Kicking the Bucket (List)

My Bucket List:

· Complete my bucket list.

And that’s it.

Just kidding. I’ve got a whole extensive mental and physical bucket list, but I’ll just skip to the interesting parts.

High School: Learn another instrument.

I know that I’m not going to be a Music major, but I’ve always been interested in learning to play an instrument other than the violin – specifically the cello or the piano. I know that I’m not going to be as good as people who’ve been playing for years, but I think that learning something else would probably contribute to my violin skills as well as being a separate hobby.

College: Become fluent in one of the following languages: Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Russian.

The first two are easy to explain. My father’s family is from Hong Kong, and they speak mainly Cantonese. The last time I went to Hong Kong, I couldn’t understand anyone – strangers would attempt to talk to me in Cantonese, since I look like native. Additionally, it would let me talk directly to my grandparents; they can only speak Cantonese, and it’d be nice to talk directly to them. Taiwanese is pretty much the same issue, but since they speak Mandarin about as much as they do Taiwanese, it’s not as big of a problem in Taiwan.

Russian is an interesting option for me. I don’t know what got me interested in learning Russian, but for some reason I’ve found the language fascinating. It’s the fifth most spoken language in the world, and hey, to be honest, it sounds pretty cool.

The End: Contribute to society in a way that will be useful for the world.

I don’t mean something like being the next Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but I want to be a part of something that helps the world for the future. I don’t care if I do something like inventing a more efficient engine, or design light bulbs that save energy like fluorescent ones but still have the same warm color as incandescent bulbs, but as long as I know that my work helps the future in some way, I’ll be fine with it. I don’t even have to feature prominently on the cover of a world-renowned journal of some specific field as the sole contributor of a project (but that’d be nice); even if I only had a small part in changing the world, I’ll rest happy knowing that I’ve done a good job.