Dear Sophomore Me,

Your sophomore year will last 3 years.

I know it sounds strange. But what will happen is you'll think that school isn't for you, drop out, and think you'll never return. You'll realize that you never really knew why you weren't in school, so you will stop going. You'll believe that there is something wrong with you because you weren't doing what people like you were "supposed to be doing". Your parents will be confused and worried, and so will your peers. They won't know what to say, or just discourage you instead.

But in your heart, you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Deep down, you know that you will never stop learning and becoming better no matter what system you are held accountable to. Listen to that voice. Listen to yourself. Yes – keep holding yourself to excellence even if it is not a typically demonstrable way of being excellent. You always knew that grades and awards didn't make you excellent. It was you and your love for life and learning that made you excellent. Own that.

And you will own it. You'll own it when you get so SO good at Mandarin Chinese that you can poetically articulate your differences to your parents at the collegiate level education they never got. You'll own it when you have the experiential credibility to both embrace what strengthens you and let go of what weakens you in your ancestry AND nationality. You'll own it when you'll realize that learning is more than just reading textbooks; you'll finally realize that learning is about seeing the people around you as beautiful libraries – the single moms, the returning adult students, the veterans, the formerly incarcerated, the racially and socioeconomically excluded, the Deaf, the senior citizens, and more. You'll own it when you finally go back to school, face grade retaliation from the professor who once promised you a recommendation, the one who turned you away because your political beliefs and ancestry and path of intellectual growth deviated from his enslaving expectations of you, and then you will rise above it by advocating for yourself until someone in power listened to you, walking out shaken yet unscathed. You'll own it when you walk the stage, graduating with your mother from community college together, refusing to wear the traditional black graduation gowns, and wearing your beautiful Chinese traditional cheongsams instead. You'll own it when she finally knows what "it's never too late" means, especially in the context of "be yourself." You'll own it when she writes "thank you for being the child that brought me closer to heaven" in a letter to you when she realizes the beauty of your beliefs and worldview, even if they were completely unlike hers and your dad's for most of your life. And you'll even own it when you turn down Columbia University and more to attend the Johns Hopkins University as a transfer student. Yes, you will get into a lot of amazing schools, unlike what so many people expected of you, but you'll realize that the school name wasn't what gave you your ownership over your life – instead, it was everything you did leading up to it that did.

"If a kid is happy, understood, and appreciated, they will bloom in their own time.”

– ”Marcelo in the Real World” (Francisco X. Stork)

You will find these three things. It will take you at least the next three years. Three of your sophomore years. And those things – rather than the fear of never being enough – are what will keep you going. Yes, you really will find those three things. As long as you hold yourself to your integrity, your excellence, and your beauty, despite how people cannot see these things in you. I promise you.

I promise you, that despite what everyone is saying, things are going to turn out better – much better than you could have ever imagined.

Don't give up. Your life is going to change.

Love,

Keidai