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Monday, April 6, 2009 ContemplationI've been thinking...

a lot these past couple months. And while I tell people that I haven't been "productive" at all, this is a lie. I actually feel that I've cleared out a lot of the things that have been cluttering up my mind these past couple of years. Without all of the noises and stresses of college life, I feel strangely quiet, peaceful.

I had an existential crises in mid-January, when I realized that all my friends were out there doing things with their lives while I was lazing around at home, eating strawberries and watching "Arrested Development." I felt like my own development was arrested, in abeyance, and I found myself wondering what the meaning of It all was. I was being silly, of course. As much as I loved Duke, going back to campus always made me cry, and throughout the semesters I could never shake the feeling that I was living in a big bubble, cocooned in some kind of grand delusion. Out there, in the "Real World," I could do real things, make real, tangible differences.

So far, I have failed to do that. I have spent these past couple months selfishly turning my eyes inward, into myself. I keep reexamining myself. I reread old journal entries, written years ago to see if I have changed in some meaningful way, to see if I have grown up yet. (I haven't, but I'm happier with the person I am today than the person I was four years ago.) I think about my relationships with the people I love, but I think about my relationships that have grown lukewarm even more. I've given the changing nature of relationships a lot of thought; in particular, I've thought a lot about how old, good friendships sour and mellow and sometimes fade out--a cycle that used to scare and sadden me. I think I've come to terms with the fact that people, including myself, move on.

All this introspection, and nothing to show for it but this blog entry. Now that I've gotten the critical self-examination out of the way, I think I can happily move onto other things: dessert-making, for example. Peanut butter balls are on the menu for tonight :D.Posted byStacey Wangat9:34 AMNo comments: Saturday, January 24, 2009 I don't watch msnbc, either.Today, a trip to the mall.

Standing in line at Starbucks, I overhear three middle-aged ladies toting gaudy Louis Vuittons and sporting fashion-conscious dyed bobs yipping and yapping away about politics. They are waiting on skim, over-syrupped, venti "coffee" drinks, the kinds that come at a hefty 900 calories a pop.

"Barack Obama--I mean, I don't care much for how the election turned out, but let me just tell you guys--" Yapper #1 says, hold the suspense: "I just, I just cannot..." A look of utter disgust washes over her too-tan, two-toned face. I am thinking, what, what? What can't you do? "...I just cannot watch nbc." (Oh. How anti-climactic. I can't either. Well...fine, I won't lie. I do. I can't help it. It amuses me.)

"Ohmigod, I can't either," Yapper #2 mumbles noncommittally. I am uninterested in her response because it is clear to me that she is completely uninterested in Yapper #1's apparent wisdom on all things related to politics.

Yapper #3 enthusiastically supports #1: "Oh God, nbc; I completely agree. Just can't watch it." (That, or ABC, CBS, CNN...)

"Especially msnbc. So biased. So biased." I imagine that #1 has repeated "so biased" for dramatic effect; whatever the reason, I am amused. I wonder if #2 or #3 are going to bring up Fox News, but they just stare down the barista, as if psychically commanding her to make their ventis appear at that exact moment. This doesn't happen, but I am no longer interested in eavesdropping.

I am left to my musings...about politics, about the media (oh, the bias!), about shopping, and about all these little vignettes that don't make it in the final draft of the Memoir but still shape, in small ways, the outcome of the story that is Life.Posted byStacey Wangat4:34 PMNo comments: Thursday, January 22, 2009 What Change Looks Like?This year, I, like many other college-aged students, voted for the first time.

Throughout the primary season, I had supported Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama for reasons that I tenuously justified on policy grounds. I say tenuously because truth be told, the policy justifications were all a cover-up for the fact that I simply couldnt bring myself to trust Obama.

I didnt trust him because I thought I saw his perky hope/change act for what it really was: just another ambitious politicians pandering platitudes. Frankly, I was not ready to believe that eight years of the America that we had become under Bushs watch could ever get fired up and ready to go; I was not ready to believe that my oft-cited generation actually cared about policy over politics; I was not ready to believe in vague promises of hope and change. Who needs hope when we can get straight to the change, anyway?

In the end, I voted for Obama. I less-than-enthusiastically shoved my absentee ballot down the mail slot and went to class.

Several weeks later, something undeniablyweird happened.

On the night of November 4th, I watched as my state, Ohio, turned blue on the electoral map. Of course, I had been following the polls, so I knew that Ohio (along with the nation) had been leaning towards Obama. Nevertheless, when Ohio turned blue, I actually got sorta-kindawhats the word? Excited! It wasnt so much that the pentagonal shape of my home state looked pretty in a different color; it was more that it just looked different, like the first signs of visible change. In comparison with the change that it heralded, it was admittedly paltry, insignificant. But that night, as I stared at the map, I thought to myself: this is what change looks like!

A few hours later, when Obama won the general election, I heard jubilant shouts all over campus (it sounded like Duke had won a basketball game against UNC). My friends and I gathered anxiously around a tiny, 13-inch TV screen to watch the President-Elects victory speech. Clutching each others sweaty palms, we all became weirdly excited, thrilled (an odd, novel feeling). Later, we made no headway on our public policy theses because we were busy toasting our President-Elect with cups of coffee, and toasting each other for being a part of it all.

We knew that we had been a part of Obamas election and would now become a part of his presidency, because for the first time in a long time, we actually believed that change could happen. We felt inspired to invincibility. The son of a Kenyan immigrant and a single mother had, against all odds, risen to the top of the worlds leadershipand we couldnt crank out a thesis? Of course we couldwe could do that and much, much more!

Just like Ohios electoral map makeover, Obamas presidency is a change in and of itself, but it represents much more change than what it is; it represents the change that he has inspired in the young people, like me, who once-upon-a-time knew with certainty that anything resembling newness and hope simply could not be; it represents the change that he is, and the change that will come.

Of course, I am still a realist. But, unrealistic now means all those things that our futures cannot allow us to accept, like doing nothing about global warming or the state of the American education system. Unrealistic means not changing, not hoping. For the first time in my young political consciousness, I believe in hope and change becoming my reality.

My friends and I look forward to being a part of Obamas presidency. We look forward to changing our once-skeptical worldviews so that we can hope, and we hope to become a part of the change our country so desperately needs.

Oh, and were not waiting for Obama to get startedbut we thank him for showing us that yes, we can.Posted byStacey Wangat6:22 PMNo comments: Sunday, January 4, 2009 The Joy of ReadingAs friends pack up their final winter breaks and fly back to school, I feel more than a little relieved that I don't have to crack open another textbook until law school. (Translation: I still can't bring myself to get out of bed.) The key word in the above sentence is "have", as in being forced to do something by someone/something. That doesn't mean I won't be cracking open textbooks on my own time, and I certainly intend to do some serious reading these next couple of months: Foucault, Baldwin, Plato, maybe even something (easy) en francais or with big, science-y words (science, after all, might as well be a foreign language to me at this point). Oh, and of course, I can't forget my chick lit: Plum Sykes, Johanna Lindsay, Momma's comin' back for you, too!

I shamefacedly admit, however, that lately, I haven't been doing as much reading as I had planned. So these past couple days, I've been making up for lost time. Until earlier this afternoon, I hadn't read anything particularly compelling: a few excessively narcissistic blog entries (funny, but also painful reads), newspaper and magazine articles (mostly nothing to laugh about), even some books (yeah! I'm reading novels again!)--all in all, though, nothing too spectacular.

Then I came across this HILARIOUS review of Comfort's book, "The Joy of Sex" in that fabulous magazine, The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/01/05/090105crbo_books_levy

Here's my favorite part of the article:
(p.s. I suspect that a neighbor is currently stealing my wireless bandwidth, as evidenced by the fact that my internet suddenly went from satisfactorily speedy to sinfully slow; a crawl, really. I have waited around 20 seconds for this particular page of the article to load, so you had better read it to make that time worth the wait!)

In The Joy of Sex, a male is a man, a female is a girl, and a vagina is, to males generally, slightly scarey: it looks like a castrating wound and bleeds regularly, it swallows the penis and regurgitates it limp, it can probably bite and so on. Men can get past such fears, of what Freudians called the vagina dentata, but Comfort cautions that they are the origins of most male hangups including homosexuality. The penis, by contrast, has more symbolic importance than any other human organ. Lest there be any confusion: Vibrators are no substitute for a penis. Comfort even enlists his fictional female narrator to argue the point for him. Under the heading Women (by her for him), Comfort writes of male genitalia, Its less the size than the personality, unpredictable movements, and moods which make up the turn-on (which is why rubber dummies are so sickening). At times, The Joy of Sex has the feel of a penis propaganda pamphlet.

Its at times like theseafter having uncovered a real gem of a passage (like the one above), a truly beautiful sentence, or a particularly compelling idea or thoughtthat I am inspired to sit back, relax, and experience the joy of reading :D.

For now, I am off to the gym. (Im on a quest for the callipygian ideal.)Posted byStacey Wangat12:31 PM2 comments: Saturday, January 3, 2009 Happy New Year...!So it's the new year. In years past, I have woken up to the new year feeling new and fresh. I have written up my resolutions and made real progress (at least, in my head) towards achieving them. I have been excited by the prospect of newness, of absolving my sins, of conquering my mistakes. I think that, at my core, I'm somewhat of a cheesy idealist: I believe in Believing, eat it up, and suffer indigestion when it doesn't come out the way I imagined it would (21 quickly going on 22, and I still can't get enough of the digestion/bowels/poop-related jokes).

This year, though. Not quite the same childlike, hopeful, bright-eyed, clear-headed reaction to the new year--or, I should say, THE New Year. Funny, because this new year really has a lot in store for me, and for many of the people I care so much about.

I wonder if I've finally grown up and jaded. Alternatively, maybe I've just been tired out by the oversleep I've grown accustomed to since I first reunited my wearied head with my abundantly soft, kindly familiar pillow...it's true, what they say about sloth: it becomes increasingly difficult to deflect from the slothful path once set upon its tempting way. (Turns out, though, that sloths aren't slothful: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7396356.stm)

Christmas also lost a bit of its wonder and luster this year. The excitement and frenzy of gift-unwrapping was replaced by placid, calm warmth and comfort. I must have thought to myself: so this is what it means to be truly content. Minimal Christmas music needed to set the mood, just plentiful hugs and kisses (palpable love)...and heaping portions of delicious food--some of which I resolve to learn how to make in the upcoming year.

As for my other resolutions, they remain nebulous, unformed.Posted byStacey Wangat10:06 AMNo comments: Thursday, December 18, 2008 A Little Thank-You NoteI got home on Monday, after two straight nights of no sleep* and almost continual conversation with some of my favorite people in the world. I reflect on those last nights in the comfort of my warm bed, surrounded by my cotillion of stuffed animals (Emma, Mary, Ingrid...). I can't help but stare down at my feet every once in a while--they are warm and cozy inside blue-striped socks. I wonder if the person who gave me the socks is wearing their twins at this moment ... but then I remember, she's probably playing in the pool down in Texas. In any case, I miss her, and everyone else who made my college experience so completely unforgettable, untouchable, and beautiful--everyone who taught me so much about love, life, and relationships. My life would be completely different without you guys; I would be a different person, a much less fulfilled, happy, and decent person. I would be the person I was four years ago--except probably a little bit more beat-up, cynical, and burned-out by the many trials included in the college experience.

I keep thinking about my last moments at Duke, hoping to keep all the minute details locked up in my memory forever: being woken up unceremoniously while it was still dark; cooking frantically and setting off the fire alarm for the first time all semester; the impromptu mochas and unexpected visitors; the hugs and tears. These are the kinds of memories I want to have forever...yet, there's no reason why they are any more meaningful or valuable than all the other memories that we created these past couple of years.

My grades, thesis, extracurriculars...they're not much to speak of. But my friends...man, they're really something. I'm so proud of you guys, and of the relationships that we've cultivated together. I miss and love you all dearly.

And that is what Stacey said.

*I should be fair: I actually got a fair amount (a few hours? tops?) of sleep; my sister-from-another-womb Jane, however, was not so lucky (or reasonable).Posted byStacey Wangat7:21 PM1 comment: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 D-U-K-E...18 days til I leave Duke behind...

so, in the spirit of commemorating my time here at Duke...and the people who have made my life ever-so-meaningful, I offer you this little blast from the past:

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

i am a confirmed celebrity. up until this day, i've been the self-proclaimed face of duke (thanks mostly to my purposeless job as a receptionist at the admissions office), but after today, i will be known to the world as a cnbc star. yup. ladies and gents, you are reading the words of someone who has graced national television.

ok. so i admit that i was probably on for, like, a couple milliseconds. and to be totally honest, i didn't even see myself on tv. HOWEVER, my good friend, jinsoo daniel huh (from rancho cucomonga, california--you can call him jinsoo or you can call him daniel) was a first-hand witness to my celebrity. y'all might not be able to trust me (God forbid), but you can trust jinsoo, the man, the myth, the pimpsoo. by the time he told me, he had already ascertained that it was indeed yours truly on national television (and not some jealous imposter) by asking me this seemingless misplaced question on facebook: "Random, but do you have a blue backpack?" i responded that yes, i did indeed have a blue backpack. his enthusiastic, mind-jogging response?? "They were doing a story on the lax situation on CNBC, and they were showing students on our campus, and they showed someone that looked like you in a blue backpack talking to someone that looked like Andy."

need further evidence?? not to worry! behold the following aim transcript:
[19:41] kRkALiBoY1004: hey stacey!!!
[19:41] ktcracker07403: HEY!!!!
[19:41] ktcracker07403: what's this about TV????
[19:42] kRkALiBoY1004: i'm pretty sure i saw you on the big idea with deutsch on cnbc
[19:42] kRkALiBoY1004: like it was a quick snippet
[19:42] kRkALiBoY1004: where they were showing like students at duke
[19:42] ktcracker07403: YAYAYAYAYYAY
[19:42] kRkALiBoY1004: and it looked a lot like you and andy talking

ok. so maybe my cameo on "the deutsch" (whatever that is--i thought it meant "the german" but it's apparently a show where random disappointingly non-german people discuss random happenings) wasn't as glorious as you and i would like to believe. sure, it was shrouded in a sinister story of the incorrigibly savage sex scene at duke (which, according to rollingstone magazine, no one, not even prudish asians like myself, can avoid). and yeah, of course those "laxers" (never heard the term before, but again, according to national "exposes" on duke, it's what lacrosse players are universally called at duke) got all the attention. but hey. we only get a shot at stardom once.

the moral of this story is that you should always, always, always be prepared with your star-face. (especially when you're strolling through the quad of a campus recently ravaged by accusations of rape.)Posted byStacey Wangat12:05 PM1 comment: Monday, November 17, 2008 Michelle Rhee: Education Policy in DC and BeyondMichelle Rhee, chancellor of the DC public school system, came to speak at Duke today. I was excited to hear her speak, because I've always been baffled by the many paradoxes within the US education system (consider, for example, that while the US has achieved international dominance in higher education, our K-12 public education system is famous for its mediocrity).

The DC public school system is an especially interesting case to look at when thinking about education policy--because it is so exceptionally bad. DC public schools are the only schools in the nation that have been assigned high-risk status by the US Department of Education; there exists a 70% achievement gap between the wealthy and poor school districts; only 9% of 9th graders graduate from college; only 8% of 8th graders perform at grade level; kindergarten students who start out at the same educational level as their peers across the nation can no longer compete with those peers by the time they're in third grade. As Rhee put it, kindergarteners are "put at a disadvantage every single day that [they] come to school." The sad truth of the matter is that a child can actually be made worse off by coming to school than by staying at home (presumably, the opportunity costs for coming to school can outweigh the benefits).

Herein lies the paradox: the DC public school district spends more money per student than almost any other jurisdiction in the nation, but still has one of the worst-performing school systems in the nation. (More money, less problems? You don't need Notorious B.I.G. to tell you that that's not the case--especially when it comes to education. I live next-door to two of the nation's best case studies on this matter: Shaker Heights, Ohio, where money has not proven to be the great equalizer when it comes to education; and, inner-city Cleveland, where more money has not only been unable to buy students' educations, but has also gotten school districts into constitutional quagmires--but that's a story for another time.) What's going wrong? Well, part of the problem is that the money isn't being put to great use; apparently, last year alone, 74 million dollars were spent transporting a few thousand special education students to school.

But Rhee has a bigger bone to pick with the system: there exists a widespread accountability problem in DC. Rhee's underlying argument seems innocuous and appealing enough: people must be held accountable for their actions--especially when their actions directly affect children's opportunities to succeed in school and beyond. Rhee's example of DC's notorious de facto no-firing practices serves as a sadly hilarious illustration of the problem of non-accountability: her initiation as chancellor might as well have been accompanied by the following introduction: "Welcome to the DC public schools, where we never fire anyone." Unless...1) You have done something egregious (...and being an egregious bureaucrat, administrator, or teacher doesn't count. You have to have hit a kid--and they have to have the act on video--or you have to have stolen money from the district). Or, 2) You have to be able to show a recurring pattern of incompetence (which you won't be able to do, since prior to Rhee, no one had received a performance evaluation for seven years).

In short, children's educations have been traded in for job security and professional development. The problem with this is obvious: "Our kids have no due process...so we have thousands of children who are stuck in failing schools in failing classrooms who have no hope of getting the educations they deserve and need."

Non-accountability means that education politics outweighs education policy. Democrats, especially, need to recognize this problem and stop blindly supporting the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) for the sake of ensuring that they get the money and backing they need to get into office. Education policy cannot amount to the sum of all lobbies; education policy should recognize that teachers must be held accountable so that students can have a fighting shot at learning.

The frightening thing is that when education policy becomes education politics, the problem of non-accountability extends to every aspect of education. Good teachers cannot be properly encouraged and recognized because bad teachers must be (hence Rhee's fight against tenure), which all boils down to the unacceptable reality that good teachers no longer have the freedom to be good teachers.

I think anyone with a brain would agree that accountability is a real problem in American education. But to say that accountability is the problem obscures the complexity of the issues: how to measure accountability? who should be held accountable? ultimately, what does accountability even mean? After all, who can forget No Child Left Behind? That piece of legislation was also based upon the fundamental belief that non-accountability leads to failed education systems. That piece of legislation, which has been widely criticized, was originally centered around accountability and passed with bipartisan support (it was one of the few pieces of legislation on which Senator Ted Kennedy agreed with President Bush!).

Certainly, it's unacceptable that educational disparities have grown so wide that we can decide how many prisons to build based on 3rd-grade African-American reading levels. The question is, how do we fix it? Warren Buffett provides an impractical, ideologically offensive, but obvious answer: "It's really easy to fix public education. All you need to do is make private schools illegal, and assign all children to a public school based on lottery." Michelle Rhee has something else in mind. Time will tell if she can finally get it right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/education/13tenure.html?_r=1 Jin-soo, who couldn't stop muttering about how amazing the speech was; Rosie, whose joy spilled out in effervescent laughter. As for myself--I was just happy that I had cast my ballot in this election for Barack Obama. For the first time in my memory, Ohio was a blue shade on the electoral map. It turns out that blue looks pretty good on Ohio :P.

At around 3 am, Jane, Jin-soo, Mai, Yi, and I had a coffee toast: we each said a little something to commemorate the momentous occasion--a defining time in our lives that I can't imagine we'll ever forget. For the first time in a long time, I was so proud to be an American. Half a century ago, some areas of this country still outlawed interracial marriage and enforced segregation. Yet, the new face of the greatest country of the world is that of a man who defied the establishment. The new face of the greatest country in the world is that of a man who overcame all the racial, economic, and political odds to stand before the world stage--and thankfully, the world audience is applauding.

My hope is that Barack Obama will turn out to be more than just a face. I believe that he will be (and that's why I voted for him), but I don't discount the value of having a great face to present to the rest of the world. After all, one man should not be expected to hold the fortune an entire nation, but one man, from his bully pulpit, sure can shake things up a little just by virtue of being conceived of by others as a changer.

"Let reconstruction begin." This is the ending line from Thomas Friedman's latest article in the New York Times. I hope, for the sake of this country as well as for the sake of the rest of the world, that this time, reconstruction hits us harder than the last time. So much to fix, so little time.Posted byStacey Wangat8:08 AMNo comments: Monday, October 20, 2008 I know my calculus; it says you + me = us.I'm not a fan of calculus--and not because I don't like math. I'm tired of allowing little things--give-take calculations--infringe upon my friendships. I don't understand why, when it comes to family, it's so easy to give-give, but when it comes to friends, it's protocol to give-take. I'm thankful for those friendships I have that are not based upon calculus, because those friendships are the ones I'm going to maintain long after we've all graduated from Duke.Posted byStacey Wangat7:11 AMNo comments: Monday, October 13, 2008 I'm baaaack!I think I'm gonna start this blog up again. Look forward to some posts on squirrel melts, Britney, politics, the state of my thesis, and the media. Maybe some pictures this time around.

I'm writing to you from sunny Irvine, California. Yup--home to the greatest of all bad shows, "The Hills." I visited Newport Beach two days ago. It was intimidating. Way too much wealth for my comfort. The cliffside houses were unreal. From this distance, Duke seems all too down-to-earth.Posted byStacey Wangat12:16 PM1 comment: Sunday, August 3, 2008 Oh, what a night...and (much-too-early) morning ...Celebration was perfect. The night ran smoothly, beautifully. Saying final good-byes to all of my students and watching their eyes glisten over broke my heart, but I felt immensely proud of their accomplishments, and myself for making it through to the other side having taught them a thing or two. One of my students gave me a card that said: "I surprised myself. I can write a paragraph. I learned vocabularies! I can speak English! Because of you!" I cried, of course, like a blubbering baby.

Afterward, I proceeded to waste away in emotionless oblivion by getting rather drunk. I am very giggly when tipsy--and LOUD. Noises seem far away and muted, so I make up for it by being very much in-your-face and deafeningly shrill, which makes sense to me in my inebriated state. (Mom, Dad, and Vincent: do not worry, I didn't do anything stupid.) There is, in short, no downside to my drunkenness that I can recall.

I admit, though, that in the middle of the night, I woke up confused, hungry, dehydrated, in desperate need of (er) a purging session, and--worst of all--quite sad. Unfortunately, my memory of the preceding night's festivities had returned to haunt my waking dreams with uncomfortable clarity: it was Celebration-times-ten, every detail magnified, every emotion relived. This would not have been such a bad thing, had it not lead to a deep reflection about all the things that had happened this summer, which then, in turn, lead to a deeper reflection on a long unexamined list of existential questions into which I dare not delve here ... but which can be summarized by: "What if...?" and "What is the meaning of ...?" and "I'm sad and am in desperate need of my kids, whom I will most likely never see again."

Ergo, you have a blog entry posted in the wee hours of the morning, written in stream-of-consciousness style by an author in a semi-conscious state who is simultaneously guzzling much-needed H20 and obnoxiously including superfluous, shamelessly placed, never-before-used Latin words ... I apologize in advance if this entry does not make much sense; I briefly paused to consider editing this, but decided that that would not preserve it's integrity. Good night to you all, and in the (real) morning, I'm sure I will awaken appalled by all this word-vomit.Posted byStacey Wangat4:50 AM2 comments: Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)
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