Hong Bing Tang

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” – Steve Prefontaine

By: Hong Bing Tang April 20th, 2025

04/14/2025 to 04/20/2025

Introduction:

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is having a great easter along with had a great week. This week was filled with some usual events that brought up a ton of different emotions. From watching the Minecraft movie, to getting in a bit of trouble, to racing and going home this week, it was a good week. Let’s dive into it! 

Chicken Jockey!

With all the hype and memes within the past 2 weeks about the Minecraft movie I had to, of course, go see it. Luckily the dorm guys decided to go watch the movie on Tuesday night, so I was able to join them! We of course had to sneak some snacks inside the movie theater since none of us wanted to pay for overpriced food. The theater was pretty big but since the movie came out like 2 weeks ago, there weren’t a whole lot of people there, roughly 30% of its capacity was filled. My expectations for the movie were pretty low since I had heard some pretty mixed reviews. Of course, there were some iconic scenes that I had seen all over social media like the lava chicken song, flint and steel, and of course the chicken jockey part which surprisingly did not electrify the theater up too much. Overall for being a “children’s” movie the plot followed a pretty predictable storyline however had some funny jokes so to sum it up, I would give the movie a solid 4. 

Oooppps:

Sooooo…some of our team, including myself, decided to play what we thought we be a funny joke on campus. And while we thought the prank would be funny, it was not well received by the faculty on campus. So many of the admin and faculty reached out to the athletic department along with our coaches about it and what we thought was going to be a funny joke made the athletic department along with our cross-country team does not look great. Those that were involved got repercussions that were warranted. Many of us on the team felt the punishment was justified. However regardless of the outcome, I do feel that this reveals some issues that are on our team. After reflecting on what happened, what went wrong, and why. There obviously were some issues that were uncovered related, and unrelated to our team. So, looking forward, I am hoping that I can try to address some things with the coaches and see what we can do to change our team culture and identity.  

Oakland:

On Friday I headed back home to compete at the Elaine Leigh invitational at Oakland University. Honestly on racing day, for one of the first times, I was not nervous at all. I had little to no anxiety about the race, which was quite strange after coming off of a tough 5k. However, for this race, I made it my mission to be aggressive, follow moves, and not give up at any point in the race. This mindset was mostly due to a quote that I had read a while back from Steve Prefontaine that said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” I was really sick of not being mentally sharp and not maintaining focus and effort during some parts of the race, so after coming up with strategies to make sure that I would stay competitive. When the gun went off, the pace of the front group was quite slow, so to get the time I was shooting for I had to take the lead—something that I have never done before. After about 600 meters in, I got passed, however since I was not feeling too bad, I stuck onto the people passing me. It started to hurt. However, I kept on saying the quote in my head and with 800 to go, I held onto the leader. With about 500 to go, a person took it, and I tried to match the move however it was a little too fast for me and I was not able to match the move, however it still closed hard. Overall, for this given race, even if the time wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, I knew that I had given it everything I could and knew that given the right circumstances, I would be able to excel in the future.   

Driving Range:

On Saturday, my parents and I headed to the driving range to hit some balls. Other than my one time going to top golf, I had no experience with swinging a golf club. Luckily for me, one of my mom’s friends came with us and it was pretty good, so I got some tips and lessons from them. Even with the help, it was quite hard, and the motion just felt pretty awkward, most likely because it was very new. Even with this though, it was still fun, and I was able to hit a couple straight balls—minus the 20-30 that I nicked and went like 20 yards or so. Overall, it was fun, and I understand the appeal of the sport, however, it is very very hard.  

Conclusion:

This week reminded me that growth isn’t always comfortable or glamorous—it often shows up through mistakes, tough conversations, and pushing through discomfort. Whether I was racing, reflecting, or just trying to hit a golf ball straight, I felt myself learning more about who I am and who I want to become. 

Goals Update!

Journaling: Journaled twice this week 

Nail biting: I bit my nails quite significantly this week. 

Reading: I ordered a book about racing and the mental side of things 

Phone usage: An average of 2 hours and 39 minutes. Really high because I let myself scroll a lot on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  

Future: Figured out taxes stuff and in the process of getting more information about the research thing I am doing over the summer. 

Get in Touch

Got questions or want to chat? Drop a line. I love connecting with new friends!

Say Hello!