Graduation

It's my first post in almost one and a half years! The Blogger dashboard thing says I last posted in March 9 2011. (Hello to Davy, not sure if this will be the first post that you’ll read, in that case welcome.) On another note, it's been six years of Baulko, and I've finally graduated.

So late Thursday night, I decided to post up a 'sentimental' meme, if such a creation could exist:

The Grad Meme, possibly in low Q because I redownloaded it off FB, lol

I'm not normally emotional, although I did get slightly teary during watching some of the slides. Screw it, that's an understatement: I broke down on the way to the Houliston Centre and sobbed myself a river.

Yep. On Friday the 21st of November 2012, [Dyna Blade] bawled the crap out of himself in public. I don't think I've ever cried like that before (or at least in the last 6 years). It was actually kind of fulfilling, although it's slightly noticeable that I was quite frazzled after the graduation assembly.

Crying is manly. Definitely. On that note, there's absolutely nothing wrong with pink.

Meanwhile, my dad was looking through grad photos and going: "she's Russian, right," or "hey, he must be from Hong Kong". He has this surprisingly accurate ability to know where you're from, which I sometimes find a bit awkward.

That reminds me, I should probably upload all the grad photos from both cameras without bias or censorship. Maybe later (see the PS near the bottom)

Something that I regret over the last few years (or much of my life in fact) is my shyness, poor time management and hesitation (and ironically, perfectionism). Basically, all regrets stem from these flaws/attributes (actually, I'm not sure whether they should be called causative agents), although some are just random parts of life.

Things like:
- Y U NO ask her out to [some formal occasion]?
- Y U NO meet, greet, and possibly become friends with [some person]?
- Y U NO do ISS application earlier?
- Why didn't you prepare for your assessments earlier? (I think this has been happening since year 1)
- Why did you get your teeth removed right before Cross Country?
...and so on.

Despite this, I think that every time that you make a choice or something happens to you, other doorways and opportunities pop up. I also tend to believe in some notion of karma: that good stuff tends to happen to you more often when you yourself do good things (or perhaps tend to notice good things happening to you more often?)

That reminds of a Sunday morning when I waited for this kid to judge when it's safe to cross the street. The last car had just passed the (school) crossing making it safe to cross. While the father asks if it’s safe, the kid keeps thinking and looking, while I watch and wait for his decision. Finally, he announces it’s time to cross, and the father thanks me for waiting. In retrospect, I think that’s one of those random moments where you don’t even consciously decide to play along, you just 'go with the flow' and you end up feeling good for what you've done for someone else. I should make an effort to make these moments more frequent.

Looking back on the past six years at Baulko, I realise that Baulko makes up a large part of my identity and that the school, along with the people, have impacted me deeply in many ways: I've become infinitely more sociable than when I was in primary school (although I’m not exactly Mr Chatty Man), I've transitioned from a fat stubby kid to supreme (jks) runner/athlete through Runfit, made a number of good friends, and some other things I can’t completely recall right now.

Speaking of primary school(s), it was a pretty crappy experience (not-so-subtle bullying through to year 5/6) in comparison to high school, which I maintain is pretty darn awesome.

That last paragraph (the one above the previous sentence) sounded like it came straight from my scholarship application.

There are also some other things that I’m genuinely proud of achieving. Being invited to the Physics Olympiad Summer School was probably my greatest moment (although, getting the call the night before the math ext 1 exam kinda affected my results, lol), and that just opened my eyes to what I actually like. The second would be getting to the UNSW ProgComp grand finals along with Davy and JM (who are great teammates btw and just generally awesome), which recognised that we were actually good at programming, which I’ve been slowly improving at since 2010. And a host of other things.

I think that one day I'll write a post about the story of Runfit. On that note, come do City2Surf / Tough Mudder / SMH Half-marathon / Warrior Dash / Sydney Running with me! I’m hoping to do at least three of these events.

Particularly looking forward to this Tough Mudder event: apparently there's an obstacle where they hang live wires which deliver 10000 volts (each), and you have to run through them with the finish line in sight.

http://toughmudder.com.au/events/sydney-1-2013/ - wow, this is pretty expensive, and early bird prices are several months before the event. Also, it’s in February which is pretty soon, I guess it’s time to train, except I’d lose a lot of my fitness by being in China (possibly going) so close to the event.

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Right now it’s Wednesday morning, second week of the holidays. Wow, strong procrastination there.

It was mid-autumn festival on the weekend! I tried some seriously good mooncake, such as sesame-flavoured and red bean-flavoured, which have this mochi-like skin. Speaking of mooncake, the moon was a nice pale yellow over the long weekend.

I should really post this before I lose the plot, sentimentality arising from graduating and all that. Pressing that button now. Yes, now.

I wrote ^ 20 hours ago and didn’t post. I’m actually going to post it now. Maybe when the bell goes.
*Reads 3:21am* Whoops

PS: sorry to the people who missed out on the blogosphere photo :/ Try again before/after English? (except maybe you guys would want to be studying…)

[That’s the only ellipsis I’ve used in this entire post, which is very few compared to my 2010-11 ramblings. Actually, don’t look at my past posts, they’re mostly terrible and I should probably get a new blog as symbolism for a new beginning/end or something]