AoNikki

As you may have seen, I dedicated my previous note to my good friend, an MIT senior (who will remain known as Charming). He had decided to join the army after graduating just for the experience, and that reminded me of the other Canadian I know that had volunteered for the army: Ken. Should I have the opportunity to reunite with Ken in Hungary this summer, this story is definitely the first thing I will tell him. Ken was one of the very few people in whom I had confided my intention of taking a gap year before MIT -- also to volunteer in the army.

But, as widely known, I did not take a gap year (much to my disappointment). This has its own good and bad sides: on one hand, I really like the Randomites in my class and a lot of seniors that I wouldn't have had a chance to meet had I joined the class of 2013; on the other hand, I could have traveled with Terrascope to Abu Dhabi instead of Arizona (not that Arizona wasn't great, but in comparison to Abu Dhabi-- sigh). In any case, ever since I came to MIT, it's always been a process of moving forward. Occasionally I see Dapo and Lenard, and I've had various other UWCCR people visiting. I also think about these past years once in a while. But that's pretty much it. I never really live in the past. And it is a good thing -- it means that MIT is the right place for me, where I can enjoy without regrets about what I had left behind for it.

In a month, however, I will for the first time revisit my two UWCCR years -- and by revisit, I do mean physically being there. I'm quite aware that many people never did; but for me the changes between any one place to another have been so drastic that revisiting has even a more special meaning than what it sounds like. It's never just been a change in settings, it's also been a change about me. I hardly know anyone in the school right now, so my main motivation is to see Quique and play some music. Maybe also to go bungee jumping.

I know, it was the time when music was half of my life. Sometimes I wondered: why can't it still be? Now I watch old youtube videos of Los Escarabajos performances, follow World Famous Paul-C (to whom I still owe a trip to Toronto), and hang out with this bassist (who has a fretless bass) once in a while. But then I'll be surrounded by Randomites and other people at MIT, and I'll be enthusiastically drawn to what they do.

Everything in the world seems really interesting, so I can't commit to one. On top of that, I love traveling, so I just keep seeing more and more of it. I guess traveling's one thing that I just keep doing -- I keep doing it, because I like how it started.

Back in the early years, when Vietnam was the only place I had been to, I loved fantasies. My sister and I always roleplayed Sailor Moon (cheesy old time, but that was the only good stuff back then), and then Doraemon, and then Harry Potter, and then Rockman, and then Rockman.EXE, and then a lot of other assortments of things. I had my characters, and I had my net navis. Weren't they so interesting, these worlds, that they made the real world blank and boring? That had definitely been true, until the first time I underwent a drastic change -- when I first came to Toronto. Toronto is probably not unfamiliar to you as far as culture and lifestyle are concerned, but for me back then it was. Human creations went far and beyond what fantasies could give me. Fantasies were not made to daydream in, they were made to become truth. It was not the place, it was the comparison between the two places-- old and new -- that led me to this realization.

So why the story? Charming's joining the army is just like a fantasy come true, for both of us. We both liked weaponry and intelligence studies. We dreamed of long battles and dramatic one-to-one fights. So when we were 11, we learned Martial Arts -- him Karatedo, me Vovinam -- and we talked about bombing the world. Then at some point we realized that building and preserving are much harder than destroying. We liked the hard stuff, so we chose to do it.

He chose astrophysics, me engineering. He chose the violin, me the bass guitar. He joined Peace Corps., me Engineers Without Borders. We chose to save the world, or at least make it a better place -- cliches as it sounds.

We don't mind being cliches. We don't want to let society tell us what to do, but we don't want society to be an implication of what NOT to do either. We connect well to each other; and although we hadn't talked for like 2 years, we were still the closest and knew each other like the palm of our hands when we talked again just yesterday.

"Have you saved the world yet?" He asked me, and it was serious. My answer, as always, was: "Working on it."

Everyone who knew me somewhat calls me an Idealist -- but only in a very narrow sense of the word that means "someone who believes that life should be lived as they like, and thinks and acts in regards to how things should be, not how it actually is." He is the only other such Idealist I know, and I'm glad that he's there. We walked the streets of North York and Fukuoka, we played baseball, we made plans to go to Israel, we went kayaking, hiking, camping, orienteering, bungee jumping,...

We have visions about our ideal world, and then we act as if we were living in them. We became the change we want to see in the world.

I love his decision although I don't think that it's extraordinary; but let's give credits when it's due: it's a hard-to-make decision. But honestly, I hope that he will be done with his time in the army soon, tell me about it, and then start working on making the sci-fi reality -- because that's something I won't work on, much to my regrets.

And this summer, while he's busy getting ready, I'll be in Costa Rica meeting Quique and then Hungary to work on some energy projects, meet Daniel, and look at the lands for our self-sustaining farm (that was another of our shared dreams). I too should bring him exciting news.

Dear Charming, this is a celebration of you and me