Rebound

So I doubt you girls even realize this blog and I still exist, and I'm sorry for not updating. I wonder if I'll even get a response to this! Since coming back to Harvard, life has been moving so fast that I haven't had time to stop and really analyze things, but with the start of a new semester, it's the perfect time begin again.
I was just watching a parade with Renee Zellwigger (sp? Some things will never change, including my less-than-par spelling skills) sitting between two drag queens go by right outside my dorm window. I never really appreciated how my lovely Wigglesworth dorm is actually on prime Mass. Ave. real estate; I'm actually really reluctant to leave next semester. I would have gone out to clamor and gawk at Renee in up close and personal, but it's: 1) too cold outside (somewhere like, 10 degrees with windchill or something ridiculous like that? I know I couldn't feel my ears walking back from the Science Center) and 2) I kind of feel like crap, and I'm actually writing this snug and warm under a comforter in my (temporary) bunk.
But besides the feeling crappy aspect of everything, I really don't see how life can get better. Everything is finally falling into place for me, whether it be academics (classes, concentrations) or my social life (friends, relationships, etc). I've just completed a hectic day of running to classes I'm crazy about, I'm staying awake in all my lectures without the aid of any artificial energy (that means no more Amp, Redbull, 5 hr energy... the list goes on!), and I actually can't wait to start reading up for my courses. Before I can even pick up my European history book though, I'm running to have dinner with a group of people I am positively in love with and many of whom I spent my intercession exploring the Big Apple with, whose faces across the dining hall table and the background of my desktop screen serve as a constant source of comfort and belonging everyday. After that, I'm going to try to rush to a comp (kinda like tryouts/ rush) for a publication on campus after rediscovering my love for the art of writing and the desire to get back in touch with the world of words.
Backtracking to my classes, I am absolutely in love with my new schedule. No longer bound by the obligation to Economics, I've tentatively decided on the field of Social Studies, which is actually just code for a whole smorgasbord of fields (history, gov, etc.), though I'm in love with my European History and Psychology course that might change my mind later on. I'm continuing to dabble in Chinese, and the progress and results are totally worth the effort. There is something fulfilling and satisfying about learning your mother tongue, and I definitely feel more complete now that I can actually speak (however broken and awkwardly) the language that innately runs through my veins. I remember being excited to actually get up for school once upon a time; but the more time progressed, the more I believed that was just a fabrication of my mind. However, though this semester has only just begun, that feeling is returning to me, and it feels absolutely glorious.
One reason for this change, I believe, is that I no longer feel obligated to live up to obligations set by others or myself. For the longest time, I had believed naively that the only course to success was the well defined beaten road set out by others and which I had also traveled up till now. I'm not downplaying the benefits to choosing this path; I really don't think I would be where I am today if it wasn't for it. I would have been content with the econ major to i-banking to wall street plan, but I don't think I would have been happy. Now that I've deviated to the road unknown, to define my own trail with nothing but the forever expanse of virgin frontier in front of me and the universal blue sky above, I've been filled with a sense of purpose and adventure that makes me happier than I think I've ever been in a long time. Despite what others claim, there is definitely something fulfilling about waking up not knowing what the new day has in store and simply trusting that no matter what, everything will work itself out just fine.
Another discovery I stumbled upon a revelation yesterday while purposefully walking to Littauer to tell Greg Mankiw personally (oh, alright, it was his more like his personal assistant) that I was dropping his ec course-- my parents love me more than I probably ever appreciated them for. For the past year and a half, I've been nothing but me-centered, ie. "I should go to harvard because...", " I should take Ec because", "I should drop Ec because", etc., and I've been primarily concerned about how all my choices would effect me in the long run, completely forgetting to factor in my parents to the equation. The move from the west to the east coast has been just as hard on them, if not worse. By coming to Harvard instead of staying on the west coast, not only have I deprived them of a decent translator and caretaker of essential day-to-day activities (Sorry, little sis, you really do have a lot of responsibility to live up to now that I'm gone. I'm sorry I didn't better prepare you for the transition), but I'm honestly separating them from their daughter. It's not easy sending a daughter into the unknown and just hoping that she'll get by just fine, and I've given them more to worry about by going so far away from home. It shows in the care packages and tri-daily calls I get, and I feel guilty for delaying my response because I've put adjusting to life here above all else.
It would have been so much easier for them to make all the decisions for me. They could have simply said "No, you're staying at Stanford so it'll be easier for all of us" and I probably would have complied, secretly glad that the decision was made for me, but instead, they left the decision completely up to me. Also, though I may complain that Dad wants me to major in economics, my parents essentially put up little to no struggle when I announced my desire to back out of econ. And it is essentially what they leave unsaid and undone that speaks volumes for how much they care about me. I will probably never be able to repay my mom and dad for all they have sacrificed and given up in order to give me and my sister every advantage and opportunity they never had. They left their home and established lives to move to a country where they didn't know the language, took on backbreaking, laborious jobs that barely paid minimum wage, and put up with living in a "cozy" (codeword for crappy-ass) apartment in the fifth most dangerous city in America where you won't get running hot water if you pick the wrong time to shower.
And it paid off more than they could have imagined-- they sent me to Harvard. In actually, I don't deserve the praise everyone else showers on me for getting in, it was really all the work of my parents. And they could simply tell me to go on studying ec and follow the ibank-route, graduate and earn them that big house in the Oakland Hills with the shiny Lexus parked by the front gate in order to repay them for all they've done. However, the fact that they aren't going to do this, that they're allowing me to do what I want to even if it means that there stands a chance I might never be able to provide them with this secure future, shows me that they really are concerned with me being happy above all else, including themselves. Walking out of Littauer yesterday, I think I might have cried if I wasn't too chicken to do it.
I'm sorry if this post sounded too cliche, but the thing is, I was a bit afraid of going home at the end of first semester in case everything and everyone had changed. I was half right, everyone else had stayed the same, but everyone did come to the same consensus about me-- "you've changed, anna". It wasn't till I returned to harvard that I realized why; I didn't reconcile the old anna with the one I've become here. It was only in the last month or so that the two have begun to fuse and I finally feel complete again.
And you guys were right; I have changed. I've grown up.
And you know what else? Things are finally good. Which is why I'm kind of terrified that it might fall apart and come crashing down on me.