How I'm staying true to myself

As a freshman at a boarding school that has kids who may be up to five years older than me, I’m beginning to feel the struggles of being the youngest.  These past two weeks, I’ve been trying to come to terms with myself upon recognition that some students in the school were talking behind my back.  I've been thinking about how to approach this situation and I've been formulating how I'm feeling this past week.

I think I can fairly say I’m a daring freshman.  I’ve been outspoken during club meetings [especially investment club], I’m not afraid to talk to upperclassmen, I still wear my BlueCard on a lanyard around my neck, I study in the tacitly circumscribed “upperclassmen” area at the library, I performed in Grasshopper, which is 95% esoteric to upperclassmen.  Last week, I was told that these traits are what make me an easy target.

Upon leaving BB&N, my advisor from eighth told me “stay true to yourself.”  This is me; the double Patagonia, public speaking loving, BlueCard wearing girl who doesn’t let age determine whom she can make friends with.  That is me.  When I found out that some upperclassmen and kids in my grade were talking behind my back, it was hard to continue to follow this advice, to stay true to myself.  I was targeted for not sticking to the freshman norms.  

I talked with my advisor from Andover.  We had a long conversation about how to combat this and at the end, we thought the best plan of action was to help me build mental fortitude.  

My advisor told me a story that is meant to act as guidance for helping me combat hurtful criticism.  My advisor played ice hockey for Harvard and later in the Olympics, and she remembered how when she was an ice hockey player, she was always frustrated when her coach called her out.  Her coach would always tell her what she should do in each play, and what she should do to improve.  My advisor was very annoyed by this, and she asked her coach why me?  Why tell me this?  Why not talk to other players?  Her coach replied, “because I know you can do it.”

It’s because some people feel that I can do it, I can break the well established social norms for freshman at this school and they feel threatened by my assertiveness and my confidence in what I do.  I genuinely feel that freshman are very separated from the rest of the school: we’re like our own clan.  My advisor told me it’s all an act of protection and safety.  When someone [me in this case], finds the gut to step outside of this clan, of the school norms, people feel threatened.  And for many people, their method to combat this feeling of unsafeness is to bad mouth and bring down that person who’s trying to step up.  

If other people are trying to take me down, it means I’m doing a good job, both stepping out of social norms and staying true to myself.  If others are trying to take me down, it means they feel that I’m succeeding.  If I’m succeeding, I can’t give up now and turn back into that freshman clan; I’ve got to keep going.  

To the indecisive

I have a friend who is indecisive.  Decision making is not a strong suit and it’s something he does not like to do.  Even the simplest decisions cannot be made by this friend of mine.  I’m trying to encourage him to make decisions.  Yesterday, when walking back from town, I asked him, do you want to go to the library or back to Isham?  I am not exaggerating: this decision took him 5 minutes to make.  There were both pros and cons to going back to Isham or directly to the library, and I felt ambivalent towards both.  Nevertheless, this decision took him at least 5 minutes to make while we were walking back. When he made the decision to go to Isham so I could sign in and pick up some sheet music, I asked him, which route should we take [there were three options].  This decision took him less time to make, but he continued to go back and forth between which road we took back to Isham.  At last he’d made a decision.  

I’m a proponent of the power of decision making.  There are simply too many opportunities and options in life of which route we are to follow each and every day.  Sean Covey sums it up perfectly, we are the pilots of our life and we drive which direction we want to go each day.  Decisions from when to wake up, to what order to do finish my homework, to what equipment to use at the gym.  I like to think that each decision I make today will impact tomorrow; everything is interconnected.  

Yet I understand that not everyone is like me.  Not everyone has an unequivocal plan of daily action, and even though I do, it doesn’t always unfold the way I’d plan.  But for my friend and for those who are indecisive, through rumination, I think I have one thing to say about decision making:

it doesn’t have to be complicated, but if we make the best decision each time we are put into that box, in the long run, we won’t be faced with as many critical, precarious decision making moments.

How my bad week relieved itself

This week was indisputably stressful.  It began on the wrong foot, continued on the wrong foot, and yesterday, everything was resolved.  When I look back on this past week, I keep turning to something I wrote about earlier this year: nothing is as bad as it seems.  Too often, I

Photo I took when I was trying to convince myself that life is beautiful

find myself overdramatizing the outcomes of a situation.  I let myself dream up all the worst outcomes, and these potential outcomes add additional, unnecessary stress to me.    

I believe attitudes are contagious, which is why I try to avoid sharing negative thoughts on this blog.  However, this is quite relevant to my life right now.

My week in a sum [or more, all the bad things that have happened this week]:

• Monday: woke up to find I’d knocked over my bamboo plant on my desk when I was sleeping.  Soaked my phone and my iPad.  My iPad case wasn’t functioning.  I was very worried about that.  I stressed I would have to buy a new one and that I wouldn’t be able to use my iPad for a long time because it was broken.  That was too extreme: I can still use my iPad even if the keyboard case doesn’t work.   
• Tuesday: I found out I’d lost my music binder.  This binder contains approximately 5 years worth of music learning in it.  It has two music books and tons of random music sheets.  I had lost it all.  I felt I had lost all the hard work I’d put into the instrument because that was my last connection to what I’d learnt from my old piano teacher, who taught me for almost 10 years.  It wasn’t the music that was valuable to me: it was the fingerings and the notes and the ideas that were written on them about how to play the music.  This incident made me realize how much my music means to me.  I don’t think this epiphany would have come to me if I didn’t lose my music.
• Wednesday: I thought one my friends was talking negatively about me behind my back.  I was hurt that this would happen.  I ignored my friend for a solid two days until Friday.
• Thursday: I worked on my math homework that afternoon, but found I had a question.  I went to math study center at night to ask for some help.  I didn’t get the help I needed, but the worst part was when I returned back to my dorm, I found I’d left all the math homework I’d completed that afternoon in the math room when I went to ask for help!

Friday was the big hitter when everything I thought could possibly go wrong regained itself.  I found my music binder that night in the practice rooms at Graves.  Then I found out my iPad keyboard was still working after completely drying out for a couple days.  And my math homework was short enough that I had time to redo it all [it was good review].  As for my friend, I found the gut to approach and talk about the situation.  It was a crucial conversation that we had, because there was a misunderstanding between us.  I’m still grateful that I read Crucial Conversations this summer, as I’ve once again found myself employing the tactics used.  

Few things in life are as bad as they seem.  When I have a lot of stuff to do, I make lists using Reminders on my phone.  There always seems to be a lot of things to do in my head, but when it’s written down, the same mental checklist seems shorter.  This is how I’m going to approach Finals week.

Fall's the Saddest Season

A lot of people say winter is the saddest season of the year.  It’s dark at 4 in the afternoon, you awake to darkness, and your jacket never comes off.  Every year, I always find fall to be the saddest season.  It’s an odd time of year: the days are shorter but it’s always very bright.  But when I stop and observe the quality of the light, it’s different from the light of summer; the light of fall is more golden, it falls at a more indirect angle, and when it shines on the red of the maple tree leaves, it creates the most sensational golden red hue.  

Fall provokes memories.  When I walk outside in the afternoon, with the sun glinting off the red trees, hearing the crunch of the fallen leaves underneath my feet, buried underneath my warmest jackets already, memories of the closing year come into my thoughts. I think about what I’ve accomplished this year.  I think about where I’ve gone this year.  I think about how I’ve grown this year.  I think about where I’ve come from.  All these memories pour into my head in fall.  It’s interesting, rarely does it happen in summer.  Fall has a cool and crisp taste to it that’s simultaneously warming.  This time of year passes by ineffably fast.  And it’s hard to say why.  That makes fall the saddest season.

Maple @Peabody Museum

Along the Great Lawn Wall

Grasshopper 2017

This past weekend marked Family Weekend at Andover.  Parents and guardians are invited to the school to get a condensed day-in-the-life of an Andover student by going through all the classes students take. At night, there were several concerts.  One of them was the annual talent show, Grasshopper!

2 weeks ago, I auditioned to be in Grasshopper.  In late September, the word about Grasshopper had already started spreading, as GHOP has been running for many years.  When I heard the news, I thought to myself, wow, this is really something I want to do. But I wasn’t sure what I’d do.  I wasn’t part of any of the big dance/sing groups, and in the past, GHOP has been 90% big group acapella or dances.  There are usually only around 2 solos and they’re all related to music.  The theme for this years show was Back to the Millennium: 2000’s.  All the acts had to be relevant to the theme in some way.

I auditioned to give a talk………about talent……by myself, but moreso, how that word has personally affected me.  I auditioned at 5:15 on a Sunday.  I felt bad for the judges, because they’d been watching 15 minute auditions since 12:00, and there were still 3 more groups behind me when I auditioned.  That next Friday, I found out I’d made it into GHOP!! It was very exciting, since not only is it difficult for freshman’s to make it [especially solo], but it’s a very anticipated show!

I was very excited until I found out the time commitment.  3 hour rehearsals every day this past week.  We had two show nights, this Friday and this Saturday, and we performed twice on each night.  In total, I must have spent almost 24 in Tang Theater rehearsing.  It was difficult to find time to do my homework, as practice started at 6:30 usually.  Oh, did I mention I didn’t practice piano for a solid week?  It was hectic.  

But my 4 performances of my speech were my highlights of this week.  I think the time I spent preparing, memorizing my speech, and learning the finale dance with the 13 other groups in GHOP was a good bonding experience and well worth the time I’d invested.  It was interesting to me as a performer as well.  I have never been in a show where I’ve had to perform it more than once.  At GHOP, I gave a memorized speech 4 times and each time, it was different.  As the speaker, I observed how the vibes of the audience contributed to the meaningfulness of my performance, and I noticed how my preparation strategy influenced my performance.  When I felt rushed to get onto stage, I spoke more passively and with a less clear meaning behind every word I was saying. When I prepared ahead of time, meaning I was on the wings of the stage well before my performance, I performed more smoothly, having more time to think everything over.   

Grasshopper, my first performance here at Andover.  I gave a speech…a little peculiar for a GHOP act, yet I argue that that’s what relates my speech back to the theme. I’m happy, about my time investment and about the product.  

Everything's Connected

Middle school courses were very distinct.  Each class had its own entity. Math was calculations, english was tons of reading, history was heavily writing and debate, science was notes, labs and worksheets, and art was painting.  

I’m noticing how high school courses are different from middle school courses in the sense that everything is connected.  In my first month of school, I realized how much reading biology consisted of, more than my English course in fact.  I complained about it at first, as I was used to worksheets and note taking…not an hour of reading every night from a giant, dense textbook.  My art class was a lot of note taking…creation happened primarily outside of class since I’m in a photography course.  I’m not used to art being a note taking class…that’s something I would have expected in a math or french class.    

I’m realizing how everything is connected.  Skills from one class almost always translates itself into another class.  I need to be more prepared for this, as I no longer believe that having one set of skills for one class will be enough.  I suppose the greatest learners are those who can take what they learn from one class and apply it into greater, outside contexts…sometimes those are that seemingly totally irrelevant.

Consciously take care of our planet

The weather this week caught my attention.  Last week, it was a solid 70+ degrees everyday…and it’s October.  The temperature has been slowly decreasing this week but Tuesday and Wednesday marked two very chilly days.  

Global warming is seems to be becoming a bigger issue every year.  It was unacceptably hot this year in October, with temps nearing 80 degrees.  I would usually deem that solid June weather.  

I’m trying to make environmentally conscious decisions whenever I have the option.  In my dorm, I do not eat with disposable utensils.  I have disposable plastic cups, but I reuse those as well after rinsing them.  I also allow myself only 1 paper towel for drying my hands, though in many bathrooms, hand dryers are employed instead of paper towels. When I went to the grocery store this afternoon, I brought my own bag.  

I’m honestly not sure how exactly to help the environment at boarding school.  I notice the weather changing, and the weather is almost always my first indicator that something’s going on with our planet.  It’s like how my first indicator of an oncoming cold is that I get a little tired, pale and my nose gets stuffy.  I’m busy everyday, so I suppose it’s the small, but conscious efforts that count towards slowing down global warming.  

There's a lot to learn from everyone

Today was an odd day in tennis.  Since coming to Andover, I haven’t had private lessons with a coach, and I’m beginning to feel the effect of having no guidance in training sessions.   

There’s one kid at Rec Tennis who consistently bothers me.  Over this past month at Rec Tennis, he’s been desperate to prove that he is “better at tennis than me”.  And he gets aggressive about it as well.  He makes fun of me when I mess up a shot or do something stupid on the courts.  I’ve worked to counter his negativity and pessimism by ignoring him. When he says he’s better than me, I tell myself that we’re equal.  And I honestly, from the bottom of my heart believed that; I thought that if we played a tie breaker, it would be fairly equal in scoring.

Until today, when I tried to break the ice.  I decided to hit with him after practice.  The culture of our game started out pretty similarly; he would laugh at me every time I messed up and I would get really hyped every time I hit a winner short cross court.  But after about 20 minutes of ineffective hitting, I decided we needed to change our attitudes towards the rallies if either of us wanted to improve.  

In the previous shot, I had messed up a flimsy overhead, that should have been an easy shot.  Overheads have long been a struggle of mine to time correctly and execute swiftly.  When he started laughing at my poor shot, instead of trying to roast him back, I changed my attitude and asked, “I’ve struggled with overheads.  In fact, I never had it down correctly.  Could you teach me how to hit one?”  That changed our rally: it became more cooperative.  

Turns out he had some really good tips on mastering the overhead.  He truly did and I say this from the bottom of my heart because after only a couple more mess ups, I had some more successful executions.  After, he starting giving me advice on my overall movement on the court.  I need to use my body more and move my feet…always.  More agile feet will produce more agile shots.  Soon, advice became informal coaching.  And this coaching coming from someone who always badgered me, someone whom I thought was really annoying and mean.  

And this came to me after we hit: I have something to learn from everyone, everyone.  So even when I meet someone who I really dislike, I have to remember that I still have something to learn from them.  

Languages are becoming more important

Languages are becoming a bigger interest to me with the passing of time.  I remember very vividly despising language class throughout my entire years of middle school.  This is no exaggeration.  I was admittedly a clock watcher during seventh and eighth grade French class. In sixth grade, French class was less about clock watching, but more about a lack of actually diving into the depths of the language.  I was learning verb conjugations in sixth grade, which to me, made no sense as I couldn’t figure out how to apply these many conjugations I’d learned into real sentences.  

This summer, I learned french with Coffee Break French.  I think this summer marked my nascent enjoyment for languages.  In Coffee Break French, one of the units was filmed in France, and I got to hear real French conversations between Mark [teacher for Coffee Break] and people in France.  For example, with people who worked at the Concierge at hotels or the vendors at supermarkets.  

However, it’s really Andover that has brought a greater enjoyment and care for languages to my life.  At Andover, there are so many kids from all over the world.  I’ve met kids who speak every sort of language, and for me, that’s impetus to take the languages I know how to speak more seriously.  For French, I met a girl from France and I like to simply talk with her in French. She’s fluent so she helps me with words and phrases I do not know how to say.  She also helps speaks to me in French, which is more listening practice. For Chinese, I know a girl from China whom I speak Chinese to, so I can continue practicing the language.  My parents always speak Chinese to me when I’m home, but now that I’m boarding and don’t take Chinese class, it’s difficult to find time to practice else where.  

But there’s a fear for me.  When I was younger, I quit Chinese class. My mother continuously warned me that I would regret not learning Chinese now when I forgot all of it.  When I was 8 years old, that concept was hard to comprehend.  I remember saying that I would not regret not learning Chinese and forgetting it.  Truth is, I’m already regretting it a little bit.  I can still speak very fluently and understand everything, and at this point, my fear is that I will lose this as well.  I’m doing everything in my power to maintain my connection to the language.  For French, it feels so nice to be able to communicate with someone who speaks a language I’m not native to.  For both Chinese and English, I learned these languages through my environment since I grew up in a Chinese speaking household in an English speaking country.  I’m learning French through work. Seeing that seemingly pointless work turn into communication with people from different places in the world is something I value deeply.  So here I go, practicing French, Chinese and English.  

The Revelation of my Identity

This week it finally came to me in theatre class.  I was first shaken when I read a script called Chinatown by Robert Towne, which shared an ineffable truth about the connectedness between race and identity. I’ve been trying to figure out for many years now why race is something I struggle to talk about and on some days, why it’s something I try to forget is part of my identity.  This must be the first major contribution to my life that an Andover class has made.

We were assigned to read Chinatown by Robert Towne, which is a short play, about 2 weeks ago.  In summary, it’s a short story about a white boy who was adopted by Asian parents and another boy who is an Asian-American violinist who plays on the streets for money.  Their paths cross when Ronnie, the white male passes by Benjamin, the Chinese violinist on the streets.  Ronnie asks Benjamin where Chinatown is, and Benjamin reacts defensively.  Benjamin feels targeted with the question, because he is Asian.  He asks Ronnie why Ronnie would suspect he knows where Chinatown is.  Unable to formulate a sensitive answer, Benjamin goes on a rant, complaining about the racial injustices of our society.  One line he says that resonates most with me paraphrases to this: “When people look at me, they see that I’m Asian.  Now that’s alright, but then they assume that they “know” me when there is really more to my identity than simply being Asian.  There’s stuff they don’t know about me, but people simply walk by, see an Asian man and think that’s it.” [paraphrased from Chinatown by Robert Towne].

That’s what I fear.  I fear people walk by me, see I’m Asian and assume they “know” me when the typical Asian stereotypes pop into their heads.  Oh, she’s good at math, she’s got tiger parents, she lives off dumplings and fried rice, she wants to be an engineer or a doctor.  These are just 4 stereotypes that I’ve heard the most, particularly the good at math and tiger parents one.  I know these stereotypes are not true about me.  I’m decent at math, but nowhere as good at math as many other students at school.  My parents are far from being “tiger.”  They expect me to try to best and learn from my mistakes, which I would like to say is fairly standard across the board with parents.  And I’m not interested in engineering.  I want to go into the field of business, whether that be marketing, private equity, or consulting etc.  I’m trying to convey that these stereotypes are not completely true for me [though I know they are applicable to many Asians though, which is how they became stereotypes over time]. What I don’t want is my appearance to illicit the false idea that they do.

Benjamin’s stating of that idea struck me with so much force, because it simply and explicitly illustrates my reasoning behind avoidance of the topic of race. It took me a solid two weeks to fully come around Benjamin’s words.  It’s an idea that I’ve struggled continuously to explain to everyone I’m close with who knows about my uncomfortability with discussions about race.  It’s something I’ve struggled to put into words.  All of a sudden, I learned about it through a play script, followed by an in class discussion in theatre.  Thank you, Robert Towne, for putting the idea I’ve struggled to express into comprehensible words.