Having been on hiatus for the better part of the summer, I haven't had the time to try and update this blog. I've been busy having fun, e.g. being lazy and not caring about anything. I imagine it's the last chance I'll have to be like this for a long time. I'm about to jump off into college and earn a degree at the glorious UCSB.
However, there are four experiences I want to share with you. Four neat and compartmentalized points that highlight my summer and give way to my pandering rhetoric. They are, in chronological order: a party, an orientation, a trip, and a bank account.
1) A Party That Defined A Class
It wasn't really a party as it was a way for Alameda High School to drain money from you. Seventy dollars earned you admission into a redecorated gym that housed endless food and drink, and tons of ways to amuse yourself. Not to mention the free arcade machines and rock wall. It lasted from eight at night to five the next morning.
It was a last meeting, one last chance to sign yearbooks and play games with the people you knew before splitting off toward your various life paths. I never saw any tears, but the tight hugs at the end betrayed some sort of solemn sadness.
We were celebrating the end of a chapter of our lives. We were letting go of the small and trivial games we played as teens and reluctantly jumping off into adulthood. It was the last night for us to understand that being young does not last forever. One last night of a few hours to do what we had been dreading since we started high school.
We had to let go.
By the time it was over, I had climbed the rock wall twice, ate some hot dogs, played too many rounds of ping pong, and had laughed the hardest I could as a high school senior. So I took what I could from that, and walked away understanding one of the very many lessons you learn as an adult:
You have to know when to move on.
2) S.S.D.P.
College is always a scary experience to those jumping in for the first time. Or so I've heard. At least, that's what the intro speaker at UCSB tells you when he's explaining all the support services they have on campus. He says it's okay to be scared, and that usually everybody has an emotional breakdown the first month where they break into tears and call home to their parents. He also says, if you're going to have sex, talk to him first in the university center so he can hand you free condoms.
Other than that, getting to know your campus is quite an experience. Most college campuses cover more than two square miles minimum, making it a little city for you to explore. Hint of advice: find a good reference point. It could be a belltower, a church spire, or a very tall tree.
Not to mention that UCSB is a very beautiful campus. The place is a jewel by the sea, sporting twenty miles of bike path, and long beaches with high waves that smack the cliffside. On a sunny day, it's a haven for surfers, joggers, and perverts who want eye candy.
You should be able to pick up the general aura of your campus on the first day of orientation. What I picked up was a very crude lesson in cultural spacial displacement.
In other words, you should not be surprised when you find yourself muttering S.S.D.P.
Same Shit, Different Place.
I guess it's one of those things you have to learn as an adult when you start traveling further and further away from your hometown. The people and the culture may be different, but you'll always notice things that won't surprise you. It teaches you not to assume anything new just because you're a couple hundred miles away from home. People will still be late, attitudes won't change, and burgers will still taste surprisingly good.
It's just another way of saying that no matter where you are in the world, stay true to what you know about people and places. You might be more right than you think.
3) The Trip Back Home
My trip to Hong Kong was in tradition to my family's wishes to come and visit them every other summer or so. My grandmother doesn't have that many years left, and I really owe it to her to sit down and have dinner with the extended family every now and then, even though there's a language barrier.
And there lies my dilemma. To properly understand my problem, I have to tell you a little about myself. I came over to the United States from China when I was barely four years old. Ever since then, I've grown up in California mastering English as my primary language. However, I still understand Cantonese since my parents communicate through it. I can understand them, but I can't write or read it.
This is the crux behind my identity crisis. Where am I supposed to feel more comfortable in, the hometown where I don't speak the language, or my new American home where there aren't many Asians?
I think it pains my grandmother to know that I can understand her but that she can't understand me. It's just not convenient to have a translator buffer my stories to my family, hoping they'll understand American situations and adventures.
And here, in the United States, I hardly feel at home. Sure, California has a large smattering of Asians, but you have to understand that only two percent of the American population is made up of people from Asia. It really sets up the illusion that I can't fit in anywhere, even if it is just the language barrier. The cultural identity I have is a volatile mix of two countries I don't feel comfortable with.
Moral of this story: You have to come up with your own identity to understand who you are. It's a personal culture that transcends country or language. When someone asks you who you are rather than what you are, this is the identity that you have to show. Because in the end, if you're not Chinese, French, German, black, white, or purple, you have to be somebody. And that somebody should not be classified into any easy categories.
4) Everyone Loves Money
My last point concerns me sitting there in a bank while my parents do the talking in setting up my bank account. Seeing as how I'm going to be in college soon, I'm going to be have to be fiscally responsible, and take on the role my parents do on a weekly basis.
The way I see it, there are three main types of responsibility you go through in life: emotional, fiscal, and parental. You learn emotional the earliest, understanding the cause and effect your actions have on your emotions and the emotions of others at any given time. It helps you understand social rules and etiquette. Then you learn fiscal responsibility, which is simply taking care of your finances. You have to understand how to earn, save, and spend. Finally, parental responsibility is you taking care of your children, should you choose to have them. Having kids means you have to feed them, teach them, and basically make sure they don't die on your watch.
I think I've mastered emotional, but still, having access to money is a daunting thing. In college, I'm guessing it's an uphill battle to balance the budget, provided you're not too drunk or busy "studying".
In conclusion, bullet pointing your summer into four little anecdotes is probably how you should organize your life when you get the chance. Analyze life moments when you have the time, and pull from them the knowledge that helps you grow and succeed.
Or something like that.
However, there are four experiences I want to share with you. Four neat and compartmentalized points that highlight my summer and give way to my pandering rhetoric. They are, in chronological order: a party, an orientation, a trip, and a bank account.
1) A Party That Defined A Class
It wasn't really a party as it was a way for Alameda High School to drain money from you. Seventy dollars earned you admission into a redecorated gym that housed endless food and drink, and tons of ways to amuse yourself. Not to mention the free arcade machines and rock wall. It lasted from eight at night to five the next morning.
It was a last meeting, one last chance to sign yearbooks and play games with the people you knew before splitting off toward your various life paths. I never saw any tears, but the tight hugs at the end betrayed some sort of solemn sadness.
We were celebrating the end of a chapter of our lives. We were letting go of the small and trivial games we played as teens and reluctantly jumping off into adulthood. It was the last night for us to understand that being young does not last forever. One last night of a few hours to do what we had been dreading since we started high school.
We had to let go.
By the time it was over, I had climbed the rock wall twice, ate some hot dogs, played too many rounds of ping pong, and had laughed the hardest I could as a high school senior. So I took what I could from that, and walked away understanding one of the very many lessons you learn as an adult:
You have to know when to move on.
2) S.S.D.P.
College is always a scary experience to those jumping in for the first time. Or so I've heard. At least, that's what the intro speaker at UCSB tells you when he's explaining all the support services they have on campus. He says it's okay to be scared, and that usually everybody has an emotional breakdown the first month where they break into tears and call home to their parents. He also says, if you're going to have sex, talk to him first in the university center so he can hand you free condoms.
Other than that, getting to know your campus is quite an experience. Most college campuses cover more than two square miles minimum, making it a little city for you to explore. Hint of advice: find a good reference point. It could be a belltower, a church spire, or a very tall tree.
Not to mention that UCSB is a very beautiful campus. The place is a jewel by the sea, sporting twenty miles of bike path, and long beaches with high waves that smack the cliffside. On a sunny day, it's a haven for surfers, joggers, and perverts who want eye candy.
You should be able to pick up the general aura of your campus on the first day of orientation. What I picked up was a very crude lesson in cultural spacial displacement.
In other words, you should not be surprised when you find yourself muttering S.S.D.P.
Same Shit, Different Place.
I guess it's one of those things you have to learn as an adult when you start traveling further and further away from your hometown. The people and the culture may be different, but you'll always notice things that won't surprise you. It teaches you not to assume anything new just because you're a couple hundred miles away from home. People will still be late, attitudes won't change, and burgers will still taste surprisingly good.
It's just another way of saying that no matter where you are in the world, stay true to what you know about people and places. You might be more right than you think.
3) The Trip Back Home
My trip to Hong Kong was in tradition to my family's wishes to come and visit them every other summer or so. My grandmother doesn't have that many years left, and I really owe it to her to sit down and have dinner with the extended family every now and then, even though there's a language barrier.
And there lies my dilemma. To properly understand my problem, I have to tell you a little about myself. I came over to the United States from China when I was barely four years old. Ever since then, I've grown up in California mastering English as my primary language. However, I still understand Cantonese since my parents communicate through it. I can understand them, but I can't write or read it.
This is the crux behind my identity crisis. Where am I supposed to feel more comfortable in, the hometown where I don't speak the language, or my new American home where there aren't many Asians?
I think it pains my grandmother to know that I can understand her but that she can't understand me. It's just not convenient to have a translator buffer my stories to my family, hoping they'll understand American situations and adventures.
And here, in the United States, I hardly feel at home. Sure, California has a large smattering of Asians, but you have to understand that only two percent of the American population is made up of people from Asia. It really sets up the illusion that I can't fit in anywhere, even if it is just the language barrier. The cultural identity I have is a volatile mix of two countries I don't feel comfortable with.
Moral of this story: You have to come up with your own identity to understand who you are. It's a personal culture that transcends country or language. When someone asks you who you are rather than what you are, this is the identity that you have to show. Because in the end, if you're not Chinese, French, German, black, white, or purple, you have to be somebody. And that somebody should not be classified into any easy categories.
4) Everyone Loves Money
My last point concerns me sitting there in a bank while my parents do the talking in setting up my bank account. Seeing as how I'm going to be in college soon, I'm going to be have to be fiscally responsible, and take on the role my parents do on a weekly basis.
The way I see it, there are three main types of responsibility you go through in life: emotional, fiscal, and parental. You learn emotional the earliest, understanding the cause and effect your actions have on your emotions and the emotions of others at any given time. It helps you understand social rules and etiquette. Then you learn fiscal responsibility, which is simply taking care of your finances. You have to understand how to earn, save, and spend. Finally, parental responsibility is you taking care of your children, should you choose to have them. Having kids means you have to feed them, teach them, and basically make sure they don't die on your watch.
I think I've mastered emotional, but still, having access to money is a daunting thing. In college, I'm guessing it's an uphill battle to balance the budget, provided you're not too drunk or busy "studying".
In conclusion, bullet pointing your summer into four little anecdotes is probably how you should organize your life when you get the chance. Analyze life moments when you have the time, and pull from them the knowledge that helps you grow and succeed.
Or something like that.
