is the science lab my Dad and I built in our attic when I was 10 years old. How come it's located in the attic? Well, that's where my old bedroom was. Before the lab existed, experiments used to run rampant in the kitchen, bathtub, backyard... I built the lab to satiate my intellectual curiosity, to stoke my passion for exploration outside of the classroom. I am fortunate to have a Dad who not only said "yes" to my daring idea, but who was also willing to invest in the equipment needed to bring my lab from paper to reality. 

In my lab, alone and label-less, I am free to pursue anything that piques my interest, stoked by a flame that almost always resulted in the intermixing of what I love and learn...

A. R. T. Art. Three letters in one syllable, first spreading the lips ajar then letting it close in what feels like a blissful yawn.

I love how it adds an ulterior dimension to everything I do - it’s an activity, yes, but a world no less. I like to paint my climbing shoes, play the electric guitar and piano; to color the canvas the interior landscape of my mind, but to also feel musical notes dancing on my fingertips as they weave a complex arabesque of beauty, texture, and sound.

Art knows no barriers. If anything, it is fluid like water. With science, the two are intermingled yet divergent in a swirling pool of “yin” and “yang.” In the arts, science is no longer confined to the rigidity of chemical formulae; nature no longer bound by the probability of wave functions. Like notes on Einstein's violin, it has the ability to channel logic, instill judgement, but at simultaneity, exude creativity, inspire change, touch souls.

Climbing is not a sport of pure strength or a dare-devil way of courting death… 

It's all about solving problems! The wall poses challenges—both physical and mental—to the climber, and it is ultimately the climber’s task to “read” and “decipher” the problem (to calculate the perfect “beta,” in climbing jargon) to find the best solution to the top. It’s like solving a math problem in many ways!

Climbing is endlessly creative. Nobody in the climbing sphere considers plagiarism as a serious problem—no two climbers are the same, so naturally, no two climbers share the perfect beta. Just like how different people approach a math problem differently, climbers are naturally led to solutions unique to their physique, strength, and style. You don’t need to be skinny to climb well; you just need to be different.

And, of course, climbing is beautiful to watch! It used to be called “ballet on rock,” but now, with its addition to Olympic Games, climbing has also swiftly adopted a Parkour character. It is a sport in constant metamorphosis…  I can’t wait to find out what the future holds!

In Beijing and Tokyo where I have respectively spent my childhood and recent teenage years, long before the time near midday where I should have to go to school, books became the fixed point on which my attention and unruly imagination were centered.

The books I have devoured mold my identity as I grow up. “Alice in Quantumland” instilled a palpitating desire to probe the realm of quantum mechanics deep under the ground-level of customary equations, novels by Cecelia Ahern salvaged me from emotional wretch in aftermaths of failure, and “Run with the Wind,” a recent read, rocked my world and is gradually leading me closer to gripping the true meaning of why I climb.

Each month, under the light of my bed lamp, I place books—a renewed stack of novels, old texts, and self-help publications that entertain me for an hour each day before I float into the blissful incognito of dreamscape. Books appear as often in real life as they do in my dreams (ahem, another reason that propels me towards Freudian literature).

In waking hours, though, I allow myself to resemble the antithesis of the physical stillness of reading. I travel on impulsion of wanderlust. And I go to places, far beyond the city, the rural… and like Dorothy, I always find new friends to walk along…