Archive
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Mandatory New Year’s Post
2012 was probably the most eventful year of my life so far. At this time last year, I was frantically finishing up college applications, and an incredible amount of stuff happened since then. Here are some highlights
-Turned 18
-Completed second semester of French Theater at Princeton University
-Committed to the Dual BA Program between Sciences-Po and Columbia University
-Awarded $1000 by the Association of Foreign Language Instructors of New Jersey for foreign language proficiency
-Graduated from Princeton High School
-Cooked my first meal. I don’t even remember what it was, haha.
-Opened my own bank accounts
-Traveled to Europe for the first time, visited Paris, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Brussels and Reims
-Settled in Reims to start college
-Bought and tried French cheeses, wines and liquors. It’s hard not to when your local supermarket carries 50 kinds of wines and as many kinds of cheese.
-Received my first electricity and rent bills, and my federal student aid. Hurray socialism!
-Joined the Reims Basketball team and the Chill Beenz
-Tripped around France for one week
-Received a Yamaha YTR-4335 GII
So what’s my new year’s resolution? I don’t believe in them. I’m confident that I will grow faster and faster if I continue the things I’m doing and find more ways to self-improvement. 2013, the championship is ours for the taking.
Staying on Track: The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro isn’t anything new, it’s actually several decades old, but in my search for an anti-procrastinator, the Pomodoro stands out as the only one that kind of works. You can write plans, fill out your calendar, flesh out To Do lists and use productivity applications all you want, but that becomes a waste of time itself; it’s called analysis paralysis.
In the Pomodoro, you take your work 25 minutes at a time. Set a timer for the first few times you do the cycle so that you’re serious about it. After 25 minutes, put down your work and go grab a drink, bathroom, clean something up for 5 minutes. Come back to your work and focus for 25 more minutes. There, not so hard, is it?
After two cycles, I usually get enough work done that I can take a longer break, but if you need to keep going, repeat the two-cycle rotation and apply the longer break whenever you’re burned out. Longer breaks are anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes. Don’t let yourself be carried away, you’re not done yet.
What helps you carry through and concentrate during a cycle is the promise that you’ll be done in a mere 25 minutes or less. You’re splitting your work into manageable chunks instead of procrastinating because you fear starting the huge paper that you’ll never finish. You set the next break as your goal instead of finishing the paper and suddenly, it’s a lot less scary.
It’s amazing what you can accomplish in 50 minutes of attentive work. In our era of attention span deficit, the Pomodoro remains effective in allowing you to manage top-quality work as well as get enough sleep and attend all the social functions you want to attend. Try it for yourself, you will be surprised.
How to do Research Seriously
So you have to write a research paper, do a presentation or accomplish anything that requires academic or technical knowledge. More often than not you won’t have enough information from the beginning to complete your assignment. Doing research is time-consuming, often misleading and nightmarish for procrastinators, but it’s necessary to increase your knowledge. Forget the heavy books, the paper journals and the library for now. We’re researching with the most convenient tool right from home.
First, be warned that researching anything thoroughly takes a considerable amount of time. You start with a topic, an inquiry or a subject for your research, and the period of researching will vary depending on the specificity of that starting point. Often, teachers will assign a vague topic to accommodate more students; therefore, it is important to gauge how much of the topic you will be able to cover in the allotted space and time. Once your subject is chosen, it’s time to start.
1. Browse Wikipedia for general knowledge and sources
Wikipedia is universally frowned upon as a reference, but it’s a great way to get acquainted with a topic and look for more pertinent and trusty sources. If you’re only looking for general information, wikipedia might suffice by itself. Just keep clicking links related to your topic until you have a good grasp of what you know and what you still don’t know. The goal is to get as familiar with the topic as you need to be to complete the assignment.
2. Search online for scholarly articles
Wikipedia’s reference page is often the best place to start to find serious academic articles about your topic. Given that it’s not too obscure, you will find a list of hyperlinked references at the end of the article. Click on those and find out which ones are relevant to you. Often, these are core references in the subject matter because so many people browse and edit wikipedia. Next step is to go to Google Scholar, Jstor or any other thinktank/scholarly publisher and search some key terms. You will get varying degrees of success, just remember that articles in PDF format and coming from an university website, or articles from an official website, are usually most reliable. Gather around five and not more than ten articles before starting to look at them.
3. Survey your articles
More than half of your articles will be relatively useless to you, because the writers had a different and often too specific agenda in writing the paper. You inevitably run across “How the Northeastern Slug’s adaptation to cold weather affects the seasonal production of barley in Madison, Wisconsin” and the best thing to do about these is just to throw them. Read the Abstract/Executive Summary/Introduction first, followed by the Conclusion, to figure out the relevance of the article. You want to narrow it down to 1-3 medium-length articles you actually plan to read. If an article is way too long, simply search for key terms in its text and read around those for relevant information.
4. Critically read your articles
Now that you’ve narrowed it down, sit and read your best findings with the objective of familiarizing yourself with as much of the topic as you can. When you run into a concept, a term you don’t understand, look it up! If you feel like you don’t comprehend how the author arrives somewhere, look it up. You need to know this well enough to explain it to someone else, so if there’s something that doesn’t make sense, you better make it make sense before you have to explain it. Use the internet, classmates, teachers and books if allowed to. This is your actual research, trying to understand something from scratch with every resource available to you. During the course of researching one article, you may run across other interesting reads, in which case you should add them to your list of articles. This is a process that takes anywhere from one hour to months, so use your time wisely. Re-read an article multiple times over a few days and come up with a list of questions to take to your professor if you don’t understand. When you take notes, always write down the article source and quote if you can.
5. Synthesize information
After the research process, you should be acquainted enough with your topic that you have an idea of the structure and presentation of your assignment. Of course, you won’t be using close to everything you’ve read. That’s too deep and irrelevant for the general public. In a short presentation or essay, you have just enough space to define key terms, give the framework of your topic and illustrate the most important concepts. In a research paper, you have much more room to go as in-depth as you can about certain specifics, so don’t shy away from doing so. Make sure your paper is structured clearly and logically, because otherwise you will make it unnecessarily convoluted.
6. Present like a boss!
You’re done and ready to turn in your work. At this point, you feel confident enough that you can give a seminar about your topic without looking at your notes and answer every question. That’s ideally your level of comfort at the end of the research process. If you still can’t answer a question, don’t be ashamed of admitting it, because when you’ve done your research correctly only a very good and specific question can stump you.
If you research something similar later, you’ll have the layer of knowledge to build upon and the experience to tell rubbish articles from useful ones, and the process will go a lot smoother. Research is a painful and time-consuming ordeal, but it is permanently rewarding when you apply yourself in such a way that you truly want to understand the subject matter. Congratulations! You are an aspiring scholar!
Those who research a lot write the articles you’re reading. Maybe you can write too.
On Time Management
When you first arrive in college, there are overwhelming opportunities just awaiting you to sign up, and sure enough, you put your name down in 12 different clubs and activities because college is the prime time to try out things on your bucket list and get better at things you’re committed to, with other people who have similar interests. The typical college courseload also gives you room to pursue these interests.
However, as the excitement of novelty wears off after the first few months, you focus on a few activities and get less involved in others you find that you don’t like so much after all. Add that to the heap of home reading and research, house upkeep, socializing, partying, quality couple time, a possible job and still getting enough sleep to function and your time becomes the most precious commodity (or the secondmost, after money).
What if you want all three, plus extra time for unscheduled events?
There’s a modicum of efficiency for all three angles.
1. Enough Sleep
The average college student goes to sleep early in the morning, wakes up for class 4-6 hours later and takes a 2-3 hour nap later in the day. That’s incredibly inefficient and a waste of your time. Take 4 1/2 to 6 hours of sleep on a weekday, maybe a luxurious 7 1/2 hours on a weekend. It’s plenty for anyone; too much sleep is actually counterproductive to your level of restfulness.
If you need to take a nap because your energy levels are too low, make it 30 minutes tops or 90 minutes if you got less than 4 1/2 hours the night before. Here’s a helpful website to calculate when you should wake up to maximize sleep efficiency by waking up in between sleep cycles.
Basically, sleep cycles are 90 minutes. Ideally, you want at least 4 of them, or 6 hours, to feel fully rested, but you can run on 3 sleep cycles to save on time. Many hard workers go months on end on 3 sleep cycles. That’s how they outhustle you in every aspect.
2. Social Life
I don’t need to tell you that you shouldn’t stay home to watch TV or play video games alone most of the time. Use your free time to pursue hobbies, increase your knowledge (http://www.noexcuselist.com/) or hang out.
About alcohol and parties, always bring your own booze and drugs if applicable, and be liberal in sharing. The number one rule is LEAVE WHEN YOU’RE BORED. Don’t just sit there and drink, walk around and interact with different groups to get the most of the experience. Dance if you feel like it, crack jokes, be bold enough to enjoy yourself, otherwise you’re wasting your time. Don’t get sloppy drunk at a place that you don’t know well. It’s not classy and makes it very awkward for the host to take care of you if you don’t know each other. You should only get smashed at yours or a friend’s place surrounded by people who care and are willing to take care of you. You don’t need to be the life of the party or try hard to be, just enjoy yourself and people will gravitate towards you. Leave when there’s nothing else to see, you have better things to do than hang around with a bunch of drunks. Oh, and take your drunk friend home with you, you will prevent them from embarrassing themselves and gain tons of brownie points even if they don’t tell you.
3. Good Grades
Studying remains the top priority in a society that emphasizes academia in college environments. Make an effort to understand each of your classes. You won’t get it all in class, and that’s normal. Hit the books, there are almost infinite resources online as well. There’s KhanAcademy, a free website that has courses on everything, free online courses by prominent universities on YouTube, entire guides written about academic subjects everywhere on the web, you just have to look to find it. Talk to classmates, GO SEE THE PROFESSOR if you have an interesting question. You get your doubts dispelled, your professor likes you more and you waste less time fumbling around for the answer. Use what’s best for you to learn, not what the system tells you to do. If you have a TA who’s absolutely horrendous at teaching and you don’t learn anything from him, don’t go to class and use that time to study on your own.
You have to master the material, but you are free to use whatever method you want in order to arrive to that goal. Find your favored study method, take a break when your brain is fried and get a friend to study with you when you feel that you’re about to waste an evening procrastinating. Maximize your time learning and minimize your time wasted, so you can move on to your interests when you’re done. Hopefully in time your studies will be synonymous with your interests.
With that said, there’s no reason to miss any of the three corners. Take good care of yourself, keep discipline and order in your room, always eat regularly, workout when you can. Do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it, and you can do everything you want and still have spare time. It’s a question of whether you have the will to live a plentiful life.
Consent and the Progress of Political Thought
Consent and the Progress of Political Thought
The consent of the people to a set of rules make society possible and consent to a set of laws makes government possible. The essential meaning of consent is disputed among political theorists because they have varying and often opposite views of the role of government in people’s lives and the role of the people in government. Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan and one century later John Locke in the Second Treatise of Government wrote extensively about the necessity and meaning of consent in shaping government, defending contrasting ideals. Hobbes championed a definition that gave nearly unlimited power to the government over all of its subjects, while Locke argued that the people possessed inalienable rights to property and a right to resistance. These opposite interpretations of consent gave rise to ideologically opposite political orders.
Although these prominent political theorists diverged in ideology, they began from the same fundamental elements. Consent is commonly accepted as “ a sufficient declaration of a man’s consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government.” (Locke Sect. 119). Similarly, Locke and Hobbes agree that “all peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people” (Locke Sect. 112) and “the authority of all other Princes, must be grounded on the Consent of the People, and their Promise to obey him.” (Hobbes Chap. 40), establishing the foundations of any system of government in the consent of the people. Hobbes further asserts in chapter 46 that “all manner of Common-wealths but the Popular [is] Tyranny;” in summary, both authors define consent as the willingness to submit itself to governance and the rules, and place the power of the commonwealth in the majority. The theorists also both claim that natural laws and rights exist, but disagree on the content of such laws because they disagree on how much power should be given to the government and to the people.
Hobbes argues on the basis of his belief that human nature is essentially chaotic and evil that a commonwealth should have absolute authority over its people so long as it preserves their physical security (Chap. 28). Consequentially, his laws of nature contain the laws “To seek Peace, and follow it.” […] “By all means we can, to defend our selves.” (Hobbes Chap. 14). It is not surprising that Hobbes believes that the sole purpose of government is to provide security and that there would be no purpose to a civil government if his natural laws were universally obeyed, for his times were chaotic and violent and people considered themselves lucky to live protected from violence (Chap. 17). Once this basic natural law of security is met, the sovereign has free reign over his commonwealth and his people, because Hobbes reasons that “whether [a citizen’s] consent be asked, or not, he must either submit to their decrees, or be left in the condition of warre he was in before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by any man whatsoever.” (Chapter 18). Hobbes paints a world of commonwealths united by their military strength surrounded by treacherous wilderness where any person risks violence, injustice and death, and gives the government absolute authority given the consent of the majority to protect these natural laws. In contrast, Locke’s natural rights are life, liberty and estate and he anchors these rights as inviolable by the government such that “The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society” (Sect. 138). Locke expands on Hobbes by including the rights of liberty and estate, and asserts as a corollary to the previous statement that the government may not tax a person without their consent, giving power to consent regardless of majority (Sect. 141). Thus Locke limits the powers of government while increasing its responsibilities towards the citizen, an early defense of personal rights which reduce the oppression of majority rule under a Hobbesian society.
Both the Lockesian and Hobbesian systems are based on majority agreement, which inevitably leads to oppression of the minority and of dissenters. Hobbes gives the majority all decision-making authority “because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a Soveraigne; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest.”(Chap. 18) This is simply because his model of government has no rights other than security to defend, and since security is a common goal of both the majority and the minority, the remaining issues are of no concern to Hobbes and can be left completely to majority rule. Dissenters and the oppressed can do no more than abandon the commonwealth and wander into the dangerous wilderness in the hopes of joining another commonwealth in which they will be the majority. However, by leaving they relinquish all their possessions and privileges under that government. The only righteous revolt, according to Hobbes, can happen when the government fails its sole purpose to protect its citizens (Chap. 47). On the other hand, Locke recognizes that “nothing but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had” (Sect. 98) and so acknowledges that there is always a minority voice in any issue. The progress in political thought lies in the recognition that these dissenting minorities have the same rights to life, liberty and estate as the majority under the laws of their government. Although “if [a citizen] disclaim the lawful government of the country he was born in, he must also quit the right that belonged to him by the laws of it, and the possessions there descending to him from his ancestors, if it were a government made by their consent.” (Section 191), the citizen has the right to control what he consents to and refuses without being forced into an opinion by the will of the majority. Locke grants the unprecedented power of resistance to oppression to “those who were forced to submit to the yoke of a government by constraint, have always a right to shake it off, and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny which the sword hath brought in upon them, till their rulers put them under such a frame of government as they willingly and of choice consent to” (Sect. 192) based on the premise that tyranny and force does not create legitimate consent because “promises extorted by force, without right, can be thought consent, and how far they bind. To which I shall say, they bind not at all” (Sect. 186). Therefore, a citizen under a Lockesian government can revolt against a decision which he does not consent to during his lifetime, and if the government does not compel him to give his consent, he is free to leave and join another commonwealth where he gives his consent. This revolutionary right to dissent and to overthrow oppressive government forms the basis of any democratic government today. Hobbes’ incontestable rule of majority leads to totalitarian societies where only one opinion is tolerated.
Hobbesian political order is the precursor to Lockesian political order, consisting of a primitive government imbued with the unlimited power of the consent of the majority, whose sole purpose is to protect its citizens from physical harm, with no personal rights or dissent mechanism other than escape. Locke expands upon this system with his own order, consisting of a government also directed by the consent of the majority, but tasked to defend the property of all its citizens, forbidden from taking these natural rights from any citizen without his consent and granting the ability to dissent and overthrow a government that does not respect these rights or which laws do not compel general consent. The former political order leads to totalitarian regimes such as North Korea and Stalinist Russia while the latter political order introduces the concept of democratic multiparty governments and individual rights, beginning to shape the future of the western world. Ultimately, successful governments garner the consent of the majority and the consent of the minorities to its laws and rules without creating conflict or failing to uphold basic rights, and in that way Hobbes and Locke are both pioneers in the progress of political order.
WORKS CITED
HOBBES, Thomas, The Leviathan, Project Gutenberg, October 2009
<http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm>
LOCKE, John, Second Treatise on Government, Project Gutenberg, January 2005
<http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm>
Meeting People in a Social Environment
We all have approach anxiety.
It’s just that some of us handle it better than others. When you walk up to someone you don’t know, there’s an instinctive hesitation, perhaps a relic of the stranger danger days, a fear of the awkward or simply a lack of self-confidence that prevents the person from introducing themselves.
In this article, I’m going to focus on social events like parties, clubs and orientations, the usual college fare. Meeting people at these events is relatively easy, because people go there expecting to talk to people, whereas on the bus or the grocery store, a person may not be as receptive to you due to factors outside your control.
I was a damn shy kid throughout middle school and high school. My circle of friends was all I needed; I didn’t provide the time, the effort or the courage to put myself out to other people. As a result, my social life was lacking and I found myself hanging out with the same group all the time. Different stakes are up in college; you might meet your wife, your lifelong friends, a coworker or your boss there. Moreover, your classmates bring entirely different life experiences, cultures and points of view which may blow your mind and change the way you think. Don’t waste your time sitting in your room.
How do you manage to meet people?
Try to attend all the organized social events at the beginning of the year. No one knows anyone well yet, so here’s a perfect chance. When someone makes eye contact with you, just walk over, introduce yourself, put your hand out and offer a firm handshake. If you have trouble doing that, think that the other person is here to meet people and will appreciate you for taking the initiative. From there on, use common conversation leads like “where are you from” or “what is your favorite hobby.” Remembering names is difficult for most people, so try to repeat the person’s name in your first conversation to help you remember better. If you still can’t do it, just ask a friend or ask them again next time. Eventually, the conversation is going to die down, and that’s the time to casually walk away to another person or group. Your newfound friend may even follow you, in which case you can introduce them to the new group.
By the end of the night, you should have met a number of people. Record phone numbers and facebook profiles and greet them by name next time you bump into them.
For those with serious self-image issues, shower and dress up before you go out. A blazer helps a ton with self-confidence, and people will start introducing themselves to you. Don’t hesitate to keep your dorm room open and even play some (good) music, and invite your new friends to an activity you’re doing. If they’re worthy friends, they won’t forget you next time they go out, and that’s an opportunity to meet more people!
It’s seriously that easy. When you find yourself hesitating, project the image of a social animal in your brain. Pretend to be a social hub, and you will become one. You lose much more by not meeting these people than you risk running into a rude person. When you do, simply take the cue and walk away. Now go out there and make your life more interesting. Just go!
Genuine Self-Improvement for College Applications
The College application process is tough and unforgiving. You have to stand tall among hundreds of thousands of hopefuls and convince committees of adults whose sole jobs it is to read dozens of applications a day to choose you. You have to do so with maybe ten flimsy sheets of information. When you get rejected, there’s no appeal or explanation-you’re left hanging dry, not knowing if you were inches away from approval or directly tossed into the shredder (not literally, you silly). So how do you make the best of this system?
What you can do depends on how far you are through your high school career, but you can definitely do something to improve your odds no matter where you are. I’ve been through the thick and thin of this process and I’m going to show you what you need to know to have a better shot at your dream school.
Part 1. Enriching your High School Experience
Many contenders with very diverse and competitive portfolios have been outright rejected from the best schools they had fully expected to get into with their outstanding resumes. While this could happen to any candidate, it most likely happened because the committee discovered a hole in their folders, a hole that they couldn’t explain considering the strength of the applicant.
That hole is your heart. Admissions officers know how much load the best students can carry, and they can sense your phoniness. You have to invest your time wisely into activities you actually enjoy and develop those activities. You can develop a passion by practicing until you get good. You’ll know when you’ve achieved proficiency when people start complimenting you and you draw attention. Once that happens, you get self-esteem boosts and surprise you start to enjoy yourself! From there on it’s a positive feedback loop and you can get very far if you haven’t started too late.
I used to be absolutely terrible at basketball in middle school and would avoid it. After three years of practice, I can say that I’m a decent player for 5’7, I get complimented regularly about my defense and my grit and that I enjoy it, despite never being on the team. That’s a far from ideal situation.
In the ideal situation, you invest your time in a hobby for all of high school, even during the summer if you can, get leadership positions and win prizes and competitions. What if there are no competitions and no leadership positions to be had? No problem. If your hobby is woodworking, painting or horse riding, you can still demonstrate your involvement through your application and your essays, but more on that later.
Why is all this important?
Admission officers want to see a mature individual with developed strengths and interests that will either serve their sports teams or enrich their campus. Having a passion that you’re invested time in is exactly what they’re looking for, and it also shows that you have your life in control, that you have ambition and that you are patient. These are all valuable qualities to have for a successful college student and a successful person.
If you’ve done something for a long time and nothing outstanding has come out of it, don’t worry. You still demonstrate the qualities admission officers are looking for, it’s just not your time to shine yet. Odds are that if you throw energy, time and passion into something, it will pay you back. See if you’re missing any of the above in your commitments, it might be time for some self-reflection.
I can’t understate how important is commitment. That’s what failed the strong applicants. They throw themselves everywhere trying to satisfy admissions, and that’s the wrong mentality to take. Ever notice that you become the center of attention when you’re passionate and enjoying yourself? The admissions committee can tell that from paper. Don’t overload yourself. Experiment with different things early on, but make some order in your file by junior year. Stick to a few and drop the others. Which ones you keep is totally up to you. You will get recognition from almost anything if you get good enough at it.
Part 2. Grades and Standardized Tests
You’re going to hear about several acronyms that you will be glad to leave behind by the time you’re out of high school: GPA, SAT, ACT, AP and IB are the big ones.
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An Initiation in Inebriation
As mentioned in my previous post, I returned to Montreal/Toronto to visit my aunt and eight Asian buddies. The legal drinking AND buying age in Montreal is 18.
Although I had gone to a fair share of booze parties, I had never gotten drunk or close to drunk, and this was the perfect occasion to see what it was all about in a relatively safe, controlled experiment while having fun with childhood friends. We were all staying over at a friend’s estate and her mother was totally OK with us drinking. She said “I know I can’t stop you guys from drinking, so just have fun at home and don’t drink outside.” She bought us a bottle of Bacardi 151 and a Smirnoff.
The last night I was in Montreal, we gathered five people at the estate around 23:30. We went in the basement with
and about a gallon of lemonade/peach juice, a bottle of tonic water and a jug of water. Obviously this was enough to get us all knocked out so all of us were sleeping over that night. No reservations needed to be had; we could have as much fun as we wanted as long as we didn’t wake up the cranky old neighbor. We mixed the juices with a few drinks of rum or vodka in an improvised shaker and took out the cards.
Whoever lost the round of cards had to take a drink. Sitting on a bed I didn’t realize how much I’ve had until I had to get up to go to the bathroom. At around 2:30 AM everyone was pretty buzzed/slightly drunk, and we were getting involuntarily louder. Haha. One of the girls left to sleep because she had to work at 7AM that same day, and we reluctantly let her go, after making her take two more drinks.
Getting up to go to the bathroom for the first time, I was solid on my feet but my head was buzzing noticeably and my world was vacillating. Independent motor control didn’t pose a problem, but higher order thinking was definitely impaired at that point. It felt fuzzy and sedated in my brain, such that I could only focus on one idea at a time. It’s kind of like waking up while you still feel like sleeping, or suddenly shutting down two cores in a quadcore processor; my thoughts were slowed and brainpower was thinned. I knew that I was losing control of myself, so when I came back, I threw together a shirt, dark jeans, a belt and crammed my cell and wallet into the pockets for the next day, when I had scheduled to meet an old friend downtown at 10:15 AM. Good thing I did, because I don’t think I would have the presence of mind to do any future preparation afterwards, and religiously punctual me would have felt terrible making a friend I hadn’t seen in four years, who took a day off from work just for me, wait or see me flake. Let’s just say that I would have run into all sorts of problems and felt even more remorseful had I not packed my stuff. Anyhow, speech wasn’t disrupted and I didn’t talk a lot more than usual, but when I did speak it was with increased impulsiveness; whenever I felt like saying something, it just came out of my mouth, when usually I processed it in the logical department of my cranium before spewing it out.
That’s how it feels to have important brain functions shutting down, until you only have the basics left. It’s like slowly depriving a high-end computer of power; nonessential things just shut down one by one and the essentials are dimmed to the minimum operational level. By 3:30 AM we were still going at it, the girls were noticeably red-faced and louder than usual. My friend had had plenty of practice in Europe the previous month, so we were less obviously drunk, but we both knew at that point that we were far past our tolerances. At that point I had to tell myself what to do in my head. It sounds like “take cards;” “shuffle cards;” “pour Bacardi;” “pour lemonade.” I was hanging on with minimum processing power. That power was so low that I remember distinctively dropping my wallet, which I needed the next day, on the ground and not having the power to care enough to bend down and pick it up again. I eventually did, but that was a painful proof of losing self-control and being unable to gain it back. We kept it going for another hour before we went to sleep. I think we finished the Smirnoff, most of the red rum, less than a third of the white rum and about three drinks of the Absolut Mandrin. By the final stage of our party, I was ordering myself in my head, “YOU MUST WALK FORWARD. NOW.” to walk forward while my body complied begrudgingly, tripping a little along the way. My brain was throbbing hard and I felt sedated and surprisingly blissful, unaware and uncaring of everything. However, it wasn’t a peaceful feeling; along with a dullness came the foreboding that things would go down the drain that day. I wasn’t wrong and, unsurprisingly, I didn’t care. I stumbled into the sofa with the ounces of humanity left in me and tomorrow’s clothes, and tried to fall asleep. 4:37 AM
I felt incredibly nauseous. I wanted to throw up. I smelled the sour emanations of my stomach overturning. I wanted to throw up. I need to get to the bathroom. It’s only two steps away. I just need to get up from this sofa. I need to get up. Get up now. I want to barf. I can’t stop this. GET UP, PLEASE. Don’t let me down. GET UP. GET UP. I couldn’t muster the willpower or the motor skills to get up, so I threw up on the wooden floor. I remember whispering sorry a few times as my friends gathered to clean up my mess. Then I went to sleep.
9:18 AM. I opened my eyes and forced myself up. I almost sat down immediately; the central motion control system wasn’t quite ready to roll yet. But I had to go now, if I didn’t want to be late. A shower and ablutions later, I stumbled out of the building to see my friend at work across the street and say goodbye. On the bus and the subway station, I felt the most miserable I’d ever felt in my life. I wanted to throw up badly, I was nauseous, but I couldn’t. The nausea, the buzzing head and the impaired motor control wouldn’t go away. They would only go away with time, and time to recover I didn’t have. My friend was waiting.
Somehow I made my way to him. My walking wasn’t visibly noticeable, but I felt wobbly and my pace was slower than usual. I was also still unable to think about more than one thing at a time. I walked and chatted with my friend instinctively, and ate less than I would’ve liked from the hearty lunch he treated me. It wasn’t until late afternoon, when I was on the car ride back to Toronto, that the veil of stupidity dissipated. The biggest regret I have about that day is not the awful, constant feeling of nausea along with motor impairment, but the fact that I wasn’t fully recovered and belonging to myself the entire time that I was with my friend. Alcohol made me waste the precious little time with him, and I had disrespected him by showing up still incapacitated.
The lessons I want to teach myself and you guys through this:
-Only drink to excess at home or at the home of someone you trust. You need to be able to crash and you need other people to help you when you can’t help yourself.
-Drink plenty of water and eat a meal beforehand if possible. Water dilutes alcohol and makes it less punishing on the system. We all drank too little water and ate nothing that night.
-Don’t do this if you have something important the next day. You WILL feel like crap doing nothing, walking around, or holding a conversation.
-Spend some time to tell each other stories instead of playing cards all the time. When everyone’s drunk, the truth comes out and no one will judge you, because that part of their system is shut down.
-Don’t do this with people you don’t know well, and don’t get your phone or computer when you’re very drunk. This is self-explanatory.
-Drinking too much doesn’t automatically make every situation hilarious and unforgettable. You need to be with people you can have fun with sober to really have fun when you’re all drunk.
Do try this at least once just to see what you’re like when you’re drunk beyond belief. Everyone’s different in this category, and you’ll know what to expect of yourself in college. Don’t sue me for condoning minor alcohol usage and have fun!
In Search of the Perfect Life
The American Dream. The Slumdog Millionaire. Forbes Magazine. Entertainment Weekly. Sports Illustrated. Most Hollywood movies. These all illustrate success from society’s point of view: money, fame, heroics, sex. In the midst of viagra advertisements, scantily clad supermodels and $50 million lottery jackpots, what do you really want from life? Is life fulfillment and personal success so standardized and visible?
We look up to people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Barack Obama because they’ve made their own lives and their own fortunes through sheer genius and ability. But what about Mahatma Gandhi, Walt Whitman or J.R.R. Tolkien? They weren’t rich at any point during their lives, nor were they known for their promiscuity, but they left a profound mark on history and modern thought.
Life fulfillment comes from success, lasting happiness and spiritual peace. These factors are interconnected and much more ephemeral than popular opinion makes them to be.
Many people have attempted to define success, but it’s near impossible, because success carries a different meaning for each person. Of course, the popular definition of success is a large amount of money, popularity, sex and a nice car. This popular definition is also very wrong for a religious leader or a single mother of four in war-ravaged Colombia. Success for the religious leader may mean bringing up disciples as well as finding his own spiritual place in his own church. For the mother, it might simply be to bring in enough to feed her children and watch them grow up safely and happily. Do they both want the popular standards? Possibly, but they don’t need them to achieve success. Success is different for everyone and requires some soul-searching to find. “What do I want to do well at/complete?” Once you’ve truly found something valuable to strive for, treasure it and don’t give up until you reach it.
What is happiness then? Is it the jolt you feel when you hit blackjack, or is it the warm, fuzzy feeling of cuddling with someone you love? Once again, it is near impossible to define happiness with any specificity because it’s different for everyone. What makes you happy also changes based on age. The point is that status symbols and popular goals don’t necessarily make all people or even most people truly happy. I’d rather be at peace with myself and with my own life than be a billionaire.
It follows that spiritual peace is even more difficult to achieve or even find than any of the above two. It’s a kind of inner rest that neither money nor fame can buy, and that money and fame often come disturb. You can perfectly be nonreligious and still reach this state of nirvana, but how it feels and how to get there no one can tell you but yourself.
With that in mind, it’s up to you to define for yourself the terms of your own life. A person is a lot more attractive if they have determined values and goals in mind. One can be happy doing anything, just don’t mind what others and society are trying to make you desire.
Seeing old friends is worth your time
I’m fresh back from a back-to-my-roots trip to Montreal, where I saw and partied with six people I grew up with and met a dear old friend I hadn’t seen in four years. It was time well spent, and here’s why.
I grew up with seven other Chinese kids about the same age. We all immigrated from the same city in China around the same time to the same neighborhood in front of McGill University. And no, this wasn’t planned. We met each other in Montreal. Until the core of us moved out about four years ago, we played hide-and-seek in the backyard together, hit pigeons with super soakers together and had annual holiday celebrations, barbeques and snowball fights together. Some of us went to the same schools, some not, and we were varying kinds of familiar with each other, but the fact remains that this was my crew, the only people with whom I would ever share my childhood. I didn’t choose them, but through years of tribulations we got along pretty well.
That’s why I went back to see them. They know every embarrassing childhood gaffe, every crush, every quirk about you. That’s a kind of special close that you don’t get with many people. They will be honest with you when no one else is, because there’s no shame in confiding in childhood friends. Hanging out with them gives me a peculiar feeling, a sense of incredible calm and familiarity, that not even my parents give me. This is the freedom to really be yourself and do whatever you want without fear of being viewed negatively. Don’t lose childhood friends; you’ll never find them and this freedom again.
Dale Carnegie said in his book about relationships to keep contact with friends at least once in six months, if you cannot see them. Otherwise, they fade away from your life, and yours from theirs. This is your first professional network. Your friends will inevitably move to different parts of the world and different occupations, and you will surely have a chance to contact them professionally or at least in travel. Above all, they are a judge of your own success; you’ve seen them grow, you know which one has ambition, you can see how well they’re doing and you can motivate yourself to achieve based on their achievements.
I won’t detail the events that went down when we were together, because what happened between us stays between us, but make an effort to pick up the phone and reach out to your old friends. They are golden and you will enjoy the experience, if not simply to work on your social skills.
Dk's Ordinary Life 