---
layout: blog
title: '16: Learn to do things'
author: Mingjie Jiang
date: '2018-06-07T01:30:00-04:00'
---
Hey friends 👋

First of all, I’d like to appreciate everyone who sent me their wishes for my birthday. You reminded me of what we have accomplished together in the past year, and I couldn’t be thankful enough to have your help along my way.

15 has been a fantastic year for me. I got my first job, started my first club, organized my first event, and dived deep into leadership development. This is my third year in the United States, and my friends in China have been asking me, “Have you completely adapted to the ‘American lifestyle’?” Hell yes - more than I have ever thought I could.

We’ll for my birthday, it did not go too well. First it was Twitter sending me the amazing birthday gift of a permanent account ban for being “under 13” only a few minutes after midnight, and then in the morning I almost had a heart attack realizing my domain has already expired and I have been missing out emails since yesterday. Then oof, physics. Even the dude at Starbucks threw me off by spending my reward stars instead of my birthday free drink 😑Really?

Enough for the negative stuff. You came in for positivity, so here you go – what am I looking forward to in the coming year?

Academic wise, I think we all know what’s coming ahead of us. I think I will need my “well-deserved break” to cool myself down over the frustration of the past 3 weeks at school, and hopefully I can prevent myself from passing out next year. To be positive enough, I enjoy learning together with all of you in all settings, including debate, band, etc.

About my personal goal, I am so honored to be working with some of the most amazing high schoolers (and for some of you, graduates!) in the entire nation during the past year with my role in Hack Club, srnd, and most recently Hack Chicago. I’ve been learning a lot – not only coding, but also communicating, leading, and most importantly, time managing. I loved working with all of you, and I would definitely stay passionate for another successful year.

Honorable mention: Cathay Future. Lovely people, lovely kids. If the days were just a bit more organized... but still, I enjoyed working there over the summer, and I’d love to come back and visit when I’m done with all my work in hand.

Again, I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to do all this, and I am really looking forward to doing all the other amazing things in the coming year. Driving, SATs, single period physics, flying out to Chicago meeting internet people in person, Canada, China...

I know I sound drunk writing all this, but at least I tried not to sound stupid. Do understand that I’m trying to get this message out as soon as possible... So anyway, ending all of this with the same thing every year – my personal theme.

Instead of assigning myself a long and specific motto (which I believe I followed pretty well), this year I’m going simple with my goal —

16: learn to do things.

—Mingjie

Jun 7, 2018
