Reflections and Images

The purpose of publishing my failures online is so that people stop assuming that my life has been very smooth and quite successful. I suppose the reason is that I got adMITted early (see the pun?). In reality, however, I have experienced quite a few failures and setbacks, especially in science competitions and programs. By telling the whole world about my failures, I hope that people understand that failure is pretty normal and something we shouldn't hide.  Failed the SAT in sophomore year  Failed the PSAT in junior year (scored lower than junior year SAT)  Did not win anything in the 2020 Science Olympiad regionals  Got waitlisted by 2020 Summer Science Program Biochemistry  Got rejected by COSMOS in 2018 and 2019  Did not win 2020 3 Minutes Girl Science Video Competition  Did not win anything in BEAR SO or Mira Loma Science Olympiad invitationals  Got rejected by Caltech  Did not become Coca-Cola Scholarship Semifinalist  Did not get ...

 The more I stay in the U.S., the more I remember my years in Taiwan in a positive light. I feel like my nostalgia for Taiwan caused my memories to become distorted. When I lived in Taiwan, I disliked the humid environment and the gray skies after rainy days. I complained that the buildings had gray walls from the mold that grew on them. In elementary school, I wished that the city planning reflected the U.S. system where all the residential buildings were together instead of having commercial and residential buildings next to each other. After returning to the U.S. five years later, however, I don't really think those aspects of Taiwan were really downsides. Nowadays, I somehow manage to neglect those "downsides" whenever I think of Taiwan.  What I currently think about Taiwan is not what I expected to reflect upon the most as I boarded the plane to San Francisco in 2016. When I saw the green land vanish before my eyes outside my airplane window, I thought about how much...

 I think it would be nice to type all my ideas that should go on this bucket list. I am not very ambitious when it comes to achieving these goals, but it would be nice if I could accomplish at least a couple of them.  1. Tell a story at The Moth  2. Get featured on KQED Perspectives  3. Tell an embarrassing or silly story from my elementary or middle school diaries on Mortified  4. Play the song Boston by Augustana when I take a plane from California to Boston  5. Play the song Harlem by New Politics with my best friend in the New York subway  6. Magically get invited to speak on This American Life and meet Ira Glass  7. Meet John Fish in Cambridge, MA  8. Meet Cal Newport and get my book signed  9. Submit a story for contests like New York Times, Reader's Digest, etc.  10. Meet my online chemistry teacher in Indiana and hopefully meet my online chemistry classmates in college 

Yesterday's psychology class was probably one of the most impactful ones in this school year. The teacher started off reading a slide discussing attribution theory and heuristics, which didn't really help me understand the concepts. He then asked, "Why do you think people wanted to storm the capitol?" My answer was that the people wanted revenge, while others said that they were being manipulated or brainwashed. He then pointed out which answers suggested that it was their dispositions that caused them to storm the Capitol. I was still confused about what my teacher was trying to convey. It wasn't until I watched a video about fundamental attribution error that answered my questions.  Before the video started, I believed that I was a good human being. I never got suspended or had detention before in school. After watching the video, however, I began questioning my morality. Was I really a good person? The protagonist's actions in the video reminded me that I ...