I learned something new recently. Other than the disturbing fact that banana 🍌 peel is edible and is a good source of vitamin, I also just learned that May is the month of mental health!
From where I grew up, it has never been a huge deal. Or at least I was never really exposed to the fact that such issues is a big deal, until I came to Canada. I know it’s bad to stereotype, but if you’d execuse me, I’d like to boldly claim my personal belief that most asian parents don’t understand mental health and are not good at publicly expressing positive emotions. Don’t get me wrong.. They definitely still express them in their own ways. I’m just putting it out there to prelude what I’m about to tell you. My eventful stories during this month of mental health.
COVID 19
It’s clear that mental health becomes expecially prominent at uncertain times like this. As for me, I am fortunate to have a financial safety from my parents and to continue with my life (school, food, accomodation, and even entertainment). I also have family and friends to call and chat with regularly.
Still, living alone, you can’t help but miss having a meal with someone, talk to people in class you never really talk to before, even running late for class will never be the same again.
An interesting study I heard recently, people can develop a condition of ‘touch starvation’. They crave physical touch due to the lack of it. I certainly do. I missed hugging. It’s a bit wierd to say but my dad is probably the only person in my life I can casually hug (really, somehow it never gets wierd). And right now I just wish to fly home and hug him.
Another interesting news my sister told me, people are having wierd dreams during COVID. It’s true, and I think that it’s because people are able to get more sleep during the pandemic, thus achieve a state of deep sleep. Well, last night I dreamt about having an unconfortably long hair. Wonder what that’s about.. 😐 (time to look at the dream dictionary)
FYDP breakup
Not sure if it would be comfortable to talk about this because people involved might read it, but I think it’s worth adressing anyway (I’ll keep it anonymous).
Disagreements happen, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in one. In the past, I’ve been asked in an interview how I deal with conflict, and it’s always a vague answer. From my experience, conflict resolution is often not as easy as what the book answer will offer you - such as ‘good communication’ or ‘understanding other’s perspecitive’. In fact I believe not all conflicts can be solved. As humans, we are just too complex to understand; It’s probably NP complete. (too much variables and it could probably take forever to find the optimal solution. Instead I think conflict resolution involves a good amount of approximation and heuristics.)
In short, here’s the event (from my perspective). FYDP is a fourth year design project and everyone had to settle in a group of 4-6. I did, with 3 other members A, B, C. Last few weeks before the event, we were all putting in and sharing project ideas (A particularly thought of many ideas), and as we discussed them we sort of agreed with some but we didn’t really get anywhere. But I thought it was a good brainstorm overall. A week before the deadline, we got together on a meeting to discuss previous ideas and realized not everyone was on the same boat. A really wanted to do verilog related project. However, feeling a bit unconfortable about the stack, C suggested a p2p idea. After the meeting, we all decided to come back the day after to vote.
That night A and C had a back-and-fourth on each of their ideas they proposed. I thought it was a reasonable exchange, but maybe both were pushing strongly with each other’s ideas.
The next day (May 21), C woke up late and didn’t respond so we proceeded with the meeting without him. A suddenly told me and B that he looked into his Verilog idea again and he thinks it will be tricky. He felt it will be unfair to push the idea on us too. Furthermore he’s not convinced with the p2p idea C suggested the day before. So his conclusion was that he had decided to leave the group…
I understand, he said it’s going to be better in the long run, and it probably will be. I can’t stop him either and I respected his decision. It was just that leaving the week before the proposal deadline was a huge blow on the team. After he left it was just the 3 of us, and we were pessimistic we’d find another member (we needed 4), since everyone in class probably already had a group. So we decided to disband and go to find our own groups. It was hard to find a group close to the deadline but all 3 of us luckily managed.
It was probably the smoothest resolution the break up could’ve had (might’ve been worse), and disagreements are very natural. But it still got me thinking: Did I happen to do anything wrong? would it end up differently if we had better communication? would it end up differently if we had gone over and seriously considered everyone’s interests in the very beginning? should we have aimed to decide on a topic at least 2 weeks before the deadline in case things like this happened? Should I have been more involved as a mediator in the back-and-forth that occured the night before A’s decision? Maybe it would. But these are (and will be) variables left unexplored. (I’m now curious how hard a PM’s work is 😥)
Hana passed away from cyber-bullying
If you watched the Netflix show ‘Terrace House 2019’ like me, you would know who I’m talking about. Hana Kimura died at the age of 22 on May 23. Besides being in the reality tv show, she is a reputable Japanese wrestler; and I think it’s safe to say that the wresling online community is notorious for being toxic, due to all the role-playing involved as part of the sport. Before her suicide, she posted a few tweets about how weak she felt and that she no longer wanted to be human. That felt really heart breaking.
Hana was also one of the cast for Terrace house 2019, which is a reality TV show that is non-scripted. It was sad for me because as an audience, I felt like the show had uncovered Hana’s daily routine, her personality and interactions, and some of her struggles in life. It’s as though I knew her in person, so it felt even more upsetting.
Online bullying is nothing new and I know social media interactions can be very harmful. I think it’s nonetheless important to remind ourselves to share more kindness instead of toxic things that could harm others, on such platforms.
Good Ol’ Love
It was May 23. I woke up after just 4 hours of sleep, with mild headache and a light fever. I knew the reason why.
The night before, I slept at 4 am feeling intensely stressed after studying ECE 486 (robot dynamics and control). The prof doesn’t give lectures. He simply gave an interactive online textbook, youtube materials, and during lecture time he is there to answer questions. I can’t criticize his choice of teaching since I can see it’s benefits (more discussions), but it didn’t work out for me at the time being. It was a difficult course, heavy on math, and a lot of review required from previous courses on matrices (linear algebra) and kinematics. I felt quite bad about the first quiz we had last week, and decided I should spend more time reading the materials, and really understanding it. But well, with no schedules, I guess I was pushing myself too much.
That morning I went for a 30 min walk outside. It was kind of refreshing. I was legit kinda worried it’s a symptom for COVID. Seeing I was awake earlier than normal 😅, my friend asked if I was alright and after telling him of my condition, he told me to take it easy and rest, and he checked up on me that afternoon too, and the next day too, which was very nice.
The next day (after an 11 hour sleep), the headache was gone and I couldn’t really feel fever any more (I don’t have a thermometer). I was great again.
Remember in the intro, when I tell you about my stereotype of asian parents not expressing postive emotions explicitly? It was kind of meant to prelude to this.
That morning, I woke up and called my parents letting them know that I had a headache + fever the day before and now I’m feeling much better. My mom was then very worried, and my dad who was trying to sleep (it’s midnight for them) woke up. They told me things like drinking more water, sleep more, giving me recepies on making my own honey lemon drink, etc. Not gonna lie, I teared up after the call. It’s that feeling of being genuinely loved that I’ve been longing during this quarantine and living away from home.
Nevertheless, I just wanted to say that I felt immensely lucky to be in my position, having people in my life that supported me during this time. I could not express my gratitude enough. It’s like that feeling of awkwardness when it comes to saying ‘Thanks’ to your parents, because deep inside you know it meant way more than that. It’s beyond the level in which you can express.
And likewise I really hope that everyone and their families are staying well and safe, taking good care of themselves and of others even when they are not physically connected.