This past Saturday, I got myself another tattoo.

I once read a beautiful old Chinese piece of writing about lotus flowers, way back in middle school in Shanghai. It talked about the strength and beauty of the lotus flower, and how it symbolizes surviving and thriving through adversity because of how it grows out of mud. The author believes the lotus flower to be a superior flower to others, and that we should all strive to be like lotus flowers.

For some unknown reason, this piece of writing has always resonated with me. It is one of the few things I was forced to memorize in school that I can still remember. I always found it beautiful and passionate, and while I don't believe in denouncing other flowers to raise the level of the lotus, I think that many of the points the author made were beautiful and valid.

I wanted to get something that could commemorate that.

More importantly, I've now become a senior at MIT and I finally finished the last of my studios - I chose to opt out of the final one because I wanted to take the last two semesters and see what else MIT had to offer (and also because I finally decided to prioritize my mental health). To sum it up, I had some pretty dark times the last year, and I wanted to get something that could commemorate my perseverance through those times where I thought it wouldn't get better.