So I suppose I haven't been as true to my promise to keep this thing updated as often as I should. Real life hasn't really provided much by way of entertainment, so I haven't been as motivated to write as I should have been.
My most recent stint starts five weeks ago: I landed in New York with a duffel and high hopes (no, my tale doesn't start on Ellis Island, although that could have been easier) in a dismal economy. Like many of my classmates, I was looking for a job after summer turned up nothing but open-ended "We'll be in touch" or "We'll call you" responses and a pessimistic outlook. "We went to Vassar, for crying out loud," we told ourselves. People should recognize the name of our school. And they did. The problem is, we're not alone. Cue alien film creepy music. Honestly, it took me a while to figure that out, even though I knew it in the back of my head. My reckless optimism told me to disregard the naysayers, forge on ahead, and the rest of all that blah-blah. I did, and came across countless folks in my exact same situation. After a week back on the ground here, I packed away my optimism like my interview suit, only to come out occasionally and when I absolutely needed it.
I decided to get in touch with my old supervisor at the China Institute about volunteering there. I've been in touch with her since leaving the Institute after the Annual Gala in May. She's helped me revise cover letters, made sure my resume reflects exactly what an employer wants to see, and has given me plenty of suggestions for staying afloat. She and the rest of the Development staff welcomed me back with open arms, eager for somebody to do the grunt work. I wasn't complaining, it was helping me fill my days instead of sitting in Central Park and building miniature log cabins out of twigs, or something. I've been helping organize materials for the upcoming summit at the end of October, after which, I'll be heading home again.
To quote a friend of mine, a fellow Bahamian who just happens to be the Chair of UNESCO, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Being in New York has made it a lot easier to respond to calls for meetings on short notice, link with Vassar alums and my general exposure to a wide array of professional options. At the same time, being international and not having applied for Optional Practical Training, or OPT (if you're an international and reading this, APPLY FOR OPT, THERE IS NO OPTION), it makes life a lot harder to attract a company that will gladly spent a few thousand dollars sponsoring your work visa. I really should have applied for it, I thought there was a larger window than two months after graduation, but the emotional smoothie that gets served to you after graduation can easily mess with your perception of time, as well as with what you can and can't do. Anyway, that being said, despite whatever perception this blog gives you of myself, I haven't quite figured out all there is to figure out about being successful yet. I've made mistakes, and my butt is probably sore from my kicking it, but I'm limping my way back to making something of myself.
Other than kicking myself for not planning for work, I'm now kicking myself for not planning for the weather. It got cold! The only outerwear I brought with me in August was my Vassar Rowing jacket. It only blocks out the wind. It will not keep you warm. I finally gave in to my island sensibilities and bought some sweaters and a light Autumn jacket. I'm much happier for it now.
Anyway, now that I've given you an insight into the last five weeks in a nutshell, here are my plans for the rest of the year: get a job. That's really it. More specifically, I've got a few things lined up for some stints in Beijing, plans to be disclosed when they come. My supervisor imparted a great piece of wisdom to me that I'm sure she wouldn't mind me sharing with my fellow jobless 2010 graduates: don't get excited about a job until they give you an offer. We can argue grammar later, but it's true. These days, everything can be so up in the air, it doesn't make sense wasting energy on something that may not even come close to following through for you.
This job hunting experience has been very formative for me, and I want to put out a very large public vote of thanks for my friends in New York who have been so gracious as to let me warm their couches at night. I've even stayed on a whole air mattress once! It's taught me humility, patience, perseverance and that blind optimism to the point of sheer foolishness can sometimes lead you across an opportunity you may never have known existed. The adjustment from college has been huge, and dealing with the adjustment still is, as it has been, something I'm trying to get a grip on. From living in relative popularity on a small campus into absolute obscurity in a big city, staying in bed to avoid all the work to be done to getting out of bed to find work, among others, is still very tough. I congratulate my classmates who had the luck, foresight or both to be working right now, and I can only pray that you won't see me on the subway singing a song and asking you for a dollar. Not that it's a bad thing to do, just that you don't want to hear me sing.
Until next time, perhaps in a warmer clime!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Here we go...
Dear readers, as my life at Vassar has quickly and surprisingly come to an end, I suppose this may be my last entry. I may keep writing, just as an alum perspective on finding life after Vassar, which I think I may do, as I have grown quite accustomed to this blog, and the relationship I have built with you, my readers.
This entry comes a bit late; my week finishing up my internship has been hectic: carrying a piece of art worth $85,000USD, wearing a tux, sipping champage and such, it’s not easy work. Here is a reflection of it all, starting from two Tuesdays ago:
The past week has flown by faster than I would have liked. It has been shorter, and at the same time, longer than I hoped. It was more, and at the same time, less than I had hoped. Looking into the eyes of classmates, friends, past flames, past crushes and past crushers, I saw four years reflected back at me in the strangest of ways. Memories flood back to 45 minutes ago, when I surveyed my room for the final time: its bare walls, its empty drawers and a bed that hated me for putting rowing before our relationship, as I pull out of Poughkeepsie station for the last time of the Spring.
It started with the formal, an excuse for seniors to be fancy for no apparent reason in the face of the onslaught of confusion that is the future. I had a great time, but it was clouded by a sense of uncertainty, fear and stress that I just couldn’t shake. My friends, housemates and girlfriend looked great. I tried to feel festive but couldn’t. I hoped it wouldn’t be indicative of the rest of the week, and then tried to dance it off.
I had my senior project to turn in the next day, so my fun was cut significantly shorter than what it should have been.
I didn’t do many of the senior week events: just the formal and the ACDC brunch. We had commencement rehearsal right before the ACDC brunch, which was horribly timed on a day when all the ovens of the sky happened to be on their highest settings. I got a farmer tan. It was horrible. However, brunch at the DC made up for all of that. There’s always this enduring myth in my mind that breakfast at ACDC is the best thing in the world: better than a snow day, better than a wink from your crush in the corner of the class you steal glimpses at every time a slide on the PowerPoint changes, better than Pop Rocks, even. And Pop Rocks are pretty awesome. Anyway, I had to leave the brunch early, thanks to a photoshoot for an article, soon to come out in the alumni newsletter about my senior project. It’s an academic and life win.
Fast-forward to Saturday: the day where it all came crashing down. By “it” I mean memories, which means there’s a huge edit in order, and despite it being only a sentence away, I’m far too lazy to change it, as it is summertime. I schlepped over to Rocky to observe the Violet/Daisy photoshoot, basically just to slip into nostalgia, and also to make sure everyone was in attendance. It was very bittersweet watching the Daisies line up – working with them all year had been fun, and I remembered in my sophomore year that I was on those same steps getting my picture taken as a Violet. Now, on the verge of leaving, I realized that it was all hitting me hard. The oscillating waves of happiness and sadness really just hit the trough of sadness, and it stayed there for most of the morning. Soon, it was then time for the Lei Ceremony, organized by the Asian-Pacific Islander Alumni (APAVC). The floor was opened to parents and students to reflect on the experiences we’ve shared at Vassar, and as no one from the students’ side had gone up, Olivia shot me daggers with her eyes, meaning that I had better go say something.
My training in the Beautillion Society at home had left me with the gift of the gab, or refined it somewhat, and I got up to the microphone with butterflies in my stomach, and tears ready to leap forth out of my eyes. I thanked my friends for always supporting me, and my parents for encouraging me. And as spoke about looking ahead to the many great journeys we will face, I paused to think of all the many journeys we had struggled through together already: finals, insensitivity, times when the student of colour community had banded together in solidarity in support of one another, and just being friends along our road through college. I almost cried. I voice broke, and my knees began to shake. I mentally slapped myself – “Keep it together, Kyle!” I kept talking, but the quivering got worse, my knees got weaker, and my eyes began to well. Thankfully, I finished up and got back to my seat and held my girlfriend’s hand. The awarding of the leis went by without a tear as well. I also spied Lisa Kudrow in her rose sunglasses sitting in the back of the room. I made a mental note to walk over to get a picture with her, but once I had gotten caught up taking pictures with friends, she was gone.
From there, I rushed over to the Kente Cloth ceremony, sponsored by the African-American Alumni (AAAVC). I saw my mentor and friend, Ken Miles, who serves as the co-chair of AAAVC getting ready to go up to the podium. The alums-to-be were called to stand and receive our stoles, and another speech was asked of me. This time, much more prepared (in some ways), I recognized all those who came before us, not just our grandparents and ancestors, but the alums and older students who have acted as role models for us, and without whom we would not be able to partake in community as we had throughout our four years.
Following the Kente Cloth ceremony was the Baccalaureate service, celebrating students of colour. It adds a religious flair to the commencement week activities, and I appreciated it. Ryan Greenlee and I were called to sing the Black National Anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Nobody told us, nor the pianist, that only one verse was printed. We were told to sing two. So, I had made a fool of my self of the first time that day, but at least I wasn’t alone. And with emotions running high for all, I think it was taken in good spirit. Dr. Tricia Rose was incredible, and my aunt even wanted to buy her book. Gotta love how academia keeps pulling people back.
Fast-forward again to that night: the last party at TA43. I had left my wallet in my Mum’s purse, and my dad stopped in to bring it up to me. Little did he know we were having a party. In quite a shocked state, he handed it to me, went up to my room for a bit, then left. Oh, college, how I will miss you. My flatmates and I got our things together for the bonfire that is traditionally held before graduation. Thankfully, I had gathered all of my thesis drafts and other papers I had no need for ever again in a bag, along with everything else I detested. Because we lived in the TA’s, Ballantine was not far at all, so we left pretty late (it started at midnight, we left at 12:30).
Then it all came crashing down: after throwing all my papers into the fire and having a great time with my friends, I saw my best friend, CBS president, Dyana. She ran over and hugged me, and then she began to cry. At that point, all the feelings that I had tried to keep down and forget about all week finally surfaced. I cried. I cried like a baby, and I kept crying. I just couldn’t stop. We just held each other, and cried. We recalled all the times we probably never would have made it through Vassar without each other, all the meals we shared, and everything else inbetween. It was heartbreaking to know that we wouldn’t see each other for such a long time, and for me to show how I was truly feeling once again to someone who had seen me at my worst so many times, it was amazing to just let go and cry.
And it didn’t stop with Dyana. I saw other friends that I had met at different points in my college career and we cried together. When I finally got back to my girlfriend, who I can never remember if I had mentioned her before in this blog before, I was a mess, tears and snot all over my face and just unable to stop crying. Surprisingly, she was fine. There I am, rowing captain Kyle, crazy gym-beast Kyle, everyone else’s crying shoulder Kyle, a total wreck. And there is my girlfriend, doing what she has always done for me: supporting me. We even make jokes about it even though it didn’t happen too long ago. Once I was dry again, I walked slowly home and went to bed.
When I woke up in the morning, my eyes were still puffy from crying. Since I was twelve, I can count on one hand and name exactly when and where I have cried. Thankfully, for sake of my “masculinity” (and all you Vassar-heads out there, please challenge me to a debate about gender norms, I dare you!) it’s still on one hand! My housemates and I awoke for the last time as Vassar students and ate breakfast together for the last time, then donned the garb that would mark our passage out of the world we had known for the last four years into the “real” one.
With every motion leading up to my leaving the house came a new significance of what I was doing. The last time I could put on dress socks in the house, the last time I would look in my mirror, the last time I would look out my window in the morning. I put on my gown, followed by my hood, Kente cloth and finally my lei and stood in the mirror, transfixed and unable to move. I was not the same as when I had first stood looking in the mirror in late August 2009. Nor was I the same as when I first stepped foot on campus as a timid freshman three years before that. With my cap in hand, my housemates and I made the long walk to Commencement Hill together.
We lined up for a good twenty minutes, and finally, the march began. I stood in Group 7, and as you Vassar readers will find out eventually, this is how you will be arranged for graduation. Group 1 led off, and slowly we all made our way to our seats. A human river of black, with yellows, blues, greens and whites, oranges, greens and purples all mixed in, moved slowly to where we would be awarded our degrees. At the hearing of “Pomp and Circumstance,” a girl near me began to cry. I had cried out everything I had the night before, or I would have been there with her. We took our seats. Listened to speeches. Got our degrees. Then it was all over. Really, that’s how it felt to me.
Lisa Kudrow’s speech was brilliant: it was exactly what I needed to hear at that point in time. That I could graduate knowing absolutely nothing about what I wanted to do and still succeed; and that I could fail but still rise to success. It gave me a lot of hope for the days after graduation as I roamed New York during my last week at my internship looking for jobs and interviewing. Her project on genealogies also struck me as particularly interesting, as my interest in my own has dictated many of my feelings throughout the year. I may be getting in contact with her soon…
And this brings me to today. Exactly two weeks ago, I was getting ready to enjoy the senior formal with my girlfriend and my friends. I’m back at home, reflecting on how the past two weeks have flown past with shocking speed, and how I can stop the rest of my life from doing the same. Perhaps it’s just all too deep to tackle for now. Oh well. That’s what Philosophy majors are for, and I am not one of them.
I’ll be back from time to time, both at Vassar and on this blog, so faithful readers, fear not! I’ll still be providing wisdom from “Beyond the Gates,” as it were, on how to survive life after college, along with my own job search, and fun things to do when not in PK. If you want to see more of my mushier side, check out my senior retrospective here (http://www.miscellanynews.com/senior-retrospective-kyle-chea-1.2267487). I will miss my days at Vassar dearly, but I will remember them fondly. At the same time, it is this wonderful place that Vassar has become – not a college, but home – that connects all of us alumni/ae together, and I can’t wait to meet more of my new family both at home (whatever that means these days) and wherever I go.
Also, if any of you readers have any questions about anything Vassar-y or anything to do with college life, please email me, and I will be sure to get back to you. When I was in your position, someone took time out of their schedule to help me, and now it is my turn. We are blessed to be a blessing, and I intend to do just that.
I leave you now with one of my favourite poems, one that has shaped me and continues to shape me. Enjoy!
Ithaka by Constance P. Cavafy
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.
This entry comes a bit late; my week finishing up my internship has been hectic: carrying a piece of art worth $85,000USD, wearing a tux, sipping champage and such, it’s not easy work. Here is a reflection of it all, starting from two Tuesdays ago:
The past week has flown by faster than I would have liked. It has been shorter, and at the same time, longer than I hoped. It was more, and at the same time, less than I had hoped. Looking into the eyes of classmates, friends, past flames, past crushes and past crushers, I saw four years reflected back at me in the strangest of ways. Memories flood back to 45 minutes ago, when I surveyed my room for the final time: its bare walls, its empty drawers and a bed that hated me for putting rowing before our relationship, as I pull out of Poughkeepsie station for the last time of the Spring.
It started with the formal, an excuse for seniors to be fancy for no apparent reason in the face of the onslaught of confusion that is the future. I had a great time, but it was clouded by a sense of uncertainty, fear and stress that I just couldn’t shake. My friends, housemates and girlfriend looked great. I tried to feel festive but couldn’t. I hoped it wouldn’t be indicative of the rest of the week, and then tried to dance it off.
I had my senior project to turn in the next day, so my fun was cut significantly shorter than what it should have been.
I didn’t do many of the senior week events: just the formal and the ACDC brunch. We had commencement rehearsal right before the ACDC brunch, which was horribly timed on a day when all the ovens of the sky happened to be on their highest settings. I got a farmer tan. It was horrible. However, brunch at the DC made up for all of that. There’s always this enduring myth in my mind that breakfast at ACDC is the best thing in the world: better than a snow day, better than a wink from your crush in the corner of the class you steal glimpses at every time a slide on the PowerPoint changes, better than Pop Rocks, even. And Pop Rocks are pretty awesome. Anyway, I had to leave the brunch early, thanks to a photoshoot for an article, soon to come out in the alumni newsletter about my senior project. It’s an academic and life win.
Fast-forward to Saturday: the day where it all came crashing down. By “it” I mean memories, which means there’s a huge edit in order, and despite it being only a sentence away, I’m far too lazy to change it, as it is summertime. I schlepped over to Rocky to observe the Violet/Daisy photoshoot, basically just to slip into nostalgia, and also to make sure everyone was in attendance. It was very bittersweet watching the Daisies line up – working with them all year had been fun, and I remembered in my sophomore year that I was on those same steps getting my picture taken as a Violet. Now, on the verge of leaving, I realized that it was all hitting me hard. The oscillating waves of happiness and sadness really just hit the trough of sadness, and it stayed there for most of the morning. Soon, it was then time for the Lei Ceremony, organized by the Asian-Pacific Islander Alumni (APAVC). The floor was opened to parents and students to reflect on the experiences we’ve shared at Vassar, and as no one from the students’ side had gone up, Olivia shot me daggers with her eyes, meaning that I had better go say something.
My training in the Beautillion Society at home had left me with the gift of the gab, or refined it somewhat, and I got up to the microphone with butterflies in my stomach, and tears ready to leap forth out of my eyes. I thanked my friends for always supporting me, and my parents for encouraging me. And as spoke about looking ahead to the many great journeys we will face, I paused to think of all the many journeys we had struggled through together already: finals, insensitivity, times when the student of colour community had banded together in solidarity in support of one another, and just being friends along our road through college. I almost cried. I voice broke, and my knees began to shake. I mentally slapped myself – “Keep it together, Kyle!” I kept talking, but the quivering got worse, my knees got weaker, and my eyes began to well. Thankfully, I finished up and got back to my seat and held my girlfriend’s hand. The awarding of the leis went by without a tear as well. I also spied Lisa Kudrow in her rose sunglasses sitting in the back of the room. I made a mental note to walk over to get a picture with her, but once I had gotten caught up taking pictures with friends, she was gone.
From there, I rushed over to the Kente Cloth ceremony, sponsored by the African-American Alumni (AAAVC). I saw my mentor and friend, Ken Miles, who serves as the co-chair of AAAVC getting ready to go up to the podium. The alums-to-be were called to stand and receive our stoles, and another speech was asked of me. This time, much more prepared (in some ways), I recognized all those who came before us, not just our grandparents and ancestors, but the alums and older students who have acted as role models for us, and without whom we would not be able to partake in community as we had throughout our four years.
Following the Kente Cloth ceremony was the Baccalaureate service, celebrating students of colour. It adds a religious flair to the commencement week activities, and I appreciated it. Ryan Greenlee and I were called to sing the Black National Anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Nobody told us, nor the pianist, that only one verse was printed. We were told to sing two. So, I had made a fool of my self of the first time that day, but at least I wasn’t alone. And with emotions running high for all, I think it was taken in good spirit. Dr. Tricia Rose was incredible, and my aunt even wanted to buy her book. Gotta love how academia keeps pulling people back.
Fast-forward again to that night: the last party at TA43. I had left my wallet in my Mum’s purse, and my dad stopped in to bring it up to me. Little did he know we were having a party. In quite a shocked state, he handed it to me, went up to my room for a bit, then left. Oh, college, how I will miss you. My flatmates and I got our things together for the bonfire that is traditionally held before graduation. Thankfully, I had gathered all of my thesis drafts and other papers I had no need for ever again in a bag, along with everything else I detested. Because we lived in the TA’s, Ballantine was not far at all, so we left pretty late (it started at midnight, we left at 12:30).
Then it all came crashing down: after throwing all my papers into the fire and having a great time with my friends, I saw my best friend, CBS president, Dyana. She ran over and hugged me, and then she began to cry. At that point, all the feelings that I had tried to keep down and forget about all week finally surfaced. I cried. I cried like a baby, and I kept crying. I just couldn’t stop. We just held each other, and cried. We recalled all the times we probably never would have made it through Vassar without each other, all the meals we shared, and everything else inbetween. It was heartbreaking to know that we wouldn’t see each other for such a long time, and for me to show how I was truly feeling once again to someone who had seen me at my worst so many times, it was amazing to just let go and cry.
And it didn’t stop with Dyana. I saw other friends that I had met at different points in my college career and we cried together. When I finally got back to my girlfriend, who I can never remember if I had mentioned her before in this blog before, I was a mess, tears and snot all over my face and just unable to stop crying. Surprisingly, she was fine. There I am, rowing captain Kyle, crazy gym-beast Kyle, everyone else’s crying shoulder Kyle, a total wreck. And there is my girlfriend, doing what she has always done for me: supporting me. We even make jokes about it even though it didn’t happen too long ago. Once I was dry again, I walked slowly home and went to bed.
When I woke up in the morning, my eyes were still puffy from crying. Since I was twelve, I can count on one hand and name exactly when and where I have cried. Thankfully, for sake of my “masculinity” (and all you Vassar-heads out there, please challenge me to a debate about gender norms, I dare you!) it’s still on one hand! My housemates and I awoke for the last time as Vassar students and ate breakfast together for the last time, then donned the garb that would mark our passage out of the world we had known for the last four years into the “real” one.
With every motion leading up to my leaving the house came a new significance of what I was doing. The last time I could put on dress socks in the house, the last time I would look in my mirror, the last time I would look out my window in the morning. I put on my gown, followed by my hood, Kente cloth and finally my lei and stood in the mirror, transfixed and unable to move. I was not the same as when I had first stood looking in the mirror in late August 2009. Nor was I the same as when I first stepped foot on campus as a timid freshman three years before that. With my cap in hand, my housemates and I made the long walk to Commencement Hill together.
We lined up for a good twenty minutes, and finally, the march began. I stood in Group 7, and as you Vassar readers will find out eventually, this is how you will be arranged for graduation. Group 1 led off, and slowly we all made our way to our seats. A human river of black, with yellows, blues, greens and whites, oranges, greens and purples all mixed in, moved slowly to where we would be awarded our degrees. At the hearing of “Pomp and Circumstance,” a girl near me began to cry. I had cried out everything I had the night before, or I would have been there with her. We took our seats. Listened to speeches. Got our degrees. Then it was all over. Really, that’s how it felt to me.
Lisa Kudrow’s speech was brilliant: it was exactly what I needed to hear at that point in time. That I could graduate knowing absolutely nothing about what I wanted to do and still succeed; and that I could fail but still rise to success. It gave me a lot of hope for the days after graduation as I roamed New York during my last week at my internship looking for jobs and interviewing. Her project on genealogies also struck me as particularly interesting, as my interest in my own has dictated many of my feelings throughout the year. I may be getting in contact with her soon…
And this brings me to today. Exactly two weeks ago, I was getting ready to enjoy the senior formal with my girlfriend and my friends. I’m back at home, reflecting on how the past two weeks have flown past with shocking speed, and how I can stop the rest of my life from doing the same. Perhaps it’s just all too deep to tackle for now. Oh well. That’s what Philosophy majors are for, and I am not one of them.
I’ll be back from time to time, both at Vassar and on this blog, so faithful readers, fear not! I’ll still be providing wisdom from “Beyond the Gates,” as it were, on how to survive life after college, along with my own job search, and fun things to do when not in PK. If you want to see more of my mushier side, check out my senior retrospective here (http://www.miscellanynews.com/senior-retrospective-kyle-chea-1.2267487). I will miss my days at Vassar dearly, but I will remember them fondly. At the same time, it is this wonderful place that Vassar has become – not a college, but home – that connects all of us alumni/ae together, and I can’t wait to meet more of my new family both at home (whatever that means these days) and wherever I go.
Also, if any of you readers have any questions about anything Vassar-y or anything to do with college life, please email me, and I will be sure to get back to you. When I was in your position, someone took time out of their schedule to help me, and now it is my turn. We are blessed to be a blessing, and I intend to do just that.
I leave you now with one of my favourite poems, one that has shaped me and continues to shape me. Enjoy!
Ithaka by Constance P. Cavafy
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Last piece, best piece & the deepness that is a deep end
Thanks to what’s left of my work, I’m finally posting this latest entry.
This past weekend saw the last race of Vassar’s varsity rowing squad. The Dad Vail Regatta is the largest collegiate regatta in the United States, offering crews from across the country and Canada to compete for a shot at gold. The last time I was here, I was an alternate for the novice boat after narrowly losing a seat race. This time, I was to race as a captain and full-fledged member of the varsity squad.
My boat had its fair share of ups and downs. We had no time to taper, as that time was spent seat racing to compose the perfect heavyweight crew. In the end, the results were close, but next year’s captain Morgan Mako had made it into the boat. With Vince Marchetta at stroke, Kyle Sullivan at 3, Morgan at 2 and myself in bow, coxed by the extraordinary Andrew Tabenkin, we were ready to own. On the morning of 6 May, our boat had moved like it had never moved before. Each drive was powerful, each recovery was slow and controlled. There was no rush, there was no check. Our focus remained in the boat and our movement was only focused forward. Perhaps the fact that the last race of the season was upon us changed our mentalities, and everything we had worked on all semester finally came together.
Cut to a chilly Friday morning in Philadelphia. The heavyweight four are preparing for what could be our last row together. I try to retain composure, knowing that this well could be it. During out warm up run, I remembered all the times we spent together working on the ergs, pushing past the point of fatigue with sweat streaming into our eyes, our breathing sharp, our lungs on fire, our legs numb with pain. I realized that I may never find a more dedicated and hardworking group of men anywhere I would go in the world, and that deeply saddened me.
NOTE: This is not a sob story. Put the tissues away, punk. Resuming…
We put our hands in for what could have been our final chant of “VC!” as we touched the bow of the Weinberg, and we walked down with reverence and focus for the race we were about to row.
In contrast to the swing row the day before in 15mph+ wind, the day was still. We were one boat, we had one stroke. And we kept this mentality as we approached the starting line. Assigned lane 1 was a godsend: at the Dad Vail course, lane 1 has a swift current starting at around the mark signifying 500m left to go, and we were excited at our prospect of moving to semi-finals. We moved into our stake boat, reached alignment and took one last deep breath. The countdown began, and we were off. Two hundred strokes to the finish, two hundred strokes to position ourselves for a shot at the semifinals.
We were off. A high twenty at 42/43 and a settle into a 36/38. We were feeling good. The settle felt nothing higher than a 28, and it was relaxed and long. We got into our rhythm an exhaled with each drive, sending the boat forward and away from Binghamton and the College of New Jersey. We were on course to pull away from them and toward Dowling and Lafayette, when a crab slowed out boat substantially. Binghamton, the closest crew, still hadn’t pulled ahead, and we recovered and increased our open water on them. Soon, another boat-stopping crab held us up, just as we were about to enter our spring, providing Binghamton with the chance they needed to take us. They moved through us, but not past us. We kept contact and pushed out with everything we had left in our legs for the sprint, and finished 4 seconds behind Binghamton. We received a sound thrashing from the lead crews, who finished within 3 seconds of each other and beat us by 30 odd seconds, which, in rowing means half a century.
We were disappointed, but found consolation in the fact that we did row well and we moved well. Lafayette and Dowling were just too massive for us, and they had probably been rowing those line-ups from the beginning of the season, as opposed to us who had only been rowing together for 48 hours. We got off the dock and began to derig our boat, and I hung up my lucky red headband for good.
The other rowers had come down to see us race, and soon met us back at the trailer to help us. We had rowed the race of our lives, and it’s a shame we couldn’t have raced together more. Had we done so, we might have had a chance against Dowling and Lafayette. The world is just full of “what-ifs.”
Race day had just begun for everyone else, an the women’s 8+ was next up. They slid solidly into their semifinal, as did the lightweight men. But getting off the dock, the lights had a problem: 2 seat Ben Palacios had a stomach bug that had ripped through him in his exhaustion, and though he felt fine before and during the race, the stress he placed on his body made him considerably more vulnerable.
He had to go to the emergency room to be rehydrated, and in the end everything worked out fine. The lightweight 4+, unfortunately, had to scratch their race, leaving women’s 8+ as the only race to be watched. Once again, they sailed through the competition to a solid third place overall, placing them in the final. But the wind picked up to over 16mph, temporarily suspending the regatta. They were fine to settle for a third place overall, as they would have medalled, but as fate would have it, the regatta was resumed and the women were placed in the infamous lane 6. Lane 6 was dreaded in regular conditions because, unlike the rest of the river, the current stopped dead once they reached the 500m-to-go mark. However, when the current and wind were against the rowers, this was a godsend.
On my way up to the grandstand, I met two good friends from home, one a fellow All-Bahamas Merit Scholar studying at Drexel and the other, a friend from high school studying at Wharton. They came to see the races, and I was there to teach them what rowing was all about. Luckily, they came just in time for the women’s V8+ final.
A splashing of water, flashes of blades and they were off. As they rounded the bend at the thousand-metre mark, Vassar was fighting for first place. With 750m to go, Vassar was pulling ahead, and once they hit the 500m to go, they had sealed the deal for a gold medal.
As they crossed the line, the entire Vassar rowing team was ecstatic. We couldn’t hold in our happiness. Out came the cheers of “Vassar! Vassar!,” that selective liberal arts school in the Hudson Valley that had managed to dominate the Dad Vail competition in the first year its women were entered. We had much to celebrate.
When we got back to school, the joy soon wore off in the face of assignments and due dates, and at the moment, I am left to write my last eight-page paper of my undergraduate career. It’s nothing big, just a reflective piece about “War and Memory in East Asia,” with my advisor, Hiraku Shimoda.
At a History major’s senior reception, we bonded over a common favourite in beer, Stella Artois, and a confusion that came with graduation around the corner. Like me, he had no idea what he wanted to do after graduation, and so he went to work in a bank in Buffalo. Weird, no? Two years later, he returned to academia and never left. Perhaps this may be my path as well.
I’m realizing that life has its own little twists and turns and surprises, and often has a way of taking the plans that you’ve spent so long cultivating and manicuring, and balling them up and throwing them into the wastebasket. Who knows? Perhaps this is my fate, to be blindsided by something so random but so wonderful that I end up in a place I never dreamed I would, something like when I came to college. Perhaps I will continue on whatever path I intend for myself at this very point in time. Maybe I will be nobody like the man my teachers in high school envisioned me to be when I left their classrooms four years ago. I’ll leave that all up to God, and that’ll let me get back to this paper. Maybe I’ll even think of a great name for next week’s entry. Who knows?
This past weekend saw the last race of Vassar’s varsity rowing squad. The Dad Vail Regatta is the largest collegiate regatta in the United States, offering crews from across the country and Canada to compete for a shot at gold. The last time I was here, I was an alternate for the novice boat after narrowly losing a seat race. This time, I was to race as a captain and full-fledged member of the varsity squad.
My boat had its fair share of ups and downs. We had no time to taper, as that time was spent seat racing to compose the perfect heavyweight crew. In the end, the results were close, but next year’s captain Morgan Mako had made it into the boat. With Vince Marchetta at stroke, Kyle Sullivan at 3, Morgan at 2 and myself in bow, coxed by the extraordinary Andrew Tabenkin, we were ready to own. On the morning of 6 May, our boat had moved like it had never moved before. Each drive was powerful, each recovery was slow and controlled. There was no rush, there was no check. Our focus remained in the boat and our movement was only focused forward. Perhaps the fact that the last race of the season was upon us changed our mentalities, and everything we had worked on all semester finally came together.
Cut to a chilly Friday morning in Philadelphia. The heavyweight four are preparing for what could be our last row together. I try to retain composure, knowing that this well could be it. During out warm up run, I remembered all the times we spent together working on the ergs, pushing past the point of fatigue with sweat streaming into our eyes, our breathing sharp, our lungs on fire, our legs numb with pain. I realized that I may never find a more dedicated and hardworking group of men anywhere I would go in the world, and that deeply saddened me.
NOTE: This is not a sob story. Put the tissues away, punk. Resuming…
We put our hands in for what could have been our final chant of “VC!” as we touched the bow of the Weinberg, and we walked down with reverence and focus for the race we were about to row.
In contrast to the swing row the day before in 15mph+ wind, the day was still. We were one boat, we had one stroke. And we kept this mentality as we approached the starting line. Assigned lane 1 was a godsend: at the Dad Vail course, lane 1 has a swift current starting at around the mark signifying 500m left to go, and we were excited at our prospect of moving to semi-finals. We moved into our stake boat, reached alignment and took one last deep breath. The countdown began, and we were off. Two hundred strokes to the finish, two hundred strokes to position ourselves for a shot at the semifinals.
We were off. A high twenty at 42/43 and a settle into a 36/38. We were feeling good. The settle felt nothing higher than a 28, and it was relaxed and long. We got into our rhythm an exhaled with each drive, sending the boat forward and away from Binghamton and the College of New Jersey. We were on course to pull away from them and toward Dowling and Lafayette, when a crab slowed out boat substantially. Binghamton, the closest crew, still hadn’t pulled ahead, and we recovered and increased our open water on them. Soon, another boat-stopping crab held us up, just as we were about to enter our spring, providing Binghamton with the chance they needed to take us. They moved through us, but not past us. We kept contact and pushed out with everything we had left in our legs for the sprint, and finished 4 seconds behind Binghamton. We received a sound thrashing from the lead crews, who finished within 3 seconds of each other and beat us by 30 odd seconds, which, in rowing means half a century.
We were disappointed, but found consolation in the fact that we did row well and we moved well. Lafayette and Dowling were just too massive for us, and they had probably been rowing those line-ups from the beginning of the season, as opposed to us who had only been rowing together for 48 hours. We got off the dock and began to derig our boat, and I hung up my lucky red headband for good.
The other rowers had come down to see us race, and soon met us back at the trailer to help us. We had rowed the race of our lives, and it’s a shame we couldn’t have raced together more. Had we done so, we might have had a chance against Dowling and Lafayette. The world is just full of “what-ifs.”
Race day had just begun for everyone else, an the women’s 8+ was next up. They slid solidly into their semifinal, as did the lightweight men. But getting off the dock, the lights had a problem: 2 seat Ben Palacios had a stomach bug that had ripped through him in his exhaustion, and though he felt fine before and during the race, the stress he placed on his body made him considerably more vulnerable.
He had to go to the emergency room to be rehydrated, and in the end everything worked out fine. The lightweight 4+, unfortunately, had to scratch their race, leaving women’s 8+ as the only race to be watched. Once again, they sailed through the competition to a solid third place overall, placing them in the final. But the wind picked up to over 16mph, temporarily suspending the regatta. They were fine to settle for a third place overall, as they would have medalled, but as fate would have it, the regatta was resumed and the women were placed in the infamous lane 6. Lane 6 was dreaded in regular conditions because, unlike the rest of the river, the current stopped dead once they reached the 500m-to-go mark. However, when the current and wind were against the rowers, this was a godsend.
On my way up to the grandstand, I met two good friends from home, one a fellow All-Bahamas Merit Scholar studying at Drexel and the other, a friend from high school studying at Wharton. They came to see the races, and I was there to teach them what rowing was all about. Luckily, they came just in time for the women’s V8+ final.
A splashing of water, flashes of blades and they were off. As they rounded the bend at the thousand-metre mark, Vassar was fighting for first place. With 750m to go, Vassar was pulling ahead, and once they hit the 500m to go, they had sealed the deal for a gold medal.
As they crossed the line, the entire Vassar rowing team was ecstatic. We couldn’t hold in our happiness. Out came the cheers of “Vassar! Vassar!,” that selective liberal arts school in the Hudson Valley that had managed to dominate the Dad Vail competition in the first year its women were entered. We had much to celebrate.
When we got back to school, the joy soon wore off in the face of assignments and due dates, and at the moment, I am left to write my last eight-page paper of my undergraduate career. It’s nothing big, just a reflective piece about “War and Memory in East Asia,” with my advisor, Hiraku Shimoda.
At a History major’s senior reception, we bonded over a common favourite in beer, Stella Artois, and a confusion that came with graduation around the corner. Like me, he had no idea what he wanted to do after graduation, and so he went to work in a bank in Buffalo. Weird, no? Two years later, he returned to academia and never left. Perhaps this may be my path as well.
I’m realizing that life has its own little twists and turns and surprises, and often has a way of taking the plans that you’ve spent so long cultivating and manicuring, and balling them up and throwing them into the wastebasket. Who knows? Perhaps this is my fate, to be blindsided by something so random but so wonderful that I end up in a place I never dreamed I would, something like when I came to college. Perhaps I will continue on whatever path I intend for myself at this very point in time. Maybe I will be nobody like the man my teachers in high school envisioned me to be when I left their classrooms four years ago. I’ll leave that all up to God, and that’ll let me get back to this paper. Maybe I’ll even think of a great name for next week’s entry. Who knows?
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Last 500 metres…keep it strong here, boys…let’s take up the intensity…bring the pain right here!
Dearest readers, please forgive the rowing metaphors. They really are the only things I know how to write with these days. For the rowers among you, I don’t need to explain myself. For the non-rowers, this basically is the call that is both a boon and a curse. It means that the end is in sight, it’s so close it’s almost palpable. However, it’s also the time when a rower feels that there’s nothing left in his body: an indescribable fire rips through his legs, thousands of blades stab through his chest, all he can hear is the roar of his coxswain demanding he push harder and harder. The oxygen circles are becoming more distinct, and the distance between the head of the rower immediately in front of him is increasingly stretched out, as time and space are at the whim of the rower’s very ability to get oxygen to their depleted body.
Sound like fun? Not to the average person. It’s this part of the race that rowers fight for, to pass through that hole in the wall. Almost like Paul Atreides, the hero from Dune, who learns to pass through his fear, rowers come face to face with their own limits, but break them time and time again. This metaphor for breaking things doesn’t necessarily translate as simply to real life, but this is just about how I feel about the last few weeks of senior year. The end is near, uncomfortably near. On Wednesday, the classes officially rose after Spring Convocation, and I was started on a track to inevitable alumhood. Both speakers, Lee Zalben ’95 and Professor Livingston in CogSci, spoke about not having any idea what they would do after college, which made me feel a lot better about my current situation.
Since completing my thesis roughly two weeks ago, it’s been a real push. Getting motivated to search for jobs is a huge task. Many students here don’t realize that we have to go through the same doors as everyone else, despite coming from one of the nation’s most selective and prestigious schools. The corporate world is one that is gives no quarter, and the metaphor of birth is quite fitting here. At Vassar, we’re warm and comfortable. We’re fed, we’re safe. But come graduation, that uncomfortable and difficult push into the real world, we’re outside of the safety that has been our alma mater. Our ‘soul mother’ will always be there for us, but after graduation, we have to forge ahead to make our names in the exclusive Vassar alumni community.
Bah. Enough of these things. Full of scorpions is my mind, and empty is my stomach. Typical college student, no? But I am drawn again to reflections on transitions. As Daisy Chain co-coordinator, looking at my friends, as they have well become, dressed in their finery reflecting one of the college’s finest traditions, I remembered my days as an usher. The feelings came flooding back as we prepared them to march: I thought about how I would miss my senior friends and how I would feel two years from that day. The day came, and I felt helpless to the forces of time. My own senior Spring Convocation had come too soon. I almost cried. I wasn’t ready to leave this place I have come to call home. I’m not ready. But, like rowing, I have to step up and do what I’m supposed to do: I need to get over myself, get past my head, get past my fears and whatever pain may come, and push through. Just push through.
My senior project is coming along nicely; even though I haven’t been particularly diligent, I’ve been able to pump out some good pages of work with minimal sections for editing. Today, I found out how the Chea/Xie family around the world came upon our surname: a fiefdom in Henan province where there actually exists a Xie City. Once I found out about that, I put that down on my list of places I must absolutely go before I die.
This weekend, we’re off to Whitney Point, NY for the New York State Championships, my second-to-last race. Depending on the weather on Sunday, I have at most, three practices left with the team I love so much. Saturday saw the Men’s 8 enter the Petite finals after beating out RPI in the Men’s Varsity 8, with Marist as the eventual state champions. We had contact on Union for a good part of the race but failed to take them. After a somewhat disheartening race, the lightweight 4 went through to beast it out and take gold. The lightweights are the cream of the men’s team crop, embodying discipline and raw strength despite their scrawniness. The rest of the team envy them for their dedication, but are kind of glad we don’t have to starve ourselves, except for Peter Muhn who rows at 3 seat who’s kind of a bottomless pit. Today was the Petite finals early in the morning, as to beat out the pending thunderstorms. We went out on the water with an attitude to row hard and have fun, and as it was the last time Nick and I would be in the 8 (on top of having it be our last row in the 8 for the rest of season), we wanted to end on a high note.
We got off the line at a 44 on our high 20, settling into a 37/38. We had a lead on the Union boat! They must have been so confused. We kept our half/three-quarter boat lead on Union for the majority of the race, never slipping below a long and solid 36, and once we heard the wily call, “Welcome to the second thousand!” we knew we could take the Union boat. We passed them by the time the 500-metre mark was in sight, and we also began to walk on the Hamilton boat. With 15 strokes to go, we got up to a 38.5 to take Hamilton, eventually beating them by .38 seconds – our 6:29.16 to their 6:29.52. Union must have been confused. They beat us quite soundly yesterday, but today, we blew them out of the water. We got out attitudes right, and we were riding on the high of having our boys win gold. Now, back at Vassar, we seniors are really entering the 500m, and it’s the hardest thing in the world to keep that intensity up.
Sound like fun? Not to the average person. It’s this part of the race that rowers fight for, to pass through that hole in the wall. Almost like Paul Atreides, the hero from Dune, who learns to pass through his fear, rowers come face to face with their own limits, but break them time and time again. This metaphor for breaking things doesn’t necessarily translate as simply to real life, but this is just about how I feel about the last few weeks of senior year. The end is near, uncomfortably near. On Wednesday, the classes officially rose after Spring Convocation, and I was started on a track to inevitable alumhood. Both speakers, Lee Zalben ’95 and Professor Livingston in CogSci, spoke about not having any idea what they would do after college, which made me feel a lot better about my current situation.
Since completing my thesis roughly two weeks ago, it’s been a real push. Getting motivated to search for jobs is a huge task. Many students here don’t realize that we have to go through the same doors as everyone else, despite coming from one of the nation’s most selective and prestigious schools. The corporate world is one that is gives no quarter, and the metaphor of birth is quite fitting here. At Vassar, we’re warm and comfortable. We’re fed, we’re safe. But come graduation, that uncomfortable and difficult push into the real world, we’re outside of the safety that has been our alma mater. Our ‘soul mother’ will always be there for us, but after graduation, we have to forge ahead to make our names in the exclusive Vassar alumni community.
Bah. Enough of these things. Full of scorpions is my mind, and empty is my stomach. Typical college student, no? But I am drawn again to reflections on transitions. As Daisy Chain co-coordinator, looking at my friends, as they have well become, dressed in their finery reflecting one of the college’s finest traditions, I remembered my days as an usher. The feelings came flooding back as we prepared them to march: I thought about how I would miss my senior friends and how I would feel two years from that day. The day came, and I felt helpless to the forces of time. My own senior Spring Convocation had come too soon. I almost cried. I wasn’t ready to leave this place I have come to call home. I’m not ready. But, like rowing, I have to step up and do what I’m supposed to do: I need to get over myself, get past my head, get past my fears and whatever pain may come, and push through. Just push through.
My senior project is coming along nicely; even though I haven’t been particularly diligent, I’ve been able to pump out some good pages of work with minimal sections for editing. Today, I found out how the Chea/Xie family around the world came upon our surname: a fiefdom in Henan province where there actually exists a Xie City. Once I found out about that, I put that down on my list of places I must absolutely go before I die.
This weekend, we’re off to Whitney Point, NY for the New York State Championships, my second-to-last race. Depending on the weather on Sunday, I have at most, three practices left with the team I love so much. Saturday saw the Men’s 8 enter the Petite finals after beating out RPI in the Men’s Varsity 8, with Marist as the eventual state champions. We had contact on Union for a good part of the race but failed to take them. After a somewhat disheartening race, the lightweight 4 went through to beast it out and take gold. The lightweights are the cream of the men’s team crop, embodying discipline and raw strength despite their scrawniness. The rest of the team envy them for their dedication, but are kind of glad we don’t have to starve ourselves, except for Peter Muhn who rows at 3 seat who’s kind of a bottomless pit. Today was the Petite finals early in the morning, as to beat out the pending thunderstorms. We went out on the water with an attitude to row hard and have fun, and as it was the last time Nick and I would be in the 8 (on top of having it be our last row in the 8 for the rest of season), we wanted to end on a high note.
We got off the line at a 44 on our high 20, settling into a 37/38. We had a lead on the Union boat! They must have been so confused. We kept our half/three-quarter boat lead on Union for the majority of the race, never slipping below a long and solid 36, and once we heard the wily call, “Welcome to the second thousand!” we knew we could take the Union boat. We passed them by the time the 500-metre mark was in sight, and we also began to walk on the Hamilton boat. With 15 strokes to go, we got up to a 38.5 to take Hamilton, eventually beating them by .38 seconds – our 6:29.16 to their 6:29.52. Union must have been confused. They beat us quite soundly yesterday, but today, we blew them out of the water. We got out attitudes right, and we were riding on the high of having our boys win gold. Now, back at Vassar, we seniors are really entering the 500m, and it’s the hardest thing in the world to keep that intensity up.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
NEW BLOG TITLE PICTURE! YEAH!
Just in case you've been following me for the past little bit, I've finally decided to change my blog title picture. This picture is of a bunch of Yoshino Cherry blossoms that we have here on campus, with the smokestack of the Old Laundry Building just blurred out in the background. In the spring, the cherry blossoms open and brighten up the path from the main part of campus down past the ALANA Centre to the Terrace Apartments (senior housing) and Walker Fieldhouse and Fitness Centre. If there is ever a time to visit Vassar, make it in the spring, around the first week of April when the cherry blossoms are out at their best!
"The Beginning of the End" aka "The Countdown" aka...bah, I don't care anymore
So, the countdown to graduation has officially started. Well, I guess it officially starts from the moment you step foot on your college campus, but the inevitability of it really doesn't hit home until the last few weeks of senior year.
As an athlete, perhaps I am more prone to noticing that the end is near (also, please excuse me from sounding like an Apocalypse prophet throughout this piece). Our first race of the season was held two weeks ago in Camden, NJ. The Knecht Cup was a competition I'd only been to once before, as a novice and as an alternate, and did not row. This time, as a varsity rower and captain, and with three countries' worth of rowing experience behind me, I was finally getting a chance to row. The weather was a little chilly, but otherwise perfect. There was a tailwind on the course, making the warm-up row a little tough at times, but made the actual race piece so much sweeter. My first race was in the heavyweight Varsity 4+ with a great bunch of guys, and my novice cox who had come up the ranks with me. We had a great row, but since we weren't the biggest crew in terms of weight or height, we were muscled out of the semifinals by only 7 seconds. In rowing, seven seconds is a lot, but after the race is done, it does seem like something that could have been doable at the time. The second race was the next day with the Varsity 8+ when, once again, we were muscled out of a medal. Once again, our loss was only by about 8 seconds. For a first race, we put in some good effort, and we could see where we needed to work.
I remembered being a sophomore novice, and looking at the seniors that year and the way they looked at the water. I remembered how they looked when they pushed off the dock, the focus and determination they had to make this last season their best. Graduating with me will be my co-captain, Nick Perry, and I think having two seniors on the team really brings the focus that we want this season to be our absolute best.
Sign two that the end is nigh came this past Monday when I turned in my thesis. After spending the last half semester or so writing my about the British territory of Weihaiwei during November to March 1911, it is finally off my hands. The History majors celebrated our great milestone with cake outside Swift Hall, the History building, and thought about what we would do with our time now that we were finally free.
Unfortunately, I still have one more senior project to go. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am THAT international student. You know, the one that sits at the back of the class and works hard to answer correctly all the time, goes above and beyond the call of academic duty and strives, if for nothing else, to destroy that curve that may or may not exist in class. Yeah, that's me. Just kidding. As I mentioned before, it's my family history, and it's a labour of love. It's actually coming along quite nicely, so I don't think I'll have too much of a problem, other than getting around that fun Classical Chinese that I've been teaching myself. Alas, the joys and pains of a growing brain.
At this point I am being wrenched from my keyboard to sell sweatshirts of the senior class. We ordered some really cool ones incorporating the Vassar crest with Athena and an old really ivy-ish VC logo. I may get one, even though spring makes it tough to wear. Oh well, it's like a winter clothes sale in the spring. They're cheap! Until next time, faithful readers, and I hope that will just be next week!
As an athlete, perhaps I am more prone to noticing that the end is near (also, please excuse me from sounding like an Apocalypse prophet throughout this piece). Our first race of the season was held two weeks ago in Camden, NJ. The Knecht Cup was a competition I'd only been to once before, as a novice and as an alternate, and did not row. This time, as a varsity rower and captain, and with three countries' worth of rowing experience behind me, I was finally getting a chance to row. The weather was a little chilly, but otherwise perfect. There was a tailwind on the course, making the warm-up row a little tough at times, but made the actual race piece so much sweeter. My first race was in the heavyweight Varsity 4+ with a great bunch of guys, and my novice cox who had come up the ranks with me. We had a great row, but since we weren't the biggest crew in terms of weight or height, we were muscled out of the semifinals by only 7 seconds. In rowing, seven seconds is a lot, but after the race is done, it does seem like something that could have been doable at the time. The second race was the next day with the Varsity 8+ when, once again, we were muscled out of a medal. Once again, our loss was only by about 8 seconds. For a first race, we put in some good effort, and we could see where we needed to work.
I remembered being a sophomore novice, and looking at the seniors that year and the way they looked at the water. I remembered how they looked when they pushed off the dock, the focus and determination they had to make this last season their best. Graduating with me will be my co-captain, Nick Perry, and I think having two seniors on the team really brings the focus that we want this season to be our absolute best.
Sign two that the end is nigh came this past Monday when I turned in my thesis. After spending the last half semester or so writing my about the British territory of Weihaiwei during November to March 1911, it is finally off my hands. The History majors celebrated our great milestone with cake outside Swift Hall, the History building, and thought about what we would do with our time now that we were finally free.
Unfortunately, I still have one more senior project to go. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am THAT international student. You know, the one that sits at the back of the class and works hard to answer correctly all the time, goes above and beyond the call of academic duty and strives, if for nothing else, to destroy that curve that may or may not exist in class. Yeah, that's me. Just kidding. As I mentioned before, it's my family history, and it's a labour of love. It's actually coming along quite nicely, so I don't think I'll have too much of a problem, other than getting around that fun Classical Chinese that I've been teaching myself. Alas, the joys and pains of a growing brain.
At this point I am being wrenched from my keyboard to sell sweatshirts of the senior class. We ordered some really cool ones incorporating the Vassar crest with Athena and an old really ivy-ish VC logo. I may get one, even though spring makes it tough to wear. Oh well, it's like a winter clothes sale in the spring. They're cheap! Until next time, faithful readers, and I hope that will just be next week!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Senioritis?
So, it's been a clear two months since my last entry. In entry time, that should have been four entries ago, but it's just the latest one. My deepest apologies, my faithful readers, for not keeping up to task. Ironically, instead of working on my thesis, the very thing that has kept me away from blogging these past two months, I am now writing to procrastinate.
I can't say that anything particularly profound has happened to me over the last two months. Perhaps the most significant, and most scary, has been the fact that I am slowly realizing that I am, bit by bit, being pushed out of this place I have come to call home. I suppose it started with indoor winter training for rowing, the time of the year that no rower wants to face. It calls for 6AM wake-ups, and long mornings in the erg room. Still, it's a great time to build fitness and see gains in strength throughout the winter. It was my last winter season ever, and it was bittersweet. I started to think back to my first winter season in sophomore year, right after I joined up as a novice. It was just as tough, and as my captain, Gregg Orton, had done that year, telling me what I should and shouldn't do and how to erg properly, I took the novices aside and gave them some pointers. I felt like the old veteran, even though I had only been rowing for two years, one and a half of which had been at Vassar.
My thesis, which I wrote so extensively about starting to think about maybe beginning to write perhaps, began to get underway. My original plan was to write one page a day, and that worked out well for the first week or so. Then, things started to fall apart. Work happened. Other commitments got in the way. The one page a day turned into, "I'll make up my page a day for the last 4 days in one day," which just turned into the regular old Sunday procrastination. I ended up with a solid draft of 34 pages, the comments of which were returned to me just under two weeks ago. It's a solid body of work, and something that I am extremely proud of, especially considering that I only really started, in earnest, this semester.
I've also managed to over-commit myself academically again. Along with my thesis, I'm undertaking a Chinese senior project, my last unit before completing the major. I've managed to get a hold of my family history/genealogy, also known as the 謝氏家譜 for those of you who can read Chinese. It documents my family's 30 recorded generations. There were 20 before them, which is wild just thinking about it. It's been a huge piece of work that I started over spring break, and it continues to rob me of sleep.
Speaking of spring break, this marked my second and last spring break training trip to Florida with the rowing team. We made some good progress coming out of the winter season, but we still have a long way to go before our first race at Knecht Cup. On the bright side, we got some great training days. My double partner, freshman Vince Marchetta, and I got some awesome time in the double and even rowed it at our inter-team race on the last day of training. Managing to beat one VIII in the newly-dubbed, "Clarkoff-Tanatee," we were on quite a high for the rest of the day. On our one afternoon off, a few of us headed down to Blue Springs State Park to observe some manatees. There were eight of them chilling in the springs that day, and the actual spring itself was closed off for a few hours, owing to the fact that a calf and his mother decided to dive down into the boil of it for some warmer temperatures. Once they had enough, the spring opened up, and I actually dove down into it. It was my first time in a natural spring, and it's really cool. The water is light and fresh to the taste. You feel absolutely pure in it, and opening your eyes underwater is painless.
Now, back up at Vassar, I've finally found time write all this down. We've just held elections for next year's executive board for the Vassar Boat Club/Rowing Club, whatever we decide to be called. My role as a captain is slowly being phased out, and I am being pushed into the real world. It's quite exciting, but at the same time, a little sad knowing that this is a chapter of my life whose final pages are being written. I hope this one ends well. Stay tuned, and I promise that I'll write often leading up to the ever-looming graduation day.
I can't say that anything particularly profound has happened to me over the last two months. Perhaps the most significant, and most scary, has been the fact that I am slowly realizing that I am, bit by bit, being pushed out of this place I have come to call home. I suppose it started with indoor winter training for rowing, the time of the year that no rower wants to face. It calls for 6AM wake-ups, and long mornings in the erg room. Still, it's a great time to build fitness and see gains in strength throughout the winter. It was my last winter season ever, and it was bittersweet. I started to think back to my first winter season in sophomore year, right after I joined up as a novice. It was just as tough, and as my captain, Gregg Orton, had done that year, telling me what I should and shouldn't do and how to erg properly, I took the novices aside and gave them some pointers. I felt like the old veteran, even though I had only been rowing for two years, one and a half of which had been at Vassar.
My thesis, which I wrote so extensively about starting to think about maybe beginning to write perhaps, began to get underway. My original plan was to write one page a day, and that worked out well for the first week or so. Then, things started to fall apart. Work happened. Other commitments got in the way. The one page a day turned into, "I'll make up my page a day for the last 4 days in one day," which just turned into the regular old Sunday procrastination. I ended up with a solid draft of 34 pages, the comments of which were returned to me just under two weeks ago. It's a solid body of work, and something that I am extremely proud of, especially considering that I only really started, in earnest, this semester.
I've also managed to over-commit myself academically again. Along with my thesis, I'm undertaking a Chinese senior project, my last unit before completing the major. I've managed to get a hold of my family history/genealogy, also known as the 謝氏家譜 for those of you who can read Chinese. It documents my family's 30 recorded generations. There were 20 before them, which is wild just thinking about it. It's been a huge piece of work that I started over spring break, and it continues to rob me of sleep.
Speaking of spring break, this marked my second and last spring break training trip to Florida with the rowing team. We made some good progress coming out of the winter season, but we still have a long way to go before our first race at Knecht Cup. On the bright side, we got some great training days. My double partner, freshman Vince Marchetta, and I got some awesome time in the double and even rowed it at our inter-team race on the last day of training. Managing to beat one VIII in the newly-dubbed, "Clarkoff-Tanatee," we were on quite a high for the rest of the day. On our one afternoon off, a few of us headed down to Blue Springs State Park to observe some manatees. There were eight of them chilling in the springs that day, and the actual spring itself was closed off for a few hours, owing to the fact that a calf and his mother decided to dive down into the boil of it for some warmer temperatures. Once they had enough, the spring opened up, and I actually dove down into it. It was my first time in a natural spring, and it's really cool. The water is light and fresh to the taste. You feel absolutely pure in it, and opening your eyes underwater is painless.
Now, back up at Vassar, I've finally found time write all this down. We've just held elections for next year's executive board for the Vassar Boat Club/Rowing Club, whatever we decide to be called. My role as a captain is slowly being phased out, and I am being pushed into the real world. It's quite exciting, but at the same time, a little sad knowing that this is a chapter of my life whose final pages are being written. I hope this one ends well. Stay tuned, and I promise that I'll write often leading up to the ever-looming graduation day.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Home again, home again, jiggedy jig
So, as you will see at the end of the post, from New York, here's my latest entry, fresh from my desktop.
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Hey all, I’m currently chilling in a snazzy café in Heathrow on to the final leg of my epic journey. It’s been a wild whirlwind of playing historian, and now I feel like a real one, but before I get into the deepness of all, I’ll give you a quick recap of my visit to Bristol.
I left Edinburgh on a blustery evening, got to the airport a good hour and a half before my EasyJet flight, and it turns out, foggy conditions at Bristol delayed my flight a good three and half hours. I can’t say it was particularly convenient, especially as I was supposed to meet some friends down at one of my favourite pubs, but at least it meant that I would get some guaranteed sleep.
Come 1:30AM Friday morning, and I’m finally at my friend’s flat in Bristol. Callie, one of my flatmates from University Hall last year (can you believe it’s been a year since I was at Bristol?) moved right onto the Triangle (go to Bristol, you’ll find out what that is), and after a few hours of checking emails and administrative work, I crashed harder than a four year old after a pound of sugar.
Despite being so tired, the rest of Friday was pretty productive: I met with Dr. Robert Bickers, effectively my mentor in this project and we had a good historians’ chat about our respective research on Weihaiwei. He’s in the middle of writing a book about it, and I shall be keen to get it, but thesis first. The man is amazingly smart and knowledgeable, as are most people who have been in their fields for twenty years and more, but as I’m only twenty-one, the prospect of that scares me a bit. He gave me some good pointers, and then, unfortunately, whisked me out of his office to do some more writing.
From the hallowed bungalows-cum-classrooms of Woodland Road, I wandered up to the Arts and Social Sciences Library (if you’re a new reader, you figure it out) to meet my friend Sasha at a restaurant that opened since I left called Mocha Mocha. Decent food, but I was just about ready to eat anything.
I hopped up to the gym afterwards to prove that I wasn’t a lazy bum, and ran into some of my rowing mates who were giving the novices their second 2k test of their rowing careers. At Bristol, they manage to recruit monsters of 6’ and taller as novices, so a starting split of 1:30 is nowhere out of the ordinary, but they just take it up to 1:43 or something. Wild. I was just settling in for an erg after at least a week, and I definitely felt it. All that matters is that I keep up with the fitness, because this spring season, I’m going to beast it. Nor bars, no limits, just sweat and probably a decent amount of muscle pain. Just the way I like it.
The next day, I also hit the gym, but after a much needed rest of about ten hours. I did some work, before I decided it was far too beautiful a day to stay inside. I met up with some Suyin, another one of my old flatmates, her boyfriend, Adam, and our good friend, Eric. A massive pub burger is always good, especially when it’s the first thing you eat in the morning. Well, noon, but I suppose after al the sitting and reading I’ve been doing, I deserve to call noon “morning.”
Later that night came pub night with the University of Bristol Boat Club boys. We had stayed in touch all through the year, and for me to come back was quite a good excuse to go out for a night on the town. It was great to see them, and we exchanged stories, with good banter and tales of pain from the ergs. Rowing life is never as easy as it seems, no matter where you go.
That’s what great about the sport, though. Everyone is always pushing their body to shave off those extra seconds, or working for that goal split. Working alone will only get you so far, but by working with guys who are always trying to outdo the other will get you miles ahead of where you ever thought you could be. This blog post is brought to you by: Kyle’s Sports Philosophy Corner. Yeah. Moving on…
I left Bristol late Sunday evening after a great dinner at Nando’s with Callie and Sasha, and thanks to Vassar, rode back on the train in first class. Mind you, it wasn’t much different from standard class, but the seats were comfier, it was quieter, and I was alone, save for the other guy at the back of the car. What a life, huh?
Yesterday in London wasn’t particularly eventful: a trip all the way out to Kew Gardens for 9AM, only to find out that the reading rooms are closed on a Monday, so then a 45 minute trek back into the centre of London to the School of Oriental and African Studies to read the North China Herald, a daily paper that covered news from Weihaiwei and the rest of Northern China, printed out of Shanghai. By 4PM, I had quite enough of libraries and I was ready to get out. I ended up running into a Vassar student currently studying abroad at SOAS, Kendra, who hadn’t had a proper English cream tea, despite being in the country for a week. As I am always a sucker for a good cream tea, I offered to find a spot, and away we went. Clotted cream and jam are dangerous things, my friends. I will do almost anything to get a scone covered with them. True, and sad, story.
And now, I find myself about to board a flight back to New York, my friends, my flat and my girlfriend; not to mention my last semester at Vassar. It’s a scary thought that four years ago I was freaking about not knowing where I was going to end up in the coming year, and it’s exactly the same again. Ok, I’m shutting Kyle’s Philosophy Corner down until the next post. Be well, fine readers. Until next time, in New York!
-----------------
Hey all, I’m currently chilling in a snazzy café in Heathrow on to the final leg of my epic journey. It’s been a wild whirlwind of playing historian, and now I feel like a real one, but before I get into the deepness of all, I’ll give you a quick recap of my visit to Bristol.
I left Edinburgh on a blustery evening, got to the airport a good hour and a half before my EasyJet flight, and it turns out, foggy conditions at Bristol delayed my flight a good three and half hours. I can’t say it was particularly convenient, especially as I was supposed to meet some friends down at one of my favourite pubs, but at least it meant that I would get some guaranteed sleep.
Come 1:30AM Friday morning, and I’m finally at my friend’s flat in Bristol. Callie, one of my flatmates from University Hall last year (can you believe it’s been a year since I was at Bristol?) moved right onto the Triangle (go to Bristol, you’ll find out what that is), and after a few hours of checking emails and administrative work, I crashed harder than a four year old after a pound of sugar.
Despite being so tired, the rest of Friday was pretty productive: I met with Dr. Robert Bickers, effectively my mentor in this project and we had a good historians’ chat about our respective research on Weihaiwei. He’s in the middle of writing a book about it, and I shall be keen to get it, but thesis first. The man is amazingly smart and knowledgeable, as are most people who have been in their fields for twenty years and more, but as I’m only twenty-one, the prospect of that scares me a bit. He gave me some good pointers, and then, unfortunately, whisked me out of his office to do some more writing.
From the hallowed bungalows-cum-classrooms of Woodland Road, I wandered up to the Arts and Social Sciences Library (if you’re a new reader, you figure it out) to meet my friend Sasha at a restaurant that opened since I left called Mocha Mocha. Decent food, but I was just about ready to eat anything.
I hopped up to the gym afterwards to prove that I wasn’t a lazy bum, and ran into some of my rowing mates who were giving the novices their second 2k test of their rowing careers. At Bristol, they manage to recruit monsters of 6’ and taller as novices, so a starting split of 1:30 is nowhere out of the ordinary, but they just take it up to 1:43 or something. Wild. I was just settling in for an erg after at least a week, and I definitely felt it. All that matters is that I keep up with the fitness, because this spring season, I’m going to beast it. Nor bars, no limits, just sweat and probably a decent amount of muscle pain. Just the way I like it.
The next day, I also hit the gym, but after a much needed rest of about ten hours. I did some work, before I decided it was far too beautiful a day to stay inside. I met up with some Suyin, another one of my old flatmates, her boyfriend, Adam, and our good friend, Eric. A massive pub burger is always good, especially when it’s the first thing you eat in the morning. Well, noon, but I suppose after al the sitting and reading I’ve been doing, I deserve to call noon “morning.”
Later that night came pub night with the University of Bristol Boat Club boys. We had stayed in touch all through the year, and for me to come back was quite a good excuse to go out for a night on the town. It was great to see them, and we exchanged stories, with good banter and tales of pain from the ergs. Rowing life is never as easy as it seems, no matter where you go.
That’s what great about the sport, though. Everyone is always pushing their body to shave off those extra seconds, or working for that goal split. Working alone will only get you so far, but by working with guys who are always trying to outdo the other will get you miles ahead of where you ever thought you could be. This blog post is brought to you by: Kyle’s Sports Philosophy Corner. Yeah. Moving on…
I left Bristol late Sunday evening after a great dinner at Nando’s with Callie and Sasha, and thanks to Vassar, rode back on the train in first class. Mind you, it wasn’t much different from standard class, but the seats were comfier, it was quieter, and I was alone, save for the other guy at the back of the car. What a life, huh?
Yesterday in London wasn’t particularly eventful: a trip all the way out to Kew Gardens for 9AM, only to find out that the reading rooms are closed on a Monday, so then a 45 minute trek back into the centre of London to the School of Oriental and African Studies to read the North China Herald, a daily paper that covered news from Weihaiwei and the rest of Northern China, printed out of Shanghai. By 4PM, I had quite enough of libraries and I was ready to get out. I ended up running into a Vassar student currently studying abroad at SOAS, Kendra, who hadn’t had a proper English cream tea, despite being in the country for a week. As I am always a sucker for a good cream tea, I offered to find a spot, and away we went. Clotted cream and jam are dangerous things, my friends. I will do almost anything to get a scone covered with them. True, and sad, story.
And now, I find myself about to board a flight back to New York, my friends, my flat and my girlfriend; not to mention my last semester at Vassar. It’s a scary thought that four years ago I was freaking about not knowing where I was going to end up in the coming year, and it’s exactly the same again. Ok, I’m shutting Kyle’s Philosophy Corner down until the next post. Be well, fine readers. Until next time, in New York!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Bonnie Scotland
Hello again! Don’t you love having mad time just to write and having a decent amount of exciting adventures to write about? I kinda do.
I’ve been in Edinburgh for 3 days so far, well, I guess two full ones, and I have perfected the art of taking night pictures, since that’s the only time I ever get to take pictures. I flew in Sunday evening past, checked into the Budget Backpapers hostel on Cowgate (which is amazingly convenient and central if you’re ever thinking of going to Edinburgh for cheap), and then ran off to get some dinner. The first place I found was a Nepalese place, and it was delicious. I ordered the hottest degree of spiciness and the waiter looked surprised and probably thought I was crazy: “Who’s the kid with the American accent ordering the spiciest sauce? What’s wrong with him?” It actually wasn’t that spicy at all, and now I can say I’ve eaten Nepalese food.
Down to the description of business: reading. As repetitive as it may sound, reading through these manuscripts is like having a really wide window back in time, reading the letters in order around the time of the Chinese Revolution is like reading a novel; I just want to know if the revolutionary forces made it into the next town, or if the government official was protected adequately. My reading room in the National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge is a nice little place; the only problem is that it lacks windows completely. I’m reading the actual manuscripts of Sir JH Stewart Lockhart, the first civil commissioner of Weihaiwei from 1902 to 1930. In London, I was just reading fun scribbly-scrawly bits of handwriting, which was really cool, but made my eyes hurt. Thankfully there were some telegraphed bits interdispersed between them, so it wasn’t too bad. Most of the papers here are all handwritten, and I’ve gotten pretty good at reading it. It’s still a bit of a pain, though.
I’ve come across all kinds of awesome documents: letters describing the transport of prisoners of war, documents surrounding the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor, the last Emperor of China, and other more mundane things, like government gazettes and schoolboy essays. I’ve put in orders for photocopies like I’m downloading music, or something. I also get really, really excited when a box of manuscripts shows up. It’s a big rush, followed by a few hours of sitting down, hunched over papers from the early twentieth century.
As academic as my trip may seem, the library does close eventually. You may be asking yourself, what does Kyle do when he’s thrown out of his element? My friend, Siwan, who I stayed with in Cardiff over Easter of last year goes to the University of Edinburgh, and we met up for dinner the night after my first full day. My friend, Anna, from Glasgow also came into town for drinks and dinner. We went to Buffalo Grill right on the other side of Bristo Square in the middle of the university, and followed that up by chilling out at The Standing Order, a Wetherspoons in the New Town.
Afterwards, Siwan went out with her friends, but two of her flatmates and I had early days for the next morning, so we finished the night up Edinburgh-style. First stop was McDonald’s for an ice cream, but the ice cream machine had broken down, so then I was off to Burger King for my soft serve fix. Next stop was the chippy’s, or the late night grease pit (in American). Siwan’s flatmate, Sarah, convinced me that I absolutely had to eat a deep-fried Mars bar. It may sound like county fair fare (a doozy, no?), and I know this because before moving in, my folks took me to lunch in Rhinebeck and we heard about the deep-fried Twinkies. Anyway, I got one. It was perfect for the cold Edinburgh weather, and my three-minute walk back to the hostel.
Funny enough, the next morning after ice cream, a steak and a deep-fried Mars bar, I was extremely hungry. I scoured my part of town for a pub that was open at 8:30AM, but I was running out of places to look and I was soon losing hope. Then, I saw a pub door open and a guy directing kegs inside and asked if they were open. I was about to fall over from hunger, and he told me to take a seat. I got myself a full, legitimate Scottish breakfast: an egg, back bacon rasher, sausage, black pudding, a puffed roll and, of course, haggis. The haggis was delicious! I’m a fan of its typical ingredients on their own (I advise you to eat it first before you find out what’s in it if you’re faint of heart) but it was almost like ambrosia. I think I may bring back a can or two.
After my full and hearty breakfast, I sat down for the next few hours, poring over letters and newspapers. Such is the life of a history major: it may not be glamorous, but you do get to travel. Until next time, in Bristol!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Back in the U(ss?)K
And that was a poor Beatles reference.
So, I know it’s been ages since my last post. Blame it on a series/combination of exams, essays and friends being home over break. But, before I continue apologising, I’d like to wish everybody a prosperous and successful new year.
Ok, cool. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s my life. I had a few friends from Vassar come and visit over the winter holidays; Jeremy, Jonathan, John and Max all flew down for some good times and warm temperatures, which we finished off with an epic New Year’s Eve buffet and watching the Junkanoo parade. After seeing them off, one by one, it was time for me to leave my island for another one: England.
It’s been near a year since I first landed in England, and it’s much, much colder. I remember leaving DC and thinking the temperatures in London were quite friendly, but this time around, I guess I brought the snow from New York. Bummer. I moved quickly over to my friend Tommy’s, who lives in a quaint (all of London is quaint when you’re used to New York) area of town called Exmouth Market, near Farringdon station on the Tube. I was hoping to get some research done, but those plans were soon derailed by inefficient tube service, meaning that I probably wouldn’t get to the archives before closing since they were near an hour away. I decided instead to go to the British Library. I waltzed in with my liberal arts swagger, and lo and behold, I was stopped. I didn’t have a reader’s card. I was directed downstairs to register, but I needed some form of ID that had an address listed. I freaked out. My license didn’t have an address on it, and I hadn’t brought my passport (which was good, because if I made it all the way to the archives, I would have been a sad puppy), which also didn’t have my address, so I decided to do what women do when they’re stressed out: shop. Well, not walk around and shop for ages. I had one thing on my mind to help keep me warm, just a nice scarf. I knew of a shop that sold scarves made of Scottish lambswool and cashmere which are quite nice, as well as surprisingly affordable for college students; besides, I was cold.
Pause, and rewind. You may be wondering, how can I get to go to England, like you, Kyle? Well, it’s simple. Apply for an Evalyn Clark fellowship if you’re a history major. It’s a memorial fellowship that can be used to travel abroad for research. Since my thesis topic is rather obscure, not many sources can be easily found in the US, so I’ve come to England, where the Colonial Office and Foreign Office archives are held, along with Sir James Haldane Lockhart’s papers in Scotland. Even though it’s primarily for my thesis, the archives close at 5PM, giving me a good deal of time to re-explore London, check out Edinburgh while I’m up there, and hopefully not freeze in the process. Continuing…
After my epic purchase of all of eight quid, I made my way home, but not before stopping in at SOAS for a walk around. I tried to go in to see if a professor I was looking for was there, but I needed an ID. So much for being intrepid; the North American fails.
From there I trudged home through the ice and slush and a lightly falling snow. The sun had set at 4, and by 4:30PM it looked like 8. Tom decided to stay in from work on account of being ill, so I hung out with him and waited for his friend, Pierre, and his girlfriend, Jess, to come by for dinner.
Flash to the next day: Vassar swag, check; passport and F-1 form with address, check; potential industriousness, check. I go to the National Archives all the way out at Kew Gardens, get my reader’s card and I’m ready to go. I’d elaborate further on what I did, but reading is about all I got up to. Yeah, for reading! Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high, blah blah you know the deal, right? Oh yeah, I forgot there are kids born in 1991 who are in college now. They wouldn’t understand. What a sad world we live in.
As I write, I’m in the archives, waiting for my next batch of documents to come out of the darkness and into my cubbyhole. Then it’s off again into the wintry darkness and historic coldness that this week has produced. Who says you need to leave the Northeast for crazy cold temperatures?
Stay tuned, next post in Scotland!
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