About 6 months and 100 posts ago, I wrote a retrospective for this tumblr. Then I never posted it — I’m not sure why. Perhaps I was embarrassed by the narcissistic exercise of putting it together in the first place. Remarkably, all of the sentiments expressed here still held up when I read this retrospective in retrospect. Then I decided it was worth posting.
This is post number 1185 in this tumblr. Number of followers has been hovering around 450, though your guess is as good as mine when it comes to actual number of readers. My first real post was on March 28, 2008.
There two, I think, major ways to demarcate the eras of my life so far. The first is based on schools—the before school era, various elementary schools, junior high, high school, college. The second is based on internet blogging presences: xanga, blogger, livejournal (briefly), and then tumblr. For the past month of so, I’ve been wondering if the tumblr phase of my life was coming to a close, just as my college one was. Tumblr was passing through the inevitable stages of ecological succession, and many of the people who formed the first community I found here now tumbl only sparsely. On a personal level, I felt like I had to move on to more professional pursuits—there was too much adolescent angst buried in the archives. As I linked my real name here and the audience expanded to more than my 5 friends, I kept myself in check more. Tumbling became less catharsis, more showmanship.
This isn’t a post about my leaving tumblr because I’m not. This place, and me, have changed a lot since I first started though. To people who have never made friends online, this still probably sound strange but then you are also probably not reading this. What I want to say is that this Tumblr has meant a lot to my self-development, providing a space for me to test ideas and write and realize that maybe someday someone will pay to read my writing. Hopefully. But thank you.
These are some posts of note, not best, favorite, or most popular. Just ones that seem important in retrospect.
Spring 2008 My first real post was a TED Talk by Richard Dawkins but like most old posts on the internet, the embed link has broken and you just get a white space with my commentary. I no longer agree with his militant atheism—militant anything-ism is misguided if you ask me now—but it was the first time I was told I could be proud to be an atheist. Then I posted some stuff occasionally, but it was pretty fallow until summer.
Summer 2008 | These Mac command posters now hang in my room. I’ll probably get a Mac someday. I was also experimenting with some weird byline thing at the end of all my posts. then Maybe four people read my Tumblr at this point. This no longer seems even remotely scandalous. Ja, ich habe viel Deutsch vergessen. Nostalgia alert! I almost went to UChicago, which is why I chose to live in Hyde Park. My fuzzy liberal dreams of a post-racial America were shattered by a hypothetical gunshot. Later that year, Obama would win the election. I lived only a few blocks away from his house. Yes, in Hyde Park.
Fall 2008 | Math class got all existential on me, and then I was confused in that class all semester. American Nerd was one of the most heart-tugging books I’ve ever read. Coming-of-age movies and punctuated equilibrium v. phyletic gradualism. I used to have this JFK quote on my Facebook, and I should probably put it back up. I still believe it.
Spring 2009 | Yeah, these two really are not the same thing: fascination with someone as a personality and liking said person as a person. Do we ever learn? A lovely, meandering post about space and death and love. I should do more like this. I would really like someone to write an in-depth feature on the state of Asian-American hip hop. Overnights at the homeless shelter. I used to be so dorky. Then I learned to appreciate beer and be snobby about it.
Summer 2009 | “Listen, Sister, Don’t Date a Hipster” I went to Europe and found out that in Amsterdam, food comes out of a wall. I also worked on a sheep farm and witnessed a cow’s prolapsed cervix. Guess I didn’t really enjoy summer in Europe all that much. But I did thoroughly enjoy Inglorious Basterds. That’s a bingo!
Fall 2009 | Still think my swine and cheese party is the best idea ever. How come it never happened? But I did figure out the meaning of life! Hah, this is so not true. I had an internet coming out party and put my real name on this Tumblr. Probably the most significant event in the history of this Tumblr, aside from its birth. Still looking for the 100% compatible guy. I’ve posted three versions of Passion Pit’s Sleepyhead and this acoustic version is my favorite.
Spring 2010 | Boy I talked about gmail and gchat a lot. About depression too. Here are some really good microbial research ideas — free! Why has no one taken them? This is such a terrible way to go through life.
Summer 2010 | I now know that the creator of this streamgraph of my last.fm listening history brought streamgraphs into mainstream visualization. My last.fm and iPod listening have become completely disconnected though, and I haven’t look at it recently. A most memorable evening hacking at MIT. This mixtape is so damn good, and I know because I relistened to it this week. It captures so well how I felt one specific week that summer, doing that job way better than the maudlin rant that I wrote accompanying it. I still believe what I said irony/sarcasm in friendships, and I only regret not following it more assiduously.
Fall 2010 | I have long been enamored of physics metaphors about life—“metaphysics” I want to call it but not quite. In October, I was sent to cover an Asian-American alumni conference, which sparked an identity crisis in miniature. A biological explanation of love that is neither cold nor clinical but pulsating with beauty. This about post flakiness got me into lots of trouble because everyone thought it was about them. My philosophy on happiness that I still hold true.
