No blog would be complete without a new year’s post and besides it would be a shame to not look back on such an exciting and transformative year.
Around the same time last year, I remember that life was anything but fun. Winter quarter 2010 was filled with a lot self pity and loneliness . A huge distance had grown between many of my friends from freshman year; at the same time feelings of betrayal stemming from my friends telling Ashley that I liked her were still present. The result was that I began burying myself in my work and had an overwhelming desire to leave for Shanghai as soon as possible.
However, not everything gloomy during that quarter. With a lack of friends, I committed myself to the Undergraduate Investment Society (UIS) where I found a sense of family. Of course no family would be complete without a mother figure and that part was played by June, who helped me out more times than I can remember. In addition, Michael the president of the club thought the world of me at the time and because of him that I started to gain confidence in my work. The finance knowledge that I picked up that quarter continues to serve me well, and has been letting me impress those who look down on my major.
Despite, my growing involvement in finance, winter quarter saw me fly the white flag and surrender against economics. The day before my economics midterm, I realized that I passionately hated studying economics and I promptly dropped all my economics courses that quarter. I now declare myself as a an economics major in name only, just because having it on my transcript as a second major looks so much more impressive.
Spring quarter was spent trying to keep my heart from running away with the amazing Ellie, a girl who seemed to be more dream than reality by the way she would disappear and reappear without warning. It was the first time I had been swept off my feet and I tried my best to hold on to that feeling. The more I learned about Ellie, the more I wanted to be like her. As you can see from my unchanged relationship status, that things were simply not meant to be. However, till this day I am still trying to be more like Ellie, and I find myself asking what would Ellie do in situations where I am unsure about how to treat people.
Meeting Ellie, colored my spring quarter pink and it showed through my relationships with friends. I finally made up with Ashley and started rebuilding our friendship after I had abruptly burned the bridge. After breaking my mother’s heart by telling her that I did not feel like part of the family, I tried to connect with my family, particularly my sister. I started to reach out to new UIS members and strengthening relationships with old ones, all the while playing an increasingly larger role in the club. Unfortunately, work at the TV station started to stagnate and the workplace was no longer a fun place to be. Spring quarter was also when I got my first SLR and over the course of the year it would suck large amounts of money from my bank account. Despite the rose colored glasses, my sophomore year ended on a bittersweet note, as I saw Ellie and my UIS friends graduate.
Summer was the start of a new life with a two month internship in Los Angeles that saw me rubbing elbows the city and state’s elite. I was a leader for the first time in my life and the nerve wracking challenge crystallized to me how a leader should act. I fell in love with a city that I hated without ever really knowing why and picked up the pieces of my heart after Ellie dropped off the face of the earth for the billionth time. After two months, I left LA with a new network, a much more impressive resume and lifelong friends.
Arriving in Shanghai, I once again found myself falling head over heels for an impossible girl. Jeanni was bold and beautiful but seven years older than me, meaning she saw me as nothing more than a little brother. When I finally accepted I was chasing an impossible dream, I did something I had never done before and confessed my feelings to her. Jeanni took everything in stride and comforted me while I contented myself to be her little brother. Thankfully, Crystal and Varun were there to help me pick up the pieces. Shanghai gave me a new family in the form of the Asia MBA students. I always felt more welcomed by these students who ranged from seven years older to over twice my age than with the UC students who were my age. In addition to family and friends, Shanghai gave me a whole host of new adventures and life changing experiences.
The city has been exceptionally kind to me with the easiest academic workload I have had in college.
However, professionally my stay in the city has been a disaster as I rejected one internship in hopes of finding a better one, only to have that better internship fall through. Four months of bliss ended all too quickly with the departure of most of the Asia MBA students and UC students. Only Crystal and Jeanni are left from the old guard and they will be leaving in two months. It is both exciting and heartbreaking to think about making new friends come February.
In one year, I lived in four cities, got swept off my feet twice, added an uncountable number of new family members across the world and created a host of life changing memories. 2010 brought a whole new level of excitement to my life’s story and I am going to have to try exceptionally hard to make 2011 as dramatic or else readers might get bored of my blog.
-muffinman
