End of Sophomore Year

It really seems only yesterday that I took my first step into that sweltering vacuum of an empty freshman suite common room and beheld the sight of my roommate hilariously prostrate on his bed. With my brother, I inspected my tiny double with some consternation, debated whether I wanted the top or bottom bunk, and then began unpacking. Then I met my first acquaintance from Africa, who was not particularly burly or malnourished, and spoke better English than I did. Inside, I simply shrugged off these initial surprises with my characteristic accommodation of life's stochasticity. On that memorable day of freshman move-in, I had the temerity to assume that college life would unfold in an expectedly unexpected way. And this attitude, as it always has, would buffer the impact of any vicissitudes in either direction because a sense of resignation to what life has to offer begets a desensitization that sucks emotion out of experience and replaces it with pseudo-intellectualism. I felt at ease that night as my mind set to work extrapolating from the day's events to develop my immunity against Harvard.

Two years have flown by since, and my assessment of where I stand? In many ways, college has been who we thought they were. Busy and stressful, because of academics and extracurriculars. Interesting, because students come from all ethnic backgrounds and walks of life. Fantastic, when exams are done, Korean BBQ Tuesdays are in session, and weather is nice enough for girls to try on their new dope spring dresses, but gloomy when New England winter slush ravages the sidewalks and you've seen your third permutation of dry ass chicken for the week. Surprises that I encountered during my first year were, all things considered, minor, and I made the necessary adjustments quickly.

With the exception of one thing, which came out of nowhere and became more and more difficult to ignore. I became deeply invested in the well-being of others, close and distant, such that maybe for the first time, I cared enough about humanity to abandon a me-centric view of the world. The seed that was planted during my high school years as a moral obligation, a logical appreciation for the Confucian Golden Rule, grew an emotional root. And whether or not it deserves to be called love, the change is still a remarkably curious thing to me. Maybe simply being at college, especially in a setting like Boston, has made me more keenly aware of American identity, more fully immersed in the culture than ever before. And you can't be an American unless you have feelings. But I also know I've always had it in me. My mom used to say I have a lot of "jung," whose best English translation I can conceive is attachment to living things and acquaintances. Despite my shyness in large groups of people, I made friends with strangers fairly easily as a child and always took it hard when time came for goodbyes.

However it happened, resurgence of Hadouken of Love was here to stay. And when I reflect back on the spring semester of my sophomore year many years from now, that and the relationships it made possible, as well as the amazing joy and disappointments that accompanied them, will be remembered. It was the best and worst of times, and I felt very much alive through it all. Well played, life.

But aside from the above, this semester also brought a sundry of smaller surprises, ones that could escape my memory down the road unless I jot them down here. So now it's time to take a look back. Here's part 1 of the memories.

Spanish: Ever since forgoing AP Spanish in high school, I've been itching to re-enter el mundo maravilloso of upside-down question marks and genital-bearing nouns. Because my vision of double-majoring in neurobiology and Latin American Studies to understand the Latina mind is no longer tenable, I've settled for the option of reviving my Spanish from its deep siesta, and the first Spanish class of my post-secondary education certainly didn't disappoint. Highlights included energetic female professor with cute botas, friendly classmates, an oral presentation rhapsodizing Shakira's body (not me, I swear), screening of Motorcycle Diaries, and many speaking exercises featuring tense relationship scenarios. By the end of the semester, I had also identified Celion Dion as an inspirational figure in my life, confessed that Laker tickets would be the first thing to buy if I had a million dollars, and incorporated the phrase "ganar el amor de una chica" in every open-answer quiz. But perhaps my most shameful moment came during the final oral exam when I made the foolish mistake of mentioning Kafka's Metamorphosis in relation to another work we had read in class. With nowhere near the arsenal of vocabulary necessary to discuss the classic, I prevaricated en route to the claim that the main character manages to ganar el amor de una chica but she does not satisfy him in the way he hoped. Mr. Kafka, I deeply, deeply apologize.

Statistics: Weekly problem sets can be a bane and treat at the same time. On one hand, they necessitate consistent attendance at lectures, which is difficult when exams and papers in other classes roll around, and then stop you from taking a break to celebrate the end of those exams and papers. But on the other, they develop into a weekly tradition you bear out with your friends and a comforting signpost that fun, fun, fun, fun is not too far. For me, the statistics problem sets I completed with a friend were all of these things and so much more. The contents of our lives were poured from their respective containers to fill a single martini glass of pulsating cocktail with just the right amount of inflammatory aftertaste, and overdose was not an issue for either of us. I will miss those .csv data sets.

I also finished off the semester right by applying what I've learned to a deeply perplexing real-life problem that keeps all of us up at night - predicting the winners of NBA playoffs using regular season data. For the final statistics project, my group members and I analyzed regular season statistics from the past 31 years using logistic regression to identify any variables that were significant predictors of winners of Western Conference Finals, Eastern Conference Finals, and Championship series. The result? Having more 7 footers, playing at a faster pace (number of possessions per 48 minutes), allowing fewer points per 100 possessions, and employing an older roster seem to increase a team's likelihood of winning. But one should keep in mind that plenty of other factors not included in our study, such as abandoning the Triangle Offense, not feeding the ball into Andrew Bynum, and losing motivation, also matter. More on that sometime.

Global Health: So far, I have only talked about classes I've taken, and I think that means something. This spring marked maybe the first time in my academic career that I truly relished the process of learning and acquiring new knowledge. And much of it is due to the fact that I have finally discovered that passion to which I can devote the rest of my life - I want to help improve lives of people through international development. Achieving this goal entails becoming well-versed in a wide variety of disciplines including public health, policy, education, human rights, economics, and business. But just as important is cultivating character, moral integrity, and a certain psychological readiness for the task. And the two global health courses I took this semester did a bit of both. A key take-away for me has been that there is still much work to be done, but it is do-able. More do-able in places not named Afghanistan and Sierra Leone but do-able nonetheless. What excites me is that I genuinely believe our generation can develop the commitment and competence to put a significant dent on worldwide suffering and poverty. Only time will tell though.