Junkyard Ghosts Revival

Today, I attended a two hour poetry slam session by the Junkyard Ghost revival group. One word: amazing. The performance kicked off with a few poets from the school, and after a good half hour of “wetting our appetites” and “exorcizing” the stage, the Junkyard Ghost wreaked havoc on the stage with the most unconventional start ever, dancing and running around the crowd and amongst the audience. For context, all four of the poets who were part of the group had at some point won some national/international speaking award, and so I was completely expecting a straight shot series of great Rhetoric.  Instead, I got a whole night filled with raucous, witty humor–all delivered on the spot. (To give a sense of the tone of the occasion, one poet had “legalize crack” on the front of his shirt, and “Sarah Palin” on the back. Good stuff.)

The topics were wide ranging: from classic two liners on toys and made-up cartoon lyrics, to an aria to a lover and ode to a 2002 silver corvette, there was not one moment where things slowed down. Sometimes, there was one poet on stage; others, two. Occasionally, three poets would be up at a time trading blows with one another with arms flailing, people falling to the ground, karate chopping a sandwich, etc. One particular thing that made this Poetry Slam different from the last I attended was how well choreographed things were: there was prepared music that moved precisely and rhythmically with the speeches of the poets. From how well the music and poetry fit, I knew that the poets must have practiced many, many times before coming forward onstage. The night turned was unforgettable.

Ultimately, what I took from the experience was how well done the entire performance was. Not only were the poems themselves great, the four poets move about on and off stage fluidly, complementing one another and keeping as much humor in the room as possible. Wit was the stand-out quality of the night, and I was truly impressed by how quickly the poets supported each other with jokes. Again, this got me thinking about my education in relation to these people. From what I hear, the poets didn’t all graduate from top college–in fact, most only went through community college. Yet, even though this is the case, they were more socially sharp than any professor I know. The inter-personal dialogue and “time setting” in humor was impeccable, and I don’t think that was learned from school. Anyways, the utility of school as social education will remain in my mind for a while, so expect to crop up in the future as well. I’d say that if anyone ever gets to go and see the Junkyard Ghost Revival team, go! it’s worth it.

What Steve Martin made me think

As I watched Jon Stewart’s Daily Show today, for the first time, I caught a glimpse of the great comedian Steve Martin. I didn’t know much about Martin except that he was a great comic, but as I listened to him speak, I grew more and more curious about his career. There was this one instance in which he mentioned a standup routine that didn’t end. He finished the stand up and walked down the stage. The crowd followed. He went outside the building and walked in some random direction. The crowd followed. Finally, he comes across an emptied out swimming pool, and on a whim, he asks the audience to all crowd inside. Afterwards, he climbs atop them and “swim” amongst them. That has got to be the wildest thing I have ever heard.

This got me really curious about him. I mean, before, I was already really interested in the art of humor and being comedic. I had a high school teacher who did stand-up, and for his education, he had both a B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy! Imagine that. Coincidently, Steve Martin also majored in Philosophy in college. To find out more about who Steve is and what gave him such power to captivate the crowd, I looked him up on Wikipedia. Turns out that as a kid, Steven held various jobs in the entertainment business: he did magic at a shop, was a brochure boy in Disneyland, worked in Knotts Berry Farms, and learned a bunch of eclectic skills such as making balloon animals and juggling. I then looked up his education and found that although he majored in Philosophy, for a good part of the time he moved around colleges and didn’t really settle.

This brought me to my question: what in the beans is a college education worth? I know that times are different and that it is overly romantic to assume that everyone could pull a Steve Martin, but I still wonder what all my college planning is worth. I’ve planned out my four years, did research on professors, listed the classes I would take, and overloaded my schedule each semester to get the most out of my education. But then here comes Steve who drops out of college for good at 21 and he is able to charm and move crowds like magic. Of course, when put in perspective, a college education is not representative of much except a social approval for the things I had to go through to get my diploma, but while I am currently in college, the degree feels so exaulted and important to the point that I am consumed by it.

So what goes? A college education for me has become almost a symbol, and I’m almost completely immersed within in trying to operate it as I do a video game. In fact, it feels like that is exactly what I am doing, treating my education as a video game and weighing out my options to see what could grant me the most advantage later down in life. In a real video game, what is “earned” or “gained” (such as experience points and upgraded stats) is actually what is applied to the character’s life. In college however, the disconnect lies in the fact that taking the most classes, getting the best professors, and getting that diploma does not ential the same for everyone. Doing the above does not necessarily translate to me being personally “upgraded”, even though socially, it will probably help greatly.

So ultimately, I still want to get the most out of college, and this encounter with Steve Martin put me back into perspective about what education is about. I remembered a professor having said that taking a lot of Units of classes is not equivalent to having a good education. I’m still uncertain about what I should do to maximize my experiences as Steve Martin did, but I guess all of this no longer matters if I recognize that I am at the center of deciding whether or not my experiences are maximized. In other words, all of this talk boils down to how much I can take from what I do. The buck stops here.

Mock Rejection Letter

Dear Mr. Smith,

After carefully reviewing your application, we regret to inform you that we will not be extending our offer to your admission for the Graduate program. This year, we received over a half a dozen past our usual expected number of applicants, and it was truly a challenge to make our selection from the vast pool of qualified candidates. Please be sure that we have gone over all of the application in detail and have taken careful considerations regarding the qualifications of each candidate. Based on rigorous screening, we feel that the program has reached an informed and measured conclusion and our decisions of the selection is final. Please do not write to the office, as we are sure that this will not change our decision of admittance. We appreciate the work you put into the application and good luck with your other endeavers!

Graduate Committee

Running and Study

Last month, I went to hear the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami speak at our school. At one point, he was talking about his recent book in which he related his life to running, and I thought to myself, “How in the world do you write a book about running?” I was debating whether or not I should buy the book, and in the end, I didn’t. I regret not having done so. Just today, as I ran on the track, I realized just how important sports were to life and how much you could get by simply running.

Instead of running around the streets like I usually do, I decided for nostalgia’s sake to run on the track. As I warmed up on the grass, I realized just how out of shape I was: my chest was stuffy, my legs were heavy, and I couldn’t stride a straightaway without slowing down afterwards to a pathetic turtle’s pace for the next lap. I decided then to conquer this weakness in my chest, and so I alternated strides up and down the grassy field. Stride, crawl, stride, crawl, stride… And then, on the fifth or sixth exhausting loop, it hit me: this was exactly what I was doing this semester in my academics. I started this semester with a relatively slow pace, and because I didn’t keep up, whenever tests or midterms or papers came up, I had to stride. But with each stride, I took time off and neglected to build a good pace and keep up my studies. I told myself I needed a break, and so I slowed to the turtles pace. Before long, as the bend came around, I had to sprint again, and all this turned into a crazy cycle of catch-up.

Then, rather than do strides, I decided to keep a constant and strong pace. Overcoming the fatigue of finishing the stride was tough, but this time, after slowing down as I usually do, I shuffled and kept the motion going. There was weezing and coughing and lots of pain, but I pushed pass the initial stage and kept a steady pace. It was then I realized just how easy and painless keeping a good pace was rather than always striding and slowing. Having a constant pace not only makes it easier to breathe, it helped build my entire body as I worked into a rhythm and slowly increased my pace. So from running, I conclude with a study philosophy: rather than always striding to catch up to midterms, one should keep a daily habit of reviewing and going over notes to ensure a strong, powerful and productive run for the semester. Now, I just have to overcome the initial fatigue of the transition stage and keep a pace that I will keep for the rest of college.

Personal Narratives

Politics is a very superficial topic. By that, I mean that often times, I debate or talk about policies proposed by certain politicians, and whenever a politician went against my values, I would rail against them without mercy. In this year’s case, I’ve had plenty of moments in which I railed against the policies of John McCain and defended Barack Obama from the arguments of others. Although I’ve read Obama’s first memoir, I still don’t feel I “know” him that much as a person. On the podium, Obama is such an impressive figure, and his iconic status often overshadows many of his inadequcies. In watching Frontline’s report on both candidates and their ascent to party nomination, I was able to see a little bit more of both candidates.

For one, Obama is not the messiah of justice. From the vibe I’ve been feeling from his debates and from his various speeches though, I’ve believed in his sense of justice for a long time. Yet at the time, I did not get to see what Obama had gone through to become where he is. He is a very shrewd politician, and in his efforts to rise into politics, he had to step over many black politicians in Chicago and play hardball. It was eyeopening to see him challenge the State senator of Chicago, Bobby Rush, for the position. Even though he lost by a big margin (Bill Clinton endorsed Bobby Rush), Obama took this failed experience and brought it to the national stage where he ran and successfully won the seat of the national Senate.

McCain also had quite an interesting story. The “Straight talk” Maverick came from long ago, when McCain was a fledgling politician after returning as a War Hero from the Vietnam War. During the 2000 election, McCain was very popular and was the front runner in New Hampshire, knocking out George Bush by 10+ points. However, the Bush team began to sling mud, attacking McCain’s character and integrity, spreading rumors about McCain having fostered an illegitimate black child out of wedlock. These and other such personal smear tactics make McCain furious, and he unleashed that anger in many of his proceeding speeches. Bad move. In losing his temper, McCain also lost the election as George Bush rebounded and beat McCain by a 10 point plus margin in the following primary.

This created a rift in the relationship between Bush and McCain. However, because John McCain was planning a second run in 2008 and because George Bush became the President, McCain had to subject himself to endorsing Bush. As seen from the video, it was a very awkward and uncomfortable endorsement. To gain party vaor, McCain was forced to take sides with many Bush policies, and especially when the elections were nearing, McCain supported almost every bill put out by the Republican Party. Yet in the undercurrent of all this is a quiet dissatisfaction with the Bush doctrine. This adds another layer to the Obama campaign’s relating Bush to McCain. Not only does doing so relate McCain to a failed economic policy and a notorious president, it also psychologically insults him by connecting him with the person he lost to in 2000.

Ultimately, there a lot of details in the narratives of both candidates that really made me rethink my attitudes towards them. But then again, those details are what is known, and what is not known could tell a different story. By now, I really can’t hate or dislike any man. I may disagree with their policies or their actions, but I don’t think I could bring myself to demonize one character or another based on their proposed policies. Regardless of what happens in the next week, I sincerely hope that both men will hold fast to the core values and continueto serve America as best they can.

First Chinese Post (homework)

在讀完“中國教育改革三大敗筆” 以後，我並不對作者所提到的問題感到驚訝──其實，美國的教育系統也有許多不足的地方。 雖然說中國和美國各有在“教育哲學”上不同的理念 ，但是兩國的教育品質都有因社會的影響而因環境而異。不只如此，兩國對學習也過於偏重於“專業”和“技術性”的學習而因此疏忽了學習的本義。 我各人覺得這兩點在美國的教育體系上是非常需要更深入探討的問題。
在美國，大部分的人是在公共學校接受小學，中學，和高中的教育。可惜的是，因為這些學校皆屬於公立，學校的資金會因各個地區的不同而異。一個比較有錢的地區交的稅多，而公共設施（學校）也會因此而更充裕。以這標準來決定學校的資源會使貧窮的地區陷入沙坑似的惡性循環：一個貧窮的地方通常在治安上會比較多問題；一個治安有問題的地區會有比較少的商業願意來投資；比較少商業的運作代表更少的稅收；不足的稅即影響公共學校的資金， 而貧窮學生則因而遭殃。如此一來， 學校的不良， 不只使當時在修學的學生受損，連這地區以後也會因為缺乏品質的教育而受限。
在“不及”的另一端是過於“專業”的需求。 其實，追求“專業”的水平是非常好而且必須的概念。但是往往在追求培養專業技術時，學生會把學業視為賺錢的路徑而因此疏忽了廣泛的學習。“教育” 本來的含義應是增廣見聞，開拓視野，最終使人能了解更多世間上許多不同的人，事，物。但是因為很多比較“專業”的學科都不留有足夠讓學生自由探索的空間，很多畢業生只有在某些領域有深的造詣， 而缺乏在其他領域方面的常識。而過於偏重於專業的教育系統會使人在追求“精”的道路上漸漸的忘了教育的本義。
在任何一個文明社會裡，教育屬於最基層地位。以上提到的第一點比較針對於小時候受的教育，而之後的第二點比較對“高等”教育有關。最終來說，接受“教育”是在一個人生命中非常重要的經驗，而一個社會的教育水平會影響這社會以後發展的前途。 所以，現在強盛的國家不一定以後也能保持現有的優勢。以後的成就是靠現在的努力，而現在應該努力在實施新的教育改革。

Pulling Tablecloth

For some reason, I always seem to have difficulty choosing between things. In my last post on running blind, I talked about how not knowing where you are or where you want to go could result in major indecision and slow down. I feel this was my problem. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go so I carried a noble but naieve goal of learning as widely as I can. Unfortunately, I took this mentality quite seriously and began to panic when I began realizing just how much there is to take and learn not only in college, but life in general. I wanted to build for myself an educational foundation in things I would not otherwise learn about, such as Art History, Astronomy, Religious Studies, Philsophy, etc. Although exploring all of these various fields can ultimately lead me to learn more about my surroundings, the idea is without direction and quite vague. To clarify, I decided to sit down and spend my Friday night making some tough decisions.

The debate of whether I should go broad of go deep troubled me greatly for a while, and I spent a lot of time “stressing” and “struggling”. It also feels like I take a perverse sense of pleasure being in the void of unknown and trying to figure things out for the sake of figuring things out. But then this kind of ambiguity and indecision is not taking me anywhere, and it is also wasting a lot of time, so I decided to map out what I wanted to do. This was a very slow and painful process. The thing I realized about making decisions is that by default, there is always something else that will be lost with the making of a decision. It is part of the definition of making a decision. But I’m a greedy person–I want my cake and I want to eat it too. It is this immature sense of “wanting” it all that is stopping me in my tracks and preventing me from actually “digging in”. I’m the hungry man standing helplessly at the Buffett, staring at the smorgasbord of cuisines with a plate and fork in hand, not knowing where or how to start eating.

I feel that this indecision is somehow tied to my gaming past. I used to be an intense gamer, and I took my games very seriously. I took them so personally, in fact, that whenever I came upon a crossroad of two or more decisions in a game, I would save, play out each route, and then choose the better of the two. It’s nonsensical really, to be so attached to creating the perfect character, but that’s what I did. Unfortunately, in reality, life does not let you peek ahead into the future. The future is off limits, and no amount of GameShark codes will crack that open for you to look through.

So I guess, psychologically, I must have projected my own education as an RPG game. To make myself as ideal as possible, I want to explore every route made possible to me in college, and if time allows, I would like to choose the best of what I have tried and pursue that. However, first of all, colleges do not let you “save” and come back at a later time. Second of all, college cost a heck a lot of money, and the experience isn’t only supposed to be about studying. And thirdly, the colleges want you OUT in four years–four and a semester if absolutely necessary–but nothing that prolongs the smoothly running conveyer belt of education. I’ve had a professor–multiple, actually, now that I think of it–tell me that I don’t need to be so worried about “losing out”. One told me that I have 80 years ahead of me to learn. Another told me that whatever major I pursue, it’s like pulling the edge of a tablecloth, and everything will come eventually. So I took their advice today and found for myself an edge of the table cloth. I’m going to pull now, and I hope that, as my professor predicted, the whole cloth along with everything on it will come along with it.

Running with Eyes closed

Yesterday, I had a terrible stomach cramp so I decided that rather than run fast, I should try something new: I should try running with my eyes closed. Of course, I didn’t go into my exercise routine telling myself I would go on a blind run–it came to me as I was running on a flat, empty field. There was a track on Campus, and usually when I don’t want to go far, I would run around it. This time, to avoid other runners or any potential obstacles on the track, I went onto the grassy area in the middle, closed my eyes, and ran.

It was a very awkward experience. For one, I had the strong urge to open my eyes to scope out where I was running in case I was heading towards a pole. I had to continually reference my surroundings by opening my eyes every 15 seconds or so, and for about 10 minutes, I did just that. But then I figured that checking my surroundings every few seconds or so became routine and comfortable pretty quickly. By checking the environment, I was creating a brief mental image in my mind that would give me a sense of how far I could run without hitting something–it was pretty much a map for me to chart my path. This essentially removed the entire point of running with eyes closed, which was an attempt to get at a feeling of uncertainty. To make amends, I shut my eyes and determined not to open them until my time is up.

Now this became interesting. Initially, I could still run around the field effortlessly because I still had remains of the mental map, but as time dragged on to 20, 30, 40 seconds, I started to find my certainty dwindling. The familiarity began to slip, and then slowly, my footsteps slowed and dragged to a shuffle. I moved my legs, but I didn’t stride because I didn’t know what I would sprint into. I then started to feel a strong creeping sensation coming up my spine, and then I became deathly afraid of moving forward. It almost felt as if a huge pole was right in front of me, and I just simply wasn’t seeing it. The ominious presence of the pole competely slowed my shuffle to a walk, and even at walking pace I was afriad of hurting myself. Because I couldn’t open my eyes, my entire being and sense of direction was thrown into darkness, and I maneurvered the field very carefully.

Slowly, however, I was able to begin to pick up other cues that would help me move around. First, I felt the sunshine on the right side of my cheek, which meant that the sun was to my left. When I entered shady areas in which the shadow of a large building blocked out the sun, I knew I was straying too much to the right, where most shadows are cast. Also, I began to notice the sounds of people playing Tennis to my north, and I also go to hear runners who run past me and learn to run parallel to them without collision. Through one way or another, my senses became sharpened to the other stimuli in the area, and I was able to move around more confidantly than I did when I was first blindfolded.

I feel this relates to life in a very fundamental way. In life, if I went around blind to my own values, expectations, and ideals, then I would be running around blindly without a goal or purpose. In that way, thhe entire process of living would be considered a process of groping in the dark for some form of committment or another. Finding this passion and ideal gives certain cues and understandings as to what a student wants and where the student wants to go. Afer the student etablishes a clear sense of purpose, then he/she will be like the runner that runs with eyes open, and would be able to run confidantly forward without fear of accidentally running into things.

Writing Satire

Satire is a difficult medium to tackle in many regards. For one thing, Satire is not presented as a straightforward argument even though it essentially is. From all of the examples I can think of, Satire takes on another guise, wearing a costume that allows it to sneak by the regular line of defense (logic) to pitch an idea. In Gulliver’s travel, for instance,the entire commentary is hidden as a story about a man traveling to different islands and meeting different “kinds” of people. Some are minuscule, others enormous, and yet more others prove to be simply ridiculous. Regardless of the choice of character, however, each serves as an extension to an social counterpart in the real world. By masking his entire criticism as one big story, Swift effectively deactivates the alarms in those who may disapprove of his commentary; at the same time, he is able to deliver his message and have it weaved slowly in the consciousness of his readers. Satire is a very powerful medium indeed.

For Swift, the story is not meant to be entirely humorous, but its imagination allows for absurdities that shed light on the inadequacies of his time. Yet although Swift chose a more “serious” route with his work, from what modern trends show, comedy is playing increasingly greater roles in today’s Satire. Both Colbert and Steward do this on a daily basis; in fact, by formatting their shows as a “news-like” way, both Stewart and Colbert are satirizing the mainstream media by simply existing. To top that off, both shows talk about “news”, except the “news” is repackaged and sent back out with interesting twists. In this case, Satire is mostly is meant to be funny, and so the show could be as politically insensitive, racist, ignorant, or ridiculous as it wants to expose the follies in the media. In other words, comedy is a “permit” for Satire to not be subject to the etiquette of the “politically correct” and social life–the same etiquette that often stifles serious, sustained discussions about important topics.

Yet in spite of the differences in a serious style as in Swift’s book or a lighthearted style in the Comedy shows, Satire ridicules. In my own case, I am trying to write about the pursuit of the Graduate Education, and I wanted to point out how these vigorous expectations result in some students having to give up many personal things to make room for “academic considerations”. Yet, as much as I want to be fun and entertaining, my use of satire will to some degree, ridicule. Ridiculing isn’t bad–it’s just tough to control. How much humor is enough? What is the kind of humor that can be appreciated? What kinds of humor will fall flat and combust? I am trying to establish some common ground with the reader, but if I don’t use my humor tactfully, I can easily bore or offend many people. All in all, this Satire essay will be an interesting project not only because it will be my first hand at writing humor, but also because I am also pursuing a Graduate Education, so writing this may help me think more clearheadedly about the issue.

History of Language

It’s interesting to see language evolve throughout Chinese history. In particular, there is a piece of writing named the “Literary Mind Carves Dragons” that I especially enjoy, the reason being that it’s one of the first works on Chinese literary theory. Although I wasn’t able to go in depth with the reading, there was one concept that it talked about that relates not only to modern literary theory, but also to Psychology as well: “hiddenness”.

In the short essay titled “Hiddenness and Out-standing”, the author Liu Xie talks about how essays always has an element of “hiddenness” that isn’t easy often to detect. Hiddenness is all the ideas, concepts, and other words related to what is being read but isn’t explicitly laid out in the text. For example, if I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, then the “out-standing” element would be the new story line in the second book, and the “hiddenness” would be all the context I know about Harry Potter: the impression brought over from the first book, discussions about the book in class, the movie that was watched, the concept of witchcraft as a whole, etc.  If the “out-standing” element of language is a tree, then the “hiddenness” is the root that provides the tree with sustinence.

I noticed as I was listening to lecture that this concept of “hiddenness” relates to another literary theory I learned called “the historicity of the word”. Basically, the “Historicity” refers to a word’s..well, history. Let’s say I have the word “Bush”. Although the word refers to a short shrub by its default definition, because of its pun with the surname of our illustrious President, any mention of “Bush” will most likely invoke a chain of other associations such as…Iraq War, Afghanistan, torture, water boarding, financial crisis, etc. What makes the word “Bush” interesting for me in this case is the associations that have come to accumulate in its history. These associations create novel connections that make things more interesting.

This relates to the Psychology of learning because it implies that the more one knows, the more one will be able to know in the future. The more Harry Potter books I read, then the more “Historicity” I have of Potter and his gang, and the deeper the “Hiddenness” will operate on a subconscious level to enrich my reading experience. By extension, this means that from now on, if I read anything that might relate to witchcraft or happen to have the name “Potter” in it, I will automatically recall my chain of connections with Harry Potter. This association effect can be used to pull jokes through punning, and it can also be used to bring about more critical thinking and efficient learning.

This has implications for childhood development as well. After all, if a child grows up in its prime learning stage and experiences many things, builds lots of vocabulary and learns many skills, this will mean that as the child grows up, he/she will have more to leverage to learn better. In other words, because of the experiences that are accumulated early on, children with a vast knowledge base early on have more ‘historicity’ and ‘hiddenness” to help them think critically or connect different concepts as they grow older. This translates to how well they do in school and can affect the college they attend, which ultimately decides the jobs they hold in the future.

So what I have just done, is that at the beginning of the essay, I first introduced the concept of “hiddenness”. This reminded me of “historicity”, and as I dug into historicity, I was led to different illustrations that in turn brought about different connections. What is interesting is that for you as a reader, because you have just learned about “historicity” and “hiddenness”, you can then in turn reflect and think about instances that have evoked these concepts. When I talked about Harry Potter, you knew what I meant because you probably read Harry Potter. You could relate to my “Bush” example because you too have probably had these associations. By bringing them up, I have effectively evoked your own “historicity” to examine and see how “historicity” works in real time. And by the time you read to this sentence, you will probably have thought what I just said, and that would trigger a “historicity” of brining you to think.

In summary, in describing the concept of “hiddenness”, I have demontrated my own “hidden” connections that were built through other language theory classes and Psychology concepts. The stronger the “hiddenness” operates, the better the critical thinking and the more deeply a person can learn. As Confucius said, “Learning without reflecting is foolish. Reflecting without learning is delusional.” By that, I assume that Confucius means for people to reflect in order to discover threads of “hiddenness” that can complement what is learned. But then again, in citing Confucius, I have triggered yet another chain of “historicity”. I think I should stop now before I type into infinity–and beyond! (You just thought Buzz Lightyear, didn’t you?)