bottomofthefoodchain.blogspot.com - internship blog
dustandsouls.blogspot.com - crafts blog (to maintain my sanity)

miscellaneous stuff will probably still go here.

i was right - blogger is better, and ridiculously addictive! and so is making cards. here's my favorite one so far:

Finally finished moving! That was really bad. I am completely sore and have not slept in about 48 hours or so but I am feeling a little satisfied for getting through this.

POWER SUMMER STARTS TOMORROW. GO!

Summer creeps closer. More and more I am determined to be a banker with a soul - a creative one, if not a moral one.

I can blame these airy resolutions on a lot of things: the weather, the boredom, but mostly the gloom of being an economics major. It is a particularly unglorious field, no real dreams and nowhere to go, and it is disheartening after spending six years at Brearley loving fiction that I have no time at all for that anymore. It has taken a toll on my writing, my thinking, my conscience. And now that I'm trying to revive it all, I am finding that in an age of computers it is difficult to recapture the conscience of the pen. (Words have souls but not Word documents.)

There is something stale about this place. It is hard to do well, especially since I left too much of my heart at home, at Brearley, in the fields of Mongolia (all these real places!), to devote to the dry study of models. Even real world concerns like poverty and unemployment are lines on paper here, variable, theoretical, unemotional. Cruel and cold. I am dry.

This summer I will go places, see things - all from my cubicle! - and live to tell the tale. I think I am too familiar with the city in all its landscapes to make too much out of it but there are always vacations. (Places on the radar for next year: Seattle this summer, Bahamas in January, Costa Rica in March. We think big, but are unwilling to fly too far.) Meanwhile, I'll find some surprises and small delights to wonder over: boutiques made for window shoppers, breaths of air conditioning on a muggy July day, all the Jamba Juices in midtown.

It is past 11 AM and Roy is still asleep. His face, half-concealed by the blanket but exposing his mouth (gaping wide, as usual - oh how I've grown to love that), makes for a charming black and white portrait of lazy Mather mornings. Trifling, but I suppose it's these things I'll come to miss most come summer.

Look closely at the circled instructions.

"China Says Firms Exported Tainted Protein to U.S."
"China Food Mislabeled, US Say"
"From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Medicine"
"In China, Additive to Animals' Food is an Open Secret"
"Another Chemical Emerges in Pet Food Case"
"China Tells Little About Illness That Kills Pigs, Officials Say"

Sometimes I am so ashamed to be Chinese.

As always, I wasted away the weekend!  Not even sure what I did on Saturday...but yesterday Roy and I went to Mayfair (this street-fair thing held in Cambridge every May) and then to see Spiderman 3.  The movie was similar to the first, I felt (I never saw the second) - writhingly awkward at times, decent graphics, okay story.  There were moments I really liked, and moments that I was not sure whether to love or hate (such as the scene with Tobey Maguie strutting down Fifth Ave, looking ridiculously toolish).  I am sure that fans of the series will enjoy it, minus the awkwardness.  After the movie, we had dinner in Chinatown (mmm...fried udon is the best!) and then came back...and I fell asleep.

From now until Friday, however, I am going to be in a super working mode!  Two papers - both around 15 pages - and I have not started writing, although I have done a bit of research for each.  I don't expect the ec paper (a lit review of the economics of Broadway shows) to be too challenging - it consists of reading 20 papers and summarizing them.  The China paper (is Chinese educational inferiority a myth?) proves to be harder, but more interesting.  Below I will summarize my findings, if only to motivate myself to actually start writing.

I don't know how many people besides me follow all the news about China...lately the focus has been on pet food and poisonings in Panama.  A while back, the Times ran a magazine story on 'Re-education' in China - the country's drive to introduce methods of education that promote the development of more well-rounded individuals.  China's education system is based on memorizing facts.  You sit in a room, listen to a teacher, take notes.  Then you go home, read the books, and memorize them.  No real discussion classes, little cooperation from classmates.   Twelve years of this prepares you to take the gaokao, the National College Entrance Examination, the score on which determines where you go to college.  It's a pretty harsh system.

The media, understandably, focuses a lot on China nowadays, and one hot topic has been the quality of the individual that emerges after this process.  American corporations complain that Chinese workers perform badly on the job because they lack creativity and practical skills.  And just in terms of common sense, an education system that deemphasizes initiatve and creativity (not to mention, social skills) does give rise to a certain kind of worker: attentive, detail-oriented and great at test-taking - but ultimately challenged by broader tasks requiring him/her to step outside of the box.

Is this media perception true?  Why does it arise?  Where does it come from?  These are various questions that I've been dealing with, and asking fellow students who came from China themselves.  As I expected, most of them acknowledged that the Chinese system is flawed.  But they are all keenly loyal to their high school educations - all of them said, without hesitation, that if given the choice to choose between high school in China and high school in America, they would have still gone through the Chinese system.  This suggests that, at least from the perception of these students who probably know best, the Chinese system creates some kind of value that is not captured by the news media.

Whoo!  This has gotten me a little more stoked about actually writing.  There are a multitiude of topics that I need to cover (luckily - or unluckily - I have 15 pages), and I guess I'l start by making a list.  Then I'll synthesize all my interviewers' responses, and finally start reading the various literature I've gathered.  I'm pumped!

...and I'm kind of hungry, now that I think about it....maybe I'll go get something to eat first...?

I am twenty years old today!

Roy and I celebrated with dinner at P.F. Chang's.

Almost a year, and I still cannot forget the grassland.

I sprained my ankle yesterday hopping over a mud puddle in Central Park.

THIS SUCKS

The last couple of weeks have been good to me. Roy and I both got the summer internships we wanted - him at Microsoft, me at Banc of America Securities. As a result, our junior year is sure to be luxurious by college standards. High on my list of priorities is getting better furniture for our room, and then going on more vacations (Bahamas, Europe, Belize, etc). And then I can spend as much as I want on bubble tea and shoes. It's going to be amazing.

So this summer I'll be spending ten backbreaking weeks at BofA, first in Investment Banking and then in Sales and Trading. In preparation for my interviews (a grueling process in and of itself), I've been devouring the Wall Street Journal every day for a couple of weeks now. While my phone interview first round was terrifying and went horribly, my second round was really great and much easier. In any case I feel really lucky.

I'm also hoping that after my job ends in August I'll have some time to fly to Seattle and see Roy again and the West Coast for the first time. His job lasts longer than mine, so he'll probably still be there after I've finished.

Anyway...recruiting has been like a fifth class in terms of stress, so it's a huge relief to be back to the daily grind. I've got a bunch of midterms and papers coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'll probably be back in New York for spring break for a period of time.

So, I've sold my soul, at least for the summer. We'll see how it goes!

From tomorrow evening til Friday afternoon I have to act like a professional adult. Afterwards, I will go home, eat some Chinese food and rest in relief. Saturday I can go back to being a college student.

Job interviews suck!!!

I was in Minnesota for winter break, at Roy's house in Bemidji. We baked a cake, made three huge plates of sushi, blended countless smoothies, cooked our own tapioca pearls and folded dumplings. We saw The Good Shepherd. We met some of Roy's friends and went to the Science Center, a smaller version of the Museum of Science, only better because they have a chinchilla. We bought a Wii (it seems that the demand is more manageable in small towns) that will stay with Roy's mother (so she can play Wii Sports) and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess which is way darker than the rest but so fun! We spent three days down in the Twin Cities, mostly at the Mall of America, as well as another day in Fargo searching for Wiimotes which were sold out more or less all the way from Bemidji to Fargo. We ate a lot and slept even more.

It was a strange experience being in the Midwest. We went to Target and Walmart more times in two weeks than I normally go in a year, drove everywhere, saw deer on the sides of the roads, and went tramping around out on Roy's land. It was at once bewildering and breathtaking, as he was explaining the mold hills and deer tracks to me, to see this wild rural side to my boyfriend. We took pictures with Paul Bunyan and his emasculated ox Babe, tried to convince Roy's mom unsuccessfully to get a cat or guinea pig or chinchilla, got Roy a haircut (thank goodness, it was getting scruffy again) and had a wonderful wonderful time.

However, it was not cold. Apparently even rural northern Minnesota gets globally warmed because it snowed only for one day and only two inches, whereas normally it's supposed to be like waist-high or something, and it was 34 degrees rather than like 10. But I still thought it was cold.

Other strange things? They have a well. Before Roy told me that they owned a well and described it to me I thought all wells were still brick column contraptions with buckets. This one apparently involves softener (I still don't actually know what that is).

I also read 'Marley and Me' on the plane. Made me laugh and cry. Definitely a light, feel-good book.

I think I'm going to love owning a house and making a home, if all vacations are like this - just filled to the brim with time to be warm and loved.

Pictures to come later!

Last year turned out to be the most wonderful year of my life so far...here's to hoping that this one is even better!

Happy New Year everyone!

PS - Christmas cards didn't happen, because I forgot them in Cambridge, MA when I left for Bemidji, MN, so they will go out during reading period. It's also partially Roy's fault because he told me that we were going to get personalized cards with our pictures on them to send out - and then never organized this. Sorry!

Saturday the 16th was our anniversary.

What a day. What a year.

I have the best boyfriend.

It's that time again!

Leave your address in a comment if you'd like me to send you a Christmas card this year!

All comments are screened.

Worth a look.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=uscc_part1

Lisa put one up on her Xanga, so here's mine.

1. Clothes

What girl doesn't want these? I don't understand how this happens, but every year I acquire more and more clothes, but what I actually wear constitutes about 40% of what I have, at best. I need specifically, a solid white long-sleeved shirt that will layer well under my blue cable-knit sweater. Some pairs of Victoria's Secret's new line of tagless underwear would be nice too. Finally, I need some business outfits, skirts and blouses and things to mix and match, and a decent looking black or pin-striped blazer to top the whole thing off.

2. Shoes

Due to carelessness, the pair of black Converses that I got in Beijing for the equivalent of $15 were left in a dorm room and possibly discarded by the staff. Since then, I have been reluctant to spend another $40 on them, but the fact remains that I need shoes that are not flip-flops. Frigid toes are not a pleasant way to start off the day. Also, a pair of snow boots would be great, because I somehow put a hole in the ones I had last year. Since I just bought a pair of rubber rainboots and have since discovered that walking around in Cambridge snowstorms in only sneakers is actually not preferable to having specialized footwear for such occasions, I'm actually really eager to acquire these. Hopefully Lisa is working on this. Finally, a pair of simple black pumps that don't hurt.

3. Blender

Will possibly be another contributing factor to my newfound sense of domestic content, the blender will ideally save me many trips to Boston Tea Stop when I get that smoothie urge. Instead I will whip up strawberry smoothies whenever I feel like it. Trader Joe's sells frozen peaches, strawberries, and other delights, and for ice cream and yogurt we can just steal from the dining hall.

4. New Bag for Books

The bag I currently carry, a bright Lesportsac imitation from China (I mean, Lesportsac is cheap enough not to deserve imitations, but it was the only bag the size I wanted, and Xiushuijie was the only place I could think of to go) that is holding up remarkably well for a fake (the bottoms of the handles of Jing Jing's were feathery tatters by the third week; mine is still in perfect condition), is unsuitably colored for winter and interviews. I need something safely black or brown, yet large and sturdy enough to hold a laptop and several large books, as well as the occasional Gatorade or Odwalla.

5. Career Counseling and a Summer Internship

I do not want to be an investment banker anymore, and microfinance is not going to pay, at least not at the internship level. What do I do? Dad is not helping, Harvard isn't helping, Prep is not helping because they all want me to screw my soul and sell it to Goldman Sachs.

6. Watch

I have not had one of these for maybe a year now. It'd be nice to have one again, although not necessary. But more specifically, I need a watch that is set to the schedule that the Mather shuttles follow, because our room clocks certainly aren't.

7. Book Recommendations

I have not read a book that isn't for school since the sixth Harry Potter, and I need to make up for lost time. There are certain categories I go for: dense, fleshy novels like Corelli's Mandolin, snappy, witty romances like Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field (although perhaps a little more creative), and trashy historical romance novels, a la Catherine Coulter (soooooo good).

8. Manicure and Pedicure

It's amazing how neat, colorful nails affect your self-esteem. That being said, my toenails look a little sad, and my fingernails are worn out from being nibbled on all the time (excellent procrastination). Internal peace and external beauty are closely related. TRY IT TODAY.

9. Christmas Cards

From every single one of you. It's an annual thing, so let's do it again! I'll send you one if you send me one!

Webb has declared victory, even though Allen has not conceded yet. Nevertheless the Democrats have finally gained control of Congress, and it's about time. As wowbagger1987 said, democracy makes me pretty damn happy right now.

This does not, however, mean that all of our problems are at an end, and seeing Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth has made me think a little bit more about the nature of people, and of course nature itself.

First of all, the movie is good. It's the first time in my experience that the subject of global warming has been presented in such a way that I didn't feel disgusted and annoyed by the end. Environmentalists are annoying people, probably right up there with Peta activists, all self-righteous and pushy, not to mention usually dressed badly.

I don't quite know how Al Gore did it, but he got to me. Maybe it was the snippets of his own life, filled with enough pathos to make me sympathize. Maybe it was the sad little animation of the polar bear helplessly poking at an ice floe that disintegrated before his eyes. Maybe it was just the way everything seemed to make perfect sense. Whatever it was, it worked - I now consider myself a staunch enemy of global warming.

Yet Gore said in his documentary that despite all his attempts to engage politicians, to spark their interests in this issue, there seemed to be a general...deadness about it. The cause of that, of course, is a problem that plagues much more of us than just politicians, but the nature of political office exacerbates it. It's the appeal of short term gratification. I learned a formula for it in psychology last year but I don't think it needs to get that fancy. People are just less willing to think about things that may seem undesirable now that are definitely good in the future. For most of us this amounts to a little procrastination here and there, but for politicians, appealing to this side of humanity gets them reelected, so Democrat or Republican, they all do it. As a result, issues that will affect us in the long-term suffer; they tend not to be on the tips of peoples' tongues, and thus are low on political agendas.

As humans our capacity to survive has always been synonomous with our capacity to reason. What separates us from animals is our ability to think ahead, to think above primal urges like hunger and lust. As a result, despite the inherent frailties in our hairless, soft bodies, we have flourished and conquered the world.

But implicit in the use of our higher mental faculties is a responsibility that we do not irrevocably damage the planet for all its other lifeforms. Animals and plants certainly do not deserve to suffer for our misdeeds, but then aside, by dooming the planet we are dooming ourselves. I fail to see why people just think a little and realize what we're doing, and call upon these powers of reason, to work to benefit the earth rather than taking from the earth to benefit ourselves.

The Democrats are now in power, and I charge them with this mission: to change the way people think about global warming, to make a future disaster into a pressing concern now.

"Post your thoughts...but keep it anonymous," instructs the website. In the past few weeks Harvard students have kept it pretty tame, and the posting rate's been maybe 10, 20 posts per day. Some old comments:

"The seats in the main reading room are reaaaaaallly uncomfortable...."

"lesotho got a new flag today. it's ugly"

"it's an interesting adjustment going from being at the top, grade-wise,
to being consistently in the bottom third. at best. oh well, at least i
have the great social--oh, wait. fuck."

"im so overwhelmed by work that i find i cant even start anything
because i'll feel guilty about not doing something else so i just end
up doing nothing, like surfing boredatlamont."

"2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5
2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5
2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5 2+2=5"

But now, the sexual repression of Harvard students has overflowed onto the website, it seems, because the posts are about things like library bathroom hookups and futon stains. Not to mention, there's a new post probably once every 5-10 seconds.

I'll bet it's the same group of people posting over and over again. I also bet if they got out more rather than sit glued to that website all day, they'd actually get laid rather than just talk about it.