Sky Bridge

“We could all use a little change” — Smash Mouth - “Allstar”

Applied Advice

I often get the opportunity to give advice to younger students, so I think a lot about what I think is important at the time.

Most recently, I have given the advice that if you are truly bored, then just learn something new. That way, you won’t feel bad about wasting your time later down the road.

Also, that the main obstacle in learning new things is actually from the I’m not good enough mentality.

Lying up

From a lot of recent content I’ve consumed, including an interview of Ed Sheeran, it seems like lying about how good someone is at something will cause them to keep practicing and improve.

Ed Sheeran’s dad told him that he made good songs, but Ed listened to them recently and concluded that his dad was lying. As for me, a few classmates said that I was good at singing, but when I listened to my old recordings, it sounded exactly like squidward?

In that sense, lying to people can actually be good for them (situationally). If those classmates never told me I was good at singing all those years ago, I would have stopped.

The Chopin Block

Spotify recommended Sam Smith’s 10th anniversary edition of In the Lonely Hour and I really enjoyed the duet of “I’m Not the Only One” with Alicia Keys.

I learned the piano accompaniment on Thursday from a YouTube video. But, when I tried to play the Alicia Keys version, I found that the duet is actually a half-step down from the original.

So, I spent Friday relearning the song because it turns out it’s hard to adjust muscle memory even a little bit.

Polyglot

My friend C did a summer program in Europe and is learning a lot of languages and says I should do the same. However, it doesn’t make that much sense for me to learn a new language except if I was really bored.

However, I am really bored, so I am going to learn Japanese and Italian.

If I were to go to one country in Europe, it would probably be Italy because it seems like the food and culture would be the best fit for me.

Low Elo

I’ve been getting back into chess even though it’s very hard to get a good connection to Chess.com in China. Instead, I’ve been playing on a Chinese app which I used to use.

My rating dropped from 1600 to 1500, but the win rate is balancing back out. I’m not sure if I wrote about it back then, but I beat Mr. P in class back in the pandemic by using the King’s Gambit opening.

Anyway, I’ve been learning the King’s Indian Defense for black and noticing that I play according to principles, only the wrong principles for that situation.

When I’m supposed to be watching out for tactics, I’m instead improving my position slowly and then getting destroyed. Or, when I have a steady attack, I just throw away my pieces and lose.

Alternative motivation

It seems like the biggest motivation for learning language is having a romantic interest in someone that speaks a different language.

For example, someone from my school in Shanghai became fluent in Japanese just because he had a crush on a Japanese girl.

The motivation is slightly unexpected, but that doesn’t mean that learning a new language is a bad thing.

Even if the crush was temporary, the skill remains. He can go to Japan whenever he wants and have no problem fitting in. However, it’s very easy to be a tourist in Japan anyway because almost everyone in Tokyo understands English.

Hobbyism

A friend starting college asked me what he should write for their new student Instagram post. He showed me what he prepared and there was nothing wrong with it, but it was missing some special sauce. Pizazz, if you will.

Essentially, he said that he likes to try new foods, travel to new places, and play video games.

I think he has a lot in common with most people, which is not great for standing out. Of course, no one wants to stand out too much, but something unique would make it much better.

He added his favorite music artists which was pretty good because that’s actually a great way to meet similar people. For example, I met my friend A because I said that I like 李荣浩.

Change never changes

Brainstorming ideas, I could only think of exploring abandoned places.

For instance, I went to visit a supermarket I used to go to in middle school, but found that it shut down.

Walking into the underground garage, I found a lot of cars parked there with trash and spiderwebs littered all around. I thought I might run into some bad people, but luckily there was no one down there.

It’s a weird feeling to go somewhere that was once familiar and see that it’s completely changed.

It’s like returning from mining diamonds, sprinting on the plains with chunks slowly loading in and finally, finding that your friend turned the dirt shack into a mansion.

Except I’m usually the one building the mansion.

Stack trace

Looking back, most things become less important than once imagined.

Imagine the future as a stack of sticky notes that get peeled off and put in a pile of pasts on the side. It seems a bit scary to peek into the stack, but remember that each note that becomes the past is tiny compared to the massive pile that only gets bigger and bigger.

So, there’s no point in being anxious about what to put in your bio for freshman year. You’ll find people similar to you no matter what you put on some Instagram post.

Subway Entertainment

Shanghai subway system is not nearly as interesting as New York’s, so I’ve found ways to entertain myself without using my phone.

David Blaine

famously held his breath underwater for 17 minutes.

I can currently hold for 80 seconds while resting but my goal is at least 2 minutes, or, long enough to use the bathroom at the office so that I can avoid smelling the cigarette smoke.

Today, I attempted to hold my breath until I heard the announcer say “We are now arriving at XXX stop,” which was decently scary because I had a rough sense of how far it was, but didn’t know exactly what the timing would be.

However, I couldn’t really back down because I challenged myself and it would be really bad if I let myself down, probably a worse result than fainting.

I don’t think holding your breath for 1-2 minutes can cause brain damage, but the current problem is even being able to get up there.

Pull-ups

If there is a spine-like bar on the train, then you can practice pull-ups while people watch: very motivating!

This summer, I’ve gone from being able to do 2 to being able to do 7, which is pretty nice. Of course, I also have a bar at home which I use more often.

The nice thing about pull-ups is that the heavier I am, the stronger I get. That means I can a bunch of food because it will make me stronger!

Curious George

If you can’t do pull-ups, you can just dangle. Or, when there’s no one around, swing back and forth.

By swinging higher and higher, you increase the maximum centripetal force that you experience, which means it’s an exercise that pushes you to your limit.

If there are kids watching, you can inspire them to become Curious George fans or gymnasts as their parents watch with disdain.

Buskin’

I bought a speaker and music stand + mic stand for my eventual Shanghai street performance debut.

Currently, I’ve been annoying my up and downstairs neighbors with my practicing.

If I ain’t got 谱

It’s a bit clunky to need to bring a whole music stand and my laptop because I can’t memorize lyrics and chords, but the point is to have fun, not make a bunch of money.

However, I would like to break even on my investment. Everything including the guitar cost 700 RMB ($100) total, so if I make 100 RMB per hour, I should only need to do it for 7 hours to break even.

Walking, Talking, Wishing

I’m not sure how reasonable that estimate is, but the main problem is finding a good location.

My scouting began by the river near the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where I joined karaoke a few times. I found that there are just too many competitors that really display the demographics of the city:

There’s old people who somehow moved an entire TV over there, middle-aged men with four speakers, and a high schooler.

Next, I checked out Nanjing East Rd because it’s near the bund. Turns out that the entire bund (the west side of the river) has way too many people. I asked some police near the river and they just said that it’s a bad idea to try to sing near the bund because I’ll just get kicked out.

My search brought me to Lujiazui, which is like the downtown of the east side, where the police next to the circular bridge around the Oriental Pearl Tower told me that singing is fine under the bridge.

I guess that’s where I’ll be one of these nights.