going back in time

time travel is amazing, let me tell you. i'm leaving seoul at 7.30 pm, and getting to new york at 7.30 pm, of the same day. i wish i could teleport. that way i could travel anywhere in the world with just with a blink of an eye. but i suppose i'll be spending most of the 14 hour flight sleeping anyways, so maybe when i open my eyes again, i'll be in new york.

i'm sitting at the airport in hong kong, fully appreciating the free wi-fi. last week flew by with a blink, and now here i am, waiting to fly back to the states. even though i spent these past two weeks playing, i feel like i learned a great deal--a great deal about friend and family relationships, and how people find happiness in their lives. i'm glad i got to see all my friends (well, almost all), to help me understand life outside of mit. they made me realize that you don't have to be one of the brightest, the student with the highest GPA, or one with tremendous contribution to the world to have a meaningful life, and enjoy life happily. and i also found out that even the smartest people have many flaws that don't allow them to lead a happy life. i used to idolize my second uncle, because he was the smartest one in the family, having majored in physics for undergrad and got a phd from mit in nuclear engineering. but when it came to family relationships, he wasn't able to handle the problems very well.

then there are my windsurfing friends who never cared about school at all, and even if they did care, they didn't do well. yet they found themselves. they found jobs and got windsurfing instructor/coach licenses. some of them even got to travel (the States, Europe, Australia, China--Tibet!) and participated in exchange programs. as i listened to them tell their stories, a strong admiration for them grew inside of me. maybe i admired the way they they found their own path, found out who they are, and have their lives settled with a very particular goal for the future. and here i am, at the crossroad, about to graduate, and not having a single clue what i'm going to do, and what i will become. talking to them made me feel unusually old, maturing faster than i expected. it's unnerving.