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Archive for people
June 28, 2006 at 11:03 pm · Filed under people
Strange that before yesterday, I don’t remember ever having had anything offensive shouted at me. While out riding with a couple of friends yesterday late afternoon, an on-coming car’s driver yelled out very loudly “f*@# you” as he drove by. Was it because we were bikers? Or because we were Asian? Or maybe we just looked funny?
Crossing Mass Ave today, a guy who could have easily been a student was sitting in a bus stand talking on his cell phone. Then he suddenly screams very loudly, “F&*k you, you m*therf&*king n*gger”. I did a double-take, looked around instinctively scanning for anyone black, and the only people I saw were several others looking around just as I was doing. The guy went on talking on his cell phone in a normal voice, inaudible from 20 feet away, as if I had just dreamt up the whole episode. The rest of us went about our merry ways.
This made me think of all of those “racial incidents” at UVA, where people would report to the Dean’s office obscenities shouted at them from passing cars, claiming them to be racially charged. The FBI got involved with one or two of them, only to conclude that there was no evidence that the incidents were race-related, and thus they cannot be classified as hate crimes.
My personal feeling is that the FBI got involved because of the pressure Virginia administration felt from student activist groups proclaiming UVA to be a tense and hostile environment for minority students. The groups advocate that a general lack of diversity awareness in the student body, and a lack of concern for diversity by the administration, leads to these unfortunate “racial incidents.” I tend to disagree, and in general I find it a tad sad (sad-pathetic, not sad-melancholy) that the federal government had to get involved with some silly anarchist graffiti.
An incident like the cell phone guy at 77 Mass Ave today would have for sure made front-page headlines at the Cav Daily: “Unidentified Man’s Racial Slurs Intensifies an Already Tense University Environment”. Here, today, it just garnered a few stares.
So where do we draw the line between stupid, hurtful pranks and legitimate racial hate-crimes? My thoughts are that UVA is not much different from other college campuses in the “racial environment” that exists. It’s just that wahoos are now SO incredibly sensitive to every remotely-racially-involved comment made that almost everything gets interpreted as a “racial incident.” In fact, I think that the whole diversity awareness thing may even have gone a bit overboard. The “hostile” racial environment is an artificial one sustained by over-sensitivity and over-application of political correctness. Anthills are being hailed as the Rocky Mountains. Personal assaults and attacks are hate-crimes sure (and there were a couple of these), but silly anarchist graffiti? Some f-bombs shouted out from car windows? These are racial incidents? REALLY??
But maybe people like me are the problem. We are not sensitive enough, and together we make up the hostile racial environment that make minority students uncomfortable. But ought we be THAT sensitive? What is the right approach here?
I biked away yesterday not feeling particularly different about anything (except maybe a desire to react more quickly next time and give the guy the finger before he’s able to drive away). I sure as hell wasn’t offended yesterday, but should I have been? I walked away today from the cell phone guy confused as to what I actually witnessed, with more of a “WTF???” reaction than a “oh my god, I just witnessed a hate-crime, should I say something” reaction. I didn’t say anything to anyone, but should I have?
June 13, 2006 at 10:06 am · Filed under daily grind, people
I am not a fan of small talk (is anyone?), but recently I thought that I was perhaps getting better at it. Really though, I now realize, I can only do small talk with someone somewhat around my age who is a student. Put me in a room with older folks, and I don’t even know what questions to ask. I hate the “so what do you do” question, so I try to avoid it, but in the end, I just make awkward situations because there is no other way to find out what someone does for a living. Honestly, when I do ask that question, it’s not even because I am trying to make conversation. I am actually curious what the other person does.
The problem is that I don’t know how to ask the question or how to have a conversation with someone older, working. I think I get intimidated as well because I feel like they are on a different level than I, and who am I to ask them what they do? I feel stupid talking to these people, and I feel like I am wasting their time. The conversations inevitably go something like this:
me: So, are you working? (**mistake #1: never ask yes/no questions)
other person: why yes, I am
me: Where do you work?
other person: lalalala (**some place I have never heard of)
*awkward silence*
Maybe this is the classic example of it being hard to connect with someone with whom I have no commonalities (is that a word?). It is much easier to talk to someone around my age, someone in school because that is what I do. I can relate to that and find common ground for interesting conversations.”So what school do you go to?” “What are you studying?” “Where are you from?” And all of these then lead into something else that may trigger conversation.
I think this is also a classic example of someone (read: me) who is extremely introverted who has managed to force herself to learn the “tricks-of-the-trade” to be “social” in small-talk situations, but only when those situations involve people in her age group. I think a natural extrovert would never really have trouble talking to anyone because they are not awkward. Thus, I am the one who makes situations awkward.
April 22, 2006 at 4:58 pm · Filed under people
My friend Hong and I went riding this morning on our spiffy road bikes. We were trying to find a lake that I remembered seeing on the map, which I conveniently failed to print out, trusting that “of course I will remember the way”. After a while, we gave up trying to find the lake and decided to go check out Boston College’s football stadium instead.
BC football happened to be having a spring training opener game, complete with a small carnival with food, bouncy castles, obstacle courses, and a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream truck. Things weren’t getting started until 11am, but the Ben & Jerry’s guy still sold us ice cream even though it was only ~10:30. However, that was the last bit of hospitality we were shown.
In order to eat our ice cream, we leaned our bikes against a fence so that we could sit down, free our hands, eat our ice cream. Within 5 seconds, someone walks by and very aggressively says “you guys can’t leave your bikes here.” I gave him a look and said “dude, we just want to eat our ice cream, and it’s hard to eat ice cream when we’re holding our bikes upright with one/both hands.” He rolled his eyes, looked annoyed, but did leave us alone.
They had this blow-up obstacle course that is kind of like a bouncy castle, but kids are meant to traverse through it instead of just jumping around. Hong really wanted to check things out, so he asked the guy “what is this?” The guy told him that it’s an obstacle course, and that at 11 when it opens, Hong will be able to see little kids run through it. So Hong asked the guy “oh, so I would be able to run through it?” The guy, with a “are-you-kidding-me?” look on his face said to Hong, “noooo, you will be able to see little kids run through it.” Okay, kids aside, why did the guy have to be so nasty about it? Hong was just trying to be a big kid.
We went to check out the actual stadium, which true to my memory, is not real grass but some fancy astroturf. We walked our bikes onto the turf and stood on the field looking around an empty stadium. There were some other folks on the turf too, running around, jumping, but we were the only ones with bikes. A few minutes later, a guy walks up to us and says “You guys need to get those bikes off of the turf.” Well then, good day to you too.
We acquiesced, but we were tired of being yelled at. We concluded that the Ben & Jerry’s guy was our favorite person of the day. I guess the moral of the story is that bikers are discriminated against by all except the ice cream people.
April 17, 2006 at 2:14 am · Filed under friends, people
A while ago, I started writing a post about wanting to be friends with a person whom I have never met, but whose facebook profile I randomly stumbled on through some friends of friends’ profiles. His profile/albums/wall comments really struck a chord with me, and I immediately said to myself, “wow, I really wish I could meet him, become friends with him, and have him in my social circle.” I ended up not finishing the post because even I thought it was too stalker-like. Besides, I knew that the chances of my actually meeting the person were slim to none.
Enter tonight. My friend Amy had an Easter potluck dinner thing at her place. At the potluck, I most unexpectedly met the guy behind the facebook profile. The whole encounter was like a scene straight out of the movies, very surreal. He was there already when I arrived, standing next to the windows on the far side of the room, looking out the window with his back to the room. As I walked in, he turned around (cue in slow motion), and I almost dropped the plate of lasagna in my hands out of shock. Here he was; the man behind the profile. I recognized him right away. It turned out that we have some common friends. The slim-to-none chances of our ever meeting just became 100%.
I played it cool, didn’t introduce myself right away, but eventually got to it ~10 minutes later: “hi, I don’t think we’ve met before. My name is Shan.”
It turns out that the things in his profile that struck a chord with me don’t really come through in person, which was disappointing. But at least now I know.
March 29, 2006 at 2:50 pm · Filed under people
We had a department-wide retreat that spanned Sunday through yesterday in Hyannis, MA (in Cape Cod). There were multiple let-downs, but thankfully there were many more highlights. Playing ultimate frisbee barefoot on a sandy beach on a gloriously warm and sunny afternoon with one of my professors was a highlight. People who annoy me to no end comprised the majority of the let-downs.
Grabbing a quick bite at the student center with my resident we-overanalyze-and-talk-too-much-about-irresolvable-life-issues partner in crime, I tried to understand just what is it about certain very nice people, whom I also call friends … just what is it about them makes me want to scream and strangle them? I came to the conclusion that my friendships with people must be very balanced, and the following are no-no’s:
- A friendship cannot be formed from admiration, unless there is mutual admiration. Even then, admiration can only be used to START a friendship, and the general admiration needs to dissolve away as the friendship develops. Essentially, both people in the friendship need to grow to regard each other as complete equals.
- A friendship cannot be formed from my constantly being the emotional support for the other person. As much as I enjoy talking with friends and helping them work through problems, I have my own issues as well, and sometimes I just need my own space and not have someone call me to talk about how they got pimples from stress.
- Finally, a friendship absolutely cannot have any elements of clingyness. I don’t think of myself as a clingy kind of a friend, and I cannot stay happy-go-lucky enough to fight my annoyances and remain friends with someone who always clings to me.
When I start to get annoyed at a friend for the above reasons, I am also overcome with pangs of guilt. Usually what happens is that I am faced with a friend whom I am extremely annoyed with (for the above reasons), but who considers me to be his/her best friend. Why? Because I was the one there giving them emotional support when they needed it; they looked up to me for advice; I was always there for them; I was so incredibly nice. In turn, they start coming to me with more and more issues until it just finally blows up in my head, and I actively start avoiding them so that I don’t have to deal with their problems any more.
Then there are people who just annoy me to no end because I actively despise them and think them shady characters bathing in insincerity, but I think that is topic for another time.
December 6, 2005 at 9:32 pm · Filed under wahoowa, people
Tonight, while navigating the backstreets of downtown Boston/financial/district/”I didn’t really know where I was between Downtown Crossing and Park Street”, I got approached FOUR times for directions from random people. Was it a coincidence? Four times is a lot of times in 10-15 minutes. Do I, in general, look less intimidating and more approachable than the other people in the streets? I’m thinking that this probably isn’t a good thing, considering the fact that I was walking around by myself along sketchy, narrow, dark streets further darkened by humongously tall office buildings. Maybe I need to work on looking tougher.
As to why I was down there in the first place, I was reading applications from Boston-area candidates as a part of the Jefferson Scholars Boston Regional Selection Committee. I happened to meet the chair of the committee back in October at a cocktail party down at the Harbor Hotel. It turned out that the committee was looking for some fresh faces. I guess I looked fresh enough and managed to shimmy my way in.
I found it fascinating being on the other side of this process. This year’s application was almost completely different from the one I filled it out 6 years ago, and it freaked me out that one guidance counselor wrote something about recommending the kid for UVA’s Class of 2010. 2010!!! Once again, I felt old. And all these kids got to turn in their application ONLINE! I remember typing, and retyping, my entire application on our school’s typewriter using scratch paper, before finally getting up the nerve to type on the actual scholarship application, and still ended up cursing myself and struggling with the white-out brush. Repeat 10 times for all the other schools and scholarships for which I was applying. Weren’t those the days?
October 7, 2005 at 2:38 am · Filed under people
I scare myself sometimes. For example, the last entry on transient friendships. To some extent, that wasn’t an over-exaggeration; I really don’t care about certain people enough to want to talk to them right now. On the other hand though, I find that I am still perfectly capable of making small talk and being “cheery” these past couple of days … despite the more ugly side of the current thoughts running through my head.
Thus, on to a related subject … small talk and saying “how are you”. Many foreign/international students have told me about their confusion regarding the phrase “how are you?” What does it really mean, and why do we use it so often here in the States? I suppose in most other countries, asking “how are you?” is still genuine, and it is a sincere extension of the asker’s wish to know how one’s life is. We here in America, on the other hand, use it as a substitute for hello.
Countless small talks over the past few days have started with “so, how are you shan?” to which my response is always: cock my head for a couple of seconds as if I’m seriously pondering the question, followed by “I’m doing pretty well actually”, followed by an internal struggle of “do I let the beans out of the bag, or don’t I let the beans out of the bag.”
Really, my small talk partners have no intention of hearing everything that I have to say about “how I am doing today,” nor do I have any desire of telling him/her my whole life story. I have actually consciously tried to stop asking people “how are you?” in an effort to make some actual conversation instead of small talk. I hate it that I use a seemingly empty phrase. Most of the time however, no matter how hard I try, I find that it’s just too hard to find something else appropriate to say besides the idiomatic hello. Usually, when I start to sense that split second of potentially awkward silence, I avoid it at all costs and pick the easiest thing to say. So, how are you doing today?
October 4, 2005 at 10:14 pm · Filed under people
I feel like I have a knack for making friends and then “moving on.” I make a friend, and before long, I stop being friends with him/her because of something that really begins to grate on my nerves. In general, I have a knack for letting small things and annoyances get in the way of potential long-term friendships. I go through periods when I would REALLY try to be a good friend, when I would go out of my way to be nice, to look people up from the past, to call them, and to catch up. Then I go through periods when I just would rather not call or talk or hang out with those same people because I see it as a burden to do so.
For example, there is a high school friend with whom I have tried to rekindle our friendship during the past couple of years. She is getting married two weeks from now, and I am choosing not to go. I am busy; I am too broke to buy a plane ticket; I am stressed out, but perhaps more importantly, I just really don’t want to make the effort. In another example, a college friend called me about a month ago, and I deleted the message and never called back. Just last week, I finally replied to an email from a friend who emailed weeks ago to catch up, and my email just basically said “sorry, life’s kinda rough. I’ll talk to you when I get a chance.”
What really got me thinking about all of this was a friend who called me out tonight for being “always too busy.” She told me “if you don’t make time to hang out with me now, you’ll never have time because you’ll just get busier.” She then went on to say something to the effect of “I’m really disappointed. When will we ever get to hang out?” Wow, can I be a worse friend?
Yes I feel bad, but not even THAT bad, which does make me a worse friend. In a way, I also feel angry. I feel like I have enough worries/issues in my life right now to not have to deal with friendship problems. If anything, my friends should be sympathetic to my cause, to my problems, and just let me be. The problem is that I don’t tell many people my problems, not even the people whom I call friends. So maybe in the end, they can’t even be sympathetic for me because they have no idea that I’m even having such a rough time.
I’m not sure why I keep problems/issues to myself. More than anything, I just feel like I have hit one of those “I’m not gonna take any crap from anybody” stages. I tell it as it is, hurting people in the process. I choose not to call people back because I really don’t care for their company. I screen my calls because I have such a mental block toward talking to most people. I look at my ringing phone a lot lately and just say “Uggghh” and press ignore.
I don’t even want to start talking about the people whom I semi-pretend to be friends with. Those people are completely on the back burner now. I don’t have the energy for girly pretenses of happiness when I see them. I never answer their calls; sometimes I even pretend that I don’t see them walking by in the hallway. I certainly don’t initiate any contact with them. I’m happy when I have legitimate excuses for not going to their parties.
So then the question is … is this temporary? Or is this the true self that I hide when I’m having better times? Am I an emotionally ugly person? Am I a transient friend who only calls when I need a favor? Or is this all because I just need some personal time and space right now?
August 26, 2005 at 9:43 pm · Filed under life thoughts, people
One of the most important life philosophies is to forgive and to forget. I often do not abide by this philosophy and instead choose to hold grudges. This is stressful for me because I constantly want to tell people why I hold such and such a grudge. Sometimes, the grudges are because of my own biases, and I find ways to skew stories so that my audience would be more likely to agree with me and why I am holding a grudge.
I think what happens mainly is that I lose track of the big picture and start digging deeper and deeper into the little things. I need to better learn to be able to step back, take a deep breath, and tell myself that every thing is going to be a-okay. And then to believe it.
August 20, 2005 at 8:39 pm · Filed under people
What do you say when someone asks you a question, expecting a certain answer? For example, a mother walked up to Hector, Phil, and me in the Student Center and asked us how well we felt her son would fit in at MIT. She described her son as “not very social” and was worried that he would not find friends here and thus would stay in his room a lot. What she wants us to say is “oh actually you have nothing to worry about, this is a great place, your son will do just great” The reality is that her son would probably stay in his room and play computer games all the time. So do we, as complete strangers, placate her and give her the answer that she wants to hear, leaving her feeling happy? Or do we, as complete strangers, tell her the truth and leave her feeling depressed?
I feel bad making anyone depressed, especially if that depression is caused by something I said. But then do I lie to her, settling her fears, only for her son to come to MIT and be anti-social? Am I prepared to accept those ramifications? I don’t feel like it’s really my place as a complete stranger to even answer this woman’s question. And she obviously WANTS me to tell her “no no, everything will be okay.”
So in situations like this, do we force feed her what she wants to hear? Or do we tell it like it is?
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