This is a story about me and my erroneous life.
My daily dose of some vibes for you to start and chill with.
Check this out 😎:
i – Kendrick Lamar
* This talented guy owns everything except this site.
Shortcut: My CV is available here (updated Oct, 2021).
What you see here now on the website is actually NOT the first post I’ve made as self introduction. Truth is, though rather heart-breaking, that I lost the real first post during site transfer. I’ve had a personal website before but due to changes of servers, I was transplanting the domain name from the previous certificate provider to the current one, when the ERROR MESSAGE shredded my brain into pieces — I seem to have failed in saving the previous versions of my website, and hence the original self-introduction page gets lost, till my casket drops.
“Then just re-upload it from wherever you save your draft —— it won’t be that hard anyway.” You may respond with this fabulous suggestion. Makes so much sense that it doesn’t ever need to be mentioned.
My answer, with a bitter smile on my cold-cracked lips, is that I simply CANNOT.
Yes, it did happen to me as a computer science student (aka. professional typist) . As someone that habitually hits the “cmd + S” shortcut every other minute whenever an amendment is made, I, unfortunately, wrote that post at the back end of the web-page editor from my old abandoned server, which by all means won’t save any draft for a deserted IP address. Story already told, I just feel extremely sorry that both you and I won’t be able to access that fabulous “personal statement” now. It’s gone, for good, with no one else ever being given a chance to appreciate its value.
I was thinking of re-typing a similar one, trying my best luck at scratching till the last piece of my relevant memory. Recoiled at the difficulty in gambling against my hippocampus, I just believe that writing a brand new post, which is now lying in the Pages window as I type, with me hitting the “cmd + S” shortcut every other minute the way it shall be.
One funny thing’s that the exact minute as I started writing, a de-frosting show put up right next to me, and I was able to witness this eye-opening event thanks to the window seat by the wing. Never before had I got flights in winter around snowy areas, then it was pretty fun to watch how people removed piled snow for safety concerns. Just like the baptism, if the word is not offensively misused here. Hot water, made holy by chemicals, poured down from your head and drenched you in ambiguity, temporary loss of vision, instinctive fear of suffocation, and a pair of big warm hands that dragged you back to safety. But it was the window that shielded me from all possible perils here. Need to thank technology for semi-infant cyborg experience like this. Cool, but why? I quickly consulted myself, coming to an unverified answer that this is to avert ERRORS in the air.
Here that word comes again. Error.
I hence name this re-birth post ERROR 404 by plagiarizing the genius idea from Ted x Uppsala University Event 2019. It will be hosted later this November, but I won’t be lucky enough to be present due to trips elsewhere. Error in trip planning again? Nope. If I give up my travel for sake of the event, then it will be an error in my head. Choosing pleasure and being tardy over life-enrichment is typically me, indeed.
Then who am I, you may ask, as I shall get back to the major issue finally?
My answer now in November 2019 is that, I am the Walking Error.
me stuck on this post and also in Oslo due to the heavy snow
Long sentences short, Siyu Chen, also going with Cheyenne. Born on a balmy(which I actually never know but hope it would be so) spring morning in 1998, celebrating my birthday together with Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. Arrived at the planet in the anonymous city of Mianyang, China. Female human body accommodating an asexual soul. Measured 157 cm tall with an extra excessive weight of 60kg, if you’d be curious. Black hair paired with black eyes under my typically Chinese single eyelids. Huge nose poor in identifying expensive perfumes and a relatively small mouth good at consuming every delicious edible thing.
Currently expecting graduation as a bachelor from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, some anonymous engineering-centred institution located in Chengdu. Spent nearly 4 years on Computer Science and Applied Mathematics though I don’t think I’ve fully got acquainted with either one. Also had financial economics courses on weekends but thanks to the rigid regulations at my dear university I was never able to obtain any certificate for that. Trying my luck at world-leading grad schools for a chance to be a M.S. or Ph.D. there, studying further in the direction of Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence. Quite confident in a fabulous landing on an academic conservatory that leads to my future education :D.
Straying back to the theme, how would I be the Walking Error, more specifically? Umm, I guess I’ve started malfunctioning the moment I was born on this planet.
There’s some error in my temperament.
I have a rather split personality that makes me a taciturn curmudgeon-to-be when I’m alone, but a perpetual motioning chatterbox when accompanied by whoever available. Also impacted by the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, I behave in totally different ways when I speak Mandarin, my accented dialect, English and some other languages which I try to learn but progress rather slowly. Aggressive in English. Hypocritical in Mandarin. Rude and untamed in Sichuan Dialect. Embarrassed and basically dumb in Swedish. A drama queen in Japanese. A screaming hen in Korean.
There’s some error in my body.
Having a strange circadian clock. Always mind-floating in the other semi-sphere no matter where I temporarily reside. Able to be conscious for consecutive 60 hours but also able to sleep 16 hours per day. Can’t quite feel full after 3 main courses but can also be fed only on ice cream, preferably the matcha, chocolate or vanilla flavour(counting strawberry in if it does contain real fruits inside). Super sensitive at the left shoulder while the right counterpart seems rather dead — by this I mean if we’d be having a hug, I hope your head would be on my right side.
There’s some error in my brain.
Sometimes I understand and learn fast but in other cases, existing knowledge does not make sense to me unless I try my own hands on it and prove with my own embedded rules of logic. I do have emotions, but my behaviour is based more on previous observations and instant judgements. So in some cases I react according to the objects’ facial expressions during concerned interactions instead of doing what shall be done, which indicates that my face could be weird and distorted when I do not really know how to respond under certain scenarios. From this perspective I’m good at rigid smiles and shivering lips.
There’s some error in how I live.
It’s quite a long story telling what has been constantly changing my views on the world and my life. I just feel that my entire body is restless. Literally the saying that “When I rest, I rust”. It’s not in a way that I find it hard to do a hundred by hundred addition by heart after using the calculator for a long time, or that I feel decayed and molded after a long periods without sunshine. It is more like being mentally myopic, that my knowledge and experience can’t fully analyze a trendy phenomenon, that when I read news, I start to agree with those radical comments full of curses or senseless exaggeration instead of feeling naturally doubtful and curious about the real truth. I must have some errors that deactivate my circadian clock, that stop me from enjoying the inborn right of doing nothing, that kill my melatonin and suppress the transcription of all relevant DNA.
There’s some error, in my understanding of “globalization” as well, which sounds horrible but in fact it’s only horrible to those xenophobics.
Globalization to me, is simply a free flow. Body floating across border, while the scatters of soul converging from all the corners on the planet into one. I love my motherland, not to an extent that I can boast as “more than any one else”, but at least I dare to admit that in front of everyone. Still, I enjoy being part of a place that I do not culturally or genetically belong to, despite impolitely long stares at how I dress myself and unconscious avoidance of eye-contact when I get closer. Matcha-flavoured Japan. K-pop saturated South Korea. Coconut fragrant Thailand. Sunshine bathed Vietnam. Free and loud States. Always apologetic Canada. Vampire inhabited Sweden. Ancient while burgeoning Estonia. Conventional yet eccentric Lithuania. Seagull oded Latvia. Snow-blessed Norway. Rigid yet adorable Germany… Just so many more to see, to experience, to photograph with eyes, to record with nose, and to condense into pages with my clumsily compiled poems.
There’s some error, in my life story as a whole.
I should be leading a thrifty life due to a humble economic background. I should be spending 20 hours per day practicing playing piano on my keyboard with the coding IDE on. I should be getting some hot guy who would buy me chocolates whenever something goes wrong. I should be sending pensions to parents now instead of asking them to pay for my expenses every month. I should be burying myself in the tome of marriage and taking the housework as my only fun. I should be crying out loud since I’m never the type of mentally strong. I should be accepting the truth that despite my bumpy cheeks I won’t look forever young. I should be honest and admit that I mat never be able to lie on the kingsize bed in my mansion and greet the rising sun. I should be conscious that even though I seem to be rapping now it won’t last that long.
That very error of my life story, is that I am simply too self-assured, too reputation-driven, and too gossip-conscious to admit that I should not be doing what I’m doing now.
If I were myself several years ago I’d definitely believe that there’s something wrong with me, tears fluxing on the verge of eye lids and lips bitten nearly to be bleeding, and I’d be hiding all my traits, suppressing my nature and trying to be among the normal, the passerby, and the silent majority. I’d pretend as if I was fully aware of my “problems”, in an attempt to correct them as soon as possible, as if the sooner I could finish, the fewer signs of their existence.
But I’ve changed through these years. Becoming clumsier. Becoming lazier. Becoming dumber to incoming irritations. I suddenly realize that as long as I bind myself with morals and laws, my errors do not hurt at all. Surely enough there’ll be times when people go off track, when they know they have better things to do, and when they regret whatever they haven’t been doing.
Scarcely would someone say out loud, that it is fine and normal to do things different from our wills and plans. Basically there’s nothing happening exactly with the quantity it shall be. Life is just about approximation. If you march higher this time, go further down a bit the next time. Then what’s the meaning of having wills and making plans, you may wonder? Well, my personal answer is that they just serve as the fence off the road. They would tell you “uh-huh, end of the path and now go back“ when you seem to bull out of the legit zone. During the rest of time, they don’t really give a crap and neither should you.
So long story short — though it seems futile after the story’s been already told — I know there’s error in my life story. I know it. I feel it. I accept it. And I cherish it.
Since the error, is exactly me.
Hi. Good day.
I’m Cheyenne. I’m Siyu.
I’m the error. I omit some rules.
I live as I want it. I follow my moods.
I love myself,
and I hope you are like me too.
November 18, 2019
from Uppsala, Sweden