Paul is probably lying to impress you guys.
@ Ashish:
Nope!
Posted by: Yan on May 25, 2009
Then what are you doing over the holidays? If you don't mind me asking.
Posted by: Anon on May 25, 2009
Right now, I'm UROP-ing full time with Group Sadoway on developing batteries for high temperature applications. I may get another job or project at some point.
Posted by: Yan on May 25, 2009
Posted by: NathanArce on May 26, 2009
Enjoy end of exam peace and serenity!!!:D
Posted by: Vaibhav on May 26, 2009
Love
Your
Blog
.Period.Period.Period.
Do-Not-Stop-Or-I-Suffer-From-Blot-Clot-In-The-Brain
Posted by: Ewan Ibrahim on May 26, 2009
Why is it that even prefrosh.. I mean.. frosh are talking about the conservation of frosh? Do you not realize that you yourselves are the embodiment of the youngest generation of MIT. Just because you are not on campus does not mean that you do not exist. Also- the sophomores are no longer froshly and therefore cannot be frosh. AND the rest of the classes are considered the next level up at the end of the year- so we would essentially be missing the sophomore class were the conservation of frosh true. Why would the conservation of frosh be true, but not the conservation of sophomores? Just because sophomores are less interesting? Yan- as a sophomore- you should be outraged!
Posted by: Lyla '11 on May 27, 2009
I certainly didn't intend to create controversy, but it's simply not acceptable for people to run around disregarding fundamental conservational laws.
I, as a member of the Class of 2013, am indeed part of MIT's youngest generation, the prefrosh. Allow me to prove this by contradiction.
If MIT's frosh were not conserved, then come commencement, seniors would cease to exist, juniors would be come seniors, sophomores juniors, and frosh sophomores, thus leaving a void of frosh. As explained in the Law of Conservation of Frosh, a prefrosh cannot be a frosh. We prefrosh are yet discombobulated whelps. Some will be high school students for as much as another month, while other have already graduated.
This fuzzy boundary makes it impossible for prefrosh to become frosh at the beginning of summer. MIT gains and loses students only in discrete quanta ("classes"), not by individual pupils. MIT will not have a new class until there are a thousand new students scampering around campus, heads buried in maps and mouths inquiring where one could find building 36. Therefore, not until Orientation will the prefrosh transition to froshdom, leaving the former frosh to assume the title "sophomore."
So, for now I'm enjoying my life as a transient prefrosh, belonging neither to high school nor to MIT. Yet.
As for the awkward gap left by the promoted sophomores, does it not seem right and proper that MIT would have a gaping wound left in its classes when the seniors graduate and leave forever? A void such as that requires a few months' introspection before it is ready to be filled with a new class.
Yan has no cause for outrage. She, along with the rest of the Class of 2012, is as wise and wizened as a frosh can become. When her replacements arrive, she is prepared to move onwards and upwards.
Posted by: Sam Range '13 on May 27, 2009
Posted by: Ana on May 27, 2009
Ana, thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm reticent around poetry. I'm flattered, but I don't plan to start writing poems anytime soon.
Good luck with your own writings.
Posted by: Yan on May 27, 2009
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