Flight leaving LAX to HKG August 20
Travel
☐Pack Up
☑Book Flight
Paperwork
☑Receive Student Visa in the Mail
☑Sign up for buddy programme
Housing
☑Receive housing assignment
☑Accept housing assignment
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
After Acceptance:
Visas, Passports, and $290 later
I was accepted to study abroad at the University of Hong Kong on January 26, 2009. I guess I was walking on Cloud 9 the rest of that day.
A couple weeks before, I was anything but.
I had submitted my application on the day it was due and I was not informed that I had to get a letter of recommendation, as there were already 25 applicants for the eight available spots with the 4:00 pm deadline eight hours on the horizon. I was not happy. In a previous post, I explained how I managed to get two positive letters of recommendation within the week and turn them in.
I had done more than was instructed, actually. As I have found out, that can be a really good thing or a really bad thing; and honestly I have no idea which it was for me. I didn’t turn in the letters on time; however, I got them in relatively quickly. I was asked specifically for one letter of recommendation, but I submitted two just for good luck.
I was not told when I would be informed of the decision. I assumed that it would be late February or early March because of the preliminary deadlines involved (visa application, preliminary fees, etc.). Great, I thought, two months to wait.
I surely did not get it, or did I? I wondered. On the positive side, I would have senior standing when I departed and I did submit a 3.925 GPA (which I later had adjusted to a 4.0 due to clerical errors). Against me, I did not submit my application on time. I did not follow instructions to the “t.” There were probably over 30 applicants for the eight available spots. I only could study abroad for half a year to graduate (early) on time. On the positive side, my application was now on the top of the pile due to its late completeness.
I worried a lot. I told my friends who had known what I was doing that if I don’t get in, I don’t think I would be going abroad at all. I thought about applying in advance for spring semester, seeing as many deadlines had not come up yet. In the end, I decided to just bear it out. I thought that maybe if they saw that I had other applications pending, they would not be so inclined to accept me to such a selective option.
I was accepted to study abroad at the University of Hong Kong on January 26, 2009. I guess I was walking on Cloud 9 the rest of that day.
I called my father during the day and told him not to tell my mother, whom I called later in the day. I let out a shrill bit of excitement for which I am now ashamed. My friend and I went to this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in downtown La Jolla, where they began rolling out the bongs for hookah.
Now what did I tell you about drugs? Yep, I’m still clean.
The next day I sat down to follow through on my paperwork pursuant to the acceptance of my application.
Now I have a habit that has now proven itself to be an Achilles’ heel of sorts. I plan way far in advance. As my first roommate knows, I have a very hard time dealing with flaky people—those who don’t show up for meetings, miss planned on events frequently, etc. I plan so far in advance that often the party that I am coordinating with tells me to call back in a month (or two). My medical provider told me, “We just don’t have the calendar up that far in advance.” I’ll get back to my Achilles’ heel later.
I had about seven things to accomplish by March 10 (to get it in the Goleta (Santa Barbara) office by March 20). There was a list to check off on. I ordered transcripts from UCSD immediately. I faxed my written request to Moorpark Community College that afternoon.
After that day, it took me about another week to get everything done.
The next day, I completed my application to HKU, which was required of me under the auspices of the University of California. I got more passport photographs taken. EAP provided medical insurance under the tuition fee. So I had to read over the terms and benefits, sign and sign some waivers.
Then came the big part: my student visa.
In short, I had it easy applying for my student visa. According to my Spanish teacher in high school, her daughter studying abroad for a year in Spain had to get two medical doctors to certify her mental competency, stability, and sanity. My mainland China exchange friends had to appear at the consulate in Los Angeles. I, on the other hand, only had to fill out the forms and submit payment. HKU was to do the rest for me—an they did.
Now about that visa application: first off, I needed to have a passport with validity beyond six months from anticipated date of departure from the host country (check).
The application for a student visa was daunting. At over 10 pages long with fine print and Hong Kong English (similar to British English) I was overwhelmed. Fortunately I only needed to fill out four pages of it. In the end, it wasn’t too bad. Looking at the clock, it took me about four hours for the application and a good amount of time checking it over. Shipping it to central California cost almost $3.00 first class. That was all said and done.
Then I bought my airplane ticket. United (though not my favorite) had decent rates and decent times—leaving August 20 for arrival at Hong Kong August 21; departing December 21 for arrival at Los Angeles same day. Not bad.
I was all set. I had finished preparation for my trip several months beforehand. I was all set and ready to go.
And then it hit. Dates were posted. EAP said I couldn’t check in until August 26—a full five days after I was to arrive. Being the great planner that I am, I immediately called United and rescheduled at the cost of $290 (including the $250 penalty for the rescheduling). The next morning HKU emailed me and informed me that I could check in August 21—my originally scheduled flight.
Upset that I had just paid $290 unnecessarily, I called United and asked them if they could reverse the whole thing to how it was a mere 12 hours earlier. They did and without fee too. Unfortunately they wouldn’t refund my $290. I pleaded with everyone in the company and they refused to refund even part of it—because it was a necessary charge.
Now I know. I should wait a day or two before making such a drastic change. Oh well. I just flushed $290 down the toilet and it landed below the water table on an undeserving United Airlines.
Thanks for reading. And now back to my summer reading!
A couple weeks before, I was anything but.
I had submitted my application on the day it was due and I was not informed that I had to get a letter of recommendation, as there were already 25 applicants for the eight available spots with the 4:00 pm deadline eight hours on the horizon. I was not happy. In a previous post, I explained how I managed to get two positive letters of recommendation within the week and turn them in.
I had done more than was instructed, actually. As I have found out, that can be a really good thing or a really bad thing; and honestly I have no idea which it was for me. I didn’t turn in the letters on time; however, I got them in relatively quickly. I was asked specifically for one letter of recommendation, but I submitted two just for good luck.
I was not told when I would be informed of the decision. I assumed that it would be late February or early March because of the preliminary deadlines involved (visa application, preliminary fees, etc.). Great, I thought, two months to wait.
I surely did not get it, or did I? I wondered. On the positive side, I would have senior standing when I departed and I did submit a 3.925 GPA (which I later had adjusted to a 4.0 due to clerical errors). Against me, I did not submit my application on time. I did not follow instructions to the “t.” There were probably over 30 applicants for the eight available spots. I only could study abroad for half a year to graduate (early) on time. On the positive side, my application was now on the top of the pile due to its late completeness.
I worried a lot. I told my friends who had known what I was doing that if I don’t get in, I don’t think I would be going abroad at all. I thought about applying in advance for spring semester, seeing as many deadlines had not come up yet. In the end, I decided to just bear it out. I thought that maybe if they saw that I had other applications pending, they would not be so inclined to accept me to such a selective option.
I was accepted to study abroad at the University of Hong Kong on January 26, 2009. I guess I was walking on Cloud 9 the rest of that day.
I called my father during the day and told him not to tell my mother, whom I called later in the day. I let out a shrill bit of excitement for which I am now ashamed. My friend and I went to this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in downtown La Jolla, where they began rolling out the bongs for hookah.
Now what did I tell you about drugs? Yep, I’m still clean.
The next day I sat down to follow through on my paperwork pursuant to the acceptance of my application.
Now I have a habit that has now proven itself to be an Achilles’ heel of sorts. I plan way far in advance. As my first roommate knows, I have a very hard time dealing with flaky people—those who don’t show up for meetings, miss planned on events frequently, etc. I plan so far in advance that often the party that I am coordinating with tells me to call back in a month (or two). My medical provider told me, “We just don’t have the calendar up that far in advance.” I’ll get back to my Achilles’ heel later.
I had about seven things to accomplish by March 10 (to get it in the Goleta (Santa Barbara) office by March 20). There was a list to check off on. I ordered transcripts from UCSD immediately. I faxed my written request to Moorpark Community College that afternoon.
After that day, it took me about another week to get everything done.
The next day, I completed my application to HKU, which was required of me under the auspices of the University of California. I got more passport photographs taken. EAP provided medical insurance under the tuition fee. So I had to read over the terms and benefits, sign and sign some waivers.
Then came the big part: my student visa.
In short, I had it easy applying for my student visa. According to my Spanish teacher in high school, her daughter studying abroad for a year in Spain had to get two medical doctors to certify her mental competency, stability, and sanity. My mainland China exchange friends had to appear at the consulate in Los Angeles. I, on the other hand, only had to fill out the forms and submit payment. HKU was to do the rest for me—an they did.
Now about that visa application: first off, I needed to have a passport with validity beyond six months from anticipated date of departure from the host country (check).
The application for a student visa was daunting. At over 10 pages long with fine print and Hong Kong English (similar to British English) I was overwhelmed. Fortunately I only needed to fill out four pages of it. In the end, it wasn’t too bad. Looking at the clock, it took me about four hours for the application and a good amount of time checking it over. Shipping it to central California cost almost $3.00 first class. That was all said and done.
Then I bought my airplane ticket. United (though not my favorite) had decent rates and decent times—leaving August 20 for arrival at Hong Kong August 21; departing December 21 for arrival at Los Angeles same day. Not bad.
I was all set. I had finished preparation for my trip several months beforehand. I was all set and ready to go.
And then it hit. Dates were posted. EAP said I couldn’t check in until August 26—a full five days after I was to arrive. Being the great planner that I am, I immediately called United and rescheduled at the cost of $290 (including the $250 penalty for the rescheduling). The next morning HKU emailed me and informed me that I could check in August 21—my originally scheduled flight.
Upset that I had just paid $290 unnecessarily, I called United and asked them if they could reverse the whole thing to how it was a mere 12 hours earlier. They did and without fee too. Unfortunately they wouldn’t refund my $290. I pleaded with everyone in the company and they refused to refund even part of it—because it was a necessary charge.
Now I know. I should wait a day or two before making such a drastic change. Oh well. I just flushed $290 down the toilet and it landed below the water table on an undeserving United Airlines.
Thanks for reading. And now back to my summer reading!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Quality v. Quality
Somehow I wanted to insert this aspect of my college experience into this blog by making it relevant somehow. Here’s my shot. I have full confidence that I may express certain feelings without upsetting certain people, mostly because I am sure that most of those people are not reading my blog. Some will be glad to read this post and some might think I’m just being bitter. Please believe me when I say that I have no intention of either.
It goes back to when I was real, real little. I think it was my father who gave me an “I’m going to Harvard” rattle. Whether or not he was the giver is irrelevant. My father is one of those who “only wants the best” for me, he would say; and I do so believe in his intentions.
Entering middle school I was poised to get straight As, no doubt. In the big jump from sixth to seventh grade I guess I found myself at a crossroads. At the time it would have sounded silly to say this, and it sounds only a little less now that I’m 19, but I like (as in prefer) to think that that was the end of my formative years in a sense. From then, my opinions have changed; I grew a few feet (I think); I learned how to drive—but nothing unlike that in the course of one’s adult life. I was poised to get into Stanford and remained so until I was rejected in 2007, in December.
Was it stubborn optimism that turned (what I like to think was) misfortune into hope?
Needless to say, I didn’t get straight As in middle school, nor high school for that matter. On the bright side, I didn’t get any Cs (or lower), nor did my GPA ever dip below 3.6.
And here we get to the topic of today’s post. Yes, the two sides are both qualities. And I know I’m not alone in thinking that I have had to make some difficult decisions over the years between two (or more) perfectly and equally equitable situations. In my case, I was caught up by quantity due to my inability to make chose but a few of the many existing scenarios before me.
Was it a good decision on my part? My mother asserted to me, after it was all set and done, “You probably should have done less. I think you stretched yourself out too thin. You couldn’t concentrate on grades and now you aren’t going to be going to your top choice school.”
I replied, “I honestly wouldn’t have done anything different.” And true to my words, my mind didn’t and still doesn’t think anything different.
My seldom-existent inner romantic would say that the heart wants what the heart wants and the brain could not, at that time, overcome the wishes of the heart, for rationality was gone. The heart had become one with the brain and there was nothing to be done.
So in this post I plan to pose three major decisions of quality versus quality (with many minor ones) that I went through. You may disagree; you may agree. All I hope is that my logic shows in my actions, hopefully culminating in relevance to my upcoming study abroad experience.
My first was in middle school.
When I was approaching fifth grade, there was a decision of whether or not to go to middle school. State legislation had just promoted the sixth grade to middle school (junior high school) status. However, there was a large enough group of parents who wanted to keep their kids in elementary school for sixth grade that Westlake Hills Elementary School kept sixth grade.
Why not stay in elementary school for sixth grade? My parents, with my consent kept me at Westlake Hills for sixth grade.
A third of the way across the school district (and Thousand Oaks), a good friend of mine went to Meadows Elementary School. Their parents had voted to get rid of sixth grade entirely there. As such, my friend went to middle school one year before I did.
I got to middle school as a seventh grader in the fall of 2002. My good friend and I were still pretty chummy and I ate lunch with his group of friends for the first week or so. With good intentions (in middle-school sense) he told me that I was not to get all problems correct on a math test or homework, because that’s not cool. I was told to deliberately work every tenth problem or so wrong to this effect.
I decided not to follow this piece of advice. If I wanted a good circle of friends, they first would not fall for gimmicks that make me supposedly look cool. If they did, then they could be considered shallow, at least in part. Because of this decision, I worked hard throughout middle school. So much that I kept a full load of honors courses with a workload to match. In eighth grade, I found myself in honors science, a relatively hard class with a good teacher.
Back in the day we would get assigned seats, of course, and for one rotation I sat next to this kid who needed a bit of help. The bit turned into a lot of help, for which I was perfectly glad to assist, for we had become pretty good friends.
The next seating rotation, we did not sit next to each other any more. That was it for our friendship. I saw him outside of class one day and said hi to him, for which he ignored me in the presence of his cool friends and pretended not to know me.
Because I have chosen not to name this individual, I’ll finish out why I mentioned him. So seeing how he had befriended me for the help, I judged him as being dim-witted and in need of plenty of help. Two incidents thereafter solidified this opinion.
The first was at a dry Christmas party senior year of high school. All the party people, including myself, were seated outside in comical conversation circles. Within our own circles we were conversing with each other.
Now many of my good friends are female, so my conversation circle was pretty much girls plus me and this other guy. In an adjacent circle was a group of football and baseball jocks. With most all sports being segregated by sex, their conversation circle was comprised only of guys, if memory serves me right. In that group was the aforementioned science class “friend,” if you will. Now a star football player, he received a scholarship to (the) Cornell University in New York.
The group began poking fun at me behind my back. I don’t remember the exact dialogue, but it was nasty and I do not care to elaborate for sake of word choice, if you catch my drift. They persisted and then moved on to the other guy in my conversation circle, another friend of mine. He wasn’t so good at hiding that he was hearing the entire insult and controlled himself to stay seated in his chair.
What transpired between the aggressors and the aggressees is irrelevant, so I’ll let you speculate as to the outcome.
The second incident regarding this individual did not happen but half a year ago. By this time, he was in attendance at Cornell and knowing fully well that he was, as my dad likes to call people, an idiot, I was curious as to how he was faring.
It just so happens that I’m friends with his ex-girlfriend, who also attends UCSD. Knowing that they’d broken up because of his infidelity, I asked how he’s doing at Cornell. She said that he feels really stupid there, to which I was not surprised and suddenly finding trouble containing my running laughter.
My second was in high school.
Many of my old friends may sense what’s to come in this second major decision. They would always remark to me stuff like: “You’re so busy!” “I never see you outside of class,” or “Do you have any free time?”
At the end of eighth grade we were led through registration of classes for freshman year of high school—the upcoming year. I talked to a counselor there. She said that if I wanted to get into Stanford, I would have to work extra hard and find a passion that you revolve around. I did both, definitely, but what pushed my chances of getting over the edge to the other side of the curve was a little thing I like to call community service.
My parents used to tell me that I’m really spoiled. When they would utter it, I would hate it. Now, I would say that was somewhat true. While I did not receive everything I wanted, I received everything I needed plus more. I never received stuff like big screen TVs or video game consoles for free, as did many of my classmates, but I never had to fight for food or had to find shelter like so many 40 miles southeast of Thousand Oaks. I was not given a car when I turned 16 (or ever for that matter) but I was given near unlimited access of my parents’. Being a teenage male, my driver’s insurance rates were sky high, but my parents never asked me to get a job to help pay for it.
So I took a look at the world, so to speak. Knowing full well what many of the underprivileged do with their lives—starting on a low note and ending on a high—I should be expected to end on an even higher note, having started from a relatively high note to begin with.
From this basis, I changed in two ways. One is ongoing and the other has already pretty much happened.
The first is that I became addicted to community service. I figured that I should use my ability and good health to assist others and those less fortunate. This is still going on as I try hard to find time perform my passion for service. I donate blood whenever I can (and so should you!) though I won’t be able to donate again until January 2011 due to my recent trip to Europe and my upcoming trip to Hong Kong.
The other is liberal (in the American sense) views (much to the covert dismay of my Republican father). No one person is inherently better than another in the same way that no one country is inherently better than another. In no way should making money be the primary goal for anyone’s life. Why should one person live with $10,000 drapes on every window in every room when someone not halfway across the globe works tirelessly every day for basic necessities? How can the United States call itself a Christian nation and claim to be accepting people of all faiths at the same time? Or for that matter how can the United States claim to be accepting and fail to insure every individual the same civil rights as the next?
While I claim a dislike for the Republican Party, I do not claim a dislike for its individual members, nor conservatism as an ideology.
I included this because as I am a political science major, I intend to write heavily about politics, political economy, and globalization from Hong Kong.
So by the time I was finishing high school I had been involved with at least six organizations. I did community service throughout Boy Scouts of America, including a 440-man-hour, $2,500-budget project for Eagle Scout rank; American Red Cross (of Ventura County), where I was involved as Youth Services Chair on the Board of Directors and Westlake High School Club President; National Honor Society, which does service with a variety of local organizations; Ambassadors Club, for service to the school; Los Robles Hospital, where I assisted the friendly pharmacist with inventory and paperwork; and Thousand Oaks Youth Commission, which gave me an award.
Even though all this organizations dominated nearly every day after school, this alone did not cause me to not get the best of grades.
I had another addition—school. I know it sounds silly, but I had a thing for taking extra classes. Each and every year I took seven classes. Junior and senior years I took an additional class at Moorpark Community College. My final semester of senior I took two classes at Moorpark Community College for a grand total of 9 classes at during my final semester at Westlake High School.
At graduation I was not going to Stanford, I had a ton of community service hours (probably literally), I had a respectable GPA (though not respectable enough for the Ivys), and I was set to go to UCSD with a combined AP-community college transfer of 86 credits (4 shy of junior standing).
My third was in college.
I guess this last major decision was not so much of a decision as a justification. I had not gotten into Stanford or the Ivys. I came to Eleanor Roosevelt College at the University of California, San Diego, to make a name for myself with expectations and disappointments.
Now that I’ve spent my first year at UCSD people ask me how I like it. My response it always the same: my biggest problem with it is that too many people don’t think they belong there. Out of all the first-years I’ve talked to, I can only name a handful that say they want to and plan to graduate from UCSD. In fact, this past year I’ve had two roommates because my first transferred out after the first quarter.
The part that bothered me was that the reason they didn’t feel they belonged was because they felt they should have gotten into college elsewhere. I got plenty of Berekeleys and UCLAs as responses.
At first, I was poised to become one of the many who didn’t “belong.” But what good would that do? UCSD is a perfectly good school and actually turned out to offer a really good education in my interests.
As I’ve explained in previous posts my majors, I have been unable to find comparable programs at other universities; and at none have I been able to find a program as enriching as Making of the Modern World.
Which brings me to my next point. Students are lazy. Well, that’s not my point, but not only are students at UCSD feeling as if they don’t belong, my classmates feel like they’ve had an injustice done to them by being placed in Eleanor Roosevelt College.
Most of the hate for ERC (from those who hate) is directed at MMW. As I explained earlier, I really appreciate MMW. Most complain about its length. One spiteful Wikipedia author claimed that at six quarters, MMW is by far the longest core writing class of all of UCSD’s six colleges.
I dispute that claim. It is indeed the longest, but not by far. Revelle College has five quarters of Humanities (HUM), which appears to be a western cultures and literature course, and an additional quarter of American cultures, making their grand total six. Sixth College has three Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) lower division classes plus a colloquium for a total of four. Marshall College has three quarters of Dimensions of Culture (DOC), which many Marshall students say is useless, and the administrators are considering adding a fourth. Warren College has two writing courses plus Ethics for a total of three. And Muir College has two writing courses plus American cultures for a total of three as well.
So where is this all going? Rarely in my actions and choices have I been overall lazy. The decision to study abroad was no exception. The mountain of paperwork, multiple applications, and the money, just to name a few things. So why do it? I guess ironically going away to another university for a while would enhance the quality of my education at UCSD.
It goes back to when I was real, real little. I think it was my father who gave me an “I’m going to Harvard” rattle. Whether or not he was the giver is irrelevant. My father is one of those who “only wants the best” for me, he would say; and I do so believe in his intentions.
Entering middle school I was poised to get straight As, no doubt. In the big jump from sixth to seventh grade I guess I found myself at a crossroads. At the time it would have sounded silly to say this, and it sounds only a little less now that I’m 19, but I like (as in prefer) to think that that was the end of my formative years in a sense. From then, my opinions have changed; I grew a few feet (I think); I learned how to drive—but nothing unlike that in the course of one’s adult life. I was poised to get into Stanford and remained so until I was rejected in 2007, in December.
Was it stubborn optimism that turned (what I like to think was) misfortune into hope?
Needless to say, I didn’t get straight As in middle school, nor high school for that matter. On the bright side, I didn’t get any Cs (or lower), nor did my GPA ever dip below 3.6.
And here we get to the topic of today’s post. Yes, the two sides are both qualities. And I know I’m not alone in thinking that I have had to make some difficult decisions over the years between two (or more) perfectly and equally equitable situations. In my case, I was caught up by quantity due to my inability to make chose but a few of the many existing scenarios before me.
Was it a good decision on my part? My mother asserted to me, after it was all set and done, “You probably should have done less. I think you stretched yourself out too thin. You couldn’t concentrate on grades and now you aren’t going to be going to your top choice school.”
I replied, “I honestly wouldn’t have done anything different.” And true to my words, my mind didn’t and still doesn’t think anything different.
My seldom-existent inner romantic would say that the heart wants what the heart wants and the brain could not, at that time, overcome the wishes of the heart, for rationality was gone. The heart had become one with the brain and there was nothing to be done.
So in this post I plan to pose three major decisions of quality versus quality (with many minor ones) that I went through. You may disagree; you may agree. All I hope is that my logic shows in my actions, hopefully culminating in relevance to my upcoming study abroad experience.
My first was in middle school.
When I was approaching fifth grade, there was a decision of whether or not to go to middle school. State legislation had just promoted the sixth grade to middle school (junior high school) status. However, there was a large enough group of parents who wanted to keep their kids in elementary school for sixth grade that Westlake Hills Elementary School kept sixth grade.
Why not stay in elementary school for sixth grade? My parents, with my consent kept me at Westlake Hills for sixth grade.
A third of the way across the school district (and Thousand Oaks), a good friend of mine went to Meadows Elementary School. Their parents had voted to get rid of sixth grade entirely there. As such, my friend went to middle school one year before I did.
I got to middle school as a seventh grader in the fall of 2002. My good friend and I were still pretty chummy and I ate lunch with his group of friends for the first week or so. With good intentions (in middle-school sense) he told me that I was not to get all problems correct on a math test or homework, because that’s not cool. I was told to deliberately work every tenth problem or so wrong to this effect.
I decided not to follow this piece of advice. If I wanted a good circle of friends, they first would not fall for gimmicks that make me supposedly look cool. If they did, then they could be considered shallow, at least in part. Because of this decision, I worked hard throughout middle school. So much that I kept a full load of honors courses with a workload to match. In eighth grade, I found myself in honors science, a relatively hard class with a good teacher.
Back in the day we would get assigned seats, of course, and for one rotation I sat next to this kid who needed a bit of help. The bit turned into a lot of help, for which I was perfectly glad to assist, for we had become pretty good friends.
The next seating rotation, we did not sit next to each other any more. That was it for our friendship. I saw him outside of class one day and said hi to him, for which he ignored me in the presence of his cool friends and pretended not to know me.
Because I have chosen not to name this individual, I’ll finish out why I mentioned him. So seeing how he had befriended me for the help, I judged him as being dim-witted and in need of plenty of help. Two incidents thereafter solidified this opinion.
The first was at a dry Christmas party senior year of high school. All the party people, including myself, were seated outside in comical conversation circles. Within our own circles we were conversing with each other.
Now many of my good friends are female, so my conversation circle was pretty much girls plus me and this other guy. In an adjacent circle was a group of football and baseball jocks. With most all sports being segregated by sex, their conversation circle was comprised only of guys, if memory serves me right. In that group was the aforementioned science class “friend,” if you will. Now a star football player, he received a scholarship to (the) Cornell University in New York.
The group began poking fun at me behind my back. I don’t remember the exact dialogue, but it was nasty and I do not care to elaborate for sake of word choice, if you catch my drift. They persisted and then moved on to the other guy in my conversation circle, another friend of mine. He wasn’t so good at hiding that he was hearing the entire insult and controlled himself to stay seated in his chair.
What transpired between the aggressors and the aggressees is irrelevant, so I’ll let you speculate as to the outcome.
The second incident regarding this individual did not happen but half a year ago. By this time, he was in attendance at Cornell and knowing fully well that he was, as my dad likes to call people, an idiot, I was curious as to how he was faring.
It just so happens that I’m friends with his ex-girlfriend, who also attends UCSD. Knowing that they’d broken up because of his infidelity, I asked how he’s doing at Cornell. She said that he feels really stupid there, to which I was not surprised and suddenly finding trouble containing my running laughter.
My second was in high school.
Many of my old friends may sense what’s to come in this second major decision. They would always remark to me stuff like: “You’re so busy!” “I never see you outside of class,” or “Do you have any free time?”
At the end of eighth grade we were led through registration of classes for freshman year of high school—the upcoming year. I talked to a counselor there. She said that if I wanted to get into Stanford, I would have to work extra hard and find a passion that you revolve around. I did both, definitely, but what pushed my chances of getting over the edge to the other side of the curve was a little thing I like to call community service.
My parents used to tell me that I’m really spoiled. When they would utter it, I would hate it. Now, I would say that was somewhat true. While I did not receive everything I wanted, I received everything I needed plus more. I never received stuff like big screen TVs or video game consoles for free, as did many of my classmates, but I never had to fight for food or had to find shelter like so many 40 miles southeast of Thousand Oaks. I was not given a car when I turned 16 (or ever for that matter) but I was given near unlimited access of my parents’. Being a teenage male, my driver’s insurance rates were sky high, but my parents never asked me to get a job to help pay for it.
So I took a look at the world, so to speak. Knowing full well what many of the underprivileged do with their lives—starting on a low note and ending on a high—I should be expected to end on an even higher note, having started from a relatively high note to begin with.
From this basis, I changed in two ways. One is ongoing and the other has already pretty much happened.
The first is that I became addicted to community service. I figured that I should use my ability and good health to assist others and those less fortunate. This is still going on as I try hard to find time perform my passion for service. I donate blood whenever I can (and so should you!) though I won’t be able to donate again until January 2011 due to my recent trip to Europe and my upcoming trip to Hong Kong.
The other is liberal (in the American sense) views (much to the covert dismay of my Republican father). No one person is inherently better than another in the same way that no one country is inherently better than another. In no way should making money be the primary goal for anyone’s life. Why should one person live with $10,000 drapes on every window in every room when someone not halfway across the globe works tirelessly every day for basic necessities? How can the United States call itself a Christian nation and claim to be accepting people of all faiths at the same time? Or for that matter how can the United States claim to be accepting and fail to insure every individual the same civil rights as the next?
While I claim a dislike for the Republican Party, I do not claim a dislike for its individual members, nor conservatism as an ideology.
I included this because as I am a political science major, I intend to write heavily about politics, political economy, and globalization from Hong Kong.
So by the time I was finishing high school I had been involved with at least six organizations. I did community service throughout Boy Scouts of America, including a 440-man-hour, $2,500-budget project for Eagle Scout rank; American Red Cross (of Ventura County), where I was involved as Youth Services Chair on the Board of Directors and Westlake High School Club President; National Honor Society, which does service with a variety of local organizations; Ambassadors Club, for service to the school; Los Robles Hospital, where I assisted the friendly pharmacist with inventory and paperwork; and Thousand Oaks Youth Commission, which gave me an award.
Even though all this organizations dominated nearly every day after school, this alone did not cause me to not get the best of grades.
I had another addition—school. I know it sounds silly, but I had a thing for taking extra classes. Each and every year I took seven classes. Junior and senior years I took an additional class at Moorpark Community College. My final semester of senior I took two classes at Moorpark Community College for a grand total of 9 classes at during my final semester at Westlake High School.
At graduation I was not going to Stanford, I had a ton of community service hours (probably literally), I had a respectable GPA (though not respectable enough for the Ivys), and I was set to go to UCSD with a combined AP-community college transfer of 86 credits (4 shy of junior standing).
My third was in college.
I guess this last major decision was not so much of a decision as a justification. I had not gotten into Stanford or the Ivys. I came to Eleanor Roosevelt College at the University of California, San Diego, to make a name for myself with expectations and disappointments.
Now that I’ve spent my first year at UCSD people ask me how I like it. My response it always the same: my biggest problem with it is that too many people don’t think they belong there. Out of all the first-years I’ve talked to, I can only name a handful that say they want to and plan to graduate from UCSD. In fact, this past year I’ve had two roommates because my first transferred out after the first quarter.
The part that bothered me was that the reason they didn’t feel they belonged was because they felt they should have gotten into college elsewhere. I got plenty of Berekeleys and UCLAs as responses.
At first, I was poised to become one of the many who didn’t “belong.” But what good would that do? UCSD is a perfectly good school and actually turned out to offer a really good education in my interests.
As I’ve explained in previous posts my majors, I have been unable to find comparable programs at other universities; and at none have I been able to find a program as enriching as Making of the Modern World.
Which brings me to my next point. Students are lazy. Well, that’s not my point, but not only are students at UCSD feeling as if they don’t belong, my classmates feel like they’ve had an injustice done to them by being placed in Eleanor Roosevelt College.
Most of the hate for ERC (from those who hate) is directed at MMW. As I explained earlier, I really appreciate MMW. Most complain about its length. One spiteful Wikipedia author claimed that at six quarters, MMW is by far the longest core writing class of all of UCSD’s six colleges.
I dispute that claim. It is indeed the longest, but not by far. Revelle College has five quarters of Humanities (HUM), which appears to be a western cultures and literature course, and an additional quarter of American cultures, making their grand total six. Sixth College has three Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) lower division classes plus a colloquium for a total of four. Marshall College has three quarters of Dimensions of Culture (DOC), which many Marshall students say is useless, and the administrators are considering adding a fourth. Warren College has two writing courses plus Ethics for a total of three. And Muir College has two writing courses plus American cultures for a total of three as well.
So where is this all going? Rarely in my actions and choices have I been overall lazy. The decision to study abroad was no exception. The mountain of paperwork, multiple applications, and the money, just to name a few things. So why do it? I guess ironically going away to another university for a while would enhance the quality of my education at UCSD.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Who Do You Represent?
As this month-long hiatus suggests, I’m in the process of getting my work ethic back after a three-week vacation to Europe. I like to think this little trip to Europe was like a prelude for what I will come upon this fall.
Prior to this I had been out of the country three times—twice to Canada and once to China. My Canadian trips were a road trip and a cruise and China was a ten-day tour of Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. Much in contradiction to my expectations, Italy was like China in ways I will get to in a later post.
This trip I went with my mom and my little brother. We went to France for about a week (Paris only) where we stayed with and visited family and then Italy for two weeks (Rome, Campania, Venice, and Tuscany), where we were truly on our own.
So over the next couple posts I have chosen certain events to reflect on from this trip. These first two events bring up a point that I have already mentioned early on.
Who do you represent?
In Italy we were checking into our bed and breakfast in Sorrento. We found the owner’s assistant at the check in desk. In Europe, as many people know, there are so many languages, even if one were to only count the official ones. Unfortunately, Italian was not one of the languages I had little knowledge of. Why would you go to Italy without knowing any Italian? Well we tried.
I have reading knowledge of Italian but my speaking abilities are highly constricted. In Italy I found out just to what extent they are. Don’t worry; they improved as we went along. Beforehand I made attempt during school, between classes and clubs.
The short story is that not all went as planned.
Anyways in Europe, because of the plethora of languages, multinational organizations, especially, have to translate from one language to another via a third because of the lack of bilingual translators in the needed languages.
So I spoke Spanish with the hotel owner—and because of her choice of words, I think her competence in the language was less than mine. She called the owner to get us a key.
Now my Italian receptive fluency is questionable as well, so I only picked up the gist of it. She said that you have some clients here, etc.—and then a pause. “…Giapponesi?” she mentioned to her boss. I look at her quizzically, ready to chuckle. She saw me and tried again “cinesi?...” I maintained my look. She was telling the hotel owner that we were Japanese, and then Chinese when I gave her my look.
I don’t know how it really matters what we are, but I suppose she felt inclined to suppose. After she hung up, she asked me, “¿De dónde sois?”
To which I replied, “Los Estados Unidos.”
“Oh. Lo siento. Son los rascos.”
She meant it was our eyes. I guess it was relatively common. Being American (at least without semantic appendages) means being white to most people, including my now former roommate, he himself an Asian American. I guess despite our accents and the fact that we spoke American English, at least initially, we generally are seen as coming from China, or more frequently—Japan.
She had no trouble understanding that we were visiting from the United States. However, another incident, also in Italy, left me wondering just how educated some postal workers are.
Post offices in Italy double as currency counters. So we went into one in Amalfi (in the Campania region) to exchange some American cash for some euro.
We gave the clerk the American money and my mom gave her her passport, which she had to put in the system (probably for the police). Before she did that though, she went bill by bill and checked the security features. Reasonable, as she probably does not see American money every day (although she probably does during tourist season), it took some 25 minutes to count the money (six times) and verify security (with the assistance of two big binders and two additional employees). And in the end, they rejected our worn-out ten-dollar bill and asked us to take it to the bank instead.
Putting my mom’s passport into the system, she needed only to input the information exactly from the passport into the computer. Birthplace—Hong Kong; country—Giappone; I blinked twice. Hong Kong is definitely in China and not Japan. My mom kept saying, “Cinese, cinese” since Hong Kong is in China. And so she changed it to “Cine.”
Beneath she inputted nationality. Despite the fact that the passport has a big “USA” on top of the mugshot, she put in Cine (China). I pointed and said, “Stati Uniti” (United States). She smiled at me and then changed the nationality.
Erasing “Cine” (both in location of Hong Kong and nationality), she typed “Giappone” (Japan) twice—one in each spot. Before I could say anything she immediately submitted all the information. “Finito,” she exclaimed triumphantly.
I suppose she chose her judgment over the passport in front of her and my words to her. The good thing is we got our euro; however, INTERPOL won’t be able to find who exchanged a couple hundred dollars in Amalfi.
So I have postulated two scenarios for myself.
First, I will be accepted as an American exchange student. I will learn about my host culture with courtesy from my hosts, as they understand that I’m in unfamiliar territory. This is probably the ideal situation, especially considering I have about a month to brush up and learn Cantonese; and unfortunately I have made little progress as of recent.
The second is that the students will think I’m Chinese (culturally) and think it’s odd that I don’t understand the way things work. Perhaps I will not be afforded the courtesies host students afford to non-East Asian ethnicity exchange students.
I think that, at least in the university, my circumstances will fit into the first situation. As for travel abroad and any sightseeing I will do, it will be closer to the second…
Prior to this I had been out of the country three times—twice to Canada and once to China. My Canadian trips were a road trip and a cruise and China was a ten-day tour of Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. Much in contradiction to my expectations, Italy was like China in ways I will get to in a later post.
This trip I went with my mom and my little brother. We went to France for about a week (Paris only) where we stayed with and visited family and then Italy for two weeks (Rome, Campania, Venice, and Tuscany), where we were truly on our own.
So over the next couple posts I have chosen certain events to reflect on from this trip. These first two events bring up a point that I have already mentioned early on.
Who do you represent?
In Italy we were checking into our bed and breakfast in Sorrento. We found the owner’s assistant at the check in desk. In Europe, as many people know, there are so many languages, even if one were to only count the official ones. Unfortunately, Italian was not one of the languages I had little knowledge of. Why would you go to Italy without knowing any Italian? Well we tried.
I have reading knowledge of Italian but my speaking abilities are highly constricted. In Italy I found out just to what extent they are. Don’t worry; they improved as we went along. Beforehand I made attempt during school, between classes and clubs.
The short story is that not all went as planned.
Anyways in Europe, because of the plethora of languages, multinational organizations, especially, have to translate from one language to another via a third because of the lack of bilingual translators in the needed languages.
So I spoke Spanish with the hotel owner—and because of her choice of words, I think her competence in the language was less than mine. She called the owner to get us a key.
Now my Italian receptive fluency is questionable as well, so I only picked up the gist of it. She said that you have some clients here, etc.—and then a pause. “…Giapponesi?” she mentioned to her boss. I look at her quizzically, ready to chuckle. She saw me and tried again “cinesi?...” I maintained my look. She was telling the hotel owner that we were Japanese, and then Chinese when I gave her my look.
I don’t know how it really matters what we are, but I suppose she felt inclined to suppose. After she hung up, she asked me, “¿De dónde sois?”
To which I replied, “Los Estados Unidos.”
“Oh. Lo siento. Son los rascos.”
She meant it was our eyes. I guess it was relatively common. Being American (at least without semantic appendages) means being white to most people, including my now former roommate, he himself an Asian American. I guess despite our accents and the fact that we spoke American English, at least initially, we generally are seen as coming from China, or more frequently—Japan.
She had no trouble understanding that we were visiting from the United States. However, another incident, also in Italy, left me wondering just how educated some postal workers are.
Post offices in Italy double as currency counters. So we went into one in Amalfi (in the Campania region) to exchange some American cash for some euro.
We gave the clerk the American money and my mom gave her her passport, which she had to put in the system (probably for the police). Before she did that though, she went bill by bill and checked the security features. Reasonable, as she probably does not see American money every day (although she probably does during tourist season), it took some 25 minutes to count the money (six times) and verify security (with the assistance of two big binders and two additional employees). And in the end, they rejected our worn-out ten-dollar bill and asked us to take it to the bank instead.
Putting my mom’s passport into the system, she needed only to input the information exactly from the passport into the computer. Birthplace—Hong Kong; country—Giappone; I blinked twice. Hong Kong is definitely in China and not Japan. My mom kept saying, “Cinese, cinese” since Hong Kong is in China. And so she changed it to “Cine.”
Beneath she inputted nationality. Despite the fact that the passport has a big “USA” on top of the mugshot, she put in Cine (China). I pointed and said, “Stati Uniti” (United States). She smiled at me and then changed the nationality.
Erasing “Cine” (both in location of Hong Kong and nationality), she typed “Giappone” (Japan) twice—one in each spot. Before I could say anything she immediately submitted all the information. “Finito,” she exclaimed triumphantly.
I suppose she chose her judgment over the passport in front of her and my words to her. The good thing is we got our euro; however, INTERPOL won’t be able to find who exchanged a couple hundred dollars in Amalfi.
So I have postulated two scenarios for myself.
First, I will be accepted as an American exchange student. I will learn about my host culture with courtesy from my hosts, as they understand that I’m in unfamiliar territory. This is probably the ideal situation, especially considering I have about a month to brush up and learn Cantonese; and unfortunately I have made little progress as of recent.
The second is that the students will think I’m Chinese (culturally) and think it’s odd that I don’t understand the way things work. Perhaps I will not be afforded the courtesies host students afford to non-East Asian ethnicity exchange students.
I think that, at least in the university, my circumstances will fit into the first situation. As for travel abroad and any sightseeing I will do, it will be closer to the second…
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Pre-Departure Checklist: July 14
Travel
☐Pack Up
☑Book Flight
Paperwork
☑Receive official acceptance from HKU (in the mail)
☐Receive Student Visa in the mail
☑Submit Medical Forms by 7/1
☑Submit Itinerary by 7/1
☑Application to HKU
☑Class List
☑Register with American Embassy
☐Pack Up
☑Book Flight
Paperwork
☑Receive official acceptance from HKU (in the mail)
☐Receive Student Visa in the mail
☑Submit Medical Forms by 7/1
☑Submit Itinerary by 7/1
☑Application to HKU
☑Class List
☑Register with American Embassy
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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