Memoirs
April 15, 2025
I’ve been busy with midterms recently. But in the midst of the busyness, I started recalling the past few years. Feeling restless, I decided to write it down.
Piecing things together, wanting to say something, yet not knowing exactly what the real me wants to express. I just suddenly recalled them, and placed them here, perhaps to forget them completely? Anyway, they existed.
Thinking back to some events from high school…
I actually used to get sad or anxious about “falling behind others” in high school.
In my first year (Grade 10), as a “bottom-ranked” girl in the class, when I looked at those girl rankings and couldn’t even see my name… I had a knot in my heart. I would even go as far as cheating on weekly tests just to improve my class ranking a little, just so I wouldn’t appear to be “dead last”.
Maybe it was because I entered a top-tier class in high school, and I wasn’t someone with a strong foundation, especially not in math and science. Back then, I didn’t realize, nor would I realize, that this was a sign I hadn’t yet adapted to the new class life.
In my second year (Grade 11), I remember participating in a sports day, though it was a group event.
I fell during a team relay race, losing the advantage our class originally held.
Although I was bruised all over, no one knew. I finished my part and quietly went back alone.
I knew no one would blame me for something like that, and I didn’t care about our class ranking in that event.
But that day, I actually cried.
And I cried more and more intensely, to the point where classmates noticed me and asked what happened.
I just answered: “I thought of some sad things, it’s nothing.”
But I was crying really hard.
Looking back now, I don’t even remember why I was crying.
The College Entrance Exam (Gaokao).
Unexpectedly, I became the top-ranked girl in my class.
Although not in the top ten overall, because my math score was a complete Waterloo, and my Chinese score was also on the low side…
But the title of top girl, in the end, was given to me.
I felt no joy.
Instead, when I heard it from the teacher, my first reaction was surprise, because I always assumed the top girl would be someone else.
I would have been very satisfied with second place.
Really, no joy at all.
Just simply knowing it.
Because I myself knew that my score wasn’t enough for my ideal major at my ideal university. At that time, my heart was full of gloom.
Then, I came to university.
Since starting university, I have grown a lot. I no longer judge whether someone is successful by “the tier of their school” like I did in high school. But I only know, what I learned, how I grew, and what I understood in one year of college is far more than in my senior year of high school.
Returning a year of time to that dull, high-pressure, and practically meaningless exam preparation would absolutely not be a wise choice for me.
But she was different. She dropped out to repeat the year.
Her Gaokao score was over twenty points lower than mine, only enough to barely get into an ordinary school, choosing her favorite Physics major. While I became the top science girl in the class—but I always thought that spot should have been hers.
I know she wasn’t resigned to it. I also know that everyone understood she was definitely not at that level. If it were me, going to a school I completely disliked, I might have dropped out too. It’s just… I would also be afraid. What if I failed again after another year?
I’m very conflicted. I understand her.
Because I always looked up to her, took her as a role model, even a goal.
But I didn’t even add her contact information.
Because I also felt there was no need to disturb her.
I knew her mental state hadn’t been very good.
…But deep down, I still care about her.
…I thought of some other things again.
I sometimes wonder: If my Gaokao score had been just a few points higher, entering the Computer Science department at CSU (Central South University) that I had looked forward to since childhood, achieving my childhood dream, what would the current me look like?
Would I be happy? Definitely. Realizing a dream is in itself an extremely wonderful thing. But I also know clearly that that me would not be the current me.
I might be anxious about major allocation, hesitating between Computer Science and Technology, Software Engineering, and Information Security, unlike now, where I chose Information Security directly and, so far, haven’t regretted it.
I might be embarrassed by the school’s recognition. Saying CSU outside, many people don’t know what it is; I might have to mention the name “Xiangya” for people to know. Unlike HNU (Hunan University), which is clear and direct…
There are many, many more, but they are all “ifs”.
I finished watching Interstellar.
I was thinking, those coincidences in the past, those accidents, those “just missing by a bit”, were they all the future me interfering and changing things? Were those moments, in some sense, me constructing my own fate?
So we can only walk along with time, with fate.
I suddenly remembered watching Nezha, where there was a line: “My fate is up to me, not heaven.” But back then, I didn’t have any special feeling about this sentence, nor did I feel my heart surge. Only now, until I finished watching Interstellar, did I suddenly feel:
Is it possible that I am my fate? All accidents and coincidences are introduced, constructed, interfered with, and reorganized by me.
…A very beautiful imagination.
Sigh, actually I still get anxious about postgraduate recommendations (Baoyan/guaranteed admission). Recently, nine transfer students came. Transferring into this major, their base scores definitely won’t be low. My ranking is estimated to drop a few spots… and my grades were already on the borderline.
(Sorry, I know I’m a freshman already anxious about Baoyan, even thinking like a test-taker for the sake of scores, clinging to these things that are, from a certain angle, worldly and meaningless to the present moment.)
Truly a contradictory self.
I’m also thinking, why do I want Baoyan? Why don’t I pursue what I want to do like the people I’ve seen?
Maybe it’s just because HNU wasn’t the school I originally aspired to, so I want to use the path of graduate school to go to a “better” place.
Maybe it’s just a shadow brought by exam-oriented education.
Or, maybe it’s just me purely drifting with the flow, unaware of my goal.
My family says that if I want to go to grad school, they will fully support me, even having the tuition ready. But I’m really torn:
Do I want to become a person with a better degree, or a person who lives more grounded?
If it’s for Baoyan, I have to learn every subject to the extreme, rack my brains for a single point, calculate every assignment precisely— I can’t do it, and I don’t want to do that.
I chatted with a senior who transferred majors. He’s very nice, very gentle, and very serious. But he haggles over every fraction of a point. He can write a 10+ page lab report with illustrations just for those extra 5 points, which might convert to less than 0.1 point in the final score.
I just wrote two pages, submitted it, and still got a 95.
I don’t judge who is right or wrong, but I really feel that obsessively consuming one’s own time for scores is a bit… it couldn’t be me.
So, do many people go to graduate school just to buy three more years of buffer time? I don’t know. After all, the current me is like the Grade 10 me; I don’t know and it’s impossible for me to know.
The main reason I don’t plan to take the postgraduate entrance exam (Kaoyan) is:
I despise politics.
It’s not just the exam content of that “Politics” course that annoys me,
But I loathe everything political from the bottom of my heart. I can’t stand people endlessly discussing politics, nor can I stand seeing idealists or realists alike struggling, being swept up, and unable to extricate themselves from this grand narrative.
Whether it’s “worrying about the sky falling” or “saving for a rainy day”, I don’t want to touch it, nor do I want to see it.
It will pollute me.
That’s not the world I want to pay attention to.
I just want to get close to real things— not be swept into emotional floods, crushed by huge structures into speaking out or remaining silent.
So, if one day I really go to grad school, it definitely won’t be via “Kaoyan”,
But taking the relatively quiet path of “Baoyan”.
Or at worst, choosing a way to completely escape the examination system…
Because I am not willing to exchange the noise in my soul for a degree.
Maybe I just want to live the life I truly want. Perhaps some of it can be seen in that article “Place of Existence”, although I haven’t completely seen through what I wanted to express myself.
All I saw was:
In terms of education, graduate students sound more impressive than undergraduates; in terms of employment, experienced candidates sound more impressive than inexperienced ones; in terms of society, high earners sound more impressive than low earners.
…But worldly “impressiveness” can be stacked infinitely, it has no end.
So far, I haven’t “regretted” anything. It seems I can accept whatever happens, especially those things decided by me.
But I will be “anxious” in every minute and every second before making a choice.
After the anxiety, I unintentionally found that a video creator I like updated. I like watching travel vlogs, and I like observing the boundless freedom of others.
I used to think wishes were hard to realize, but gradually found that what you want will eventually come to you in some way. Just like the Law of Attraction says, a person’s thoughts always attract a consistent reality. When you truly desire something, the whole universe will help you achieve it.
Too coincidental. And it hit me too hard.
Of course, the Law of Attraction is not metaphysics, but the result of sustained action. Standing still, the wind will only bypass you; but move forward courageously, and luck will stop for you. When you start to take action, beautiful people or things will naturally be attracted.
Maybe I have been taking action all along. I hope so.