That’s What She Said

Lately, I’ve realized how mean I’ve been to the freshmen. Perhaps it is the nasty annual article about the Purple Lanyard that the Student writes in the first week or my growing jealousy of the new occupants of Charles Pratt Dormitory. But after spraining my foot in tae kwon do last Friday, I thought maybe a little bit of karma was at work. In an attempt to bring the universe back into balance, here are three things I wished I knew in freshman year.

Oh yes, I don’t intend for this post to sound arrogant. And certainly, I don’t expect to know everything–everyone has their different study habits and ways of spending their time at college. So please, go easy on the critiques, alright?

After you start getting extremely sleep-deprived, you start to realize how much time you waste.

I hear you. Facebook, email, and of course, the alluring space of AmhPub keeps you away from that 100+ page reading due tomorrow at 8:30 AM. I never quite understood how people managed to get eight hours of sleep, complete their homework, and still have a life. After watching an extremely conscientious person work for a day (this was on a trip in Atlanta), I started realizing how much time I waste. As Psych 11 taught me, sometimes humans are willing to bear the pain (of childbirth, for example) in return for a greater reward in the future (in this case, a kid). You (guys included) should be willing to grit your teeth and sit down to write that essay or read that reading. The more you wait; the harder it gets.

Need study tips or ways to avoid procrastination? ASK.

Ask your friends. Go to professor’s office hours if you are having trouble with a specific course, even if they seem pointless (it helps to have a list of questions, no matter how general.) You’ll have a better idea of the professor’s expectations for the course, and trust me, they almost always say something different from the first day of class. Ask the Academic Peer Mentors–they have some great handouts on how to speak up in class or how to study for science/math classes. On the wall of the Counseling Center (topmost floor in Johnson Chapel) there are many, many handouts, everything from how to study for a class to avoiding procrastination to how to deal with stress (this handout is especially helpful, in my opinion). Try out different study habits, even if you have done the same thing for twelve years–perhaps, you can improve and create an even better strategy.

Everything worth doing can be done.

You know where your priorities are. You know being determined, working efficiently, and doing your best are things worth doing. And you know what? It doesn’t matter that professors assign a relentless amount of work. Everything worth doing can be done. I believe it.

Back from my hiatus during the summer. I just didn’t have anything to write about that I felt was particularly interesting, so I left this blog blank for a while. What follows in this entry is, secretly, I hope, interesting to all of you. I guess I will just go ahead and say that I’m Asian, will be attempting to talk about race today, and do not have any intentions of offending anyone. (Although I know this won’t be enough of an excuse for most of you).

Also, because it is 6:41 AM in the morning, my word choice may not be all so great. Speaking of which, when I say “race,” I’m totally referring to the very shallow and socially-constructed definition of how we look on the outside, and for the content of this blog post, not addressing the fact that people can be multi-racial. This entry isn’t designed to be politically correct–I have trouble doing that anyways.

Watching the Olympics with my family was very interesting but more than that, it was infuriating. My parents are what I would call native/mainland/traditional Chinese, which means they believe that daughters (and to a lesser degree, sons) should obey anything they dictate, that Mao was a great leader, and that China’s human rights abuses and fakery in the opening ceremonies actually did not occur.

But I’m not saying that all native/mainland/traditional Chinese are like that. The point of the last paragraph was to say that my parents are not exactly the most open-minded of people. And that was never so painfully obvious in one of the swimming events, where the announcer mentioned South Africa, and my mom said, “South Africa? Ew. Don’t they all have AIDS?”

Oh my god. I was appalled. Everyone is entitled to their opinion or viewpoint, but as I’ve learned in Amherst, it’s a good and healthy thing to challenge those attitudes. So I immediately said, No, I don’t believe it that. My mom insisted again, “No, they’re all black, and they must have AIDS.”

Another incident–though less obvious this time. Every time a person with dark (read: “black”) skin won a race, my mom would say, “Oh, s/he’s actually not that black at all. I think s/he is actually kind of pretty…”

 What the heck is my mom doing? Is she actually trying to rationalize for herself somehow that a black-looking person could possibly enjoy international fame and glory? Is she trying to tell herself that it’s okay, the person is not too black, so that’s not too bad for her world? That now, she’ll feel less threatened? And what’s this default assumption about who is pretty/who isn’t based on skin color?

I have no answers and no more words.

I don’t know if you can imagine how incredibly angry and upset I was at this time. I don’t think I’ve ever realized how ignorant my parents were. Is it their fault? Maybe. They have access to the internet, they read news stories, and they can be informed people. But what it seems like to me here is the willful perpetuation of a bias. I’ve already been in a screaming match with them in which they told me, “Yes, yes I think all people do have AIDS!!! That’s what I think, DEAL WITH IT!!” But I don’t want to just deal with it. That’s not the way I approach things–passivity and all.

Most of all, I don’t want my little sister to grow up with such biases. She’s six, and doesn’t really understand the implication of a question she asked me while at the swimming pool.  She asked, “Hey, Indian people aren’t that good at swimming, are they?” Now, to explain why it’s significant that she brought up Indian people, I should explain that

a) she’s been watching all of the Phelps races, and I’m pretty sure Phelps is “white”

and

b) Plano, Texas, where I live, has a relatively large population of Indian and Chinese people

and that

c) my sister on numerous occasions has heard my parents say something derogatory about Indian people

Thus, those three elements combined make for this thought process in her six-year-old mind:

• White people win lots at swimming. Therefore, white people are good at swimming.
• Chinese people don’t win too much at swimming, so they’re pretty good, but not as good as white people.
• Since my parents don’t like Indian people, and like Chinese and white people, then Indian people must automatically be bad at swimming.

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I can see how eventually she’ll replace “swimming” with the phrase “in general.” And no, I don’t intend to make any “white” people uncomfortable here. I just fear that she’ll grow up assuming things and never be aware of the assumptions that she’s making…

So, I’m interesting in hearing all of your thoughts on this. I end my rant.

Do not sit in any of the plastic chairs in Cohan Dormitory. They will try to maim you severely. That is all.

Number of applicants for the Amherst College Class of 2008: 5,489

Number of graduates in the Class of 2008: 445

Number of graduates who wrote senior theses: 230

Number of Fulbright Scholars: 8

Percentage of students (of the initial matriculating class) who indicated they were students of color: 35%

Number of states represented in the graduating class: 41

Number of foreign countries represented: 17

Percentage of diplomas hand-signed by the President: 100%

Number of minutes spent by Registrar staff rolling up diplomas and affixing ribbons: about 1,500

Estimated number of graduates and guests served on Saturday: 1,700

Estimated number of graduates and guests served on Sunday: 3,900

Number of chairs on the Valentine Quad: 3,000

Number of tables on the Valentine Quad: 464

Person per table ratio: 6.4655 (Mom, Dad, You, Grandma, Grandpa, and Sibling)

Number of chairs in LeFrak and Coolidge, in case of inclement weather: 3,260

Number of chairs on the Freshman Quad, in case of pretty weather: 5,150

Pounds of fruit cup mix provided by Dining Services: 900

Pounds of fresh asparagus: 154

Pounds of smoked turkey: 110

Pounds of chicken: An ungodly number

Sources:

https://cms.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2008/05/node/48857

https://cms.amherst.edu/media/view/7759/original/ssr2008.pdf

Media:

https://cms.amherst.edu/news/specialevents/commencement/

I am freakishly angry at my parents right now. Everything they say or do makes me irritated—the nagging is incessant, and they nitpick on very single little thing. For example, today my mom accused me of not caring about the earthquake victims in Sichuan, my hometown city. Their idea of caring is to donate money and to watch with almost a masochistic attitude at the state-run television report of victims. I for one am horrified by the whole propaganda campaign the regime in China has mounted in the face of this tragedy. I am frustrated and angry at the fact that no one seems to notice the people who bring up the point that the government should have done more to fix the structural damage before something bad like this was going to happen in the first place! My parents say, Look at Katrina, and I tell them that I don’t think Katrina was handled properly, but that doesn’t make China’s government any better. But my mom thinks I don’t care, even though I tried to tell her that during finals week I had to repress all of my sad feelings just so I could get through exams.

I don’t understand their hypocrisy—they say politics is stupid whenever I watch coverage of the elections on CNN, yet they urge me over and over again to watch the propagandistic reporting on CCTV. The pictures of officers dressed up in full uniforms publicly depositing their donations into a box on stage on national television disgusts me. Why the excess? Why all the brouhaha when we could be focusing more on rescue efforts? I don’t understand why they show the images of orphans laying on the ground crying for their parents. Don’t they want these kids to return to a normal life?! It seems like the Chinese government is trying to indoctrinate these kids with an inerasable sense of tragedy, one that can only be solved with the help of the dear government.

My parents tell me now is not the time to complain. But by the time the rescue efforts are over, a large majority (dare I say, almost everyone) will be so brainwashed with the government’s “praiseworthy” efforts to save their people that the post-rescue-efforts criticism will be dismal indeed. Does no one remember the flood of 1998? I remember. But even now China has not made any improvements. How can my parents possibly say with such blind devotion that the Chinese government is good?

Yes, I know relative to the military junta in Burma, things are going swimmingly well by comparison in China. But I really don’t think this kind of relativity is a good thing in this case: just because one authoritarian government is better than another doesn’t mean it can continue to co-opt its citizens this way. I’m all for coming together in times of national tragedy—I am all for unity, and for strength in numbers—what I am not for is creating robots who will solidify their loyalty to a state that has turned its own incompetence into a political party. This may sound really un-patriotic (from the Chinese point of view), but we Americans know better that a president standing in a disaster area doesn’t mean much. I believe in fundraisers—but I don’t think sitting there and crying is going to help anything in the long run. China needs change—it needs to have the younger generation care about the underlying problems of the government, to look beyond the veil of the state’s “heroism” in this earthquake and to agitate for real change. So this kind of thing isn’t going to happen again.

And my parents say I don’t care.

Me: “Guess what! I have an orange belt now.”

Sister: “WHAT?! You changed colors AGAIN?!”

*pause*

“Do they let you pick the colors?”

—

Me: “What country does Karate come from?”

Sister: “Amherst!”

Yesterday, some of my freshman friends and I were sitting at Val, watching the guys put the tent up on the Valentine quad. Essentially, if you think about it, the end of the year is like orientation in reverse. I slept (very uncomfortably) in my without-sheets bed yesterday with only a sleeping bag for padding–just like on the freshman orientation trip in Holyoke.

But what concerns me is this: where the heck do we graduate? I’ve seen the pictures of people receiving their degrees, but for the life of me I hope these pictures were taken  on the freshman quad than on the Val quad. Not that I have anything against Val–I just like the trees better on the freshman quad.

I think we solemnly promised the dear college nothing short of anarchy if we were going to graduate in what my friend termed “a castle circus tent.”

I call upon anyone reading this post right now is welcome to contribute their own exam week travails. They weren’t kidding when they said there is strength in numbers.

—

I remember in 9th grade our Humanities teacher once scolded us for trying to see who was worse off in terms of work. To illustrate:

Student A: Oh my god, I studied for five hours last night!

Student B: Oh YEAH? Well I didn’t sleep until 3 AM!

Sounds crazy. But yesterday I did sleep at 3 AM, which brought up some nice memories of high school. Everyone right now must be so stressed out right now, swamped with work, going insane. For those lucky few who are “done,” let me say I wish slug hexes on you.

My week:

Saturday- 8:00 AM-3 PM; Karate belt physical test. I wake up at 6 AM and cry over my butt-kicking.

Me: “Guess what! I have an orange belt now.”
Sister: “WHAT?! You changed colors AGAIN?!”
*pause*
“Do they let you pick the colors?”

Monday- 9 AM-12 PM and 2-5 PM; 6 hours’ worth of exams (Dear Economics Department, Why did you let the Registrar screw your students?)

Wednesday- 10 PM; Professor Political Science will release the essay prompts for the final essay.

Thursday - 9 AM; Said essay for Professor is due.

High Noon; 7-9 page LJST paper assigned just last Thursday due.

“In 2050, the world will probably run out of oil.

This matters if you plan to have kids…or have kids without planning.”

Dad: “See, the bacon in your salad is much better than onions, right? Do you know where bacon comes from?”

Young boy: “Pigs!”

*pause*

“Where do you come from?”

No answer from the father, but oh my god, this conversation was precious.