silence

i've been stuck on my "Researcher Background" section for a long time... so stuck in fact that i sent over a draft to samhita for feedback ( i NEVER let ppl read my unpolished writing, it's too embarrassing, unless its in blog form) anyway, samhita told me what i have is too skeletal and that i'm holding back. so i think i need to do some more free writing...

asian american studies was the only place in berkeley that i didn't feel silenced. despite being on a campus full of APAs, i always felt marginal. up until my college, i lived most of my life feeling alienated from my surroundings, especailly in high school. i was used to the loneliness and able to disguise it pretty well.

when i came to cal, i felt out of place. def i felt out of place b/c so many people on my floor had college-educated parents or came from middle class families. yes, there were a lot of APAs, but few who were interested in social justice. everyone wanted to get into the damn b-school... SO IRRITATING. when i took my first asian am class it was exhilarating. thrilling. i've been going through my college writings. many of my asian am classes required a Why are you here? response the first week. all of my responses sound so excited. i felt grounded in that space. i could speak. i learned about things i didn't know existed.

what was unsettling was when i left that safe space. my ed classes were predominantly white (even though all the classes required an interview and i'm sure they used some informal Affirmative Action)-- that space was not safe. too many racist white liberals who want to be educational missionaries. my random GE classes- everyone was Asian but was STILL trying to get into B-school. even my ethnic studies classes were not safe. you cannot be an Asian Am major and think in the black/ white paradigm (you prolly can't be a chican@ studies major either). you def cannot be an Asian Am major w/out considering how immigration hinders/ supports your access to resources in the U.S. you cannot be an asian am major w/out talking about that damn model minority myth. M3 keeps coming back and biting me in the ass. the internalization of the myth is why AAS is dying at UC Berkeley. it's why there were only 13 ppl who graduated from AAS in 2004. the pervasive nature of the myth is also what keeps the discipline so insulated from the rest of the ES department. that's why in comparative ethnic studies courses that are not taught by an APA professor, APA issues are glossed over and superficial. that's why APA students who have an interest in cultural studies don't want to be in AAS-- i've heard so many ES folks say, Asian Am is too limiting. some dumbass actually told me it was not revolutionary enough.

my thesis draft is due Monday, yet i'm still finding plenty of ways to procrastinate:

angry lil boys,
Tasty Candy,
Daddy blogs,
Biggest waste of time ever ,
More Daddy blogs,
second biggest waste of time ever ,
Plug for Gary,
Plug for Samhita,
Clothes that I could never fit into, but like to look at ,
and
Making my ears happy

beep beep

for some reason, i forgot to publish the post below abt wanting to get a scooter, that was supposed to go up on monday. oh well. anyway, today i went to actually go test drive scooters. i was looking forward to it all week long, super excited. i kept looking at my sister and saying, " i'm so excited to get a scooter! " i'd put my hands in the air like i was driving a scooter and say, "putt-putt-putt-putt-putt" . that's my scooter sound, even though i would never want to ride a scooter that actually sounded that janky...

ANYWAY, this morning i woke up all excited. while we were driving over to the Yamaha/ Honda dealer, i told my sister how i want to go skydiving again and how exhilarating it was... i was a fearless skydiver my first time around. while i was saying this i parked near the dealership (which mainly sells motorcycles, not mopeds) and glanced over at the lot full of bikes. i ended my skydiving story, turned off my engine, looked back at the dealership, looked to my sister, paused and said in a small voice, "um, there's all these big white guys over there... i'm kind of intimidated." (i imagined myself (barely clearing 5 feet 1 inch) approaching a salesman and saying in a baby voice, i wanna test out the scooters!) she agreed that the men looked intimidating so we agreed to go back on sunday w/ her friend James (a big asian dude who rides motorcycles).

we ended up going to REI instead. after REI i said, "i feel bad! i was so excited this week. we have to go back!)

SO we drove back. i got all nervous when we were approaching the dealership. turned the corner to park, made a u-turn instead and headed back home.

boo... i TOTALLY bucked under the fear of a male-dominated industry. :(

i havent done shit on my thesis in two weeks.. burnt out... hopefully will be reinspired to write or at least guilt-tripped into writing...

i came back from a 4-day so cal college tour w/ 48 high school juniors. so crazy. so fun. so stressful. so worth it. maybe will post reflections later. considering how much time i spent on a bus w/ so many people, it was inevitable that i got sick. i've been procrastinating/ healing in bed by looking up mopeds. i picture myself zipping from oakland to berkeley on this or this. i won't have to worry about quarters for parking, parking tickets, parking spaces, or gas (90 mpg on these suckers!). i'm gonna test drive them this week. i might be too scared to ride one though.... we'll see...

all of my curriculum is done biatch!

actually this is a delayed post. i finished it last monday but have not had a chance to celebrate it.

this past week has been an emotional rollercoaster, filled with a lot of.... i guess... grieving (?). perhaps more disbelief and anger. i have been trudging along and getting my work and school done though. i've actually been pretty damn productive which worries me a little. i've been told that my coping mechanism is not so good... i guess i start coping w/ stuff but once it interferes w/ my responsibilities, i cut it off and never let it run its course. for someone who's so damned sensitive this is puzzling.

also in the past two weeks or so i have felt young. most people know that i am age sensitive. i hate being referred to as young or "only 23" or the worst, "when i was your age" (by people who are only a few years older). in the past 2-3 years I have felt esp sensitive b/c everything in my life has been on super-high gear w/ a lot of responsibilities. as a result, i've always felt somewhat older (even w/ all my big ass stuffed animals on my bed). recently when i'm sitting on my floor or lying in my bed thinking about stuff that's going on i get this feeling... stronger than a feeling... not as strong as a revelation... but whatever it is, my mind takes a big gulp of air and i feel something inside me that i instinctually associate w/ being young... vulernability perhaps.

all night i had this itch on my stomach. in my half-sleep i feared that my stress rash was returning. i kept scratching it but stopped because the skin on my stomach felt all weird. i rolled around all night and kept hearing this crinkling, kept feeling sharp poke in my skin (like my rash!). i was scared... dreading the thought of missing school and work to take care of that damn rash. i was so tired though that i didnt bother to get up and really check it out. this morning i checked it out. i woke up w/ yellow post its stuck to my sheets, my pajamas, and my stomach! i lost the suckers yesterday morning. instead of being stuck together like the regular kind, these are accordian style so the pad falls apart all the time, esp when you roll on top of them in your sleep.

big, giant OOPS

i did not meet my monday deadline of having all my lesson plans done. as of this morning, i have 14/15 completed. today i met w/ this awe-inspiring teacher named Liza. liza teaches lit at community college and has her shit TOGETHER. i'm so happy that she is a teacher. anyway, what came out of this meeting was a realization that my curriculum development is way off. i have built in about 13-14 books to read in addition to some other supplemental readings. i based this off of my experience and other folk's feedback on their experiences in lit courses or freshman year reading and comp courses. i was very, very happy w/ my lesson planning until today. when i met w/ liza she told me she teaches 3 books a semester in a literature course at community college. THREE BOOKS to my 13. she broke down what it takes to teach at community college, which among other things is a lot of skill building. we had a long talk about her classes, the politics of community college, and all the stuff i should get if i want to teach there in the future. very, very helpful.

anyway, what does this 3 v 14 books mean? i have to REDO my curriculum. i whittled my list of books down to: Woman Warrior, M Butterfly, Temperature of this Water, Dictee, and Rolling the Rs, plus one student-selected reading for a total of six books (a student at Skyline told me today, MAYBE he'd sign up for a class that was going to read six books, def not 13). i'm now expanding each of these books into multiple lesson plans, which is painstaking work. i'm also building in more time for.. i'm not sure what to call it... not skill building but a lot more peer review, overview of literary elements, etc. it's a totally different course now. i'm trying to do all the reworking in 1 week too!!!! that way i'll only be behind my original schedule by one week.