A Very Long Post, on Tiananmen, the Chinese Government, and My Mother

I’m taking a class on the Tiananmen Massacre with Rowena He, a participant in herself. Her personality is the most bright, bubbly, cheerful teacher I’ve ever encountered in academia. She is also extremely personal with her stories, and has an amazing force and passion that’s very enrapturing.

The first assignment we had was to watch Tank Man, a PBS documentary on the Tiananmen Massacre. The first half, I watched with a sort of composed interest — until the part where a mother pleaded with a soldier, sobbing hysterically, regarding her son. I was working in the dhall,  and I must have had the most intense look on my face because I distinctly remember half-hearing my roommate shushing her boyfriend to leave her alone, can’t you see she’s working? When really, I was watching this documentary. Not work at all. Though the second part was on modern China and its economic trends, and was as boring as listening to a truck droll.

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Published on September 22, 2011 12:15 pm.
Filed under: Conversations, Learning, Reflections

In Which A Bad Day Makes Me Appreciate All The Little Things More

Doodle of an Angry But Not Really That Angry Day

I locked myself out of my room this morning. Twice. With a good, oh, thirty minutes between the two incidents. In addition, I have three hours of class straight from 11-2 (AKA LUNCH TIME), a meeting at 2:30 for undetermined time, section at 4, and mandatory meeting at 6. And Cambridge decided to rain.

The morning began innocuously enough. I woke up, as always. I turned on the snooze, as always. I decided against unnecessarily attending a 10am class which I am not enrolled in to sleep more, and instead actually go and pay attention to my 11am class. I decided to head to Greenhouse Cafe a little before said 11am class to get something to eat because actually attending this lecture meant I wouldn’t get food until 2. As soon as I reached Greenhouse and unenthusiastically picked out some Pop Tarts, I felt for my ID…only to find my little backpack pouch empty of its usual resident.

At this point I might have done an exaggeratedly angry fling of Pop-Tart back with its previous companions as I stomped out of Greenhouse. Also keep in the mind this is the second time in two days that I have left my ID.

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Published on September 15, 2011 9:17 pm.
Filed under: Life, Reflections

Libraries

Friday. I signed up for a Career Fair Brunch, then Career Fair with key employers was right afterwards. Instead, I spent the entire time working in the library for my Junior Tutorial assignment.

The tasks were to:

  • Find and take brief notes on the introduction to a science textbook from 1960 or earlier.
  • Find and take brief notes on a review of Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species that appeared in a 19th-century periodical
  • Find and take brief notes on a report of your choice that appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (dating back to 1665); you should choose something published before 1800.

These are, of course, things that I have nooo clue how to find. Even with the internet. At first, I was annoyed that something like this could not be solved with technology…but, there was something about doing things the manual way that had its charm.

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Published on September 12, 2011 7:40 pm.
Filed under: Learning, Life

On Long Weekends

When my mom told me to take it easy this weekend because it’s a long one, I can’t help but laugh. College has really taught me to almost dread long weekends, because there’s always MORE things that happen, and more things that drain my energy than regular weekends. This past one just…took so much out of me…

 

Friday, 9/2 (because everyone knows weekends start on Fridays)

Freshmen coming. Making poster for activities fair. Stress painting of dark clouds. Welcomed freshmen. Pointed swords at people. Saw chatted with a wushu graduate from MIT who came just to help out with the fair! Talked for a long, long time with a friend on things needed to be said. Email writing marathon, with one that eventually came out to be 2,239 words holy crap.

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Published on September 6, 2011 1:54 pm.
Filed under: Life, Travel