The End of Wong Fu: A Christmas Story

 

I love them.

A Flexible Decision

Don’t Go Back to School (Click to view video. I don’t know why I can’t embed it)

While I was in culinary school, my view on the value of a bachelor’s degree went through some transformations. At first, I didn’t really care to earn one, and I hated the fact that so much was dependent on a sheet of paper. Although it doesn’t hurt to have a degree, there are plenty of people who have dropped out of school, or have never gone, that have become quite successful. All you need is some luck to get your foot in the door some times. That, or to be crazy-determined and hard-working to achieve your goals. I’m not saying either of these are fail-proof, or that people who have gone to school and earned their degrees wasted their time and money, but that emphasis shouldn’t be placed more on one than the other.

So after I graduated from culinary school, I decided to go back to university – back to one of the things I hated most, and which had caused me so much grief in prior years. All along I have felt disappointed at myself for spending so much time/money (they’re synonymous, are they not?) in school, but coming out “empty-handed.” I was afraid of hearing I-told-you-so’s for not sticking it out and finishing my degree before pursuing other interests, but I heard none, and if I did, I had already beaten myself numb with the phrase to have it even faze me.

The last time I posted here, I shared a bit about what going back to school was like. I was pretty optimistic life, and my classes, for the most part, have remained enjoyable. As this semester comes to a close though, I wonder if the decision I made was more to further my future career, or if I am just avoiding “real life.” Not that being a student is necessarily fake life (though it is easy to be stuck in this “bubble”), but that after all I’ve been through, I actually haven’t grown up at all.

If you’ve talked me over these past four months, I’m sure you’ve heard me complain more than once about the inadequacy of my school’s administration. Their lack of organization and care for students really made me consider dropping it all; why would I want to continue in a business school that doesn’t not demonstrate any professionalism?

Alas, I made a decision to stay. However, I also believe that the best decisions are ones that can be easily changed. So even though I’ve said I’m going to tough it out this time, I’m still giving myself the option to change my mind. It’s a question I wrestle with every day. It’s especially difficult when there are so many full-time job opportunities tempting me. Sure, I could work and do school simultaneously, but I’m not one of those amazing people. I know my limits, and I know if I do both, one of them will suffer tremendously, or I will only be mediocre in both. I don’t want to aim for mediocrity.

So where does this leave me? I’m already registered for classes for next semester. If I drop-out again, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get a job in my field of interest with my minimal experience. If I stay in school, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get a job either. But rest assured that I will never join the Occupy Movement. Haha.

If I don’t finish school now, will I regret it for the rest of my life? (Feel free to give your two cents, but this is more rhetorical question for myself).

Fresh Fall

Happy First Day of Autumn!

So I’m back in school to finish my bachelor’s, this time in business management. The beginning of the school year felt a bit weird. This is the first time in five years that I’m not the one leaving home, so it’s been interesting to see the large void that college kids leave when they all go to college. I mean, I don’t think it was that bad when I first left for college, because only 2 people from my class of 4 went away, but add the current class of seniors with the classes after them and that’s at least 12. For a church community as small as mine, that’s a significant difference, maybe a third? So that’s what it’s like for a majority of the year…

I’m really enjoying my classes so far, except for maybe my writing class because my professor is like Umbridge. I’m taking Intro to Business, Microeconomics, and Psychology. Hasn’t been too difficult so far, but enough to keep me busy. I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s a CUNY school, or because after all my other schooling, I’ve become a better student. I’d like to believe it’s the latter. However, I think I’ve gotten spoiled by other schools’ administration. I know it’s the student’s responsibility to make sure all their papers, credits, etc. and stuff are in line, but man, I’ve never been so annoyed with administration before now. Everything is last minute. It’s like teaching a goldfish some tricks. They can’t do anything unless you’re physically there probing them; you walk away and they go back to their own mundanity. Taking what I’ve learned from economics, they are not running efficiently. Am I being too harsh?

In other news about school, I haven’t gotten involved with any clubs. Since majority of the school are commuters (limited dorms) it’s been hard to find a reason to stay on campus since I live so close already. It reminds me of being at LaGuardia; it’s so huge it’s easy to be anonymous. By the way, I had no idea the school had such a huge Asian population, and mostly AZNs, unfortunately. Okay, don’t laugh at me, but I sort of wanted to try out for cheerleading. Too bad they require experience.

Well, October is coming up soon. It’s going to be a crazy month: Two consecutive weekend weddings, midterms, graduation, and a whole lot of birthdays. Bring it on!

We are Tom Riddle

meMy sister and I had a great laugh last night.

Back in high school my sister and I didn’t really have many friends beside each other (do you believe it?). I don’t think we meant to do this, but we ended up immortalizing or preserving ourselves in a couple notebooks like Tom Riddle did in a diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We kept notebooks in which we wrote notes and passed to each other in the hallway between classes. When I think back on it, it’s pretty genius and pretty lame at the same time because we knew each other’s schedule, and where and when would be the best time to do a hand-off. Some of the notes were written during our separate lunch periods in which we always went to the library because we hated the cafeteria or didn’t have anyone to sit with. Others were written during class when we should’ve been taking notes.

Anyway, the content of these notes to each other were pretty much the same thing in different phrasing. I’m not sure we noticed it at the time, but reading them now, we realized how dumb and repetitive they were and it made us laugh so hard because these were the things that were important to us then. BOYS, complaining about annoying people, tests, sickness, extra curricular activities…

There was a time period in which we didn’t know the whereabouts of our first notebook, and during this time we wrote notes to each other on random pieces of paper. So many of those notes said “Do you know where our notebook is? It’s not in either of our lockers, and it’s not at home…” As documented in the notebook after it was found, it was gone for at least 3 weeks. It was returned to my sister by her Spanish teacher who assured her that no one had read it. But C’MON! We know that was a big lie. Some student had returned it to the teacher after reading everything. I’m sure they got a good laugh at it. I think our identities were obvious in the notebook, but it’s a good thing we had codenames for pretty much everyone we wrote about. It was actually a challenge for us to decode some of the people because we have nearly forgotten, or want to forget high school.

Man, I haven’t laughed that hard in such a long time. I actually started wheezing a little bit, and I thought I was going to get a sore throat from laughing. High school was such a joke. I’m glad we documented such mundane day-to-day experiences. Journals are such great things. I’m sure we’ll dig out the notebooks again in a few years and still laugh just as hard.

Boston vs NYC Biking Culture

I recently moved back to New York after living in Boston for the past 5 years. I learned to ride a bike as a kid, but biking to me was always a leisure activity reserved for the suburbs or great outdoors. I began city biking in Boston to save money on transportation, and also for exercise and getting places faster (MBTA sucks!). Yesterday was the first time I got to bike in the city (I got a flat in Boston and hadn’t had the chance to fix it – thanks Simon!), and there were a few differences that I noticed off the bat between NYC and Boston biking. But first let me just say that I am not an aggressive bicyclist, so I don’t really like swerving/squeezing through traffic, but I do try to ride fast and safely enough as to not be a hazard to motorists (I also try to use bike lanes when they are available). Alright, here goes, in no particular order:

• Bostonians suck at driving cars, and New Yorkers suck at riding bikes.
  • Even though Boston drivers will stop for pedestrians to cross even when they have the green light, they always try to race bicyclists or get pissed when they have to slow down behind one because some of those bike lanes just have waaaay too many potholes/broken glass. Also, Bostonians never look before they swing open their doors to get out of their parked cars.
  • So far New York bicyclists have annoyed me more than taxis or other drivers because they freakin’ ride in any direction they want! They love going down the opposite direction and making me swerve into oncoming traffic. Usually it’s delivery guys (haven’t seen any delivery girls…), or men/women with way too many bags and baskets attached to their bikes.
• Bike lanes in Boston are generally on the right, while in NY they are on the left – I guess it has to do with most big roads being two-way in Boston, and only one-way in NY.I like that bike lanes in NY are generally bordered or highlighted in green, and in some places we even have our own bike traffic light (though most people ride through red lights as long as there are no cars comings)! Both cities have become more bike-friendly and accommodating, but I feel like I had to try harder in Boston to make myself visible. Question: if there is no bike lane, is it more acceptable to ride on the right or left of cars? In a Triaminic bicycle safety video I watched as a kid, I remember them saying “Ride with the traffic and keep to the right!”, but now I’m confused…
• There’s not many, if any, bike messengers in Boston. Or maybe I’m just not on the road when they are. It’s not like NYC, where they are everywhere, squeezing through spaces you didn’t think was possible. It might be just the pace and size of Boston doesn’t require it. Boston is a running city…maybe runners can deliver quicker than on a bike. HAHA!
• Lack of poles/racks to lock bikes up in NY compared to Boston.

Okay, well actually those were the main differences I noticed. There might’ve been some more, but I forgot them.

Goal: I want to ride over every bridge that connects Manhattan to any of the other boroughs or islands.