By the time 2018 ended, I would usually have written this kind of year-end ramble right after midnight. This time I was out having dinner with a few friends and got home pretty late, so I’m only getting to it now. Still, it’s January 1st, which is close enough.
Because this year included what people like to call one of life’s major checkpoints—the gaokao—it naturally falls into two halves.
Before the exam season
On paper, I spent the first half of the year as a senior in high school. In reality, though, I never really felt like a stereotypical final-year student. I took various exams pretty casually, and I even took a lot of leave from school.
Ever since I fell into the FRC rabbit hole, I’ve been taking time off every year to go to competitions, and 2018 was no different. In March, I took two and a half weeks off and traveled between the Shenzhen and Shanghai regionals. We qualified for the World Championship in Shenzhen, so in April I took more than another week off to go to Houston. That also became my first trip abroad.
In March I also applied for the three-in-one admissions program at Hangzhou Dianzi University. That ended badly: I didn’t even pass the initial review. I’m not sure whether it was because my materials arrived too close to the deadline—I couldn’t prepare them earlier because of the competition—or simply because I wasn’t good enough. I’m more inclined to believe the second explanation.
Gaokao and the result
With enough going on outside class and a school life that was actually pretty enjoyable, the gaokao somehow arrived before I had really processed it.
My final score was 566 (rank 77148). The breakdown was:
- Chinese: 90
- Math: 101
- English (Autumn 2017): 129
- Biology (Autumn 2017): 79
- Geography (Spring 2018): 73
- Technology (Spring 2017): 94
Some parts of that felt satisfying, and some definitely didn’t. Since several elective subjects had already been tested earlier, and those results weren’t especially good, I was a bit lazy afterward. Even so, the total was still much better than my scores on the last few mock exams in senior year.
When it came time to fill out applications, after weighing a few things, I ended up getting admitted to Oujiang College of Wenzhou University.
College life starts
College has been obviously fuller than high school.
High school often felt like living by counting down the days. College doesn’t feel like that at all. Right now I’m still wondering how one semester managed to disappear so quickly.
I’m in computer science at a school that’s, frankly, fairly easygoing, so academics haven’t been too demanding. On top of that, I didn’t join any student organizations, which has left me with more time to work on my own things—mostly random little personal projects and Luogu.
Later on, I did take on some work related to the school’s OJ system, though that was honestly more about picking up credits than anything else.
There isn’t much else to say. In 2018, I turned eighteen, which means I’m officially an adult now.
So what kind of challenges are waiting next?