I’ll cut you a deal, Chie says to the mice. I’ll come back and see you this evening if you get on with learning to fly. You can’t keep clinging to the bars of the cage for the rest of the time you have, which isn’t long I must tell you. You’re going to crash into the Atlantic Ocean in a couple of months, and if you survive that you’ll then be analyzed in a lab and swiftly sacrificed to science. Got to let go, might as well do it now. You’ll like it without gravity, you’ll stop being afraid. Life is short (yours especially). Let go, be bold. [Sep 21 2025]
A well-designed life is a life that‘s generative – it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. [May 20 2025]
You can be scared and brave at the same time. [Sep 14 2025]
我给自己建了一个人生存档点因为我总是在忘记，但我不想忘记自己是一个什么样的人。At least 曾经是一个什么样的人。
I create myself a life save/check point because I’m always forgetting, but I don’t want to forget what kind of person I am. At least what I used to be.
我曾经决定在二十岁的那一天建立这个存档，然后开始起草一本[二十岁的回忆录]。可惜之后因为学业繁忙和拖延不了了之了。
I decided that on the day I turned in to 20, I needed to establish this archive, and write a memoir for my past 20 years, but due to the works and procrastinations I didn’t make it.
So yeah, I create this LIFE SAVE POINT today; a very random day in my 23s; not right before or after my graduation; nor on my birthday.
Heyy Yumi [ver. 2025. 08. 27],
Congratulations on reaching this moment! You have completed 1 B.S. in Computer Science, with minors in both Applied Mathematics and Psychology. In the past 5 years, You have read over 193 books (with 72+ ongoing), watched 306 movies, shows, and anime; and bought 214 games, though you only finished 39. You traveled to 135 cities in 44 countries, climbed 7 mountains, and completed 1 half-marathon.
You spent 1 semester rowing on the dragon boat team (freshman fall), 1 semester gaming (freshman spring, achieving a worldwide ranking in the 100th percentile twice and in the 95th percentile over 10 times), 1 semester playing basketball (sophomore fall), 1 semester swimming (sophomore spring), 1 semester doing cardio at the gym and hiking (junior fall), 1 semester playing volleyball (senior fall), and 1 semester climbing (senior spring). You also completed 3 internships, accumulated approximately 160 hours of tutoring experience, and worked in 3 different labs. You filled an 800-page journal (also known as “Life’s Adventures, Volume II”), volunteered at 1 conference, attended 2 others, published 1 workshop paper, and have another ICLR paper currently under review. You managed to learn a new language Spanish (A1-A2).
First of all, congratulations on all of these accomplishments! I am proud of you and I think it deserves some celebrations 🙂 Of course, there are also many things you regret not doing:
- Joining more Sigs.
- Proactively engaging in more campus activities and interacting with more people since freshman year, and establishing more connections with others.
- Conquering old anxiety of speaking English.
- Exercising more during freshman spring, and establish a more stable plan for exercising.
- Working harder in some of your classes.
- Finding your preferred research direction sooner and spending more time on it.
I hope, also, you always remember that the reason you were able to achieve these things is because you were lucky. You were not burdened by war, hunger, or the struggle for survival. You were born with healthy limbs and a healthy body, enjoying the right to an education. You have family who love and trust you, kind and reliable friends, and dedicated teachers. You made choices that, by chance, changed the trajectory of your life. You had a school that provided resources without expecting anything in return, and professors who were kind, enthusiastic, and willing to mentor and recommend you. You had the luxury of time and space to think, read, write, and travel. You had delicious waffles for breakfast in the dining hall, a refreshing beer with friends, the warm, hot water of a shower after a long day, clean clothes and water, warm sunshine, and comfortable air conditioning. You had books, search engines, the internet, and large language models to find knowledge and satisfy your curiosity.
All of these are things that people in some corner of the world are silently struggling for at this very moment. Please never take them for granted, and always be grateful. Do not forget every person, family, friend, teacher, or stranger, who has extended a helping hand when you were in need.
I hope you run and walk as if you might lose your legs tomorrow. Cherish the sun as if you might never see it again. Live every moment as if it were your last, and fully engage with life, nature, people, and yourself.
I hope you have a powerful heart. I hope you are at ease, relaxed, and happy.
I hope that when you are climbing a peak, your heart has the drive to push forward.
I hope that when you fall into a valley, your heart has the strength to endure.
I hope that when you lie still, your inner world is peaceful.
I hope that no matter what the world becomes, you can find your place within it.
I hope you are confident, brave, calm, gentle, kind, and funny. Most of all, I hope you are happy. [Aug 21 2025]
Over the past four years, these are the things you feel you did well:
- Self-awareness and reflection. You are confident that you understand yourself well, because you have a clear grasp of the causes and contexts of your emotions. You can accurately identify and describe your inner feelings with sufficient emotional granularity. You are very good at dealing with your own emotions, which can be attributed to your habits of daily/weekly journaling, self-reflection, and gratitude practices. This has also improved your life satisfaction, as the saying goes, “we write to taste life twice.”
- Getting up early. This was a major change in your third and fourth years and truly boosted your mood. Especially doing group sports after getting up early, which basically boosts dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins all at the same time. You feel that your prefrontal cortex has developed well through this.
- Communication skills. You improved significantly in your close relationships.
- Improved agency. You became more proactive in seizing opportunities, constantly pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. You became responsible for your life and every decision you make, growing drastically more independent. I am proud of you.
- Resilience. You believe that no matter what you encounter, you have the strength to overcome it. You learned to allow yourself to fail and change direction, and to get back up immediately after a setback with the courage to risk it all.
- Self-compassion. A phrase on a bathroom door at NYUAD stuck with you and has given you more passion for life: “Self-compassion is not self-indulgent or lazy. Research shows that self-compassionate people are more motivated, confident, and resilient, enabling them to persevere through challenges and setbacks.”
- Open-mindedness. You were adventurous, explorative, adaptive, and open-minded, allowing yourself to change and grow continuously.
In the following areas, you feel you didn’t do a good job and need to address them:
- The Trap of Consumerism! Your spending patterns, consumption habits, and resource/budget management skills are terrible. A way to deal with this is to start by keeping track of your purchases. As the old saying goes, “what gets measured gets improved.” You just realized you haven’t read a single book about money, so you should start there. For cash flow management, you should consider having a liquid emergency fund (3-6 months of living expenses in a high-liquidity account) and mid-term savings for large expenses in the next 1-5 years (tuition, travel, moving).
- Time management and planning. Try the “ideal week plan” one more time and nudge yourself to maintain a regular, stable daily and weekly schedule.
- Work ethic. It seems you worked much harder in middle and high school than you did in college. While you did work hard at times in college, it wasn’t enough. This can be partly attributed to having very broad interests and trying to achieve multiple things simultaneously, so the attention and time you allocated to each might not have been sufficient. To achieve excellence, you should work harder and dedicate more effort (and time) to your research work. Just a reminder that attention is a limited resource.
- Life habits/Life style. This includes learning to cook, tidying your room, and taking care of others. You always wanted to learn to cook so you could take care of your future partner, but so far, you are only adept at making instant noodles or anything that involves a microwave.
One quadrillion neural connections lay on the inflatable camping pillow next to me: one synapse for every star in two thousand five hundred milky ways. Lots of ways to overheat. [Nov 11 2024]
Whispers falling silently, drift on the wind (but I hear you)
Our journey now a memory fading from sight (But I see you)
Unbroken, promises we made so long ago (You’re still here…)
Unspoken requiem for a river of tears
Flowing, winding, toward eternal sea
And yet our hope remains
Guiding, lighting the way
No time for mourning
Morning rises on a land reborn from the ashes
‘Neath the heavens
To sunset, blood-red skies tranquil after the storm
Blessed shadow
Turning, wending, always night follows day
The sun will shine again
Walk on, never look back
Through you, we live…
Tales of loss and fire and faith
Every word on our hearts engraved
In the dark, you will not stray
Forge ahead till the end we pray [Sep 17 2025]
