First, I'd like to take a second to discuss the status of this website. When I originally made it in the summer (wow, that was only two months ago?), I planned on updating this fairly consistently. I had ambitious plans in the back of my head: weekly blog posts, some kind of a video section where I could vlog, and a ton of features like pop-up footnotes or having the cover picture of the website change every day, but all of this'll probably remain on my #TODO for a long time

I originally already had a couple of writing ideas including a high school reflection post, some kind of a goodbye post to all the friends I've made, and a post where I'd talk about all the ways I've improved my communication skills. And I still feel like these are not bad ideas. But college kind of hit me like a truck, and now I'm scrambling to pick myself up, and there's been no time to write any kind of blog posts.

But maybe the fact that I'm finding the time to write this post implies that college is slowing down, and I'll get more time in the future to dedicate to this personal project of mine.

Anyways, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

-

One of the questions that I'm being asked more often is "How's college?" And I don't know really know how to answer this. It's too broad, and college is far too much of a flurry to sum up into a succinct response.

I felt I had a decent idea of what college should be like in high school. It was going to consist of lecture-style classes, living in a dorm, and hanging out. And while I'd say I was right, there's still so much more to the college experience that's a little more difficult to put into words. But I'll try my best.

-

You're entering the next big stage of your life: college. You're moving into your dorm, saying goodbye to your family, and mentally preparing. You feel ready.

The first fellow student you meet is your roommate, CM. Normal-seeming fellow, and you like him, even though you don't share a lot in common. He's tall, white, and into sports. You're short, asian, and definitely not an athlete. But he's soft-spoken and friendly. Conversation comes easily as you're both curious about each other. You're surprised that he's never had a computer before coming to college and he says that he's astonished at how social you are (he probably expected an anti-social nerd, which is understandable considering you're Asian and CS).

You later meet up with other people you already knew before college. A high school friend. A middle school friend. An upperclassman friend of a friend. Some of them you vibe with, others not so much. But it's nice to have a network of people you already know, and maybe you can make new friends with this network.

But the main way you end up meeting new people is during the barrage of welcome week events that UIUC offers. And boy do you end up meeting new people. You make friends in places you couldn't have predicted. You meet people in lounges, in lines, and sitting at public benches. People just come up to you and introduce themselves. You don't have to be outgoing. Just be friendly and respond with enthusiasm, and you just sorta make friends. It's much easier than you expected.

The people you meet are so strange and different. You've built a framework of people from your high school, and you find yourself comparing them to them. Wow, this guy reminds you of IW. Oh, this girl seems a lot like AY. But the more you get to know them, the more they become their own person, and the more you realize how different they are. And the more you realize how little you know about people.

And you keep on meeting more and more people, and you're constantly hopping from one activity to another. You think you have a moment of calm, and then someone's like "hey do y'all wanna grab boba after this?" And you're like "of course!" God, you're in college. How cool is it that you can do whatever you want whenever you want.

Suddenly, you don't have a bedtime, and there's no obligation to sleep. You find yourself regularly going to sleep at 6AM after hanging out with your new and wonderful friends. You pull all-nighters every two weeks. And though it's not great for your health, it's great for making friends. You go out and party. Frat parties are definitely not your thing, but you keep going anyways because you're just throwing yourself headfirst into college.

You try alcohol. You get drunk and throw up four times. Yeah, you're a lightweight. You buy a TV for forty dollars at 3AM from some sketchy Indian guys' dorm, accidentally bang it into the wall while carrying it, and now the screen is so cracked its unusable. You skip school to go to Chicago and watch a K-Pop concert—it's your first concert, and it's an experience.

Your sleep schedule is so messed up that your friends call you Batman. But it's okay because you're being social. There's rarely an hour that passes where you're not with a friend. You've thrown yourself into the social deep end.

You and your newfound friends test into the second level of CS with a healthy amount of academic integrity violations. Your linguistics midterm is unproctored and virtual, and you giddily take it with other people. A graduate student that you met at Chinese club offers you a research position. You theorize that you can socialize so hard that it also helps your academic status and career prospects. And that you won't have to worry about school or internships if you just socialize hard enough.

And everything's going great. You're making friends. You're building your resume. Classes are easy and you're being carried by your previous CS knowledge. Everything should be going great.

...but at some point, somewhere in the blizzard of events and people, you stopped being happy. Hanging out with people turned from fun and thrilling to difficult and tiresome. You feel a strange sense of apathy when surrounded by excited conversation, and sometimes it's like you're trapped in your head and you can't get out.

Schoolwork becomes more difficult as classes start ramping up, but you can't seem to force yourself to do work. You take an exam and you realize you don't know how to answer half the questions—and you thought you actually understood the material. You fail to finish a CS project on time, and your forced to use a late waiver. You think that maybe you should worry about school, but you just don't care for some reason.

You start to lose touch with some friends, people that you actually like, because they've prioritized other people over you and don't ask to hang out as much. You didn't hang out enough with them, and prioritized meeting new people. You made a lot of friends in a lot of different places, but you have very few close friends. You don't have an established circle that you can call your own. And you feel like you're falling behind as you notice others forming friend groups and group chats that you're not a part of.

You feel like you've spread yourself too thin, and that it's maybe catching up to you. You realize that you should've been applying to internships, and that most positions are already closed, and that you might be too late.

But, to be honest, schoolwork, social life, and even the falling behind on your career path aren't even that bad. Because you're still doing okay in school. And while you don't have many close friends, at least you can say still say you have a lot of friends. And there's probably still internship positions you can apply to. But why aren't you happy?

All these problems loom so large in your head, but rationally you know that you're doing well. You start to break down a little bit. At four in the morning, you ask your roommate if he's happy. Sometimes when you're leaving your friend's dorm hall at 5AM, you take a moment to make sure nobody's around before shouting swear words as loud as you can. You find yourself jittery and moody, frustrated with no real reason.

So you stay up later and later, most of the time for no good reason. You get addicted to Clash Royale for three days before deleting it. You start watching YouTube again, burning hours at a time. And you start working on your blog again...

-

Okay, I ended that second-person breakaway on a very angsty note. I promise I'm not depressed. Or I hope I'm not. And honestly, writing this blogpost has been very therapeutic for me. I think it let me process a lot of my college experience so far, and I'm realizing now that I'm doing pretty well. And that all the problems I've been brooding about are kinda minor. Like—who cares about internships or having close friends? Hm, maybe I shouldn't say it like that. But what I mean is that everyone goes through life at their own pace, and I probably shouldn't worry too much.

The goal of this blogpost was to capture the essence of how I was feeling during my first few weeks of college. It's officially been half a semester, two months of being a college student. And I think I've done an alright job in taking a snapshot of my emotions during my time here.

I'm living life, and I'd say I'm having a good time. I think I'm a little burnt out right now. Maybe even a lot burnt out. But overall, college is great. I'm going to try to get a lot of work done the next few days. Catch up in schoolwork, apply to some internships, and maybe actually do some work for the research positions I have.

Also, this is a little strange but I think I have a crush. I haven't had one of these since middle school, and it's kinda fun. I was a little bit angsty about it in the beginning, but I've decided to just keep it light and sexy. Don't take yourself too seriously. I'm like 90% sure she doesn't like me (literally talked about how she liked another guy), but that's whatever. Let's enjoy life a little bit.

:D Take care.