No longer 17

My birthday post didn't do this topic justice. I should talk a little bit more about what the milestone of adulthood. I suppose I haven't really thought about it much on that day, given that I was preoccupied with a quiz in a class that I wasn't doing so hot in (and I'm proud to announce that I scored higher than I thought I was going to and earned a very solid C, rather than being on the cusp of failing like in the last quiz).

I will take a quick digression to mention that after the second quiz, there were plenty of posts on Piazza, which is basically Reddit for classes, about grading, curves, general despair. Most notably was a long post about how discouraging the class is. It mentioned that the tests were unfairly difficult and required moments of ingenuity that wasn't necessarily indicative of a student's mastery, which favors the sizeable population of competition math kids in the class, and also criticized the class for gatekeeping pure math, which is generally a very, very big problem in mathematics.

The points brought up were all very valid. On the topic of the first point, I will say that it's just a little unfair that though I am able to solve most all the Pset questions by myself without any outside help, I get terrible, horrendous grades on the quizzes (which are worth 60% of our grade). I suppose not being able to come up with solutions fast is partially a criticism of my ability, because I do spend a lot of time exploring ideas that aren't "worthwhile", but isn't that part of the mathematical journey? I hate it when people say "oh I wasted so much time on this proof" when they don't get it right away. I genuinely think there's a lot of value in that. But yes, I also realize that some of the things that I think about don't give me as high of a return on time investment as doing other things. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this class values getting the right answer a lot more than it values the process, which is what I really enjoy about pure mathematics.

Anyways, that's not really relevant to what I wanted to write about in this post. I would say that I should write about this topic more in another post, but I also have a tendency to explore half-baked ideas and then just leave them half-baked. This is true even in math, as is evident in my inability to rigorize some of my arguments. I suppose it's a skill I should develop. This is also my blog and I can do whatever I want with it.

I realized, after talking to my friend who is decidedly not so, that I'm a very spontaneous person. If thought enter brain, body do. I think that's why I value vulnerability and openness. When my heart wants to do something, but my brain tells me I can't, I feel feelings. If the feelings get too strong, I just do them. I haven't really thought much about what exactly this feeling is. It feels like my chest is being squeezed internally. Sometimes, I feel like there's a lump in my throat. So I suppose it's like nervousness or anxiety. You know what, I don't think I understand emotions in general. I feel like a neural network when it comes to identifying emotions. I think about my training data, which is what I feel and how other people would name it, and then I attempt to generalize. I don't feel like I understand emotions on anything deeper than surface level. Chinese room though experiment kind of thing, you know?

There's another digression. Well, I don't even know what I was planning on writing on spontaneity in the first place. Something along the lines of I don't know whether or not I should stay where I'm at or work on tempering my impulses. This leads to more general questions about identity. I still haven't figured out what I want to be and what I want to do. Existential crisis moment. I think I'm leaning towards something nihilistic, because the non-nihilism answer just doesn't sit right with me. Also because of certain conversations I've had, I'm more inclined to think that I am a nihilist. I won't pretend I understand nihilism very well outside of what is known in general pop culture. I really should read more into it. Ah, but with what time? (Actually I should not be saying this because I am writing this blog post instead of studying for a test and doing psets that I really, really should get started with, but you know what, I wasn't going to be very productive anyways, so might as well get this out of the way so I can maybe focus better?)

Another important thing that I've realized in the last few days: college truly is the time for self-discovery. Yes, I've always wanted to try a lot of things in college, but that has always seemed so far away. I've done so little in high school. I didn't go to parties (because I wasn't allowed to and also there were basically no parties happening, which I am about 90% sure is the case, rather than it being because I was simply not invited), I didn't do any stupid teenager felonies like trespassing or vandalism, nor did I get to explore much in terms of relationships, platonic, romantic, and sexual. I suppose college is more of a time for these kinds of explorations rather than high school, but I feel like a good portion of people have definitely done more than I have.

I can't tell if it's my coping mechanism or if I am just optimistic, but I think these experiences, whether good or bad, are just nice experiences to have. I'm curious to see what would happen. Once I find out, well I just find out. Even negative experiences add so much spice to life, don't you think? It's funny that I'm saying that because I used to, and maybe a part of me still is, want everything to stay stagnant. I guess there's merit in everything. This is probably why I'm indecisive, which honestly could be traced back to my identity crisis.

Yeah, well at this moment, I'm feeling like fucking around and finding out. I do recall myself having this inclination at certain moments for a while now. So I will fuck around and find out.

Update: also wanted to plug the things that I bought myself for my birthday:

• Zebra bullet journal set from Costco - I think it was somewhere in the range of $20-30 and contains like 16 Midliner highlighters, 5 Clickart markers, 5 calligraphy pen/brush markers, 5 washi tapes, and a bullet journal. Will I be using the stationery? Probably not, because I'm now converted to iPad writing (though lecture notetaking will always take place with paper and pencil and one highlighter). Does it bring me immense joy to look at? Yes.
• Noise-cancelling headphones - I lost the little bit of silicone on your earphones that helps it comfortably sit in your ear, and I realized that I should really get an upgrade from my 10$ earphones that I got sometime in senior year after my old, earphones that I picked up from who knows where broke. I received a 50$ Amazon gift card from hosting someone for Math Prize for Girls and I'm applying it towards a 80$ sort of nice noise cancelling headphones. As of writing this, I am listening to music in one ear with these earphones and I really, really cannot wait for the headphones to come in.
• Cake!!!!!!!