Author Archives: Jeffrey

Good Evening Professor,

I write to you as I am concerned that an error may have occured relative to my grade. The grade I have received is a B-, however, according to the rubric and returned documents the grade I have earned should be an A.  I would like to discuss this in person rather than through e-mail. If possible, I would like to meet during your office hours at your earliest convenience. If an appointment cannot be made, then I will pursue this reevaluation via e-mail.

Regards,

Jeffrey Leung

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/And then is heard no more; it is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” (Shakespeare, Macbeth)

What is the meaning of life? There is no answer. That is to say, there is no one answer. My answer to “what is the meaning of life?” is to find it; that every person on this Earth spends their lifetime finding the answer that had already been with them their entire life. Goals, ambitions, dreams, these do not define a meaning. To truly find the meaning is to achieve a mastery of nature and science, to understand the world in the way one envisions it. Nearing seven billion people, every individual is forged in the line of fire called life. Time is as continuous as it is infinite. Every waking second of every waking minute, decisions are made that influence the road of life. Arduous as it is, the journey is made nonetheless, and no complaints can be made. Ultimately, I stand at eternal crossroads, indecisive of my path. I weigh both options and never decide, choosing where the wind takes me. Although, it is plausible to say that that itself is a decision. Times change and decisions are made, but I never progress. I stand and watch as my influence guided others down their own paths until I could no longer see them on the horizon. I am the sagacious advisor who plans and coordinates, but never acts. I stand at the crossroads of life and shepherd those who walk with a wavering stride. I stand unable to part my sea of thoughts in order to proceed to salvation. Immersed in thinking forever, condemned, but safe. I have not found my meaning of life, and I doubt I ever will, but to know that I have helped others to their meaning will suffice.

I’m on the fence about community service. I’ve never really participated in it myself, so I’m only making assumptions here. I feel that community service only has an effect in the short term, and not the long term. However, I guess it does good to one’s self esteem to know that his or her actions have eased the turmoil of someone somewhere. I’m cynical myself, so I believe that community service is a means of inflating one’s ego. However, it is better than complaining about the homeless population and not doing anything about it. Cancer walks, soup kitchens, and other things like that feel useless as the cure or better treatment of cancer hasn’t really been discovered after so much effort from so many people, and perhaps there are more homeless people than ever before.

I’m often referred to as Jeffrey Leung. I am two sides of the same coin. I have good friends, but I have no good friends. I am aware of what is around me, but not what is close to me. I am aloof, but usually with company. I know of other’s secrets, but others know none of mine. I offer one hand, but arm the other. I know others, but others know naught of me. I am a perfectionist, but also a procrastinator. I am a leader, but I am also a follower. I walk with the weight of the world on my shoulders, but I sit without a care in the world. I function in reality, but think paradoxically. I am cynical, but hope for otherwise. I am shallow, but also deep.

I will ride the winds as they come forth and hope the experience shapes my existence, for I am incomplete.

My concerns are few, but I can say the top three pertaining to my freshman year are:

1. Trying to get employed and, once I do, balancing it with my education. I’ve never been employed and I want to start working to ease the efforts that my family gives to keep me in Baruch. I don’t want to always rely on them; rather I want them to rely on me at some point, so I can repay them for my upbringing.

2. Failing tests or midterms is something that weighs heavily on me. I have a mentality of never studying to promote my memorization skills, but that can only get me so far. Studying has been a vague concept for me, since my understanding of it was always warped. I never enjoyed reading textbooks; something about the formalized text promotes an extremely dull mood that causes me to procrastinate. I never applied what I learned because often I never found use for them in the real world.

3. Writing papers is something I, among others, always tend to do at the last possible second. Personally, I think writing while stressed brings out a higher quality in my work compared to writing it beforehand.

To me, Baruch and Brooklyn Tech share many qualities together: population, crowdedness, the air of difficulty, and so on. However, the flexibility of scheduling will definitely work to my benefit. With my commute time halved compared to high school, in addition to a later starting time; I can afford to get the sleep I’ve always wanted. There are some interesting clubs and organizations, but I’m interested in forging my own. I’ve always hated my decision to go to Brooklyn Tech, but I doubt I’ll have a similar feeling for Baruch. To me, high school was a four year barefoot walk over broken glass. But it was rewarding to arrive at the prestigious institute that is Baruch College.

I doubt I’ll change much, save for losing (or gaining) some weight. I’m quick to adapt, but slow to change.

Long title…took me all of forty seconds to think of it, and five minutes to make sure it looked somewhat coherent. To the topic at hand, the library at Baruch was certainly much more accomodating than I had initially expected. I had taken a walk in the library prior to the tour and didn’t really look around much, so much of the information was relatively new to me. The option to rent textbooks and laptops for various periods of time is an idea that I had thought would never come to fruition, especially in the society we live in today. Having only seen a little of the actual texts in the library, I can assume that there is material in every subject from every corner of the globe that students borrow, read, and learn from every day of their life at Baruch. It goes without saying that the library is extremely quiet, and with comfortable enough furniture to enjoy a quick nap, I expect friends to make frequent trips to the library. Also, the idea of study rooms that can be rented out is a great idea, albeit I doubt that there will be an available room as finals and midterms loom. As resourceful and powerful the internet can be, I feel that Baruch makes information accessable to those less technologically inclined or those with computers that happened to “break down” a few days before a paper is due.