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Archived entries for Princeton

There Will Your Heart Be

When I started this blog nearly a year ago, I wrote about fear: fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of failure — the list goes on. I’ve never quite understood why it is that I carry so much fear around. Part of it has to do with an inability to accept imperfection. When I see myself falling short, there is horror in my head. And nothing I can do can make it go away.

Another part has to do with an inability to accept impermanence. Over the last year, I have gone through so many different identities. As soon as I feel like I’m starting fit in somewhere, I have to uproot, move on, and become somebody else. I am so grateful for all the good things that have come my way, but on nights like this — sitting here alone in a heatless room in London — I just wish I had something to belong to, and somewhere to call home.

This has been the most accomplished year of my life. It has also been the most lonely. But I think what drives me forward every day is to concentrate on the things that I really care about. Somehow, that keeps me centered and focused. It fights off the loneliness. It staves off the fear.


Poster defending older people’s right to intimacy

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Child’s Play

My dad and I usually communicate in Chinese, as I spoke it regularly growing up. When I Skype home, he is always the one to pick up. He asks me how I’m doing, pauses briefly to listen to my response, and hands the phone over to my mom. We rarely share long conversations and never speak in English.

This one time, though, last year, when I was telling him how difficult it was applying to graphic design grad schools, he paused for a moment and said, “If you think you can, you can.” I didn’t know quite how to respond. I’m not sure if it was his use of English or his seeming support for my plans that startled me. To that point, I had always thought him disappointed in my refusal to apply to law school. And here he was, telling me to live life on my own terms.

I’ve thought a lot about those words over my second week at Pentagram. In moments of self-doubt, I have tried to draw strength from the man whose expectations I have tried so hard to live up to. While I know that my dreams will never be his dreams for me, the thought that he is confident in my choices makes me willing to believe in my work despite my feelings of inadequacy.

Conference Room
The conference room, a quiet place to stop and reflect after work

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Life Preservers

Two days ago, I walked out of Fitzrandolph Gate a Princeton alum, packed everything I own in the world, and moved into my friend Bronson’s apartment in Brooklyn. Reunions, Baccalaureate, Class Day and Commencement all went by in a huge blur of processions and recessions, speeches and celebrations, tears and beer. I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel. I guess the word “empty” comes to mind.

My identity has so long been steeped in my status as an university student that I don’t really know who I am right now. Pentagram intern? Brooklyn resident? Recent college grad? I feel unready to assume any of those labels.

The most difficult aspect about this transition is that I am undertaking it without those people who are closest to me. This city feels in some ways too big and too lonely without their company. Saying goodbye to loved ones has always been difficult for me. I feel as though some crucial part of me has been untimely removed only to be replaced by a future as yet unknown.

Andy Chen Diploma
Opening my diplomas after Commencement, taken by my close friend Angela

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