Monday, May 31, 2010

I'm Yellow

Partly out of laziness, and partly to celebrate the end of another Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), I present an essay I wrote last year in applying for a scholarship sponsored by the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA). My heritage has been something I have always grappled with, both the good and the bad, but in writing this essay, I really explored and determined what being Asian-American has really meant to me and how I have developed into the person I am; reading popular literature, watching popular television and movies, listening to popular radio--I am always struck by how little representation there is on behalf of Asian-Americans, and that's a real shame. For not only the Asian-American community, but for the larger American community, I am really grateful to the OCA for providing me the opportunity last year to really elucidate on youth, on history, and on growth:
As part of the age class commonly known as Generation Y, I am pampered by excess, nurtured by technology, and in general, different.  Social scientists categorize me, and my fellow members of the “Millenials,” as possessing a feeling of entitlement wholly unknown to the generations before: we expect—and feel entitled to—a wealthy, instantaneously gratifying lifestyle of mentally invigorating work and easily accessible leisure.  Attending college is no longer symbolic of being gifted, but another expectation for us to meet.

As an Asian-American and having a cultural background of high expectations, attending college—specifically, and stereotypically, Ivy League—has been the milieu of my past fourteen years being educated.  My own parents did not set my life before me at the beginning of my academic journey, but growing up as an ABC (American-born Chinese), I was nonetheless sucked into the mindset that I would eventually grow up, finish high school, go to college, go to medical school (or law school or engineering school), and live the rest of my life as a some kind of professional.

The manufactured dream ended when I was nine and in fourth grade, the first year schoolteachers gave us letter grades instead of checks and pluses.  I opened the envelope on the bus ride home, anxiously excited to see the beginnings of a wonderful future as the bus rumbled through the neighborhood; the As, in Mathematics and Reading and Social Studies excited me, especially the A+ next to the Math.  I had an A- in English, but that was livable.  Workable.  Improvable.  But the B+ in science?

I was an absolute disgrace; how was I supposed to get into Harvard with a B in science, of all subjects?  My mouth was dry, my legs trembled, my head spun—really, it did—and I knew then that I would never be a doctor or an engineer or a pharmacist.  I couldn’t.  I had a B+.  No, no no no no.

To be pithy, I got over it.  Retrospectively, ruling out those three occupations prematurely has led me to go beyond the bounds of expectation.  I have met my parents’ basic expectations, which have become my own: high standardized test scores, high GPA, and a schedule filled with academically challenging classes.  I have also defied their inherent demands of me to pursue my own visions: instead of participating in Science Olympiad, I have done labor—physical, not mental—in building a school in Nicaragua.  Instead of becoming a piano prodigy, I quit my lessons to become competent on the viola, and instead of pursuing mathematics—the one fourth grade subject I was “outstanding” in—I quit the Mathletes to begin, and never finish, writing seven books.

Being an Asian-American has, must frustratingly, placed me within a category to which I do not wish to conform.  My parents and my culture, even my appearance, bring about stereotype and discrimination; conversely, those very same aspects have given me the necessities to which I can pursue any path of my choosing wholeheartedly, even rebellion.  I am a confident, competent, cultured and conscious girl—I’m still seventeen—and soon I will be a confident, competent, cultured and conscious collegiate.

I could say all that confidence, competence, culture and conscience are intrinsic, but my heritage has taught me to be humble; who I am, and who my peers are, has been wholly crafted by our ethnicity, whether in acceptance or defiance of the expectations placed on us by the community, and recognition and appreciation of my roots is the slow product of maturation.  By cultural standards, comprehension should be instantaneous and credit given where credit due; by reality’s course, people are obtuse and slow to realize value.  I’ll assist them.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Smarty Pants

I'm smart. It's undeniable, and may sound more than a bit narcissistic and egotistical (I am both), but it is also a true, scientific fact. I have a high IQ, faster than average neural reaction time (leading to faster comprehension), high test scores, and a (relatively short) lifetime of cognitively stimulating environments thanks to Mom and Dad.

When somebody tells me I'm smart, though, that kind of flippant remark makes me very angry. It may seem very complimentary, on the complimenter's side, but what exactly does it mean to be on the other side?

For me, personally, as I've said, I'm angry. I'm annoyed. It's like pigeonholing me with a single word, reducing me to a single aspect that implies I have no depth beyond understanding what goes on in class. It's like, Wow, it must be great, to be soooo smart. Except for, of course, the stereotypical schoolyard bullying and lacking adequate social skills.

If you wanna try and treat me like Millhouse, I'll eat you.
Image via HiddenGlasgow.

I am decidedly not your stereotypical 'smart kid.' I'm a pretty normal kid who interacts pretty well within society, and what really sucks the most about being smart is just that--in school (K-12 for the purposes of my commentary), being smart meant I was rarely challenged by schoolwork and I could get by relying, more or less, on my short-term memory or natural sponge-like quality for absorbing information passively. On the rare occasion I had to study for a subject--'studying' being defined for my peers as poring laboriously over notes taken in class in addition to amending the notes handed out by a teacher--'studying' for me meant sleepily flipping through the notes handed out the ten minutes before I sat down for an exam and got somewhere in the 90s, no sweat.

Seems great, right? Less time studying, better results than 90% of the other students and more time to lounge around and do anything I wanted... but no, being smart has backfired, and no, it may not be as saddening or heartbreaking as those who don't have the opportunity or the cognitive potential for a great education, but it stinks to be smart.

For the smart kids, but not genius-level students, average schoolwork is still not challenging enough such skills as perseverance and focus, such skills that are a). important for life in general, and b). really, really hard to develop nowadays, regardless of intelligence level, a long attention span when the television, the cell phone, the Internet are all calling out simultaneously. Instead of actively working to develop study skills and learning to apply oneself at the time where the mind is most fertile for learning, I didn't.

In college, this has definitely bit me in the ass. Focus, yes, should largely be on improving opportunities for the under-privileged to get the education they need, but don't forget about the students who aren't being adequately challenged by school-material and are floating by in life, because that's not preparing them for the future either.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Multitasking--Hulu, Excessive Reading & Fashion Porn

A lot of my time is spent, obviously looking at (moving) pictures--Ronye asked 'how [I] balance all the TV shows that [I] watch,' and what I do is usually try and catch only one or two TV shows a night. On days when I don't have class, or when I've got free time, I log onto Hulu, drag the window to one half of my screen, and in a second window, go on with my Internet habits of (as afore-clarified in title).

A screenshot of what I'm doing right now.

Obviously, right now, I am watching TV (a passive activity) and typing this blog. Normally, however, I'm running through my Google Reader feed (usually 1000+ updates) and looking at static pictures.

Screenshot of my earlier entry Daily Reads displaying my daily reading list.

Go-to websites on my feed usually include The Daily Beast and Entertainment Weekly; that doesn't include the myriad of links on social media provided by the awesome people I follow on Twitter. (I love Twitter. Follow me on Twitter. You'll probably talk to more on Twitter than in real life).

 I spend the rest of my time surfing fashion blogs and feeding my inner sartorial whore; for looking up the latest fashion spreads, I have two go-to sites:



Fashion, whether you like it or not, is mostly a woman's world. FGR regularly posts up editorial spreads from every issue of Vogue, various catalogs, ad campaigns, and other magazines. High quality scans and compiled all in one place, it's like buying twenty magazines and flipping through without all the ugly advertisements and having the opportunity to compile, on your hard drive for personal use, all your favorite fashion images. As an amateur fashion illustrator, I love having an easy resource like this.



The Fashionisto is FGR's... brother site. Focusing on man candy male models, this site is the definitive place to find images of the elusive XY mannequin.  Mmmm... I think I'll leave this entry here. I've got boys to drool over homework to do.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Web Withdrawal

A few months ago, my laptop developed an interesting problem, namely, that various keys would and could not be pressed. For example, every time I wanted to type 'a,' I'd have to find the letter in some URL or text or go into Microsoft Word, click 'Insert,' click 'Symbol,' then hunt around for four seconds looking for the right 'a.'

I got by for many weeks just copying & pasting needed characters here and there, but when my dad borrowed my laptop, it became too much for him to do, and hence for the last five days and the next four, five days, I am bereft of my trusty, handy (heavy) portable computer to aid me in my horribly immense and whimsy consumption of Internet media until it gets shipped back from some mass repair center in Texas.

As the post title implies, I am suffering from some mild effects of withdrawal, although, as I am posting online (and surrounded by the thousands of computers available at the University of Michigan), I am not completely without access to the WWW. At this moment, my hand is cramping from typing this entire entry on an electronic device produced by a 'fruit company' invested in by Forrest Gump and smaller than an index card.

These miniature devices, while convenient & handy for Tweeting/microblogging/e-mail checks, are horrendous for anything of a larger scale. Long story short, I wish I had my laptop back, I am sorely addicted to checking my Twitter feed, and my thumbs hurt. :O

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Mike Teavee, Move Over

I watch an inordinate amount of television; in the context of being GenY, it's another facet of my overwhelming consumption of media, and looking at myself, it's kind of freaky and slightly ridiculous how much I watch. Ironically, for my Communications class, our professor is constantly urging us to watch more TV.

Here is, in a roundabout table, a compilation of my TV schedule from the last year:

Yeah, I know.

Intersperse with various filler episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims' Unit, beginning to watch many of the shows halfway through Season 3 and lots of catching up, pretty regular catch-ups of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, the occasional disgusted/fascinated screening of Jersey Shore and watching through two seasons of Dirty Sexy Money in half a hectic week, and the hours of television I've consumed over the last nine months is probably well into the hundreds.

Left, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report (e.g. favorite newscaster ever), and right, Dirty Sexy Money, favorite now-defunct/cancelled-TV-show-that's-got-both-Billy-Baldwin-and-Donald-Sutherland-squee!!!!-yay. Images via IMDB.

One genre of television that you don't see in my schedule, however, is the game show; I've got nothing against game shows--Jeopardy ftw!--but being narcissistic and thinking better of myself than the people who are on these shows, I don't like to 'waste' my time failing (or kicking ass) on questions I ace at home.

Running home in the afternoons between classes to have a swift lunch, there's only one program my television receives that isn't an infomercial, a shopping channel, a soap opera or episode of Sesame Street--'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?'

ARE YOU? HUNH? ARE YOU? Image via Fox.

This show is really, really well done production-wise, but what about the basic premise of this show?

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Are you smarter than a prepubescent elementary schooler who still has recess breaks? Are you smarter than a child whose hairline is barely past your pelvis? Are you smarter than a kid who has spent the last ten years of their life sleeping, eating, crying, and occasionally flipping through picture books and scrawling through arithmetic worksheets?

True, the questions on this show are sometimes extremely specific, giving an unfair advantage to the pint-sied "assistants" of fifth-graders who are featured on the show, but there's still a large number of basic questions that are common knowledge and are relatively easy to answer. Take a quick peek below:


To the contestants on this show--are you proud that you're smarter than a fifth grader? Really? Does the fact that you're proud you're smarter than a ten-year old make you feel awkward? Or are you ashamed that you're not 'smarter than a fifth grader'? Or do you even care?

I understand why people go on this show--$$$.

But what does this television show say about America, the good ol' US of A, that this show is not only on the air, but (somewhat) popular and that people clamor to compete on air to claim that, yes, they are middle-aged, balding, fatting but still 'smart'?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

scribbles 05.13.2009


[left, center, right]

Liu Wen by Li Qi for Vogue China June 2010

Michael Tintiuc by Vincent Nord for Vanity Teen

Tom Nicon & Jono McNamara by Junji Hata
'Sometimes Nerdy' for Popeye June 2010

Having a long childhood background in art, I still sketch on a regular basis (usually to keep myself awake in class). I focus mostly on fashion illustration now, and am terrible at faces.

Virginity

My Twinkie virginity, you pervert. I wouldn't talk about the other virginity... well, with anyone.

(It'd be a miracle if I got to that stage in the first place... having aphensphosmphobia/haphesphobia/chiraptophobia/general-distaste-of-people-physically-coming-into-contact-with-me, in fifty years I'm going to be Susan Boyle, ideally without the pudge and the funny accent but with all my limbs, a small menagerie of hypoallergenic cats and a vivacity that keeps me relevant despite my medically-necessitated lobotomy due to a detrimental habit of sniffing permanent markers botched murder attempt by jealous professional colleagues in the skullduggery world of think-tankery. I have a bright future).

Anyway, growing up as a first-generation Asian-American (that's where your parents hopped over the Pacific Ocean & you were born in the States), I was oft denied the delights of the traditional sucrose-stuffed sweets, and having a health freak conscious mother, was denied many a Chinese sweet as well, and so it is till now, I have not yet ingested any part of this cultural staple of gustatory Americana:

Two Twinkies. You should know that. Image via Esquire.

And so, on impulse, I decided that today I would lose my Twinkie virginity, and finally see what all the fuss about these 'golden sponge cake with creamy filling' is all about:


First bite... this is an intriguing texture.

Mid-chew... still intrigued. I like the word 'intrigued.'



I've been chewing for too long and my mind, having the miniscule attention span of a GenYer, has decided that any food requiring more than a minimal three chews before swallowing is too much. And it tastes funny.


I have set down the rest of the Twinkie, pondering whether or not I have the gustatory... guts to finish it.

I now understand the Chinese incredulity when they see a Caucasian man stuffing his face with these cakes as he's waddling down the street in Shanghai I witnessed two years ago, but in regards to my Twinkie experience, I'm both relieved and slightly disappointed--relieved because I won't gain a massive amount of weight from ingesting these (not) scrumptious delights, and disappointed because my nostalgic, childhood reverence for this once-forbidden confection has really no reason to be help up in such high esteem.

(I am still intrigued by deep-fried Twinkies, however. The New York Times says they're delicious and saporous.)

Your thoughts?

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

New Purpose, New... Direction

Totally stolen from Glee with that title, but in today's world, everything's both cliche and original anyway; the title's purpose is to serve as an indicator of once again, the revamping of this blog and my irrationally renewed hope for a sustainable, cyber-based log of my interests and thoughts.

Maybe because I'm now 19 and legal to drink in Canada, some miraculous change will overcome me as I go to bed tonight and I'll know how to be persistent when I wake up, or maybe wake up a la Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30 and be blessed with a cushy job, a sweet wardrobe and fabulous hair.


(I haven't actually seen that movie, but based on my sister's (and mother's) ravings, what little I know about Jennifer Garner, and the movie screenshot pasted in above, I think it's reasonable to say my predictions of a ridiculous vision are accurate).

This last year, in short, has been... enlightening.  The knowledge that I have no study skills has been repeatedly reinforced, that I'm a passive eater has been heavily emphasized, and my predilections towards staring at shiny entrancing objects when I should be reading or doing homework or sleeping have carried me to where I am now--narcoleptic, caffeine-driven, sporadically-eating, TV-obsessed, news-oriented and a shoe-whore clothes horse online-shopping lurker.

My goal for the next year, then? To accomplish... let's say, three things a day, accomplish encompassing some basic obligations, such as:

  • Not skipping eating when I'd rather stay curled up in bed, or...
  • Doing all my reading and homework for the next day
  • Doing some significant research for my internship
  • Not sleeping paying attention in class
  • Writing a blog post (3+/week is the class minimum)
  • Sending out e-mails when I'm supposed to (a biggie)

My parents would probably like to add 'calling them everyday' to the list of things I should do everyday, although it's always... well, been a pain to talk to them on the phone. It seems to run in the family (skipping over me, of course) that my mother, my father, my sister and grandparents and aunties and uncles and cousins MUST shout into the phone, because the person on the other end (me, of course) has hearing problems.

Or, if you're like my dad... well, the typical phone conversation goes like this:

爸爸:哦,你为什么没给我打电话? 我就是想跟你说话,听你的声音! ='(
Me: I called three hours ago and you said that you were driving and couldn't talk.
爸爸:那时儿我在忙!
妈妈:(对爸爸) 今天是她的生日!
爸爸: 哦?! O___O

Give this guy a yellow cast and a little paunchier around the middle and you have my dad. Image via Getty Images

Loosely Directly translated, here's what happened; for greatest comedic effect (and most accurate representation), have a small child play the father role:

Father: (petulantly) Hey, why haven't you caaaaalllled me? I just wanna taaaalk to yoou, hear the sound of your voice...!! ='(
Me: I called three hours ago & you said that you were driving & couldn't talk.
Father: (protestingly) But that's because I was busy!!
Mother: (in the background, to my father) Dude, it's her birthday today. Get off the phone; give it baaack to me.
Father: Wait... what?! Seriously? O_____O

So, Dad, thanks for the birthday wishes and for your genes; whatever I forget in the future, I'll always have hereditary amnesia.

Daily Reads


The accumulated articles compiled by my Google Reader in the last 24 hours... yes, 1000+.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Reworked

Spring semester at the University of Michigan has started... and that means instead of frolicking in the sunshine with nothing to do, I'll be cooped up and studying in Ann Arbor for the next seven weeks. However....

My three classes I'm taking this semester have, in my opinion, really taken off. Psych111 (Intro to Psych) is one of those basic classes that... yeah. Basic. Bleh. But ok.

Comm101 (Media & Culture) is my most exciting class, because it's about the two things (besides books, ice cream and shoes) that I like most: media and culture. Which means we're told constantly to watch more TV (like 20 hours/week isn't enough for me...) and to analyze how different media impact viewers and vice versa. Like I said on Twitter, I spent 10 minutes arguing the presence of phallic symbols in a DKNY mens ad. And the professor said I was right.

SWC200 is a 'New Media Course,' and the 'new medium' we're exploring for this class is blogging, so you will, for the sake of my grade point, be getting more updates on this blog. As in at least three posts a week. I hope you'll like them. =)