Important Matters

1&2.
What event I can immediately think about “memorable” is when I read the excerpt from The Pond, Walden. It was a cloudy afternoon in the summer holiday and I was fluently going on my well-planned daily routine of reading some fine passages or essays. That’s a relaxed day with I receiving a good TOEFL score a few days ago. There was nothing left to worry about, nothing needed to considered or pondered. The Pond drove me to read it, not me reading it. I can only feel that the more I read, the deeper its charm of languages depicted in front of me. Unless my schedule for that part on that day was only 1 hour and a half, I might finish that excerpt at one go fastly without appreciating many impressive wordings. Thanks to The Pond, I can again experience the exceptional feeling that happened once when I read The Great Gatsby. I can still recall that day of reading the part when Nick was reveling in the foamy atmosphere of the roaring 20s. That night was quite similar to the afternoon. Both Max is aparting from their flesh gradually. They are captivated. One in the grandiose but somehow pretty streets of fame, bubbles and bars; one in the varying yet tranquil land of nature. When I read The Pond, what I truly feel shocked about is the unbelievable talent of the author and his exact and proper use of normal dictions. He creates a better type of figurative language. He controls similes, paradoxes and hyperboles. Every word is utilized to build an all-purpose framework, a base, which gives me the realistic boundary of imagination, the opportunity to be a god in that world without violating each basic rule he is designing. “It was very queer, especially in dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if I might next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward into this element, which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook.” How many possible worlds can I imagine from these combinations of short letters! I lay down on my chair, imagining I can have no better experiences than this, and the favorite music was echoing in the valley of my imagination. This feeling was weaker yet longer throughout my reading of The Great Gatsby. I began reading that book in 2024.10, and finished it in 2025.6. There were about 4 months I forgot any plots in it, but surprisingly I was able to picked it up after long periods of blanks. I have to say, that the most relaxed period in a day in June 2025 is the dining of beautiful plots at late nights. If I didn’t watch the movie before I read the book, I think I have much more space left for imagination, but that’s fine enough since the book is written beautifully enough.

The most recent quick trip that involves pure relax and touring is that one I went to Lijiang. I’m really feeling a sense of freedom when I’m sitting on the car with windows opened speeding on the likely highlands. I could see no cities or villages, but ponds, hills and big, unbelievably green trees. I could see the clouds just like come from mangas, skies as someone paint it every seconds. Every top experience couldn’t exist without music, as I noticed. It’s not only serves as background or atmosphere, but also a boost to my overall imagination. I jot down these words, and simultaneously I could think every perfect scene of journey spreading across my whole mind. I’m alone yet busy in my brain at that car: I’m busying in fixing the images and feelings inside my heart. I cannot do that completely, but at least I can try. My hands stop, stop outside, continue inside my brain with top speed, with unlimited attempts to catch the pieces of memory. I needn’t to consider the student union, the expectations, the airplane and the university. I can feel the money contributing to my life, but I can also feel its uselessness. I can feel the importance of freedom in my sky, my ruins. Do you have the ability to watch every corner of this earth if you have unlimited wealth? Is it night? Is it afternoon? I can’t distinguish.

At one special night in the school, I was rejected by Oxford. I was not sure about any precise feelings: I didn’t even feel sadness. This is probably because I’ve never set this university as a dream school or something like that. I’m applying just because I think if I did it I can brag for a whole year. It fails, like I suspected. I didn’t even predict that I could get the interview offer. However, out of unknown reason, I still feel very stucked. Possibly because of the stress, or the intentional pressure of thinking, or extreme anxiety or nervousness, I chose to play the piano like I do often at that night. I enjoy playing songs which can recall my happy memories, for example some ACG music or songs I played in some performances. It’s very late, about 22:45. I moved my fingers, but they became weaker and weaker. I thought: I must restrain my strenght not to make big noises, otherwise I’ll be catched by teacher. I thought about this and I cried. I cried so hard that nobody could see my tears in the building. I went to the restroom for tissue paper, and I played the piano as I cry. I turned off the light, stared at the playground outside the window. I forgot what I’m thinking, perhaps what should I do at that moment, or at future, or why I was crying or I was doing anything. I don’t know. I cried for about 10 minutes, and realized that if I don’t go back to the dorm the supervisor will search all the school. I can’t make a fool of myself in front of anyone, so I forced me to finish the song I was playing. It was tough but still, I was satisfied about that song. After that, I went back, and I forgot whether I cry later during bathing.

At the night on January 17, I went outisde and rode my bike. I rode around my neighborhood about 10 rounds and rode onto the highway. I kept meditating about my fear and anxiety, but I was playing excited music to enhance my radical imagination. One special moment is rushing down from a highway, listening to a piece called Drain Re;act mix (English). This climax was consists of an insanely high pitch scream accompanied with single, vehement keyboard notes. In my mind, I traced my nervousness about “failure”, which is a byproduct from my own thoughts. If I didn’t touch my own standard, I’ll blaming and killing my humanity, so this is what I was afraid of. As long as I delete this obsession, the standard itself, I mustn’t hating myself. At that moment, I suddenly realized what does admitting one’s imperfection have impact on one’s actual life.

I stepped on the morning under Eiffel’s Tower, and there were less people as I thought. Vendors were calling me to buy mini models or take pictures, but I was thinking other things about my meaning of life. (such weird) I walked around the central lawn in the front of the tower about 20 rounds, and everything was so wet. I asked a Chinese tourist to take a picture of me, but that one was too bad. I left Eiffel’s Tower and went the Seine river. I found a wall with bunches of sticky notes and drawings, with romantic and memorable contents on them, on the bridge acrossing the river. It was a big morning, and I could perceive the flowing of sunlight in air. I followed the main path into the city. I went by a rotating staircase, a huge sloping building, a forest, a park and a dumping area. I opened my phone finally and searched for a dining place for lunch. During my trip to the destination, I saw at least 10 metro stations, and a statue with Napoleon on it (I guessed it was Napoleon?). Finally I reached it, found a seat and saw the menu. They are as classic, common and delicious as other French, or Paris, meals. No other customers stayed in the restaurant. I was feeling strange, but the waitress told me they only provide lunch service only after one o’clock. I shall only sat in the place for a while, staring at ordinary streets and continued my thoughts about the variance of life. I suddenly felt something important (about my iGEM competition at that moment), so I must hurried to find a uber and left the centre of Paris.

When I met the way of quadratic approximation of a multivariate function, my first thought is: why stopping in second-order version? Its approximation formula is “linear approximation” plus an quadratic refinement by using something called Hessian matrix. Hence, I asked GPT, there must exist something like third-hessian matrix to add a cubic refinement. It actually exists, which is formed by something called tensor. However, how does tensor related to our approximation formula? What if, we add infinite refinements and infinite order of tensor? Then it comes to Taylor expansion at some point of a function, the formula of this (showing another paper written formula). The whole exploration occurs on an afternoon in summer holiday, and it disrupted my whole plan on that day. To understand the key idea that tensors are multilinear maps, it took me even more time. After this case, I added more expected time and range of time cost in my plan, while I also understood how much freedom and patience learning math requires. Overall it was really an amazing experience when I found this interpretation of one existed formula.

When I was twelve years old, I did two piano performances that year. Each was very impressive, and I shall never forgot.
8.I
I joined an ensemble with 12 people inside, including one quite famous pianist, though I almost forgot him. I remembered our piece is Tango Dance, which is a quite easy work but requiring high proficiency. One important thing I didn’t imagine before is: how much work I needed to focus on a easy task in order to perform in public. That easy sheet took me two months, 5 days per week to practice and cooperate with my partner: yes, 12 people are separated in 6 pairs, and the song is played in piano duet. I didn’t want to encumber my partner, so I have to practice until no errors. We performed in Shanghai Conservatory of Music Opera House: though it wasn’t “extremely” official, but the huge opera house and the amount of audience shocked me as a child. I preserved that poster even to now.
8.II
My piano teacher was an elegant old lady, who taught me from 5 years old to 12 years old. She accompanied me from a naughty child to completion of grade ten piano qualification test. I was invited as a special guest on her personal concert. That happened in a comparatively small (just smaller than the formal opera house) opera house, and the performers were all her current students. I am the only one who quit after that performance, due to my own academic schedule. Hence, that one should also be an acknowledgement to my piano youth and my only teacher. I was the finale, and I played the song that was for grade ten piano qualification test. Just couldn’t describe that feeling, but I was too young to feel a thing called “nostalgia”.

When I was in grade 9, my teachers and counsellors, in order to so-called enrich my application profile and complete the activity that depicts compassion to admissionary office, introduce me, and another three students, to a primary school in Taihe. We were going to give speeches, assist teachers and teach directly for two weeks: one thing different is that students are disabled, some mentally, some intelligently, some physically. For example, I was assigned to teach a group of students with intelligence deficiency, and some of them are deaf.

In my whole year of grade 9, I considered whether the effort worths its benefits for my application before any action and any activity. This builds me like a very ruthless and weird person, and I behaved like this in this education activity as well. I just wanted to play at the school and carelessly finish the requirement and got back to the school, mainly because I thought I should do bigger projects and such an activity was only a mandatory requirement assigned by teachers. Actually, I did mainly as I thought, and I didn’t regret or consider about it after returning the school. However, after current recollection, I remembered I indeed have had a great time with those disabled children. I wasn’t ruthless as I thought, and I, proudly, was the most popular “elder” among four of us.

I’d like to share my feeling, very recently, after I’ve did my unlucky fourth SAT exam. During the first SAT, I felt extraordinarily excited to go into the humongous exam hall. That’s very weird, and perhaps was because I had no pressure at that exam. In the second time I still had little stress, dreaming I could get 1550 soon, but 1530 was nice as well, I thought. The third time I was tired and stressful, and I don’t know what was going on with that 1480. I hated myself, and every time Hong Kong is impairing my sensitivity. I was quite confident after stepping out of exam hall this time, feeling comfortable to retire from this, as miserable as TOEFL, stupid exam. Actually, the night before the exam I had a very nice sleep, and I also felt unbelievably happy on the rest of day. I went to my favorite matcha ice cream shop in Hong Kong and ate a splendid meal. I remembered very precisely what I was thinking at that afternoon: I’m gradually recovering from the pressure and dying anxiety during last two months; my resilience, as I once doubted, finally grew and beated the misfortune. Every term reversed once I checked my answers with the estimated answer released by some SAT organizations, and I found four wrong answers that I once assumed correct. That means at one moment in the future I will do my unlucky fifth SAT exam. This immediately made me going crash out, but this was not the main reason. I realized that I was becoming more and more sensitive and weak in those months: I once thought I knew that standardized tests don’t determine everything, and my ease before the exam implies me that I “had” a very good mental state. The crash out proves I don’t, and it was worse than I considered. Hence, I didn’t know what to do to fix my weird state.

At night, I usually jot down my curse words or unpredictable complaints. I wanted to post them to everyone, to let every surrounding human know my potential danger, but that idea only limited in my head. I considered, then why don’t I only post them allowing some of people to see? Then I began that habit, and later I directly set them as private (because choosing member was a tired work). As time goes, I became maturer and my night wasn’t full of unhealthy shouts to this life: there are also meditations, thoughts during reading and etc. Hence, the best word to describe my post is dump, though sometimes I could throw valuable things into the dump. I didn’t know the purpose of this habit, because sometimes, when I was mostly emotional, I felt no need to record anymore. Sometimes it also serves as a memo, sticking my philosophical considerations.

Last year I partipicated in the Commencement Ceremony of class 2025, as well as the graduation feast. I didn’t have feelings like reluctant to get apart with these senior students, but I gradually experience a change. One part of the ceremony is inviting each student in class 2025 to the stage and show his/her offers from universities to audience. I recognized many of them, and understand their no matter success, regrets or failure. Many students had complex application process, but I thought every offer deserved their own choices. I previously thought that some of them, who particularly didn’t get into the higher ranking university they deserved to, was reasonable to feel depressed. But I could only see the purest felicity in their faces, and hence infer that they really felt expected to the university life, regardless of the result. Now I might had an answer: till that point, high school was already a past, and, always, there is no chance to alternate past. They might be anxious about the university, or expected toward the university, but we shall not be anxious about the past. I should also not make judgement on their results and attempts because I’m an observer. I only see the result, and I can never perceive their inherence no matter how close I was with them. Do anyone else have right to make judgement on me? The answer should also be no. The Commencement Ceremony of class 2026 will come in two months. This time I had much more precious and important friends than class 2025. I hate future which brings me anxiety, and I hate past which brings me inevitability, so I love the present.

Choosing AP English Literature and Composition is because I thought that if I need to present a solid and reasonable math-and-humanistic lover, I should use some standardized test scores to show that my passion isn’t hollow. This choice was very impuslsive at that time, but my interest in literature gave me no reason to reject it. I loved reading literature, so I thought literature analysis is similarly attractive, but I definitely underestimated the difficulty of AP Literature at the beginning in last September. I found what was easy in my classmates’ eyes could be really difficult for me. For example, I spent two months to finally realize that “line of reasoning” isn’t a line but an abstract expression of “logical chain”. I thought pessimistically, if I joined this difficult track then I need to finish till the end. But from the past five months, I could feel the very gradual and slow improvement, from limited at 2/6 and 3/6 essays to capable for writing 5/6 essays. The explanation to that wasn’t simply “I was hard-working”, but that I realized how powerful the effect of my persistent carefulness and passion is.

In the new year of 2021, we celebrated our last age of our primary school. We didn’t know the burst of pandemic, but we learned how to escape from parents’ reproach - exact reproach about staying up all night at the age of 12. Totally 6 of us played video games as happily as we could.
In the new year of 2022, I spent two hours convincing my parents that none in the group of our besties caught COVID-19 - because my parents worried about that risk. Finally, I still succeeded, and this time 4 of us slept in a basement. As 13 years old boys, we sneaked to outside of our neighborhood at very late night to “adventure”. At last all of us caught fever (but still not COVID-19, need to mention).
In the new year of 2023, we were grade 7. We stayed at the home of one of us, and together 4 of us shared two beds. In order to avoid waking up that generous member’s parents, we must share one toilet one by one, which was a very torturing experience. We took many ugly photos for each other and slept very early.
In the new year of 2024, many thing changed: I transferred to the bilingual school last year. Very horribly, this time only 3 members participated in this yearly activity. We crowded on one single bed because that generous member’s parents “a little bit dislike” our loud noise, so we must go to another small room. Regularly, we played video games till 3 am (must later than that). When we were going to sleep, one outdoor rock music festival was roaring, so we might just wake up and stay up for the whole night as well.
In the new year of 2025, we prolonged this activity to two days. The member who didn’t come last year returned, and we also changed the site to another member’s house. One big bed and two shakedowns. This time we slept very early at the first night, and we played the video games in the whole next day. I also found there are less and less interesting sparkling points in this traditional activity from that year.
In the beginning of this year, 2026, we were all maturer. The site changed again - to my house in Chongming. We had a very serious quarrel on the afternoon because of the confusion of the schedule. During that whole day I was being the host of new year gala in our school, so I arrived very late. However, we still had a very happy time at that night. As long as we are together, we will at least have no anxiety, which is pretty awful for me. But next year, we will reminisce the last age of my high school, and I anticipate, that there will no more such tradition after 2027 anymore.

I was like a supervisor of transfer students in our school. That is, I would investigate every detail of a new transfer student, including one’s previous school, grades, curriculums and etc. After getting in grade 11, I had no energy to do like that anymore, somehow because I have to take care of myself, but more importantly because: sometimes when I do investigation, that student will see me as the first friend they make in this new school, which then made them follow me everyday. I have no time to tell everyone when to attend flag raising ceremony, how GPA is calculated, when to buy take-ups (that teachers wouldn’t catch) and similar dumb questions. Usually, after classical conditioning of neglect and indifference to them, they will eventually avoid me, leaving some peace.

This one I should also serve as a summary of all math genii I’ve met in my high school.
The first one is two grades higher than me. He got into UCSB because he was rejected by math of Cambridge Trinity College last year. He was the formal founder of the Math Academy, and the legendary in our school because of his achievement: (bragged a little bit) “overqualified” by ROSS math camp in grade 11 and rejected, become formal math teacher in Oxbridge camp, pre-studied almost every undergraduate math courses before graduation, the offer-holder of math in Cambridge Magdalene College this year, and further math qualifications. He has recommended me many books, courses and instructions about “learn more” instead of struggling in infinite math competitions (awards and grades).
The second one is the same age as me, but he was accepted by math of Cambridge this year, one year ahead than normal. He was even more talented than the first one because of his young age. He was quiet, introvert but very kind. I usually discussed my math questions with him in our dormitories. He was the successor of Math Academy, even later Math Academy was closed.
The third one is also the same age as me, and he actually looks forward CS major. However, I can say he is as passionate as the previous two on mathematics. Actually, I kept encouraging him to learn math instead of CS. He is very talented. I'm very specialized in raising questions, or raising a generalization of a question into broader context to this friend. And this has effectively wasted his time because for most problem, how can I solve them that he couldn’t even solve? Therefore, he loves me but hates my insights, which I’m very proud of it.

What is youth? Everytime when I come across this question I’ll have different understanding. Youth is a period that I don’t know when it ends until it already ended. Youth is a period that I could expect it would be unbelivably precious. Youth is a period that I evolve for the first time from a fledgling to a rookie. Youth should be the first time I see the whole world. Youth should be the chance to do anything I will or won’t regret in the future. Youth should be the top of emotion, insights and epiphany. Youth could be love. Youth could be an all-night revelry. Youth could be staying serenely ascetic. Youth can’t be a point, because it’s destined to be a line, a curve and even a plane a whole world. Before, I may be melancholic about my pathetic youth, but I am now lessened. I need to embrace it instead of trying to fulfill it or achieve some goals. Similar to study, no. Study is a dust, a weak word in the front of youth. Youth must be a combination of every changing thing, and it’s the “first time” itself.