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| Here comes my return to Xanga, after about two months of not writing. I guess I've been consumed by thoughts of Hong Kong, of everything happening, instead of on myself, which is what I usually use this site for: to think about things and to develop my thoughts. It's been quite an overwhelming time in a lot of senses: being away, away from home for the first time (I wouldn't consider dorming at Columbia being away: I could always come back through a 40-min train ride if I really missed home), coming into a new culture, new friends, new food, new kinds of things in general, and of course, missing the things and the wonderful people back home. And as I'm abroad this semester, I realize that I haven't gotten to think of something truly important: myself. How am I coping with this? How are things changing and staying the same? Etc. etc. haha
One large difference in culture I've seen is in the individualistic mentality I always hold. I told myself and a bunch of other people about when I'm feeling at home: I feel at home when I can wander around the city okay by myself and when I'm okay at being alone. And after a month here, I feel pretty at home. There's always someone who wants to do something and always wanting to do it with someone, but I have been going on a more independent streak as of late. I guess something I've realized about myself is that if someone won't go with me to do something I wanna do, or if it's just too big of a hassle to ask around, I'll do it by myself. And that's why I feel at home already: because I can do that without someone by my side, even in this city. This isn't the most epiphany-type revelation anyone could think of, but it's starkly apparent next to my roommate, for example, who's starting her first year and has never been away from home before. I don't recall being as apprehensive about being alone in the room as she was when I told her I was going to Singapore for the weekend (last weekend!). She was scared about being alone by herself in the room. In fact, she's one of those who can't sleep in the dark. It's just been very apparent that I am definitely different here. Girls here are constantly holding each other's hands, linking arms, petting each other's hair as a sign of friendship and closeness, but that's not me at all. I do not, do not! like to be touched. haha. But yeah, among my exchange friends, I think I'm probably the most just like, take charge, do it myself person, cuz there are so few exchanges in my hall, etc. I'll reflect more on this in a later paragraph.
I have made quite a few friends, here, though, although not the closest I could find yet. There are some I can especially talk to, basically the internationals who have some tie to Hong Kong or Chinese culture but who are still excluded from local activity because they are foreign. That's something that annoys me to bits, the fact that you really need to know Cantonese here to "belong". You would think at a school that teaches English that students' English would be better, but not the case here. I'm not really angry or annoyed by it, but I guess more sad/disapppointed at/by the circumstances. I wonder how many local friends I'll get close with here. My whole floor, besides one international full-time student, are local students who speak fluently. I could tell the first day that I wouldn't be as social as I am used to being. Ahh, I wish I knew more cantonese. At least I'm not as bad off as the exchanges who know absolutely no Cantonese: man, that must suck. However, it's wierd being in the middle. When you're white on this campus and obviously one who doesn't understand Cantonese, it's like a fresh start: you can sort of get to know him as a local, knowing they know nothing. But me...me and all the other ABCs, BBCs, CBCs (American Born Chinese, British Born, and Canadian Born), it's like they expect to be able to speak to you in Canto/Mando, then when you disappoint them with your American accent and your inability, they just look at you like you betrayed your kind. That's how I feel sometimes. Ahh. Uggh!! But yeah, the mix of internationals and local students as friends has been very different. I'm in the minority, baby!
Something, though, that's been changing through these past few years is my joy. I have quite a lot of it in me, and people tell me I'm quite friendly and warmer than others. I remember reading a statistic in my planner from junior year: "the average person laughs 13 times a day." And then I remember scoffing at that quote, thinking how it'd be like if I laughed so little throughout the day. But I don't know, something has changed in the past few years, not just in HK. It takes something hilarious and whatever to get me laughing out loud to the extent I once did. Sometimes I miss laughing. Sometimes I'll be feigning laughter among the locals when I'm not completely sure of the joke, just so they don't have to translate it for me (and have a truly awkward 30-seconds-after laugh). I have been catching up, though, with my American TV shows (my newest one is GLEE! along with Gossip Girl, The Office, and for the first few eps, House.) and they all have made me laugh quite a bunch. It's strange how in a new culture, and of course it makes sense, that humor is different. I am still quite friendly and humor-full, but it takes me a bit more to laugh these days. And that affects my smile: it's turned into like a nice peaceful closed-lip one at points, and then when I'm crazily laughing, the very wide toothy grin haha. It's interesting what your smile can tell about you and how you've changed as a person.
Lastly, I'll talk about community. I realized in HK that the idea of a community is quite important to me, but it's been waning since I got to college. I guess the want to belong has definitely been a prominent thought here. High school was definitely where I found myself and the people I know and care for dearly. Being a part of chorus, the school musical, etc. really felt like I belonged, wierdo me, right? lol. And then, of course, as Blair is experiencing now on Gossip Girl, college has started. I was still me, but not with the same connections, etc. Freshman year, I tried getting and maintaining that community, and I made a ton of friends I consider pretty close to, but it wasn't the same as high school. It all changes, of course. College has been more individualistic, find-your-own-way, not being assigned five days a week to classes witht he same people. And it's been part of a growing trend of fragmentation. My friends will just be everywhere, and I have to accept that. For my whole life, I've been trying to expose myself to different groups of people, and knowing them pretty well, because I was scared if I stuck to one group and got sick of them, the clique system of making friends wud render me friendless and alone. I guess that kind of friendship making has stayed the same, but the reasons for it have changed slightly. I wanna make different friends for the sake of diversity and just knowing different points of view. It's been good here. Alice mentioned the other day that I seemed to not trust people, since I didn't believe in the idea of a "best friend" or multiple ones. I more believe in the idea of close friends, and very close friends. I don't really believe in the idea of "best" anything, I guess. I can't place any of my friends on the "Top Friends" app on Facebook, and I won't call them "best", either lol.
So yeah, this night has been about myself, a lot of thinking, and a lot of missing home. Oh, man, do I miss home. I miss the "that's what she said"s (although i taught my floor the meaning of it haha), fighitng over fish heads (mm, fish heads) and my dad, mom, and brothers, who are now spread around. I can't believe I'm away for my little brother's first year of college, even though he would've been away anyways: he's in Rochester right now. And the certain people who I quite love so much, and sometimes am reminded of here as I look around the city, as I look at the people and the facial characteristics that remind me of people. Sigh. haha. I miss home. And I don't want me to have fun just because they're expecting me to travel around a lot and see things and etc. lol. I will have fun just for me. Yes. lol.
Time for me to go to sleep. Good night. =) (it's a 12 hr time difference here: 4:33am now lol)
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| Man, it's been a while. Once I take these teacher cert. exams Saturday, I promise you, blog, that I will write in you. =) | | |
| I don't think it's possible for anyone to completely know themselves, I've realized over the past few years of my life. I've always advocated to people that they need to know what's important to them, who they are, what motivates them, before they can move onto the things they want to do in life, before they can reach whatever they want their potential to be. But again, as I've realized in the past few years and months, there's really a lot of things left in me that I don't know, have tried to suppress in a way for fear of exclusion, or simply my own fear of finding out what's in that membrane of mine (is it insane? haha). We all have our own inner demons that we've tried to stop or avoid in our own various ways, yeah haha. But yeah, that's what I've been thinking about the past few weeks, or at least it was the main topic I was circling around the past few weeks.
It started with last semester, where I was working for a multitude of the time on school and extracurriculars, and had little time to myself, hung out a bunch with good friends of mine but not nearly as much as I once did, yeah. And I started wondering to myself, have I lost interest in hanging out? Have I just become someone who'd rather chill, who just liked walks and simplicity and things? In a way, I've always been a simple person, but I was never as tired, as easily agitated by small things, by my lack of time, as I was last semester, where it felt like I had to do something every minute. And I just felt so mentally exhausted all semester because of it. It rolled over to this summer season, or the start of it, where I just felt exhausted still mentally, since I had been working basically for a straight two weeks during finals season.
I guess I'd begun to think something in me changed a bit, but it'd been in me all along, this potential for other parts of me to come out, others to change, etc. I wonder how much sometimes I've changed since high school, and I couldn't tell you now. I do know that I've become quieter and more pondersome over things. I've reflected on my actions, but am still somewhat selfish in my actions, no matter how noble they may seem to others. I've got to be somewhat selfish, too, I realize, if I am to allow my happiness to exist haha. And that's okay, as long as I don't hurt anyone in that process. But some of those core characteristics: to laugh at dumb things, to try to empathize by relating my own experience and trying to understand, etc. those are in me.
Some parts of me, though, I've realized, can't last too much longer, or require some thought over. I turned twenty last week, and it's wierd, not being a teenager anymore. As absurd as this screenname WieRDoLiLGrL is, I created it as a tween and carried it through my teen years, [It seems I've been removing a letter with each milestone: tween-->teen-->tee (as in twen-tee? ahha).] and perhaps I may change the screenname once I receive enough Xanga credits to change it, but it's a part of me: being wierd and strange and awkward in social settings, somewhat on purpose. And yet that isn't me now: I'm wierd, but not so much, not "lil" anymore, and not a "grl" anymore, either. I'm somewhere in between, a lady maybe, woman, yes, I do think. And with some of that change comes a change in some behaviors of mine, probably, although I could't change all my sophomoric humor for good. No worries about that. My selective hearing will probably stay haha, simply because i'm deaf, my "cute-sy" acts shouldn't.
A good friend compared me the other day to Michael Bluth in Arrested Development, and yeah, that got me thinking a bit, too. I try to be good, and generally I do think I am a good person, but yes, I am not a good person all the time. I've tried and tried to be a good person, and I do identify myself as a good person, that I generally do think in terms of the good of others, but always forget the caveat to myself: that just because I do identify as a good person doesn't mean I always have to be one. Some things, like being a female, I cannot stray from (with the exception of gender-changing surgery, but I don't think I'll be doing that), or my nose being ginormous (again, won't be doing plastic surgery anytime soon haha).
So yes, I am me, but won't absolutely claim that I know myself. No wonder it's on the Oracle of Delphi: "Know Thyself": it seems an almost impossible task to complete, but it'll be all the better for it.
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| Summertimeeeee... and the livin' ain't so easy just yet haha. I have a lot of goals in mind, and I've reflected a bit on my Spring semester, although I'm sure my thinking will reap a ton of philosophical entries later. But yeah, not too bad of a start to the summer so far, although a bit too tired right now, and I have to make sure I get my rest, and also gotta make sure I see people haha. Damn, though, I'm already starting to lose track of the days and I definitely don't want to lose track of the months, years, etc. So here are some things for the summer I'd like to do or at least start thinkin' about. Hmm haha.
Academic/Urban Studies/Education Program Related Things:
-REGISTER for the teacher certification tests before June 19th.
-Take the LAST (Liberal Arts and Sciences Test) and CSTs (Content Specialty Tests) for my teacher certification stuff, July 23rd or 25th, I believe. I hope to get it done, pass em, then when I come back from Hong Kong in the Spring of 2010, take the practicum they offer at Barnard/Columbia and be that much closer to certification.
-Think of some thesis for my senior year. Think it might be related to something like comparative urban public school policy or something, hmm, but I definitely need to narrow it down, or I'll be left like Ryan, a 120-page thesis, single-spaced. lol
-Figure out possible career choices within educational policy stuff.
-Also figure out what all the exams mean (eg. GRE) and what I'll have to take.
Hong Kong/Study Abroad related
-Ask some questions regarding travel and such things.
-Get my visa! And wonder if I have to get one specifically for China as well! Maybe I'll get to travel around a bit to other countries on my own!
-Insurance stuff
-Transcripts stuff: email my advisors and such
-Check the Study Abroad packets and stuff to make sure I don't forget anything
-Housing stuff: where will I live?! (I applied, lol)
-Packing: what do I want? One or two big suitcases? Will I have to wear everything on the flight? haha.
-Get the proper voltage plug thing for travel
-Figure out if I can travel in China for a bit.
-FLIGHT TICKET!!
-BUY WEBCAMS! AND A CAMERA! AND A CAMCORDER! lol. For my trip, of course.
Job/s Related
-finish this one calling center job till it's done (about five weeks worth of work), and yeah, make a bit of money since my internship is unpaid and all. haha
-Do this unpaid internship well and learn tons! I get a stipend for food and travel, but it's a small amount. Still, I'm really looking forward to the research and other things I'll be helping out with over the summer. It'll really be great experience for me in the future with whatever I choose to do later. =D
-find something else part-time work related: I might do Let's Get Ready because it would be helping a friend and might look good for Teach for America, which is a possibility after college.
People Related and other randomness/stuff I thought up haha:
-Perhaps visit Tech some time. Hmm.
-Plan the Chamber 07 BBQ that we never got, dammit!
-Beach day? haha
-Seeeee tons of people!
-some picnic as I always plan lol
-some birthday dinner or something? lol
-See as many people this summer as possible and as many times as I can! That means YOU! lol. I have people on mind who aren't in Boston and other places.
-Although I will try to be in Boston this summer. =)
-Go to the Bodies Exhibit.
-And the Museum of Sexx. ;)
-Perhaps check out the Tempest June 5th-whenever (I think they're going for 7 days) at the 89th street part of Riverside Park: I was Caliban, afterall, in eighth grade; I'd like to see how they portray the play. =)
-If I feel like waiting early in the morning for Shakespeare in the Park, maybe I'll check out Twelfth Night; I hear that's a good one.
-Definitely, definitely King Lear at Battery Park June 23rd to like July 7th, one of those days lol.
-Check out the sunset or something. =)
-Watch Terminator, whether on the big screen or this small screen (I have my ways. lol)
-Knit an actual scarf that I'll use. lol
-read the LOTRs? lol
-Coney Island: chill one day
-Lame, but I kinda wanna go on the water taxi at one of the Piers and check out the Ikea in Red Hook. Yea, lame, but the boat ride alone might be fun.
-Ride the Staten Island Ferry once? I just want the view haha.
-Walk the Brooklyn Bridge, as Melissa reminded me about yesterday haha.
-RESTTT!!! something I need to start learning how to do lol.
-Lil bro's graduation
So yeah, a lot of things, I think I have more to add to this list, but I can't tell you at the moment. haha. Off to bed! Good ngiht, y'all!
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