He gets out of bed like any other student, yawning and half-asleep. Thankfully, this senior has one less thing to worry about: his hair.
Some know him by his oddly pointed unicorn-horn hair. Others recognize his animated, game show host voice on the morning announcements. He deserves his self-proclaimed nickname “mastermind of penguins” because it represents his random personality.
Eng is openly expressive and radiates his own quirky charm. His unconventional habits add spice to his life, making each day as engrossing as the one before.
In sophomore year, Eng decided that he wanted to become “fully efficient” by memorizing lists of information during spare time in class.
“If you’re in history, stare at a list of countries. If you’re in math, stare at a bunch of formulas. If you’re in science, stare at a bunch of science facts,” Eng said.
He is able to list off astronomical facts, U.S. presidents, current Supreme Court justices, amendments, and countries’ capitals.
“I will need to know [that information],” Eng said. “There was this YouTube video asking Harvard students whether they knew the capital of Canada. And none of them could answer it, except the Canadian. So I will not fall into that awkward situation. I refuse to be like that!”
Once the bell rings for tutorial, Eng sets off to visit his various science teachers, both past and present. He first hurries to greet chemistry teacher Janny Cahatol. As they talk, he peers at her desk, noticing the pile of bendable straws and stale potato with enough holes to resemble a sponge.
When Eng asks what the materials are for, Cahatol instructs him to stab the potato with a straw while covering the straw’s opening with his thumb. Eng follows her instructions, but is unable to poke a hole in the potato.
“Why can’t I stab this potato? This is witchcraft! Did the potato come up the straw?” Eng said.
“It may have,” Cahatol said, examining the potato in confusion. “How did you do that? You are amazing.”
When Eng asks what is supposed to happen, Cahatol says that he should be able to stab the potato with a closed straw, but not with an open straw because the air leaves through the other end.
“Mindblown…I feel lopsided. Like the potato,” Eng said.
He then whisks off to greet three different science teachers, concluding with physics teacher Kirk Davis. As usual, Davis is glad to see him.
“Robert is a very transparent guy. He doesn’t put on airs- he is who he is,” Davis said. “It’s kind of refreshing to have someone so honest. What you see is what you get.”
Once school ends, Eng makes his way through the halls, exchanging greetings with various people.
“Eric Taw, you look beautiful today! Something about you looks… you’re shinier,” Eng said, getting senior Eric Taw to grin. “I almost forgot- ni hao! Wo xi huan pu tao!” (“Hi! I like grapes!”)
Eng lacks the tones of a native Chinese speaker and stopped taking Chinese after sophomore year. However, he considers himself a “polyglot,” or someone who is able to use multiple languages, because he practices programming after school and has learned to program in 14 different computer languages.
“I first started learning [the language] C because…well, you can’t learn A, you can’t learn B, so you learn C. Just kidding,” Eng said. “I learned C because I thought it was cool, and programming seemed like the opposite of writing. I mean, who likes writing? Ewww. No, just kidding.”
Once night falls and he prepares to shower, Eng scans over his shower curtain from MIT, which displays the periodic table of elements. He put the curtain to good use by memorizing the periodic table.
“Each time I went to the bathroom, I’d memorize an element,” Eng said, “until I did 118 bathroom breaks, at which point I’d memorized the periodic table.”
There is one last mystery to Robert Eng that many are unsure of: his hair.
“How does he do it? It doesn’t look gelled,” Taw said.
Eng’s hairstyle is actually simple to maintain and serves not as a fashion statement, but as a practical habit.
“I do not want to see my hair. It bothers me,” Eng said. “So how do I fix that? I make my hair go up! Since I’m so lazy, I don’t want to dry my hair after I shower, so I just go to sleep with wet hair. It just sticks like that.”
