Waiting

 

It was early in the morning, some raindrops softly landed on the already wet concrete doorsteps, creating cute little water flowers that no one would care about. But some other raindrops were even more pathetic, joining their companions on the edge of roof, dripping down in a crowd amongst their laughter, not knowing that there would be a hard hit once alighted. There I was, walking out and secretly joking about their stupidity.

Perhaps because the rain had set the tone of the day heavy, people on the street all seemed to have locked their eyebrows, especially those who were waiting for the shuttle to come. Their gaze into the direction in which the shuttle would eventually appear had betrayed them and revealed their impatience. Cars continued crushing those innocent water flowers on the floor while speeding by, then got abruptly put on brake in front of the red light of the crossroad. After that, it was the same impatient look on the drivers’ faces. And the same impatient look might just stay with them the whole day, or their whole lifetime because of the amount of time they would spend wasting.

It is scary how much time people spend on waiting everyday for everything. After people wake up in the morning, they might have to wait for their family to use the bathroom. After they are ready for work, they wait for the right timing to pull their cars onto the main street, and wait for the red lights along their way till they arrive at the parking lot. Then, they wait in line to park their cars and wait to get to their destinations.

After they get into buildings, they wait for elevators, wait for other people to press different buttons for different floors, and wait for people to get on and off. People wait for each other in meetings, in gatherings, and in daily lunch-togethers. People wait to get into cafeterias, wait to pick out their foods, and then wait to pay. People spend a scary amount of time waiting but they never noticed how much time it really would be if the waiting time is aggregated throughout the day, aggregated throughout their lifetime, and how scary the number would be if everyone’s waiting time is added.

If I have the magic to reduce the waiting time for everyone, I might as well get a special Nobel for it…

First blog post in English

It's been a long time since I last wrote anything for my own or for those who bothered to squeeze out some time to read my old blog in Chinese. Undeniably, MIT has more or less turned me into a problem solver (or okay, I know, a nerd, and you’re probably totally right about it) who likes to solve problems, from simple brain teasers to stupid math model that portrays gossip target Mr.A's affection to gossip target Ms.B. It requires a completely different set of mentality to really enjoy the process of working out a problem, to appreciate the challenge imposed by such a problem, and to be looking forward to similar excitement that one can get via solving another problem. In sum, what I have learned from MIT is not how to solve a problem, but rather, how to realize a problem by quantifying it, which of course, involves making a series of assumptions that might not be necessarily true in most cases but just to be there to generate a solution. Of course we all know about the basic concept of "gabbage in, gabbage out" in any models, but for the sake of keeping academics the still, the authority, and the holy, we make believe our models are “goodies in” and argue they are “goodies out.” However, my college life not only started as a take-off point of “college life” that Andy in Toy Story 3 or any other 17-year-old movie characters would be going through, but also a take-off point of preparing for what comes after college.

It took me a while to figure out what I want to do for a living, so that I won’t wind up being street beggars or street performers in the grand New York City subway labyrinth, which might embarrass my mom quite a bit. But when I first set for Boston, I had absolutely no idea what the heck I would do after college except not going to a graduate school as how my parents had wished. 16 years of continuous education has been deemed as for-sure enough, at least for a pause, with already contemplated excuses made up in my mind to deal with my mom’s would-be-coming weeping for the disgrace I would bring into our family if I would away from academia. Sometimes, you just have to bear with Asian parents.

Unfortunately, I had given up being a writer because (1) it’s hard to make a living and (2) all the humanities majors are crunched into Course 21 at MIT, a course that nobody really cares about except when Mr. Dean’s emails reach people’s email Inboxes insisting the importance of humanities requirements for the golden Bachelor of Science certificate. In fact, I only know one girl majored in Course 21L and I remember seeing her going onto Number 1 bus toward Harvard Square every morning. And when I tell my friends, it’s that girl who majors in 21L, they would all be extremely eager to peep. What a big deal! But the most detrimental reason is that I am not a native speaker; I immigrated into U.S. in 2005 knowing only the alphabets and my writings could hardly be recognized, except by The New York Times, who generously took into consideration the fact that I had been to U.S. for less than three years by then and granted me their scholarship. I was flattered.

Besides writing, I basically hate everything but math. The beauty of math is just fascinating; the golden ratio, the prime numbers, pi, natural log…So I ended up studying math knowing that I would have a hard time to keep my grades up while competing with the brightest brains on campus. But I work hard, and hopefully, that compensates.