It's been quite a crazy time--the summer holidays are almost over, and I'm into week minus-one of the summer holidays. The only problem is, the summer is almost over, but I don't quite remember having had any holidays, except maybe the two weeks when my parents were here some three, four months ago that seem like a happy, but hazy, distantly surreal memory now.

I guess people don't usually stop to think about what they've doing, where they're headed, and what they want to do with their lives, both because there's the daily grind that people usually get lost in, be it work, study, or even play haha, and because if you spent all your time and energy thinking and planning about the future, then where would you find any for living in the present?

In any case, I've been cruising to a stopping point of sorts, a checkpoint for the summer finally in sight, with the draft for one presentation out that's just waiting for results from an easily-run experiment, and the draft for one paper underway to wrap up work I started a year ago. It's been an enjoyable even if sometimes monotonously gruelling summer, but as I've cruised to what will hopefully be a gentle stop, questions about the future have come up once again.

It was almost befitting, that a great^n grand junior from way-back-when randomly started talking to me on IM, and was asking me about schools, courses, choices of majors, career options, and things like that--things that I wanted answers to myself 3, 4, 5 years ago before embarking on the journey and jumping into all this. And I couldn't help but see myself in all the questions he was asking--it's almost as if we want to be handed a road-map with all the dangerous places, potholes, and dead-ends marked out before we embark on the adventurous journey of a lifetime all on our own, with the collective wisdom of a gazillion people before us. We just want to be sure where we're headed, we don't want surprises, we just want to breeze through those years.

It's not wrong to plan at all, in fact, it's a good thing to plan ahead, know all the options, know all the rationalities/rationalizations for all the forks in the road. Planning never hurt anyone, I think. But the problem comes when you (I) get allergic to uncertainties, allergic to decision-making, and just want to get everything set in stone as soon as possible, so that we can "get on with life"--but hey, isn't that very thing we're trying to navigate life itself? Why are we then trying to avoid it?

I ended up telling the youthful individual, full of spirit and fortitude, that I was like him once too--concerned about (well I didn't say all of this but it's the same message) things from grades to employability and so on, and every few weeks I'd sit up late at night wondering what my (additional, haha, too bad the bond dictates the primary) major should be, and once in a while going crazy and starting to try to (re)arrange courses into my 3-year master-plan (I think I still have that spreadsheet somewhere) to see how many majors and minors I could manage in the same time haha.

But, if anything, these past three years should have taught you, that it really is a journey. You've had one heck of a ride, done some amazing things, met some amazing people, and I'm now some place I could only dream of years ago, but could never figure out how to get to, yet it's happened, perhaps the result of hard work, perhaps the result of serendipity, perhaps the result of the stars and the planets lining up, who knows?

In any case, maybe the point is, that we really don't know?

It's difficult, I guess, to jump blindly and have faith in anything at all, much less yourself, people are fundamentally weak, and the strong are but people who foolishly refuse to accept their weaknesses?

Or maybe I've just been sleeping at excessively odd hours and that's screwing with my thoughts.

In any case, The Most Happening City In The World in just 4 days!!!!! I've finally made it to the much-needed break, everything else can come later, haha, after I've had my fill of good food, good company, good times, and just goodness all around.