今天是2023年11月六日，距离上次突然想写点什么已经过去了一年半。很不幸自己并不是一个特别爱写东西的人，如果说能以一两年为周期来记录点自己的感受，那我觉着是一个还不错的pattern。今天为什么想写下来点什么主要原因应该是因为天气实在是太好了。
我可太喜欢秋天了。
或者说我没想到匹兹堡的秋天那么舒适宜人，以至于让我这种不爱写东西的人的脑子里开始不断冒出些想记录下来的想法。我觉得这是极其难得的，于是打开我的notion开始了我的写作。
正如我所说的，2023年，我从香槟来到了匹兹堡，来到了一个看起来有些落魄的"大城市"。也来到了我一直以来心中所追逐的地方 ——— 卡耐基梅隆大学。其实很多事往往都有一个共性：当你远远的看到它的时候，你会觉着它美丽无比，是你所追求的事物；但当你逐渐向它靠近，甚至是真正接触到它的时候，你会发现你对它的印象逐渐的变差，到最后幻想破灭。人和物可能都是如此。卡耐基梅隆对我来说就是其中一件事物。我对这所学校的崇拜可谓贯穿了我整个CS学习生涯，毕竟它可是csranking排行第一的终极学校。可真正到了这里，真正的进入这里学习以后，我第一个想法却是希望能尽早离开。但如若我在这里写下这篇文章是为了细数CMU的罪行然后劝大家别来这里的话，那这篇文章的意义则没有那么大，网上对CMU的批评贴可太多太多，甚至你随便找CMU的学姐学长询问即可。我想写下的又是一个有点反调的想法，我想记录我心态的改变，从对它的崇拜，到对它的失望，然后到对它的真正的认可和喜爱。
最开始的心态自然要从我还在香槟时说起。我无疑是喜欢香槟的。我喜欢香槟这座小镇，充满着生活气息，小镇不大且偏僻却又饱含着这个世界上的各种知识。你可以在香槟偶遇到这个世界某个领域最顶尖的学术大牛，同时肯定也可以遇到一群志同道合的卷b朋友跟你在gg卷到深夜。不仅如此，我觉得只有在香槟你才能遇到在自己公寓开酒吧的酒吧老板，可以点着香薰蜡烛喝着小酒与他细品人生，或者你可以遇到在香槟生活了一辈子的uber司机，跟他聊聊他这么多年开uber遇到的那些有趣的小留。多好，在这里我们能追求到一直所想要的work life balance，所以我喜欢香槟。但在申请季开始的时候，我又深知道，我自己肯定不属于这里。
意识到这一点的时候是那天日常从cif回家。那晚的空气安静宜人，让人沉溺于此。让人安心，让人有归宿感。然后我意识到，这不是现在的我所需要的东西…
— 写于匹兹堡的秋天
Today is 6 November 2023, and a year and a half has passed since the last time I suddenly wanted to write something. Unfortunately I'm not someone who particularly loves writing — but if I can manage to record how I feel on a one- or two-year cycle, I think that's a decent enough pattern. The main reason I want to write something today is simply that the weather is too good.
I really do love autumn.
Or rather: I hadn't expected autumn in Pittsburgh to be this comfortable, this pleasant — pleasant enough that thoughts I wanted to write down kept surfacing in the head of someone who doesn't like writing. That felt rare enough to act on, so I opened Notion and began.
As I said, in 2023 I moved from Champaign to Pittsburgh, to a "big city" that looks somewhat down at heel. And to the place I had been chasing in my mind for years — Carnegie Mellon University. Many things share a common pattern: seen from far off they seem impossibly beautiful, exactly what you are after; but as you draw closer, and especially once you actually touch them, your impression steadily worsens until the fantasy collapses. This may be true of people and things alike. CMU was one of those things for me. My reverence for this school ran through my entire CS education — it was, after all, the ultimate school, ranked first on CSRankings. Yet once I actually arrived, once I actually started studying here, my first thought was that I hoped to leave as soon as possible. But if I were writing this to enumerate CMU's sins and warn everyone off, the piece wouldn't be worth much: there are far too many critical posts about CMU online already, and you can simply ask any CMU senior. What I want to write down is something more contrarian. I want to record the change in my attitude — from reverence, to disappointment, and then to genuine recognition and affection.
That first attitude has to begin back when I was still in Champaign. I liked Champaign, without question. I liked that town: full of ordinary life, small and out of the way, and yet holding every kind of knowledge in the world. In Champaign you might run into one of the very top academics in some field, and you could just as surely find a group of like-minded grinders to stay up with you in Grainger until the small hours. More than that, I think Champaign is the only place you'd meet a man running a bar out of his own apartment, where you can light a scented candle, drink a little and pick over life with him — or an Uber driver who has lived in Champaign his whole life, and hear about all the amusing young Chinese students he has driven over the years. How good is that. Here we could actually chase the work-life balance we always wanted, and so I liked Champaign. But when application season began, I knew perfectly well that I did not belong here.
The moment I realised it was on an ordinary walk home from CIF. The air that night was quiet and mild, the kind you sink into. It set you at ease; it gave you a sense of belonging. And then I realised: this is not what I need right now…
— written in the Pittsburgh autumn