2013

This year's been a blast! And I don't think I will ever forget it.

It indicates a beginning. 

I finally am a Computer Science student this year. Actually it changes nothing, cause I've already been taking CS classes since last year, and I still had to send emails begging the professors to let me take their classes, and I still had to fill out a lot of Add/Drop Forms to beg the CSE Department to let me enroll some of the CS classes. But symbolically, it's official! I am a legal citizen of Computer Scienceland! It indicates an official end of my Computer Engineering study. And the most important point is it indicates the beginning of a whole new life.

It indicates a growth.

I always think myself as a calm, collected person, with a deep mind, but looks like other people have a different picture of me. There're numerous times I've been told I have the mind of a 13 year old kid, and now I think somehow it may be true. I am a college student now, which means I am officially an independent person, and I have to start taking responsibility for my own action. However, I am raised in a family who never ever let me worry about anything. So I was in a pressure-free zone most of the time. Studying in a college really makes me realize how much my family loves me, how great they are and how lucky I am. In this year, I started to feel anxious about pretty much everything. I worried about my grade, I worried about my job, I worried about the choices I've made. I'm famous of my clumsiness, but I never gave a damn about it. And now I finally bit the dust, realizing how much my parents had done to clean up my mess through out my whole life. Time flies like an arrow (and fruit flies like a banana), there're a lot of things I want to do, but I always feel like I don't have enough time. I wanna travel, but I also want internships and research opportunities, so I rejected Johnny's invitation for a trip to Japan. I wanted to finish every piece of assignment with a good score, but they always shown up at the same time with a similar deadline. And I always did them at the last minute. When I was assigned the worst examination schedule ever, I started to think I'd got anxiety, cause I was so anxious that I really had a thought of jumping out of the window when I messed up my Operation Systems exam on my sixth day without sleep. I realized I was real close to the edge. So I took a step back, starting to conjure up a study chart for the remaining exams. and it worked. I managed to review (almost) all the things I'd learnt and I even got time to watch a movie, going back to my high school again and have dinner with friends. I might have still messed up all of the remaining exams, but I finally have an epiphany on how important time management is. And the most important point is, I grew not only physically, but also mentally.

It indicates an expansion. 

When I first got here in CUHK, I didn't have many friends. Mostly, I hung out with my friends from high school who also landed on CUHK and a few non-local folks. And I thought I was gonna be like this until the day I graduate. I was in both orientation camps (the engineering one and the Chung Chi College one) so I met a lot of people. But, I was insecure and couldn't fit in as we didn't share a lot of common interests and I felt awkward every time I talked to them, so we didn't have much to talk and ended up becoming hi bye friends. But things started to change in my Summer Semester. I was taking a Technical Communication class and that's where I first met Alan. We became groupmates for the project 3 days later with another guy called Sunny when the semester commenced  but we never had the thought of knowing each other more. And then a thing happened. I still cannot decide if it's a fortunate thing or not, cause it turned out Sunny was the greatest free rider we've known so far. And he committed plagiarism (almost, we stopped him), which almost dragged us into big trouble. We kicked him out and we became a pair against all people who were in a team of four. And that's when Alan and I got close, besides, we found we'd had a lot of similarities. He was a Computer Science student wanting to transfer his major study to Risk Management. I certainly could relate to that, which meant we both wanted a good grade there (And we both got what we wanted eventually!). We both love soccer and were fanatical about PES and Fifa. So Alan had become the my first friend in CUHK (not counting Stepan and Dimitar). Through him, I also knew Juno, who was another CS guy in the same class and guess what? We were also classmates in another class we'd been taking (Linear Algebra). Therefore, when this semester commenced, we started to get close and I started hanging around a lot in Morningside because of him. And we did a lot of crazy things together. And the most ridiculous thing we did was playing PES2013 during lectures, with joysticks, baby! And in the meantime, I met another foreigner Indy. We were both taking a Database class and an Algorithms class. I didn't have much of an impression of her at first, except every time I saw her she was typing on her very colorful laptop, which I could never unsee. We finally had our first conversation on a day when I was waiting outside the lecture hall for lecture and too bored to do anything (except flapping my jaws). From then, we only exchanged small conversation every time we met. I got to know her more until one day she invited me going to Sham Shui Po together to help her buy some electronic stuff. Firstly, she answered a question which had haunted me (and many of my classmates) for weeks- why she was always on her laptop? It turned out she was writing blogs on her experience in Hong Kong and letting her parents catch up, which inspired me to start this blag. (but I don't visit her blog very often though, cause A. I hate reading, and B. she wrote too much) And secondly, she just came back from an internship in a major IT company before her stay in HK, so she cleared up some of the impression I had with that particular company from a movie. And her sharing of some American culture and American college experience amazed me. She sent me some useful links and books about CS, I am still grateful for that. One of the best moments we share is our little cultural exchange: I sent her a Cantonese song with an explanation of not less than 30 words and she did the same with an English song in return, except I also had to include a translation of the lyrics. It went on for weeks and I enjoyed that. I also liked to call her music Indy music, what a perfect pun~ Ever since I knew Chung Chi got an English Table, I went there a lot, for the free food mostly. This year I went there as usual, but it wasn't that crowded like last year anymore, probably because S.H. Ho was also holding its English Table this year, exchange students who lived in S.H. Ho preferred the one downstairs rather than the one in Chung Chi Staff Club. But that didn't affect the vibe much, I still met a lot of people (really just "met") but I still managed to make friends with some great guys, Johnny and Yang. I wouldn't talk much about Johnny here cause what happened between us had already gone into the blags I wrote. Yang had been living in Japan for over 10 years but he was a Chinese. So he could speak fluent mandarin but we chatted mostly in English cause we both agreed my mandarin sucks (I'm still working on it). We became close cause we were always assigned to sit on the same table and we both were taking the same Discrete Maths class. Yang and I always spent time discussing about the homework and studying for quizzes together and the help was mutual. There wasn't a lot of cultural exchange between us but we still had tons of fun, sharing the ups and downs. He's leaving today but that will not be the end, cause I dragged him into making some Discrete Maths notes for the blag here with me, ha! Now that I looked back, I found my social circle had been expanded in a large scale. To date, I still stick with my high school homies but I still managed to blend in CUHK. And the most important point is, I finally expanded my social circle.

I never had the intention to change, but I did inevitably. You never noticed, but when you look back, you realize it wasn't the same you a year ago. But is that the "you" you hoped you wanted to be a year ago, I don't think so. Life is always full of surprises. I suddenly remembered the 2 quotes I heard when watching the MV of 30 Seconds to Mars- Closer to the Edge:

1. Fate has its tricky ways of throwing something in front of you that you never expected.
2. My philosophy in life is don't regret anything you do, cause in the end it makes you who you are.

30 Seconds to Mars - Closer to the Edge

And this meme, which will absolutely be a total burn after tomorrow!

Many people have promised themselves a lot of things, but they only keep these promises in a picture and pin them on the wall of Facebook.

Good bye 2013, and I'd like to conclude with Chuck Lorre's As I Get Older:

As I get older,

I see more clearly,

but not with my eyes.

I hear more sharply,

but not with my ears.

I smell more ripely,

but not with my nose…

As I get older,

I see more clearly,

but not with my eyes.

I hear more sharply,

but not with my ears.

I touch more intimately,

but not with my finger…

As I get older,

I see more clearly,

but not with my eyes.

I hear more sharply,

but not with my ears.

I love more deeply,

but not with my penis…

As I get older,

I see more clearly,

but not with my eyes.

I hear more sharply,

but not with my ears.

I think more better,

but not with my brain… my head… noggin…

As I get older,

I see more clearly, …..

Kev
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UPDATE 1:

Saying goodbye to Yang on the last day of 2013. 

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UPDATE 2:

My first Sausage Fest in 2014 has already begun on Day 1.