Cryptic Answer: Nightwish – Nemo is playing in the background, I’m doing a Go problem in my head, and I am typing this blog post. My back is sore from running  intervals this morning.

Explanation: I recently had a good conversation with Christian, who was about to graduate from Harvard, about the role of people in life. One of my biggest regrets is that I neglected people a bit in senior year, especially when I worked furiously on my thesis. When I moved up to Stamford, I made it a personal goal to work on my relationships more seriously.

At college, the less socially talented people (like me) have a temptation to take friends for granted. It is easy to bump into everyone around campus – if you meet someone you do not need to make that connection right away; you’ll see them by the ABP, working in Lamont, or at some drunken Quad party. Both your classroom and your dorms create atmospheres where you can naturally meet people your age with similar interests and situations. At work, there are more artificial barriers – seniority status, age differences, professional nature of the workplace, etc. all make creating personal relationships a bit harder (even though coworkers are still the easiest new friends to make, and I have met/re-met some awesome people at Ellington with whom I will keeping in touch, such as G, J, I, or R). The dorm equivalent – the apartment – is hardly a social scene compared to college dorms, except the walls are still so thin for you to hear people having sex, domestic disputes, or both at the most curious hours. Ironic that in this age when saying a simple “hi” to a neighbor in urban areas is considered more “creepy” than friendly, we are much further apart even though the web creates an illusion that we should be further connected. Continue reading “How I Rediscovered Facebook” →